A thirty year old woman

"A Woman of Thirty" occupies an honorable place in Balzac's legacy, complementing the bright palette of "Scenes from Private Life." An elegant and tender story about love in its highest manifestations, it also became a requiem for married life. The heroine of the novel, Julie, an extraordinary, independent woman free to express her feelings, says goodbye to her youthful illusions and becomes disillusioned with marriage. After all, "it is not the sorrows themselves that destroy us, but rather the hopes we have lost." And when you melt from the indifference and coldness of your husband, does it not sometimes seem that "legitimate love is more burdensome than criminal passion"? ... And since in France, and throughout the world, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of women feel misunderstood and disappointed, they find in Balzac a doctor who was the first to give a name to their affliction. He excuses any of their false steps, if only this step is made out of love, he dares to say that not only a "thirty-year-old woman", but also a "forty-year-old woman", and even she, who has known and comprehended everything, has the highest right to love." Stefan Zweig