Cousin Bette

\Bette is a wronged soul; and when her passion does break, it is, as Balzac says, sublime and terrifying,\ wrote V. S. Pritchett.

A late masterpiece in Balzac\'s La Com die Humaine, Cousin Bette<\/em> is the story of a Vosges peasant who rebels against her scornful upper-class relatives, skillfully turning their selfish obsessions against them. The novel exemplifies what Henry James described as Balzac\'s \huge, all-compassing, all-desiring, all-devouring love of reality.