Explore "The Magic Skin" by Honoré De Balzac on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the early days of December an old man of some seventy years of age pursued his way along the Rue de Varenne, in spite of the falling rain. He peered up at the door of each house, trying to discover the address of the Marquis Raphael de Valentin, in a simple, childlike fashion, and with the abstracted look peculiar to philosophers. His face plainly showed traces of a struggle between a heavy mortification and an authoritative nature; his long, gray hair hung in disorder about a face like a piece of parchment shriveling in the fire. If a painter had come upon this curious character, he would, no doubt, have transferred him to his sketchbook on his return, a thin, bony figure, clad in black, and have inscribed beneath it: "Classical poet in search of a rhyme. " When he had identified the number that had been given to him, this reincarnation of Rollin knocked meekly at the door of a splendid mansion.
"Is Monsieur Raphael in? " the worthy man inquired of the Swiss in livery.