Balzac, Honoré de: The Purse, v1, 18 Aug 2007
 

Honoré de Balzac
The Purse
(La Bourse)
Translated by Clara Bell

A young artist, Hippolyte Schinner, has an accident in his studio and is helped by a mother and daughter who live in a neighbouring apartment. The daughter, Adélaïde, is beautiful and the artist falls in love. But, every evening the mother seems to win a large amount at cards. Has Hippolyte fallen into a gambling den? Then his purse goes missing….

This came from a PG textfile and I’ve restored the accents, italics etc by checking against my paper copy of the same translation,and the Pléiade French version.