Essays on literary works - 2023

The brilliance and poverty of the courtesans characterize the image of Esther van Gobseck
Honore de Balzac

Gobsek Esther van is a character in 11 works of the Human Comedy, the main character. E. is the daughter of Sarah Gobsek, nicknamed the Beautiful Dutchwoman, Gobsek's great-niece. E. is endowed with impeccable beauty: satin skin, thin as Chinese paper, blue-gray eyes under the superciliary arches of an exceptionally clear pattern, hair that reaches the ground in loose form (Balzac hesitates about their color, calling E. either a blonde or a burning brunette , that is, referring its beauty to either European or Asian). In the eyes and appearance of E. "after 18 centuries after the exile, the East again shone." Having chosen, after her mother, the craft of a courtesan, E. reached extraordinary perfection in it. She acts on men so exciting that she was nicknamed Torpil (electric stingray). All the brilliant dandies of Paris were "more or less her lovers" but none of them can say that she is his mistress; “she is always free to possess them, but they never have her.” The meeting with Lucien de Rubempre transforms E. Having fallen in love with Lucien, she tries to start living an honest labor, but, discovering that others still recognize her as a courtesan, she decides to commit suicide. Abbot Carlos Herrera rescues E. and places her in a monastery boarding school, where she receives a religious upbringing and becomes a Catholic. After that, Carlos Herrera settles her in a specially rented apartment, where she lives locked up, seeing no one but Lucien, and enjoying his love. E. leaves the apartment only at night, when the guide Pakkar, a faithful servant of Herrera, takes her out for a walk in one of the Parisian parks. On one of these walks, Baron de Nucingen accidentally notices the girl and falls in love with a mysterious stranger so passionately, that he is ready to give any money, if only she was found and provided to him. Carlos Herrera takes advantage of Nucingen's passion to pump out of him more and more sums needed for Lucien. For the sake of her beloved, E. agrees to desecrate her love for him and become a courtesan again; she lives a double life, despising "the vile, dishonorable role played by the body in the presence of the soul". E. flirts with Nucingen, accepts his gifts and settles in the mansion bought for her, but constantly postpones the day of the final triumph of the baron and his fall. The next morning after that night, when she finally gives herself to the baron, E. takes poison, bequeathing 750 thousand francs that Nucingen gave her to Lucien and never knowing that she is the owner of 7 million due to her under the will of Gobsek. Carlos Herrera takes advantage of Nucingen's passion to pump out of him more and more sums needed for Lucien. For the sake of her beloved, E. agrees to desecrate her love for him and become a courtesan again; she lives a double life, despising "the vile, dishonorable role played by the body in the presence of the soul". E. flirts with Nucingen, accepts his gifts and settles in the mansion bought for her, but constantly postpones the day of the final triumph of the baron and his fall. The next morning after that night, when she finally gives herself to the baron, E. takes poison, bequeathing 750 thousand francs that Nucingen gave her to Lucien and never knowing that she is the owner of 7 million due to her under the will of Gobsek. Carlos Herrera takes advantage of Nucingen's passion to pump out of him more and more sums needed for Lucien. For the sake of her beloved, E. agrees to desecrate her love for him and become a courtesan again; she lives a double life, despising "the vile, dishonorable role played by the body in the presence of the soul". E. flirts with Nucingen, accepts his gifts and settles in the mansion bought for her, but constantly postpones the day of the final triumph of the baron and his fall. The next morning after that night, when she finally gives herself to the baron, E. takes poison, bequeathing 750 thousand francs that Nucingen gave her to Lucien and never knowing that she is the owner of 7 million due to her under the will of Gobsek. For the sake of her beloved, E. agrees to desecrate her love for him and become a courtesan again; she lives a double life, despising "the vile, dishonorable role played by the body in the presence of the soul". E. flirts with Nucingen, accepts his gifts and settles in the mansion bought for her, but constantly postpones the day of the final triumph of the baron and his fall. The next morning after that night, when she finally gives herself to the baron, E. takes poison, bequeathing 750 thousand francs that Nucingen gave her to Lucien and never knowing that she is the owner of 7 million due to her under the will of Gobsek. For the sake of her beloved, E. agrees to desecrate her love for him and become a courtesan again; she lives a double life, despising "the vile, dishonorable role played by the body in the presence of the soul". E. flirts with Nucingen, accepts his gifts and settles in the mansion bought for her, but constantly postpones the day of the final triumph of the baron and his fall. The next morning after that night, when she finally gives herself to the baron, E. takes poison, bequeathing 750 thousand francs that Nucingen gave her to Lucien and never knowing that she is the owner of 7 million due to her under the will of Gobsek. accepts his gifts and settles in the mansion bought for her, but constantly postpones the day of the final triumph of the baron and his fall. The next morning after that night, when she finally gives herself to the baron, E. takes poison, bequeathing 750 thousand francs that Nucingen gave her to Lucien and never knowing that she is the owner of 7 million due to her under the will of Gobsek. accepts his gifts and settles in the mansion bought for her, but constantly postpones the day of the final triumph of the baron and his fall. The next morning after that night, when she finally gives herself to the baron, E. takes poison, bequeathing 750 thousand francs that Nucingen gave her to Lucien and never knowing that she is the owner of 7 million due to her under the will of Gobsek.