Resumen
Resumen de Cuentos de dos países
Para quién es
Readers who enjoy sharp, funny short stories about love, money, class and manners, and who like a narrator who smiles at his characters while seeing them clearly. A good match for lovers of Paris and Norwegian life.
De qué trata este libro
Tales of Two Countries gathers ten short stories by Alexander Lange Kielland, the Norwegian novelist who died in 1906. He wrote in the later nineteenth century, when Norway was a small and proper society, and he watched it with a sharp and amused eye. Some of the tales are set in Paris, some in quiet Norwegian towns and parsonages, and one belongs to an old raven flying over a heath.
Together they show a writer who looks at comfort, charity, love and good manners and asks what lies underneath. His tools are irony, a close eye for small gestures and a gift for comedy. You meet a woman in a carriage who hears the crowd outside, a student who follows a stranger through the streets, and a wealthy lady who goes to see poverty for herself. This summary takes the stories in turn, with their people, their scenes and their point, and it stops before each ending. Let us begin with a night drive through Paris.
En este resumen
- 1A rich woman hears the crowdFree
- 2A sheltered girl meets a charming stranger
- 3A raven and a brother who cannot sing
- 4Two Paris stories of pity and envy
- 5Comfortable people and their ideals
- 6Withered love, a sand battle and the author's method
Idea clave 1 de 6
A rich woman hears the crowd
Pharaoh opens with a woman who has risen from the lowest corner of Paris. As a child she lives in hunger and fear in a suburb, and she works in a dark back room on the Rue des Quatre Vents, making paper flowers for a harsh old woman. At fourteen she crosses a better street and is noticed by a wealthy and influential man. He sees a fine spirit struggling against the first marks of ruin, and on a rich man's whim he decides to rescue her.
He gives her a name, places her in one of the best convent schools and later marries her. She grows quiet, graceful and a little idle, and she is grateful more than happy. Paris soon stops asking where she comes from, since it has too much else to think about. She locks her past away like a drawer of old roses and ribbons, and she believes the key is gone.
But at night she sometimes dreams that the old witch is shaking her awake to make flowers. She leaps up in terror, touches the silk coverlet and carved bed, and feels the great relief of finding that the dream was only a dream. One evening she rides to a grand ball at the Russian ambassador's house. The carriage joins a slow queue, and a crowd of workers, idlers and poor women jeer at the passing riders in the roughest Paris speech.
She understands every word, and she blushes at the thought that she may be the only person in the line who does. Faces she seems to know look up at her, full of the same envy she once felt, and dark men watch with scorn. A scene from her convent lessons comes back to her, the story of Pharaoh and his chariots and the sea that closes over them. She wonders whether a single voice could set this human sea in motion, and for the first time her good fortune feels like an injustice. At the ball, a young attaché and then a Count try to win her over with compliments, and one whispered word of hers puzzles them both.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Cuentos de dos países
What is Tales of Two Countries about?
It is a collection of ten short stories by Alexander Lange Kielland. They look at love, money, class, charity and pride in nineteenth-century Paris and Norway, often with irony and comedy, through ordinary people in small turning moments.
What are the ten stories in Tales of Two Countries?
They are Pharaoh, The Parsonage, The Peat Moor, a story headed Hope is dressed in April green, At the Fair, Two Friends, A Good Conscience, Romance and Reality, Withered Leaves and The Battle of Waterloo.
What are the two countries in the title?
The tales are set in France, mostly Paris and its fairs, and in Norway, in towns and parsonages. Kielland uses the pairing to show both rich and poor, and different manners, as seen by a sharp observer.
Is Tales of Two Countries easy to read?
The stories are short, and each has a clear scene to hold on to, such as a ride to a ball, a picnic or a sand battle. The narrator's humor and plain, vivid images make them easy to follow.
What is the main message of these stories?
Kielland shows how ideals, good manners and a clear conscience can hide self-interest, and how people fail to understand each other across class and feeling. He asks readers to look more honestly at themselves and others.