Extract
[...] This light is not reassuring; it attracts and alarms at the same time, suggesting a lucid, perhaps cruel intelligence. Calm malice is more dangerous: it allows to preserve this inner flame, this strength capable of protecting man from the passivity of the world. It also offers to others the possibility of asking themselves deep questions about their existence. This character thus becomes enigmatic and specific: no one can fully detect his true personality nor understand his thoughts. He remains elusive and misunderstood. Balzac spoke of calm malice: he distinguishes calm malice and loud malice. [...]
[...] In fact, Balzac adopts a more precise and more careful description: the meticulousness and rigor of the detail give the character a new dimension. "The grey beard", central element of this description. Thus, Balzac begins to give the old man a certain importance by relying on the group of words « grey beard, which brings him close to emblematic figures. The comparison with « these Jewish heads used by artists to represent Moses contributes to this valorization. The old man is then presented as a figure quasi prophetic, a model, a symbolic figuration. [...]
[...] But in this old man, the eyes are full of secrets: 'you don't know at what moment he can reveal his confidences to you'. They shine and illuminate the entire concerned space, making him an enigmatic, elusive, and misunderstood character. The antique dealer is a character who is both a realistic figure (identification of a physical character that is almost deficient) and an abstract principle figure invested with a profound moral significance). The old man, a character whose feelings and sensations have become dulled. [...]
[...] The figure of the old man oscillates between that of the « Eternal Father, symbol of wisdom, law and transmission of a single sense, and a Mephistophelian figure, « the mocking mask of Mephistopheles, ironic and destabilizing archetype. Far from being deficient, this figure embodies a lucid, sarcastic consciousness, marked by the denial of illusions, the cynicism of pleasures and enjoyments, as well as radical incredulity, rejecting all forms of hope and breaking all ties of trust with the external world. It then becomes the symbol of an intellectual demon, offering man the illusion of preeminence. [...]
[...] The physical portrait: revealer of character, moral and psychological dispositions. A physiognomonic painting of the old man The physical description of the old man is omnipresent, through the lexical field: small old man', 'thin', 'long locks', 'white hair', 'narrow pale face', 'withered arms', 'grey beard trimmed', 'so pale and thin lips', 'thin', 'white face', 'his wide forehead wrinkled', 'his pale and hollow cheeks', 'green eyes devoid of eyelashes and eyebrows', 'sinuosity of his wrinkles'. This lexical field refers to decay, exhaustion and decline. [...]
