Resumen
Resumen de La muñeca sangrienta
Para quién es
For readers who love candlelit mysteries, haunted old mansions, vampire lore with a scientific edge, and stories told by a narrator whose confessions you are never sure you can trust.
De qué trata este libro
The Bloody Doll is a Gothic mystery by Gaston Leroux, the French writer who also created the Phantom of the Opera. It is set in Paris in the years after the First World War, and its stage is one quiet corner of the Île Saint-Louis, where old mansions, small shops and a sleepy street hide a great deal more than they show.
The story begins in the diary of Bénédict Masson, an art bookbinder who writes poems in secret and thinks himself too ugly to be loved. From behind his curtains he watches Christine, the watchmaker's daughter, and one moonlit night he sees her kiss a stranger who steps out of a wardrobe. From that moment he is drawn into a house of secrets, a mansion full of rare books, and a marriage that seems to be fading away.
You will meet a watchmaker chasing perpetual motion, a young surgeon with bold ideas, a pale marquise afraid of her own husband, and an Indian doctor with a tiger's smile. Each of them holds a piece of the puzzle. Let us begin with the bookbinder at his window.
En este resumen
- 1A poet spies from behind his curtainsFree
- 2The handsome stranger and the night of the blow
- 3Christine's bargain and the library of the Marquis
- 4Four portraits that all show the same man
- 5The Indian doctor, the dancer, and a living ghost
- 6The bundle tied with a black ribbon
- 7Surgery by firelight and a prosector's dangerous idea
- 8A pinprick, a bottle, and a dying woman's story
- 9Ugliness, doubles, and the telling of the tale
Idea clave 1 de 9
A poet spies from behind his curtains
The novel opens on a quiet street of the Île Saint-Louis, then called Rue du Saint-Sacrement-en-l'Isle. Here Bénédict Masson keeps a small shop where he binds fine books and also sells postcards and stationery. The narrator tells us this tiny neighborhood will give birth to one of the strangest adventures of the age, one that Paris still remembers with a shudder.
Bénédict is about thirty-five and lives in a room he believes once belonged to the poet Baudelaire. He keeps a day-by-day record of his life, and most of the early chapters are simply his memoirs. The narrator warns us that some people think these pages were written to make a monster look innocent. He himself finds them sincere, even where they ramble.
Across the street is the shop of old Norbert, a watchmaker who hides behind green serge curtains. He is working on an escapement that he swears will give him perpetual motion. In his window ticks a clockwork with square wheels that the neighbors claim has never been wound. The islanders half believe he is a diabolical figure, and his fellow watchmakers pity him.
Norbert lives with his daughter Christine and his nephew Jacques Cotentin, a brilliant young prosector at the medical faculty, who is also Christine's fiancé. Bénédict adores Christine from a distance. He calls her the Madonna of the Île Saint-Louis, praises her copper hair and calm green eyes, and sees in her an astonishment at living in such a small place.
One night he climbs into his attic and looks through a skylight at the small house behind the watchmaker's shop. He sees Christine step out onto her glass-walled studio balcony, listen for her father, and unlock a huge cabinet. A man comes out of it and she kisses him. Bénédict's heart breaks, and the mystery begins.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Questions about La muñeca sangrienta
What is The Bloody Doll about?
It follows Bénédict Masson, an ugly and lovesick bookbinder on the Île Saint-Louis, who spies on Christine Norbert and her hidden guest, then enters the mansion of a marquis whose wife believes he is an undying vampire.
Who wrote The Bloody Doll and when?
Gaston Leroux wrote it, the French author of The Phantom of the Opera. It belongs to the early twentieth century, in a Paris still living with the changes brought by the First World War.
Is the Marquis de Coulteray really a vampire?
That is the question the novel keeps open. The marquise says yes, Christine calls her mad, and Bénédict finds medical facts that fit both a legend and a scientific crime.
Who are Gabriel and Jacques Cotentin?
Gabriel is the handsome stranger in a Revolution-era cape whom Bénédict sees come out of a wardrobe. Jacques is Christine's cousin and fiancé, a gifted young prosector who works with her father on secret experiments.
Is The Bloody Doll easy to follow?
Yes, because it moves briskly in short chapters, with diary entries, letters and village gossip carrying the story. A lively narrator keeps each mystery clear and each scene vivid.