La détresse des Harpagon by Pierre Mille is a novel written in the early 20th century. It portrays a declining provincial family in Burgundy—an amiable, shortsighted father, his severe, saving wife, and their adult children Élise and Cléante—pressed by debt, social embarrassment, and a predatory land dealer. Echoing the myth of Molière’s Harpagon through lineage and theme, the story explores avarice and prodigality, wounded honor, and turbulent desire within a crumbling household.
The opening follows a spry but aging country gentleman on a morning hunt, then undercuts his small happiness: his wife melts candle stubs and counts every penny, villagers quietly discuss his mortgages, and a visiting scholar hints at his descent from Molière’s avarice while the local usurer tightens the net. At the pond he is brusquely expelled by the creditor’s guard, a humiliation that sends him home to a worse blow: a letter from the Riviera reporting that Élise has been seen at night with a guest, causing scandal and her return. The next day an old friend arrives only to reveal that Cléante has forged his endorsement on a large bill, which he has paid to spare the family’s name, urging the son’s removal from Paris. When Élise arrives, her mother’s interrogation meets cool defiance: she insists nothing that could lead to pregnancy occurred, refuses a convent, and asserts a fierce claim to pleasure and freedom. The section closes with the parents aghast and the daughter’s blistering indictment of their marriage and upbringing, as financial ruin and family conflict converge. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
