A writer retreats to a mountain village in early summer, filling his letters and notebooks with acacia blossoms, wet June rain and the two old maids he cannot quite fit into the novel he is trying to write. As he drifts from the story of his own past love toward the quiet pleasures of country life, a girl painting the sanatorium's red roof draws him back to what he is running from.
Books mentioned in The Beautiful Village (4)
The Princess of Clèves by Madame de La Fayette: “On my desk lies Madame de La Fayette's The Princess of Clèves, left open at a half-read page. I am reading this old French novel with real feeling for the first time, and thanks to it I feel somewhat rescued from my oddly tense state of mind these days. [auto-translated]”
Count d'Orgel's Ball by Raymond Radiguet: “Radiguet's Count d'Orgel's Ball, which I made you read a couple of years ago, is even said to have taken this novel as its model, so it resembles it greatly. [auto-translated]”
Adolphe by Benjamin Constant: “The example of Adolphe came to mind. I wanted to raise my own small affair to the level of a work like that, because Adolphe's fate, that of a weak yet egoistic man who made himself and others unhappy, seemed just like my own. [auto-translated]”
Faust, Part Two by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Epigraph, from Faust, Part Two: the pulse of life beats anew and brisk, as if to greet the gentle twilight of the heavens. You, world below, did not fail in your duty last night, and this morning, your weariness healed, you breathe beneath my feet. [auto-translated]