Le vrai bonheur by Henri de Régnier is a novella written in the early 20th century. The book examines the pursuit and fragility of happiness through an unconventional love affair set between Paris and the Italian lakes. Its likely topic is the perilous gap between romantic illusion and reality, as seen in a woman’s late-blossoming passion for a much younger man and the social, emotional, and moral tensions it creates.A Parisian narrator, drawn to eccentric circles, meets the charming Germaine de Gaillandre, a cultivated, superstitious woman separated from her husband and guided by a discreet fortune-teller, Mme Quittenard, who predicts future happiness. After the narrator’s absence abroad, he returns to learn that Germaine has fallen for an eighteen-year-old beauty, Jean de Querdrun, encountered in the painter Massot’s studio; they retreat to Stresa on Lake Maggiore, where Germaine worships him, and Jean, vain and gentle, lets himself be adored, even wearing her jewels. The narrator visits and sees a radiant idyll sustained by Germaine’s absolute faith. Two years later a telegram summons him: Jean has vanished—taking the pearls. With Mme Quittenard’s help, he is found in his old Latin Quarter flat, calmly resuming law studies and planning a conventional marriage, returning the jewels in tears for the lost necklace yet refusing to go back. The tale closes on a dry consolation: Germaine had her season of bliss, and, says the fortune-teller, for a lady the true happiness may be—…
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