THE COUNTRY DOCTOR

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



Translated by

Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell




"For a wounded heart--shadow and silence."



To my Mother



INTRODUCTION

In hardly any of his books, with the possible exception of /Eugenie
Grandet/, does Balzac seem to have taken a greater interest than in
/Le Medecin de Campagne/; and the fact of this interest, together with
the merit and intensity of the book in each case, is, let it be
repeated, a valid argument against those who would have it that there