The Magic Skin

“Shagreen Leather” is one of Honoré de Balzac’s significant novels—a great French realist writer—one that he included in the section “Philosophical Studies” of his many-volume epic “The Human Comedy.” When you’re young, in love, and ambitious, but you know that all your dreams are doomed because you don’t have money—can you resist the temptation to pay with the length of your own life in exchange for having your wishes granted?