1 h 4 minAudiobook5 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if more life only gives a selfish man more time to betray those who love him?
Don Juan Belvidero has wealth, pleasure, and little concern for the people he uses. His father, Bartolomeo, holds something money alone cannot buy: a secret tied to prolonging life. As the old man nears death, that secret brings a darker weight to the bond between father and son.
In The Elixir of Life, Honoré de Balzac turns the legend of Don Juan into a short Gothic tale of desire and betrayal. Against Don Juan’s appetites stand the faithful love of his wife, Elvira, and the loyalty of his son, Philippe. What are such bonds worth to a man who treats promises as tools?
What you’ll discover
- A legend turned dark Meet a Don Juan whose hunger for pleasure makes the promise of longer life deeply unsettling.
- A father's guarded secret Discover how Bartolomeo’s private knowledge places more than a family fortune at stake.
- Love with little return See Elvira’s faithful trust set against a husband who gives little back.
- Loyalty against appetite Consider the contrast between Philippe’s conscience and his father’s habit of using others.
- More years, no wisdom Face Balzac’s sharp suggestion that a longer life does not teach anyone how to live.
Who will love it
Readers who like dark legends, sixteenth century Italy, and stories where a single object tests a character's soul. It suits anyone curious about the Don Juan myth and Balzac's sharp eye for human nature.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A banquet is stopped by a servant
- A father offers a way to live again
- A son tests the liquid alone
- A skeptic grows old and plans ahead
Who’s who
- Don Juan BelvideroA handsome, mocking heir who believes in nothing and wants every pleasure, and who later plans his own old age with care.
- Bartolommeo BelvideroHis ninety-year-old father, a rich merchant who has lived like a hermit and hopes to cheat death with a secret from the East.
- Dona ElviraDon Juan's young, devout Andalusian wife, raised in a remote castle, who tries to be a dutiful wife.
- Felipe BelvideroTheir son, a pious and obedient young man who loves his father and trusts his word.
- The Abbot of San-LucarA clever, ambitious churchman who guides the family's conscience and watches for any chance to gain from events.
- Pope Julius IIA witty pontiff and friend of Don Juan, who jokes with him about God, the Devil and repentance.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Das Elixier des Lebens
by Honoré de Balzac · 1830
A dying merchant hands his playboy son a crystal phial that can bring a body back to life.
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In short
The Elixir of Life is a short tale by Honoré de Balzac, dated Paris, October 1830. It belongs to the old legend of Don Juan, the seducer who laughs at heaven and hell.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A banquet is stopped by a servant
The story opens in a princely palace at Ferrara, where Don Juan Belvidero hosts a banquet for a prince of the House of Este. Seven women sit at his table, each with her own appetite, and their words and glances speak of desire, fear, jealousy and greed. One of them asks when his father will die. Don Juan jokes that there is only one eternal father, and unfortunately for him, the eternal father is his own.
The joke silences the room. Then a white-haired servant appears at the door and says that the old lord is dying. The noise of the feast falls away as if a black cloth had dropped over it.
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What is The Elixir of Life by Balzac about?
It is about Don Juan Belvidero, a cynical young nobleman in sixteenth century Italy. His dying father gives him a phial of liquid that can bring the dead back to life, and Don Juan must decide what to do with it.
Is The Elixir of Life based on the Don Juan legend?
Yes. Balzac borrows the legendary seducer who mocks God and religion, then sets him in a new story about a father, a son and a secret liquid. He also places him alongside Faust and Manfred.
When was The Elixir of Life written?
Balzac was a young writer in France at that time, and the story belongs to his early fantastic and philosophical tales. It is fiction, with a legend as its base.
The author
Honoré de Balzac
1799–1850 · French novelist
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright born in Tours in 1799. He lived and worked in Paris, where he died in 1850. He wrote The Magic Skin in 1831, Eugénie Grandet in 1833, and Father Goriot in 1835. Many of his works belong to La Comédie humaine.
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