Publisher's Synopsis
"[...]in some respects one of Balzac's most brilliant effects, has been looked at askance by many of his English readers. At one time he had the audacity to think of calling it _La Femme aux Yeux Rouges_. To those who consider the story morbid or, one may say, _bizarre_, one word of justification, hardly of apology, may be offered. It was in the scheme of the _Comedie Humaine_ to survey social life in its entirety by a minute analysis of its most diverse constituents. It included all the pursuits and passions, was large and patient, and unafraid. And the patience, the curiosity, of the artist which made Cesar Birotteau and his bankrupt ledgers matters of high import to us, which did not shrink from creating a Vautrin and a Lucien de Rubempre, would have been incomplete had it stopped short of a Marquise de San-Real, of a Paquita Valdes. And in the great mass of the _Comedie Humaine_, with its largeness and reality of life, as in life itself; the figure of Paquita justifies its presence.[...]."
