Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac, In On the Shoulders of

In On the Shoulders of Giants

and the thirteen texts of the “Principal Upanisads”—which comprise this volume—form a series of philosophical discourses between teacher and student that question the inner meaning of the world

and a whole bunch of bumper stickers

Between 150

Two witnesses

Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac, In On the Shoulders ofPoor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of the Hulot