_La Peau de Chagrin_ is Balzac's first literary tussle with the reality of his age; it is a spirited, many-sided work, rich in germs and shoots; and with its fine, simple symbols it anticipates that almost comprehensive picture of modern society which its author was to give to the world in his complete works. The externalities of modern life, such as the theatre and the fashionable lady's boudoir; the dissatisfied and hopeless poverty of the talented young author thrown into relief by the orgies of wealthy journalists and women of the demi-monde; the contrast, in the two principal female characters, between the worldly and the loving heart--all this is shown us in a strange, fantastic light. The book consists of a few connected gaudy spectacular scenes; there is more reflection and symbolic art than plastic talent in it. The youthful hero, who is on the point of committing suicide in despair over his hopeless poverty, receives from an aged dealer in curiosities a piece of wild ass's skin, on which neither steel nor fire produces the smallest effect, and which secures to its possessor the fulfilment of his every wish, but which shrinks a line or two with the gratification of each; simultaneously with the final disappearance of the ass's skin the life of its owner comes to an end. The persuasive powers of a marvellous imagination have succeeded in imparting credibility to the supernatural part of this profound allegory. Balzac has given the fantastic element in it a form which permits of its blending with the modern realistic elements, Aladdin's lamp, when it was rubbed, instantly worked a direct miracle; even in Oehlenschläger's _Aladdin_ it supersedes the law of cause and effect. Not so the ass's skin; it does nothing directly; it only ensures the fortunate issue of events, steadily shrinking the while. It seems to be made of the fabric of which our lives are composed. The gradual annihilation of the human being is brought about, we are told, by two instinctive actions, which exhaust its sources of life. "Deux verbes expriment toutes les formes que prennent ces deux causes de mort: vouloir et pouvoir. _Vouloir_ nous brûle et _pouvoir_ nous détruit." That is to say, we die at last because we go on killing ourselves every day.