Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833-1846 (part 2 of 5)

Translator'S Preface

In 1876 M. Calmann Lévy published Balzac's Correspondence in the twenty-fourth volume of the Édition Définitive of his works. These letters are prefaced by a short memoir written by his sister Laure, Madame Surville, which she had already published in 1856, six years after her brother's death, under the title of "Balzac, sa vie et ses écrits, d'après sa correspondance."

In this Correspondence given in the Édition Définitive, the first letter addressed by Balzac to Madame Hanska is dated August 11, 1835, and to it is appended the following foot-note:--

"At this period Balzac was, and had been for some time, in correspondence with the distinguished woman to whom he was later to give his name; but, unfortunately, a part of this correspondence was burned in Moscow in a fire which occurred at Madame Hanska's residence. It must, therefore, be remarked that in the letters of this series two or three gaps occur, all the more regrettable because those which escaped the fire present a keen interest." (Éd. Déf., vol. xxiv., p. 217.)

* * * * *

The present publication of Letters (of which this volume is a translation) bears upon its title-page the words: "H. de Balzac. Œuvres Posthumes. Lettres à l'Étrangère. 1833-1842." No explanation is given of how these letters were obtained, and no proof or assurance is offered of their authenticity. A foot-note appended to the first letter merely states as follows:--

"M. le Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, in whose hands are the originals of these letters, has related the history of this correspondence in detail, under the title of 'Un Roman d'Amour' (Calmann Lévy, publisher). Madame Hanska, born Countess Evelina (Eve) Rzewuska, who was then twenty-six or twenty-eight years old, resided at the château of Wierzchownia, in Volhynia. An enthusiastic reader of the 'Scènes de la Vie privée,' uneasy at the different turn which the mind of the author was taking in 'La Peau de Chagrin,' she addressed to Balzac--then thirty-three years old, to the care of the publisher Gosselin, a letter signed, 'l'Étrangère,' which was delivered to him February 28, 1832. Other letters followed; that of November 7 ended thus: 'A word from you in the "Quotidienne" will give me the assurance that you have received my letter, and that I can write to you without fear. Sign it: "To l'É--h. de B."' This acknowledgment of reception appeared in the 'Quotidienne' of December 9. Thus was inaugurated the system of 'Petite correspondance' now practised in divers newspapers, and, at the same time, this correspondence with her who was, seventeen years later, in 1850, to become his wife."

Balzac himself gives the date of his reception of l'Étrangère's first letter in a way that puts it beyond all controversy. In a letter to Madame Hanska, written January 1, 1846 (Éd. Déf., p. 586), he says:--

"One year more, dear, and I take it with pleasure, for these years, these thirteen years which will be consummated in February on the happy day, a thousand times blessed, when I received that adorable letter, starred with happiness and hope, seem to me links indestructible, eternal. The fourteenth will begin in two months."

Thirteen years consummated in February, 1846, the fourteenth year beginning in February, 1846, make the date of the reception of that first letter February 28, 1833, not 1832. This fact not only puts an end to the tale about the advertisement in the "Quotidienne" [contained in the note to first page of present volume, quoted above, and in pages 31 to 39 of "Roman d'Amour"], but it falsifies the dates of the present volume. The first letter given, which is evidently not the first of Balzac's replies, is dated January, 1833, a month or more before the first letter of "l'Étrangère" was written. Throughout the volume other dates can be shown to be false, proving arbitrary arrangement of some kind, and casting justifiable doubt on the authenticity of a certain number of these letters.

"Un Roman d'Amour" is a book made up of conjectures, insinuations, hypotheses, and errors, in which one, and one only, fact is presented. That fact is a letter from Balzac to his sister, Madame Surville.

This letter Madame Surville first published in 1856 in her memoir of her brother (pp. 139, 140), introducing it in the following words: "Being absent from Paris in the month of October of the same year [1833], I received from my brother the following letter:"--

"Gone, without a word of warning [sans crier gare]. The poor toiler went to your house to make you share a little joy, and found no sister! I torment you so often with my troubles that the least I can do is to write you this joy. You will not laugh at me, you will believe me, you will!

"I went yesterday to Gérard's; he presented me to three German families. I thought I was dreaming; three families!--no less!--one from Vienna, another from Frankfort, the third Prussian, I don't know from where.

"They confided to me that they had come faithfully for a month to Gérard's, in the hope of seeing me; and they let me know that beyond the frontier of France (dear, ungrateful country!) my reputation has begun. 'Persevere in your labours,' they added, 'and you will soon be at the head of literary Europe.' Of Europe! they said it, sister! Flattering families!--How I could make certain friends roar with laughter if I told them that. Ma foi! these were kind Germans, and I let myself believe they thought what they said, and, to tell the truth, I could have listened to them all night. Praise is so good for us artists, and that of the good Germans restored my courage; I departed quite gaily [tout guilleret] from Gérard's, and I am going to fire three guns on the public and on envious folk, to wit: 'Eugénie Grandet,' 'Les Aventures d'une idée heureuse,' which you know about, and my 'Prêtre catholique,' one of my finest subjects.

"The affair of the 'Études de Mœurs' is well under way; thirty thousand francs of author's rights in the reprints will stop up large holes. That slice of my debts paid, I shall go and seek my reward at Geneva. The horizon seems really brightening.

"I have resumed my life of toil. I go to bed at six, directly after dinner. The animal digests and sleeps till midnight. Auguste makes me a cup of coffee, with which the mind goes at one flash [tout d'une traite] till midday. I rush to the printing-office to carry my copy and get my proofs, which gives exercise to the animal, who dreams as he goes.

"One can put a good deal of black on white in twelve hours, little sister, and after a month of such life there's no small work accomplished. Poor pen! it must be made of diamond not to be worn out by such toil! To lift its master to reputation, according to the prophecy of the Germans, to pay his debts to all, and then to give him, some day, rest upon a mountain,--that is its task!

"What the devil are you doing so late at M....? Tell me about it, and say with me that the Germans are very worthy people. Fraternal handshake to Monsieur Canal. [Poignée de main fraternelle à M. Canal]; tell him that 'Les Aventures d'une idée heureuse' are on the ways.

"I send you my proofs of the 'Médecin de Campagne' to read."

When, twenty years later, Balzac's Correspondence appeared in the Édition Définitive (Calmann Lévy, 1876) Madame Surville's little memoir was made the Introduction to the volume. On page lv (Introduction) the above letter is given. On page 176 the letter is again given (in its place in the Correspondence), and it is there identically the same as the letter given above, down to the words: "What the devil are you doing so late at M....?" after which, the following additions are given:--

"However, you are free, and this is not a reproach, it is curiosity; between brother and sister that is pardonable.

"Well, adieu. If you have a heart you will reply to me. A fraternal handshake to M. Canal; tell him that the 'Aventures d'une idée' are on the ways, and that he can soon read them.

"Addio! Addio! Correct 'le Médecin' well; point out to me all the passages which may seem to you bad; and put the great pots into the little pots; that is to say, if a thing can be said in one line instead of two, try to make the sentence."

Three points are here to be observed and borne in mind, namely:--

1. These discrepancies are additions in one version, and omissions in the other; they are not changes in the phraseology.

2. Balzac's playful nickname for Madame Surville's husband, who was government engineer of bridges, canals, and highways, is given in both versions.

3. The first point shows conclusively that the letter given in the Correspondence is not a mere copy from that in Madame Surville's memoir, but is taken from the original letter, inasmuch as the version of 1876, though identical to a certain point with that of 1856, gives additions to it.

Twenty years later, in 1896, forty years after its first publication by the person who received it, the same letter appears in "Un Roman d'Amour," introduced by the following words (pp. 76, 77, 78):--

"Happily, a unique document, and exceptionally precious in relation to this first interview, that at Neufchâtel [with Madame Hanska], is in our hands. It is precise, and fixes, from Balzac's own pen, his immediate impressions of Madame Hanska and the five days he spent near her. This document consists of an autograph letter, almost entirely unpublished, addressed to his sister, Madame Surville; this letter is certainly the most important which, until now, has been brought to light on the opening of that celebrated passion. We shall quote it here. In it will be found many other unknown details of the most extreme interest, which confirm what we have already said as to the rôle which the feminine element always played in the life of the master.... Here is the complete text [texte complet] of this letter, certainly written very rapidly, for we find several words omitted, and more than one obscurity. To make the meaning clearer we have made, according to our custom in such cases, some additions [adjonctions], placed, as usual, between brackets."[1]

[Footnote 1: One of these "adjonctions" is the signature!--TR.]

[PARIS] Saturday, 12 [October, 1833].

MY DEAR SISTER,--You understand that I could not speak to you before Eugénie, but I had all my journey to relate to you.

I have found down there all that can flatter the thousand vanities of that animal called man, of whom the poet is certainly the vainest species. But what am I saying? vanity! No, there is nothing of all that. I am happy, very happy in thoughts, in all honor as yet. Alas! a damned husband never left us for one second during five days. He kept between the petticoat of his wife and my waistcoat. [Neufchâtel is] a little town where a woman, an illustrious foreigner, cannot take a step without being seen. I was, as it were, in an oven. Constraint does not suit me.

The essential thing is that we are twenty-seven years old, beautiful to admiration; that we possess the handsomest black hair in the world, the soft, deliciously delicate skin of brunettes, that we have a love of a little hand, a heart of twenty-seven, naïve; [in short, she is] a true Madame de Lignolles, imprudent to the point of flinging herself upon my neck before all the world.

I don't speak to you of colossal wealth. What is that before a masterpiece of beauty, whom I can only compare to the Princess Belle-Joyeuse, but infinitely better? [She possesses] a lingering eye [œil traînant] which, when it meets, becomes of voluptuous splendor. I was intoxicated with love.

I don't know whom to tell this to; certainly it is not [possible] either to her, the great lady, the terrible marquise, who, suspecting the journey, comes down from her pride, and intimates an order that I shall go to her at the Duc de F.'s [Fitz-James], [nor] is it [possible to tell it either] to her, poor, simple, delicious bourgeoise, who is like Blanche d'Azay. I am a father,--that's another secret I had to tell you,--and at the head of a pretty little person, the most naïve creature that ever was, fallen like a flower from heaven, who comes to me secretly, exacts no correspondence, and says: "Love me a year; I will love you all my life."

It is not [either] to her, the most treasured, who has more jealousy for me than a mother has for the milk she gives her child. She does not like L'Étrangère, precisely because L'Étrangère appears to be the very thing for me.

And, finally, it is not to her who wants her daily ration of love, and who, though voluptuous as a thousand cats, is neither graceful nor womanly. It is to you, my good sister, the former companion of my miseries and tears, that I wish to tell my joy, that it may die in the depths of your memory. Alas, I can't play the fop with any one, unless [apropos of] Madame de Castries, whom celebrity does not frighten. I do not wish to cause the slightest harm by my indiscretions. Therefore, burn my letter.

As it will be long before I see you,--for I shall go, no doubt, to Normandy and Angoulême, and return to see her at Geneva,--I had to write you this line to tell you I am happy at last. I am [joyous] as a child.

Mon Dieu! how beautiful the Val de Travers is, how ravishing the lake of Bienne! It was there, as you may imagine, that we sent the husband to attend to the breakfast; but we were in sight, and then, in the shadow of a tall oak, the first furtive kiss of love was given. Then, as our husband is approaching the sixties, I swore to wait, and she to keep her hand, her heart for me.

Isn't it a pretty thing to have torn a husband--who looks to me like a tower--from the Ukraine, to come eighteen hundred miles to meet a lover who has come only four hundred, the monster![1]

I'm joking; but knowing my affairs and my occupation here, my four hundred count as much as the eighteen hundred of my fiancée. She is really very well. She intends to be seriously ill at Geneva, which require [will require the care of] M. Dupuytren to soften the Russian ambassador and obtain a permit to come to Paris, for which she longs; where there is, for a woman, liberty on the mountain. However, I've enchanted the husband; and I shall try next year to get three months to myself. I shall go and see the Ukraine, and we have promised ourselves a magnificent and splendid journey in the Crimea; which is, you know, a land where tourists do not go, a thousand times more beautiful than Switzerland or Italy. It is the Italy of Asia.

But what labor between now and then! Pay our debts! Increase our reputation!

Yesterday I went to Gérard's. Three German families--one Prussian, one from Frankfort, one from Vienna--were officially presented to me. They came faithfully to Gérard's for a month past to see me and tell me that nothing was talked of but me in their country [chez eux]; that amazing fame began for me on the frontier of France, and that I had only to persevere for a year or two to be at the head of literary Europe, and replace Byron, Walter Scott, Goethe, Hoffmann!

Ma foi! as they were good Germans I let myself believe [all] that. It restored to me some courage, and I am going to fire a triple shot on the public and on the envious. During this fortnight, at one flash [I shall] finish "Eugénie Grandet," and write the "Aventures d'une idée [heureuse]" and "Le Prêtre catholique," one of my finest subjects. Then will come the fine third dizain, and after that I shall go and seek my reward at Geneva, after having paid a good slice of debts. There, sister. I have now resumed my winter life. I go to bed at six, with my dinner in my mouth, and I sleep till half-past twelve. At one o'clock Auguste brings me a cup of coffee, and I go at one flash, working from one in the morning till an hour after midday. At the end of twenty days, that makes a pretty amount of work!

Adieu, dearest sister. If your husband has arrived, tell him the "Aventures d'une idée [heureuse]" are on the ways, and he will perhaps read them at Montglat, for I will send you the paper in which they appear if you stay till the end of the month.

The affair of the "Études de Mœurs" is going on well. Thirty-three thousand francs of author's rights will just stop all the big holes. I shall [then] only have to undertake the repayment to my mother, and after that, faith! I shall be at my ease. I hope to repay you the remaining thousand francs at the end of the month; but if my mother wants all her interests [at once] I shall be obliged to put you off [till] the first fortnight in November.

Well, adieu, my dear sister. If you have any heart, you will answer me. What the devil are you doing at Montglat? However, you are free; this is not a reproach, it is curiosity. Between brother and sister it is pardonable. Much tenderness. You won't say again that I don't write to you.

Apropos, the pain in my side continues; but I have such fear of leeches, cataplasms, and to be tied down in a way that I can't finish what I have undertaken, that I put everything off. If it gets too bad we will see about it, I and the doctor, or magnetism.

Addio, addio. A thousand kind things. Correct carefully the "Médecin [de Campagne]," or rather tell me all the places that seem to you bad, and put the great pots into the little pots; that is to say, if a thing can be said in one line instead of two, try to make the sentence.

Adieu, sister. [HONORÉ.]

[Footnote 1: Monsieur Hanski hired the house in Neufchâtel early in the spring of 1833 and took his family there in May. Balzac was not invited, or, at any rate, did not go there till September 25th.]

Now there are three points here to be noticed and studied:--

1. The letters all state the purpose for which they were written. The versions of 1856 and 1876 give the same purpose. That given in "Roman d'Amour" is totally different.

2. The "Roman d'Amour" letter claims to be the complete text [texte complet]. How comes it, therefore, to have such variations from the original letter published by the sister who received it, and republished authoritatively in the Édition Définitive?

3. These variations are not merely omissions or additions of passages; they are the total reconstruction of many, and very characteristic, sentences.

Some one must have rewritten the letter. Some one has garbled it. There can be no question about this; the fact is there. It is not necessary for the vindication of Balzac's honour to inquire who did it; but it is plain that it was done.

It is therefore legitimate to suppose that the hand which garbled parts of the letter added the slanderous language of the first part.

Three years ago, in 1896, when "Roman d'Amour" first appeared, I added to the new edition of my "Memoir of Balzac" an appendix entitled "A Vindication of Balzac." It goes into more details connected with this slander than I can suitably put into this Preface, and I respectfully ask my readers to read it in the Memoir.

Now, to me who have lived in Balzac's mind for the last fifteen years as closely, perhaps, as any one now living, it is plain that the same hand that garbled the letter of October, 1833, has been at work on some of the letters in the present volume.

The simple story of these letters is as follows: In February, 1833, Balzac received a letter, posted in Russia, from a lady who signed herself "l'Étrangère" ["Foreigner"]. This letter is not known to exist; nor is there any authentic knowledge of its contents; but it began a correspondence between its writer and Balzac which ended in their marriage in 1850. It does not appear at what date Madame Hanska gave her name; it must have been quite early in the correspondence, although he never knew it exactly until the day he met her in September, 1833, at Neufchâtel.

The first reply from Balzac which is given is the first letter in the present volume, misdated January, 1833, a month before l'Étrangère's first letter was written; but it is plainly not the first reply he had made to her.

Eleven letters from Balzac follow the first, ending on the day (September 26, 1833) when he met Madame Hanska for the first time at Neufchâtel.

These twelve letters to an unknown woman are romantic; they are the letters of a poet, creating for himself an ideal love, and letting his imagination bear him along unchecked. From our colder point of view they seem, here and there, a little foolish, as addressed to a total stranger, but the impression conveyed of his own being, his nature, the troubles of his life and heart, is affecting and full of dignity. They are, moreover, the letters of a gentleman to a woman he respects. Owing to their false dates and to a forgery in the first letter (done undoubtedly to bring them into line with "Roman d'Amour"), they are open to suspicion; but Balzac's characteristics are in them, and I believe them to be, in spite of some interpolations, genuine.

But from the time that he meets Madame Hanska at Neufchâtel, a date which corresponds precisely with the garbled letter in "Roman d'Amour," the tone of the correspondence changes. For six months (from October to March) it becomes out of keeping with the respect which the foregoing letters, and the letters of all the rest of his life show that he felt for her. More especially is this true of the letters of January, February, and March. They are not in Balzac's style of writing; they present ideas that were not his, expressed in a manner that was not his; they contradict the impression given by all the other letters of his life; they contradict the letters of romantic ideal love that precede them; they contradict what every friend who knew Balzac closely has said of him; they contradict the known facts of the history of himself and Madame Hanska; they are, moreover, disloyal to friendship in a manner that Balzac's whole conduct in life, as evidenced in his correspondence, shows to have been impossible.

To bring the question home to ourselves--which of us, after reflection and comparison, can suppose that the paltry, immature, contemptibly vulgar stuff of the letters here designated as spurious ever came from the brain of the man who thought and wrote the "Comédie Humaine"?

There is such a thing as true literary judgment,--as unerring as the science that sees a mammoth in a bone. To that judgment, if to no other, this question may be left. The letters are here in this volume, and the reader can judge them for himself. In my opinion they have been garbled in various places; expressions, passages, and many whole letters have been interpolated, with the vulgarity of the hand that garbled the letter in "Roman d'Amour," for the purpose of supporting the slander suggested in that book.

This is, necessarily, opinion and judgment only; but a very remarkable circumstance appears in this volume, which should be studied and judged by readers thoroughly informed about Balzac, his nature, his character, and his writings.

September 16, 1834, Balzac writes to Monsieur Hanski, asking him to explain to Madame Hanska how he came to write to her two love-letters; these letters are not given. He asks her pardon, he is grieved, he is mortified (and justly so); but the letter is characteristic of a man who was honest and brave; the defence rings true. Monsieur Hanski must have thought so, for he accepted the commission and so performed it that Balzac's next letter to Madame Hanska thanks her for her pardon, and is written in a tone of boyish glee which was eminently characteristic of him, and could not have been counterfeited.

From this time there is not a trace of embarrassment in his letters; he does not feel himself withheld from expressing his ardent but respectful feelings for Madame Hanska; he assures her, again and again, of her influence upon his life, and he sends friendly messages to Monsieur Hanski, which are returned in an evidently kind and cordial way.

To the translation of the "Lettres à l'Étrangère" I have added that of all the letters to Madame Hanska during the rest of Balzac's life which are contained in the volume of Correspondence in the Édition Définitive. The "Lettres à l'Étrangère"--those, I mean, that are genuine--ought, if published at all, to have been shortened. They were written to give vent to the emotions of a heart and soul under violent pressure; perhaps no letters exist that ever came so hot from the inner being; they lay bare a soul that little dreamed of this exposure, for the man who wrote them never read them over. For this reason, this lack of editing, the reader will surely find them too monotonous in their one long cry; and yet, without them, the world would not have known a tragedy too great for tears, nor the true history of a hero.

I should not have consented to translate these letters unless I had been allowed by my publishers to preface them with these remarks, and give my name and what weight my long, close intercourse with Balzac may possess in his just defence.

KATHARINE P. WORMELEY.

THE SÄTER,

THORN MOUNTAIN.

LETTERS.

I.

LETTERS DURING 1833.

TO MADAME HANSKA.

PARIS, January, 1833.

MADAME,--I entreat you to completely separate the author from the man, and to believe in the sincerity of the sentiments which I have vaguely expressed in the correspondence you have obliged me to hold with you. In spite of the perpetual caution which some friends give me against certain letters like those which I have had the honour to receive from you, I have been keenly touched by a tone that levity cannot counterfeit. If you will deign to excuse the folly of a young heart and a wholly virgin imagination, I will own that you have been to me the object of the sweetest dreams; in spite of my hard work I have found myself more than once galloping through space to hover above the unknown country where you, also unknown, live alone of your race. I have taken pleasure in comprehending you among the remains almost always unfortunate of a dispersed people, a people scattered thinly over the earth, exiled perhaps from heaven, but of whom each being has language and sentiments to him peculiar and unlike those of other men,--delicacy, choiceness of soul, chasteness of feeling, tenderness of heart, purer, sweeter, gentler than in the best of other created beings. There is something saintly in even their enthusiasms, and calm in their ardour. These poor exiles have all, in their voices, their words, their ideas, something, I know not what, which distinguishes them from others, which serves to bind them to one another in spite of distance, lands, and language; a word, a phrase, the very sentiment exhaled in a look are like a rallying call which they obey; and, compatriots of a hidden land whose charms are reproduced in their memories, they recognize and love one another in the name of that country toward which they stretch their arms. Poesy, music, and religion are their three divinities, their favourite loves; and all these passions awake in their hearts sensations that are equally powerful.

I have clothed you with all these ideas. I have held out to you my hand, fraternally, from afar, without conceit, without affectation, but with a confidence that is almost domestic, with sincerity; and could you have seen my glance you would have recognized within it both the gratitude of a lover and the religions of the heart,--the pure tenderness that binds the son to a mother, the brother to a sister, the respect of a young man for woman, and the delightful hopes of a long and fervent friendship.

'T was an episode wholly romantic; but who will dare to blame the romantic? It is only frigid souls who cannot conceive all there is of vast in the emotions to which the unknown gives full scope. The less we are restrained by reality, the higher is the flight of the soul. I have therefore let myself gently float upon my reveries, and they are ravishing. So, if a star darts from your candle, if your ear should catch a distant murmur, if you see figures in the fire, if something sparkles or speaks beside you, near you, believe that my spirit is wandering among your panels.

Amid the battle I am fighting, amid my heavy toil, my endless studies, in this agitated Paris, where politics and literature absorb some sixteen or eighteen hours of the twenty-four, to me, an unfortunate man, widely different from the author that people imagine, come charming hours which I owe to you. So, in order to thank you, I dedicated to you the fourth volume of the "Scènes de la Vie privée," putting your seal at the head of the last "Scene," which I was writing at the moment when I received your first letter. But a person who is a mother for me, and whose caprices and even jealousy I am bound to respect, exacted that this silent testimony of secret sentiments should be suppressed. I have the sincerity to avow to you both the dedication and its destruction, because I believe you have a soul sufficiently lofty not to desire a homage which would cause grief to a person as noble and grand as she whose child I am, for she preserved me in the midst of griefs and shipwreck where in my youth I nearly perished. I live by the heart only, and she made me live! I have saved the only copy of that dedication for which I was blamed as if it were a horrible coquetry; keep it, madame, as a souvenir and by way of thanks. When you read the book say to yourself that in concluding it and revising it I thought of you and of the compositions which you have preferred to all the others. Perhaps what I am doing is wrong; but the purity of my intentions must absolve me.[1]

Lay the things that shock you in my works, madame, to the account of that necessity which forces us to strike powerfully a blasé public. Having undertaken, rashly no doubt, to represent the whole of literature by the whole of my works; wishing to erect a monument more durable from the mass and the amassing of materials than from the beauty of the edifice, I am obliged to represent everything, that I may not be accused of want of power. But if you knew me personally, if my solitary life, my days of study, privation, and toil were told to you, you would lay aside some of your accusations and perceive more than one antithesis between the man and his writings. Certainly there are some works in which I like to be myself; but you can guess them; they are those in which the heart speaks out. My fate is to paint the happiness that others feel; to desire it in perfection, but never to meet it. None but those who suffer can paint joy, because we express better that which we conceive than that we have experienced.

See to what this confidence has drawn me! But, thinking of all the countries that lie between us, I dare not be brief. Besides, events are so gloomy around my friends and myself! Civilization is threatened; arts, sciences, and progress are threatened. I myself, the organ of a vanquished party representing all noble and religious ideas, I am already the object of lively hatred. The more that is hoped from my voice, the more it is feared. And under these circumstances, when a man is thirty years old and has not worn out his life or his heart, with what passion he grasps a friendly word, a tender speech!...

Perhaps you will never receive anything from me again, and the friendship you have created may be like a flower perishing unknown in the depths of a wood by a stroke of lightning. Know, at least, that it was true, and sincere; you are, in a young and stainless heart, what every woman must desire to be--respected and adored. Have you not shed a perfume on my hours? Do I not owe to you one of those encouragements which make us accept hard toil, the drop of water in the desert?

If events respect me, and in spite of excursions to which my life as poet and artist condemn me, you can, madame, address your letters "Rue Cassini, No. 1, near the Observatory"--unless indeed I have had the misfortune to displease you by this candid expression of the feelings I have for you.

Accept, madame, my respectful homage.

[Footnote 1: This publication of the "Scènes de la Vie privée" took place in May, 1832, nine months before Mme. Hanska's first letter reached Balzac. The above passage must therefore have been forged and interpolated here; probably to bring this letter into line with a tale in "Roman d'Amour" (pp. 55-59), which the same dates prove to be false.--TR.]

PARIS, end of January, 1833.

Pardon me the delay of my answer. I returned to Paris only in December last, and I found your letter in Paris awaiting me. But once here, I was sharply seized by crushing toil and violent sorrows.[1] I must be silent as to the sorrows and the toil. None but God and myself will ever know the dreadful energy a heart requires to be full of tears repressed, and yet suffice for literary labours. To spend one's soul in melancholy, and yet to occupy it ever with fictitious joys and sorrows! To write cold dramas, and keep within us a drama that burns both heart and brain! But let us leave all this. I am alone; I am now shut up at home for a long time, possibly a year. I have already endured these voluntary incarcerations in the name of science and of poverty; to-day, troubles are my jailers.

I have more than once turned my thought to you. But I must still be silent; these are follies. I have one regret; it is to have boasted to you of "Louis Lambert," the saddest of all abortions. I have just employed nearly three months in remaking that book, and it is now appearing in a little 18mo volume, of which there is a special copy for you; it will await your orders and shall be given, with the Chénier, to the person who calls for them; or they shall be sent wherever you write to me to forward them.

This work is still incomplete, though it bears this time the pompous title of "Histoire Intellectuelle de Louis Lambert." When this edition is exhausted, I will publish another "Louis Lambert" more complete.

I tell you naïvely all that you want to know about me. I am still waiting for you to speak to me with equal confidence. You are afraid of ridicule? And of whose? That of a poor child, victim yesterday and victim to-morrow of his feminine bashfulness, his shyness, his beliefs. You have asked me with distrust to give an explanation of my two handwritings; but I have as many handwritings as there are days in the year, without being on that account the least in the world versatile. This mobility comes from an imagination which can conceive all and yet remain virgin, like glass which is soiled by none of its reflections. The glass is in my brain. But my heart, my heart is known but to one woman in the world as yet,--the et nunc et semper dilectæ dicatum of the dedication of "Louis Lambert." Ties eternal and ties broken! Do not blame me. You ask me how we can love, live, and lose each other while still loving. That is a mystery of life of which you know nothing as yet, and I hope you never may know it. In that sad destiny no blame can be attached except to fate; there are two unfortunates, but they are two irreproachable unfortunates. There is no fault to absolve because there is no cause to blame. I cannot add another word.

I am very curious to know if "La Femme abandonnée," "La Grenadière," the "Lettre à Nodier" (in which there are enormous typographical errors), the "Voyage à Java," and "Les Maranas" have pleased you?...

Some days after receiving this letter you will read "Une Fille d'Ève," who will be the type of the "La Femme abandonnée," taken between fifteen and twenty years of age.

At this moment I am finishing a work that is quite evangelical, and which seems to me the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" poetized. It bears an epigraph which will tell the disposition of mind I was in when writing the book: To wounded hearts, silence and shade. One must have suffered to understand that line to its full extent; and one must also have suffered as much as I have done to give birth to it in a day of mourning.

I have flung myself into work, as Empedocles into the crater, to stay there. "La Bataille" will come after "Le Médecin de campagne" (the book I have just told you of); and is there not something to shudder at when I tell you that "La Bataille" is an impossible book? In it I undertake to initiate the reader into all the horrors and all the beauties of a battle-field; my battle is Essling, Essling with all its consequences. This book requires that a man, in cold blood, seated in his chair, shall see the country, the lay of the land, the masses of men, the strategic events, the Danube, the bridges; shall behold the details and the whole of the struggle, hear the artillery, pay attention to all the movements on the chess-board; see all, and feel, in each articulation of the great body, Napoleon--whom I shall not show, or shall only allow to be seen, in the evening, crossing the Danube in a boat! Not a woman's head; cannon, horses, two armies, uniforms. On the first page the cannon roars, and never ceases until the last. You read through smoke, and, the book closed, you have seen it all intuitively; you remember the battle as if you had been present at it.

It is now three months that I have been measuring swords with that work, that ode in two volumes, which persons on all sides tell me is impossible!

I work eighteen hours a day. I have perceived the faults of style which disfigure "La Peau de Chagrin." I corrected them to make it irreproachable; but after two months' labour, the volume being reprinted, I discover another hundred faults. Such are the sorrows of a poet.

It is the same thing with "Les Chouans." I have rewritten that book entirely; but the second edition, which is coming out, has still many spots upon it.

On all sides they shout to me that I do not know how to write; and that is cruel when I have already told myself so, and have consecrated my days to new works, using my nights to perfect the old ones. Like the bears, I am now licking the "Scènes de la Vie privée" and the "Physiologie du Mariage;" after which I shall revise the "Études Philosophiques."

As all my passions, all my beliefs are defeated, as my dreams are dispersed, I am forced to create myself passions, and I choose that of art. I live in my studies. I wish to do better. I weigh my phrases and my words as a miser weighs his bits of gold. What love I thus waste! What happiness is flung to the winds! My laborious youth, my long studies will not have the sole reward I desired for them. Ever since I have breathed and known what a pure breath coming from pure lips was, I have desired the love of a young and pretty woman; yet all has fled me! A few years more and youth will be a memory! I am eligible to the Chamber under the new law which allows us to be men at thirty years of age, and certainly in a few years the recollections of youth will bring me no joys. And then, what hope that I could obtain at forty that which I have missed at twenty? She who is averse to me, being young, will she be less reluctant then? But you cannot understand these moans,--you, young, solitary, living a country life, far from our Parisian world which excites the passions so violently, and where all is so great and so petty. I ought still to keep these lamentations in the depths of my heart....

You have asked my friendship for a youth; I thought of you yesterday in fulfilling a promise of the same kind and devoting myself to a young man whom I hope to embark upon a fine and noble life. You are right; there is a moment in the life of young men when a friendly heart can be very precious. In the park of Versailles is a statue of "Achilles between Vice and Virtue," which seems to me a great work, and I have always thought, when looking at it, of that critical moment in human life. Yes, a young man needs a courageous voice to draw him to the life of manhood while allowing him to gather the flowers of passion that bloom along the wayside.

You will not laugh at me, you, who have written to me so noble a page and lines so melancholy, in which I have believed. You are one of those ideal figures to whom I give the right to come at times and nebulously pose amid my flowers, who smile to me between two camellias, waving aside a rosy heather, and to whom I speak.

You fear the dissipations of the winter for me? Alas! all that I know of the impressions I can produce, comes to me in a few letters from kind souls which set me glowing. I never leave my study, filled with books; I am alone, and I listen and wish to listen to no one. I have such pain in uprooting from my heart my hopes! They must be torn out, one by one, root by root, like flax. To renounce Woman!--my sole terrestrial religion!

You wish to know if I ever met Fedora; if she is true. A woman of cold Russia, the Princess Bagration, is supposed in Paris to be the model of her. I have reached the seventieth woman who has the coolness to recognize herself in that character. They are all of ripe age. Even Madame Récamier is willing to fedorize herself. Not a word of all that is true. I made Fedora out of two women whom I have known without ever being intimate with them. Observation sufficed me, and a few confidences.

There are also some kind souls who will have it that I have courted the handsomest of Parisian courtesans and have hid, like Raphael, behind her curtains. These are calumnies. I have met a Fedora; but that one I shall not paint; besides, the "La Peau de chagrin" was published before I knew her.

I must bid you adieu, and what an adieu! This letter may be a month on its way; you will hold it in your hands, but I may never see you,--you whom I caress as an illusion, who are in my dreams like a hope, and who have so graciously embodied my reveries. You do not know what it is to people the solitude of a poet with a gentle figure, the form of which attracts by the very vagueness which the indefinite lends it. A solitary, ardent heart takes eagerly to a chimera when it is real! How many times I have travelled the road that separates us! what delightful romances! and what postal charges do I not spend at my fireside!

Adieu, then; I have given you a whole night, a night which belonged to my legitimate wife, the "Revue de Paris," that crabbed spouse. Consequently the "Théorie de la Démarche," which I owed to her must be postponed till the month of March, and no one will know why; you and I alone are in the secret. The article was there before me--a science to elucidate; it was arduous, I was afraid of it. Your letter slipped into my memory, and suddenly I put my feet to the embers, forgot myself in my arm-chair,--and adieu "La Démarche;" behold me galloping towards Poland, and re-reading your letters (I have but three)--and now I answer them. I defy you to read two months hence the "Théorie de la Démarche" without smiling at every sentence; because beneath those senseless foolish phrases there are a thousand thoughts of you.

Adieu. I have so little time that you must absolve me. There are but three persons whose letters I answer. This sounds a little like French conceit, and yet it is really most delicate in the way of modesty. More than that, I meant to tell you that you are almost alone in my heart, grandparents excepted.

Adieu. If my rose-tree were not out of bloom I would send you a petal. If you were less fairy-like, less capricious, less mysterious, I would say "write to me often."

P. S. The black seal was an accident. I was not at home, and the friend with whom I was staying at Angoulême was in mourning.

[Footnote 1: This letter is inconsistent with the preceding one, also dated January, 1833. A system of arbitrary dating is thus shown.--TR.]

PARIS, February 24, 1833.

Certainly there is some good genius between us; I dare not say otherwise, for how else can one explain that you should have sent me the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" just when I was working night and day at a book in which I have tried to dramatize the spirit of that work by conforming it to the desires of the civilization of our epoch. How is it that you had the thought to send it to me when I had that of putting its meditative poesy into action, so that across wide space the saintly volume, accompanied by an escort of gentle thoughts, should have come to me as I was casting myself into the delightful fields of a religious idea; coming too, at a moment when, weary and discouraged, I despaired of being able to accomplish this magnificent work of charity; beautiful in its results--if only my efforts should not prove in vain. Oh! give me the right to send you in a month or two my "Médecin de campagne" with the Chénier and the new "Louis Lambert," in which I will write the last corrections. My book will not appear till the first of March. I do not choose to send you that ignoble edition. A few weeks after its appearance I shall have still another ready, and I can then offer you something more worthy of you. The same line of thought presented itself to me in all of them,--poesy, religion, intellect, those three great principles will be united in these three books, and their pilgrimage toward you will be fulfilled; all my thoughts are assembled in them, and if you will draw from that source there will be for you, in me, something inexhaustible.

Now I know that my book will please you. You send me the Christ upon the cross, and I, I have made him bearing his cross. There lies the idea of the book: resignation and love; faith in the future and the shedding of the fragrance of benefits around us. What joy for a man to have at last been able to do a work in which he can be himself, in which he may pour out his soul without fear of ridicule, because in serving the passions of the mob he has conquered the right, dearly bought, of being heard in a day of grave thought. Have you read "Juana"? Tell me if she pleases you.

You have awakened many diverse curiosities in me; you are capable of a delightful coquetry which it is impossible to blame. But you do not know how dangerous it is to a lively imagination and a heart misunderstood, a heart full of rejected tenderness, to behold thus nebulously a young and beautiful woman. In spite of these dangers, I yield myself willingly to hopes of the heart. My grief is to be able to speak to you of yourself as only a hope, a dream of heaven and of all that is beautiful. I can therefore tell you only of myself; but I abandon myself with you to my most secret thoughts, to my despairs, to my hopes. You are a second conscience; less reproachful perhaps and more kindly than that which rises so imperiously within me at evil moments.

Well, then! I will speak of myself, since it must be so. I have met with one of those immense sorrows which only artists know. After three months' labour I re-made "Louis Lambert." Yesterday, a friend, one of those friends who never deceive, who tell you the truth, came, scalpel in hand, and we studied my work together. He is a logical man, of severe taste, incapable of doing anything himself, but a most profound grammarian, a stern professor, and he showed me a thousand faults. That evening, alone, I wept with despair in that species of rage which seizes the heart when we recognize our faults after toiling so long. Well, I shall set to work again, and in a month or two I will bring forth a corrected "Louis Lambert." Wait for that. Let me send you, when it is ready, a new and fine edition of the four volumes of the Philosophical tales. I am preparing it. "La Peau de chagrin," already corrected, is to be again corrected. If all is not then made perfect, at least it will be less ugly.

Always labour! My life is passed in a monk's cell--but a pretty cell, at any rate. I seldom go out; I have many personal annoyances, like all men who live by the altar instead of being able to worship it. How many things I do which I would fain renounce! But the time of my deliverance is not far off; and then I shall be able to slowly accomplish my work.

How impatient I am to finish "Le Médecin de campagne," that I may know what you think of it--for you will read it no doubt before you receive your own copy. It is the history of a man faithful to a despised love, to a woman who did not love him, who broke his heart by coquetry; but that story is only an episode. Instead of killing himself, the man casts off his life like a garment, takes another existence, and in place of making himself a monk, he becomes the sister of mercy of a poor canton, which he civilizes. At this moment I am in the paroxysm of composition, and I can only speak well of it. When it is finished you will receive the despairs of a man who sees only its faults.

If you knew with what force a solitary soul whom no one wants springs toward a true affection! I love you, unknown woman, and this fantastic thing is only the natural effect of a life that is empty and unhappy, which I have filled with ideas only, diminishing its misfortunes by chimerical pleasures. If this present adventure ought to happen to any one it should to me. I am like a prisoner who, in the depths of his dungeon, hears the sweet voice of a woman. He puts all his soul into a faint yet powerful perception of that voice, and after his long hours of revery, of hopes, after voyages of imagination, the woman, beautiful and young, kills him--so complete would be the happiness. You will think this folly; it is the truth, and far below the truth, because the heart, the imagination, the romance of the passions of which my works give an idea are very far below the heart, the imagination, the romance of the man. And I can say this without conceit, because all those qualities are to me misfortunes. After all, no one attaches himself with greater love to the poesy of this sentiment at once so chimerical and so true. It is a sort of religion, higher than earth, less high than heaven. I like to often turn my eyes toward these unknown skies, in an unknown land, and gather some new strength by thinking that there may be sure rewards for me, when I do well.

Remember, therefore, that there is here, between a Carmelite convent and the Place where the executions take place, a poor being whose joy you are,--an innocent joy according to social laws, but a very criminal one if measured by the weight of affection. I take too much, I assure you, and you would not ratify my dreamy conquests if it were possible to tell you my dreams, dreams which I know to be impossible, but which please me so much. To go where no one in the world knows where I am,--to go into your country, to pass before you unknown, to see you, and return here to write and tell you, "You are thus and so!" How many times have I enjoyed this delightful fancy--I, attached by a myriad lilliputian bonds to Paris, I, whose independence is forever being postponed, I, who cannot travel except in thought! It is yours, that thought; but, in mercy and in the name of that affection which I will not characterize because it makes me too happy, tell me that you write to no one in France but me. This is not distrust nor jealousy; although both sentiments prove love, I think that the suspicions they imply are always dishonouring. No, the motive is a sentiment of celestial perfection which ought to be in you and which I inwardly feel there. I know it, but I would fain be sure.

Adieu; pitiless editors, newspapers, etc., are here; time fails me for all I have to do; there is but a single thing for which I can always find time. Will you be kind, charitable, gracious, excellent? You surely know some person who can make a sepia sketch. Send me a faithful copy of the room where you write, where you think, where you are you--for, you know well, there are moments when we are more ourselves, when the mask is no longer on us. I am very bold, very indiscreet; but this desire will tell you many things, and, after all, I swear it is very innocent.

In the month of May two young Frenchmen who are going to Russia can leave with the person you may indicate, in any town you indicate, the parcel containing André Chénier, my poor "Louis Lambert" and your copy of "Le Médecin de campagne." Write me promptly on this subject. They are two young men who are not inquiring; they will do it as a matter of business. Objects of art are not exposed to the brutalities of the custom-house and you will permit a poor artist to send you a few specimens of art. They are only precious from the species of perfection that artists who love each other give to their work for a brother's sake. At any rate, allow Paris the right to be proud of her worship of art. You will enjoy the gift because none but you and I in the world will know that this book, this copy is the solitary one of its kind. The seal I had engraved upon it is lost. It came to me defaced by rubbing against other letters. You will be very generous to send me an impression inside of your reply.

All this shows that I am occupied with you, and you will not refuse to increase my pleasures; they are so rare!

PARIS, end of March; 1833.

I have told you something of my life; I have not told you all; but you will have seen enough to understand that I have no time to do evil, no leisure to let myself go to happiness. Gifted with excessive sensibility, having lived much in solitude, the constant ill-fortune of my life has been the element of what is called so improperly talent. I am provided with a great power of observation, because I have been cast among all sorts of professions, involuntarily. Then, when I went into the upper regions of society, I suffered at all points of my soul which suffering can touch; there are none but souls that are misunderstood, and the poor, who can really observe, because everything bruises them, and observation results from suffering. Memory only registers thoroughly that which is pain. In this sense it recalls great joy, for pleasure comes very near to being pain. Thus society in all its phases from top to bottom, legislations, religions, histories, the present times, all have been observed and analyzed by me. My one passion, always disappointed, at least in the development I gave to it, has made me observe women, study them, know them, and cherish them, without other recompense than that of being understood at a distance by great and noble hearts. I have written my desires, my dreams. But the farther I go, the more I rebel against my fate. At thirty-four years of age, after having constantly worked fourteen and fifteen hours a day, I have already white hairs without ever being loved by a young and pretty woman; that is sad. My imagination, virile as it is, having never been prostituted or jaded, is an enemy for me; it is always in keeping with a young and pure heart, violent with repressed desires, so that the slightest sentiment cast into my solitude makes ravages. I love you already too much without ever having seen you. There are certain phrases in your letters which make my heart beat. If you knew with what ardour I spring toward that which I have so long desired! of what devotion I feel myself capable! what happiness it would be to me to subordinate my life for a single day! to remain without seeing a living soul for a year, for a single hour! All that woman can dream of that is most delicate, most romantic, finds in my heart, not an echo but, an incredible simultaneousness of thought. Forgive me this pride of misery, this naïveté of suffering.

You have asked me the baptismal name of the dilecta [Mme. de Berny]. In spite of my complete and blind faith, in spite of my sentiment for you, I cannot tell it to you; I have never told it. Would you have faith in me if I told it? No.

You ask me to send you a plan of the place I live in. Listen: in one of the forthcoming numbers of Regnier's "Album" (I will go and see him on the subject) he shall put in my house for you, oh! solely for you! It is a sacrifice; it is distasteful to me to be put en évidence. How little those who accuse me of vanity know me! I have never desired to see a journalist, for I should blush to solicit an article. For the last eight months I have resisted the entreaties of Schnetz and Scheffer, author of "Faust" who wish extremely to make my portrait.

Yesterday I said in jest to Gérard, who spoke to me of the same thing, that I was not a sufficiently fine fish to be put in oils. You will receive herewith a little sketch made by an artist of my study. But I am rather disturbed in sending it to you because I dare not believe in all that your request offers me of joy and happiness. To live in a heart is so glorious a life! To be able to name you secretly to myself in evil hours, when I suffer, when I am betrayed, misunderstood, calumniated! To be able to retire to you!... This is a hope that goes too far beyond me; it is the adoration of God by monks, the Ave Maria written in the cell of a Chartreux,--an inscription which once made me stand at the Grande-Chartreuse, beneath a vault, for ten minutes. Oh! love me! All that you desire of what is noble, true, pure, will be in a heart that has borne many a blow, but is not blasted!

That gentleman was very unjust. I drink nothing but coffee. I have never known what drunkenness was, except from a cigar which Eugène Sue made me smoke against my will, and it was that which enabled me to paint the drunkenness for which you blame me, in the "Voyage à Java." Eugène Sue is a kind and amiable young man, a braggart of vices, in despair at being named Sue, living in luxury to make himself a great seigneur, but for all that, though a little worn-out, worth more than his works, I dare not speak to you of Nodier, lest I should destroy your illusions. His artistic caprices stain that purity of honour which is the chastity of men. But when one knows him, one forgives him his disorderly life, his vices, his lack of conscience for his home. He is a true child of nature after the fashion of La Fontaine. I have just returned from Madame de Girardin's (Delphine Gay). She has the small-pox. Her celebrated beauty is now in danger. This distresses me for Émile, her husband, and for her. She had been vaccinated; present science declares that one ought to be vaccinated every twenty years.

I have returned home to write to you under the empire of a violent annoyance. Out of low envy the editor of the "Revue de Paris" postpones for a week my third number of the "Histoire des Treize." Fifteen days' interval will kill the interest in it, and I had worked day and night to avoid any delay. For this last affair, which is the drop of water in too full a cup, I shall probably cease all collaboration in the "Revue de Paris." I am so disgusted by the tricky enmity which broods there for me that I shall retire from it; and if I retire, it will be forever. To a certain degree my will is cast in bronze, and nothing can make me change it. In reading the "Histoire" in the March number, you will never suspect the base and unworthy annoyances which have been instigated against me in the inner courts of that review. They bargain for me as if I were a fancy article; sometimes they play me monkey tricks [malices de nègre]; sometimes insults upon me are anonymously put into the Album of the Revue; at other times they fall at my feet, basely. When "Juana" appeared, they inserted a notice that made me pass for a madman.

But why should I tell you these miserable things? The joke is that they represent me as being unpunctual; promising, and not keeping my promises. Two years ago, Sue quarrelled with a bad courtesan, celebrated for her beauty (she is the original of Vernet's Judith). I lowered myself to reconcile them, and the consequence is the woman is given to me. M. de Fitz-James, the Duc de Duras, and the old court, all went to her house to talk, as on neutral ground, much as people walk in the alley of the Tuileries to meet one another; and I am expected to be more strait-laced than those gentlemen! In short, by some fatal chance I can't take a step that is not interpreted as evil. What a punishment is celebrity! But, indeed, to publish one's thoughts, is it not prostituting them? If I had been rich and happy they should all have been kept for my love.

Two years ago, among a few friends, I used to tell stories in the evening, after midnight. I have given that up. There was danger of my passing for an amuser; and I should have lost consideration. At every step there is a pitfall. So now I have retired into silence and solitude. I needed the great deception with which all Paris is now busy to fling myself into this other extremity. There is still a Metternich in this adventure; but this time it is the son, who died in Florence. I have already told you of this cruel affair, and I had no right to tell you. Though separated from that person out of delicacy, all is not over yet. I suffer through her; but I do not judge her. Only, I think that if you loved some one, and if you had daily drawn that person towards you into heaven, and you became free, you would not leave him alone at the bottom of an icy abyss after having warmed him with the fire of your soul. But forget all that; I have spoken to you as to my own consciousness. Do not betray a soul that takes refuge in yours.

You have much courage! you have a great and lofty soul; do not tremble before any one, or you will be unhappy; you will meet in life with circumstances that will make you grieve that you did not know how to obtain all the power which you ought to have had and might have had. What I tell you now is the fruit of the experience of a woman advanced in years and purely religious. But, above all, no useless imprudence. Do not pronounce my name; let me be torn in pieces; I do not care for such criticism, provided I can live in two or three hearts which I value more than the whole world beside. I prefer one of your letters to the fame of Lord Byron bestowed by universal approbation. My vocation on this earth is to love, even without hope; provided, nevertheless, I am a little loved also.

Jules Sandeau is a young man. George Sand is a woman. I was interested in both, because I thought it sublime in a woman to leave everything to follow a poor young man whom she loved. This woman, whose name is Mme. Dudevant, proves to have a great talent. It was necessary to save Sandeau from the conscription; they wrote a book between them; the book is good. I liked these two lovers, lodging at the top of a house on the quai Saint-Michel, proud and happy. Madame Dudevant had her children with her. Note that point. Fame arrived, and cast trouble into the dove-cote. Madame Dudevant asserted that she ought to leave it on account of her children. They separated; and this separation is, as I believe, founded on a new affection which George Sand, or Madame Dudevant, has taken for the most malignant of our contemporaries, H. de L. [Henri de Latouche], one of my former friends, a most seductive man, but odiously bad. If I had no other proof than Madame Dudevant's estrangement from me, who received her fraternally with Jules Sandeau, it would be enough. She now fires epigrams against her former host, so that yesterday I found Sandeau in despair. This is how it is with the author of "Valentine" and "Indiana," about whom you ask me.

There is no one, artist or literary person, whom I do not know in Paris, and for the last ten years I have known many things, and things so sad to know that disgust of these people has seized my heart. They have made me understand Rousseau, they cannot pardon me for knowing them; they pardon neither my avoidance of them nor my frankness. But there are some impartial persons who are beginning to speak truth. My name is Honoré, and I wish to be faithful to my name.

What mud all this is! and, as you write me, man is a perverse animal. I do not complain, for heaven has given me three hearts: la dilecta [Madame de Berny], the lady of Angoulême [Mme. Carraud] and a friend [Auguste Borget] who is at this moment making a sketch of my study for you, without knowing for whom it is; and these three hearts, besides my sister and you,--you who can now do so much for my life, my soul, my heart, my mind, you who can save the future from a past given over to suffering,--are my only riches. You will have the right to say that Balzac is diffuse, not quoting from Voltaire, but of your own knowledge.

At this moment of writing, you must have read "Juana," and have, perhaps, given her a tear. In the last chapter there are sentences in which we can well understand each other: "melancholies not understood even by those who have caused them," etc., etc.

Do you not think that I have said too much good of myself and too much evil of others? Do not suppose, however, that all are gangrened. If H..., married for love and having beautiful children, is in the arms of an infamous courtesan, there is in Paris Monsieur Monteil, the author of a fine work ["L'Histoire des Français des divers états aux cinq derniers siècles"], who is living on bread and milk, refusing a pension which he thinks ought not to be given to him. There are fine and noble characters; rare, but there are some. Scribe is a man of honour and courage. I should have to make you a whole history of literary men; it would not be too beautiful.

I entreat you to tell me, with that kittenish, pretty style of yours, how you pass your life, hour by hour; let me share it all. Describe to me the places you live in, even to the colours of the furniture. You ought to keep a journal and send it to me regularly. In spite of my occupations I will write you a line every day. It is so sweet to confide all to a kind and beautiful soul, as one does to God.

To put a stop to some of your illusions, I shall have a sketch made of the "Médecin de campagne" and you will find in it the features, perhaps a little caricatured, of the author. This is to be a secret between you and me. I have been thinking how to send you this copy when it is ready. I think I have found the most natural way, and I will tell it to you, unless you invent a better.

Grant my requests for the details of your life; so that when my thought turns towards you it may meet you, see that work-frame, the flower begun, and follow you through all your hours. If you knew how often wearied thought needs a repose that is partly active, how beneficent to me is the gentle revery that begins: "She is there! now she is looking at such or such a thing." And I--I can give to thought the faculty to spring through space with force enough to abolish it. These are my only pleasures amid continual work.

I have not room to explain to you here what I have undertaken to accomplish this year. In January next you can judge if I have been able to leave my study much. And yet I would like to find two months in which to travel for rest. You ask me for information about Saché. Saché is the remains of a castle on the Indre, in one of the most delicious valleys of Touraine. The proprietor, a man of fifty-five, used to dandle me on his knee. He has a pious and intolerant wife, rather deformed and not clever. I go there for him; and besides, I am free there. They accept me throughout the region as a child; I have no value whatever, and I am happy to be there, like a monk in a monastery. I walk about meditating serious works. The sky is so pure, the oaks so fine, the calm so vast! A league away is the beautiful château d'Azay, built by Samblançay, one of the finest architectural things that we possess. Farther on is Ussé, so famous from the novel of "Petit Jehan de Saintré." Saché is six leagues from Tours. But not a woman! not a conversation possible! It is your Ukraine without your music and your literature. But the more a soul full of love is restricted physically, the more it rises toward the heavens. That is one of the secrets of cell and solitude.

Be generous; tell me much of yourself, just as I tell you much of myself. It is a means of exchanging lives. But let there be no deceptions. I have trembled in writing to you, and have said to myself: "Will this be a fresh bitterness? Will the heavens open to me once more only to drive me out?"

Well, adieu, you who are one of my secret consolations, you, towards whom my soul, my thoughts are flying. Do you know that you address a spirit wholly feminine, and that what you forbid me tempts me immensely? You forbid me to see you? What a sweet folly it would be to do so! It is a crime which I would make you pardon by the gift of my life; I would like to spend it in deserving that pardon. But fear nothing; necessity cuts my wings. I am fastened to my glebe as your serfs to the soil. But I have committed the crime a hundred times in thought! You owe me compensation.

Adieu! I have confided to you the secrets of my life; it is as if I told you that you have my soul.

PARIS, May 29-June 1, 1833.

I have to-day, May 29, received your last letter-journal, and I have made arrangements to answer it as you wish. In the first place I have finally discovered a paper thin enough to send you a journal the weight of which shall not excite the distrust of all the governments through which it passes. Next, I resign myself, from attachment to your sovereign orders, to assume this fatiguing little handwriting, intended for you specially. Have I understood you, my dear star? for there are fearful distances between us, and you shine, pure and bright, upon my life, like the fantastic star attributed to every human being by the astrologers of the middle ages.

Where are you going? You tell me nothing about it. To have all the requirements of a sentiment so grand, so vast, and not to have its confidence, is not that very wrong? You owe me all your thoughts. I am jealous of them.

If I have been long without writing to you it is because I have awaited your answer to my letters, being ignorant as to whether you received them. Even now I do not know where to address the letter I am beginning. Then, this is what has happened to me: from March to April I paid off my agreement with the "Revue de Paris" with a composition entitled, "Histoire des Treize," which kept me working day and night; to this were joined vexations; I felt fatigued, and I went to spend some time in the South, at Angoulême; there I remained, stretched on a sofa, much petted by a friend of my sister, of whom I think I have already told you; and I became sufficiently rested to resume my work.

I found in my new dizain and in the "Médecin de campagne" untold difficulties. These two works (still in press) absorb my nights and days; the time passes with frightful rapidity. My doctor [Dr. Nacquart], alarmed at my fatigue, ordered me to remain a month without doing anything,--neither reading, writing letters, nor writing of any kind; to be, as he expressed it, like Nebuchadnezzar in the form of a beast. This I did. During this inaction vainglory has had its way. MADAME [the Duchesse de Berry] has caused to be written to me the most touching things from the depths of her prison at Blaye. I have been her consolation; and "l'Histoire des Treize" had so interested her that she was on the point of writing to me to be told the end in advance, so much did it agitate her! And an odd thing! M. de Fitz-James writes me that old Prince Metternich never laid the story down, and that he devours my works. But enough of all that. You will read Madame Jules, and when you reach her you will regret having told me to burn your letters. The "Histoire des Treize" [this refers only to one part, "Ferragus"] has had an extraordinary success in this careless and busy Paris.

Forgive my scribbling; my heart and head are always too fast for the rest, and when I correspond with a person I love I often become illegible.

I have just read and re-read your long and delightful letter. How glad I am that you are making the journal I asked of you. Now that this is agreed upon between us I will confide to you all my thoughts and the events of my life, as you will yours to me. Your letter has done me great good. My poor artist [Auguste Borget] is one of my friends. At this moment he is roaming the shores of the Mediterranean, or you would have had by this time a sketch of my chamber or my little salon. I cannot yet tell you his name; but he will perhaps put it on a landscape he is to make in the copy of the "Médecin de campagne" which is destined for you, but cannot be ready before next autumn. He is a great artist, still more a noble heart, a young man full of determination and pure as a young girl. He was not willing to exhibit this year some magnificent studies. He wants to study two years longer before appearing, and I praise the resolution. He will be great at one stroke.

Regnier, who is making the collection of the dwellings of celebrated persons, was here yesterday; my house will be (for you) in the next number, and, to finish up the quarter, he will put in the Observatoire, on the side where M. Arago lives. That is the side I look upon; it is opposite to me.

I hope "Le Médecin de campagne" will appear within the next fortnight. This is the work that I prefer. My two counsellors cannot hear fragments of it without shedding tears. As for me, what care bestowed upon it!--but what annoyances! The publisher wanted to summons me to deliver the manuscript more rapidly! I have only worked at it eight months; yet to all the world this delay--put it in comparison with the work--will seem diabolical. You shall have an ordinary copy, in which I want you to read the composition. Do not buy it; wait, I entreat you, for the handy volume I intend for you, besides the grand copy. You know how much I care that you shall read me in a copy that I have chosen. It is a gospel; it is a book to be read at all moments. I desire that the volume in itself shall not be indifferent to you; there will be a thought, a caress for you on every page.

Before I can hear from you where to address my letters, much time must elapse. I can therefore talk to you at length. To-morrow I will speak of your last letter, which I have near me, very near me, so that it perfumes me. Oh! how a secret sentiment brightens life! how proud it renders it! If you knew what part you have in my thoughts! how many times during this month of idleness, under that beautiful blue sky of Angoulême, I have delightfully journeyed toward you, occupying my mind with you, uneasy about you, knowing you ill, receiving no answers, and giving myself up to a thousand fancies. I live much through you, perhaps too much: betrayed already by a person who had only curiosity, my hopes in you are not devoid of a sort of terror, a fear. Oh! I am more of a child than you suppose.

Yesterday I went to see Madame Récamier, whom I found ill, but wonderfully bright and kind. I had heard she did much good, and very nobly, in being silent and making no complaint of the ungrateful beings she has met. No doubt she saw upon my face a reflection of what I thought of her, and, without explaining to herself this little sympathy, she was charming to me.

In the evening I went to see (for I have been only six days in Paris) Madame Émile de Girardin, Delphine Gay, whom I found almost well of her small-pox. She will have no marks. There were bores there, so I came away,--one of them that enemy to all laughter, the bibliophile X..., about whom you ask me for news. Alas! I can tell you all in a word. He has married an actress, a low and obscure woman of bad morals, who, the week before marrying him, had sent to one of my classmates, S..., the editor of the "National," a bill of her debts, by way of flinging him the handkerchief. The bibliophile had said much harm of this actress; he did not then know her. He went behind the scenes of the Odéon, fell in love with her, and she, in revenge, married him. The vengeance is complete; she is the most dreadful tyrant I ever knew. She has resumed her actress allurements, and rules him. There is no talent possible to him under such circumstances. He calls himself a bibliophile and does not know what bibliography is; Nodier and the amateurs laugh at him. He needs much money, and he stays in literature for want of funds to be a banker or a merchant of fashions. Hence his books,--"Divorce," "Vertu et Tempérament," and all that he does. He is the culminating point of mediocrity. By one of those chances that seem occult, I knew of his behaving horribly to a poor woman whose seduction he had undertaken as if it were a matter of business. I have seen that woman weeping bitter tears at having belonged to a man whom she did not esteem and who had no talent.

Sandeau has just gone to Italy; he is in despair; I thought him crazy....

As for Janin, another alas!... Janin is a fat little man who bites everybody. The preface to "Barnave" is not by him, but by Béquet, on the staff of the "Journal des Débats," a witty man, ill-conducted, who was hiding with Janin to escape his creditors. Béquet was a school-mate of mine; he came to me, already an old man from his excesses, to weep over his trouble. Janin had taken from him a poor singer who was all Béquet's joy. The "Chanson de Barnave" is by de Musset; the infamous chapter about the daughters of Sejanus is by a young man named Félix Pyat.

For mercy's sake, leave me free to be silent about these things when they are too revolting. They run from ear to ear in the salons, and one must needs hear them. I have already told you about H...; well! married for love, having wife and children, he fell in love with an actress named J..., who, among other proofs of tenderness, sent him a bill of seven thousand francs to her laundress, and H... was forced to sign notes of hand to pay the love-letter. Fancy a great poet, for he is a poet, working to pay the washerwoman of Mademoiselle J...! Latouche is envious, spiteful, and malicious; he is a fount of venom; but he is faithful to his political creed, honest, and conceals his private life. Scribe is very ill; he has worn himself out in writing.

General rule: there are few artists or great men who have not had their frailties. It is difficult to have a power and not to abuse it. But then, some are calumniated. Here, except about the washerwoman's bill, a thing I have only heard said, all that I have told you are facts that I know personally.

Adieu for to-day, my dear star; in future I will only tell you of things that are good or beautiful in our country, for you seem to me rather ill-disposed towards it. Do not see our warts; see the poor and luckless friends of Sandeau subscribing to give him the needful money to go to Italy; see the two Johannots, so united, so hard-working, living like the two Corneilles. There are good hearts still.

Adieu; I shall re-read your pages to-night before I sleep, and to-morrow I will write you my day. This day I have corrected the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the "Médecin de campagne" and signed an agreement for the publication of the "Scènes de la Vie Parisienne." I wish I knew what you were doing at the moments when my mind is occupied with you.

During my absence a horse I was fond of died, and three beautiful unknown ladies came to see me. They must have thought me disdainful. I opened their letters on arriving. There was no address; all was mysterious as a bonne fortune. But I am exclusive; I write to none but you, and chance has sent my answer to those inquisitive women.

PARIS, July 19-August 8, 1833.

You have not been either forgotten or less loved; but you yourself have been a little forgetful. You have not written to me how long a time you were to stay in Vienna, so that I might know if my reply would reach you there. Then you have written the name of your correspondent so illegibly that I copy it with fear that there may be some mistake.

That said, I have written you several letters which I have burned for fear of displeasing you, and I will now sum up for you in very few words my recent life.

An odious lawsuit was instituted against me by a publisher, à propos of "Le Médecin de campagne." The work was finished to-day, July 19, and will be sold by a publisher appointed by the court. As for that book, I have buried therein since I last wrote to you more than sixty nights. You will read it, you, my distant angel, and you will see how much of heart and life has been spent in that work, with which I am not yet very content.

My work has so absorbed me that I could not give you my thoughts; I am so weary, and for me life is such a desert! The only sentiment apparently true that dawns in my real life is a thousand leagues away from me. Does it not need all the power of a poet's heart to find consolation there; to say to itself amid such toil: "She will quiver with joy in seeing that her name has occupied me, that she herself was present to my thought, and that what I dwelt on as loveliest and noblest in that young girl I have named for her"? You will see in reading the book that you were in my soul as a light.

I have nothing to tell you about myself, because I have been working night and day without seeing any one. Nevertheless, a few unknown ladies have rapped at my door and have written to me. But I have not a vulgar soul, and, as la dilecta says, "If I were young and pretty I should come, and not write this." So I drop all that into the void. There is something of you in this feminine reserve. A crown of the nature of that to which I aspire is given in its entirety; it cannot be divided.

Well, still some days, some months of labour, and I shall have ended one of my tasks. I shall then take a brief repose and refresh my brain by a journey; friends have already proposed to me Germany, Austria, Moravia, Russia. Non so. I do not yet know what I shall do. You are so despotic in your orders that I am afraid to go your way; there would be a double danger there for me.

Your letters delight me; they make me love you more and more; but this life, which turns incessantly toward you, is consumed in efforts and returns to me no richer. To love one another without personal knowledge is torture.

August 1, 1833.

Twelve days' interval without being able to resume my letter! Judge my life by that. It is a perpetual combat, without relaxing. The wretches! they don't know what they destroy of poesy.

My lawsuit will be decided to-morrow. "L'Europe Littéraire" has quoted the "Story of the Emperor" told by a soldier of the Imperial Guard to peasants in a barn (one of the chief things in the "Médecin de campagne"). Bah! And here are speculators who for the last week have stolen me, printed me without my permission, and have sold over twenty thousand copies of that fragment! I could use the law with rigour, but that's unworthy of me. They neither give my name, nor that of the work; they murder me and say nothing; they rob me of my fame and my pittance,--me, a poor man! You will some day read that gigantic fragment, which has made the most unfeeling weep, and which a hundred newspapers have reproduced. Friends tell me that from end to end of France there has risen a cry of admiration. What will it be for the whole work!

I send herewith a scrap of a former letter which I had not entirely burned.

Since the 19th of last month I have had nothing but troubles, anxieties, and toil. To finish this little letter, I have to take part of a night, and I think it a gentle recreation.

I leave in a week for the country so as to finish in peace the third dizain of the "Contes Drolatiques" and a great historical novel called "Privilège." Always work! You can, I think, without blushing, allow yourself to read the third dizain. It is almost pure.

I await, assuredly with anxiety, your letter relating to "Le Médecin de campagne." Write me quickly what you think of it; tell me your emotions.

Mon Dieu! I would fain recount to you a thousand thoughts; but there is a pitiless somebody who hurries and commands me. Be generous, write to me, do not scold me too much for a seeming silence; my heart speaks to you. If a spark flames up in your candle at night, consider the little gleam as a message of the thoughts of your friend. If your fire crackles, think of me who think often of you. Yes, dream true in saying to yourself that your words not only echo, but they remain in my memory; that in the most obscure corner of Paris there is a being who puts you into all his dreams, who counts you for much in his sentiments, whom you animate at times, but who, at other times is sad and calls to you, as we hope for a chance that is well-nigh impossible.

PARIS, August 8, 1833.

I have received your letter from Switzerland, from Neufchâtel.

Will you not be much dissatisfied with yourself when you know that you have given me great pain at a moment when I already had much? After all that I have said to you, was not my silence significant of misfortunes? I now inclose to you the letters begun before I received this letter from Switzerland in which you give me your exact address.

I will not explain to you the troubles that overwhelm me; they are such that I thought yesterday of quitting France. Besides, the lawsuit which troubles me so much is very difficult to explain even to the judges; you will feel therefore that I cannot tell you anything about it in a letter. Mon Dieu! if you have never thought that I might have untold troubles, your heart should have told you that I did not enter your soul to leave it as you suppose me to have done, and that I did not forget you. You do not know with what strength a man who has met with nothing but toil without reward, sorrows without joy, fastens to a heart in which for the first time he finds the consolations that he needs. The fragments of letters which I now send you have been under my hand for the last three months, but for three months past I have not had a day, an hour, to write to the persons I love best. But you are far away; you know nothing of my life of toil and anguish. At any rate, I pardon you the badnesses which reveal such force in your heart for him whom you love a little.

Later, I will write you in detail; but to-day I can only send you these beginnings of letters, assuring you of my constant faith. I intend to plead my case myself, and I must study it.

Nothing can better picture to you the agitated life which I lead than these fragments of letters. I have not the power or the faculty to give myself up for an hour to any connected subject outside of my writings and my business matters. When will this end? I do not know. But I am very weary of this perpetual struggle between men and things and me.

I must bid you adieu. Write to me always, and have faith in me. During the hours of release that come to me I shall turn to you and tell you all there is of good and tender sentiments in me for you. Adieu; some day you will know how unhappy I was in writing you these few lines, and you will be surprised that I was able to write them.

Adieu; love him who loves you.

PARIS, August 19, 1833.

What would I not pardon after reading your letter, my cherished angel? But you are too beloved ever to be guilty of a fault; you are a spoilt child; to you belong my most precious hours. See, I answer you alone. Mon Dieu! do not be jealous of any one. I have not been to see Madame Récamier or any one else. I do not love Madame de Girardin; and every time I go there, which is rare, I bring away with me an antipathy.[1]... It is ten months since I have seen Eugène Sue, and really I have no male friends in the true acceptation of the word.

Do not read the "Écho de la Jeune France." The second part of "Histoire des Treize" ought to be in it, but those men have acted so badly towards me that I have ceased to do what, out of extreme good-will to a college friend interested in the enterprise, I began by doing. You will find a grand and beautiful story just begun; the first chapter good, the second bad. They had the impertinence to print my notes, without waiting for the work I always undertake as it goes through the press, and I shall now not complete the history till I put it in the "Scènes de la Vie Parisienne" which will appear this winter.

I have only a moment in which to answer you; I live by chance, and by fits and starts. Perdonatemi.

Since I last wrote to you in such a hurry I have had more troubles than I ever had before in my life.

My lawyers, my solicitors, everybody, implore me not to spend eight months of my life in the law-courts, and yesterday I signed a compromise allowing all questions in litigation to be sovereignly decided by two arbitrators. That is how I now stand. The affair will be decided by the end of the week, and I shall then know the extent of my losses and my obligations.

Of the three copies I have had made of "Le Médecin de campagne" nothing exists that I can send you, unless it be the first volume. But here is what I shall do: I shall have duplicate proofs made of the second volume, and you shall read them ten days hence, before the rest of the world. I have already found many blemishes, therefore it is a copy of the second edition only that I wish to give you; which will prove to you my tenderness, for I don't know for whom else I would take the trouble to write myself the title for printing [le titre en regard de l'impression].

The extreme disorder which this lawsuit and the time taken in making this book has brought into my affairs, obliges me to take service once more in the newspapers. For the last week I have been very actively working on "L'Europe littéraire" in which I own a share. Thursday next the "Théorie de la Démarche" will be finished. It is a long and very tiresome treatise. But by the end of the month there will be a "Scène de la Vie de province," in the style of "Les Célibataires," called "Eugénie Grandet," which will be better. Take "L'Europe littéraire" for three months.

You have not told me whether you have read "Juana" in the "Revue de Paris," nor whether you have found the end of "Ferragus." I would like to know if I ought to send you those two things. As for the dizains of the "Contes Drolatiques," do not read them. The third you might read. The first two belong, like those which follow the third, to a special literature. I know women of exquisite taste and lofty devotion who do read them; but in truth I never reckoned on such rare suffrages. It is a work that cannot be judged until completed, and ten years hence. It is a literary monument built for a few connoisseurs. If you do not like La Fontaine's Tales, nor those of Boccaccio, and if you are not an adorer of Ariosto, let the "Contes Drolatiques" alone; although they will be my finest meed of fame in the future. I tell you this once for all, not to return to it.

I send to you, to the address of Henriette Borel,[2] by to-morrow's carrier, a unique "Louis Lambert" on Chinese paper, which I have had printed for you, believing my work perfect. But I have the grief to tell you that there is now a new manuscript for the future edition of the "Études Philosophiques." You will also find in the package the first volume of "Le Médecin de campagne," and I will send you the second as soon as there is a copy. I hope to make you wait not more than eight or ten days for it. Evelina is in the second volume. If you receive these volumes safely I will send you the Chénier I have here for you.

Now that what I regard as business is ended, let us speak of ourselves--Ourselves! Who told you about the little Metternich? As to the services I have rendered Eugène Sue, I do not understand. But, I entreat, do not listen to either calumny or gossip; I am the butt of evil tongues. Yesterday one of my friends heard a fool relating that I had two talismans in my house, in which I believed; two drinking-glasses; on one of which depended my life, on the other my talent. You cannot imagine what nonsense is told about me, calumnies, crazy incriminations! There is but one thing true--my solitary life, increasing toil, and sorrows.

No, you do not know how cruel and bitter it is to a loving man to ever desire happiness and never meet it. Woman has been my dream; yet I have stretched my arms to none but illusions. I have conceived of the greatest sacrifices. I have even dreamed of one sole day of perfect happiness in a year; of a woman who would have been as a fairy to me. With that I could have been content and faithful. And here I am, advancing in life, thirty-four years old, withering myself with toil that is more and more exacting, having lost already my finest years and gained nothing real.

You, you, my dear star, you fear--you, young and beautiful--to see me; you overwhelm me with unjust suspicions. Those who suffer never betray; they are the betrayed.

Benjamin Constant has made, as I think, the arraignment of men of the world and intriguers; but there are noble exceptions. When you have read the Confession in the "Médecin de campagne" you will change your opinion, and you will understand that he who, for the first time, revealed his heart in that book ought not to be classed among the cold men who calculate everything. O my unknown love, do not distrust me, do not think evil of me. I am a child, that is the whole of it--a child, with more levity than you suppose, but pure as a child and loving as a child. Stay in Switzerland or near France. In two months I must have rest. Well, you shall hear, perhaps without terror, a "Conte Drolatique" from the lips of the author. Oh! yes, let me find near you the rest I need after this twelvemonth of labour. I can take a name that is not known, beneath which I will hide myself. It will be a secret between you and me. Everybody would suspect M. de Balzac, but who knows M. d'Entragues? Nobody.[3]

Mon Dieu! what you wish, I wish. We have the same desires, the same anxieties, the same apprehensions, the same pride. I, too, cannot conceive of love otherwise than as eternal, applying that word to the duration of life. I do not comprehend that persons [on] should quit each other, and, to me, one woman is all women. I would break my pen to-morrow if you desired it; to-morrow no other woman should hear my voice. I should ask exception for my dilecta, who is a mother to me. She is nearly fifty-eight years old, and you could not be jealous of her--you, so young. Oh! take, accept my sentiments and keep them as a treasure! Dispose of my dreams, realize them? I do not think that God would be severe to one who presents herself before him followed by an adorable cortège of beautiful hours, happiness, and delightful life given by her to a faithful being. I tell you all my thoughts. As for me, I dread to see you, because I shall not realize your preconceived ideas; and yet I wish to see you. Truly, dear, unknown soul who animate my life, who bid my sorrows flee, who revive my courage during grievous hours, this hope caresses me and gives me heart. You are the all in all of my prodigious labour. If I wish to be something, if I work, if I turn pale through laborious nights, it is, I swear to you, because I live in your emotions, I try to guess them in advance; and for this I am desperate to know if you have finished "Ferragus;" for the letter of Madame Jules is a page full of tears, and in writing it I thought much of you; offering to you there the image of the love that is in my heart, the love that I desire, and which, in me, has been constantly unrecognized. Why? I love too well, no doubt. I have a horror of littlenesses, and I believe in what is noble, without distrust. I have written in your "Louis Lambert" a saying of Saint Paul, in Latin: Una fides; one only faith, a single love.

Mon Dieu! I love you well; know that. Tell me where you will be in October. In October I shall have a fortnight to myself. Choose a beautiful place; let it be all of heaven to me.

Adieu, you who despotically fill my heart; adieu. I will write to you once every week at least. You, whose letters do me so much good, be charitable; cast, in profusion, the balm of your words into a heart that is athirst for them. Be sure, dear, that my thought goes out to you daily; that my courage comes from you; that one hard word is a wound, a mourning. Be good and great; you will never find (and here I would fain be on my knees before you that you might see my soul in a look) a heart more delicately faithful, nor more vast, more exclusive.

Adieu, then, since it must be. I have written to you while my solicitor has been reading to me his conclusions, for the case is to be judged the day after to-morrow, and I must spend the night in writing a summary of my affair.

Adieu; in five or six days you will have a volume that has cost much labour and many nights. Be indulgent to the faults that remain in spite of my care; and, my adored angel, forget not to cast a few flowers of your soul to him who guards them as his noblest wealth; write to me often. As soon as the judgment is rendered I will write to you; it will be on Thursday.

Well, adieu. Take all the tender regards that I place here. I would fain envelop you in my soul.

[Footnote 1: This is not true. The antipathy, if any, was to Émile de Girardin, and it put an end for a time to Balzac's visits to the house. See Éd. Déf., vol. xxiv., p. 198.--TR.]

[Footnote 2: Mlle. Henriette Borel was governess in the Hanski family. She was a native of Neufchâtel, and M. Hanski employed her to select and engage a furnished house there for himself and family, to which they went in May, 1833. She was the "Lirette" who took the veil in Paris (December, 1845); of which ceremony Balzac gives a vivid account in one of the following letters.--TR.]

[Footnote 3: If Balzac ever wrote this paragraph (which I believe to be an interpolation made to fit the theory in "Roman d'Amour") he fell ludicrously short of his design; for he wrote letters to friends about this journey, two from Neufchâtel during the five days he stayed there (pp. 181-183, vol. xxiv., Éd. Déf.); he stopped half way to see manufacturers and transact business with them in his own name; he took with him to Neufchâtel his artist-friend, Auguste Borget; and he made the acquaintance, not of Madame Hanska only, but of Monsieur Hanski, who remained his friend through life and his occasional correspondent.--TR.]

PARIS, end of August, 1833.

My dear, pure love, in a few days I shall be at Neufchâtel. I had already decided to go there in September; but here comes a most delightful pretext. I must go on the 20th or 25th of August to Besançon, perhaps earlier, and then, you understand, I can be in the twinkling of an eye at Neufchâtel. I will inform you of my departure by a simple little line.

I have given to speculators a great secret of fortune, which will result in books, blackened paper,--salable literature, in short.[1] The only man who can manufacture our paper lives in the environs of Besançon. I shall go there with my printer.

Ah! yes, I have had money troubles; but if you knew with what rapidity eight days' labour can appease them! In ten days I can earn a hundred louis at least. But this last trouble has made me think seriously of no longer being a bird on a branch, thoughtless of seed, fearing nought but rain, and singing in fine weather. So now, at one stroke, I shall be rich--for one needs gold to satisfy one's fancies. You see I have received your letter in which you complain of life, of your life, which I would fain render happy.

Oh! my beloved angel, now you are reading, I hope, the second volume of "Le Médecin de campagne;" you will see one name written with joy on every page. I liked so much to occupy myself with you, to speak to you. Do not be sad, my good angel; I strive to envelop you in my thought. I would like to make you a rampart against all pain. Live in me, dear, noble heart, to make me better, and I, I will live in you to be happy. Yes, I will go to Geneva after seeing you at Neufchâtel; I will go and work there for a fortnight. Oh! my dear and beloved Evelina, a thousand thanks for this gift of love. You do not know with what fidelity I love you, unknown--not unknown of the soul--and with what happiness I dream of you. Oh! each year, to have so sweet a pilgrimage to make! Were it only for one look I would go to seek it with boundless happiness! Why be displeased about a woman fifty-eight years old, who is a mother to me, who folds me in her heart and protects me from stings? Do not be jealous of her; she would be so glad of our happiness. She is an angel, sublime. There are angels of earth and angels of heaven; she is of heaven.

I have the contempt for money that you profess; but money is a necessity; and that is why I am putting such ardour into the vast and extraordinary enterprise which will burst forth in January. You will like the result. To it I shall owe the pleasure of being able to travel rapidly and to go oftener toward you.

Una fides; yes, my beloved angel, one sole love and all for you. It is very late for a young man whose hairs are whitening; but his heart is ardent; he is as you wish him to be, naïve, childlike, confiding. I go to you without fear; yes, I will drive away the shyness which has kept me so young, and stretch to you a hand old in friendship, a brow, a soul that is full of you.

Let us be joyous, my adored treasure; all my life is in you. For you I would suffer everything!

You have made me so happy that I think no longer of my lawsuit. The loss is reckoned up. I have done like le distrait of La Bruyère--established myself well in my ditch. For three thousand eight hundred francs flung to that man, I shall have liberty on a mountain.

I will bring you your Chénier, and will read it to you in the nook of a rock before your lake. Oh, happiness!

What a likeness between us! both of us mismanaged by our mothers. How that misfortune developed sensitiveness. Why do you speak of a "cherished lamb"? Are you not my dear Star, an angel towards whom I strive to mount?

I have still three pages on which to talk with you, but here comes business, lawyers, conferences. À bientôt, A thousand tendernesses of the soul.

You speak to me of a faithless woman; but there is no infidelity where there was no love.

[Footnote 1: This was one of his amusing visions of making a fortune.--TR.]

PARIS, September 9, 1833.

Winter is already here, my dear soul, and already I have resumed my winter station in the corner of that little gallery you know of. I have left the cool, green salon from which I saw the dome of the Invalides over twenty acres of leafage. It was in this corner that I received and read your first letter, so that now I love it better than before. Returning to it, I think of you more specially, you, my cherished thought; and I cannot resist speaking a little word to you, conversing one fraction of an hour with you. How could it be that I should not love you, you, the first woman who came across the spaces to warm a heart that despaired of love. I had done all to draw to me an angel from on high; fame was only a pharos to me, nothing more. Then you divined all,--the soul, the heart, the man. And yesterday, re-reading your letter, I saw that you alone had the instinct to feel all that is my life. You ask me how I can find time to write to you. Well, my dear Eve (let me abridge your name, it will tell you better that you are all the sex to me, the only woman in the world, like the first woman to the first man),--well, you alone have asked yourself if a poor artist to whom time lacks, does not make sacrifices that are immense in thinking of and writing to her he loves. Here, no one thinks of that; they take my hours without scruple. But now I would fain consecrate my whole life to you, think only of you, and write for you only.

With what joy, if I were free of cares, would I fling all palms, all fame, and my finest works like grains of incense on the altar of love. To love, Eve,--that is my life!

I should long ago have wished to ask you for your portrait if there were not some insult, I know not what, in the request. I do not want it until after I have seen you. To-day, my flower of heaven, I send you a lock of my hair; it is still black, but I hasten it to defy time. I am letting my hair grow, and people ask why. Why? Because I want enough to make you chains and bracelets!

Forgive me, my dearest, but I love you as a child loves, with all the joys, all the superstitions, all the illusions of its first love. Cherished angel, how often I have said to myself: "Oh! if I were loved by a woman of twenty-seven, how happy I should be; I could love her all my life without fearing the separations that age decrees." And you, my idol, you are forever the realization of that ambition of love.

Dear, I hope to start on the 18th for Besançon. It depends on imperative business. I would have broken that off if it did not concern my mother and many very serious interests. I should be thought a lunatic, and I have already trouble enough to pass for a man of sense.

If you will take "L'Europe littéraire" from the 15th of August you will find the whole of the "Théorie de la Démarche" and a "Conte Drolatique" called "Perseverance d'amour," which you can read without fear. It will give you an idea of the first two dizains.

You have now read "Le Médecin de campagne." Alas! my critical friends and I have already found more than two hundred faults in the first volume! I thirst for the second edition, that I may bring the book to its perfection. Have you laid down the book at the moment when Benassis utters the adored name?

I am working now at "Eugénie Grandet," a composition which will appear in "L'Europe littéraire" when I am travelling.

I must bid you adieu. Do not be sad, my love; it is not allowable that you should be when you can live at all moments in a heart where you are sure of being as you are in your own, and where you will find more thoughts full of you than there are in yours.

I have had a box made to hold and perfume letter-paper; and I have taken the liberty to have one like it made for you. It is so sweet to say, "She will touch and open this little casket, now here." And then, I think it so pretty; besides, it is made of bois de France; and it can hold your Chénier, the poet of love,--the greatest of French poets, whose every line I would like to read to you on my knees.

Adieu, treasure of joy, adieu. Why do you leave blank pages in your letters? But leave them, leave them. Do nothing forced. Those blanks I fill myself. I say to myself, "Her arm passed here," and I kiss the blank! Adieu, my hopes. À bientôt. The mail-cart goes, they say, in thirty-six hours to Besançon.

Well, adieu, my cherished Eve, my eloquent and all-gracious star. Do you know that when I receive a letter from you a presentiment, I don't know what, has already announced it. So to-day, 9th, I am certain I shall get one to-morrow. Your lake--I see it; and sometimes my intuition is so strong that I am sure that when I really see you I shall say, "'Tis she!"--"She, my love, is thou!"

Adieu; à bientôt.

PARIS, September 13, 1833.

Your last letter, of the 9th, has caused me I cannot tell what keen pain; it has entered my heart to desolate it. It is now three hours that I have been sitting here plunged in a world of painful thoughts. What crape you have fastened on the sweetest, most joyous hopes which ever caressed my soul! What! that book, which I now hate, has given you weapons against me? Do you not know with what impetuosity I spring to happiness? I was so happy! You put God between us! You will not have my joys, you divide your heart: you say, "There, I will live with him; here, I will live no more." You make me know all the agonies of jealousy against ideas, against reason! Mon Dieu, I would not say to you wicked sophisms; I hate corruption as much as violation; I would not owe a woman to seduction, nor even to the power of good. The sentiment which crowns me with joy, which delights me, is the free and pure sentiment which yields neither to the grace of evil nor to the attraction of good; an involuntary sentiment, roused by intuitive perception and justified by happiness. You gave me all that; I lived in a clear heaven, and now you have flung me into the sorrows of doubt. To love, my angel, is to have nothing in the heart but the person loved. If love is not that, it is nothing. As for me, I have no longer a thought that is not for you; my life is you. Griefs?--I have had none to speak of for several days. There are no longer griefs or pains to me but those you give me; the rest are mere annoyances. I said to myself, "I am so happy that I ought to pay for my happiness." Oh! my beloved, she who presents herself in heaven accompanied by a soul made happy by her can always enter there! I have known noble hearts, souls very pure, very delicate; but these women never hesitated to say that to love is the virtue of women. It is I who ought to be the good and the evil for you. Confess yourself? Good God! to whom, and for what? My angel, live in your sphere; consider the obligations of the world as a duty imposed upon your inward joys; live in two beings; in the unknown you, the most delightful, and the known you--two divisions of your time; the happy dreams of night, the harsh toils of day.

If what I say to you here is evil, my God! it is without my knowledge. Do not put me among the Frenchmen whom people believe they have the right to accuse of levity, fatuity, and evil creeds about women. There is nothing of that in me. To betray love for a man or an idea is one and the same thing. Oh! I have suffered from this betrayal! A glacial cold has seized me at the mere apprehension of new sorrows. I shall resist no more; I am not strong enough. I must be done with this life of tender sentiments, exalted feelings, happiness dreamed of, constant, faithful love which you have roused for the first and the last time in all its plenitude. I have often risen to gather in the harvest, and have found nothing in the fields, or else I have brought back unfructifying flowers. I am more sad than I have told you that I am, and from the nature of my character, my feelings go on increasing. I shall be the most unhappy man in the world until your answer comes; I can still receive it here before my departure for Besançon and consequently for Neufchâtel. I leave Saturday, 21st; I shall be at Besançon 23rd, and on the 25th at Neufchâtel. My journey is delayed by the box I am taking to you. There are many things to do to it. I have sought for the cleverest workman in Paris for the secret drawer, and what I wish to put into it requires time. With what joy I go about Paris, bestir myself, keep myself moving for a thing that will be yours! It is a life apart, it is ineffable! The Chénier is impossible; we must wait for the new edition.

You ask me what I am doing. Mon Dieu! business; my writings are laid aside. Besides, how could I work knowing that Saturday evening I shall be going towards you? One must know how the slightest expectation makes me palpitate, to understand all the physical evil that I endure from hope. God has surely given me iron membranes if I do not have an aneurism of the heart.

Here all the newspapers attack "Le Médecin de campagne." Every one rushes to give his own stab. What saddened and angered Lord Byron makes me laugh. I wish to govern the intellectual life of Europe; only two years more of patience and labour, and I will walk upon the heads of those who strive to tie my hands, retard my flight! Persecution, injustice give me an iron courage. I am without strength against kind feelings. You alone can wound me. Eve, I am at your feet; I deliver to you my life and my heart. Kill me at a blow, but do not make me suffer. I love you with all the forces of my soul; do not destroy such glorious hopes.

Thank you a thousand times for the view; how good and merciful you are! The site resembles that of the left bank of the Loire. The Grenadière is a short distance away from that steeple. There is a complete resemblance. Your drawing is before my eyes until there is no need of a drawing.

À bientôt.

In future my letters will be always poste restante; there is more security for you in that way.

PARIS, September 18, 1833.

DEAR, BELOVED ANGEL,--I have a conviction that in coming to Neufchâtel I shall do more than all those heroes of love of whom you speak to me; and I have the advantage over them of not talking about it. But that folly pleases me.

I cannot leave till the 22nd; but the mail-cart, the quickest vehicle, more rapid than a post-chaise, will take me in forty hours to Besançon. The 25th, in the morning, I shall be at Neufchâtel, and I shall remain there until your departure.

Unhappily, I do not know if your house is Andrea or Andrée. Write me a line, poste restante, at Besançon on this subject.

A thousand heart-feelings, a thousand flowers of love. Dear, loved one, in two years I shall be able to travel a thousand leagues, and pass through the dangers of Arabian Tales to seek a look; but that will be nothing extraordinary in comparison with the impossibilities of all kinds that my present journey presents. It is not the offering to God of a whole life; no, it is the cup of water which counts in love and in religion for more than battles. But what pleasures in this madness! How I am rewarded by knowing proudly how much I love you!

I start Sunday, 22nd, at six in the evening. I should like to stay three days at Neufchâtel. Do not leave till the 29th.

Adieu, cherished flower. What thoughts, solely filled with you, throughout the hours of this journey! I will be yours only. I have never so truly lived, so hoped!

À bientôt.

NEUFCHÂTEL, Thursday, September 26, 1833.

Mon Dieu! I have made too rapid a journey, and I started fatigued. But all that is nothing now. A good night has repaired all. I was four nights without going to bed.

I shall go to the Promenade of the faubourg from one o'clock till four. I shall remain during that time looking at the lake, which I have never seen. Write me a little line to say if I can write to you in all security here, poste restante, for I am afraid of causing you the slightest displeasure; and give me, I beg of you, your exact name [et donnez-moi, par grâce, exactement votre nom].

A thousand tendernesses. There has not been, from Paris here, a moment of time which has not been full of you, and I have looked at the Val de Travers with you in my mind. It is delightful, that valley.

À bientôt.

PARIS, October 6, 1833.[1]

My dearest love, here I am, very much fatigued, in Paris. It is the 6th of October, but it has been impossible to write to you sooner. A wild crowd of people were all the way along the road, and in the towns through which we passed the diligence refused from ten to fifteen travellers. The mail-cart was engaged for six days, so that my friend in Besançon could not get me a place. I therefore did the journey on the imperial of a diligence, in company with six Swiss of the canton de Vaud, who treated me corporeally like cattle they were taking to market, which singularly aided the packages in bruising me.

I put myself into a bath on arriving and found your dear letter. O my soul! do you know the pleasure it gave me? will you ever know it? No, for I should have to tell you how much I love you, and one does not paint that which is immense. Do you know, my dearest Eva, that I rose at five in the morning on the day of my departure and stood on the "Crêt" for half an hour hoping--what? I do not know. You did not come; I saw no movement in your house, no carriage at the door. I suspected then, what you now tell me, that you stayed a day longer, and a thousand pangs of regret glided into my soul.

My angel, a thousand times thanked, as you will be when I can thank you as I would for what you send me.

Bad one! how ill you judge me! If I asked you for nothing it was that I am too ambitious. I wanted enough to make a chain to keep your portrait always upon me, but I would not despoil that noble, idolized head. I was like Buridan's ass between his two treasures, equally avaricious and greedy. I have just sent for my jeweller; he will tell me how much more is needed, and since the sacrifice is begun, you shall complete it, my angel. So, if you do have your portrait taken, have it done in miniature; there is, I think, a very good painter in Geneva; and have it mounted in a very flat medallion. I shall write you openly by the parcel I am going to send.

My dear wife of love, let Anna [her daughter] wear the little cross I shall have made of her pebbles; I shall engrave on the back, Adoremus in eternum. That is a delicious woman's motto, and you will never see the cross without thinking of him who says to you ceaselessly those divine words from the young girl's little talisman.

My darling Eva, here then is a new life delightfully begun for me. I have seen you, I have spoken to you; our persons have made alliance like our souls, and I have found in you all the perfections that I love. Every one has his, and you have realized all mine.

Bad one! did you not see in my eyes all that I desired. Be tranquil! all the desires that a woman who loves is jealous of inspiring, I have felt them; and if I did not tell you with what ardour I wished that you might come some morning it was because I was so stupidly lodged. But in Geneva, oh! my adored angel, I shall have more wits for our love than it takes for ten men to be witty.

I have found here everything bad beyond my expectations. Those who owed me money and gave me their word to pay it have not done so. But my mother, whom I know to be embarrassed, has shown me sublime devotion. But, my dear flower of love, I must repair the folly of my journey, a folly I would renew to-morrow if you wrote me that you had twenty-four hours' liberty. So now I must work day and night. Fifteen days of happiness at Geneva to earn; those are the words that I find engraved inside my forehead, and they give me the proudest courage I have ever had. I think there will come more blood to my heart, more ideas to my brain, more strength to my being from that thought. Therefore I do not doubt that I shall do finer things inspired by that desire.

During the next month, therefore, excessive toil,--all to see you. You are in all my thoughts, in all the lines I write, in all the moments of my life, in all my being, in my hair that is growing for you.

After to-morrow, Monday, you will receive my letters only once a week; I shall post them punctually on Sundays; they will contain the lines I write to you every evening; for every evening before I go to bed, to sleep in your heart, I shall say to you my little prayer of love and tell you what I have been doing during the day. I rob you to enrich you. Henceforth there is nothing but you and work, work and you; sleep in peace, my jealous one. Besides, you will soon know that I am as exclusive as a woman, that I love as a woman, and that I dream all delicacies.

Yes, my adored flower, I have all the fears of jealousy about you; and behold, I have come to know that guardian of the heart, jealousy, of which I was ignorant because I was loved in a manner that gave no fears. La dilecta lived in her chamber, and you, everybody can see you. I shall only be happy when you are in Paris or at Wierzchownia.

My celestial love, find an impenetrable place for my letters. Oh! I entreat you, let no harm come to you. Let Henriette be their faithful guardian, and make her take all the precautions that the genius of woman dictates in such a case.

I begin to-morrow, without delay, on "Privilège," for I must work. I am frightened about it. I do not wish to start for Geneva until I have returned Nodier's dinner, and I cannot help making it splendid. Thus I have to work as much for the necessary superfluities of luxury as for the superfluous necessity of my existence.

To-morrow, Monday, I begin a journal of my life, which will only stop during the happy days when my fortunate star permits me to see you. The gaps will show my happiness. May there be many of them! Mon Dieu! how proud I am to be still of an age to appreciate all the treasures that there are in you, so that I can love you as a young man full of beliefs, a man who has a hand upon the future. Oh, my mysterious love! let it be forever like a flower buried beneath the snow, a flower unseen. Eva, dear and only woman whom the world contains for me, and who fills the world, forgive me all the little wiles [ruses] I shall employ to hide the secret of our hearts.

Mon Dieu, how beautiful I thought you, Sunday, in your pretty violet gown. Oh! how you touched me in all my fancies! Why do you ask me so often to tell you what I would fain express only in my looks? All such thoughts lose much in words. I would communicate them, soul to soul, by the flame of a glance only.

Now, my wife, my adored one, remember that whatever I write you, pressed by time, happy or unhappy, there is in my soul an immense love; that you fill my heart and my life, and that although I may not always express this love well, nothing can alter it; that it will ever flower, more beautiful, fresher, more graceful, because it is a true love, and a true love must ever increase. It is a beautiful flower, of many years, planted in the heart, which spreads its branches and its palms, doubling each season its clusters and its perfume; and you, my dear life, tell me, repeat to me, that nothing shall gall its bark or bruise its tender foliage, that it shall grow in our two hearts, beloved, free, treasured as a life within our lives--a single life! Oh! I love you! and what balm that love sheds all about me; I feel no sorrows more. You are my strength; you see it.

Well adieu, my cherished Eva, I must bid you adieu--no, not adieu, au revoir, and soon,--at Geneva on the 5th of November. If you are coming to Paris tell me so quickly.

After all, I have told you nothing of what I wished to say: how true and loving I thought you; how you answered to all the fibres of my heart, and even to my caprices. Mon Dieu! often I was so absorbed, in spite of the general chatter I had to make, that I forgot to answer when you asked me if they did not bind books well in Saint-Petersburg.

Well, à bientôt. Work will make the time that separates us short. What beauteous days were those at Neufchâtel! We will make pilgrimages there some day. Oh, angel! now that I have seen you I can re-see you in thought.

Well, a thousand kisses full of my soul. Would I could enclose them. The sweetest of all, I dream of it still.

[Footnote 1: Here the tone of the letters changes, as told in the preface to this translation; and, as if to show its connection with the tale of the "Roman d'Amour," parts of the garbled letter in that book are given here in a foot-note in the French volume. From this time until March 11 all the letters (except twelve little notes written in Geneva) use the tutoiement. As it is impossible to put that form into readable English, the extreme familiarity of the tone of these letters is not given in the translation.--TR.]

PARIS, October 13, 1833.

My dearest love, it is now nearly three days since I have written to you, and this would be bad indeed if you were not my beloved wife. But work has been so enthralling, the difficulties are so great! Poor angel, I prefer to tell you the sweetness of which my soul is full for you than to recount to you my tribulations. As for my life it is unshakably fixed, as I have told you already, I believe. Going to bed at six after my dinner, rising at midnight, here I am, bending over the table that you know of, seated in this arm-chair that you can see, beside the fireplace which has warmed me for six years, and so working until midday. Then come rendezvous for business, the details of existence which must be attended to; often at four o'clock, a bath; five o'clock, dinner. And then I begin over again intrepidly, swimming in work, living in that white dressing-gown with the silk sash that you must know about. There are some authors who filch my time, taking from me an hour or two; but more often obligations and anxieties are fixtures; returns uncertain.

I am now in the midst of concluding an agreement which will echo through our world of envy, jealousy, and silliness; it will jaundice the yellow bile of those who have the audacity to want to walk in my shadow. A firm of rather respectable publishers buy the edition of the "Études de Mœurs au XIXe Siècle" for twenty-seven thousand francs; twelve volumes 8vo, including the third edition of the "Scènes de la Vie privée," the first of the "Scènes de la Vie de province," and the first of the "Scènes de la Vie Parisienne." Besides which, the printer, who owes me a thousand écus, pays them in the operation. This will give me ten thousand écus. That's enough to make all idlers, barkers, and the gens de lettres roar! Here I am, barring what I owe to my mother, free of debt, and free in seven months to go where I please! If our great affair succeeds I shall be rich; I can do what I wish for my mother, and have a pillow, a bit of bread, and a white handkerchief for my old days.

Alas! my beloved, to secure that treaty I have had to assume engagements, trot about, go out in the morning at nine o'clock after working all night. Nevertheless, I shall not be without anxiety as to the payments, for one always has to grant credit to publishers. My vigils, my work, all that there is most sacred in the world may be compromised. This publisher is a woman, a widow [Madame Charles Bêchet]. I have never seen her, and don't know her. I shall not send off this letter until the signatures are appended on both sides, so that my missive may carry you good news about my interests; but there are two other negotiations pending which are not less important, too long to explain to you, so that I shall only tell you results.

The "Aventures d'une idée heureuse" are one-quarter done, and I am well in the mood to finish them; "Eugénie Grandet," one of my most finished works, is half done. I am very content with it. "Eugénie Grandet" is like nothing that I ever did before. To invent "Eugénie Grandet" after Madame Jules--without vanity, that shows talent.

Did I tell you that our paper cannot be made at Angoulême? I received this answer yesterday from my friend in Angoulême. I am going there in a few days. I am obliged to rush to Saintes, the capital of Saintonge, to study the faubourg where Bernard de Palissy lived; he is the hero of the "Souffrances d'un Inventeur" ["David Séchard"], which I shall write very quickly at Angoulême, on my return from Saintes. Saintes is twelve leagues from Angoulême, farther on among the hills. I will bring you your cotignac [quince marmalade] from Orléans myself. I have already got your peaches from Tours. I am waiting till my jeweller allows me to write to you openly, but Fossin is a king, a power, and when one wants things properly done one must kiss that devil's spur that men call patience.

I don't say that I received with great pleasure the letter in which you are no longer grieved, and in which you tell me the story of that monster of an Englishman. That's what husbands are; a lover would have wrung his neck. A duel? May the avenging God make him meet some inn servant girl who will render him diseased and cause him a thousand ills! Considering the nature of the gentleman, my wish will, I hope, be accomplished.

At least there is love in your letter, my dear love. The other was so gloomy. Mon Dieu! how can you give way for a moment to doubt, or have a fear? À propos, friends have been here to tell me that the rumour is all about that I have been to Switzerland in search of a woman who positively came from Odessa. But happily other people say that I followed Madame de Castries, and others again that I have been to Besançon on a commercial enterprise. The author of the invention of the rendezvous is, I think, Gosselin, the publisher, who sent me a letter from Russia five months ago. And finally, others say that I never left Paris at all, but was put in Sainte Pélagie [prison], where they saw me. That is Paris.

My dear, idolized one, adieu! Nevertheless, I ought to tell you the thoughts on which I gallop for the last three days, the good little quarters of an hour which I give myself when I have done a certain number of pages. I rebehold the Val de Travers, I recommence my five days, and they fill the fifteen minutes with all their joys; the least little incidents come back to me. Sometimes a view of that fine forehead, then a word, or, better still, a flame lighted by Sev.... Oh! darling, you are adorably loving, but how stupid you are to have fears. No, no, my cherished Eva, I am not one of those who punish a woman for her love. Oh! I would I could remain half a day at your knees, my head on your knees, telling you my thoughts lazily, with delight, saying nothing sometimes, but kissing your gown. Mon Dieu! how sweet would be the day when I could play at liberty with you, as a child with its mother. O my beloved Eva, day of my days, light of my nights, my hope, my adored, my all-beloved, my sole darling, when can I see you? Is it an illusion? Have I seen you? Have I seen you enough to say that I have seen you?

Mon Dieu! how I love your rather broad accent, your mouth of kindness, of voluptuousness--permit me to say it to you, my angel of love!

I work night and day to go and see you for a fortnight in December. I shall cross the Jura covered with snow, but I shall think of the snowy shoulders of my love, my well-beloved. Ah! to breathe your hair, to hold your hand, to strain you in my arms! that's where my courage comes from. I have friends here who are stupefied at the fierce will I am displaying at this moment. Ah! they don't know my darling [ma mie], my soft darling, her, whose mere sight robs pain of its stings! Yes, Parisina and her lover must have died without feeling the axe, as they thought of one another!

A kiss, my angel of earth, a kiss tasted slowly. Adieu. The nightingale has sung too long; I am allured to write to you, and Eugénie Grandet scolds.

Saturday, 12, midday.

The protocols are exchanged, our reflections made, to-morrow the signature. But to-morrow all may be changed. I have scarcely done anything to "Eugénie Grandet" and the "Aventures d'une idée." There are moments when the imagination jolts and will not go on. And then, "L'Europe littéraire" has not come. I am too proud to set foot there because they have behaved so ill to me. So, since my return I am without money. I wait. They ought to have come yesterday to explain matters; they did not. They ought to come to-day. At this moment the price of "Eugénie Grandet" is a great sum for me. So here I am, rebeginning my trade of anguish. Never shall I cease to resemble Raphael in his garret; I still have a year before me to enjoy my last poverty, to have noble, hidden prides.

I am a little fatigued; but the pain in my side has yielded to quiet sitting in my arm-chair, to that constant tranquillity of the body which makes a monk of me.

For the time being, my fancies are calmed; when there is famine in the house I don't think of my desires. My silver chafing-dishes are melted up. I don't mind that. No more dinners in October. But I enjoy so much in thought the things I have not, and these desires make them so precious when I do possess them. It is now two years that, month by month, I counted on a balance for my dishes, but they vanish. I have a crowd of little pleasures in that way. They make me love the little nest where I live; it is what makes me love you--a perpetual desire. Those who call me ill-natured, satirical, deceptive, don't know the innocence of my life, my life of a bird, gathering its nest twig by twig and playing with a straw before it uses it.

O dear confidant of my most secret thoughts, dear, precious conscience, will you some day know, you, the companion of love, how you are loved,--you, who, coming on faithful wing toward your mate, did not reject him after seeing him. How I feared that I might not please you! Tell me again that you liked the man, after liking his mind and heart--since the mind and heart have pleased you, I could not doubt it. My idol, my Eva, welcomed, beloved, if you only knew how all that you said and did laid hold upon me, oh! no, you would have no doubts, no dishonouring fears. Do not speak to me as you did, saying, "You will not love a woman who comes to you, who, who, who--" you know what I mean.

Angel, the angels are often forced to come down from heaven; we cannot go up to them. Besides, it is they who lift us on their white wings to their sphere, where we love and where pleasures are thoughts.

Adieu, you, my treasure, my happiness, you, to whom all my desires fly, you, who make me adore solitude because it is full of you.

Adieu, till to-morrow. At midday my people are coming for the agreement. This letter will wait to carry you good or bad news, but it will carry you so much love that you will be joyous.

Sunday, 13, nine o'clock.

My cherished love, my Eva, the business is completed! They will all burst with envy. My "Études de Mœurs au XIXe Siècle" has been bought for twenty-seven thousand francs. The publisher will make that ring. Since Chateaubriand's twenty-five volumes were bought for two hundred thousand francs for ten years there has not been such a sale. They take a year to sell....

Ah! here comes your letter. I read it.

My divine love, how stupid you are! Madame de S...!--I have quarrelled with her, have I, so that I never say a word to her; I will not even bow to her daughter? Alas! I have met her, Madame de S..., at Madame d'Abrantès' this winter. She came up to me and said: "She is not here" (meaning Madame de Castries); "have you been so severe as you were at Aix?" I said, pointing to her lover, former lover of Mme. d'A., a Portuguese count, "But he is here." The duchess burst out laughing.

Oh! my celestial angel, Madame de S...--if you could see her you would know how atrocious the calumny is.... Your Polish women saw too much of Madame de C... to pay attention to Madame de S... who was paying court to her. But I was at Aix with Madame de C... and we were dining together. As for the marquise, faith, the portrait you draw of her makes me die of laughing. There is something in it, but changed now. Fresh, yes; without heart, yes, at least I think so. She will always be sacred to me; but in the chatter of your Polish women there was just enough truth to make the slander pass.

My idolized love, no more doubts; never, do you understand? I love but you and can love none but you. Eva is your symbolic name. Better than that; I have never loved in the past as I feel that I love you. To you, all my life of love may belong.

Adieu, my breath. I would I could communicate to these pages the virtue of talismans, that you might feel my soul enveloping you. Adieu, my beloved. I kiss this page; I add a leaf of my last rose, a petal of my last jasmine. You are in my thought as the very base of intellect, the substance of all things.

"Eugénie Grandet" is enchanting. You shall soon have it in Geneva.

Well, adieu, you whom I would fain see, feel, press, adieu. Can I not find a way to press you? What impotent wishes imagination has! My dear light, I kiss you with an ardour, an embrace of life, an effusion of the soul, without example in my life.

My angel, I don't answer about the cry I gave apropos of Madame de C... and the son M... dying for his mother-in-law. To-morrow for all that. You must have laughed at my pretended savagery.

Do not put poste restante any longer.

PARIS, Sunday, October 20, 1833.

What! my love; fears, torments? You have received, I hope, the first two letters that I wrote you after my return. What shall I do not to give you the slightest trouble, to make you clear skies? What! could you not have reckoned on a day's delay, an hour of weariness. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! what shall I do?

I write to you every day; if you want to receive a letter every third day instead of every eighth day, say so, speak, order. I will do all not to let a single evil thought come into your heart.

If you knew the harm your letter has done me. You do not know me yet. All that is bad. But I pardon the little grief your letter has caused me, because it is one way of telling me you love me.

I have good news to tell you. I think that the "Études de Mœurs" will be a settled business by Tuesday next, and that I shall have as debtor one of the most solid firms of publishers in the market. That is something.

Forgive me, my Eva of love, if I talk to you of my mercantile affairs; but it is my tranquillity; it will no doubt enable me to go to Geneva. Alas! I may not go till December, because I cannot leave till I have finished the first part of these "Études."

Adieu; I must return to "Eugénie Grandet," who is going on well. I have still all Monday and a part of Tuesday.

Adieu, my angel of light; adieu, dear treasure; do not ill-treat me. I have a heart as sensitive as that of a woman can be, and I love you better or worse, for I rest without fear on your dear heart, and kiss your two eyes--all!

Adieu; à demain.

PARIS, Wednesday, October 23, 1833.

To you, my love, to you a thousand tendernesses. Yesterday I was running about all day and was so tired that I permitted myself to sleep the night through, so that I made my idol only a mental prayer. I went to sleep in thy dear thought just as, if married, I should have fallen asleep in the arms of my beloved.

Mon Dieu! I am frightened to see how my life belongs to you; with what rapidity it turns to your heart. Your arteries beat as much for me as for yourself. Adored darling, what good your letters do me! I believe in you, don't you see, as I believe in my respiration. I am like a child in this happiness, like a savant, like a fool who takes care of tulips. I weep with rage at not being near you. I assemble all my ideas to develop this love, and I am here, watching ceaselessly that it shall grow without harm. Does not that partake of the child, the savant, and the botanist? Thus, my angel, commit no follies. No, don't quit your tether, poor little goat. Your lover will come when you cry. But you make me shudder. Don't deceive yourself, my dear Eve; they do not return to Mademoiselle Henriette Borel a letter so carefully folded and sealed without looking at it. There are clever dissimulations. Now, I entreat you, take a carriage that you may never get wet in going to the post. Besides, it is always cold in the rue du Rhône. Go every Wednesday, because the letters posted here on Sunday arrive on Wednesday. I will never, whatever may be the urgency, post letters for you on any day but Sunday. Burn the envelopes. Let Henriette scold the post-office man who delivered her letter, which was poste restante; but scold him laughing, for officials are rancorous. They would be capable of saying some Wednesday there were no letters, and then delivering them in a way to cause trouble. O my angel, misfortunes only come through letters. I beg you, on my knees, find a place, a lair, a mine to hide the treasures of our love. Do it, so that you can have no uneasiness.

Now, the Countess Potoçka, is she not that beautiful Greek, beloved by P..., married to a doctor, married to General de W..., and then to Count L... P...? If she is, don't confide to her a single thing about your love, my poor lamb without mistrust. If she has proofs, then own to her; but such an avowal must not be made until you cannot do otherwise, and then, make a merit of a forced confession. You must judge of the opportunity; but when I am in Geneva, you understand that people who run two ideas and who suppose evil when it does not exist, will know well how to divine when true.

Now, when I read your letters I am in Geneva, I see all. Mon Dieu, what grace and prettiness in your letters! Eh! my angel of love, I shall be in Geneva precisely when you choose. But calculate that it takes your letter four days to reach me, and four days for me to arrive; that makes eight days.

My cherished angel, do not share my troubles more than you must in knowing them; heaven has given me all the courage necessary to support them. I would not have a single one of my thoughts hidden from you, and I tell you all. But do not give yourself a fever about them. Yes, the sending of the newspapers was an indignity. Tell me who was capable of such a joke. There will be a duel between him and me. Whoever wounds you is my head enemy; but an enemy Arab fashion, with an oath of vengeance.

My dear happiness, there is not a voice here in my favour; all are hostile. I must resign myself. They treat me, it is true, like a man of genius; and that gives pride. I must redouble cares and courage to mount this last step. I am preparing fine subjects of hatred for them. I work with unexampled obstinacy.

I can only write the ostensible letter to you next week, for I wish the package to be full. So much the better if I am blamed; the recollection will be all the more precious.

My darling, you can very well say that you saw me at Neufchâtel, for that can no more be concealed than the nose upon one's face. It will be known; it should therefore be told, soul of my soul.[1]

You see I answer all you write to me, but hap-hazard. I am in haste to finish what I call the business of our love, to talk to you of love.

What! you have read the "Contes Drolatiques" without the permission of your husband of love? Inquisitive one! O my angel, it needs a heart as pure as yours to read and enjoy "Le Péché véniel." That's a diamond of naïveté. But, dearest, you have been very audacious. I am afraid you will love me less. One must know our national literature so well, the grand, majestic literature of the seventeenth century, so sparkling with genius, so free in deportment, so lively in words which, in those days, were not yet dishonoured, that I am afraid for myself. I repeat to you, if there is something of me that will live, it is those Contes. The man who writes a hundred of them can never die. Re-read the epilogue of the second dizain and judge. Above all, regard these books as careless arabesques traced with love. What do you think of the "Succube"? My dear beloved, that tale cost me six months of torture. I was ill of it. I think your criticisms without foundation. The trial of the supposed poisoners of the Dauphin was held at Moulin's, by Chancellor Paget, before the captivity of François I.; I have not the time to verify it. Catherine de' Medici was Dauphine in 1536, I think. Yes, the battle of Pavia was in 1525; you are right. I think you are right as to the Connétable; it was Duc François de Montmorency who married the Duchesse de Farnese. But all that is contested. I will verify it very carefully, and will correct it in the second edition. Thank you, my love; enlighten me, and for all the faults you find, as many tender thanks. Nevertheless, in these Contes there must be incorrectnesses; that's the usage; but there must not be lies.

Enough said, my beloved love, my darling Eva. Here is nearly half a night employed on you, in writing to you. Mon Dieu, return it to me in caresses! I must, angel, resume my collar of misery; but it shall not be until I have put here for you all the flowers of my heart, a thousand tendernesses, a thousand caresses, all the prayers of a poor solitary who lives between his thoughts and his love.

Adieu, my cherished beauty; one kiss upon those beautiful red lips, so fresh, so kind, a kiss which goes far, which clasps you. I will not say adieu. Oh! when shall I have your dear portrait? If, by chance you have it mounted, let it be between two plaques of enamel so that the whole may not be thicker than a five-franc piece, for I want to have it always on my heart. It will be my talisman; I shall feel it there; I shall draw strength and courage from it. From it will dart the rays of that glory I wish so great, so broad, so radiant to wrap you in its light.

Come, I must leave you; always with regret. But once at liberty and without annoyances, what sweet pilgrimages! But my thought goes faster, and every night it glides about your heart, your head, it covers you.

Adieu, then. À demain. To-morrow I must go to the Duchesse d'Abrantès; I will tell you why when I get back.

[Footnote 1: This sentence alone would show the falseness of these letters. On pp. 182, 183, vol. xxiv., Éd. Déf., are two letters of Balzac written from Neufchâtel; one to Charles de Bernard, the other to Mme. Carraud. In the latter he says: "I have just accompanied the great Borget to the frontier of the sovereign states of this town.... I conclude here (Paris) this letter, begun at Neufchâtel. Just think that, at the moment when I had ensconced myself by my fire to answer you at length and reply to your last good letter, they came for me to go and see views [sites]; and that lasted till my departure." A man who goes about sight-seeing with a family party would not have written the sentence in the text.

The writer of it himself makes a slip, and forgets that he has said in the "Roman d' Amour" letter that on one of these excursions (to the Lake of Bienne) the husband was sent to order breakfast while they gave themselves a first kiss. Murder will out in small ways.--TR.]

Thursday, 24.

This morning, my cherished love, I have failed in an attempt which might have been fortunate. I went to offer to a capitalist, who receives the indemnities agreed upon between us for the works promised and not written, a certain number of copies of the "Études de Mœurs." I proposed to him five thousand francs à terme for three thousand échus. He refused everything, even my signature and a note, saying that my fortune was in my talent and I might die. The scene was one of the basest I ever knew. Gobseck was nothing to him; I endured, all red, the contact with an iron soul. Some day, I will describe it. I went to the duchess that she might undertake a negotiation of the same kind with the man who had the lawsuit with me, her publisher, who cut my throat. Will she succeed? I am in the agonies of expectation, and yet I must have the serenity, the calmness, that are necessary for my enormous work.

My angel, I cannot go to Geneva until the first part of the "Études de Mœurs" appears published, and the second is well under way. That done, I shall have fifteen days to myself, twenty perhaps; all will depend on the more or less money that I shall have, for I have an important payment to make the end of December. I am satisfied with my publisher; he is active, does not play the gentleman, takes up my enterprise as a fortune, and considers it eminently profitable. We must have a success, a great success. "Eugénie Grandet" is a fine work. I have nearly all my ideas for the parts that remain to do in these twelve volumes. My life is now well regulated: rise at midnight after going to bed at six o'clock; a bath every third day, fourteen hours of work, two for walking. I bury myself in my ideas and from time to time your dear head appears like a beam of sunlight. Oh, my dear Eva, I have but you in this world; my life is concentrated in your dear heart. All the ties of human sentiment bind me to it. I think, breathe, work by you, for you. What a noble life: love and thought! But what a misfortune to be in the embarrassments of poverty to the last moment! How dearly nature sells us happiness! I must go through another six months of toil, privation, struggle, to be completely happy. But how many things may happen in six months! My beautiful hidden life consoles me for all. You would shudder if I told you all my agonies, which, like Napoleon on a battlefield, I forget. On sitting down at my little table, well, I laugh, I am tranquil. That little table, it belongs to my darling, my Eve, my wife. I have had it these ten years; it has seen all my miseries, wiped away all my tears, known all my projects, heard all my thoughts; my arm has nearly worn it out by dint of rubbing it as I write.

Mon Dieu! my jeweller is in the country; I have confidence in him only. Anna's cross will be delayed. That annoys me more than my own troubles at the end of the month. Your quince marmalade is on its way to Paris.

My dear treasure, I have no news to give you; I go nowhere, and see no one. You will find nothing but yourself in my letters, an inexhaustible love. Be prudent, my dear diamond. Oh! tell me that you will love me always, because, don't you see, Eva, I love you for all my life. I am happy in having the consciousness of my love, in being in a thing immense, in living in the limited eternity that we can give to a feeling, but which is an eternity to us. Oh! let me take you in thought in my arms, clasp you, hold your head upon my heart and kiss your forehead innocently. My cherished one, here, from afar, I can express to you my love. I feel that I can love you always, find myself each day in the heart of a love stronger than that of the day before, and say to you daily words more sweet. You please me daily more and more; daily you lodge better in my heart; never betray a love so great. I have but you in the world; you will know in Geneva only all that there is in those words. For the moment I will tell you that Madame de C[astries] writes me that we are not to see each other again; she had taken offence at a letter, and I at many other things. Be assured that there is no love in all this. Mon Dieu! how everything withdraws itself from me? How deep my solitude is becoming! Persecution is beginning for me in literature! The last obligations to pay off keep me at home in continual gigantic toil. Ah! how my soul springs from this person to join your soul, my dear country of love.

I paused here to think of you; I abandoned myself to revery; tears came into my eyes, tears of happiness. I cannot express to you my thoughts. I send you a kiss full of love. Divine my soul!

Saturday, 26.

Yesterday, my beloved treasure, I ran about on business, pressing business; at night I had to correct the volumes which go to press Monday. No answer from the duchess. Oh! she will not succeed. I am too happy in the noble regions of the soul and thought to be also happy in the petty interests of life. I have many letters to write; my work carries me away, and I get behindhand. How powerful is the dominion of thought! I sleep in peace on a rotten plank. That alone expresses my situation. So much money to pay, and to do it the pen with which I write to you--. Oh! no, I have two, my love; yours is for your letters only; it lasts, usually, six months.

I have corrected "La Femme Abandonnée," "Le Message," and "Les Célibataires." That has taken me twenty-six hours since Thursday. One has to attend to the newspapers. To manage the French public is not a slight affair. To make it favorable to a work in twelve volumes is an enterprise, a campaign. What contempt one pours on men in making them move and seeing them squabble. Some are bought. My publisher tells me there is a tariff of consciences among the feuilletonists. Shall I receive in my house a single one of these fellows? I'd rather die unknown!

To-morrow I resume my manuscript work. I want to finish either "Eugénie Grandet" or "Les Aventures d'une idée heureuse." It is five o'clock; I am going to dinner, my only meal, then to bed and to sleep. I fall asleep always in thoughts of you, seeking a sweet moment of Neufchâtel, carrying myself back to it, and so, quitting the visible world, bearing away one of your smiles or listening to your words.

Did I tell you that persons from Berlin, Vienna, and Hamburg had complimented me on my successes in Germany, where, said these gracious people, nothing was talked of but your Honoré? This was at Gérard's. But I must have told you this. I wish the whole earth would speak of me with admiration, so that in laying it on your knees you might have the whole world for yourself.

Adieu, for to-day, my angel. To-morrow my caresses, my words all full of love and desires. I will write after receiving the letter which will, no doubt, come to-morrow. Dear, celestial day! Would I could invent words and caresses for you alone. I put a kiss here.

Sunday, 27.

What! my dear love, no letters? Such grief not to know what you think! Oh! send me two letters a week; let me receive one on Wednesdays and the other on Sundays. I have waited for the last courier, and can only write a few words. Do not make me suffer; be as punctual as possible. My life is in your hands:

I have no answer to my negotiations.

Adieu, my dear breath. This last page will bring you a thousand caresses, my heart, and some anxieties. My cherished one, you speak of a cold, of your health. Oh, to be so far away! Mon Dieu! all that is anguish in my life pales before the thought that you are ill.

To-morrow, angel. To-morrow I shall get another letter. My head swims now. Adieu, my good genius, my dear wife; a thousand flowers of love are here for you.

PARIS, Monday, October 28, 1833.

I have your letter, my love. How much agony in one day's delay. À demain; I will tell you then why I cannot answer to-day.

Tuesday, 29.

My cherished Eva, on Thursday I have four or five thousand francs to pay, and, speaking literally, I have not a sou. These are little battles to which I am accustomed. Since childhood I have never yet possessed two sous that I could regard as my own property. I have always triumphed until to-day. So now I must rush about the world of money to make up my sum. I lose my time; I hang about town. One man is in the country; another hesitates; my securities seem doubtful to him. I have ten thousand francs in notes out, however; but by to-morrow night, last limit, I shall no doubt have found some. The two days I am losing are a horrible discount.

I only tell you these things to let you know what my life is. It is a fight for money, a battle against the envious, perpetual struggles with my subjects, physical struggles, moral struggles, and if I failed to triumph a single time I should be exactly dead.

Beloved angel, be a thousand times blessed for your drop of water, for your offer; it is all for me and yet it is nothing. You see what a thousand francs would be when ten thousand a month are needed. If I could find nine I could find twelve. But I should have liked in reading that delicious letter of yours to have plunged my hand in the sea and drawn out all its pearls to strew them on your beautiful black hair. Angel of devotion and love, all your dear, adored soul is in that letter. But what are all the pearls of the sea! I have shed two tears of joy, of gratitude, of voluptuous tenderness, which for you, for me, are worth more than all the riches of the whole world; is it not so, my Eva, my idol? In reading this feel yourself pressed by an arm that is drunk with love and take the kiss I send you ideally. You will find a thousand on the rose-leaf which will be in this letter.

Let us drop this sad money; I will tell you, however, that the two most important negotiations on which I counted for my liberation have failed. You have made me too happy; my luck of soul and heart is too immense for matters of mere interest to succeed. I expiate my happiness.

Celestial powers! whom do you expect me to be writing to, I who have no time for anything? My love, be tranquil; my heart can bloom only in the depths of your heart. Write to others! to others the perfume of my secret thoughts! Can you think it? No, no, to you, my life, my dearest moments. My noble and dear wife of the heart, be easy. You ask me for new assurances about your letters; ask me for no more. All precautions are taken that what you write me shall be like vows of love confided from heart to heart between two caresses. No trace! the cedar box is closed; no power can open it; and the person ordered to burn it if I die is a Jacquet, the original of Jacquet, who is named Jacquet, one of my friends, a poor clerk whose honesty is iron tempered like a blade of Orient. You see, my love, that I do not trust either the dilecta or my sister. Do not speak to me of that any more. I understand the importance of your wish; I love you the more for it if possible, and as you are all my religion, an idolized God, your desires shall be accomplished with fanaticism. What are orders? Oh! no, don't go to Fribourg. I adore you as religious, but no confession, no Jesuits. Stay in Geneva.

My jeweller does not return; it vexes me a little. My package is delayed: but it is true that the "Caricature" is not yet bound and I wish you to receive all that I promised to send.

Mon Dieu! your letter has refreshed my soul! You are very ravishing, my frolic angel, darling flower. Oh! tell me all. I would like more time to myself to tell you my life. But here I am, caught by twelve volumes to publish, like a galley-slave in his handcuffs.

I have been to see Madame Delphine de Girardin this morning. I had to implore her to find a place for a poor man recommended to me by the lady of Angoulême, who terrified me by her silent missive. The sorrows of others kills me! Mine, I know how to bear. Madame Delphine promised me to do all she could with Émile de Girardin when he returns.

Apropos, my love, "L'Europe littéraire" is insolvent; there is a meeting to-morrow of all the shareholders to devise means. I shall go at seven o'clock, and as it is only a step from Madame Delphine's I dine with her, and I shall finish the evening at Gérard's. So, I am all upset for two days. Moreover, in the mornings I run about for money. Already the hundred louis of Mademoiselle Eugénie Grandet have gone off in smoke. I must bear it all patiently, as Monsieur Hanski's sheep let themselves be sheared.

My rich love, what can I tell you to soothe your heart? That my tenderness, the certainty of your affection, the beautiful secret life you make me dwarfs everything and I laugh at my troubles--there are no longer any troubles for me. Oh! I love you, my Eva! love you as you wish to be loved, without limit. I like to say that to myself; imagine therefore the happiness with which I repeat it.

I have to say to you that I don't like your reflected portrait, made from a copy. No, no. I have in my heart a dear portrait that delights me. I will wait till you have had a portrait made that is a better likeness after nature. Poor treasure, oh! your shawl. I am proud to think that I alone in the world can comprehend the pleasure you had in giving it, and that I have that of reading what you have written to me,--I who do these things so great and so little, so magnificent and so nothing, which make a museum for the heart out of a straw!

My beloved, my thoughts develop all the tissues of love, and I would like to display them to you, and make you a rich mantle of them. I would like you to walk upon my soul, and in my heart, so as to feel none of the mud of life.

Adieu, for to-day, my saintly and beautiful creature, you the principle of my life and courage. You who love, who are beautiful, who have everything and have given yourself to a poor youth. Ah! my heart will be always young, fresh, and tender for you. In the immensity of days I see no storm possible that can come to us. I shall always come to you with a soul full of love, a smile upon my lips, and a soft word ready to caress you in the ear. My Eva, I love you.

Thursday morning, 31.

No more anxieties, all is arranged! Here are six thousand francs found, five thousand five hundred paid! There remains to the poor poet five hundred francs in a noble bank-bill. Joy is in the house. I ask if Paris is for sale. My love, you'll end by knowing a bachelor's life!

Yesterday, all was doubtful. In two hours of time all was settled. I started to find my doctor, an old friend of my family, seeing that I had nothing to hope from bankers. Ah! in the course of the way I met R... who took me by the hand and led me to his wife. They were getting into a carriage. Caresses, offers of service, why did they never see me? why...? A thousand questions, and Madame R... began to make eyes at me as she did at Aix, where she tried to seize my portrait on the sly.

Can't you see me, my love, in conference with a prince of money,--me, who couldn't find four sous! Was anything ever more fantastic? A single word to say, and my twelve thousand francs of notes of hand went into the gulf. I said nothing about it, and certainly he would not have taken a sou of discount. I laughed like one of the blest, as I left him, at the situation.

I resume; seeing that I had nothing to hope from bankers, I reflected that I owed three hundred francs to my doctor; I went and paid them with one of my commercial notes, and he returned me seven hundred francs, less the discount. From there I went to my landlord, an old wheat-dealer in the Halle; I paid him my rent, and he returned me on my note, which he accepted, seven hundred more francs, less the discount. From there I went to my tailor, who at once took one of my thousand-franc notes and put it in his memorandum of discount [bordereau d'escompte--cash account?] and returned me a thousand francs!

Finding myself in the humour, I got into a cabriolet and went to see a friend, a double millionnaire, a friend of twenty years' standing. He had just returned from Berlin. I found him; he turned to his desk and gave me two thousand francs, and took two of my notes from Madame Bêchet without looking at them. Oh! oh! I came home, I sent for my wood merchant and my grocer to come and settle our accounts, and to each I paid, in bank-bills, five hundred francs! At four o'clock I was free, my payments for to-day prepared. Here I am, tranquil for a month. I resume my seat on my fragile seasaw and my imagination rocks me. Ecco, signora!

My dear, faithful wife, did I not owe you this faithful picture of your Paris household? Yes, but there are five thousand francs of the twenty-seven thousand eaten up, and I have, before I can go to Geneva, ten thousand francs to pay: three thousand to my mother, one thousand to my sister, and six thousand in indemnities. "Yah! monsieur, where will you get all that?" In my inkbottle, dearly beloved Eva.

I am dressed like a lord, I have dined with Madame Delphine, and, after being present at the death agony of "L'Europe littéraire," I went joyously to Gérard's, where I complimented Grisi, whom I had heard the night before in "La Gazza ladra" with Rossini, who, having met me Tuesday on the Boulevard, forced me to go to his opera-box to talk un poco; and as on that Tuesday your poor Honoré had dined with Madame d'A[brantès] who had to render him an account of the great negotiation (which missed fire) with Mame, he had, your poor youth, to drown his sorrows in harmony. What a life, ma minette! What strange discordances, what contrasts!

At Gérard's I heard the admirable Vigano. She refused to sing, snubbed everybody; I arrived, I asked her for an air; she sat down at the piano, sang, and delighted us. Thiers asked who I was; being told, he said, "It is all plain, now." And the whole assembly of artists marvelled.

The secret of it is that I was, last winter, full of admiration for Madame Vigano; I idolize her singing; she knows that, and I am a Kreizler to her. I went to bed at two o'clock after returning on foot through the deserted, silent streets of the Luxembourg quarter, admiring the blue sky and the effects of moon and vapour on the Luxembourg, the Pantheon, Saint-Sulpice, the Val-de-Grâce, the Observatoire, and the boulevards, drowned in torrents of thought and carrying two thousand francs upon me--though I had forgotten them; my valet found them. That night of love had plunged me in ecstasy; you were in the heavens! they spoke of love; I walked, listening whether from those stars your cherished voice would fall, sweet and harmonious, to my ears, and vibrate in my heart; and, my idol, my flower, my life, I embroidered a few arabesques on the evil stuff of my days of anguish and toil.

To-day, Thursday, here I am back again in my study, correcting proofs, recovering from my trips into the material world, resuming my chimeras, my love; and in forty-eight hours the charms of midnight rising, going to bed at six in the evening, frugality, and bodily inaction will be resumed.

We have had, for the last week, an actual summer; the finest weather ever created. Paris is superb. Love of my life, a thousand kisses are committed to the airs for you; a thousand thoughts of happiness are shed during my rushing about, and I know not what disdain in seeing men. They have not, as I have, an immense love in their hearts, a throne before which I prostrate myself without servility, the figure of a madonna, a beautiful brow of love which I kiss at all hours, an Eve who gilds all my dreams, who lights my life.

Adieu, my constant thought, à demain. I may not be so talkative; to-morrow comes toil.

Friday.

I have worked all day at two proofs which have taken me twenty hours; then I must, I think, find something to complete my second volume of "Scènes de la Vie de province" because to make a fine book the printers so compress my manuscript that another Scene is wanted of forty or fifty pages. Nothing to-day, therefore, to her who has all my heart; nothing but a thousand kisses, and my dear evening thoughts when I go to sleep thinking of you.

To-morrow, pretty Eve.

Saturday.

Certainly, my love, you will not act comedy. I have not spoken to you of that. I have just re-read your last letter. It is a prostitution to exhibit one's self in that way; to speak words of love. Oh! be sacredly mine! If I should tell you to what a point my delicacy goes, you would think me worthy of an angel like yourself. I love you in me. I wish to live far away from you, like the flower in the seed, and to let my sentiments blossom for you alone.

To-day I have laboriously invented the "Cabinet des Antiques;" you will read that some day. I wrote seventeen of the feuillets at once. I am very tired. I am going to dress to dine with my publisher, where I shall meet Béranger. I shall get home late; I have still some business to settle.

My cherished love, as soon as the first part appears and the second is printed I shall fly to Geneva and stay there a good three weeks. I shall go to the Hôtel de la Couronne, in the gloomy chamber I occupied [in 1832]. I quiver twenty times a day at the idea of seeing you. I meant to speak to you of Madame de C[astries], but I have not the time. Twenty-five days hence I will tell you by word of mouth. In two words, your Honoré, my Eva, grew angered by the coldness which simulated friendship. I said what I thought; the reply was that I ought not to see again a woman to whom I could say such cruel things. I asked a thousand pardons for the "great liberty," and we continue on a very cold footing.

I have read Hoffmann through; he is beneath his reputation; there is something of it, but not much. He writes well of music; he does not understand love, or woman; he does not cause fear; it is impossible to cause it with physical things.

One kiss and I go.

Sunday.

Up at eight o'clock; I came in last night at eleven. Here are my hours upset for four days. Frightful loss! I awaited the old gentleman on whose behalf I implored Delphine. He did not come. It is eleven o'clock,--no letter from Geneva. What anxiety! O my love, I entreat you, try to send me letters on regular days; spare the sensibility of a child's heart. You know how virgin my love is. Strong as my love is, it is delicate, oh! my darling. I love you as you wish to be loved, solely. In my solitude a mere nothing troubles me. My blood is stirred by a syllable.

I have just come from my garden; I have gathered one of the last violets in bloom there; as I walked I addressed to you a hymn of love; take it, on this violet; take the kisses placed upon the rose-leaf. The rose is kisses, the violet is thoughts. My work and you, that is the world to me. Beyond that, nothing. I avoid all that is not my Eva, my thoughts. Dear flower of heaven, my fairy, you have touched all here with your wand; here, through you, all is beautiful. However embarrassed life may be, it is smooth, it is even. Above my head I see fine skies.

Well, to-morrow, I shall have a letter. Adieu, my cherished soul! Thank you a thousand times for your kind letters; do not spare them. I would like to be always writing to you; but, poor unfortunate, I am obliged to think sometimes of the gold I draw from my inkstand. You are my heart; what can I give you?

PARIS, Wednesday, November 6, 1833.

The agonies you have gone through, my Eve, I have very cruelly felt, for your letter arrived only to-day. I cannot describe all the horrible chimeras which tortured me from time to time; for the delay of one of your letters puts everything in doubt between you and me; the delay of one of mine does not imply so many evils to fear.

As to the last page of your letter, endeavour to forget it. I pardon it, and I suffer at your distress. To be unjust and ill-natured! You remind me of the man who thought his dog mad and killed him, and then perceived that he was warning him not to lose his forgotten treasure.

You speak of death. There is something more dreadful, and that is pain; and I have just endured one of which I will not speak to you. As to my relations with the person you speak of, I never had any that were very tender; I have none now. I answered a very unimportant letter, and, apropos of a sentence, I explained myself; that was all. There are relations of politeness due to women of a certain rank whom one has known; but a visit to Madame Récamier is not, I suppose, relations, when one goes to see her once in three months.

Mon Dieu! the man who seems to be justifying himself has just been stabbed to the heart. He smiles to you, my Eve, and this man does not sleep--he, rather a sleepy man--more than five hours and a half. He works seventeen hours, to be able to stay a week in your sight; I sell years of my life to go and see you. This is not a reproach. But you may say to me, you, that perhaps I love the pages I write from necessity better than my love. But with you I am not proud, I am not humble. I am, I try to be, you. You have suffered; I suffer,--you wished to make me suffer. You will regret it. Try that it may not happen again; you will break the heart that loves you, as a child breaks a toy to look inside of it. Poor Eva! So we do not know each other? Oh, yes, we do, don't we?

Mon Dieu! to punish me for my confidence! for the joy that I feel more and more in solitude! I don't know where my mother is; it is two months that no one has any news of her. No letters from my brother. My sister is in the country, guarded by duennas fastened on her by her husband, and he is travelling. So I have no one to tell you about. The dilecta is with her son at Chaumont, with the devil. I am myself in a torrent of proofs, corrections, copies, works. And it is at the moment when I expected to plunge into all my joys that, after your first pages, I find the pompous praise of ..., mon Dieu! and my accusation and condemnation, which will bleed long in a heart like mine.

I am sad and melancholy, wounded, weeping, and awaiting the serenity that never comes full and complete. If you wished that, if you wished to pour upon my life as much pain as I have toil (impossible now), Eva, you have succeeded. As to anger, no; reproaches? what good are they? Either you are in despair at having pained me, or you are content to have done so. I do not doubt you. I would like to console you; but you have cruelly abused the distance that separates us, the poverty that prevents my taking a post-chaise, the engagements of honour which forbid me to leave Paris before the 25th or 26th of this month. You have been a woman; I thought you an angel. I may love you the better for it; you bring yourself nearer to me. I will smile to you without ceasing. Ever since I knew the Indian maxim, "Never strike, even with a flower, a woman with a hundred faults," I have made that the rule of my conduct. But it does not prevent me from feeling to the heart, more violently than those who kill their mistresses feel, insults, and suspicions of evil. I, so exclusive, tainted with commonness! made petty enough to be lowered to vengeance! What! that love so pure, you stain it with suspicion, with blame, with doubt! God himself cannot efface what has been; he may oppose the future, but not the past!

I cannot write more; I rave; my ideas are confused. After twelve hours of toil I wanted a little rest, and to-day I must rest in suffering. Oh! my only love, what grief to look on what I write to you, to weigh my words, and not say all that is without evasion, because I am without reproach. Oh! I suffer. I have not a passing passion, but a one sole love!

November, 10, 1833.

I posted a letter last night, not expecting to be able to write again; I suffered too much. My neuralgia attacked me. That is a secret between me and my doctor; he made me take some pills, and I am better this morning. But, can I help it? your letter burns my heart. I will go to Geneva, I will pass my winter there. At least you shall not have the right to emit suspicions. You shall see my life of toil, and you will perceive the barbarity there is in arming yourself with my confidence in opening my heart to you. I, who want to think in you! I, who detach myself from everything to be more wholly yours!

Deceive you! But, as you say yourself, that would be too easy. Besides, is that my character? Love is to me all confidence. I believe in you as in myself. What you say of that compatriot [Madame de Castries is meant] makes me surfer, but I do not doubt it. I shall not speak to you of the cause of your imprecation, "Go to the feet of your marquise" [Va aux pieds de ta marquise], except verbally.[1]

I have five important affairs to terminate, but I shall sacrifice all to be on the 25th in Geneva, at that inn of the Pré-l'Évêque. But we shall see each other very little. I must go to bed at six in the evening, to rise at midnight. But from midday till four o'clock every day I can be with you. For that I must do things here that seem impossible; I shall attempt them. If they cause me a thousand troubles I shall go to Geneva, and forget everything there to see but one thing, the one heart, the one woman by whom I live.

I would give my life that that horrible page had not been written. To reproach me for my very devotion! Do you believe that I would not leave all, and go with you to the depths of some retreat? You arm yourself with the phrase in which I sacrifice (the word meant nothing, there is no sacrifice) to you all!

Why have you flung suffering into what was so sweet? You have made me give to grief the time that belonged to the toil which facilitates my means of going to you sooner.

I await, with an impatience beyond words, a letter, a line; you have completely upset me. No, you do not know the childlike heart, the poet's heart, that you have bruised. I am a man to suffer, then!

Adieu. Did I tell you the story of that man who wrote drinking-songs in order to bury an adored mistress? To work with a heart in mourning is my fate till your next letter comes. You owe me your life for this fatal week. Oh! my angel, mine belongs to you. Break, strike, but love me still. I adore you as ever; but have mercy on the innocent. I do not know if you have formed an idea of what I have to do. I must finish with the printing of four volumes before I can start, I must compound with five difficulties, pay eight thousand francs; and the four volumes make one hundred feuilles, or one hundred times sixteen pages, to be revised each three or four times, without counting the manuscripts.

Well, I will lose sleep, I will risk all, but you will see me near you on the 20th at latest.

To-morrow I shall write openly to Madame Hanska to announce my parcel.

May I put here a kiss full of tears? Will it be taken with love? Make no more storms without cause in what is so pure.

It is midday. That you may get this in time, I send it to the general post-office.

[Footnote 1: This whole presentation of Madame Hanska justifies, and even demands, a few words here. Judging her by the genuine letters in this volume,--which are, so far as I know, our only means of judging her at all at this distance of time,--she was a woman of principle, dignity, intelligence, and good-breeding; with a strong sense of duty, and a certain deliberateness of nature, shown in the fact that it was eight years after M. Hanski's death before she consented to marry Balzac. Her love for him was plainly much less than his for her; but she was proud of his devotion, and always unwilling to lose it. That a woman of her position and character ever wrote to Balzac those words, "Va aux pieds de ta marquise," is an impossibility. There are certain things that a woman of breeding cannot do or say; though some who do not know what such women are do not perceive this.

Writing a few weeks later than the above letter (from Geneva in January, 1834) to his intimate friend, Madame Carraud, Balzac bears the following little testimony to Madame Hanska's feeling to his friend: "I hope you know what the security of friendship is, and that you will not say to me again, 'Bear me in memory,' when some one here [Madame Hanska] says to me, 'I am happy in knowing that you inspire such friendships; that justifies mine for you.'" (Éd. Déf. vol. xxiv, p. 192). This is the woman whose memory a few men are now endeavouring to smirch.--TR.]

PARIS, Thursday, November 12, 1833.

It is six o'clock; I am going to bed, much fatigued by certain errands [courses] made for pressing affairs; for I have hope, at the cost of three thousand francs in money, of compromising on the litigious affair which causes me the most anxiety. On returning home I found your letter sent Friday, with that kind page which effaces all my pain.

O my adored angel, as long as you do not fully know the bloom of sensitiveness which constant toil and almost perpetual seclusion have left in my heart, you will not understand the ravages that a word, a doubt, a suspicion can cause. In walking this morning through Paris I said to myself that commercially the most simple contract could not be broken without attainting probity; but have you not broken, without hearing me, a promise that bound us forever?

This is the last time that I shall speak to you of that letter except when, in Geneva, I shall explain to you what gave rise to it. Fear nothing; I have finished all my visits, and shall not go again to Gérard's. I refuse all invitations, I hibernate completely, and the woman most ambitious of love could find nothing to blame in me.

But alas! all that I have been able to do has been to take one more hour from sleep. I must sleep five hours. My doctor, whom I saw this morning, and who knows me since I was ten years old (a friend of the house), is always fearful on seeing how I work. He threatens me with an inflammation of the integuments of my cerebral nerves:--

"Yes, doctor," I told him, "if I committed excess upon excess; but for three years I have been as chaste as a young girl, I never drink either wine or liquors, my food is weighed, and the return of my neuralgia comes less from work than from grief."

He shrugged his shoulders and said, looking at me:--

"Your talent costs dear! It is true; a man doesn't have a flaming look like yours if he addicts himself to women."

There, my love, is a very authentic certificate of my sobriety. The doctor is alarmed at my work. "Eugénie Grandet" makes a thick volume. I keep the manuscript for you. There are pages written, in the midst of anguish. They belong to you, as all of me does.

My dear love, listen; you must content yourself with having only a few sentences, a line perhaps, per day, if you wish to see me in November at Geneva. Apropos, write me openly in reply to my open letter, to come to the inn on the Pré-l'Évêque, and give me its name. I shall come for a month, and write "Privilège" there. I shall have to bring a whole library.

My love, à bientôt. Nevertheless, I have a thousand obstructions. The printers, and there are three printing-offices busy with these four volumes, well, they do not get on. I, from midnight to midday, I compose; that is to say, I am twelve hours in my arm-chair writing, improvising, in the full meaning of that term. Then, from midday to four o'clock I correct my proofs. At five I dine, at half-past five I am in bed, and am wakened at midnight.

Thank you for your kind page; you have removed my suffering; oh! my good, my treasure, never doubt me. Never a thought or a word in contradiction of what I have said to you with intoxication can trouble the words and thoughts that are for you. Oh! make humble reparations to Madame P... Bulwer, the novelist, is not in Parliament; he has a brother who is in Parliament, and the name has led even our journalists into error. I made the same mistake that you did, but I have verified the matter carefully. Bulwer is now in Paris,--the novelist, I mean. He came yesterday to the Observatoire, but I have not seen him yet.

You make me like Grosclaude [an artist]. What I want is the picture he makes for you, and a copy equal to the original. I shall put it before me in my study, and when I am in search of words, corrections, I shall see what you are looking at.

There is a sublime scene (to my mind, and I am rewarded for having it) in "Eugénie Grandet," who offers her fortune to her cousin. The cousin makes an answer; what I said to you on that subject was more graceful. But to mingle a single word that I have said to my Eve in what others will read!--ah! I would rather fling "Eugénie Grandet," into the fire. Oh, my love! I cannot find veils enough to veil it from everyone. Oh! you will only know in ten years that I love you, and how well I love you.

My dear gentille, when I take this paper and speak to you I let myself flow into pleasure; I could write to you all night. I am obliged to mark a certain hour at my waking; when it rings I ought to stop, and it rang long ago.

Till to-morrow.

Wednesday.

After the 22nd, including the 22nd, do not post any more letters; I shall not receive them. Oh! I would like to intoxicate myself so as not to think during the journey. Three days to be saying to myself, "I am going to see her!" Ah! you know what that is, don't you? It is dying of impatience, of pleasure! I have just sent you the licensed letter, and I am now going to do up the parcel and arrange the box. I have returned the remainder of the pebbles; I had not the right to lose what Anna picked up; and I would not compromise Mademoiselle Hanska by keeping them.

Oh! let me laugh after weeping. I shall soon see you. I bring you the most sublime masterpiece of poesy, an epistle of Madame Desbordes-Valmore, the original of which I have; I reserve it for you. To-morrow, Thursday, I hope to be delivered of "Eugénie Grandet." The manuscript will be finished. I must immediately finish "Ne touchez pas à la hache."

I do not know how it is that you can go and put yourself so often into the midst of that atmosphere of Genevese pedantry. But also I know there is nothing so agreeable as to be in the midst of society with a great thought, oh! my beautiful angel, my Eva, my treasures, of which the world is ignorant.

Nothing could be more false than what that traveller told you about Madame C... You understand, my love, that the ambitious manner in which I now present myself in society must engender a thousand calumnies, a thousand absurd versions. To give you an example: I have a glass I value, a saucer, out of which my aunt, an angel of grace and goodness who died in the flower of her age, drank for the last time; and my grandmother, who loved me, kept it on her fireplace for ten years. Well, my lawyer heard some man in a literary reading-room say that my life was attached to a talisman, a glass, a saucer; and my talent also. There are things of love and pride and nobleness in certain lives which others would rather calumniate than comprehend.

Latouche has said a frightful thing of hatred to one of my friends. He met him on the quay; they spoke of me,--Latouche with immense praises (in spite of our separation). "What pleases me about him," he said, "is that I begin to believe he will bury them all."

Mon Dieu! how I love your dear letters; not those in which you scold, but those in which you tell me minutely what happens to you. Oh! tell me all; let me read in your soul as I would like to make you read in mine. Tell me the praises that your adorable beauty receives, and if any one looks at your hair, your pretty throat, your little hands, tell me his name. You are my most precious fame. We have, they say, stars in heaven; you, you are my star come down,--the light in which I live, the light toward which I go.

How is it that you speak to me of what I write. It is what I think and do not say that is beautiful, it is my love for you, its cortège of ideas, it is all that I fain would say to you, in your ear, with no more atmosphere between us.

I do not like "Marie Tudor;" from the analyses in the newspapers, it seems to me nasty. I have no time to go and see the play. I have no time to live. I shall live only in Geneva. And what work I must do even there! There, as here, I shall have to go to bed at six o'clock and get up at midnight. But from midday to five o'clock, O love! what strength I shall get from your glances. What pleasure to read to you, chapter by chapter, the "Privilège" or other tales, my cherished love!

Do not think that there is the least pride, the least false delicacy in my refusal of what you know of, the golden drop you have put angelically aside. Who knows if some day it might not stanch the blood of a wound? and from you alone in the world I could accept it. I know you would receive all from me. But no; reserve all for things that I might perhaps accept from you, in order to surround myself with you, and think of you in all things. My love is greater than my thought.

Find here a thousand kisses and caresses of flame. I would like to clasp you in my soul.

PARIS, Wednesday, November 13, 1833.

MADAME,--I think that the house of Hanski will not refuse the slight souvenirs which the house of Balzac preserves of a gracious and most joyous hospitality. I have the honour to address you, bureau restant at Geneva, a little case forwarded by the Messageries of the rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. You have no doubt been accusing the frivolity and carelessness of the "Frenchman" (forgetting that I am a Gaul, nothing but a Gaul), and have never thought of all the difficulties of Parisian life, which have, however, procured me the pleasure of busying myself long for you and Anna. The delay comes from the fact that I wanted to keep all my promises. Permit me to have some vanity in my persistence.

Before the sublime Fossin deigned to leave the diadems and crowns of princes to set the pebbles picked up by your daughter, I had to entreat him, and be very humble, and often leave my retreat, where I am busy in setting poor phrases. Before I could get the best cotignac [quince marmalade] from Orléans, inasmuch as you want to be a child again and taste it, there was need of correspondence. And foreseeing that you would find the marmalade below its reputation, I wanted to add some of the clingstone peaches of Touraine, that you might feel, gastronomically, the air of my native region. Forgive me that Tourainean vanity. And finally, in order to send you a "La Caricature" complete, I had to wait till its year was ended and then submit to the delays of the binder,--that high power that oppresses my library.

For your beautiful hair nothing was more easy, and you will find what you deigned to ask me for. I shall have the honour to bring you myself the recipe for the wonderful preservative pomade, which you can make yourself in the depths of the Ukraine, and so not lose one of your beauteous black hairs.

Rossini has lately written me a note; I send it to you as an offering to Monsieur Hanski, his passionate admirer. You see, madame, that I have not forgotten you, and that if my work allows I shall soon be in Geneva to tell you myself what sweet memories I preserve of our happy meeting.

You admire Chénier; there is a new edition just published, more complete than the preceding ones. Do not buy it; arrange that I may read to you, myself, these various poems, and perhaps you will then attach more value to the volumes I shall select for you here. That sentence is not vain or impertinent; it is the expression of a hope with wholly youthful frankness.

I hope to be in Geneva on the 25th; but, alas! for that I have to finish four volumes, and though I work eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and have given up the music of the opera and all the joys of Paris to stay in my cell, I am afraid that the coalition of workmen of which we are now victims will make my efforts come to nought. I wish, as I have to make this journey, that I might find a little tranquillity in it, and remain away from that furnace called Paris for a fortnight, to be employed in some far niente. But I shall probably have to work more than I wish to.

Give the most gracious expression of my sentiments and remembrances to Monsieur Hanski, kiss Mademoiselle Anna in my name, and accept for yourself my respectful homage. Will you believe me, and not laugh at me if I tell you that, often, I see again your beautiful head in that landscape of the Île Sainte-Pierre, when, in the middle of my nights, weary with toil, I gaze into my fire without seeing it, and turn my mind to the most agreeable memories of my life? There are so few pure moments, free of all arrière-pensées, naïve as our own childhood, in this life. Here, I see nothing but enmities about me. Who could doubt that I revert to scenes where nothing but good-will surrounded me? I do not forget either Mademoiselle Séverine or Mademoiselle Borel.

Adieu, madame; I place all my obeisances at your feet.

PARIS, Sunday, November 17, 1833.

Thursday, Friday, and yesterday it was impossible for me to write to you. The case does not start till to-morrow, Monday, so that you will hardly get it before Thursday or Friday. Tell me what you think of Anna's cross. We have been governed by the pebbles, which prevent anything pretty being made of them. The cotignac made everybody send me to the deuce. They wrote me from Orléans that I must wait till the fresh was made, which was better than the old, and that I should have it in four or five days. So, not wishing it to fail you as announced, I rushed to all the dealers in eatables, who one and all told me they never sold two boxes of that marmalade a year, and so had given up keeping it. But at Corcelet's I found a last box; he told me there was no one but him in Paris who kept that article, and that he would have some fresh cotignac soon. I took the box; and you will not have the fresh till my arrival, cara.

As for Rossini, I want him to write me a nice letter, and he has just invited me to dine with his mistress, who happens to be that beautiful Judith, the former mistress of Horace Vernet and of Eugène Sue, you know. He has promised me a note about music, etc. He is very obliging; we have chased each other for two days. No one has an idea with what tenacity one must will a thing in Paris to have it. The smaller a thing is, the less one obtains it.

I have now obtained an excellent concession from Gosselin. I shall not do the "Privilège" at Geneva. I shall do two volumes of the "Contes Philosophiques" there, which will not oblige me to make researches; and this leaves me free to go and come without the dreadful paraphernalia of a library. I am afraid I cannot leave here before the 20th, my poor angel. Money is a terrible thing! I must pay four thousand francs indemnities to get peace; and here I am forced to begin all over again to raise money on publishers' notes, and I have ten thousand francs to pay the last of December, besides three thousand to my mother. It is enough to make one lose one's head. And when I think that to compose, to work, one needs great calmness, to forget all!

If I have started on the 25th I shall be lucky. Of one hundred feuilles wanted to-day, Sunday, I have only eight of one volume and four of another printed, eleven set up of one and five of the other. I am expecting the fabricators this morning to inform them of my ultimatum. Why! in sixteen hours of work--and what work?--I do in one hour what the cleverest workmen in a printing-office cannot do in a day. I shall never succeed!

In the judgment of all men of good sense, "Marie Tudor" is an infamy, and the worst thing there is as a play.

Mon Dieu! I re-read your letters with incredible pleasure. Aside from love, for which there is no expression, we are, in them, heart to heart; you have the most refined of minds, the most original, and, dearest, how you speak to all my natures! Soon I can tell you more in a look than in all my letters, which tell nothing.

I put in a leaf of sweet-scented camellia; it is a rarity; I have cast many a look at it. For a week past, as I work I look at it; I seek the words I want, I think of you, who have the whiteness of that flower.

O my love, I would I could hold you in my arms, at this moment when love gushes up in my heart, when I have a thousand desires, a thousand fancies, when I see you with the eyes of the soul only, but in which you are truly mine. This warmth of soul, of heart, of thought, will it wrap you round as you read these lines? I think of you when I hear music. Adoremus in æternum, my Eva,--that is our motto, is it not?

Adieu; à bientôt. What pleasure I shall have in explaining to you the caricatures you cannot understand.

Do you want anything from Paris? Tell me. You can still write the day after you receive this letter. The camellia-leaf bears you my soul; I have held it between my lips in writing this page, that I might fill it with tenderness.

PARIS, November 20, 1833, five in the morning.

My dear wife of love, fatigue has come at last; I have gathered the fruit of these constant night-watches and my continual anxieties. I have many griefs. In re-reading "Les Célibataires" which I had re-corrected again and again, I find deplorable faults after printing. Then, my lawsuits have not ended. I await to-day the result of a transaction which will end everything between Mame and me. I send him four thousand francs, my last resources. Here I am, once more as poor as Job, and yet this week I must find twelve hundred francs to settle another litigious affair. Oh! how dearly is fame bought! how difficult men make it to acquire her! No, there is no such thing as a cheap great man.

I could not write to you yesterday, or Monday; I was hurrying about. Hardly could I re-read my proofs attentively. In the midst of all this worry I made the words of a song for Rossini.

I was Sunday with Bra, the sculptor; there I saw the most beautiful masterpiece that exists; and I do not except either the Olympian Jupiter, or the Moses, or the Venus, or the Apollo. It is Mary, holding the infant Christ, adored by two angels. If I were rich I would have that executed in marble.

There I conceived a most noble book; a little volume to which "Louis Lambert" should be the preface; a work entitled "Séraphita." Séraphita will be two natures in one single being--like "Fragoletta," with this difference, that I suppose this creature an angel arrived at the last transformation, and breaking through the enveloping bonds to rise to heaven. This angel is loved by a man and by a woman, to whom he says, as he goes upward through the skies, that they have each loved the love that linked them, seeing it in him, an angel all purity; and he reveals to them their passion, he leaves them love, as he escapes our terrestrial miseries. If I can, I will write this noble work at Geneva, near to you.

But the conception of this multi-toned Séraphita has wearied me; it has lashed me for two days.

Yesterday I sent Rossini's autograph, extremely rare, to Monsieur Hanski, but the song for you. I am afraid I cannot leave here before 27th; seventeen hours of toil do not suffice. In a few hours you will receive my last letter, which will calm your fears and your sweet repentance. I would now like to be tortured--if it did not make me suffer so much. Oh! your adorable letters! And you believe that I will not burn those sacred effusions of your heart! Oh! never speak of that again.

To-day, 20th, I have still one hundred pages of "Eugénie Grandet" to write, "Ne touchez pas à la hache" to finish, and "La Femme aux yeux rouges" to do, and I need at least ten days for all that. I shall arrive dead. But I can stay in Geneva as long as you do. This is how: if I am rich enough I will lose five hundred francs on each volume to have it put in type and corrected in Geneva; and I will send to Paris a single corrected proof, and they will reprint it under the eyes of a friend who will read the sheets. It is such a piece of folly that I shall do it. What do you say to it?

Yesterday my arm-chair, the companion of my vigils, broke. It is the second I have had killed under me since the beginning of the battle that I fight.

When people ask me where I am going, and why I leave Paris, I tell them I am going to Rome.

Coffee has no longer any effect upon me. I must leave it off for some time that it may recover its virtues.

My dearest Eva, I should like to find in that inn you speak of, a very quiet room where no noise could penetrate, for I have truly much work to do. I shall work only my twelve hours, from midnight to midday, but those I must have.

I cannot tell you how these delays of the printer annoy me; I am ill of them. All the day of Monday was occupied by an old man of sixty-five, a man belonging to the first families of Franche-Comté, fallen into poverty, for whom I was entreated by the lady in Angoulême to find a situation. My heart is still wrung at the sight of him. I took him to Émile de Girardin, who gave him a place at a hundred francs a month. A man with white hair who lives on bread only, he and his family, while I, I live luxuriously, my God! I did what I could. People call these good actions; God thinks of those who compassionate the miseries of others. Just now God is crushing me a good deal. But it is true that you love me, and I worship you, and that enables me to bear all. I had to dine with Émile and his wife, and lose a day and a night; what a sacrifice! Ten years hence to give away a hundred thousand francs would be less.

Adieu for to-day. I have rested myself for a moment on your heart, oh, my dear joy, my gentle haven, my sole thought, my flower of heaven! Adieu, then.

Saturday, 23rd.

From Thursday until to-day I have often thought of you, but to write has been impossible. I have a weight of a hundred thousand pounds on my shoulders. Yes, my angel, I am quit of that publisher at the cost of four thousand francs. My lawyer, my notary, and a procureur du Roi have examined the receipt. All is ended between us; agreements destroyed; I owe him neither sou nor line. I have deposited the document, precious to me, with my notary.

The next day I completed, also at a cost of three thousand francs (making seven thousand in a week), my other transaction. But as I had not enough money I drew a note for five days, and by Wednesday, 27th, I must have twelve hundred francs! I have, besides, a little procillon to compound for, but that is only for money not yet due. I have still two other matters concerning my literary property to bring to an end before I can start. I am absolutely without a sou; but, at least, I am tranquil in mind. I shall always have to work immensely.

Now in relation to the Mind manufactory, this is where I am: I have still twenty-five feuilles to do to finish "Eugénie Grandet;" I have the proofs to revise. Then "Ne touchez pas à la hache" to finish, with the "Femme aux yeux rouges" to do; also the proofs of two volumes to read. It is impossible for me to start till all that is done. I calculate ten days; this is now the 24th, for it is two o'clock in the morning. I cannot get off till the 4th, arrive the 7th, and stay till January 7th. Moreover, in order that I may stay, the "Médecin de campagne" must be sold, I must write a "Scène de la Vie de campagne" at Geneva, and the other "Scènes de la Vie de campagne" must be published, during my absence, in Paris. However, I want to start on the 4th at latest. Therefore, you can write to me till the 30th. After the 30th of this month do not write again.

Mon Dieu! What time such business consumes!--when I think of what I do, my manuscripts, my proofs, my corrections, my business affairs! I sleep tranquil, thinking that I have to pay two thousand four hundred francs of acceptances for six days, for which I have not a sou! I have lived like this for thirty-four years, and never has Providence forgotten me. And so, I have an incredible confidence. What has to be done is always done; and you can well believe that to pay seven thousand francs with 0 obliges one to sign notes.

There's my situation, financial, scriptural, moral, of author, of corrections, of all in short that is not love, on Sunday, the 24th, at half-past one o'clock in the morning. I write you this just as I get to the eleventh feuillet of the fifth chapter of "Eugénie Grandet," entitled, "Family Griefs;" and between a proof of the eleventh sheet of the book, that is to say, at its 176th page. When you have the manuscript of "Eugénie Grandet," you will know its history better than any one.

For the last two days I have had some return of my cerebral neuralgia; but it was not much, and considering my toil and my worries, I ought to think myself lucky to have only that.

Now, do not let us talk any more of the material things of life, which, nevertheless, weigh so heavily upon us. How you make me again desire riches!

My cherished love, have you tasted your marmalade? do you like the peaches? has Anna her cross? have you laughed at the caricatures? I have received your open letter, and it has all the effect upon me of seeing you in full dress, in a grand salon, among five hundred persons.

Oh! my pretty Eve! Mon Dieu! how I love you! À bientôt. More than ten days, and I shall have done all I ought to do. I shall have printed four volumes 8vo in a month. Oh! it is only love that can do such things. My love, oh, suffer from the delay, but do not scold me. How could I know, when I promised you to return, that I should sell the "Études de Mœurs" for thirty-six thousand francs, and that I should have to negotiate payments for nine thousand francs of suits? I put myself at your darling knees, I kiss them, I caress them; oh, I do in thought all the follies of earth; I kiss you with intoxication, I hold you, I clasp you, I am happy as the angels in the bosom of God.

How nature made me for love! Is it for that that I am condemned to toil? There are times when you are here for me, when I caress you and strew upon your dear person all the poesy of caresses. Oh! there is nobody but me, I believe, who finds at the tips of my fingers and on my lips such voluptuousness.

My beloved, my dear love, my pearl, when shall I have you wholly mine without fear? If that trip to Fribourg of which you speak to me had taken place,--oh! say,--I think I should have drowned myself on the return.

How careful I am of your Chénier; for, this time, I will read you Chénier. You shall know what love is in voice, in looks, in verses, in pages, in ideas. Oh! he is the man for lovers, women, angels. Write "Séraphita" beside you; you wish it. You will annihilate her after having read it.

I am very tired; my pen will hardly hold in my fingers; but as soon as it concerns you and our love I find strength.

I have satisfied a little fancy this week; I gave myself, for my bedroom, the prettiest little chimney-piece sconces that I ever saw; and for my banquets, two candelabra. Mon Dieu! a folly is sweet to do! But I meditate a greater, which will, at any rate, be useful. It is too long to write about.

Angel of love, do you perfume your hair? Oh, my beauty, my darling, my adored one, my dear, dear Eve, I am as impatient as a goat tethered to her stake--though you don't like that phrase. I would I were near you; you have become tyrannical, you are the idea of every moment. I think that every line written brings me nearer to you, like the turn of a wheel, and from that hope I gather infernal courage.... So the 10th, at latest, I shall see you. The 10th! I know that the immense amount of work I have to do will shorten the time a little.

Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, God in whom I believe, he owes me some soft emotions at the sight of Geneva, for I left it disconsolate, cursing everything, abhorring womankind. With what joy I shall return to it, my celestial love, my Eva! Take me with you to your Ukraine; let us go first to Italy. All that will be possible, when the "Études de Mœurs" are once published.

Sunday, 23rd, midday.

So, then, at l'Auberge de l'Arc! I shall be there December 7th or 8th without fail. You see I have received your little note.

After writing to you last night I was obliged to go to bed without working. I was ill. It is five days now since I have been out of my apartments; I am not very well just now, but I think it is only a nervous movement caused by overwork.

From our windows we shall see each other!--that is very dangerous.

Well, à bientôt. I put in for you a kissed rose-leaf; it carries my soul and the most celestial hope a man can have here below. Oh! my love, you do not know yourself how wholly you are mine. I am very greedy.

Adieu, my beautiful life; there are only a few days more. I imagine we can travel to Italy and stay three or six months together.

Adieu, angel, whom I shall soon see face to face.

PARIS, December 4th, four in the morning.

My adored angel, during these eight days I have made the efforts of a lion; but, in spite of sitting up all night, I do not see that my two volumes can be finished before the 5th, and the two others I must leave to appear during my absence. But on the 10th I get into a carriage, for, finished or not, neither my body nor my head, however powerful my monk's life makes them, can sustain this steam-engine labour.

So, the 13th, I think, I shall be in Geneva. Nothing can now change that date. I shall have the manuscript of "Eugénie Grandet" bound, and send it ostensibly to you.

I have great need of rest, to be near you,--you, the angel; you, the thought of whom never fatigues; you, who are the repose, the happiness, the beautiful secret life of my life! It is now forty-eight hours that I have not been in bed. I have at this moment the keenest anxieties about money. I stripped myself of everything to win tranquillity, of which I have such need, and to be near you for a little while. But, relying on my publisher, yesterday, for my payments at the month's end, he betrays me in the midst of my torrent of work.

Oh! decidedly, I will make myself a resource, I will have a sum in silver-ware which my poetic fancies will never touch, but which I can proudly carry to the pawn-shop in case of misfortune. In that way one can live tranquil, and not have to endure the cold, pale look of one's childhood's friends, who arm themselves with their friendship to refuse us. On the 10th I start; I do not know at what hour one arrives, but, whatever be my fatigue, I shall go to see you immediately.

I have worked steadily eighteen hours a day this week, and I could only sustain myself by baths, which relaxed the general irritation.

What vexations, what goings to and fro! I had to give a great dinner this week, Friday, 29th. I discovered I had neither knives nor glasses. I don't like to have inelegant things about me. So I had to run in debt a little more; I tried to do a stroke of business with my silversmith. No. However, I will economize in Geneva by working and keeping quiet.

How I paw, like a poor, impatient horse! The desire to see you makes me find things that, ordinarily, would not occur to me. I correct quicker. You not only give me courage to support the difficulties of life, but you give me talent, or at least, facility. One must love, my Eve, my dear one, to write the love of "Eugénie Grandet," a pure, immense, proud love. Oh! dear, dearest, my good, my divine Eve, what grief not to have been able to write you every evening what I have done, said, and thought!

Soon, soon, in ten minutes, I can tell you more than in a thousand pages, in one look more than in a hundred years, because I shall give you all my heart in that first look, O my delicate, beauteous forehead! I looked at that of Madame de Mirbel, the other day; it is something like yours. She is a Pole, I think.

PARIS, Sunday, December 1, 1833, eleven o'clock.

My angel, I have just read your letter. Oh! I long to fall at your knees, my Eve, my dear wife! Never have a second of melancholy thought. Oh! you do not know me! As long as I live I will be your darling, I will respect in myself the heart you have chosen; I no longer belong to myself. There are no follies, no sacrifices; no, no, never! Oh! do not be thus, never talk to me of laudanum. I flung aside the proofs of "Eugénie Grandet" and sprang up as if to go to you. The end of your letter has made me pass over the pain of its beginning.

My love, my dear love, I shall be near you in a few days; when you hold this paper full of love for you, to which I would like to communicate the beatings of my heart, there will be but a few days; I shall redouble my cares, my work, I shall rest down there.

Besides, I shall arrange to stay a long time. O my love! make your skies serene, for there is nothing in my being but affection, love, tenderness, and caresses for you.

You ought to curse that Gaudissart. The printer took a type which compressed the matter, and to make out the volume I had to improvise all that in one night, darling, and make eighty pages of it, if you please.

My pretty love, you will receive a fine letter, very polite, submissive, respectful, with the manuscript of "Eugénie Grandet," and you will find in pencil on the back of the first page of manuscript the precise day for which I have engaged my place in the diligence.

Yes, I live in you, as you live in me. Never will God separate what he has put together so strongly. My life is your life. Do not frighten me thus again. Your sadness saddens me, your joy makes me joyous. I am in your heart; I listen to your voice at times. In short, I have the eternal, imperishable, angelic love that I desired. You are the beginning and the end, my Eve,--do you understand?--the Eve! I am as exclusive as you can be. In short, Adoremus in æternum is my motto; do you hear me, darling?

Well, it is getting late. I must send this to the general post-office, that you may get it Wednesday.

My love, why make for yourself useless bitterness? What I said to you, I will repeat: "It would be too odd if that were she," was my thought when I saw you first on leaving the Hôtel du Faucon [at Neufchâtel].

Adieu; I have no flowers this time; but I send you an end of a cedar match I have been chewing while I write; I have given it a thousand kisses.

Mon Dieu! I don't know how I shall get over the time on the journey, in view of the palpitations of my heart in writing to you. You will receive only one more letter, that of Sunday next; after that I shall be on the way. O my darling, to be near you, without anxieties; to have my time to myself, to be free to work well and read to you by day what I do at night! My angel, to have my kiss,--the greatest reward for me under heaven! Your kiss!

No, you will only know how I love you ten years from now, when you fully know my heart, that heart so great, that you fill. I can only say now, à bientôt.

Well, adieu, dear. Thanks for the talisman. I like it. I like to have a seal you have used. My love, do not laugh at my fancies. Ah? if you could see Bra's "Two Angels," and "Mary with the child Jesus." I have in my heart for you all the adoration he found in his sublime genius to express angels. You are God to me, my dear idol. Adieu!

PARIS, Sunday, December 8.

My dearest, no, not a line for you in eight days! But tears, effusions of the soul sent with fury across the hundred and fifty leagues that part us.

If I get off Thursday next, 12th, I shall regard myself as a giant. No, I will not soil this paper full of love which you will hold, by pouring money troubles on it, however nobly confided they be. The printers would not work; I am their slave. The calculations of the publisher, of the master-printers, and my own have been so cruelly frustrated by the workmen that my books announced as published yesterday will not appear till Thursday next. I am in a state of curious destitution, without friends from whom I can ask an obole, yet I must borrow the money for my journey on Tuesday or Wednesday, but I do not know where. I will tell you all about it.

I have no time to write. I have been forty-eight hours this week without sleeping. Old Dubois told me yesterday I was marching to old age and death. But how can I help it? I have considered nothing but my pleasure, our pleasure, and I have sacrificed all--even you and myself--to that object.

Alas, my dearest, I have not the time to finish this letter. The publisher of "Séraphita" is here. He wants it by new year's day. Nevertheless, I shall be on Sunday near you.

Adieu, my love; à bientôt, but that bientôt will not be till Sunday, 15th, for I have inquired, and the diligence starts only every other day, and takes three days and a half to get there. I have a world of things to tell you, but I can only send you my love, the sweetest and most violent of loves, the most constant, the most persistent, across space. O my beloved angel, do you speak to me again of our promise? Say nothing more to me about it. It is saintly and sacred like our mutual life.

Adieu, my angel. I cannot say to you "Calm yourself,"--I, who am so unhappy at these delays. You must suffer, for I suffer.

GENEVA, December 25th, 1833.

I shall tell you all in a moment, my beloved, my idolatry. I fell in getting into the carriage, and then my valet fell ill. But we will not talk of that. In an instant I shall tell you more in a look than in a thousand pages. Do I love you! Why, I am near you! I would it had been a thousand times more difficult and that I should have suffered more. But here is one good month, perhaps two, won.

Not one, but millions of caresses. I am so happy I can write no more. À bientôt.

Yes, my room is very good, and the ring is like you, my love, delicious and exquisite.[1]

[Footnote 1: At the end of this year, as this vitiated portion of the correspondence draws to a close, I shall venture to make a few comments on it.

Very early in life Balzac formed for himself a theory of woman and of love. See Memoir, p. 261. When I wrote that Memoir I was not aware of the character of these letters. I now see from certain of them (those from the time he received Mme. Hanska's first letter till he met her at Neufchâtel) that he kept that ideal before him up to his 34th year, making, apparently, various attempts to realize it, which failed (if we except one lifelong affection) until he met with Mme. Hanska. No one, I think, can read those letters, without recognizing that they are the expression of an ideal hope, in a soul striving to escape from the awful (it was nothing less than awful) struggle between its genius and its circumstances into the calmer heaven for which all his life he had longed. They are imaginative, rash to folly, but they are in keeping with his nature, his headlong need of expansion, and the elsewhere recorded desires of his spirit. That mind must be a worldly one, I think, that cannot see the truth about this man, clinging, through the turmoil of his life and of his nature, to his "star," and dying of exhaustion at the last. But what shall we think of the men who have not only shut their eyes to the purity of this story, the strongest testimony to which is in this very volume, but have used it to cast upon this man and this woman the glamour of "voluptuousness"?

Enough has been told in the Preface to prove: (1) deception; (2) the forgery of one passage; (3) the falsification of dates. Coupling those facts with the literary impossibility that Balzac ever wrote a portion of the letters just given, we are justified in believing that a certain number of the letters that here follow are forgeries.

I class them as follows:--

During Balzac's stay in Geneva (from Dec. 25 to Feb. 8) nineteen letters are given; all dated indiscriminately "Geneva, January, 1834." Eleven of these are friendly little notes, such as would naturally pass between friends in daily intercourse. The remaining eight contain matters so disloyal that I place in an Appendix a letter from Balzac to his friend Madame Carraud, written at the same time, and leave the reader to form his own judgment.

Next follow twelve letters (from Feb. 15 to March 11, 1834) which I characterize as infamous forgeries. But their refutation is not far to seek; it is here, in this volume,--in letters from Balzac that bare his soul in the tragic struggle of his life; letters that show the deep respect of his heart and of his mind for the woman whom he held to be his star and the guide of his spirit.--TR.]

II.

LETTERS DURING 1834.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

MADAME,--I do not know if I had the honour to tell you yesterday that I might, perhaps, not have the pleasure of dining with you to-day. I should be in despair if you could think I did not attach an extreme value to that favour by making you wait for me in vain. Your cousin has engaged me for Thursday next; I have accepted so as not to seem absurd in my seclusion. I hope you will see nothing "French" in this sentiment.

I hope this continual rain has not made you sad, and I beg you to present my most distinguished sentiments to M. Hanski, and accept my most affectionate homage and obedience.

DE BALZAC.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

MADAME,--Here is the first part of your cotignacian poems. But you will presently see a man in despair. I do not like to bring you the Chénier, and yet I hesitate to send it back. Of all that I ordered, nothing has been done. Binding execrably ugly, covering silly. One should be there one's self to have things done. If you accept it you must remember only the good intentions with which I took charge of your book; that is the only way to give it value.

I have been into town; I made myself joyous; I thought I had found something that would give you pleasure. I have deranged myself. If you permit it, I will compensate my annoyance by coming to see you earlier.

A thousand graceful homages.

HONORÉ

I considered the cotignac so precious I would not delay your gastronomic joys.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

MADAME,---Will you exchange colonial products? Here is a little of my coffee. My sister writes that I shall have more to-morrow; therefore, take this. You shall have your coffee-pot to-morrow. Will you give me a little tea for my breakfast? I want strictly a little.

Have you passed a good night? Are you well? Have you had good dreams? I hope your health is good, so that we can go and take a walk [nous promener, bromener]. The treasury? ... Furth!

TO HER MAJESTY RZEWUSKIENNE, MME. HANSKA.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

Very dear sovereign, sacred Majesty, sublime queen of Paulowska and circumjacent regions, autocrat of hearts, rose of Occident, star of the North, etc., etc., etc., fairy of tiyeuilles.[1]

Your Grace wished for my coffee-pot, and I entreat your Serene Highness to do me the honour to accept one that is prettier and more complete; and then to tell me, to fling me from your eminent throne a word full of happiness, amber, and flowers, to let me know if I am to be at Your sublime door in an hour, with a carriage, to go to Coppet.

I lay my homage at the feet of your Majesty, and entreat you to believe in the honesty of your humble moujik, HONORESKI.

[Footnote 1: Bromener and tiyeuilles (tilleuls lindens), make fun of her pronunciation.--TR.]

GENEVA, January, 1834.

Never did an invalid less merit that name. He is ready to go to walk, to fetch his proofs, and when his business is finished, which will be in about a quarter of an hour, he will go and propose to Madame la doctrice to profit by this beautiful day to take an air-bath on the Crêt of Geneva, along the iron railings; unless the laziness of the Hanski household concurs with that of the poor literary moujik who lays at your feet, madame, his strings of imaginary pearls, the treasure of his heroes, his fanciful Alhambra, where he has carved, everywhere, not the sacred name of God, but a human name that is sacred in other ways. But all this immense property may not be worth, in reality, the four games won yesterday.

GENEVA, January, 1834. I have slept like a dormouse, I feel like a charm, I love you like a madcap, I hope that you are well, and I send you a thousand tendernesses.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

If I must come this evening, and dress myself because you have your charaders, permit me to come a little earlier. There is a dinner here; they are singing and making such a noise while I write that it is enough to drive the devil away. Ecco. I can calculate. Wednesday I shall be encandollé [dinner with M. de Candolle]. Thursday is taken. To-morrow I work without intermission, for I shall have proofs. So, out of five days, when one has but one in prospect, it is no flattery to add a few hours. Yes? Very good.

Allow me to return your "Marquis" by a good "Maréchale."

GENEVA, January, 1834.

Willingly, but you will bring me back to your house, will you not?--for I can't get accustomed to be two steps away from you, doing nothing, without better employing my time.

If you go into the town I will ask you to be so kind--No, I will go myself.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

MADAME,--To a man who considers happy moments as the most profitable moments of existence, it is permitted to wish not to lose any part of the sums he amasses. It is only in the matter of joy that I wish to be Grandet.

If I take this morning the time that you would give me, from three to ten o'clock, would you refuse me? No? Good. If you love me?--yes--you will be visible at twelve or one o'clock.

Forgive my avarice; I possess as yet nothing but the happiness which heaven bestows. Of that I may be avaricious, since I have nothing else. To you, a thousand affectionate respects, and my obeisances to the honourable Maréchal of the Ukraine and noble circumjacent regions.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

I cannot come because I am more unwell than I expected to be, and going out might do me harm. If you would have the kindness to send me back a little orgeat you would do me a real service, for I don't know what to drink, and I have a consuming thirst.

I have spent my day very sadly, trying to work, and finding myself incapable of it. So, I think I shall go to bed in a few hours.

A thousand thanks, and present my respects to the Grand Maréchal.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

MADAME,--If it were not that I get impatient and suffer at losing so much time, both for that which gives me pleasure and also for my work, I should be this morning well, and like a man who has had a fever. I don't know whether I had better go out or keep my room; but I frankly own that here, alone, I worry horribly.

A thousand thanks for your good care, and forgive me that, yesterday, I was more surprised than grateful at your visit, which touched me deeply after you had left. I don't know if you know that there are things that get stronger as they get older.

A thousand thanks and grateful regards to M. Hanski. How stupid I am to have made you anxious for so slight a matter; but how happy I am to know that you have as much friendship for me as I for you.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

My love, this morning I am perfectly well. I was embarrassed yesterday because there were for you, under the things you moved about, two letters I send with this.

Mon Dieu! my love, I am afraid that step of yours (your visit to my room) may be ill taken, and that you exposed the two letters. For other reasons, Mon Dieu! certainly, I wanted to see you here! I have such need to cure my cold that if I go out it cannot be till this evening.

I am up; I could not stay in bed longer, I am too uncomfortable. I must talk or have something to do. Inaction kills me. Yesterday, I spent a horrible evening thinking of what I had to do. I am this morning like a man who has had a fever.

A thousand tender caresses. Mon Dieu! how I suffer when I don't see you. I have a thousand things to tell you.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

What have I done that last evening should end thus, my dear, beloved Eve? Do you forget that you are my last hope in life? I don't speak of love, or human sentiments, you are more than all that to me. Why do you trample under your feet all the hopes of our life in a word? You doubt one who loves you freely with delights; to whom to feel you is delirious happiness, who loves you in æternum, and you do not doubt...!

O my love! you play very lightly with a life you chose to have, and which, moreover, has been given to you with an entire devotion which I should have given you if you had not demanded it. I like better that you did wish for it.

I love you with too much constancy that such disputes should not be mortal to me. Mon Dieu! I have told you the secrets of my life, and you ought, in return for such unlimited confidence, to spare him who lives in you the torture of such doubts. You hold me by the hand, and the day you withdraw that adored hand you alone will know the reason of what becomes of me.

My beloved Eve, I commit extravagance on extravagance. It is impossible to think of anything but you. It is not a desire, though I have fully the right to desire pleasure more keenly than other men, and this desire renders me stupefied at times; no, it is a need to breathe your air, to see you, and yesterday you gave me eternal memories of beauty.

If I had no sacred pecuniary obligations (and I commit the folly of forgetting them sometimes), we would not think of the rue Cassini. No. Yesterday at Diodati I said to myself: "Why should I quit my Eve; why not follow her everywhere?" I wish it, myself. I accept all sufferings when I see you; and you, you wounded me yesterday.

But you do not love as I do; you do not know what love is; I, for my sorrow, have known its delights, and I see that from Neufchâtel to my death I can reach the end desired through my whole youth, and concentrate my life and my affections on a single heart!

Dearest, dearest, I am too unhappy from the things of life not to make it a cruelty in her I love and idolize to cause me a shadow of grief. I would like better the most horrible of agonies to causing you pain.

Must I come and seek a kiss?

GENEVA, January, 1834.

Your doubts do me harm. You are more powerful than all. Angel of my life, why should I not follow you everywhere? Because of poverty. Mon Dieu, you have nothing to fear. From the day on which I told you that I loved you, nothing has altered this delicious life; it is my only life. Do not dishonour it by suspicions; do not trouble our pleasures. There was no one before you in my heart; you will fill it forever. Why do you arm yourself with thoughts of my former life? Do not punish me for my beautiful confidence. I wish you to know all my past, because all my future is yours. Break your heart! Sacrifice you to anything whatever! Why, you don't know me! I am ashamed to bring you sufferings. I am ashamed not to be able to give you a life in harmony with the life of the heart. I suffer unheard-of woes, which you efface by your presence.

Pardon, my love, for what you call my coquetries. Pardon a Parisian for a simple Parisian talk; but what you will shall be done. I will go to see no one. Two visits of a quarter of an hour will end all. Perish a thousand times the society of Geneva rather than see you sad for a quarter of an hour's conversation. It would be ridiculous (for others) that I should occupy myself with you only. I was bound to respect you, and in order to talk to you so much it was necessary that I should talk with Madame P... Besides, what trifles! Before the Ocean of which you talk, are you going to concern yourself about a miserable spider? Mon Dieu! you don't know what it is to love infinitely.

What I wrote you this morning is of a nature to show you how false are your fears. I never ceased to look at you while talking to Madame P...

Ah! dearest, my dear wife, my Eva, I would willingly sell my talent for two thousand ducats! I would follow you like a shadow. Do you wish to go back to Wierzchownia? I will follow you and stay there all my life. But we must have pretexts, and, unfortunate that I am, I cannot leave Paris without satisfying editors and creditors.

I have received two letters; one from that good Borget, the other from my sister. Troubles upon troubles. To have at all moments the sight of paradise and the sufferings of hell,--is that living?

GENEVA, January, 1834.

My love, my only life, my only thought, oh! your letter! it is written forever on my heart.

Listen, celestial angel, for you are not of this earth. I will reply to you on these things once for all. Fame, vanity, self-love, literature, they are scarcely clouds upon our sky. You trample all that twenty times a day beneath your feet, which I kiss twenty times.

Oh, my angel, see me at your knees as I tell you this: if I have had the most fugitive of reputations it has come when I did not want it. I was drunk for it till I was twenty-two. I wanted it as a pharos to attract to me an angel. I had nothing with which to please; I blamed myself. An angel came; I let myself suffer in her bosom, hiding from her my desires for a young and beautiful woman. She saw those desires and said to me: "When she comes I will be your mother, I will have the love of a mother, the devotion of a mother."[1]

Then one day the misery of my life grew greater. The toils of night and day began. She who had offered me, on her knees, her fortune, which I had taken, which I was returning at the peril of my life, she watched, she corrected, she refined, as I refined, corrected, watched. Then all my desires were extinguished in work. It was no longer a question of fame, but of money. I owed, and I had nothing.

Three years I worked without relaxation, having drawn a brass circle around me from 1828 to 1831. I abhor Madame de C[astries], for she broke that life without giving me another,--I do not say a comparable one, but without giving me what she promised. There is not the shadow of wounded vanity, oh! but disgust and contempt.

You alone have made me know the vanities of fame. When I saw you at Neufchâtel I wanted to be something. In you then begins, more splendid than I dreamed it, that dreamed life.

Oh! my Eve, you alone in my life to come!--Alas! like Louis Lambert I wish that I could give you my past. Thus, nothing that is success, fame, Parisian distractions, moves me. There is but one power that makes me accept my present life: Toil. It calms the exactions of my fiery temperament. It is because I fear myself that I am chaste.

As for this seclusion that you want, hey! I want it as much as you. It is not being a fop to tell you that since Neufchâtel three ravishing women have come to the rue Cassini, and that I did not even cast a man's glance on seeing them.

My Eve, I love you better than you love me, for I am alone in the secret of what I lose, and you know nothing of love but the sentiments of love. Besides, I love you better, for I have more reasons to love you. If I were free I would live near you, happy to be the steward of your fortune and the artisan of your wealth, as Madame Carraud's brother is for Madame d'Argout. I have a security of love, a plenitude of devotion, which you will only know with time. It needs time to fathom the infinite. To suffer the whole of life with you, taking a few rare moments of happiness, yes! To have a lifetime in two years, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years, and die, yes! Never to speak to a woman, to refuse myself to all, to live in you, oh, angel! but that is my thought at all hours. The ... which I told you about Madame P... was because she had vexed you, and before your suffering I became besotted, as you before mine.

Mon Dieu! if we lived together, if I had twenty ducats a month, to you should belong my poems. I would write books, and read them to you, and we would burn them in our fire. My adored minette, I weep sometimes in thinking that I sell my ideas, that people read me! Ah! you do not know what I could be if, free for one evening, I could speak to you, see you, caress you by my thoughts and by myself. Oh! you would then know that your thoughts of purity, of exclusive tenderness are mine. Angel of my life, I live in you, for you, by you. Only, if I am mistaken, tell me so without anger. There is never any false or bad intention in me. I obey my heart in all that is sentiment. I have never known what a calculation is. If I mistake, it is in good faith.

My love, let us never separate. In six months I shall be free. Well, then, no power on earth can disunite us. La dilecta was forty-six when I was twenty-two. Why talk about your forty years? We have thirty years before us. Do you think that at sixty-four a man betrays thirty years' affection?

What! you think that the opera, the salons, fame can distract me from you? Then you don't know how I love you. I shall be more angry at that than you at Madame P... No, believe me, I love you as a woman loves and as a man loves. In my life to come there is nothing but you and work. My dear gift, my dear star, my sweet spirit, let yourself be caressed by hope, and say to yourself that I am not amorous or passionate; all that passes. I love you, I adore you in æternum. I believe in you as I do in myself. Mon Dieu! I would like to know words which could infuse into you my soul and my thought, which could tell you that you are in my heart, in my blood, in my brain, in my thought,--in short, the life of my life; that each beating of my heart gives birth to a desire full of thee. Oh! you do not know what are three years of chastity, which spring at every moment to the heart and make it bound, to the head and make it palpitate. If I were not sober and did not work, this purity would drive me mad. I alone am in the secret of the terrible emotions which the emanations from your dear person give me. It is an unspeakable delirium which, by turns, freezes my nature by the omnipotence of desire, and makes me burn. I resist follies like those of the young seigneur cut down by the Elector.

We have, both of us, our sufferings; do not let us dispute that. Let us love each other, and do not refuse me that which makes all accepted. In other respects, in all things, angel, I am submissive to you as to God. Take my life, ask me to die, order me all things, except not to love you, not to desire you, not to possess you. Outside of that all is possible to me in your name.

[Footnote 1: Madame de Berny is meant, and the invention of this letter is infamous. See letter to Madame Carraud in Appendix, written at the same time as this spurious letter.--TR]

GENEVA, January, 1834.

If you only knew the superstitions you give me! When I work I put the talisman on my finger; I put it on the first finger of the left hand, with which I hold my paper, so that your thought clasps me. You are there, with me. Now, in seeking from the air for words and ideas, I ask them of that delicious ring; in it I have found the whole of "Séraphita."

Love celestial, what things I have to say to you, for which one needs the sacred hours during which the heart feels the need of baring itself. The adorable pleasures of love are the only means of arriving at that union, that fusion of souls. Dear, with what joy I see the fortunes of my heart and the fate of my soul secured to me. Yes, I will love you alone and solely through my life. You have all that pleases me. You exhale, for me, the most intoxicating perfume a woman can have; that alone is a treasure of love.

I love you with a fanaticism that does not exclude the quietude of a love without possible storms. Yes, say to yourself well that I breathe by the air you breathe, that I can never have any other thought than you. You are the end of all for me. You shall be the young dilecta--already I call you the pre dilecta.

Do not murmur at this alliance of the two sentiments. I should like to think I loved you in her, and that the noble qualities which touched me and made me better than I was were all in you.

I love you, my angel of earth, as they loved in the middle ages, with the most complete fidelity, and my love will always be grand, without stain; I am proud of my love. It is the principle of a new life. Hence, the new courage that I feel under my last adversities. I would be greater, be something glorious, so that the crown to place upon your head should be the most leafy, the most flowery of all those that great men have nobly won!

Never, therefore, have fear or distrust; there are no abysses in heaven! A thousand kisses full of caresses; a thousand caresses full of kisses! Mon Dieu! shall I never be able to make you see how I love you, you, my Eve!

À bientôt; a thousand kisses will be in my first look.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

My loved love, with a single caress you have returned me to life. Oh! my dearest, I have not been able to either sleep or work. Lost in the remembrance of that evening, I have said to you a world of tendernesses. Oh! you have that divine soul to which one remains attached during a lifetime. My soul, you have, through love, the delicious language of love which makes all griefs and annoyances fly away on wings. Loved angel, do not obscure with any doubt the inspirations of love of which your dear caress is but the interpreter. Do not think you can ever enter into comparison with any one, no matter who. But, my loved darling, my flower of heaven, do you not understand, you, all charm and all truth, that a poor poet can be struck at finding the same heart, at being loved beyond his hopes? My adored wife, yes, it was for you that the heart of the most delicate and sweetest woman that ever was brought me up. I shall be permitted to say to her: "You wished to be twenty years old to love me better and give me even the pleasures of vanity. Well, I have met with what you wished me." She will be joyous for us. Dear eternal idol, my beautiful and holy religion, I know how the memories of another love must wound a proud and delicate love. But not to speak of it to you would be to deprive you of nameless fêtes of the soul, and joys of love. There are such identities of tenderness and soul that I am proud for you, and I know not if it is you I loved in her. Then, an ungovernable jealousy has so habituated me to think with open heart, and say all to her in whom I live, that I could never hide from you a thought. No, you are my own heart.

Yes, to you all is permitted. I shall tell you naïvely all that I think that is fine, and all that I think that is bad. You are an I, handsomer, prettier.

My love has neither exaltation, nor more, nor less, nor anything that is terrestrial. Oh! my dear Eve, it is the love of the angel always at the same degree of force, of exaltation. To feel, to touch your hand of love, that hand of soft, proud sentiments,--do you understand me, my angel, tender, kind, passionate,--that hand, polished and relaxed of love, that is a happiness as great as your caress of honey and of fire.

This is what I wished to say to my timid angel, who thought that all caresses were not solidaire. One, the lightest as the most passionate, comprises all. In that you see to the bottom of my soul. A kiss on your cherished lips,--those virgin lips that have no souvenirs yet (which makes you in my eyes as pure as the purest young girl),--a kiss will be a talisman for the desires of love, when it contains all the caresses of love. Our poor kiss, still disinherited of all our joys, only goes to your heart, and I would that it enwrapped all your person. You would see that possession augments, enlarges love. You would know your Honoré, your husband; and you would know that he loves you more daily.

My dearest Eva, never doubt me, but doubt yourself less. I have told you that there is in you, in your letters, in your love, in its expression, a something I know not what that is more than in other letters and expressions that I thought inimitable. But you are twenty-eight years old,--that is the grand secret. But, dear treasure, you have the most celestial soul that I know, and you have intoxicating beauties. Mon Dieu! how shall I tell you that I am drunk at the faintest scent of you, and that had I possessed you a thousand times you would see me more intoxicated still, because there would be hope and memory where now there is only hope.

Do you remember the bird that has but one flower? That is the history of my heart and my love. Oh! dear celestial flower, dear embalming perfumes, dear fresh colours, my beautiful stalk, do not bend, guard me always. At each advance of a love which goes and ever will go on increasing, I feel in my heart foyers of tenderness and adoration. Oh! I want to be sure of you as I am of myself. I feel at each respiration that I have in my heart a constancy that nothing can alter.

I wept on the road to Diodati, when, after having promised me all the caresses that you have granted me, a woman was able, with a single word, to cut the woof she seemed to have taken such pleasure in weaving. Judge if I adore you, you who perceive nothing of these odious manœuvres, who deliver yourself up with candour and happiness to love, and who speaks thus to all my natures.

There is my confession made. I think that you have all the noblenesses of the heart, for, adored angel, one should respect the weakness and even the crimes of a woman, and if I hide nothing from your heart, it is that it ought always to be mine. So I send you my sister's chatter and the letter of Madame de C[astries] on condition that you burn all, my angel. I know you so true, so great; ah! I would not hesitate to read you the letter of the dilecta if you wish it, for you are really myself. I would not hide from you the shadow of a thought, and you ought, at all hours, to enter my heart, as into the palace you have chosen to spread your treasures in, to adorn it, and find pleasure in it. All should there be yours.

If Madame C...'s letter displeases you, say so frankly, my love. I will write to her that my affections are placed in a heart too jealous for me to be permitted to correspond with a woman who has her reputation for beauty, for charm, and that I act frankly in telling her so. I wish to write this letter from myself. I would like well that you should tell it to me.

As for my money troubles, do not be uneasy about them. It is the basis of my life, till the end of July, love, which makes everything easy to me to bear.

Pardon me for having made known to you yesterday's trouble. Oh, dear, always beautiful flower, I am ashamed to have made you know the extent of your mission, but you are an inexhaustible treasury of affection, of love, of tenderness, and I shall always find in you more consolations than I have troubles. You have put into my thoughts and all my hours a light, a gleam, which makes me endure all.

I wake up happy to love you; I go to bed happy to be loved. It is the life of angels; and my despair comes from feeling in it the discord which my want of fortune and of liberty puts between the desires of my heart, the impulses of my nature, and the works which keep me in an ignoble cabin like the moujiks of Paulowska. If I were only at Paulowska! I would that you were I for a moment to know how you are loved. Then I would be sure that seeing so much love, so much devotion, such great security of sentiment, you would never have a doubt, and you would love in æternum a heart that loves you thus.

A thousand kisses, and may each have in itself a thousand caresses to you like that of yesterday to me.

GENEVA, January, 1834.

Dear soul of my soul, I entreat you, attach yourself solely--your cares, your thoughts, your memory--to what will be in my life a constant thought. Let the piece of malachite become by you alone an inkstand. I will explain the shape. It should be cut six-sided; the sides should be about the dimensions of the sides of your card-basket, except that they ought to end, at the top, squarely, as at the base; they should go up, enlarging from the base to the top, and, to decide, logically, the conditions of the stand, the pot for the ink (hollowed out in the malachite) must have at its surface a diameter equal to this line [drawn]. The cover, shaped like a marchepain, must be round, and sunk in the pot; it should be simple, and end in a silver-gilt knob. Let the stand have a handle, fastened on by simple buttons, and this handle, of bronzed silver-gilt, should be like that of your card-basket. Have engraved upon it our motto: Adoremus in æternum, between the date of your first letter and that of Neufchâtel.

The inkstand should be mounted on a pedestal, also of six sides, suitably projecting; and on each side, at the junction of the pedestal and the stand, there should be, in art-term, a moulding of silver-gilt, which is simply a round cordon, which must harmonize with the proportions of the inkstand. Then I think that at the top of the sides this moulding should be repeated. In the middle of each side of the pedestal put a star; then, in small letters, in the middle of each large side, these words: Exaudit,--Vox,--Angeli, separated by stars (which makes "Eva").

If you want to be magnificent you will add a paper-knife of a single piece of malachite and a powder-pot, the shape of which I will explain to you.

Not to displease that person I will give him Décamp's drawing which you can get back, and I will ask him, in exchange, for a piece of malachite for my alarm-clock.

Here is Susette. I can only say that this will make me renounce the pleasure of making you pick up on the shores of the lake the pebbles I intended to have made into an alarm-clock. I went, yesterday, to see if we could walk along the shore. I wanted to connect you with these souvenirs, to make you see that one can thus enlarge life and the world, and have the right to surround you with my thought through a thousand things, as I would like to surround myself with yours. Thus sentiment moulds material objects and gives them a soul and a voice.

What! bébête, did you not guess that the dedication was a surprise which I wished to give you? You are, for longer than you think, the thought of my thought.

Yes, I shall try to come to-night at nine.

GENEVA, January 19, 1834.

My loved angel, I am almost mad for you, as one is mad. I cannot put two ideas together that you do not come between them. I can think of nothing but you. In spite of myself my imagination brings me back to you. I hold you, I press you, I kiss you, I caress you; and a thousand caresses, the most amorous, lay hold upon me.

As to my heart, you will always be there, willingly; I feel you there deliciously. But, mon Dieu! what will become of me if you have taken away my mind. Oh! it is a monomania that frightens me. I rise every moment, saying to myself, "Come, I'll go there!" Then I sit down again, recalled by a sense of my obligations. It is a dreadful struggle. It is not life. I have never been like this. You have consumed the whole of me. I feel stupefied and happy when I let myself go to thinking of you. I roll in a delicious revery, where I live a thousand years in a moment.

What a horrible situation. Crowned with love, feeling love in all my pores, living only for love, and to find oneself consumed by grief and caught in a thousand spider's-webs.

Oh! my dearest Eva, you don't know. I have picked up your card; it is there, before me, and I speak to it as if you were there. I saw you yesterday, beautiful, so admirably beautiful. Yesterday, all the evening, I said to myself, "She is mine!" Oh! the angels are not as happy in Paradise as I was yesterday.

GENEVA, February, 1834.

MADAME,--Bautte [chief clock-maker in Geneva] is a great seigneur who is bored by small matters; and as you deign to attach some importance to the chain of your slave, I send you the worthy Liodet, who will understand better what is wanted, and will put more good-will into doing it. I have told him to put a link to join the two little chains.

Accept a thousand compliments, and the respectful homage of your moujik,

HONORÉ.

GENEVA, February, 1834.

The Sire de Balzac is very well indeed, madame, and will be, in a few moments, at your fireside for a chat; he is too avaricious of the few moments that remain to him to spend in Geneva, and if he had not had some letters to answer, he would have gone there already this morning. A thousand affectionate compliments to M. Hanski, and to you a thousand homages full of friendship.

PARIS, Wednesday, February 12, 1834.

I prefer saying nothing more than that. I love you with increasing intoxication, with a devotion that difficulties increase, to telling you imperfectly my history for the last three days. Sunday I will post a complete journal. I have not a minute to myself. Everything hurries me at once, and time presses. But, adored angel, you will divine me.

The dilecta [Madame de Berny] is better, but the future seems bad to me. I wait still before despairing.

Mon Dieu! may my thoughts of love echo in your ears and cradle you.

PARIS, Thursday, February 13, 1834.

MADAME,--I arrived much fatigued, but I found troubles at home, of which you can conceive the keenness. Madame de Berny is ill, and seriously ill,--more ill than she is aware of. I see in her face a fatal change. I hide my anxiety from her; it is boundless. Until my own doctor or a somnambulist reassure me, I shall not feel easy about that life which you know to be so precious.

I have delayed a day in writing to you, because on Wednesday morning I had to rush to the rue d'Enfer, and when I could write to you there was no longer time; the public offices closed earlier on account of Ash-Wednesday.

The sight of that face so gracious, aged in a month by twenty years, and horribly contracted, has greatly increased the grief I felt. Even if the health is restored, and I hope it, it will be always painful to me to see the sad change to old age. I can say this only to you. It seems as if nature had avenged herself suddenly, in a moment, for the long protestation made against her and time. I hope most ardently that the life may be saved; but I recognized symptoms that I saw with horror in my father before the irreparable loss. So, I have sorrow upon sorrow.[1] Now, after confiding to you these distresses, I can, madame, give you some consoling news. The publisher has understood my delay, and is not angry with me. I have, certainly, to work enormously, but, at least, I shall not have the annoyance of being blamed. As for M. Gosselin, that is only a loss of money. So, you who felt such affectionate fears lest the prolongation of my stay would prove a burden may be reassured. I shall have had complete joy, and no remorse; and now that there is no remorse, I should like a little. It is so sweet to bear something for those whose friendship is precious to us. I can tell you from afar, with less trembling in my voice and redness in my eyes, that the forty-four days I spent in Geneva have been one of the sweetest halts that I have made in my life of a literary foot-soldier. That rest was necessary for me, and you have made it into a joy. It was a sleep with the sweetest dreams,--dreams which will be realities. True friendship, sweet, kind, noble and good sentiments are so rare in life that there must mingle a little gratitude in the return we owe, and I feel as much gratitude as friendship.

I shall forget nothing of our affectionate little agreements: neither the album, nor the coffee, nor anything. To-day I can only tell you that I arrived without any hindrance, except great fatigue. The cold was keen. Saturday morning I crossed the Jura on foot through the snow, and on reaching the stone where two years ago I sat down to look at the wonderful spectacle of France and Switzerland separated by a brook, which is the Lake of Geneva, and a ditch, which is the valley between the Mont Blanc and the Jura, I had a moment of joy mingled with sadness. Two years ago I wept over lost illusions [refers to his rupture with Mme. de Castries], and to-day I had to regret the sweetest things that have ever come to me, outside of family feelings,--hours of friendship, the value of which a poor writer from necessity must feel more keenly than others, because there is in him a great poet for all that is emotion of the heart.

Yes, I am proud of my personal feelings, but it is a great grief to know the joys of friendship to their full extent, and lose them, even momentarily.

To-day I replunge into work, and it is crushing. I have promised that the second Part of the "Études de Mœurs" shall appear February 25th. That is only ten days for completing you know how much. My punctuality must excuse the delays. You see that in writing I am as indiscreet as when I went to see you.

Well, adieu, madame; believe that I am not "French" in the matter of memory, and that I know all that I leave of good and true beyond the Jura. In the hours when I am worn-out I shall think of our evenings; and the word patience, written in the depths of my life, will make me think of our games. You know all that I would say to the Grand Maréchal of the Ukraine, and I am certain that my words will be more graceful from your lips than from my pen. Tell Anna that her horse sends her his remembrances and kisses her forehead. A thousand affectionate compliments to Mademoiselle Séverine; inform Mademoiselle Borel that I have not broken my neck, and keep, I entreat you, madame, at your feet, my most sincere and most affectionate homage; your noble beauty assures you of sincerity, and as to the affection, I wish I could prove it to you in some way that would not involve misfortune.

"Do not forget to-morrow," was one of your recommendations when I told you that I did not believe in morrows; but now I do believe in them, for, by chance, I have a future, and my publisher has proved it to me. He is jubilant at the sale of "Eugénie Grandet," and said to me solemnly, "It sells like bread." I tell this to you who think you see cakes in it, while most people expect to see me faire brioches of it [fiasco]. Excuse this studio jest, you who like artists.

Devotion and friendship.

[Footnote 1: Madame de Berny was the friend of his parents, and twenty-four years older than himself. When the family lived at Villeparisis the de Bernys lived near them in a hired house, their own estate being at Saint-Firmin. Madame de Berny recognized Balzac's genius in his early youth, when parents and friends denied it. For a time, while at Villeparisis, he taught her son with his own brother Henry. When Balzac's father opposed his literary career, it was she who, with Mme. Surville and her husband, induced the old man to advance him part of his inheritance for the printing-office, and later another portion to avoid bankruptcy. When the crisis came, in 1828, and his father would do no more for him, Madame de Berny lent him money from time to time to meet his load of business debts. The total amount lent by her, at five per cent interest, was 45,000 francs, the last 6,000 of which he paid in full in 1836. Madame de Berny had cruel trials of her own. Two of her children were insane, one idolized son and two daughters died before her in the prime of their youth. The illness here mentioned was one form of heart disease, from which she rallied for a time, but died in July, 1836, in the sixty-first year of her age. Of Balzac's grief at this event his sister says: "My brother was then (1836) overwhelmed by a great heart-sorrow ... the death of a person very dear to him.... I have never read anything so eloquent as his expression of that grief."

Writing, himself, to a friend at that time, he says: "She whom I have lost was more than a mother, more than a friend, more than any creature can be to another creature. I can explain her only by divinity. She sustained me during great storms by words, by actions, by devotion. If I live, it was through her. She was all to me; and though for the last two years illness and lapse of time had separated us, yet we were visible to each other from a distance. She re-acted upon me. She was, as it were, my moral sun. Madame de Mortsauf in the Lys is a pale expression of her noble qualities; it is but a distant reflection of her, for I have a horror of prostituting my own emotions."--TR.]

PARIS, February 15, 1834, eleven o'clock.

My darling Eva, to you belongs this part of my night. Since Wednesday morning of this week I have been like a balloon; but as I went and came, and bustled through this Paris, I walked along, exciting myself with one fixed idea,--the idea of being forever near to you.

My dear idol, I have never had so much courage in my life; or rather, I have a new life. I read your name in me, I see you; everything seems easy to me to attain to seeing you again. I am afraid of nothing. My tears, my regrets, my sadness of love,--all that falls upon my heart at the moment when I get into bed. Then, alone with myself, I am all grief not to be at the "Arc," not to have seen my darling, and I go over in memory the smallest details of those days when, for all grief, I had that of being waked three hours too soon, hours that separated my rising from the moment when I set out to go to you.

The next day I work with an ardour of enthusiasm. What shall I tell you of these four days? I had to see two editors (they came) and the printer, to finish my proofs, to nurse Mme. de Berny, who is better,--but what a change! she is still a little feeble, incapable of correcting my proofs. Everything will suffer for that, but what does it matter? I want to see that life out of danger.

I felt there how I loved you. A horrible sensation told me that I could not bear any danger to you. All that recalled my terror at the time of your nervous attack. Oh, mon Dieu! to see you seriously ill, you, who sum up and hold all my affections in your heart, my life in your life,--why! I should die, not of your death, but of your sufferings. No, you do not know what you are to me. Near you, I feel too much to tell you egotistical thoughts; here I talk to you all day long. You are woven into my thought. I find no word but that to express my situation. As soon as I found myself in Paris I thought of the means of going to see you for a single day in Geneva.

Here I find violent family troubles. To-day I have had my brother-in-law and my mother to dinner. That tells you that from five o'clock to half-past ten I have been given up to them. Yesterday I had to dine with my sister, my mother, and my brother-in-law; then I was forced to give them from four to eleven o'clock. Those poor heads are distracted. I must have courage, ideas, energy, economy for all of them.

The morning of this Friday I set myself to learn all that has happened here. I had to go out early, to see the doctor, negotiate a payment for to-day, 15th, and consult him. So you see the employment of to-day and yesterday. Thursday was taken up by the publishers, a little sleep and a bath, also by Madame de Berny, to whom I wished at any rate to read "Ne touchez pas à la hache." Wednesday, the day after my arrival, I wrote you in the evening, I ran about all the morning, set my affairs in order, attended to a thousand little things,--which I don't particularize, as they are all mere necessary nothings,--made up my accounts, wrote, etc. After this avalanche of small things here I am, not much rested, rather less anxious about the dilecta, before a pile of proofs and enormous debts for the end of the month. Madame D... has urgent need of half her money by the end of February. It is now the 15th, the month is a short one, I must finish my two volumes; I must finish "Ne touchez pas" and write "La Femme aux yeux rouges."

My adored, my darling minette, I tell you things that are terrifying, but do not be alarmed. Vienna is traced out before me; all will be well. Your desire to see me, your love, all you hovers above me. I believe in you only; I want new successes, new fame, new courage; I will in short, that you shall be a thousand times prouder of your husband of love than of your lover. Yes, dear celestial Eva, I am melancholy because I am here and you are down there, but I have no more discouragements, no more depressions. When I raise my eyes I see something better than God, I see a sure happiness, a tried happiness. Oh! you do not know, my treasure, my dear life, what such sweet certainty is to my soul. You don't know what you did with your infernal jesting, you remember? You tried upon a most loving heart a weapon you did not know was loaded. A moment more, and I was lost. My eternal love could be placed on you alone; I see it, I know it now, for now I desire you more than ever. My dearest soul, I have for myself all the efforts that I make to meet you again; I materialize my hope. But, my beautiful myself, you, what are you doing? Ah! my beautiful, saintly creature, I know it is not on him of Paris that the burden is heaviest; it is our Geneva love, it is you who, bearing all our happiness, feel most our pains, our sorrows. Neither do I ever look at us two without a smile full of hope, but also slightly tainted with sadness. Oh! my idolized angel, you in whom all my future resides, all my happiness, and for whom I desire all the fine glories that make a happy woman, you whom I love with all the ardour of a young sentiment, of a first and a last love in one, yes, know it well, no sufferings, ideas, joys, which can agitate your soul fail to come and agitate mine.[1]

At this moment when I write to you, having left all to plunge into your heart, to come nearer to you, no, I feel space no longer; we are near one to the other; I see you, and one of my senses is intoxicated by the memory of one of those little voluptuous moments which made me so happy! I am very proud of you. I cry out to myself that I love you! You see, a poet's love has a little madness in it. None but artists are worthy of women, because they are somewhat women too. Oh! what need I have always to hear myself told that I am loved, to hear you repeat it! You, you are all. You will know only when you hear my voice how ardently I tell you that you are the only well-beloved, the only wife. Now I shall rush there more amorously than the two preceding times. You know why, my dear, naïve wife? Because I know you better, because I know all there is of divine and girlish in your dear, celestial character, because--. No, I never dreamed so ambitiously the perfections that are agreeable to me because I know that I can love ever. Going to Neufchâtel I wanted to love you; returning from Geneva it is impossible not to love you!

Who will ever know what the road to Ferney is at the spot where, having to leave on the morrow, I stood still at the sight of your dear, saddened face. Mon Dieu! if I tried to tell you all the thoughts there are in my soul, the voluptuous pleasures which my heart contains and desires, I should never cease writing, and, unfortunately, the word "Vienna" is there. I am cruel to both of us in the name of a continued happiness; yes, one year passed together will prove to you that you can be better loved each day, and I aspire to September...

My dearest, I have many griefs; this flaming happiness is surrounded by briars, thorns, stones. I cannot speak to you of family troubles; they are endless. You will know them from one word, you who feel through a sister what, in another order of things, I feel through my mother. My mother has committed, with good intentions, follies that bring a person into disrepute. Here am I, I, so busy, forced to undertake the education of my mother, hold her in check, make a child of her.[2] Dear angel, what a sad thing to think that if the world has accumulated obstacles in my life, my family have done worse in being of no use to me, and secretly hampering me. One day or other the world counts us as a victor to have beaten it. But family griefs are between us and God.

I told Borget that September would see me in Vienna, and a whole year in the Ukraine and the Crimea, and you know I wrote him that he could meet you in Italy. I send you a scrap of a letter from that excellent friend; it will please you; you will see in it that nobility of soul, that beauty of sentiment, that make us love him. What rush of love he has to those who love his friend! But do not go and love him too much, Madame. He will take to you your chain, the sketches of my apartment, and your seal, if it is done, without knowing what he hands to you. So tell me the day you will be in Venice; he will go there. He is my Thaddeus, you see. What he does for me, I should do for him. One is never jealous of fine sentiments. As much as death entered cold into your husband's heart when you spoke of a coquetry to Séverine, so much should I go joyously to accomplish in your name a service to your Thaddeus.

From to-day, Sunday, I shall write to you every day a word, on a little diary. Yes, the Würtemberg Coquebin shall alone touch the manuscript of "Séraphita," which will be coarsely bound in the gray cloth which slipped so easily on the floors. Am I not a little of a woman, hey, minette? Have I not found a pretty use for what you wanted destroyed, and a souvenir? Nothing can be more precious, or simpler. Book of celestial love, clothed in love and in joys terrestrial as complete as it is possible to have here below. Yes, angel, complete, full! Yes, my ambitious one, you fill all my life! Yes, we can be happy every day, feeling every day new joys.

Mon Dieu! Friday at dinner I saw in my sister's home one of those scenes which prove that inspired love, that jealous love, that nothing in Paris can resist continued poverty. Oh! dear angel, what a terrible reaction in my heart, thinking of the little home in the rue Cassini. How I swore to myself then, with that iron will, never to expose the flowers of my life to be in the brown pot in which were the pinks of Ida's mother,--you know, in "Ferragus." No, no, I never could have that experience, for never shall I forget the 14th of February, 1834, any more than the 26th of January; there is a lesson in it for me. Yes, I want too much; there exists in my being an invincible need to love you always better, that I may never expose my love to any misunderstanding. Oh, my heart, my soul, my life, with what joy I recognize at every step that I love you as you dream of being loved. The most indifferent things enter into this circumference.

No, your young girl's chain shall remain pure. I would like to employ it. It is too pretty for a man. That is why I wanted your head by Grosclaude. What a delicious border I could have made of it, and what a delicious thought to surround you, you, my dear wife, with all the superstitions of your childhood which I adore. Your childhood was mine. We are brothers and sisters through the sorrows of childhood.

There is one of your smiles of happiness, a ravishing little contraction, a paleness that takes you at the moment of joy, which returns to stab me with intoxicating memories. Oh! you do not know with what depth you correspond to the caprices, the loves, the pleasures, the poesies, the sentiments of my nature!

Come, adieu. Think, my beloved, that at every instant of the day a thought of love surrounds you; that a light more brilliant and secret gilds your atmosphere; that my thought is all about you; that my interior eyes see you; that a constant desire caresses you; that I work in your name and for you. Take good care of yourself; and remember that the only serious order that is given to you by him who loves you and whom you have told me you wished to obey is to walk a great deal whatever the weather may be. You must. Ah! the doctor laughed at my fears. Nevertheless, there are baths to be taken, and some precautions, "fruits of my excessive labour," he said. "So long as you lead your chaste, monkish life and work your twelve hours a day, take every morning an infusion of wild pansy." Isn't his prescription droll?

You know all the caressing desires that I send you. Well, I hope that every Wednesday you will know how to draw my letter from the claws of the post. From now till the end of the month I shall work only my twelve hours, sleep seven, and spread out the five others in rest, reading, baths, and the bustle of life. Your Bengali is wise. Well, a thousand flowers of the soul. All reflection made, I shall send your ostensible letter by Borget.

[Footnote 1: This ridiculous stuff is carefully translated word for word. The reader must make what he can of it. It is ludicrous to suppose that Balzac ever wrote those vapourings of a shop-boy to his female kind.--TR.]

[Footnote 2: His whole correspondence, and all that we know and can gather of his life go to prove that he never could have written this. His family then consisted of his mother and Mme. Surville. His affection for M. and Mme. Surville appears in every part of his life. His mother seems to have been at times irritating, and very injudicious with him, but not in the way suggested. At one period he intrusted her with all his affairs, and she was his business agent. He shows in his life and writings a strong respect for the Family bond, and his last letter to his mother is signed "Ton fils soumis"--"Your submissive son."--TR.]

PARIS, February 17--February 23, 1834.

No letter to-day, my dearest Eve. Mon Dieu! are you ill? What tortures one has at such a distance! If you are ill, and they have taken your letters! A thousand thoughts enter my brain and make me desperate.

To-day I work much, but get on little. To-morrow I am forced to go and dine with M. de Margonne, the lord of Saché. Nevertheless, I get up at half-past one in the morning and go to bed at half-past six. My habits of work are resumed and the fatigues of toil; but I bear them well. I find unheard-of difficulties in doing well what I have to do at this moment. At every instant of the day my thought flies to you. I have mortal fears of being less loved. I adore you with such complete abandonment! I have such need of knowing myself loved! I can be happy only when I receive a letter from you, not every day, but every two days. Your letters refresh my soul; they cast into it celestial balm.

You cannot doubt me; I work night and day, and every line brings me nearer to you. But you, my beloved angel, what are you doing? You are idle; you still see a little company. Mon Dieu! what ties are between us! They will not break, say! You do not know how much I am attached to you by all the things that you thought would detach me. There is not only ungovernable love, passions, happiness, pleasures, there is also, from me to you, I know not what profound esteem of moral qualities. Your mind will always please me; your soul is strong; you are fully the wife I desire for mine. I go over deliciously within me those forty-five days, and everything proves to me that I am right in my love. Yes, I can love you always; always hold out to you a hand full of true affection and receive you in a heart that is always full of you. I like to speak to you of your superiority because it is real. Every sound your soul gives out is grand, strong, and true. I am very happy through you in thinking that you have all the qualities which perpetuate attachment in life.

My dear flower of love, I wrote in my last letter that I wished you to walk; but I wish more, I also wish you to give up coffee au lait and tea. I wish you to obey me, and I desire that you shall only eat dark meats. Above all, that you bring yourself gradually to using cold water when you dress. Will you not do all that when it is asked of you in the name of love? Do not depart in any way from that regimen. As for walking, begin by short walks and increase every day till you can do six miles on foot. Take your walk fasting, getting up, and coming back to breakfast on a little meat, but dark and always roasted. If you love me you will manage yourself in this way with a constancy that nothing hinders. Then your beauty will remain the same; you will get slightly thinner, your health will be good, and you will prevent many illnesses. Oh! I implore you, follow this regimen, and when you are near the sea take sea-baths. You do not know how I love you.

Tuesday, 18.

Still no letter; what anguish! I have just returned from Madame de C[astries], whom I do not want for an enemy when my book comes out, and the best means of obtaining a defender against the faubourg Saint-Germain is to make her approve of the work in advance; and she greatly approved of it. I carried to Madame Appony Madame Potoçka's letter. The ambassadress [of Austria] was at her toilet; I did not see her, and, on the whole, I am content; I do not want to be disturbed, I wish to go nowhere, and the singular idea has come to me of shaving my head like a monk so as to be unable to go out of the house. I have to go to a ball Saturday at Dablin's; he has done me services, and I am forced to have some gratitude.

Do you know there is some question of my taking my mother, sister, and brother-in-law to live here? I await a family council upon it. I see many inconveniences; the lessening of my liberty, though nothing would prevent my going to the Ukraine and Vienna and absenting myself two years. But, for the last two days, my reason tells me to refuse this union; and yet it is the only means to prevent my mother from committing follies. What vexations and impediments! I have worked little to-day and have rushed about much.

Wednesday, 19.

Furious work. The "Duchesse de Langeais" costs me more than I can tell you. In my opinion it is colossal in work, but it will be little appreciated by the crowd. My publisher refuses me any money for my month's bills; here I am constrained to a thousand annoying efforts, and shall I succeed? he is right; he represents Madame Bêchet, and tells me he can't ask her to pay in advance; the new Part must absolutely be brought out. So I send you a thousand tendernesses. Here, reading this line, you must think that the heart of your lover was full of love, that he had need to write to you a thousand gracious things, but that he must be silent and work! Till to-morrow.

Thursday, 20, five o'clock.

My mother, sister, and brother-in-law are coming to dinner to talk over affairs. I have worked since one hour after midnight till three hours after midday without leaving off. Now, angel of mine, decidedly you will shudder, you will palpitate, when you read the "Duchesse de Langeais," for it is the greatest thing in women that I have so far done. No woman of this Faubourg resembles her.

You have a thousand thoughts of love, a thousand caresses, a thousand prettinesses. I think of you and your pleasure when I hear my name uttered gloriously everywhere. I wish to become great for a sentiment greater still.

Till to-morrow. A kiss to the wife, a little pigeonnerie to Eve. A thousand souls for you in my soul.

Friday, 21.

I have your letter, the second letter written to your dearest one. Mon Dieu! how I love you! The thousand desires, the hopes of happiness which fired my heart at each turn of the wheel as I went to Neufchâtel, the certain delights that I went to find in Geneva and which made you sublime, ravishing, in short a wife, forever mine,--well, I have felt all those divers emotions once more, augmented by dear joys, by the adorable security of an angel in his sky.

Oh! my love, what rapid wings have borne me near to you! Yes, my thought has kissed your magnificent forehead, my heart has been in your heart, my thought in your beautiful hair, and my mouth--I dare not say, but certainly it breathed love and kissed you with unheard-of ardour. Oh! dear Eve, dear treasure of happiness, dear, noble soul, dear light, dear world, my only happiness, how shall I tell you fully that I felt there that I loved you in æternum? I ought to have read that letter on my knees before your portrait! What courage you communicate to me!

Eh bien, I am glad at what you inform me of. To have it so, it must be the fruit of conscientious thought. Oh! dear darling, I want that this other you, this other we, well, I wish he may have all that can flatter the vanities of a mother, that he may be tall, that he have your forehead, my energy, that he be handsome and noble, a great heart and a fine soul. For all that, wisdom! At Vienna, my love, at Vienna, we will try. What delights in chastity, in fame, in work that has an object. Fidelity, fame, toil, all that for a woman, one only, for her whose love shines already upon me for all my life. Yes, Eva, Eva of love, my beautiful and noble mistress, my pretty, naïve servant, my great sovereign, my fairy, my flower, yes, you light all things! Persist in your projects; be a woman as superior in your conduct as you are in your plans. Be as strong in your house as you are in your love.

Oh! your letters, they ravish me, they stir me; oh! you make me dote upon you! What a soul, what a heart, what a dear mind! You crown my ambitions, and yesterday I was saying to Mme. de B... that you were--you, the unknown of Geneva and Neufchâtel--the realization of the ambitious programme I had made of a woman.

Ah! my love, it is something, after the triumph that all women desire to obtain over the senses and the heart of their lovers, to obtain also the complete and entire assurance that they are admired from afar, that we can always esteem them, cherish them, take pleasure beside them. Such as you have seen me near you, such I shall ever be. To you all my smiles, to you the flowers of heart and love, inexhaustible in their bloom. To you the candour and freshness of my sentiments, to you all. To you, who understand the mind, the gaiety, the melancholy, the grandeur, the transports of the ever diverse love of a poet! Oh! I stop, kissing your eyes.

To-morrow I rush, about; I have tiresome business matters; but this is the last time. I shall finish at one blow the difficulty about the "Physiologie du Mariage," and by the end of March I shall not owe a sou to Madame Delannoy. After? Well, I shall resume work to accomplish the rest. I tell you nothing of these tramps, but they take much time, weary me, exhaust me, and my love, as much as necessity, cries to me every morning, "March!"

My love, my Eve, night and day I go to sleep and wake in your heart, in your thought. To suffer, to work for you, these are pleasures. Till to-morrow.

Saturday, 22.

I have just received your ostensible letter and have answered it. I spoke stupidly of your chain, but I have not the heart to throw the letter into the fire and write it over again. I am tired. To-night I must go to a ball; I, at a ball! But, my love, I must. It is at the house of the only friend who has ever gallantly served me. I will send you the pattern of a chain, that of Vaucanson; have it made solid, and Liodet can send it to me and draw on me for the cost. Tell me if bronze-gilt things can enter Russia. I have had an admirable three-branched candelabrum made here, and I should like to send you one; also an inkstand and an alarm-clock (a very useful thing to a woman), in short, all that I use here to be the same with you. If I had been richer do you think I would not have substituted to you a chain like yours and taken yours, in order that you might say to yourself while playing with it, "He plays with that chain!" But I can make such joys for ourselves later. Answer me about the bronze, because I want you to have that masterpiece before your eyes. Think, what happiness to see as you write to me, Exsultat vitam angelorum, which I shall see in writing to you. Oh! I am greedy, hungry for such things, which put two lovers unceasingly in each other's hearts! I shall have your room at Wierzchownia made just like mine here. I want you to have the same carpet.

Oh! I adore you. Just now I wept on thinking of the floor of your house in Geneva. How lucky to have the strength not to cough! These tears have told me that I shall be at Vienna, September 10, and that I shall press you, happy one, on this heart that is all yours.

Bébête, in ten years you will be thirty-seven and I forty-five, and, at that age we can love, marry, and adore each other for a lifetime. Come, my noble companion, my dear Eve, never any doubts,--you have promised me. Love with confidence. Séraphita is we two. Let us spread our wings with the same movement, and love in the same way. I adore you, looking neither before nor behind. You are the present, all my happiness at every moment.

Do not be jealous of Madame P...'s letter; that woman must be for us. I have flattered her, and I want her to think that you are disdained. All that I read you in the "Duchesse de Langeais" has been changed. You will read a new book.

Dear angel, no, we will never quit the sphere of happiness where you have made me a happiness so complete. Love me always, you will see me always happy; oh, my life, oh, my beautiful life! Here, I no longer know what an annoyance is in seeing my whole life ardent with one sole love. Tell me what you are doing. Your visit to Genthod delighted me. Never let any woman bite you without biting her deeper. They will fear you and esteem you.

Thanks for the violet; but an end of white ribbon would please me better; it has no longer any smell. I send you a violet from my garden.

Sunday, 23.

Adieu, soul of my soul; will this letter tell you how you are loved? Will it tell it to you really? No; never really. Il faut mes coups de bec là où est l'amour.

I hope to finish my volume this week. You will receive it in Geneva. I will attend to your orders, and do blindly what you tell me. But write names legibly in all business.

Would you believe that two young men dined with me yesterday and told me that several men, two of them friends of theirs, said they were I at the [masked] ball at the Opera, and obtained the favours of well-bred women while I was at Geneva, and that I have been thus calumniated. There are women who boast they have been mine, and that they come to me, to me, who see only la dilecta, who receive nobody, who want to live in your heart! I learned that last night.

Well, adieu my love; no, not adieu, but à bientôt, at Vienna, cara mia, my treasure. I have to work horribly, still; seven or eight proofs to a sheet. Ah! you will never know what the volume you will soon read has cost.

I hope to be in funds for my payments; I hope that on March 25th the third Part will appear. So, all goes well. I lose five hundred francs more by Gosselin, but pooh! The violet will tell you a thousand things of love. The Würtemberg Coquebin will bind "Séraphita" marvellously with the gray cloth; do you understand, treasure?

I go to-day at three o'clock to Madame Appony. Perhaps I shall wish to go to Madame Potoçka of Paris. I will speak to you of that.

PARIS, March 2, 1834.

My salvation! For my salvation! No, let me believe that between the two persons of whom you are thinking and me, you have not hesitated, you have condemned me. At least, there is in that all the grandeur of true love.

I was working night and day to go to you. Now I shall certainly work as much, for it is not possible for me to take the slightest resolution till my mother is physically happy. I have still a year to suffer.

Let us say no more of me. So you have been cruelly agitated? A sentiment which gives such remorse was feeble, and it is my heart that was blamed!--I, to whom adoremus in æternum meant something!

Fate is about to take from me a true affection, and to-day I lose all my beliefs in happiness, without anything being able to disengage me from myself. Ah! you have not known me! All those who have suffered forgive, you know. I shall stay as I am; I cannot change. You said yourself: "The Jules women love faithfully, in spite of desertion." Am I therefore not a man? Is this another test? It costs me more than life; it costs me my courage.

I cannot oppose to this blow either disdain, contempt, or any of the egotistical sentiments that console. I remain in my stupor, without understanding. Ah! I knew not that I was writing for myself: To wounded hearts, silence and, shade.

Mon Dieu! my book is finished; I am not rich enough to destroy it, but I lay it at your knees, begging you not to read it: Eve should not open a book in which is the "Duchesse de Langeais." You might, though certain of the entire devotion of him who writes to you, be wounded, as one is pricked by bushes. I shall always weep at being unable to suppress it.

I cannot bid you adieu; I shall never quit you more, and, from this day, I shall not allow myself even the sight of a woman. But you have not told me all! I have been odiously calumniated. You have given ear to impostors. There is room for many blows in a heart like mine; you cannot kill it easily. It is eternally yours, without division.

I tell you nothing of what is in my soul; I have neither strength nor ideas. I suffer through you. So long as it is from your hand, why should I complain? Ah! you shall see that I know how to love. Our hearts will always understand each other.

PARIS, March 9, 1834.

My angel returns to me; ah! I will hide my anguish from you, my griefs, my terrible resolutions of a week in which all things have come together to rend my heart. You, Monday; Tuesday. I quarrelled, perhaps to fight, with Émile de Girardin,--that was happiness. There's a society I shall never see again and never want to see. My enemies are setting about a rumour of my liaison with a Russian princess; they name Madame P... I have seen since my return only Madame Appony, Madame de C..., Madame de G..., and, for one hour, Madame de la B... That rumour can come only from Geneva, and not from me, who have never opened my mouth about my journey. Here I am, on bad terms with Madame de C[astries] on account of the "Duchesse de Langeais"--so much the better. But all this happens at once. So, no solitude shall ever be more complete than mine.

I have but an hour in which to answer you. Oh! my love, I swear to you I wrote to Madame P... only to prevent the road to Russia being closed to me. It would be poor cleverness to have it said here, in Paris, that I am starting for Russia. That is the way to have passports refused to me when I ask for them. I have not seen Zaluzki. Is it he who talks? Mon Dieu! I, in my hole, to be subjected to such griefs. Read the "Duchesse de Langeais." You will read it with delight. As true as that I love and adore you, I never said more than two sentences to Madame Bossi, and I never looked at her.

You desire, oh, my angel, that I shall not again be coquettish except with men. But between now and Vienna there is only toil and solitude. Give me the means to send you my book, and your coffee, in which will be your hair-chain. Therefore, undo the parcel yourself.

Never give yourself such anxieties again; yesterday, Saturday, without la dilecta, I should have killed myself. Oh! I entreat you, if you wish that I should esteem you and adore you to the end of our days, do not change; be solely mine. I, do you see? have none but you. The superhuman efforts that I make are the greatest proofs of love a man can give. Oh, dear, adored one, my Eve, my Eva, to give his life, what is that? Nothing. Each time that I saw you I gave it without regret. I sacrificed all to you. But to rise every day at midnight to plunge into a crater of work, and to do it with one name upon my lips, one image in my heart, one woman before me!--strength and constancy; I live only by the sentiment of grandeur which a mysterious love conveys to me. This is loving. Oh! be my true Beatrice, a Beatrice who gives herself, but remains an angel, a light! All that your jealousy can demand, all that your caprice can exact shall be done with joy. Except the dilecta, who corrects my proofs and who, I swear to you, is a mother, no woman shall hear me, shall see me.

My mother and sister have decided. They will live together, and not come to me. I am still free.

Oh, my love, my love, dear and adored, forgive me my answer to your letter; but to sacrifice a love like mine to a child, to a husband, to reject it for any interest whatever; that kills me. Oh, my angel, to think that you are a fancy, after all that you said to me, after all that you exacted, all that I accomplished,--it is enough to die of it! I am proudly a poet; I live by the heart, by sentiments only, and I have but one sentiment. My dilecta, at sixty years of age, is no longer anything but a mother; she is all my family, as you are all my heart, all my future! I have to work hard; the "Duchesse" will appear on the 15th; she excites all Paris already. Mon Dieu! a thousand kisses; may each be worth a thousand. Oh, my angel, I hope I may not again have to tell you that to betray me in the name of any one whatever is to put me to death. I kiss you with transport. The Bengali is virtuous. He is dead under his toil.

Put Ave on the inkstand. The "Contes Drolatiques" will tell you why.

I have said nothing. I had a thousand effusions of the soul; I am forced to keep them back. This letter must go to the post at one o'clock. I received yours at midday.

PARIS, March 11, 1834.

My flower, my one sole love, I have just received the letter you wrote me after having received the letter of badnesses. Oh! what happiness to be able to write to you once more so that you can leave Geneva without a regret! Since the letter in which you return to me, you cannot imagine how beautiful, grand, sumptuous, has been the fête in my heart at the recovery of your cherished heart. What joy, what intoxication of thought, what forgetfulness of pain, or rather how sweet its memory is, since it tells me how much you are loved, adored, as you wish to be. Oh! if you had seen all that, never a suspicion, nor a doubting word, nor a written phrase would dishonour the purity, the blue immensity of this love that dyes all my soul, fills all my life, is become the foundation of all my thoughts.

For the last two days I am drunk with happiness, glad, joyous, dancing, when I have a moment, jumping like a child. Oh, dear talisman of happiness, darling Eva, minette, wife, sister, family, light, all! I live alone in delights; I have said a sincere farewell to the world, to all. Mon Dieu! forgive what you call my coquetries; I kneel at your beloved knees, dimpled, loved, kissed, caressed; I lay my head against you, I ask pardon, I will be solitary, a worker, I will walk with none but Madame de B..., I will work without ceasing. Oh! blessed be the Salève, if the Salève gives me my happy Eve! Ah! dearest, I adore you, don't you see? I have no other life, no other future.

I received yesterday a letter from Madame P... I shall not answer it, to end the correspondence. Besides, I can write only to you. My time is taken up in a frightful manner. For the last ten days I have not varied it; to bed at six o'clock, rising at midnight. I shall do this till April 20. After which I shall take two weeks' liberty to rest. My book will appear on the 16th, the day of your departure from Geneva. You will find it addressed to you, bureau restant, at the coach office in Genoa.

I wrote you in great haste on Sunday. Incredible tales are being told about me. While I am sitting up all night they say an Englishwoman has eloped with me. It is no longer a Russian princess; it is an Englishwoman. Oh! my dear treasure, I implore you, never let your dear celestial forehead be clouded by the effect of a "they say," for you will hear it gravely said that I am crazy, and a thousand absurdities. Write to me and expect an answer. I never keep you waiting. Your dear writing overcomes me; it shines in my eyes like the sun. I feel you, I breathe you when I see it.

You will travel surrounded by the thoughts of love; I accompany you in idea, I never leave you. At each correction made, at each page written, I cry, "Vienna!" That is my word of joy, my exclamation of happiness. Why do you speak of God? There are not two religions, and you are mine. If you totter, I shall believe in nothing. Oh! my love, you have given me yourself; you will never withdraw it. One alone cannot break that which belongs to two. You are all nobleness, be all constancy. I shall be that without effort, with joy; I love you like my breath, and in æternum; oh, yes, for all my life.

I cannot tell you the sufferings of my week of passion, of my desire to go and end my days at your house in Neufchâtel. I told Borget to come at once. I withdrew "Séraphita" from the printers, and meant to send you a sole copy (without the manuscript), bound with your gifts of love. In short, a thousand follies, a thousand tempests agitated my heart cruelly. Oh! I am much of a child! It is a crime to torment a love so true, so pure, so unutterable! Oh! how angry I was with you! I cursed your analyzing forehead, on which I place a thousand kisses of love. Oh! my good treasure, make me no more bitterness. In writing a few sweet things to Madame P... I had in view to stand well with the dear ambassadress, because, through her, I shall have Pozzo di Borgo, and I do not want any hindrance to my year in the Ukraine, the first complete happiness of my life. So, if your cousin shows you my letter triumphantly, play the disdained, I entreat you. To see the Ukraine, eighteen good months! and no money interests to hamper me! I can even die for you without wronging any one. Listen, my love; this is the secret of my nights: that I may be happy without a thought to tarnish my joy! After that, I can die happy, if I have lived one year beside you. Every hour would be the most beautiful poem of love. At every hour I should be happy with the happiness of a child, a schoolboy, who believes with delight in the love of a woman. If heaven marries us some day, at whatever moment of my life it be, it will be the union of two souls in one. You are a dear, loved spirit. You please me in all ways, and you are, far-off or near, the superior woman, the mistress always desired, each of us sustaining the other. It is so sweet to a man to find that the mind, the heart, the soul, the understanding of the woman who pours out to him his pleasures, is not narrow.

Oh! dearest, all is in you. I believe in you, I love you, and as I have known you better I have found a thousand reasons for eternal attachment in esteem and in the thousand things of your heart and mind. There is no evil possible for me when I think of the life that you can make me by your love. In writing this, which you will read in that room of love before quitting it, I wish to cast upon this paper which you will hold all my soul, all the tangible qualities of a being who is yours forever; never withdraw from me the heart I have pressed, the adorable charms of that cherished soul--yourself in short.

Adieu, soul of my soul, my faith, strength, courage, love--all the great sentiments that make a great man, and a happy life. Adieu; à bientôt, and sooner than you think, dearest.

Yes, I will love you better than any woman was ever loved, and our "Chêne" will be better than that you picture to me. Coquette, indeed! You know well that my heart will rest in yours without other clouds to our love than those you make.

Come, Auguste, carry this to the general post-office.[1]

[Footnote 1: This is the last but one of these spurious letters. There is one other which plainly belongs to this series, but it has been placed at a later date for a purpose which will appear farther on.--TR.]

PARIS, March 30--April 3, 1834.

I have not written to you sooner, madame, because I presumed that you would not be in Florence before the 1st of April. I have sent to the address of MM. Borri & Co. a little package containing your copy of the second part of the "Études de Mœurs au XIXe Siècle," and I have added the Prologue of the third dizain of the "Contes Drolatiques" for M. Hanski, inasmuch as there is something in it about a famous inkstand, and things that will make him laugh; for I do not insult you with my Prologue, pay attention to that. It is to M. Hanski, and not to you, that this proof belongs.

You will see at the end of the "Duchesse de Langeais" that I have preserved a remembrance of the Pré-l'Évêque by dating the work from that revolutionary and military spot where we saw such warlike intentions. The third dizain is also dated from the Eaux Vives, and the Hôtel de l'Arc.

I have many things to tell you, but little time to myself. My third Part is in the press, and I ought to make up for time lost. Nevertheless, Madame Bêchet is a very good person.

Forgive the want of order in my letter, but I will tell you the events that have happened to me as they come into my memory.

In the first place, I have said adieu to that mole-hill of Gay, Émile de Girardin and Company. I seized the first opportunity, and it was so favorable that I broke off, point-blank. A disagreeable affair came near following; but my susceptibility as man of the pen was calmed by a college friend, ex-captain in the ex-Royal Guard, who advised me. It all ended with a piquant speech replying to a jest.

Another thing I must tell you is that I have recently quarrelled also with the Fitz-James. And here I am, as much alone as the woman most ambitious of love could desire, if any woman could wish for a man whom excessive work is withering more and more. It is two months to-day that I have been working eighteen hours a day.

The "Médecin de campagne" will be completely sold off in a few days. I am in all the fuss and worries of getting out a new edition of that book, which I want to sell at thirty sous, in order to popularize it.

Thursday, April 3.

From March 30, the day on which I began to write to you, until this evening, I have been lying on my pallet unable to write, read, or work, or do anything at all. A prostration of all my forces made me very anxious; but to-day I am quite well, and I am going for a week to the Pavilion in the forest of Fontainebleau. I have ordered all my letters to be kept in Paris. I want change of air, and to work at one thing only; for I have just suffered very much, but, thank God, it is all over. I resume my letter.

I invited your cousin Bernard ... to dinner, with Zaluski, and Mickiewicz, your dearest poet, whose face pleased me much. Bernard is very handsome and was very witty.

I entreat you, madame, to send me word, by return of post, if you will still be in Florence May 10th, how much time you stay in Rome, when you arrive, and when you will leave; because when my third Part is done I shall have twenty days to myself. I want to use them in travelling and doing nothing, and I shall accompany Auguste Borget to Florence. We shall leave May 1st and it takes only eight days from Paris to Florence.

Do not blame me too much for the unpunctuality of my correspondence. In the extreme desire for LIBERTY which possesses me, I don't consult human forces, I work exorbitantly. I have at this moment in press: two volumes of my third Part of the "Études de Mœurs," two volumes of "Les Chouans," and the third dizain; then, in a week from now, two volumes for Gosselin. It is enough to terrify one. But there are two magic words which make me able to do all: liberty on the 1st of September; Vienna on that day; and I shall not regret my nights or my tortures, for pen-receipts will tally with expenses.

Mon Dieu! what a charming project,--to be in Florence May 10, and back in Paris for the 20th! To see Florence with you! Write me quickly; for after these terrible toils through the month of April I must have twenty days' rest, and I know nothing more delightful than to see an Italian city while accompanying a friend.

I think of you very often, and I much regret Geneva, where I worked so much, all the while amusing myself. Except for a few worries, my affairs are going well. Some flatterers say that my fame is increasing, but I know nothing of that, for I live in my chimney-corner, working for citizen rights in the Ukraine. Your poor "Séraphita" is laid aside. What is promised must be done before all else. You yourself, without knowing it, tell me to work. I keep before me the bon à tirer [order to print] which you gave for one sheet in Geneva, and it seems to me a perpetual counsel. Do you know, it is rather melancholy to think of you only with regrets. You do not know that for twelve or fifteen years, Neufchâtel and Geneva are the two sole periods when I have been permitted, by what grace of heaven I know not, to look neither forward nor back; to live beneath the sky without thinking of griefs, or business, or poverty; you have been to me something beneficent. There is more gratitude in my remembrance than you know. And now that I have been nailed to an insatiable table for two months, and shall be for another month, leaving it only to sleep, I cannot think without emotion of the walks to Sacconex, to Coppet, and of your house, and my hunger which made us leave the garden where we were sitting under the willows and you discovered that good smell in the Indian chestnut, macerated in water. There are none of those tranquil pleasures in Paris. But I am not in Paris now.

Here I am alone, much alone. I have parted from society, and have returned to my former fruitful solitude. Before all things else, I must finish a book, and the "Études de Mœurs" ought to be finished this year. My liberty will be to go and come and remain where I please to go and remain. Nevertheless, I do not know a more agreeable trip than to Florence to see you for five days, and hear you for one single evening say "tiyeuilles" or "Iodet." That, I think, would restore my courage for another three months.

Perhaps I shall bring M. Hanski the third dizain to laugh away his "blue devils;" at any rate, he must be very ill if he resists my wild joy. It is two months since I laughed; one more will make three; but then he shall die of laughing. Tell him that as Geneva was so base in the matter of the poor Poles, I will never speak well of Geneva again. Are you comfortable in Italy? How did you cross the mountains? I follow you in thought. Have you thought of your poor, humble moujik and his blonde capricieuse at Aix? You ought to have thought of him at Aiguebelles, where the servants at the inn are so gracious, and at Turin, where he wished to go. Thank you, madame, if you think a little of him who thinks much of you.

I have not seen Grosclaude. Our Exhibition is detestable. There are five to ten fine pictures in three thousand five hundred canvases.

How is your dear Anna? You will tell me, won't you, how your little caravan rolls on? M. Bernard ... came yesterday to make me compliments on the "Duchesse de Langeais," and was very gracious.

Mon Dieu! you will forgive me--me, a poor hermit toiler--for talking to you so much of myself, because I am calling for your egotism in reply; to talk to me solely of yourself would be doing well by me. I can tell you only two things: I work constantly, I pay, I think of my friends. I have in my heart a happy corner, and that ought to suffice to make a noble life. My "blue devils" have no time to rise to the surface.

Do you still intend to play Grandet at Wierzchownia? for in that case I shall await thirty invitations before going there, to save provisions. Do you want anything in Paris? I hope that you and M. Hanski will not employ any other correspondent than me. But Borget and I will arrive laden with cotignac, peach preserves, and Angoulême and Strasburg pâtés. You ought to give me a commission; you don't know what pleasure it is to me to busy myself for something a friend asks of me, how it brightens my life. A fancy--that's myself only; but the fancy of another, whom I love, is a double fancy.

Spachmann [binder] has done your album, and I am beginning to collect the autographs. It will take long, but you shall have it, with patience. I begin with the oldest. Pigault-Lebrun is eighty-five years old; he shall begin it.

Adieu, madame, I would like to keep on writing to you always, just as when I was by your fireside I did not want to go away. But I must bid you adieu--no, not adieu, but au revoir. I shall await with great impatience your answer, to know if you will be in Florence May 10. Do be there! The shorter the journey, the longer time I shall have to see you; I have twenty days to myself, no more. The twenty-first I must resume the yoke of misery.

Madame de G[irardin] has made many efforts to get me back again, but your obstinate moujik--he would not be moujik if he did not say "nie"--has said nay as elegantly as he could, for he is a little civilized, your devoted moujik.[1]

HONORÉ DE BALZAC.

You know that all I wish to say to those about you; my regards, my respects, will have more value by passing through your lips.

[Footnote 1: Delphine de Girardin made many attempts to recover him, and did so, finally. In spite of his estrangement from her house she was always loyal to him; and during the time of his quarrel with her husband she wrote many kind things of him in "La Presse."--TR.]

FRAPESLE, near ISSOUDUN, April 10, 1834.

MADAME,--Since I had the pleasure of writing to you I have been very ill. My night work, my excesses, have been paid for. I fell into a state of prostration which did not allow me to read or write or even to listen to a sustained discussion. My bodily weakness equalled the intellectual weakness. I could not move. What has frightened me most is that for the last two years these attacks of debility have increased. At first, after a month of toil, I would feel one or two hours' weakness; then five hours, then a whole day. Since then the weakness has become excessive, lasting two days, three days. This time it came near death; but for the last ten days I am convalescent.[1] The doctor ordered me change of air, absolute repose, no occupation, and nourishing food. So I am here for ten days in Berry, at Issoudun, with Madame Carraud.

To-day, April 10th, I am better; I can write to you and tell you of my little death-struggle, my despair, for, feeling no force, no thought within me, I wept like a child. But to-day I recover courage; passato, pericolo, gabbato il santo. I shall laugh at the doctor who said to me:--

"You will die like Bichat, like Béclard, like all those who abuse by their brain the human forces; and what is so extraordinary in this is that you--you the most energetic forbidder of emotion, you the apostle who preach the absence of thought, you who pretend that life goes off in the passions and by the action of the brain more than by bodily motions,--you will be dead for having neglected the formulas you formulated!"

From all this has resulted, madame, a good and beautiful project of opposing to each month of toil a full month of amusement. So, from the 10th or 12th of May, I shall take twenty days in which to go and see you for two or three days wherever you are in Italy. If you are willing to see Saint Peter's at Rome in June, we will see Rome together. Then, after admiring Rome for five days, I will come back and take up my yoke. Next, having spent July and August on new pensums, I will go to see Germany, and salute you once more in Vienna, for I don't know anything sweeter than to give a purpose of friendship to a journey of pure amusement, to go in search of two or three gentle evenings, and make you laugh, and chase away the "blue devils."

You have not written to me; do you know that there is ingratitude in you? it is you who have a "French" heart. What! not the smallest little line! Nothing from Genoa, nothing from Florence. You received, I hope, in Florence, my third Part, and the third dizain to make M. Hanski laugh.

Just now I am completing the third Part, and doing a master-work,--"César Birotteau,"--the brother of him whom you know, victim like his brother, but victim of Parisian civilization, whereas his brother is the victim of a single man. It is another "Médecin de campagne," but in Paris; it is Socrates stupid, drinking, in shadow and drop by drop, his hemlock; an angel trodden underfoot, an honest man misjudged. Ah! it is a great picture; it will be grander, more vast than anything I have yet done. I want, if you forget me, that my name should be cast to you by Fame, as a reproach.

Do you know, madame, that you are very seriously in my prayers of night and morning,--you and all those you care for? You do not truly know the heart which chance has made you meet. A desire to boast possesses me--but no; time will be to you a too constant, too noble eulogy on me. I do not wish to add to it.

As soon as "Birotteau" is printed, the third Part out, the dizain in the light, I shall rush joyously to Italy to seek your approbation as a sweet reward. Maître Borget cannot come with me; you will see him, no doubt, in Venice; but the artist moves slowly, he sips all, whereas I am forced to go like the wind and return like a vapour. Borget is here, and returns with me to Paris, April 20.

Poor Madame Carraud is very unwell, and is causing alarm to her friends. She confided to me the secret of her sufferings. She is perhaps pregnant, and another child would be her death. She has hardly strength to live.

I beg of you, write me in detail about your travelling life, that I may know all your joys and even your disappointments. I have so much admired the splendid face of Mickiewicz; what a noble head! Write me what you think of the "Duchesse de Langeais." Kiss Anna on the forehead for me, her poor horse. Present my regards to M. Hanski; how does Italy suit him? My respects to Mademoiselle Séverine. To you, madame, my most affectionate thoughts.

I must bid you adieu for to-day, because work calls me. In ten days, after "Birotteau" is done, I will write you a long letter and make up arrears. I will tell you my past troubles, my sufferings laid to rest, and my sensations, inasmuch as you deign to take an interest in your poor literary moujik. Your beautiful Séraphita is very mournful; she has folded her wings and awaits the hour to be yours. I will not have a single rival thought disturb that thought you have adopted. Perhaps I will bring her to Rome that she may be done, little by little, under your eyes. Each day enlarges the picture and magnifies it.

I have not had time to answer Madame Jeroslas ...; she cannot be pleased with me; truly it is not possible for me to write except to you and the persons who are nearest to my heart. One has but three friends in the world, and if one is not exclusive for them, what good is it to love? When I have an instant to myself I am too tired to write; but I think; I carry my thoughts back to Geneva, I utter, mechanically, "tiyeuilles," and I illusion myself. Then a proof arrives, and I return to my sad condition of workman, of manual labour.

Well, adieu. Be happy; see the beautiful scenery, the fine pictures, the masterpieces, the galleries, and say to yourself if some gnat hums, or the fire sparkles, or a flame darts up, it is a friend's thought coming from my heart, from my soul toward you; and that I, too,--I would like my share in those beautiful enjoyments of art, but that I am here in my galley, having nought to offer you except a thought--but a constant thought.

I wrote you on the day I felt recovered; therefore have no fear if you take an interest in my health. I have no more weakness except in the eyes.

[Footnote 1: This letter in the French volume is dated April 10, which is, of course, wrong, or else the previous letter is misdated.--TR.]

PARIS, April 28, 1834.

MADAME,--I have just received your good letter of the 20th, written in Florence; and you know by this time that it is impossible for me to go there. You must have received my little line from Issoudun, in which I asked you with great cries for Saint Peter's in Rome. For that trip I can answer. At that time all my affairs will be arranged. But Madame Bêchet needs me and my Parts, otherwise she will be compromised.

I hope you have not mingled anything personal in your reflections on: "it was only a poem" [conclusion of the "Duchesse de Langeais"]. You feel, of course, that a Thirteener must have been a man of iron. You would not accuse an author of thinking all he writes?

If painters, poets, artists were sharers in all they represent, they would die at twenty-five. No, my duchess is not my Fornarina. When I have her--but I have a Fornarina--I shall never paint her. Her adorable spirit may animate my soul, her heart may be in my heart, her life in my life, but paint her, show her to the public!--I would sooner die of hunger, for I should die of shame.

I am very glad that you do not yet know me fully; because now you may, perhaps, love me better some day. Mon Dieu! what you tell me of your health and that of Monsieur Hanski made me bound in my chair. Madame, in the name of the sentiment, the sincere affection I bear you, I implore you when you or Monsieur Hanski or your Anna are ill, write to me. Don't laugh at what I am going to say to you. Recent facts at Issoudun proved to me that I possess a great magnetic power, and that either by a somnambulist, or by myself, I can cure those who are dear to me. Therefore, have recourse to me. I will leave everything to go to you. I will devote myself with the pious warmth of true devotion to the care that illness needs, and I can give you undeniable proofs of that singular power. Therefore, put me in the way of knowing how you are. Don't deceive me, and don't laugh at this.

Your romances afflict me. Why have such dark suppositions? Mon Dieu! as for me, when I dream, I dream of happiness only.

Yesterday, some one told me the secret of my journeys was discovered, and that I had been to join Queen Hortense. I laughed much at that.

You make me weep with rage when I read what you say of Florence. Shall I ever meet with all that again? Oh! make me very supplicating to M. Hanski for the eight days I can be in Rome. See! it is possible. Saint Peter's day is the 23rd of June. I can leave Paris on the 12th for Lyon, and reach Marseille the l5th, whence a steamboat takes you in forty-eight hours to Civita Vecchia. I could stay eight or ten days in Rome without doing any harm to my affairs; for all, doctors and somnambulists, are unanimous in beseeching me to balance a month's work by a month's amusement. Now there is nothing that takes me so out of my work as music and travel--in Paris no interest excites my soul; I live in a desert; I am, as it were, in a convent; the heart is moved by nothing. Rome would be a grand and beautiful distraction if I were there alone, but with you for cicerone what would it be! And this is not said from gallantry, à la "charming Frenchman." No, it is said from heart to heart, to the woman of the North, to the barbarian!

I have broken with everybody; I was tired of grimaces. I have but two unalterable friendships here which are true, and to which I at times confide. Then, I have work into which I fling myself daily.

This letter will still reach you in Florence. It will tell you feebly my regrets, which are boundless. This heavy material life, which I so largely escaped in Geneva, oppresses me here. I thirst for my liberty, for freedom, and if you knew what prodigies of will, what creating persistence is needed to secure no more than my twenty-four days in June and July, you would say, like one of my friends who has perceived a little of the intellectual working of my furnace (and you know more than a mere acquaintance), that Napoleon never showed as much will, or as much courage.

What you have written me about Montriveau [in the "Duchesse de Langeais"] worries me, for you are a little epigrammatic, and it would be a great grief to me to be ill judged or misunderstood by you. You are the second person to whom I have shown my mind in its truth. I like to let no one penetrate it, because if they do, what is there to give to those we love? You did not mean to wound me, did you?

I like your judgments on Florence and works of art much; and I would greatly like, if you will be so good to your moujik, that you should study Rome, so that when I come I may not stop to look at bagatelles, but see in my eight days all that there is of really fine, and good, and masterly, which goes to the soul. Do not say "Montriveau" to me again. Remember that I have the life of the heart and the life of the brain; that I live more by sentiments than by the caprices of the mind; that I would rather feel than express ideas; and that neither way does wrong to the other. One needs a little intellect to love.

I write you as it comes, without premeditation; for I must tell you that I am in the midst of "Les Chouans," which I am printing with extreme rapidity, causa metalli, to put an end to some debts. But no matter! my scribbling will surely tell you that a loving thought follows you wherever you go, and that there is at a fireside near the Observatoire a poet who takes interest in your steps, is troubled by your cough, and made uneasy by Monsieur Hanski's illness. I was already uneasy enough at receiving no letters from you. I belong to you like a moujik, and if M. Hanski gives wheat to his, you owe to me, moujik of Paulowska, a few straws of affection, here and there. You might have written to me three times since Turin.

I will tell you nothing of my combats; I am occupied solely by my work and by a life which is also a work for me; not a poem, madame, but all that there is of good and beautiful upon this earth. Thus, everything here, politics, men, and things, seem to me very paltry beside what I feel in heart and brain.

I am every day more grieved to have been forced to abandon "Séraphita;" but in Rome it shall be the work of my choice. It belongs to you and it ought to be done beneath your eyes.

Mon Dieu! if you are better, tell me so quickly. Throw into the post these words only: "I am," or "We are better." It is so good to see the writing, the painting, of a thought escaped from the heart of a friend! You don't know how, in the evening, when I am very weary, my castle in the air, my novel, my own, is Diodati; but a Diodati without the deceptions of your novels; a Diodati without bitterness in its dénouement. Of us two, am I indeed the younger and the one most full of illusions? There are days when I say tiyeuilles, laughing like a child, and those who take me for a grave man would be stupefied. Come, don't knock down my dreams, my castles. Let me believe in a cloudless sky. Since I exist I have lived by unalterable beliefs only, and you are one of those beliefs. Don't cough and look dark; may the troubles of spleen never come either to you or to M. Hanski, to whom my letter is half addressed; take it only as a talk full of affection.

Our Exhibition has nothing regrettable. M. Hanski would not have bought much there; but if I were rich I should like to send you one picture, an Algiers interior, which seems to me excellent. Borget is preparing for his journey; you will see him in Venice perhaps, for he moves slowly.

I beg of you, madame, tell me whether, according to this new arrangement, we can meet in Rome; for I begin to perceive that I am writing to you to know that. You would be very good if you would torment M. Hanski in order to obtain it. In the first place, if you torment him you will amuse him; you will substitute for his blue devils real annoyances; next, you will create a little conjugal drama, in which you will be victorious; and it is so good to triumph, especially over a husband.

Well, once more adieu. To all those who are near you give the remembrances of a poor workman in letters, who subscribes himself your affectionate, your wholly devoted servant and friend,

HONORÉ DE BALZAC.

I am reading over your letter to see if I have forgotten anything. No; I have answered all, and only omitted to tell you one thing, because it is too daily: it is that I press, across space, the pretty hand you hold out to me so graciously, and wish a thousand pleasures to your caravan.

À bientôt in Rome; for work, alas! will make me consume the time with terrifying rapidity. Adieu, I cannot quit my pen any better than I could quit your house in Geneva.

You chose to laugh, à la Française, at my "beautiful marquise, whose fine eyes make me die of love." I will play the Frenchman and tell you to turn that speech round, except as to the beauty of the eyes. Fie! it is not nice to be always showing me the rock on which my vanity was wrecked. Come, admit that you have not been frank, or it will be the ground of a quarrel in Rome--if one could quarrel with you on meeting again.

PARIS, May 10, 1834.

I have this moment received, madame, your letter of April 30. Alas! I have buried my hopes of the Rome trip. It always costs me horribly to renounce an illusion; all my illusions seem to be one and inseparable.

I have but a moment to answer you, for in order that you may get this letter before you leave Florence, on the 20th, it must be posted to-day, and it is now twelve o'clock. You do not tell me where you are going. Is it to Milan? What will be your address? How long shall you stay? I could see you there if I went with Borget. But at any rate, in September, at Vienna. That is more reasonable.

Mon Dieu! yes, the advice you give is impossible to follow. With the certainty of risk, I risk myself. There are no thanks worthy of the kindness you show in speaking to me so frankly of what I do; and you will not know, except in course of years, how grateful I am for this frankness. Do not be afraid; go on, blaming boldly.

You tell me to go to Gérard's; have I the time? Time melts in my fingers. To bring to an end my crushing liabilities I have undertaken a tragedy, in prose, called, "Don Philippe et Don Carlos." It is the old subject of Don Carlos already treated by Schiller. All must march abreast; the little literature of copper coins, the puerilities, the studies of manners and morals, and the great thoughts that are not understood,--"Louis Lambert," "Séraphita," "César Birotteau," etc.

My life is always the same. I rise to work, I sleep little. Sometimes I let myself go to gentle reveries. Since I last wrote to you, I have had but one recreation; I heard Beethoven's symphony in C minor at the Conservatoire. Ah! how I regretted you. I was alone in a stall--I alone! It was suffering without expression. There exists in me a need of expansion which toil beguiles, but which the first emotion brings to the surface like a gush of tears. Yes, I am alone, deplorably alone. To find happiness I need the evening hour, silence, not work, but solitude and my inmost thoughts.

Write me quickly where I shall send you "Les Chouans," which will appear on the 15th, five days hence. Florence will certainly see me; you have been happy there. I shall go and pick up your thoughts in seeing those beautiful places, those noble works. I am only jealous of the illustrious dead: Beethoven, Michel Angelo, Raffaelle, Poussin, Milton,--all that was ever grand, noble, and solitary stirs me.

All is not said about me yet; I am only at the little details of a great work. When a man has undertaken what I have to do,--ah! madame, permit me to confide this to your heart,--it is impossible to fall into the petty and base intrigues of this world; sentiments ought to be as great as the works desire to be great. My ambition is even stronger on the side of sentiments than it is for a fame which, after all, shines only upon graves! So, I live alone, more alone than ever; nothing drags me from my contemplations: to love and to think, to act and to meditate. To develop all one's strength on two great things,--work and the richest emotions of the soul,--what can one ask more than that? A drop of friendship, a little sunshine; to press a hand by which we can support ourselves.

Your advice upon my writings proves to me that on one point you have crowned my ambition. I would that I could send into your soul by this paper the emotions of pleasure your letter has caused me. But that is difficult.

So I cannot see you again until Vienna! Till then I shall not listen again to the only person who has made me hear a language completely poetical and largely generous. I must stop, for you will take truth for flattery. What a hindrance is writing; how often one look has more meaning than all words. Well, you will divine whatever I think that is good, and all that time prevents me from saying. You wall tell yourself that it is impossible for a solitary man--a man often crushed by work and lost in Paris--not to think, every day, of persons who love him truly; you will know that I am occupied with you, and am gathering for you those autographs.

Mon Dieu! what a number of things to tell you! How the Academy wanted to give the Montyon prize to the "Médecin de campagne," and what I did to avoid being put in the competition,--as many applications and proceedings were needed as the other competitors made to obtain the prize. And about my tragedy, and my other works in hand! But it is very difficult not to forget one's self in thinking of you.

If you go to Milan, if you stay some time, if I can go and say bonjour to you for a few days, tell me; for from the 20th to the 30th of June I should be very glad of an object for a trip, and I know none that would give me such keen happiness. I will inquire about Bartolini; but I see plainly you do not know our sculptors. In the Exhibition there was a statue of Modesty which might crush the antique; in sculpture we have great talents that are real. You like Bartolini, so I will like him, and I will make Gérard like him. But you think no longer of Grosclaude; do you know that your admirations have something which might alarm any other heart than a sincerely friendly one?

You have shown such exquisite feeling for my poor "Chouans" that, to make it less unworthy of you and me, I have delivered myself up to patient toil such as my printer alone has an idea of. You will re-read the book in Milan, no doubt. The third Part of the "Études de Mœurs" will not be ready before the first days of June. I should much like to have Susette take them to you from the author, who would then solicit an audience and recover from the fatigues of the journey through the hope of seeing you.

Alas! I have such business on hand that the devil and his horns could not get away. But I am a three-horned demon, of the race, rather degenerated, of Napoleon.

A thousand gracious thoughts and memories. Find here all that you can wish in a heart full of gratitude and devotion.

What! will you really be in Vienna in July? So soon! These distances placed between us seem to me like farewells. But I shall go to Germany in September. I shall arrive rich with some successes; which please me now only because you take an interest in them; you make them more essential to me for this reason.

Well, here is the hour. I do not know where to write to you, but I shall write all the same, and when your new box comes I will send it to you. There is no lake at Vienna, therefore give me the hope of seeing the Lago Maggiore with you. At Vienna I shall do my reconnoitring on the Danube, in order to paint the battle of Wagram, and the fight at Essling, which are to be my work during the coming winter in the Ukraine, if you will have me. But I must also see the countries through which Prince Eugène marched from Italy across the Tyrol.

Adieu, adieu, you whom one does not like to leave. You know as well as I all that I think, and you must be kind enough to give expression to my sentiments to your travelling companions. Oh! how I wish I could have seen with you the city of flowers!

PARIS, June 3rd--June 21, 1834.

I have this moment received, madame, the last letter you did me the honour to write to me from Florence; I hope, therefore, that this one will find you in Milan in time to prevent false hopes, as you are so kind as to interest yourself in my excellent Borget. He is still at Issoudun, and will take Italy by way of the Tyrol, beginning by both banks of the Rhine; therefore he will have no chance of meeting you. I am sorry. His is one of those fine souls one needs to know in order to judge of man and have some ideas of the future.

I myself renounce with sorrow the pleasure I had planned, of bidding you good-day in Milan. You put such grace and urgency into your inquiries as to my situation that I cannot help speaking of it to you after summing it up for myself. I still owe six thousand ducats [sixty to eighty thousand francs]; this will be comprehensible to you if turned into your currency. Between now and the last of October, I must pay off two thousand. The remaining four thousand are owing to my mother. But until the end of October I have five hundred ducats to pay monthly; and since my return from Geneva my pen and my courage have sufficed until now to pay that sum. If by the end of September I am free, I shall have done marvels. But until then neither truce nor rest. My tranquil, joyous winter must be won at this cost. The doctor thinks well of the Baden waters. This is my situation.

For the last two months I have worked night and day at the work you honour with your preference. You have had much influence on my determination relating to that work ["Les Chouans"]. In the desire to make it worthy of your friendship I have re-made it. It is not yet perfect, because, absorbed in the faults of the ensemble, I have let pass faults of detail and several mistakes. But, such as it is, it may now bear my name and you can avow your charitable protection. It has needed a courage no one will give me credit for; but the secret of my perseverance and my love for this work has been in my desire to be agreeable to you, and to deserve one of those approbations which intoxicate me with pleasure, and to hear from your lips, when I have shaken off the enormous weight of my troubles, that the work pleases you. I shall send it to Florence to M. Borri, requesting him to forward it to you in Milan; and I shall also send it to Trieste, so that this poor first flower may be certain to receive your friendly glances. I have been delighted with it, and I have let myself be persuaded that you are right in liking it. I have tried to justify your preference. Marie de Verneuil is much finer, and the work has been well cleaned up; but, as the printer said to me: "It is not forbidden to put butter on spinach,"--a saying worthy of Charlet.

Great news! Pichot is dismissed from the "Revue de Paris;" I return there with several pecuniary advantages, which will help me to get free. "Séraphita" serves me to re-enter with great éclat. The work has surprised Parisians. When the last number appears I shall add a letter of envoi to you, in which you will find the dedication, which I shall try to make worthy of you, simple and grand. It was not put in the beginning because I did not wish to dedicate to you a book not finished.

Here is a whole long month that I have worked to pure loss on my third Part. I am dissatisfied, vexed with what I do. Nevertheless, you will find it at Trieste. I must make a composition in the style of "Eugénie Grandet," to sustain this Part [of the Études de Mœurs].

My affairs are, at this moment, complicated by a transaction I have proposed to M. Gosselin, to annul our contracts, which will require six thousand francs in cash paid to him, for which he will return my agreements. That point obtained, I shall have no engagements except with Madame Bêchet; and by three months of great labour I could, by the end of September, take the road to Germany, poor, but without anxieties, carrying my tragedy to do, and idleness to enjoy near you. If you knew what cares, debates, labours were necessary to reach this result! But what happiness to recover liberty, what pleasure to do what one likes!

Spachmann is no longer Coquebin. By my efforts, and those of my sister, he has just married a young and pretty girl who will have some fortune. She brings him five hundred ducats, which make him rich, and she has four thousand more in expectation. Mademoiselle Borel was quite wrong; here's a happy man made. I thought of you in marrying this poor binder, about whom we laughed and talked at your fireside in Geneva.

The greatest sorrows have overwhelmed Madame de Berny. She is far from me, at Nemours, where she is dying of her troubles. I cannot write you about them; they are things that can only be spoken of ear to ear. But I am all the more alone, deplorably alone,--as much alone, that is, as I can be, for treasures are in my thought during the hours of repose and calmness which I take with delight. All is hope for me, because all is belief.

If you knew how much there is of you in each rewritten phrase of the "Chouans"! You will only know it when I can tell you in the chimney-corner at Vienna, in some hour of calm and silence when the heart has neither secrets nor veils.

The correction of the second edition of "Le Médecin de campagne" draws to a close, and I am half-way on with the third dizain,--so that I now am driving abreast nine volumes. My life is sober, silent, self-contained. Nevertheless, a lady has crossed the straits and written me a beautiful letter in English, to which I have answered that I only understand French, and that I respect ladies too much to give it out for translation. The affair stopped there. I received a letter from Madame Jeroslas ..., delightful in style and quite surprising. I have not yet replied.

Those are all the events of my life since I wrote you last.

"Philippe le Réservé" is put aside. Nevertheless, the literary world is very curious about my play. In reply to what you deign to write me about it, I must tell you that Carlos was so deeply in love with the Queen that there is sufficient proof that the child of which she died pregnant ("treated for dropsy, for God took pity on the throne of Spain, and blinded the doctors," says the sensitive Mariano) was the Infant's. So in my play the Queen is guilty, according to received ideas. Carlos idem; Philippe II. and Carlos are fooled by Don John of Austria. I conform to history and follow it step by step. However, according to all appearance, this work will be done under your eye, for it is the only thing that can be done while travelling, and you shall then judge of the political depths of that awful tragedy. It needs a lead well guarded by ropes to gauge it! Two of my friends are ardently rummaging historical manuscripts that I may miss nothing. I want to obtain even the plans of the palace and the rules of etiquette of the Spanish court under Philippe II.

MM. Berryer and Fitz-James wish to have me nominated for deputy, but they will fail. The matter will be decided within a month, and you will know it, no doubt, at Trieste. If I were nominated I should have myself ordered to Baths, for the portfolio of prime minister would not induce me to renounce the dear use I mean to make of the first moment of liberty I have ever won in my life.

The farther I go on, the higher is the ideal I form of true happiness. For me, a happy day is more than worlds. When I want to give myself a magnificent fête I shut my eyes and lie down on a sofa, and absorb myself in remembering the silly things I said to you with my pa'ole d'ôneû panachée,[1] beside the Lake of Geneva, and I go over again that good day at Diodati, which effaced a thousand pangs I had felt there a year before. You have made me know the difference between a true affection and a simulated affection, and for a heart as childlike as mine there is cause there for eternal gratitude.

Yesterday I went to see my mother and found her much changed, very ill and quite resigned. I have been sad ever since. In settling and clearing up our accounts a fortnight ago she fretted greatly about what would happen to me if she died, and that constant foresight pained me. Yesterday I was far more sad. She is very good to me. She has sent for me, but to-day I cannot go because I am expecting an arbitrator to whom I must explain the Gosselin affair. But to-morrow I shall go quickly. I have now only fifteen days in which to do a volume which is impatiently demanded, and never did I have less warmth of imagination.

[Footnote 1: Fashionable speech of the "Incroyables."--TR.]

June 20.

You are at Milan. I am not there! This letter, begun seventeen days ago, has remained unfinished by force of circumstances. In the first place, the return of my brother from the West Indies with a wife (was it necessary to go five thousand miles to find a wife like that?); then annoyances, vexations without number, besides work. The publisher of "Les Chouans" has not paid me. Here I am, with notes falling due. Then, M. Gosselin demands ten thousand francs, nearly a thousand ducats, to break our contract; I am trying to find them. But the greatest misfortune is this: after much trouble I had succeeded in finding a subject for my third Part; but after doing half a volume I flung it into the box of embryos, and have begun anew with a grand, noble, magnificent subject, which will give you, I hope, both honour and pleasure. According to my ideas, and according to my critics, it is above everything else. But I have had to make up for time lost. Ah! madame, what hours of despair and terrible insomnia between the 3rd and the 20th of June. There must have been sympathy!

Believe in me, I entreat you. Whether you go to Vienna or to Wierzchownia, my winter is destined to you. I want to flee Paris; I want absolutely to dig out in silence my Philippe II. You will see me arrive with the rapidity, the fidelity of a swallow.

I shall go, in July, to Nemours to write, away from Paris, which is intolerable in summer, my fourth and fifth Parts of the "Études de Mœurs." If I can end them in September I shall make untold efforts to get the last printed by the beginning of November. Perhaps you will still be in Vienna the first fifteen days of that month. I would like to know your itinerary, for I shall take, as soon as I can, fifteen days' liberty, and shall go, naturally, to the country you are in.

I send to-day, to Trieste, the "Chouans" for you, and the second edition of the "Médecin de campagne" for Monsieur Hanski, as you have yours. I will send my third Part later, for I am very impatient to have your opinion about this new production. When "Séraphita" is finished I will bring her to you, bound by the husband of the pretty girl of Versailles. You will see he had not the heart to continue Coquebin to do that savage binding of cloth and satin. But if I could know how long you stay at Trieste, I could leave here July 10th and be at Trieste the 16th, see you for three days, and get back again. I have a thousand things to bring you; the cotignac, the perfumes, and tutti quanti.

I shall end this letter by saying: à bientôt. The hope of crossing many countries to find you at the end of the journey gives me courage. I work, now, twenty consecutive hours. Well, I must bid you adieu, saying, as gracefully as I can, that you are less a memory to me than a heart-thought, and that you would be very unkind to fling in my face forever that I am a Frenchman. Remember, madame, that I am a Coquebin who does not marry, or at least only marries with the Muses. I have been alarmed by reading in Hoffmann (article on Vows) a severe judgment on Polish women; still, I had, to tell the truth, a pleasurable evening in thinking that the article was true for you in all that was flattering, and false in all that was cruel.

Our poor Sismondi has been roughly demolished (the word is true) in the "Revue de Paris" of last Sunday. His "Histoire des Français" has been rased, destroyed--from garret to cellar.

Poor Madame de Castries is going away, dying, and so dying that I blame myself for not having been there for a month, for those infamous Parisians have deserted her because she suffers. What a sad sentiment is that of pity. Therefore!--Ah!

Friday, 21.

I have been for several days sad and distressed. I did not tell you this yesterday. The post hour went by, and I kept this letter. Yes, I have failed in hope, I who live only by hope, that noble virtue of the Christian life. "Le Médecin de campagne" reappears to-morrow. What will be its fate?

I have been very happy this morning; you could never, perhaps, guess why. I should have to paint to you the state of a poor solitary who stays in his cell, rue Cassini, and whose only rejoicing is in a tiny winged insect which comes from time to time. The poor little gleam was late in coming, and I was horribly afraid, saying to myself: "Where is she? Is anything amiss with her? She has been eaten up!" At last the pretty little creature came. Once more I saw my bête à bon dieu, iridescent, a little mournful; but I put it on my paper and asked it, as if it were a person: "Have you come from Italy? How are my friends?"

You will take me for a lunatic--no, for I have heart and intellect, and only trespass through excess, not want, of sensibility. That is how a man who wrote the "Treize" can weep with joy on again beholding the scales of his little insect.

Well, adieu. I wish that you might have the same quiverings. That is only saying that one is still young, that the heart beats strong, that life is beautiful, that one feels, one loves, and that all the riches of the earth are less than one hour of sensuous joy such as I had with my little insect. And, also, do you know how much of joy, amber, flowers, grace of the countries it flies through, that little creature can bring back? See all that poesy can invent about a bête à bon dieu, and what lunatics are hermits and dreamers!

Well, adieu; be happy on your journey; see all those fine countries well. As for me, I am furious at being nailed to this little mahogany table, which has been so long the witness of my thoughts, sorrows, miseries, distresses, joys--of all! Thus I will never give it except to ----. But I will not tell you all my secrets to-day.

To-day I am gay. I have been so sad nearly all this month! There are my beautiful blue flowers in the barren fields between the Observatoire and my window drooping their heads. It is hot. Nevertheless, if I want to see you this winter I must mind neither weariness, nor heat, nor weakness.

Would you believe that the second edition of the "Physiologie du Mariage" does not appear, that those men will not pay me, and that I shall have another lawsuit on my hands? Mon Dieu! What have I done to those fellows!

Kiss Anna on the forehead. Oh! how I wish I were her horse again. Offer my regards to M. Hanski. Put all that is most flowery in French courtesy at the feet of your two companions, and keep for yourself, madame, whatever you will of my heart.

PARIS, July 1, 1834.

Ah! madame, nature is avenging herself for my disdain of her laws; in spite of my too monastic life my hair is falling out by handfuls, it is whitening to the eye! the absolute inaction of my body is making me fat beyond measure. Sometimes I remain twenty-five hours seated. No, you won't recognize me any more! The moments of despair and melancholy are more frequent. Griefs of all sorts are not lacking to me.

I wrote three half-volumes before finding anything suitable for the third Part of the "Études de Mœurs." It will at last appear on the 20th of this month. (Be satisfied, it is not I who am elected deputy.)

You will tell me, will you not? where I am to send my third Part. Do not deprive me of the happiness of being read by you, which is one of my rewards. I still have three months' arduous labour before me; shall I finish before October? I don't know. I am like the bird flying above the face of the waters and finding no rock on which to rest its feet. I should be unjust if I did not say that the flowery island where I could repose is in sight of my piercing eyes; but it is far, far-off.

I should like to write to you only good news; but, although arranged, my compromise with M. Gosselin is not yet signed. I must find a thousand ducats, and in our book business nothing is so scarce; for books are not francs--and not always français!

I laugh, but I am profoundly sad. "La Recherche de l'Absolu" will certainly extend the limits of my reputation; but these are victories that cost too dear. One more, and I shall be seriously ill. "Séraphita" has cost me many hairs. I must find exaltations that do not come at the cost of life. But that work which belongs to you ought to be my finest.

Tell me to what Baths you are going, for it is possible if--if--if--that I may myself bring you various little things, such as a faultless new edition of the "Médecin de campagne," my third Part, and the manuscript of "Séraphita," which will be finished in August. Yes, stay at some place where I can go till September l5th.

If I compromise with Gosselin, I can free myself only by alienating an edition of the "Études Philosophiques." That will be work added to work. In the total solitude in which I live, sighing after a poesy which is lacking to me and which you know, I plunge into music. I have taken a seat in a box at the Opera, where I go for two hours every other day. Music to me is memories. To hear music is to love those we love, better. It is thinking with joys of the senses of our inward joys; it is living beneath eyes whose fire we love; it is listening to the beloved voice. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from half-past seven to ten o'clock, I love with delight. My thought travels.

Well, I must say <au revoir; as soon as my compromise is made I will write to you about it in detail. Never find fault with my devoted friendship; it is independent of time and space. I think of you nearly all day, and is not that natural? The only happy moments I have known for a year, moments when there was neither work nor the worries of material life, were enjoyed near you; I think of you and of your wandering colony as one thinks of happiness, and since I left you I have lived only the burning life of unfortunate artists.

Was M. Hanski gratified by my attention? You shall have, madame, an edition for yourself; an edition which I shall try to make ravishing, and in which there will be a secret coquetry. Ah! if I had had your features I would have pleased myself in having them engraved as La Fosseuse. But though I have memory enough for myself, I should not have enough for a painter.

Day before yesterday, I had a visit from Wolff, the pianist from Geneva. I could have thrown the house out of windows for joy. Was it not he who asked me: "Who is that admirable lady?" So the poor lad found me very cordial, very splendidly hospitable. To see him was to fancy myself back in Pré-l'Évêque, ten steps from your house, and breathing the Genevese air.

I hope to be able to write you more at length a few days hence. I reserve to myself the right to write my tragedy at Wierzchownia. I have amused myself like a boy in naming a Pole M. de Wierzchownia, and bringing him on the scene in the "Recherche de l'Absolu." That was a longing I could not resist, and I beg your pardon and that of M. Hanski for the great liberty. You couldn't believe how that printed name fascinates me.

What a good winter to be far from the annoyances of Paris, absorbed in a tragedy, struggling with a tragedy, laughing every evening with you and making the master laugh, for whom I'll invent "Contes Drolatiques" expressly for him! If I have to get to you through driving snow-storms I shall come! And after that, I'll go to the Emperor Nicholas himself to obtain permission for you to come to Paris and see the fiasco of my play!

Adieu, you who are seeing every day new countries, while I can see but one! I hope Anna is well, and that M. Hanski has none of his black dragons, that Mademoiselle Borel smiles, that Susette sings, that Mademoiselle Séverine still retains her graceful indifference, and you, madame, that vigorous constitution which is a principle of living joys; but also of pains; my desire is that God shall take all sorrow from your cup. Do not forget to tell me where you will stay after Trieste.

I send you a thousand flowers of the soul and of affection.

PARIS, July 13, 1834.

It is now a long time, madame, since I beheld your pretty writing, and my solitude seems to me deeper, my toil more heavy. I gaze with a gloomy air at that box in which you sent me jujubes, which now holds my wafers.

Are you in Venice? Are you at Trieste? Are you travelling? Are you resting? You see, I think of you, and I do not want to waste all the reveries into which I plunge, so I send you one. Oh! I am so bored in Paris! Never did its atmosphere so weigh upon me. I breathe in fancy the air you breathe with an enthusiastic jealousy! It is, they say, so light, it would suit my lungs so well. Mon Dieu! work is crushing me, and for all hippogriff I have only that jujube-box and Anna's dog-inkstand, poor little dear!

I am writing at this moment a fine work, the "Recherche de l'Absolu;" I tell you nothing about it; I want you to read it without bias, and with all the freshness of ignorance of its subject. Where will you be then?

My business affairs are cursed. Nothing comes to a conclusion. That ambulating roast-beef, into whom God has thrown all the thoughts that make for silliness, called Gosselin, stops us by petty things. Next Tuesday we may end the matter, perhaps; I will immediately write to you. Put on one side thirty-seven thousand francs to pay, and on the other side twenty-eight francs' worth of paper, a bottle of ink, and a few quill-pens I have just bought, and you will have an idea of my position, assets, and debts. To reach an equilibrium, I need iron health, not talent, but luck in my talent. Six volumes more for the said Bêchet to publish, and twenty-five 12mos for the first edition of the "Études Philosophiques"! After all that is done, I shall have a few crowns left and "liberty on the mountain." When I say on the mountain, I mean plain, for the Ukraine is, you say, a flat country.

There are my affairs, madame. As for sentiments, they are, by reason of restraint, a thousand times more violent than you ever knew them since you have consented to be my confidant. But that person would be very content if she knew all that I hide from her, for it is very difficult to express sentiments that lie at the bottom of one's heart. They need, not only a tête-à-tête, but a heart-to-heart. Mingle with this fury of work a furia d'amore and a fury of business and a few good memories which come to me when I listen to good music--trying not to hear the Duke of Brunswick, who germanizes in my box sometimes; for this dethroned prince, being no longer a lion, makes himself a tiger with us. (You will not catch that poor joke if I did not tell you that our box is called the tiger box. Forgive the digression, but I know how you like to know all the little details of Parisian life.) So now you have an exact view of the meagre existence your moujik lives; he is, for the rest, as virtuous as a young girl. The "Recherche de l'Absolu" will tell you that; "Séraphita" better still.

Truly, I am writing with a gay pen, and I am sad; but my sadness is so great that I am afraid to send you the expression of it. I would sell my fame and all my literary baggage (if I had no debts) for the pebbles on the road to Ferney. If you would buy my books in bulk I would write them for you little by little, or tell them to you in the chimney-corner. Make M. Hanski buy a principality, for I should not like to be jester to any but a prince; self-loves should be conciliated. You could give me such pretty caps and bells! As for salary, I would take it in the laughs that would come from your lips. But you would be expected to give me eulogies and lodgings, cakes and bells. No Barkschy; I make conditions. But a fool would have to hide his heart. Well, well, you would not want me. Mon Dieu! how often in my life I have envied Prince Lutin! [Puck.]

I wish you all enjoyments of your journey. I must now go and finish a "Conte Drolatique" while you are getting into the carriage and saying, perhaps: "I did not think that this Frenchman whom I accused of levity on our way to the lake of Bienne was so sincere when he told me he was capable of attachment." Ah! madame, poor men have only a heart, and they give it; I am a poor man, a manual labourer who works in phrases as others carry a hod.

If I were free, I should bathe to-night in the Adriatic, and then go and tell you some joyous tale, review the ducal houses in the "Almanach de Gotha," or play patience. You made me adore patience--and I live by patience. But I drudge, I suffer much.

PARIS, July 15, 1834.

I wish you to find this letter on your arrival in Vienna. Day before yesterday I posted a letter to you in Trieste, and ten minutes later your good long letter from Trieste came. Ah! that, indeed, is writing! That is making some one happy! Boor Alphonse Royer, who wrote "Venezia la bella," did not tell me in two volumes what you have told me about Venice in two pages. I said to a friend who came in just as I was putting your letter into the pretty box I have had made to hold them,--for to me your letters are beings, fairies which bring me a thousand delights; I am dainty for my fairy-letters,---I said to him: "We are ninnies, we who think we can write. We ought to kiss the slippers of certain women, the side where the slippers touch the ground, for within, none but the angels are worthy of that!"

Thanks for your letter; how many things I want to answer and must put off to another day, not wishing to speak now, except of things I have much at heart.

You have not understood me about "Séraphita." I declare to you that I have more jealousy of heart than you accuse me of; for if, after promising me a testimonial of friendship, you were to forget it, I should suffer in all that is most sensitive in heart and soul and body. Therefore, I wanted to avoid the same suffering to you by explaining that the envoi would be in the last article, to make my happiness the more transcendant. That last chapter, the "Transfiguration," is to me what, in its own degree, the picture was to Raffaelle. Leave me the right to put your name upon my picture at the moment when the almost gigantic conception of that work is about to be comprehended. But, after reading your letter, I think there was conceit in my thinking you would suffer. Basta! I will say no more about it.

The second number of "Séraphita" has been, for three weeks, in the printing-office, and I have worked ten hours a day upon it. I will send you the whole of it to Vienna, addressed to M. Sina. It will all be out by the end of September.

Another quarrel. I would rather be happy in a corner than be Washington in France, seeing that we have dozens of Washingtons in every street. That means that I would rather be at Wierzchownia in January than sputtering politics in the tribune of the Palais-Bourbon. This is by way of answer to your sublime retrocessa, when you wish to efface yourself behind France. As for me, I efface France beneath your sublime forehead. France, madame, is never short of great orators, great ministers, and great men in everything.

Well, the Gosselin affair is signed; I am quit to-day of that nightmare of foolishness. The illustrious Werdet (who slightly resembles the illustrious Gaudissart) buys from me the first edition of the "Études Philosophiques,"--twenty-five 12mo volumes,--in five Parts, each of five volumes, to appear, month by month, August, September, October, November. You see that to carry this through, and do three Parts of the "Études de Mœurs," still due to Madame Bêchet, requires Vesuvius in the brain, a torso of iron, good pens, quantities of ink, not the slightest blue devil, and a constant desire to see, in January, Strasburg, Cologne, Vienna, Brody, etc., and to fight with snow-drifts. I do not mention that bagatelle called health, nor that other bagatelle called talent.

Now you know the programme of my life, and if I had a lady of my thoughts you must own she would be much to be pitied, unhappy woman! Fortunately, she is, very sadly, the lady of my thoughts only; and I know she is very joyful to find me hindered.

For all this fine work M. Werdet is to give me fifteen thousand francs, and whatever of glorification I can catch above the bargain. This, joined to the rest of the "Études de Mœurs," will free me entirely, and leave me with a few crowns, which are in this low world, the wings on which we fly o'er distances.

Do you know why I am so gay that there is gaiety in my grumblings? It is that I have seen once more the pretty little scribble of your writing; that I know you to be, except for the sufferings of travel, perfectly well, and Anna too.

Adieu, a thousand tender feelings of the heart. Ah! be reassured. Madame de C... insists that she has never loved any one but M. de M..., and that she loves him still, that Artemisia of Ephesus. This evening I say good-bye, at Liszt's, to Wolff, that young face from Geneva--where I was so young!

When you write to me from Vienna, tell me, I entreat you, how long you stay. Something tells me that I shall see Vienna with you; that means that I shall like Vienna. You must tell me what the Germans think of "Séraphita." You will receive, in Vienna, the third Part of the "Études de Mœurs," which leaves here, addressed to M. Sina (mon Dieu! how I do like that name!), about the end of this month. So you will have it during the first ten days of August.

A thousand tender regards.

PARIS, July 30, 1834.

Oh! my angel, my love, my life, my happiness, my strength, my treasure, my beloved, what horrible restraint! what joy to write to you heart to heart! what shame to me if you do not find these lines at the time and place! I have been into the country for six days to finish something in a hurry.

Ohimé, I cannot start for the Baths of Baden before August 10; but I will go like the wind; it is impossible to tell you more, for to be able to go there needs giant efforts. But I love you with superhuman force.

So from the 10th to the 15th I shall be on the road. I shall have only three or four days to myself, but I bring you that drop of my ardent life with a happiness which the infinite of heaven can alone explain.

Mon Dieu! what hours full of you, of which you have only presentiments! How I have followed you everywhere! How I have, at all hours, desired you! Yes, my cherished Eve, my celestial flower, my beautiful life, stay at the Baths till September. If it takes eight days to get there, and I leave here August 15th, I shall only arrive on the 23rd, and I must be here for the first days in September. All depends on my work and my payments. The desire to be free, to be yours, has made me undertake things beyond my strength. But my love is so great; it sustains me.

Your "Séraphita" is beautiful, grand, and you will enjoy that work in three months. I need three months for the last chapter; but perhaps I will finish it near you. You warmed up my heart for the first; you ought to hear the last song!

Oh! dear, dearest adored one, tell yourself well that the love you have inspired in me is the infinite. Have neither fear nor jealousy. Nothing can destroy the charm under which I wish to live. Yes, there have been many melancholies, many sadnesses: I was a displanted tree. To see you in August restores to me happiness and courage.

Now, to come to Baden I must bring out in the "Revue de Paris" "Le Cabinet des Antiques," of which you know the beginning. To work to go to see you, oh, what enjoyment! There is no work, there is joy in every line.

Did you receive the "Chouans" at Trieste? But you cannot answer me. You will receive this August 8 in Vienna, and the 10th I shall start. What are Neufchâtel and Geneva in comparison with Baden? Were there six months of desires, of repressed love, of works written in your name, oh, my life, my thought? One must be strong to sustain a joy so long awaited. Oh, yes, be alone!

It is impossible to write you a long letter; it would take a day more, as I only arrived this morning, and I feared that Marie de Verneuil might not find it and be vexed with him who adores her as an angel loves God. To be separated from you by only eighteen days; it is all, and it is nothing. Your little letter has made me crazy. It will be a great imprudence to go to Baden, for I have a thousand ducats to pay in September, but to see you one day, to kiss that idolized forehead, to smell that loved hair, which I wear about my neck, to take that hand so full of kindness and love, to see you! that is worth all glories, all fortunes. If it were not upon us, upon a longer time of separation that this folly falls, it would not be a folly, it would be quite simple.

Dear angel, do you know what happiness there is for me in these eighteen days, and the journey, mon Dieu! I adore you night and morning, I send you all the thoughts of my soul, I surround you with my heart,--do you feel nothing? And my sufferings in not going to Florence, in short, I will tell you all.

Dear angel, be happy if the most ardent love, the most infinite that man can feel, is the life you have desired to have, give, receive.

À bientôt, then. Oh! what a word! Three or four days of happiness will make the months of absence more supportable. Oh! my treasure, what an abyss for me is tenderness. You are the principle of this frightful courage. Will you love my white hairs? Every one is astonished that any one can produce what I produce, and says that I shall die. No; three days near you is to recover life and strength for a thousand years!

Adieu; a thousand kisses. I have held this bit of vinca between my lips while writing. To thee, my white minette, and soon. A thousand tender caresses, and in each a thousand more![1]

[Footnote 1: This is the last of these odious and ridiculous letters. It belongs properly to the series which ended March 11, 1834. In my opinion it has been concocted and placed under this date to convey the idea that it is one of the letters which Balzac mentions in his letter to M. Hanski of September 16 (see p. 199); and, furthermore, this is done with the intention of convincing the reader that the whole series of forged letters (which are plainly identical in character with this letter) were written by Balzac.

Putting aside, for a moment, the proofs of deception which I have produced, I must say in conclusion that I think no one of literary judgment will believe that the author of the "Comédie Humaine" wrote these spurious letters.

From this date the letters go on in Balzac's characteristic manner,--expansive, impulsive, boyish at times, and too full, certainly, of his debts and his troubles; but with it all is the strong underflow of a great and dauntless soul allied to things pure and noble. The story is tragic; and not the least tragic part of it is the wicked present attempt of degenerate men to degrade a hero.

I here place a letter of the same date from Monsieur Hanski to Balzac, which will serve to show the sort of man he was, and how he regarded his own and his wife's friendship for Balzac.

I now leave the whole subject to the judgment of the reader.--TR.]

FROM M. HANSKI TO M. HONORÉ DE BALZAC.

VIENNA, August 3, 1834.

I have just received, monsieur, the copy of the "Médecin de campagne,"--that one of your works which I like best; the real merit of which I could wish were felt and recognized at its just value. I allowed myself, some time ago, to write to you fully on the impression this book made upon me; therefore I will not return to it, but simply beg you to receive my thanks for so precious a souvenir of your good friendship. My wife has told you, no doubt, of the way I was taken in by the "Moniteur." But explain to us who your legitimist homonym is who is made deputy from Villefranche? We thought there was for France, as for us, only one M. de Balzac; and, in that conviction, I was preparing a long letter of congratulation. In it I spoke of a certain cause [he means that of the Duchesse de Berry, then imprisoned at Blaye], of which, knowing your generous heart, I hoped to see you the champion. But, at the sweetest moment of these illusory dreams, my wife brought me your letter, and told me that you were not a deputy. Disappointed, I cursed the fatality that presides over the things of this world; I consigned my fine epistle to the flames, and the blue devils returned in troops to assail me.

But adieu, monsieur; my wife is, no doubt, writing you a long gossip. More at this time would bore you. I therefore end, assuring you of all my friendship.

VENCESLAS HANSKI.

To MADAME HANSKA.

PARIS, August 1--August 4, 1834.

I have received your letter, written from Vienna, madame. You have probably received two from me, addressed to J. Collioud, with the "Chouans" and the "Médecin de campagne." Distances are so little calculable. I believe that up to the present time I have had such true sympathies that my inspirations have always been like those of my friends. I have forgotten nothing,--neither Marie de Verneuil, nor your "Chouans," nor M. Hanski, who will have his "Médecin de campagne."

I am a little chagrined. The imbeciles of Paris declare me crazy in view of the second number of "Séraphita," whereas the elevated minds are secretly jealous of it. I am worn out with work. Too much is too much. For three days past I have been seized by unconquerable sleep, which shows the last degree of cerebral weariness. I dare not tell you what an effort I am making now to write to you. I have a plumophobia, an inkophobia, which amount to suffering. However, I hope to finish my third Part by August 15. It will have cost me much. And for that reason I am afraid of some heaviness in the style and in the conception. You must judge.

The "Cabinet des Antiques" will appear in the "Revue de Paris," between the second number of "Séraphita" and the last, for the "Revue" makes the sacrifice of holding the latter back till I can finish it. You know the beginning of the "Cabinet des Antiques." It made one of our good evenings in Geneva.

Let M. Hanski console himself; I shall be deputy in 1839, and then I can better, being free of all care and all worries, act so as to render my country some service, if I am worth anything. Between now and then I expect to be able to rule in European questions by means of a political publication. We will talk about that.

I have had many troubles. My brother made a bad marriage in the Indies, and the poor boy has neither spirit, energy, nor talent. Men of will are rare!

I shall go to see you in Vienna if I can get twenty days to myself; a pretty watch given at the right moment to Madame Bêchet may win me a month's freedom. I am going to overwhelm her with gifts to get peace.

I have many troubles, many worries. The kind M. Hanski would not have his black butterflies if he were in my place. My second line of operations is now to be drawn out. I shall have the first Part of the "Études Philosophiques" printed within ten days. It will appear at the same time as the third Part of the "Études de Mœurs." There is but God and I, and the third person, who is never named, who are in the secret of these works which affright literature. I have sixty thousand volumes this year in the commerce of publishers, and I shall have earned seventy thousand francs. Hence, hatreds. But, alas! of those seventy thousand francs nothing will remain to me but the happiness of being free of all debt after being ruined by it.

You are very fortunate, madame, to be able to take the Danube baths; but write me soon if they are removing those frightful nervous headaches which frightened me so much. Do not suffer. Preserve your health. When you walk, do not wear those little shoes that let in water, as they did the day we went to Ferney.

Do you know I feel a little vexed with you that you can think that a man who has my faith and my will can change, after all I have written to you. In the matter of money alone I do not do all I would; but in whatever belongs to the heart, to the feelings, in all that is the man you can have few reproaches to make to me.

Write me, very legibly, your addresses in Vienna and Baden, for I find it impossible to make out the name of the hotel where you are now.

I am to see, some day soon, an illustrious Pole, Wronsky, great mathematician, great mystic, great mechanician, but whose conduct has irregularities which the law calls swindling; though, if closely viewed, they are seen to be the effects of dreadful poverty and a genius so superior that one can hardly blame him. He has, they say, one of the most powerful intellects in Europe.

Monday, 4.

I have been forced to interrupt my letter for a day and a half; I have not had two minutes to myself to collect my thoughts. There has been a deluge of hurried proofs and corrections; ouf! I beg you to recall me to the memory of all who compose your caravan.

Our Paris is very flat, very sad. MM. Thiers and Rigny have, they say, lost five millions at the Bourse, in consequence of the invasion that Don Carlos has made all alone. Every one talks war here, but no one believes in it. The king has dismissed Soult in order to remain at peace.

Adieu. I hope, madame, that you will amuse yourself at the Baths, and gain health; but you must walk a little. My life is so monotonous that I can tell you little of myself that is worth telling. One thought and work, that is the life of your moujik. You--you are seeing countries, you have the movement of travel which occupies and diverts. Ah! if I could travel, I would go to Moravia.

Adieu. If you hear anything in the air, if a pebble rolls at your feet, if a light sparkles, tell yourself that my spirit and my heart are frolicking in Germany. Wholly yours,

HONORÉ.

PARIS, August 11, 1834.

Thank you, madame, for your good and amiable letter of the 3rd of this month. The envelope delighted me with its hieroglyphics, in which you have put such religious ideas.

I have many answers to give you. But a thousand million wafts of incense for your ideas on "Philippe le Discret." You share my sentiments on Schiller and my ideas of what I ought to do.

Oh! spend the winter in Vienna? I shall be there, yes--You have the books? Good.

No, I see no one, neither man nor woman. My tigers bore me; they have neither claws nor brains. Besides, I seldom go to the Opera now.

How sweet your letter is! with what happiness I have read it! that description of your house, the flowers, the garden, your life so well arranged, even the blue devils on the watch for M. Hanski. Thank you for all the details you give me.

At the moment when I was reading the religious part of your letter, that where the good thoughts went to my heart, my Carmelite nuns, who had opened the windows of their chapel on account of the heat, began to sing a hymn which crossed our little street and my courtyard. I was strangely moved. Your writing gleamed in my eyes and softly entered my heart, more living than ever. This is not poesy, but one of those realities that are rare in life.

"La Recherche de l'Absolu" kills me. It is an immense subject; the finest book I can do, say some. Alas! I shall not be through with it before the 20th of this month, in nine days. After that, I spread my wings and take a three weeks' furlough, for my head cannot sustain another idea. On the 21st I shout: "Vive l'Almanach de Gotha!" God grant that ten days later I present to you myself the "Absolu." I will not tell you anything about it. That's an author's coquetry, which you will pardon when you lay down the book.

My life, it is fifteen hours' toil, proofs, author's anxieties, phrases to polish; but, there's a distant gleam, a hope which lights me.

At last, France is beginning to bestir itself about my books. Fame will come too late; I prefer happiness. I want to be something great to increase the enjoyments of the person loved. I can only say that to you. You understand me and you will not be jealous of that thought.

Madame de Castries is dying; the paralysis has attacked the other leg. Her beauty is no more; she is blighted. Oh! I pity her. She suffers horribly and inspires pity only. She is the only person I go to see, and then for one hour every week. It is more than I really can do, but that hour is compelled by the sight of that slow death. She lives with a cataplasm of Burgundy pitch from the nape of the neck to the loins. I give you these details because you ask for them.

So, constant labour, sundry griefs, the condition of Madame de Berny, who, on her side, droops her head like a flower when its calyx is heavy with rain. She cannot bear up under her last sorrows. Never did a woman have more to endure. Will she come safely out of these crises? I weep tears of blood in thinking that she is necessarily in the country, while I am necessarily in Paris. Great sorrows are preparing for me. That gentle spirit, that dear creature who put me in her heart, like the child she most loved, is perishing, while our affection (that of her eldest son, and mine) can do nothing to allay her wounds? Oh! madame, if death takes this light from my life, be good and generous, receive me. I could think only of going to weep near you. You are the only person (Borget and Madame Carraud excepted) in whom I have found the true and sanctifying friendship. In case she dies, France would be horrible to me. Borget is away; Madame Carraud has not, in herself, the feminine softness that one needs. Hers is an antique rectitude, a reasoning friendship which has its angles. You feel, you!

Yes, I am overwhelmed by this sorrow which approaches; and that divine soul prepares me for it, so to speak, in the few lines she is able to write to me. Yes, I have only your heart into which I can shed the tears that are in my eyes while writing this in Paris.[1] I am horribly alone; no one knows the secrets of my heart. I suffer, and before others I smile. Neither my sister nor my mother comprehend me.

These are sad pages. I have some hope. Mme. de Berny has such a rich constitution; but her age makes me tremble; a heart so young in a body that is nearly sixty, that is, indeed, a violent contrast. She has dreadful inflammations between the heart and lungs. My hand, when I magnetize her, increases the inflammation. We were obliged, therefore, to renounce that means of cure; for, as I wrote you, I was able to spend ten days with her the last of July. Oh! be well yourself! you and yours! Let me not tremble for the only beings who are dear to me, for all, at once!

I needed your letter this morning, for this morning I received a letter from a mutual friend of Madame Bêchet and me, telling me of her commercial distresses. If my book is not ready to appear she wants compensation for the delay; the "Absolu" ought to have been finished in two months! That irritated me. I was weeping with rage--for he does weep, this tiger; he cries out, this eagle!--when your letter came. It fell into my heart like dew. I blessed you. I clasped you like a friend. You serened me, you refreshed my soul. Be happy. Shall I ever cause you a like joy? No, I shall always be your debtor in this way.

I have had other griefs. My Boileau [M. Charles Lemesle], my hypercritic, my friend, who judges and corrects me without appeal, has found a good many blunders in the first two 12mo volumes of the "Médecin de campagne." That makes me desperate. However, we will take them out. The work shall, some day, be perfect. I was ill for two days after he showed me those blunders. They are real. We are washing up between us "La Peau de Chagrin." There must be no faults left on that edition. Add to all this money anxieties, which will not leave me tranquil till January, 1835, and there you have all the secrets of my life. There is one about which I do not speak to you. That one is the very spring of my life; it is my azure heaven, my hope, my courage, my strength, my star; it is all that one cannot tell, but it is that which you will divine. It is the oleander, the rose-bay tree, a lovely form adored beneath it, the twilight hour, a revery!

Adieu; I return to my furrow, my plough, my goad, and I shout to my oxen, "Hue!" I am just now writing the death of Madame Claës. I write to you between that scene of sorrow entitled the Death of a Mother, and the chapter entitled, Devotions of Youth. Remember this. Remember that between these two chapters your greeting, your letter, full of friendship, came to give me back a little courage and drive away a thousand gloomy phantoms. There you were, shining like a star.

The happy husband, no longer coquebin Spachmann, will bind the manuscript which you must put with that of "Eugénie Grandet." As for that of the "Duchesse de Langeais," it has been dispersed, I don't know how. I am very careless about my manuscripts. You had to set a value upon them which made me proud, in order to make me keep them for you. So with those of "Séraphita," I am like a mother defending her young.

Do you know what courage there is in calling one's self legitimist? That party is very abject. The three parties that divide France have all descended into the mud. Oh! my poor country! I am humiliated, unhappy at all this. We shall rise out of it, I hope.

I send you no commonplaces. To tell you that I keep in reserve a thousand sincere and gentle, tender feelings would be nothing; a feeble portion, indeed, of a friendship which makes me conceive of the infinite. May the Danube make you strong and give you health; I love the Danube better than I love the Seine.

I have seen Prince Puckler Muskau here, and he seemed to me a little Mephistophelean, sprinkled with Voltaireanism. He told me that I was much appreciated in Berlin, and that if I went there--Ha! ha! bravi! brava!--But what I like in foreign lands is the good nonsense that I shall talk in the chimney-corner of 73 Landstrasse.

Adieu; distribute my friendship, regards, and remembrances to those about you as you will.

[Footnote 1: Compare this with the shameful letter supposed to have been written about her to Mme. Hanska, Jan. 1834. See p. 112.--TR.]

PARIS, August 20, 1834.

Yesterday I had an inflammation of the brain, in consequence of my too hard work; but, by the merest chance, I was with my mother, who had a phial of balm tranquil, and bathed my head with it. I suffered horribly for nine or ten hours. I am better to-day. The doctor wants me to travel for two months. My unfortunate affairs allow me only twenty days. I have still ten days' work on the "Recherche de l'Absolu," which has, like "Louis Lambert," two years ago, very nearly carried me off. But on the 1st or 2nd of September I shall be on my way to see Vienna. Impossible to give myself a more agreeable object for a journey. So, between the 7th and 10th, I shall have the pleasure, you will let me say happiness, of seeing you.

No, I have had no more letters from your cousin. Something that I do not know must have made her quarrel with me.

I think as you do on Lamennais' work, "Les Paroles d'un Croyant." I nearly got myself devoured for saying that from a literary point of view the form was mere silliness, and that Volney and Byron had already employed it, and that as to doctrines, they were all taken from the Saint-Simonians. Really, those kings on a slimy, evil-smelling rock are only fit for children.

Adieu; you will be indulgent to a poor artist who rattles on with the intention of having no thought, of being very boyish, and desires only to let himself go to the one affection that never wearies: friendship and the sweetest things of the heart. Thank M. Hanski in advance for his good little letter. At this moment I have no strength to write more than what I do here. That strength is what in the eighteenth century they would have called "force of sentiment."

I am so glad to know that you are well lodged and pleased with your house.

PARIS, August 25, 1834.

I may have alarmed you, madame, but Madame de Berny is better. She is not recovered, however. No, she remains in a condition of cruel weakness.

Two days ago I wrote that I should start for Germany; but that was folly, for it takes ten or twelve days to get to Vienna, as much to return, and I have but twenty to dispose of. No, it is not possible in the situation in which I am. "La Recherche de l'Absolu" consumes so much time that I find myself in arrears in all my deliveries of copy, consequently in all my payments.

On another hand, I cannot go without leaving the end of "Séraphita" for the "Revue de Paris," and how can I determine the time it will take me to finish that work, angelical to some, diabolical to me?

All this worries me; I cannot have my liberty till the month of November, and then will you still be in Vienna? Yes. But I shall have only a month to myself, and the question will still be the same. I see how it is; I must wait till "Philippe II. is done."

I have the weakness and the species of physical melancholy that comes from abuse of toil. The life of Paris no longer suits me; and while I feel in my heart a veritable childhood, all that is exterior is aging. I begin to understand Metternichism in whatever is not the sole and only sentiment by which I live.

A book has just appeared, very fine for certain souls, often ill-written, feeble, cowardly, diffuse, which all the world has proscribed, but which I have read courageously, and in which there are fine things. It is "Volupté" by Sainte-Beuve. Whoso has not had his Madame de Couaën is not worthy to live. There are in that dangerous friendship with a married woman beside whom the soul crouches, rises, abases itself, is undecided, never resolving on audacity, desiring the wrong, not committing it, all the delicious emotions of early youth. In this book there are fine sentences, fine pages, but nothing. It is the nothing that I like, the nothing that permits me to mingle myself with it. Yes, the first woman that one meets with the illusions of youth is something holy and sacred. Unfortunately, there is not in this book the enticing joyousness, the liberty, the imprudence which characterize passions in France. The book is puritanical. Madame de Couaën is not sufficiently a woman, and the danger does not exist. But I regard the book as very treacherously dangerous. There are so many precautions taken to represent the passion as weak that we suspect it of being immense; the rarity of the pleasures renders them infinite in their short and slight apparitions. The book has made me make a great reflection. Woman has a duel with man: if she does not triumph, she dies; if she is not right, she dies; if she is not happy, she dies. It is appalling.

I have real need of seeing Vienna. I must explore the fields of Wagram and Essling before next June. I specially want engravings which show the uniforms of the German army, and I must go in search of them. Have the kindness to tell me merely if such things exist.

To-day, 25th, it is almost twelve days since I have received any letters from you. I live in such isolation that I count upon and look eagerly for the pleasures that come into my desert. Alas! Madame de Berny's illness has cast me into horrible thoughts. That angelic creature who, since 1821, has shed the fragrance of heaven into my life is transformed; she is turning to ice. Tears, griefs, and I can do nothing. One daughter become insane, another daughter dead, a third dying, what blows!--And a wound more violent still, of which nothing can be told. And at last, after thirty years of patience and devotion, she is forced to separate from her husband under pain of dying if she remains with him. All this in a short space of time. This is what I suffer through the heart that created me.

Then, in Berry, Madame Carraud's life is in peril through her pregnancy. Borget is in Italy. My mother is in despair about my brother's marriage; she has aged twenty years in twenty days. I am hemmed in by enormous, obligatory work, and by money cares, also by two little lawsuits which I have brought to solve the last difficulties of my literary life.

For all this one needs, as my doctor says, a skull of iron. Unhappily, the heart may burst the skull. I counted on the trip to Vienna as the traveller counts on the oasis in the desert; but the impossibility of it faces me. I must be in Paris from the 20th to the 30th of September. I have then to pay five hundred ducats, and when one digs the soil with a pen gold is rare. However, labour will suffice. I shall be free in a few months, if the abuse of study does not kill me. I begin to fear it.

Tuesday, 26.

To-day I have finished "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Heaven grant that the work be good and beautiful. I cannot judge of it; I am too weary with toil, too exhausted by the fatigues of conception. I see only the reverse side of the canvas. Everything in it is pure. Conjugal love is here a sublime passion. The love of the young girl is fresh. It is the Home, at its source. You will read it. You will also read "Souffrances inconnues," which have cost me four months' labour. They are forty pages of which I could not write but two sentences a day. It is a horrible cry, without brilliancy of style, without pretensions to drama. There are too many thoughts in it, and too much drama to show on the outside. It is enough to make you shudder, and it is all true. Never have I been so stirred by any work. It is more than "La Grenadière," more than "La Femme abandonnée."

At the present moment I am making the final corrections of style on the "Peau de Chagrin." I reprint it and remove the last blemishes. Oh! my sixteen hours a day are well employed! I go to the Opera only once a week now.

Day before yesterday Madame Sand, or Dudevant, just returned from Italy, met me in the foyer of the Opera, and we took two or three turns together. I was to breakfast with her the next day, but I could not go. To-day I have had Sandeau to breakfast, who told me that the day after that woman abandoned him he took such a quantity of acetate of morphia that his stomach rejected it, and threw it up without there having been the slightest absorption. I was sorry I had not received the confidences of Madame George Sand. He regretted it too,---Jules Sandeau. The poor lad is very unhappy at this moment. I have advised him to come and take Borget's room, and share with me until he can make himself an existence with his plays. That is what has most struck me the last few days.

Well, I must bid you adieu, and this adieu, in place of the au revoir bientôt on which I had counted, saddens me to a point I cannot express. Remember me to all about you. I shall write next to M. Hanski to thank him for his letter, and explain to him that the present parliament will be, for the next five years, insignificant. All the European questions in connection with France are postponed till 1839.

A thousand constant regards.

FROM H. DE BALZAC TO M. HANSKI.

PARIS, September 16, 1834.

MONSIEUR,--I should be in despair if you would not undertake my defence towards Madame Hanska, though I feel, indeed, that even if she would deign to forget two letters which she has the right to think more than improper, the friendship she would then have the goodness to give me would never be like that with which she honoured me before my culpability. Nothing restores a broken tie, the join shows always; an indelible distrust remains.

But permit me to explain to you, the only person to whom I can speak of this, the mistake which gave rise to what I shall always regard in my life as a misfortune. But consider for a moment the boyish, laughing nature that I have, and on which I would not now intrench myself if I had not made you know it; it is because I have been with you as I am with myself, with the person I love best, that I justify myself.

Together with this hearty boyishness there is pride. From any other I would rather receive a sword-thrust, were it even mortal, than lower myself to explain what I have done. But to mend the chain, to-day broken, of an affection that was dear to me, I don't know what I would not do.

Madame Hanska is, indeed, the purest nature, the most childlike, the gravest, the gayest, the best educated, the most saintly and the most philosophical that I know, and I have been won to her by all that I love best. I have told her the secret of my affections, so that I could always be with her as I wished.

One evening, in jest, she said to me that she would like to know what a love-letter was. This was said wholly without meaning, for at the moment it referred to a letter I had been writing that morning to a lady whom I will not name. But I said, laughing: "A letter from Montauran to Marie de Verneuii?" and we joked about it.

Being at Trieste, Madame Hanska wrote me: "Have you forgotten Marie de Verneuii?" (I saw she referred to the "Chouans," for which she was impatient) and I wrote those two unfortunate letters to Vienna, supposing that she remembered our joke, and replying to her that she would find Marie de Verneuii in Vienna.

You could never believe how shocked I was at my folly when she answered me coldly on account of the first, when I knew there was a second; and when I received the three lines that she wrote me, of which, perhaps, you are ignorant, I was truly in despair.

For myself, monsieur, I would give you satisfaction; it is very indifferent to me to be or not to be (from man to man); but I should be, for the rest of my days, the most unhappy man in the world if this childish folly harmed, in any way, Madame Hanska; and that is what makes me write to you thus.

Therefore, on my part there was neither vanity nor presumption, nor anything whatever that is contemptible. I wrote (admitting myself to blame) things that were unintelligible to Madame Hanska. I am here in a situation of dependence that excludes all evil interpretation; besides which, Madame Hanska's negligence is a very noble proof of my folly and her sanctity. That is what consoles me.

I earnestly desire, monsieur, that these explanations, so natural, should reach you; for though Madame Hanska has forbidden me to write to her, and said that she was leaving for Petersburg, I imagine that you will still be in Vienna to receive this letter, or that M. Sina will send it to you.

Tell her from me, monsieur, how profoundly humiliated I am--not to be grossly mistaken, for I never thought to do more than continue the jokes we made on the shores of the lake of Geneva when we talked of the Incroyables, but--to have caused her the slightest grief. She is so good, so completely innocent, that she will pardon me perhaps for what I shall never pardon myself. I am becoming once more truly a moujik.

As for you, monsieur, if I had to justify myself to you, you will understand that I should not do it. Mon Dieu! I was so seriously occupied that I lost precious moments in writing those two letters I now desire to annihilate.

If friendship, even if lost, still has its rights, would you have the kindness to present to Madame Hanska, from me, the third Part of the "Études de Mœurs," which I finished yesterday, and which will appear Thursday, September 18? You will find the manuscripts and the volumes with M. Sina, to whom I addressed them.

If Madame Hanska, or you, monsieur, do not think this proper, I beg you to burn the manuscripts and the volumes. I should not like that what I destined for Madame Hanska at a time when she thought me worthy of her friendship should exist and go into other hands.

"Séraphita," which belongs to her also, will be finished in the "Revue de Paris," September 25. I dare not send it to her without knowing whether she would accept it. I shall await your answer, and silence will be one. As "Séraphita" will be immediately published in a volume, I shall, if she is merciful, make her the humble dedication of this work by putting her arms and name on the first leaf, with these simple words: "This page is dedicated to Madame H... by the author;" and she shall receive, at any place you indicate, the volume and the manuscript.

However it be, and even if Madame Hanska offers me a generous and complete pardon, I feel that I shall always have I know not what in my soul to embarrass me. So, though I have made to this precious friendship the greatest of sacrifices in writing the present letter--for it contains things humiliating to me, and which cost me dear--I am destined, no doubt, never to see you again, and I may therefore express to you my keen regrets. I have not so many affections round me that I can lose one without tears. I was never so young, so truly "nineteen years old," as I was with her. But I shall have the consolation to grow, to do better, to become something so powerful, so nobly illustrious, that some day she can say of me: "No, there was no wicked intention, and nothing small in his error."

In whatever situation we may hold to each other when you receive this letter, permit me to thank you for the kind things you have said to me about my false election and the "Médecin de campagne." Yes, if I ever enter the tribune, and seize power, the thing you speak of would crown my desires and be, in my political life, the object of my ambition. I can say this without flattery, inasmuch as it was a fixed determination before I ever knew you. I consider the primary cause a shame to France of the eighteenth century as much as to that of the nineteenth.

I have much work to do, monsieur; and I am overwhelmed by it. I did not expect this additional grief, for which I can only blame myself. Express to Madame Hanska all my sorrow, and, though she may reject them, I send her my respects, mingled with repentance and the assurance of my obedience. But perhaps she has punished me already by one of those forgettings from which there is no return, and will not even remember what occasioned my error.

Adieu, monsieur; accept my sentiments and my regrets. DE BALZAC.

In case you are no longer in Vienna, I have notified M. Sina of the parcel.

To MADAME HANSKA.

PARIS, October 18, 1834.

MADAME,--I went to spend a fortnight at Saché, in Touraine. After the "Absolu" Dr. Nacquart thought me so debilitated that, not wishing (as he said in his flattering way) that I should die on the last step of the ladder, he ordered me my native air, and told me to write nothing, read nothing, do nothing, and think nothing--if I could, he said, laughing.

I went to Touraine, but I worked there. My mother came here and took charge of my letters. On arriving this morning I found a heap of them, but I sought for one only. I recognized the Vienna postmark and your handwriting, which brought me, no doubt, a pardon that I accept without any misplaced pride. Had I the wings and freedom of a bird you would see me in Vienna before this letter, and I should have brought you the most radiantly happy face in the world. But here I can only send you, on the wings of the soul, a respectful effusion. In my joy I saw three Vienna postmarks, just as Pitt, drunk, saw two orators in the tribune, while Sheridan saw none at all.

I resume my correspondence according to the orders of your Beauty (capital B, as for Highness, Grace, Holiness, Excellency, Majesty, for Beauty is all that); but what can I tell you that is good? I am gay in my distress, gay because my thoughts can fly, rainbow-hued and fearless, to you; but I am, in reality, fatigued and overwhelmed with work and obstacles. Do you really care much to know about this life of a bloody crater? How can I send to you, so fresh, so pure, the tale of so many sorrows? Do you know, can you know, what sufferings a publisher can cause us by launching badly into the world a book which has cost us a hundred nights, like "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Two members of the Academy of Sciences taught me chemistry that the book might be truly scientific. They made me correct my proofs for the tenth or twelfth time. I had to read Berzelius, toil to be right as to science, and toil to maintain style so as not to bore with chemistry the cold French reader by making a book in which the interest is based on chemistry,--in point of fact, there are not eight pages in all of science in the four hundred pages of the book.

Well, these gigantic labours which, done within a given time, have worn out twenty printers, who call me a "slayer of men," because when I sit up ten nights they sit up five--well, these lion toils are compromised! The "Absolu," ten times greater, in my opinion, than "Eugénie Grandet," will go without success, and my twelve volumes will not be exhausted (as I am in making them); my freedom is delayed! Do you understand my wrath? I hoped to finish "Séraphita" in Touraine; but I have worn myself out, like Sisyphus, in useless efforts. It is not every day that we can go to heaven.

I began in Touraine a great work,--"Le Père Goriot." You will see it in the coming numbers of the "Revue de Paris." I put in tiyeuilles, laughing like a maniac; but not in the mouth of a young woman, no; in that of a horrible old one. I would not allow you to have a rival.

I come back here; I have my two last lawsuits to compound, my first part of the "Études Philosophiques" to launch; happily Werdet is an intelligent man and most devoted; but he has very little money. I must, under pain of seeing him fail, do "César Birotteau" by December 15; besides which, Madame Bêchet must have her fourth Part of the "Études de Mœurs" by the 1st to the 15th of November.

My pecuniary obligations are coming due, and my payments are made with difficulty. Besides which I have taken J. Sandeau to live with me; I must furnish for him, and pilot him through the literary ocean, poor shipwrecked fellow, full of heart. In short, one ought to be ten men, have relays of brains, never sleep, be always blest with inspiration, and refuse all distractions.

It is now three months since I last saw Madame de Berny; judge of my life by that feature of it. Ah! if I were loved, my mistress might sleep in peace; there is no place in my life---I won't say for an infidelity, but--for a thought. It wouldn't be a merit; I am even ashamed of myself. I should have to do six hundred leagues on foot, go to Wierzchownia on a pilgrimage, to present myself in youthful shape, for I am so fat that the newspapers joke me, the wretches! That is France, la belle France; they laugh at ills produced by toil; they laugh at my "abdomen." So be it! they have nothing else to say. They cannot find in me either baseness or cowardice, or anything of what dishonours them; and, as Philippon of "La Caricature" said to me: "Be happy; all who do not live by writing admire your character as much as your works." I grasped his hand well that day. He gave me back my strength.

You know by the announcement of the fourth Part, that I am busy with the second volume of the "Scènes de la Vie privée," but what you did not know of is "Le Père Goriot," a master work! the painting of a sentiment so great that nothing can exhaust it, neither rebuffs, nor wounds, nor injustice; a man who is father, as a saint, a martyr is Christian. As for "César Birotteau," I have told you about him.

Yes, I inhaled a little of the autumn in Touraine; I played plant and oyster, and when the skies were clear I thought it was an omen, and that a dove was coming from Vienna with a green leaflet in her beak.

I am now in my winter condition, in my study, with the Chartreuse gown you know of, working for the future. As for my joys, they are innocent,--the refurnishing of my bedroom, a cane that has made all Paris gabble, a divine opera-glass which my chemists have had made for me by the optician of the Observatoire; besides which, gold buttons on my blue coat; buttons chiselled by fairy hands,--for the man who carries, in the nineteenth century, a cane worthy of Louis XIV. cannot keep upon his coat ignoble pinchbeck buttons. It is these little innocent crotchets that make me pass for a millionaire. I have created the sect of Canophilists in the fashionable world, and they take me for a frivolous man. It is very amusing.

It is a month now since I have set foot at the Opera. I have, I think, a box at the Bouffons. Is not that, you will say to me, very comfortable poverty? But remember that music, chased gold canes, buttons, and opera-glasses, are my sole amusements. No, you will not blame them.

Shall I send you the corrected "Peau de Chagrin"? Yes. Ten days hence that Baron Sina, who fills my mind on account of his name, will receive, addressed to him, a package containing five 12mo volumes, in the style of the four of "Le Médecin de campagne," which Maître Werdet calls pretty little volumes. They are frightful; but this edition is an edition intended to fix, definitively, the type of the grand general edition of the work which, under the title of "Études Sociales," will include all these fragments, shafts, columns, capitals, bas-reliefs, walls, cupolas, in short, the building, which will be ugly or beautiful, which will win me the plaudite cives or the gemoniæ. Be tranquil; in that day, when the illustrated edition comes, we shall find asses on whose skin to print you a unique copy, enriched with designs. That shall be the votive offering of the pardoned one. Well, forget my fault, but I shall never forget it myself.

Do not fear, madame, that Zulma-Dudevant will ever see me attached to her chariot.... I only speak of this because more celebrity is fastened on that woman than she deserves; which is preparing for her a bad autumn.

Madame de Berny does not like "Volupté;" she condemns the book as full of rhetoric and empty of feeling. She was revolted by the passage where the lover of Madame de Couaën goes into evil places, and thinks that character ignoble. She has made me come down from my judgment; but there are, nevertheless, fine pages, flowers in a desert.

"Jacques," Madame Sand's last novel, is advice given to husbands who inconvenience their wives to kill themselves in order to leave them free. The book is not dangerous. You could write ten times better if you made a novel in letters. This one is empty and false from end to end. An artless young girl leaves, after six months of marriage, a superior man for a popinjay; a man of importance, passionate and loving, for a dandy, without any reason, physiological or moral. Then, there is a love for mules, as in "Lélia" for unfruitful beings; which is strange in a woman who is a mother, and who loves a good deal in the German way, instinctively. All these authors roam the void, astride of a hollow; there is no truth there. I prefer ogres, Tom Thumb, and the Sleeping Beauty.

M. de G... has made a decent little failure. Those who have wounded me never prosper; isn't that singular? Decidedly, fate wills that I shall not see Madame de Castries. Each time that I rustle against her gown some misfortune happens to me. The last time, I went to Lormois, the residence of the Duc de Maillé, to see her, I came back on foot (to get thin). Between Lonjumeau and Antony, a sharp point inside my boot pushed up and wounded my foot. It was half-past eleven at night,--an hour at which a road is not furrowed with vehicles. I was just about to go to bed in a ditch, like a robber, when the cabriolet of one of my friends came by, empty. The groom picked me up and took me home. I believe in fate. It is in their harshness that we judge women. This one showed me a dry heart. As Eugène Sue says, the viscera were tinder; they would have stopped the blood instead of making it circulate. Pardon me; this is the remains of the nail in my boot.

Fancy, I am going to give myself the pleasure of seeing myself acted. I have imagined a buffoonery that I want to enjoy: "Prudhomme, bigamist." Prudhomme is miserly; keeps his wife very short; she does the household work and is a servant disguised by the title of wife. She has never been to an Opera ball. Her neighbour wants to take her, and being informed of the conjugal habits of Joseph Prudhomme, she assists the wife in making a lay figure resembling Madame Prudhomme, which the women put in the bed, and go off to the masked ball. Prudhomme comes home, says his monologues, questions his wife, who is asleep, and finally goes to bed. At five o'clock the wife returns; he wakes, and finds himself with two wives. You can never imagine the fun our actors will make of that sketch; but I swear to you that, if it takes, Parisians will come and see it a hundred times. God grant it! It will only cost me a morning, and may perhaps be worth fifteen thousand francs. It is the best of buffoonery! But all depends on so many things. Some one must lend me a name; the theatres are sinks of vice, and my foot is virgin of stain. Perhaps the first and last representation will be in this letter. Better one fine page not paid for than a hundred thousand francs for a worthless farce. I have never separated fame from poverty,--poverty with canes, buttons, and opera-glasses, be it understood, and a fame easy to carry. That will be my lot.

Have I hid my real griefs? have I chattered gaily enough? Would you believe that I suffer,--that this morning I took up life with difficulty, I rebelled against my solitude, I wanted to roam the world, to see what the Landstrasse was, to put my fingers in the Danube, to listen to the Viennese stupidities--in short, to do anything but write pages; to be living instead of turning pale over phrases?

I await, with impatience, till your white hand writes a few lines in compensation of my toil; for to him who counts suffrages and estimates them, yours are worth millions. I await, as Bugeaud said, "my peck;" then I shall start off, joyous once more, on a new course across the fields of thought. Who will unfasten my bridle and take off my bit; who will give me my freedom; when shall I begin to write "Philippe le Discret," to work at my ease--to-day, a scene; to-morrow, nothing,--and date my work Wierzchownia?

Do you know what a doublion is? It is the key of the fields,--it is freedom! Come, come! another day, my sadness! to-day the moujik is all gaiety at having kissed the hand of his lady, as in church they kiss the golden pax the priest holds out. I am well of opinion of those who love Musset; yes, he is a poet to put above Lamartine and V. Hugo; but this is not yet the gospel.

I place on you the care of thanking M. Hanski for his last letter. But I am sorry in my joy. I wish it had been any other cause than the dear little Anna's illness that detained you in Vienna. Kiss her for me, on the forehead, if that proud infant suffers it. And finally, remember me to all about you.

You cannot have the bound "Séraphita" until New Year's day. I would like to know if I may send Anna a little souvenir without fear of the inquisitive nose and hands of the German custom-house.

Adieu; I have given you my hours of sleep so as not to rob Werdet, or Madame Bêchet; a thousand respectful affections, and deign to accept my profound obedience.

Sunday, 19th, three in the morning.

I have not slept; I had not read all my letters. My last two difficulties are arrangeable. Two thorns less in my foot.

I have read over my scribblings. I am afraid you cannot read them; what shall I do? Have I told you all? Oh! no. There are many things that are never told.

My mother is very proud of the "Absolu;" my sister writes that she wept with joy in reading it and in saying to herself that I was her brother. Madame de Berny finds some spots upon it. She does not like that Claës should turn out his daughter; she thinks that forced. Madame de Castries writes me that she wept over it. I am sorry for the distance between Paris and Vienna. I would have liked to have your opinion first.

Ah! I may go to England for a few days (in all, ten, to go and return). My brother-in-law has just invented something wonderful, he says, relating to railroads, which might be sold for a good little million to the English. I shall try.

Did I speak to you of Prince Puckler-Muskau, and of my dinner with him at the house of a species of German monster who calls herself the widow of Benjamin Constant, but has all the air of being a good woman? Well, if I did not speak of it it will be the subject of a conversation when I am on the estates of your Beauteousness.

On my way to England I shall stop one week at Ham. The illustrious Peyronnet has expected me there for six months, and the trip has always been delayed. The Duc de Fitz-James writes to invite me to Normandy; refused.

Mon Dieu! forty letters read; it is a sort of drunkenness. Among them are two unknown ladies. One modestly asks me to make her portrait and write her life. She has green eyes and she is a widow--that's the physical and the moral of her. The other sends me execrable verses. At last I understand the cachets of Voltaire. They were not vanity; they were simply to avoid any but the letters of friends. This is what it is to have--I, a poor devil--neither Ferney, nor two hundred thousand francs income, nor one hundred francs for postage.

Sandeau will be lodged like a prince. He can't believe in his luck. I embark him on a career of masterpieces by a thousand crowns of debt, which we hypothecate on a bottle of ink. Poor lad! He does not know what duty is. He is free. I chain him. I am sorry for it. He is at this moment loved. A pretty young woman casts upon his wounds the balm of her smiles.

Re-adieu.

PARIS. October 6, 1834.

I have been for the last few days so busy in settling Sandeau and furnishing him with everything, for he is a child, that I have not been able to write to you; and now I shall have to do so by fits and starts, according to the order of my ideas and not that of logic.

Ah! in the first place, can you conceive that they are finding fault with me for the name MARGUERITE in the "Recherche de l'Absolu." It is a Flemish name, and that is all there is to say about it. I must be very irreproachable when they have to find fault with me for that!

Next Saturday I give a dinner to the Tigers of my opera-box, and I am preparing sumptuosities out of all reason. I shall have Rossini and Olympe, his cara donna [afterwards his wife], who will preside. Next Nodier; then five tigers, Sandeau, and a certain Victor Bohain (a man of great political talent, unjustly smirched), the most exquisite wines of Europe, the rarest flowers, the best cheer; in short, I intend to distinguish myself.

I don't know who told me that your bitter-sweet cousin expected me in Geneva! Mon Dieu! how queer! If I wanted to be gallant I should tell you that I would not cross the Jura in winter for any one in the world after having had the Maison Mirabaud [Mme. Hanska's house] for joy during that stay in Geneva. Well, believe it.

I have worked much at "Père Goriot," which will be in the "Revue de Paris" for November. My first part of the "Études Philosophiques," the pieces of which have been corrected with excessive severity, will appear in a few days. I shall then busy myself with the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée," a delightful composition, and with "César Birotteau," which is taking immense proportions. Also Emmanuel Arago and Sandeau are going to do a great work in five acts, in which I have a third,--a fine subject, which will pay Sandeau's debts and mine; a drama, entitled "Les Courtisans." It will go first to the Porte-Saint-Martin; but it will certainly get to the Français. It is magnificent! (I am a little like Perrette and her jug of milk.) If we win the stage, and our anonymous society, under the title of E. J. San-Drago (Sand-Arago), is successful, I shall be free all the sooner, and Sandeau, trained by me to keep house, will allow me to travel. It is impossible that a man who destines himself to politics should not see Europe, not judge fundamentally of manners, morals, and interests. The struggle between France and other countries will always be decided by the North. I must know the North at any cost, and, as M. de Margonne says, one has to be young to travel. Therefore, my liberty! oh, how I long for it!

I shall go to Ham about November 5, and, perhaps, from there to England; but I shall return for the 15th in Paris. My life is varied only by ideas; physically, it is monotonous. I speak confidentially with no one but Madame de Berny or with you. I find that one should communicate but little with petty minds; one leaves one's wool there, as on bushes. I am vowed to great sentiments, unique, lofty, unalterable, exclusive, and it is an odd contrast with my apparent levity. I assure you it would take at least five or six years to know to what point solitude has made me susceptible, and of how many sacrifices I am capable without ostentation. What of sentiments, feelings, I have made visible in my work is but the faint shadow of the light that is in me. Up to the present time one woman only, Madame de Berny, has really known what I am, because she has seen my smile, always otherwise expressive, never cease.[1] In twelve years I have had neither anger nor impatience. The heaven of my heart has always been blue. Any other attitude is, to my thinking, impotence. Strength should be a unit; and after having for seven years measured myself with misfortune and vanquished it, and risen, to gain literary royalty, every night with a will more determined than that of the night before, I have, I think, the right to call myself strong. Thus inconstancy, infidelity are incomprehensibilities for me. Nothing wearies me; neither waiting nor happiness. My friendship is of the race of the granites; all will wear-out before the feeling I have conceived. Madame de Berny is sixty years old; her griefs have changed and withered her. My affection has redoubled. I say it without pride, because I see no merit in it. It is my nature; which God has made oblivious of evil, while ceaselessly in presence of the good. A being who loves me always makes me quiver. Noble sentiments are so fruitful; why should we go in search of bad ones? God made me to smell the fragrance of flowers, not the fetor of mud. And why too, should I entangle myself in meannesses? All within me tends toward what is great. I choke in the plains, I live on the mountains! And then, I have undertaken so much! We have reached the era of intelligence. Material monarchs, brutal forces are passing away. There are worlds intellectual, in which Pizarro, Cortez, Columbus must appear. There will be sovereigns in the kingdom of thought. With this ambition no baseness, no pettiness is possible. Nothing wastes time like petty things; and so, I need something very great to fill my mind outside of this circle where I find the infinite. There is but one thing--to the infinite, the infinite--an immense love. If I have it, should I go in search of a Parisian woman, a Madame de ----? (Some one told me yesterday that she wished a scandal; that her husband left her free, but her vanity is such--I believe it--that she wants to be talked about.) I have such a horror of the women of Paris that I camp upon my work from six in the morning till six at night. At half-past six my hired coupé comes for me, and takes me one day to the Opera, another to the Italians, and I go to bed at midnight. Thus I have not a minute to give to any one. I receive visitors while I dine; I talk of our plans for the plays during dinner. I correspond with no one but you, Madame de Berny, my sister, and my mother. All other letters wait till Sunday, when I open them, and all that are not on business are handed over to Sandeau, who offers me his hand as secretary.

So doing, I shall end by extinguishing this fire of debt and accomplishing my promised work. Without it, no salvation, no liberty. The deuce! you will get the proof of what I now have the pleasure of writing to you, and of my firmness, when you see my books; for a man can't coquet and amuse himself, and bring out such publications. Toil and the Muse; that means that the toiling Muse is virtuous,--she is a virgin. It is deplorable that in this nineteenth century we are obliged to go to the images of Greek mythology; but I have never been so struck as I am now by the powerful truth of those myths.

Do not think that what I have been writing is a round-about way of telling you that, whatever be your age and face, my affection for you would be the same. I should not take circuitous ways to tell you a thing it would give me pleasure to express if I did not think you had enough perspicacity to have felt it, divined it. No; I was examining myself in good faith without any intention of showing myself off. I wish to be so great by intellect and fame that you can feel proud of my true friendship. Each of my works, which I want to make more and more extended, better thought, better written, will be a flattery for you, a flower, a bouquet that I shall send you! Distance alone admits of flowers of rhetoric.

My brother-in-law has just discovered a process which, in his opinion, solves on railways the problem of inclined planes, and will save great costs in construction and traction. It is possible to sell this invention to the English; here he has taken out a patent, and the English purchaser can take out an export patent. My brother-in-law does not want to go to London, and I am going to attempt this affair in the interests of my sister. That is the history of my journey to London.

We are not satisfied with our brother in Normandy. His wife is pregnant. He has complicated, still further, the difficulties of his life, poor creature. My mother is not well; I wish I could see her in good health to enjoy what I am preparing for her. But, good God! she has had many trials. To-day she turns to me, and heartily; she seems to recognize, without admitting it, the great wrong of her slight affection for my sister and me; she is punished in the child of her choice in a dreadful way. Henry is nothing, and will be nothing. He has spoiled the future his brother-in-law or I might have made for him by his marriage. All this is horribly sad.

Yesterday I re-read your letters. As I was putting them away, pressing them together to arrange them better, they exhaled a fragrance, I know not what, of grandeur and distinction that could not be mistaken. Those who talk of your forehead are not in error. But what is surprising in your letters is a turn of phrase, all your own, which issues from your heart as your glance from your eyes; it is our language written as Fénelon wrote it. You must have read Fénelon a great deal, or else you have in your soul his harmonious thought. When these letters come I read them first like a man in a hurry to talk with you; I do not really taste them till the second reading, which happens capriciously. When some thought saddens me I have recourse to you. I bring out the little box in which is my elixir, and I live again in your Italian journey. I see Diodati; I stretch myself on that good sofa of the Maison Mirabaud I turn the leaves of the "Gotha," that pretty "Gotha;" and then, after an hour or two, all is serene. I find something cool within me. My soul has rested on a friendly soul. No one is in my secret. It is something like the prayer of the mystic, from which he rises radiant. Will you think me very poetic? But it is true.

My Sandeau has brought out a book which is already sold. It is "Madame de Sommerville." Read it, this first book of a young man. Hold out your hand to him; do not be severe. Keep your severities for me; they are my privilege. Madame de Berny pays me no more compliments. From her, criticisms. Criticisms are sweet when made by a friendly hand; we believe them; they sadden because they are, no doubt, true, but they do not rend.

Well, adieu. You ought to be reading my last letter at the moment I am writing this. If you wrote to me so that I should receive your letters on Sundays, I would answer on Mondays. We should gain by not crossing each other.

I shall send, without letter of advice, to Sina's address, the first part of the "Études Philosophiques." You know all that; but let me believe that you take an interest in these enormous corrections à la Buffon (he corrected immensely), which ought to make my work, when completed ("Études Sociales," about which I told you), a monument in our fine language.[2] I believe that in 1838 the three parts of this gigantic work will be, if not wholly finished, at least built up, so that a judgment can be formed of the mass.

The "Études de Mœurs" will represent all social effects, without a single situation in life, physiognomy, character of man or woman, manner of living, profession, social zone, French region, or anything whatever of childhood, maturity, old age, politics, justice, or war, having been forgotten.

That done, the history of the human heart traced thread by thread, the social history given in all its parts, there is the base. The facts will not be imaginary; they will be what is happening everywhere.

Then, the second structure is the "Études Philosophiques;" for after the effects will come the causes. I shall have painted in the "Études de Mœurs" sentiments and their action, life and its deportment. In the "Études Philosophiques" I shall tell why the sentiments, on what the life; what is the line, what are the conditions beyond which neither society nor man exist; and, after having surveyed society in order to describe it, I shall survey it again in order to judge it. So, in the "Études de Mœurs" individualities are typified; in the "Études Philosophiques" types are individualized. Thus I shall have given life everywhere: to the type by individualizing it, to the individual by typifying him. I shall have given thought to the fragment; I shall have given to thought the life of the individual.

Then, after effects and causes, will come the "Études Analytiques," of which the "Physiologie du Mariage" is a part; for after effects and causes we must search for principles. Manners and morals [mœurs] are the play; causes are the coulisses and the machinery. Principles are the maker. But in proportion as the work winds spirally up to the heights of thought, it draws itself in and condenses. Though twenty-four volumes are required for the "Études de Mœurs," only fifteen are needed for the "Études Philosophiques," and only nine for the "Études Analytiques." Thus man, society, humanity will be described, judged, analyzed, without repetitions, and in a work which will be like an "Arabian Nights" of the West.

When all is done, my Madeleine scraped, my pediment carved, my last touches given, I shall have been right, or I shall have been wrong. But, after having made the poesy, the demonstration of a whole system, I shall make the science of it in an Essay on Human Forces ["Essai sur les Forces Humaines"]. And, on the cellar-walls of this palace I, child and jester, shall have drawn the immense arabesque of the "Contes Drolatiques."

Do you think, madame, that I have much time to lose at the feet of a Parisian woman? No; I had to choose. Well, I have now shown you my real mistress; I have removed her veils. There is the work, there is the gulf, there is the crater, there is the matter, there is the woman, there is she who takes my nights, my days, who puts a price on this very letter, taken from hours of study--but taken with delight. Ah! I entreat you, never attribute to me anything petty, low, or mean,--you, who are able to measure the spread of my wings!

Well, re-adieu. Recall the carver, the founder, the sculptor, the goldsmith, the galley-slave, the artist, the thinker, the poet, the--whatever you will, to the memory of those about you who love him, and think of the power of a lonely affection, that of a palm-tree in the desert, a palm-tree that rises to the skies for refreshment, if you would know the part that you have in it. Some day, when I have finished all, we will laugh heartily over it. To-day one must work!

[Footnote 1: Probably misprinted in the French; but I leave it verbatim as it is given.--TR.]

[Footnote 2: He changed the title to "La Comédie Humaine," which is indeed a monument, and his monument.--TR.]

PARIS, November 22--December 1, 1834.

Mon Dieu! I have to bear the burden of my own giddiness. I have not been to London; my brother-in-law changed his mind. You think me in England and you have not written. I am here without knowing what has become of you, or what you are doing. A thousand anxieties have seized me the last few days. Are you ill? Is M. Hanski ill? Is Anna? In short, I am making dragons for myself about you. I expected a letter, and the letter not coming I began to search out why. The why is your belief in my departure.

I have no good things to tell you. I am mortally sad. In spite of the consolations of work and the forced activities of poverty, there is a void in my life that weighs upon me. In moments of depression I am solitary. Madame de Berny still suffers cruelly, and she remains in the country. I have been to see her for a few days. Those few days are all I have been able to give her for five months. You can judge by that what my life has been,--a desert to cross. Shall I reach the happy land where streams and verdure and the gazelles are?

My poor mother is extremely ill. I expect her here to-morrow; consultations as to her health are necessary. My brother's household is more and more disheartening, and toward the close of every year business affairs are generally difficult. You see that all conspires to sadden me.

We have, Sandeau and I, begun a great comedy: "La Grande Mademoiselle," history of Lauzun, his marriage, and, for culmination, "Marie, pull off my boots." But with a subject of this kind we may fail before a public blasé with horrors. Whatever is merely witty seems pale. However!

I was writing this when your letter came, and I will answer it point by point. You know my character very little if you think that I ever abandon a sentiment, or an idea, or a friend. No, no, madame; it takes many wounds, many blows of the axe to cut down what is in my heart. Borget is in Italy; Borget is roving, painting, and does not write to me. I have had news of him only indirectly; nevertheless, he is always fresh in my thoughts, though we have known each other for several years.

I am not infatuated about Sandeau; but I held out a pole to a poor swimmer who was going under. Where you are right is in believing firmly that I will let no one penetrate to the depths of my heart. For that, the "Open, Sesame" that you have uttered is necessary. Few persons know those sacramental words. I should be the most unhappy man in the world if the secrets of my soul were known. Conjectures, however, are not lacking. But I have too great a powder of jesting to allow of anything I wish to hide becoming known. In France, we are obliged to veil depths by levity; without it we should be ruined here.

Your letter re-animates me a little, much, extremely. You have put a balm into my heart, like the Fosseuse. I will send you, immediately, the five volumes of the "Études Philosophiques," my "Lettre à la littérature," and "Le Père Goriot" in manuscript; together with the two numbers of the "Revue de Paris" in which it will appear.

"César Birotteau" is getting on, and the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée" are on the ways. I work now twenty hours daily. Luxury will never prevent me from realizing my project of solitude at Wierzchownia, for I see plainly, on one hand, the impossibility of being here in presence of the literary discussions about me which are beginning to arise violently, and the need of preparing, far from pin-pricks, two great bludgeon blows,--the tragedy of "Philippe II." and "L'Histoire de la succession du Marquis de Carabas," in which the political question will be plainly decided in favour of the power of absolute monarchy. But without this reason I should still have the keenest desire for travel; and even without this cause, again, there is a greater reason than all others, which would make me surmount every obstacle. Do you know it? Will you have it? Do you care for it? Well, I know nothing sweeter, more endearing, grander, more delightful than your friendship. To go in search of it, to enjoy it for eight days, one could well travel eight hundred leagues and not mind the labour of the journey.

No, no, the tigers will not pervert me. Alas! they are too stupid. I am compromised. I must give up my box on account of that neighbourhood. It is a stable of tigers!

I saw at the Opera, in a box near mine, Delphine P..., poor thing! withered, changed, faded, mistress of M. de F... Mon Dieu! what a skeleton! What a wearied and wearying air! with a species of dead-leaf skin! No, that woman is not a woman! She looks like a corpse about to fall into putrefaction. On the other hand, behind our box is that of the Comtesse Comar, or Komar, or Komarck, for it was Zaluski who told me the name, and I don't know the spelling of it; never did I see a more amiable, more seductive old woman. She is Madame Jeroslas ... plus heart and frankness. She had two pretty creatures with her. Zaluski is to present me. You don't know how I like to be with persons of your country. A name in ka or ki goes to my heart.

Oh! if you are kind, if you love me (I wish I could say that gracefully and irresistibly, as you say it), you will never leave me fifteen days without a letter. Whether you be in Vienna or at Wierzchownia, you do not know how sweet a true friendship is to the heart of a poor toiler who lives in the midst of Paris like a labourer in the Swedish mines. I have cut loose from everything. I have no duty to fulfil to society. I have a horror of false friends and grimaces. I am alone, like a rock in mid-ocean. My perpetual labour is not to the taste of any one. My poor sister Laure is angry at not seeing me. I want to triumph over the remainder of the distresses that envelop me; and I have not been strong, constant, and courageous for five years to fail in the sixth.

Should I get a month to myself at the beginning of the year, you will not be displeased if I bring my New Year's gifts to the pretty little Anna myself, inasmuch as the Custom-house is so malicious? I shall have the pleasure of going five hundred leagues to dine with you. But so much work must be done to attain this result that I only speak of it as one of those impossibilities that spur me to work and redouble my courage; something results from it. The "Recherche de l'Absolu" was only written through a hope of this kind. The compromise with Gosselin took the profits of that arduous labour. Oh! you do not know me. In your letters there are complaints, doubts, and polite accusations that dishearten me.

"Le Père Goriot" is a fine work, but monstrously sad. To make it complete, it was necessary to show the moral sink-hole of Paris; and it has the effect of a disgusting sore.

Wednesday, 26.

I must tell you that yesterday (my letter has been interrupted) I copied out your portrait of Mademoiselle Céleste, and I said to two uncompromising judges: "Here is a sketch I have just flung on paper. I wanted to paint a woman under given circumstances, and launch her into life through such and such an event."

What do you think they said?--"Read that portrait again." After which they said:--

"That is your masterpiece. You have never before had that laisser-aller of a writer which shows the hidden strength."

"Ha, ha!" I answered, striking my head; "that comes from the forehead of an analyst."

I kneel at your feet for this violation; but I left out all that was personal. Beat me, scold me, but I could not refuse myself the enjoyment of this praise; and I tasted the greatest of pleasures,--that of secretly hearing a person praised who is unknown and to whom one bears a deep affection. It is enjoyment twice over.

I am convinced of the immense superiority of your mind, and I am confounded to find in you such feminine graces, together with the force of mind which Madame Dudevant has and Madame de Staël once had; and I say this very loud, that you may not make yourself small behind that tall steeple you have so often boasted of to me. The opinion that I express upon you is a matured opinion. I am here, far from the prestige of your presence. I go over in my mind, impartially, your sayings, your opinions, your studies, and I write you these lines with a sort of joy, because Madame Carraud and Madame de Berny have made other women seem very small to me; and because, in the matter of grace, amenity, and the science hidden under the frivolity of smiles, I am a great connoisseur, having lovingly inhaled those flowers of womanhood, and what I say of you is conscientious and true. Besides, you are too grande dame to be proud of it. What you should be proud of is your kindness, and those qualities which are acquired only by the practice of Christian virtues, at which I never jest now.

Forgive me the disconnectedness of my letters, the incompleteness of my sentences. I write to you at night before I begin to work. My letters are like a prayer made to a good genius.

Go to the Prater with M. Hanski! Mon Dieu! you trample the world underfoot, and you do not set in the light that which is good!

Ah! I must tell you that literature, seeing my cane, my chiselled buttons, has decided that I am the Benjamin of an old English woman, Lady Anelsy (I write the name badly), whom I met at Madame d'Abrantès, and who has a box at the Opera, near mine (she separates me from Madame Delphine P...), and to whom I bow. I have answered friends (friends who are tigers in the guise of doves) that, not being able to bear the features of the old lady in my heart, I have had them carved on the knob of my cane. You have no idea what a fuss my movable property creates. I have much more success through that than through my works. That is Paris!

My dinner? Why, it made an excitement. Rossini declared he had never seen, eaten, or drunk anything better among sovereigns. It sparkled with wit. The beautiful Olympe was graceful, sensible, and perfect. Lautour-Mézeray was the wittiest of men; he extinguished the cross-fire of Rossini, Nodier, and Malitourne by an amazing artillery vigour. The master of the feast was the humble lighter who put the match to each sun in this array of fireworks. Ecco.

I told you that "La Recherche de l'Absolu" would astonish you; well, you will be as little prepared for "Père Goriot." After that will come the glorious end of "Séraphita." Never will imagination have been in so many different spheres. I do not speak of the perfumer Birotteau, or of the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée;" those will be supporting the battle with fresh troops.

Do you know for whom is this success? Well, I want you to hear my name gloriously, respectfully pronounced. I want to give you the sweetest enjoyments of friendship; I want to have you say to yourself: "He laughed like a boy at Geneva, and he made campaigns into China!" For you think he is a moralist, a toiler, a cynic, a--I don't know what. But he is a child who loves pebbles, and talks nonsense, and does it; who reads "Gotha," plays patience, and makes M. Hanski laugh.

Geneva is to me like a memory of childhood. There I quitted my chain; there I laughed without saying to myself, "To-morrow!" I shall always remember having tried to dance a galop down the long salon at Diodati, where Byron got drunk. And the country about la Bellotte! I must not think too much about all that; I should go to Vienna! I have such superstition, such veneration for persons with whom I can be myself. How has that come about among us? I don't know, but so it is. I can talk of my griefs, my joys, before you and Monsieur Hanski; here I am myself only with my sister and Madame de Berny,--probably because you resemble the latter, and are very much my sister. At this moment I would fain tell you, honourably, all graceful and sweet things, and send you, gathered one by one in the fields of friendship, the prettiest flowers,--those you like best; for I wish never again to lie for one moment under your displeasure.

If you ordain it, Lucullus will retreat into the skin of Diogenes in order not again to read these words: "Your goings-on as Lucullus will retard your freedom."

I dine to-day with one of those who took Algiers, the commissary-general Denniée, who for the last three years is in love with an admired creature (rather a fool), Mademoiselle Amigo, of the Italian Opera. There, came Rossini, in dishabille and not sarcastic. Yesterday, at the first representation of "Erani," Olympe said to me, motioning to Rossini:--

"You cannot imagine how beautiful and sublime the soul of that being is; how kind he is, and to what point he is kind. To reserve his heart and its treasures for her he loves, he wraps himself in sarcasm to the eyes of others; he makes himself prickly."

I took Rossini's hand and pressed it joyfully.

Mio maestro," I said to him; "then we can understand each other."

"What, you too!" he said, smiling.

I lowered my head; then I showed him all that brilliant Paris which was present, and said:--

"To cast one's diamonds and pearls into that mud--"

And at that moment my eyes fell upon "Delmar's" box.

Monday, December 1.

My letter has remained for eight days on, in, and underneath "Le Père Goriot." I have had a thousand money worries, but I am getting out of them. Never have I been so powerful to get through this business by my firm will. Another few months, and I am saved.

Within a few days a little joy has come to me. After much pressing, and receiving no for an answer for the last three years, they have consented to sell me "La Grenadière." So I shall have a retreat for study, and the furniture, books, and arrangements I should make will remain mine. I could live there six months, incognito, without seeing any one. So here I am, very happy--so far as a material thing can give happiness.

You have been proud of "Père Goriot." My friends declare that it is comparable to nothing, and is above all my other compositions.

Do you know that I am uneasy on what your last letter said relating to depth of heart, to which no man could ever attain. Those few words make me think you do not know me well, and it grieves me, because you cannot love me as well as I might be loved if I were known better. Mon Dieu! I am the object of a thousand calumnies, each more ignoble than the others, and I pay no more attention to them than he who is above the Jura listens to Pictet. Is that a merit? But a word from you puts alarm into my brain, into my heart.

Well, adieu. It is now eight days that I have been conversing with you. I will write a little more regularly in future. The doctors have obtained that I shall change my way of life. I am going to bed at midnight to rise at six in the morning, and work from then till three in the afternoon. I shall have from three to five for my pleasures, and I will write you each day a little line. After which I am ordered to go and amuse myself for six hours till midnight.

Mon Dieu! I have the same difficulty in quitting my pen that I had in quitting the Maison Mirabaud when the master forced me to go by going to bed himself. A thousand prettinesses to Anna, my friendly regards to M. Hanski, if you don't keep them all for yourself.

PARIS, December 15, 1834.

Oh! how long it is since I have seen your writing! Have I fallen again into disgrace? Are you displeased with my long letters written at intervals? I can only give you--offer you a day here and there; it is a day of respite in the midst of my long combat. It is the moment when I, poor dove without a branch, rest my feet beside the living spring, the source where she dips her thirsty beak into the pure waters of affection.

Yes, all is enlarging--the circus and the athlete. To face all, I must imitate the French soldier during the first campaigns in Italy: never recoil before impossibilities, and find in victory the courage to beat back the morrow's enemy.

Last week I took in all but ten hours' sleep. So that yesterday and to-day I have been like a poor foundered horse on his side,--in my bed, not able to do anything, or hear anything. The fact is, the first number of "Père Goriot" made eighty-three pages in the "Revue de Paris," equivalent to half an octavo volume. I had to correct the proofs of those eighty-three pages three times in six days. If it is any glory, I alone could make that tremendous effort. But none the less must my other works be carried on.

Forgive me, therefore, the irregularity of my correspondence. To-day one flood, to-morrow another flood sweeps me along. I bruise myself against one rock, I recover, and am thrown upon a reef. These are struggles that no one can appreciate. No one knows what it is to change ink into gold!

I have begun to tremble. I am afraid that fatigue, lassitude, impotence may overtake me before I have erected my building. I need, from time to time, good little words said out of France, some great distractions, and the greatest come from the heart, do they not?

However, "Père Goriot" is an unheard-of success; there is but one voice: "Eugénie Grandet," the "Absolu," are surpassed. I am, so far, at the first number only, and the second is beyond that. Tiyeuilles has made people laugh. I return you that success.

But you, what has become of you? No letters! nothing! A few days more, and I hope my work will be rewarded by reaching your ear like a reproach. I did believe you would periodically cast me a smile, a letter, a gracious dew of words written to refresh the brow, the heart, the soul, the will of your moujik. Which of us can dispose of our time? You. Who writes oftenest? I. I have most affection, that is natural; you are the most lovable, and I have more reasons to bear you friendship than you have to grant it to me. There is but one thing that pleads for me; misfortune, misery, toil; and as you have all the compassions of woman and of angel, you should think of me a little oftener than you do. In that, I am right. Write to me every week, and do not be vexed with me if I can only answer you twice a month. This torrential life is my excuse. Once I am freed, and you shall judge of me. Yes, forgive much to him who loves and toils much. Reckon to me as something nights without sleep, days without pleasures, without distractions. Madame Mitgislas ... invited me, but I did not accept; I have neither the time nor the wish to do so. Society gives so little and wants so much! and I am so ill at ease in it! I am so embarrassed on receiving silly compliments, and true sounds of the heart are so rare!

Since I wrote to you there has been nothing but work in my life, slashed with a few little good debauches of music. We have had "Moïse" and "Semiramide" mounted and executed as those operas have never been before, and every time that either is given I go. It is my only pleasure. I do not meddle in politics. I say, like some grammarian, I don't know who, "Whatever happens, I have six thousand verbs conjugated." I bring daily, like an ant, a chip to my pile. There are days when the memory of the Île Saint-Pierre gives me frenzies; I thirst for a journey, I writhe in my chains. Then, the next day, I think that I have fifty ducats to pay at the end of the month, and I set to work again!

Will you like me with long hair? Everybody here says I look ridiculous. I persist. My hair has not been cut since my sweet Geneva. In order that you may know what I mean by "my sweet Geneva," you ought to see Chariot's caricature on "my sweet Falaise": a conscript on Mount Blanc, not seeing an apple-tree, calls it "Land of evil!"

At this moment I am working at two things: "La Fleur du Poix," and "Melmoth réconcilié." Then I have also to do the counterpart of "Louis Lambert," "Ecce Homo," and the end of the "Enfant Maudit," besides that of "Séraphita" (which belongs to you), and that of "Le Père Goriot," which will end the year 1834, just as the end of "Séraphita" began it.

You understand that all my time is fully employed, nights and days; for, besides these things, I have proofs of my reprints which are always going on. Sandeau is horrified. He says that fame can never pay for such toil, and that he would rather die than undertake it. He has no other feeling for me than the pity we give to sick people.

I shall see you, no doubt, in Vienna. I have very solidly determined within myself to go there in March, so as to be able to make a reconnoissance of the battlefields of Wagram and Essling. I shall start after the carnival.

Did I tell you that I am to have the Grenadière?

Mon Dieu! I return to your silence; you do not know how uneasy I am about you, your little one, and M. Hanski. It would not cost you much just to say: "We are all well, and we think of you."

Well, I must say adieu, send you a thousand gracious thoughts, and beg you to offer my respects to M. Hanski, keeping my homage at your feet.

III.

LETTERS DURING 1835.

PARIS, January 4, 1835.

I have had the happiness to receive two letters from you within a few days of each other, while you have doubtless received both mine. I return to mes moutons by asserting that you can write to me regularly, and that it is not permissible in you to deprive me of my sun.

Bah! I have not seen either K... or T... again. Why do you scold me? Don't take my magic-lantern views for realities.

All is much changed since my last letter. Alas! I had the ambition to be near you on the 20th of January, and I began to work eighteen hours a day. I stood it for fifteen days, from my last letter till December 31; then I risked an insomnia; and I am now waking from a sleep of seventeen hours, taken at intervals, which has saved me. What has the public gained? "Le Père Goriot," on which these stupid Parisians dote. "Père Goriot" is put above everything else.

I wait till I have finished "Séraphita" to send it at the same time as the manuscript of "Séraphita," in its binding of cloth and silk as you wished, simple and mysterious as the book itself; also the manuscript of "Le Père Goriot" with the printed book, the first Part of the "Études Philosophiques," and the fourth of the "Études de Mœurs."

My works are beginning to be better paid. "Père Goriot" has brought me seven thousand francs, and as it will go into the "Études de Mœurs" in a few months, I may say that it will bring me a thousand ducats. Oh! I am very deeply humiliated to be so cruelly fastened to the glebe of my debts, to be able to do nothing, never to have the free disposal of myself. These are bitter tears, shed day and night in silence; they are sorrows inexpressible, for the power of my desires must be known, to comprehend that of my regrets.

So you fatigue yourself by going into society,--you, flower of solitude, and so beauteous in worldly inexperience! Your letter brought the whole social life of Vienna into this study where I work without ceasing. I became a worldling with you.

Alas! I am threatened with a grief that will spread over all my life. I went for two days to see Madame de Berny, who is eighteen leagues from here. I was witness of a terrible attack. I can no longer doubt it, she has aneurism of the heart. That life, so precious, is lost. At any moment death may take from me an angel who has watched over me for fourteen years; she, too, a flower of solitude, whom the world has never touched, and who has been my star. My work is not done without tears. The attentions due to her cast uncertainty upon any time of which I could dispose, though she herself unites with the doctor in advising me some strong diversions. She pushes friendship so far as to hide her sufferings from me; she tries to seem well for me. You will understand that I have not drawn Claës to do as he did. Great God! what changes in her have been wrought in two months! I am overwhelmed. To feel one's self well-nigh mad with grief, and yet to be condemned to toil! To lose that grand and noble part of my life and to know you so far away from me is enough to make one throw one's self into the Seine! The future of my mother which rests upon me, and that hope which shines afar, so far! are like two branches to which I cling. Therefore your scolds about the K.s and the P.s and my dissipations make me smile sadly. Nevertheless, I have put your letter next to my heart, with that profound sense of egotism which makes us clasp the last friend who is left to us. You will be, if this person is taken from me, the only and sole person who has opened my heart. You alone will know the Sesame, for the feeling of Madame Carraud of Issoudun is in some sort the double of that of my sister.

You will never know with what power of cohesion I have recourse to the memories of that young friendship, while weeping to-day over a feeling which death is about to destroy, leaving all its ties behind it in me.

The reading of the second number of "Père Goriot" gave Madame de Berny such pleasure that she had an attack of the heart. So I, who did not suspect the gravity of the harm, was the innocent cause of suffering.

I began a letter quite gaily, after having received yours of the 12th; but I threw it into the fire. Its gaiety hurt me. You will forgive me, will you not, for that chastity of feeling?--.you, so like to her! you in whom I find so many of the ideas, graces, noblenesses, which have made me name that person: my conscience.

Between this sorrow and the distant light I love, what are men, the world, society! There is nothing possible but the constant work into which I throw myself--work, my saviour, which will give me liberty, and return to me my wings. I quivered on reading your reasoning: "No letters; he is coming." That idea naturally came to you; I have too often been tortured by it. I am seized with periodic furies to leave all behind me, to escape, to spring into a carriage! Then the chains clang down; I see the thickness of my dungeon. If I come to you it will be as a surprise, for I can no longer make decisions on that subject. I must finish for Madame Bêchet the fifth Part of the "Études de Mœurs," finish the second part of the "Études Philosophiques" for Werdet, finish "Séraphita," and provide the necessary money to pay all here in my absence, and I have not a single friend of whom I can ask a farthing; it has all to be drawn from my inkstand. There is my Potosi; but to work it I must do without sleep and lose my health. Poverty is a horrible thing. It makes us blame our own heart; it denaturalizes all things. In my case it is necessary that talent or power of writing be as punctual to time as the falling due of my notes. I must not be ill, or suffering, or ill-disposed for work. I must be, like the scales of the Mint, of iron and steel, and coining always! Yet I exist only by the heart. And so I suffer! Oh! I suffer, as much as any creature can suffer who is all independence, feeling, open to happiness, but clogged and groaning under the iron weight of the chain with which necessity crushes him!

At this time last year I was without my chain, far from my worries, near you. What a looking back to the past! Then I did not think about being able to release myself, I was thoughtless about my debts. To-day I believe in my liberation; I have nearly reached it. Six months more of sacrifices and I am saved, I become myself, I am free! I shall go and eat with you the first bit of bread that belongs to me, that will not be steeped in tears and ink and toil.

I do not want to sadden you, I only want to tell you that if I am oppressed I feel as keenly the happiness there is in being able to tell of it. But you neglect me as if you were nothing to me; you write me seldom. Why will you not give me, to me alone, one day in the week for a letter. Suppose I were in Vienna and went to see you every Sunday, I, poor workman, you would give me that day. Well, I declare to you that if I am not in Vienna in the body I can be there in thought. Write me therefore on that day. I shall then have a letter every week when this rolling of letters is once established. I will answer you. You have not written me a single letter to which I have not instantly replied.

I offer you no special New Year's wishes. Those wishes I make daily for you and yours.

I shall send by diligence to-day the first Part of the "Études Philosophiques" so that you may not wait but may always keep the run of my work. You will easily guess that the Introduction has cost me as much as it has M. Félix Davin, whom I had to teach and recorrect until he had suitably expressed my thought.

I do not know if the "Revue de Paris" reaches Vienna. You will have seen in it a "Letter" of mine to the French authors of our century, in which I expose our ills. If you have not seen it, tell me, and I will send you a copy.

The end of "Séraphita" is a work of great difficulty. The Germans have sent translators to Paris to get it hot.

Adieu; do not leave me again without letters, or I shall think myself abandoned for society, which returns you nothing. To whom do you think I should repeat your judgment on M. Anatole de Th...? You always think that I go and come and belong in the world of idlers. That is an opinion rooted in your mind; and because you are going and coming yourself you want me to be your accomplice in that grand conspiracy of ennui.

All your judgments on Vienna have been confirmed by Alphonse Royer, who stayed there. Thanks to you, I know Vienna by heart; but as long as you are there nothing could disgust me with it, were it a hundred times more stupid and more gluttonous. Ah! they still have reserved sofas, but they reserve nothing in their hearts.

PARIS, January 16, 1835.

In spite of constant work and the greatest efforts of concentrated will, I have not been able to finish what I ought to do in order to have the power to leave to-day, to profit by this mild weather (which reminds me of the winter of Geneva), and reach Vienna on the 26th. Everything is against it. The "Revue de Paris" would not double its number so that "Père Goriot" could be finished. I have still my "Cent Contes Drolatiques" on my hands, the purchase of them being delayed for a few days. I have not failed about anything, but men have failed me. If I finish all by the middle of February I shall count myself lucky, and have about a month during which the journey will be to me the sweetest of necessities.

I have, however, sacrificed everything, even writing to you, to that object.

You will receive, by diligence, the manuscript of "Père Goriot" and the two numbers printed in the "Revue." Here, every one, friends and enemies, agree in saying that this composition is superior to all else that I have done. I know nothing about it. I am always on the wrong side of my tapestry. But you will tell me your opinion.

Now I have to finish "L'Enfant Maudit" and "Séraphita," which will appear during the first ten days in February. Next, to finish "La Fille aux yeux d'or," and do "Sœur Marie des Anges." The latter is a female "Louis Lambert" [it was never written]. You will read it. It is one of my least bad ideas. The abysses of the cloister are revealed; a noble heart of woman, a lofty imagination, ardent, all that is grandest, belittled by monastic practices; and the most intense divine love so killed that Sœur Marie is brought to no longer comprehend God, the love and adoration of whom have brought her there. Then I have to do "La Fleur des Pois" and the counterpart of "Louis Lambert," entitled "Ecce Homo."

I am much fatigued, much tormented, much worried, especially about money. That wire, which pulls one back at every moment from on high into this heap of mud, is intolerable; it saws my neck.

I have dined with Madame Delphine P..., but I left nothing there of my sentiments. A pretty little creature was present, a Princess Galitzin, and I made her laugh by telling her there was a silly, stupid creature at Genthod who did her great wrong by synonymy. I thought Madame Delphine neither affectionate, nor kind, nor grande dame. I made a rapid turn to you and burned incense before you, recalling to mind certain of those perfections about which you will not let me speak to you. A few intonations in M. Mitgislas ...'s voice, vaguely reminded me of yours and made my heart beat.

How cold society is! I came home joyfully to my hermitage, of which you will find a drawing some day at Wierzchownia; for did you not tell me that you had subscribed to "Les Maisons de personnages célèbres"? Well, I am in it; which does not prove that I am a personage or celebrated, when you see what silly folk are there made famous.

A year without seeing you! How many times the desire has seized me to drop everything, to laugh at publishers, and flee away! Then I said to myself that though you might be glad to see me, you might, perhaps, blame me also, and that what makes us worthy of esteem and grand, ought never to make us less friends, you and me. Reassure me, tell me that you do not love me less because I have not been able to find a month in a year. The proof of my seclusion is in what I have done, which astonishes even publishers. Yet there are people who still say, "He brings nothing out."

But all this labour will seem nothing, so long as it gives me liberty, independence. When I think that I still need seventy thousand francs for that, and to get them I must spread six bottles of ink on twenty-four reams of paper, it makes me shudder. They offered me yesterday twelve thousand francs for the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée." But I prefer the four thousand of the "Revue de Paris" and the four thousand for a thousand copies bought by a publisher, to putting the three thousand copies on the public market. I tell you my little affairs.

Madame de Berny is better. She declares that the worst symptoms have ceased, but I am going there to assure myself of the truth of what may be a divine lie, of which I know her capable. To help me bear my burden she would fain take from me all anxieties and dry my tears. Oh! she is a noble angel! There is none but you to continue her to me. So, all these days, during my grief, my eyes, my hopes turn ever to you with a force that might make me believe you have heard me.

Oh! leave me, to me so far away from you, the sad privilege of telling you how sweet and good and precious your friendship is to me. What proud courage it gives me here against many a snare, what a principle of laborious constancy it has put into my life! But I lack a collar on which is printed, "Moujik de Paulowska."

Well, adieu; think a little of him who always thinks of you, of a Frenchman who has the heart of which you are all so boastful across the Danube, who never forgets you, who will bring you from here his white hairs and his big monk's face subdued by a cloister regimen,--a poor solitary, who pines for the talks, and would like to cast at your feet a thousand glorious crowns to serve you as floor, as pillow!

Well, re-adieu. Kiss Anna's forehead for me; remember me to all about you and those I had the pleasure to know. They seem to me so happy in being near you. Remind M. Hanski of his lively guest, who has now laid up a fine stock of hearty laughs, for he has been sad enough this long time. Write me always a little. I don't know how it is I have not had a line these ten days. Does society absorb you? Alas! your moujik has been himself un poco into that market of false smiles and charming toilets; he has made his début at Madame Appony's,--for the house of Balzac must live on good terms with the house of Austria,--and your moujik had some success. He was examined with the curiosity felt for animals from distant regions. There were presentations on presentations, which bored him so that he went to collogue in a corner with Russians and Poles. But their names are so difficult to pronounce that he cannot tell you anything about them, further than that one was a very ugly dame, friend of Madame Hahn, and a Countess Schouwalof, sister of Madame Jeroslas ... Is that right? The moujik will go every two weeks, if his lady permits him.

Among the autographs sent, have I included one from Bra, who is one of our present sculptors? He is a curious man in this, that he was led to mysticism by the death of his wife, and for two months he went to evoke her from her grave. He told me that he saw her every evening. He has now remarried. Here is a saying of Stendhal: "We feel ourselves the intimate friend of a woman when we look at her portrait in miniature; we are so near to her! But oil-painting casts us off to a great distance." What shall we say of sculpture?

PARIS, January 26, 1835.

To-day I have finished "Le Père Goriot."

I leave to-morrow for a week, to work beside my dear invalid. She is better, she says, but I shall not really know anything until I have been with her a week.

On my return, I hope that "Père Goriot" will be reprinted. "Séraphita" will come to you later. But perhaps I shall bring you these things myself, accompanying the pomade, Anna's ring-case, and all the other things with which you have deigned to commission me. I have accepted too much of the sweets of hospitality that you should hesitate to use me as you please.

Yes, I have the possibility of resting for a month from March 2 to April 2. I must; and besides, my money affairs are becoming less hard. I shall have won this month of freedom by five months' exorbitant labour. But, if I have been sad, troubled, without heart-pleasure, at least my efforts have all succeeded. "Le Père Goriot" is a bewildering success; the most bitter enemies have bent the knee; I have triumphed over all, friends as well as enemies. When "Séraphita" has spread her glorious wings, when the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée" has shown the last lineaments of the human heart, when "Les Vendéens" has snatched a palm from Walter Scott, then, then I shall be content in being near you; you will not then have a friend without some value. As to the man himself, you will never find him anything but good, and a child.

I will not speak to you of the sadness mingled with joy that took possession of me this morning. To be at once so far off and so near! What is a year? This one has been long, agonizing within the soul, short through work. If gleams of a promised land did not shine as through a twilight, I think that my courage would abandon me at the last effort. It needs my sober, patient, equable, monkish life to resist it all. A woman is much in our life when she is Beatrice and Laura, and better still. If I had not had a star to see when I closed my eyes, I should have succumbed.

I have been, out of curiosity, to the Opera masked ball for the first time in my life. I was with my sister, who had committed the imprudence of going there against her husband's wishes. Knowing this, I went to fetch her and bring her home without giving her time to go round the hall. As I was leaving, and waiting for the carriage, a very elegant gentleman with a mask on his arm stopped me, and putting himself between me and the door whispered that the masked lady he had on his arm wished to speak to me. I rebuffed the mask; I think a woman has little dignity to come down to such trickery, and I said to the gentleman:--

"You know the laws of a masquerade; I obey the mask you see here, I am bound to do so."

The masked woman then said, in French mangled by an English tongue:--

"Oh! Monsieur de Balzac!"

But in such a lamentable accent that I was struck by it. Then she turned to my sister, who was laughing heartily, and said:--

"Well, then, between you and me, madame."

My sister told me afterwards that this mask was neither well dressed nor well shod.

There's my adventure, the sole and only one I shall probably ever have at a masked ball; for I have never before gone to one, and, doubtless, shall never go to another. I do not see what good they are. If two people love each other, the ball is useless. If they go in search of what are called bonnes fortunes I think them very bad, and I ask myself if it isn't rather Jeroslas, that is to say, Jesuitical (this between ourselves), to satisfy, under a mask, a passion we will not own.

If I can leave on the first days of March, the sovereign of Paulowska will have had letters enough from me to let her know it. God grant that for one month more I may not be ill or ill-inspired! I shall make my preparations joyously. Be kind enough to write me a line in answer to the following: I should like, in order to go quickly and without care, to have no luggage. If I clear in the custom-house here for Vienna, to the address of Baron Sina, my personal effects, books, manuscripts, etc., will they be opened in Vienna without my presence? Will they get there without being opened on the way? Can I, without fear, put in all the things I want for my own use? And finally, how many days does it take for packages to go from Paris to Vienna? I would like to travel without stopping, and have only my own person to fling from one carriage to another till I get there.

Adieu; forty days are almost nothing to me now, and I tell myself that forty days hence I shall be in the mail-cart for Strasburg. I shall see Vienna, the Danube, the fields of Wagram, the island of Lobau; I don't say anything about the Landstrasse. As a faithful moujik I know nothing that is grander than those who inhabit it.

Do you still go into society? But of us two, the one who is busiest and the least rich in time is the one who writes oftenest. I growl, like a poor neglected dog, but to whom it suffices to say, "Here, Milord!" to make him happy.

PARIS, February 10, 1835.

Though I have scarcely time to write, I cannot be silent about the pleasure I felt yesterday at a fête given by Madame Appony, when Prince Esterhazy, having asked to see me, began to talk of a certain Madame Hanska, née Rzewuska, whose mind, graces, and knowledge had astonished him, and who had given him the desire to see me. With what joy I said before seven or eight women, who all have pretensions, that I had never met in my life but two women who could match you for learning without pedantry, womanly charm, and lofty sentiments--I will not tell you all I said; I should seem to be begging a favourable glance from the sovereign of Paulowska. But all the women made faces, especially when the prince agreed with me about your beauty, and told how everybody knew that your wit did not make you spiteful, for you were graciously kind. I could have hugged that good little prince!

Well, a few days more, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing you.

I have just returned from Nemours. Alas! Madame de Berny is no better. The malady makes frightful progress, and I cannot express to you how that soul of my life was grand, and noble, and touching in those days measured by illness, and with what fervour she desires that another should be to me what she has been. She knows the inward spring and nobility that the habit of carrying all things to an idol gives me. My God is on earth. I have judged myself hourly by her. I say to myself in everything, "What would she think of this?" and this reflection corroborates my conscience, and prevents me from doing anything petty.

However violent attacks and calumnies may be, I march higher up. I answer nothing. Oh! madame, there was a memory, and a sense of horrible pain which rent me during the ten days I rested after "Père Goriot." I will tell you that that work was done in forty days; in those forty days I did not sleep eighty hours. But I must triumph.

I am going once more to risk, as the doctor says, my "intelligential life" in order to finish the second delivery to Werdet, the fourth to Madame Bêchet, and "Séraphita." As soon as that is done, I shall buy La Grenadière, and, the deeds signed, I shall fly to Vienna, see the battle-field of Essling, and from there, something of the Landstrasse, where you are. I shall come in search of a little praise--if you think that my year of toil deserves any; and you know that the words that escape you are put where I put those of la dilecta. Though she is ill, her children will stay with her during my absence, and she could not have me then, so I make this journey without remorse. Besides, she knows it is necessary, as diversion, for the weariness of my head.

So, unless I am ill between now and the 20th of March, which is not probable, I shall work with the sweet interest of going, my work accomplished, toward that Vienna where all my troubles will be forgotten. The atmosphere of Paris kills me; I smell toil, debt, enemies! I need an oasis. On the other hand, "Le Père Goriot" has created an excitement; there never was such eagerness to read a book; the booksellers advertise it in advance. It is true that it is grandiose. But you will judge.

As for the "Lettre aux Écrivains," alas! I cannot look at it without pain, for la dilecta thought it so fine, so majestic, so varied, that she had palpitations of the heart which injured her, and I don't like those pages any more.

You know that one of the qualities of the bengali is illimitable fidelity. Poor bird of Asia, without his rose, without his peri, mute, sad, but very loving, the desire seizes me to write his story. I have begun it in the "Voyage à Java."

Adieu; this scrap of a letter is scribbled on a pile of proofs that would frighten even a proof-reader. A thousand homages, and kindly present my obeisances to M. Hanski. I return to my work with fury, and I wish you the realization of all the wishes you make. Find here the expression of the most sincere and most respectful of attachments.

PARIS, March 1, 1835.

I have received, madame, the letter in which you announce to me your departure for your lonely Wierzchownia. I shall therefore not see you in Vienna. I shall delay my trip to Essling and Wagram till the end of the summer, so that when I go, I can push on to the Ukraine.

Well, you will be accompanied by the sincerest prayers for your happiness and for that of those about you. As for me, after a few days' diversion, necessitated by lassitude, I have just returned to the deepest seclusion, in order to finish up my two agreements with Madame Bêchet and Werdet, and to grow, to enlarge myself, to raise my name to the height of the esteem you give to it, that you be not proud in vain of having granted me a few days of gracious friendship; my pride, mine, will ever be legitimate enough. I tell you once more, with a sort of religious emotion, that you are, together with her of whom I have so often spoken, the most beauteous soul, the noblest heart, the most attractive person that I have seen in this world, the most superior mind and the best instructed. Let me tell you this that I think, at the moment when you are about to put as great a distance of time between us as there is already.

I have been measuring the amount of work that remains for me to do; it will take six months to finish it. For six months, therefore, I shall try to rise higher, to send you fine works, the flowers of my brain,--the only flowers that can cross that great distance unwithered,--which will reach you, like those I have sent already, in their coarse germ and their first dress. Accept them always as a proof of my respect and admiration, as a proof of that constancy that you yourself advise, as the pledge of a pure and holy friendship, and as a testimony in favour of calumniated France, accused of levity, but where are still to be found chivalrous souls, lofty, strong, who do not treat lightly true affections. You have given me the desire to raise, to improve myself; let me be grateful in my own way.

On returning to my retreat, I found Grosclaude on the threshold. He asked me to let him make my portrait, full length, in my working-dress. He told me that in case he did it, you and Monsieur Hanski had asked for a copy. You will not refuse the person painted when you already possess the first impulsion of his thought in manuscript. I am so happy in this friendship of which you and M. Hanski do not reject the proofs. We are so far off! Let me approach you as materially as I can. You will say yes, will you not?

I have just broken all the threads by which Lilliput-Paris held me garoted; I have made myself a secret retreat, where I shall live six months [rue des Batailles, Chaillot]. I was seized with profound emotion on entering it; for it is here that my last battle will be fought, here that I must grasp the sceptre. If I succumb! If I should not succeed! If (in spite of a regimen prescribed by doctors who have traced me a manner of living so that I may struggle without danger through my work), if I fall ill! A crowd of such thoughts seized me, inspired by the gravity of the things I am undertaking. At last, in the early morning, I went to the window, and I saw, shining above my head, the star of that delicious hour. I had confidence, I was joyful as a child, after being feeble as a child; I went back to my table, crying out the "Ha, ha!" of the horse of Scripture. Then I determined to begin by writing you these lines. Bring me luck, you and the star, will you? The second thing I have to do is the end of "Séraphita," an immense work, that I have meditated for three or four months, and which rises ever higher. I have now only to write it. You know it belongs to you.

You ought, at this moment when I am writing, to have read "Le Père Goriot." How shall I send you my manuscripts when you are in Russia? You must tell me. As for the books, it will be equally difficult. You must give me your instructions. Mine to you are that you shall be well in health, that M. Hanski be gay, have no black butterflies, that his enterprises shall prosper, that Anna shall jump and laugh and grow without accidents; and that all about you be well and happy.

At the beginning of the autumn, therefore, if it please God, and if I have fruitfully worked, you will see a pilgrim arriving and ringing at your castle gate, asking for a few days' hospitality, who would fain repay you by laying at your feet the laurels won in the literary tournament--as if glory could ever be anything else than a grain of incense on the altar of friendship! One word is worth more than these puffs of wind; and that word of gratitude I shall ever say to you.

The inclosed autograph is that of a friend of mine who may become something some day; there is one remarkable thing about him which will recommend him to your heraldicomaniacal favour; he is descended from Jeanne d'Arc, through her brother Gautier. His name is Edouard Gautier d'Arc, Baron du Lys, and he bears the arms of France, supported by a woman, on his shield. Is not that one of the finest things in the present day? Well, of a man whom we ought to make peer of France with a fine entailed estate, we have made a consul at Valentia! He has ambition.

PARIS, March 11, 1835.

I have just received your good letter of the 3rd instant. It has given me pleasure and pain. Pleasure, you are better; pain, you have been ill. You see, I had the time to go to Vienna, and now I cannot. I shall go and see you at Wierzchownia for after taking measures for "La Bataille" at Wagram, I shall not think anything of a few hundred more leagues to say good-day to you.

You are always so good you will let me take you for confessor, tell you all, be confiding, and have in you a soul?

You will find inclosed the dedication of "Séraphita." Have the kindness to answer me by return courier, that I may know if you approve it. In a thing of this kind there must be no point left to object to; dedications cannot be corrected. "Séraphita" will be finished by the first Sunday in April, therefore you have time to throw a "yes" into the post on receiving this letter. Your silence will mean disapproval. The "Revue de Paris" is horribly anxious to get this end; it has received complaints without number.

When the number is out I will send it to you through Sina; but I own that I do not like to risk the manuscript. What shall I do, therefore? You will receive the fourth Part of the "Études de Mœurs," the second edition of "Goriot," "Melmoth réconcilié," the manuscripts of "La Fille aux yeux d'or," and the "Duchesse de Langeais," and, perhaps, that of "Séraphita;" perhaps also the second Part of the "Études Philosophiques."

What shall I tell you about all this? The finishing of "Séraphita" kills me, crushes me. I have fever every day. Never did so grand a conception rise before any man. None but myself can know what I put into it; I put my life into it! When you receive this letter the work will have been cast.

There never was a success equal to that of "Goriot." This stupid Paris, which neglected the "Absolu," has just bought twelve hundred copies of the first edition of "Goriot" [in book form], before its announcement. Two other editions are in press. I will send you the second.

Here I am, with piles of gold, compared to my late situation; for I still have seven thousand ducats to pay [70,000 frs.], but in three months "Goriot" gives one thousand ducats. During the last three months I have regularly paid off four thousand ducats a month with the product of my pen![1]

Besides "Séraphita," I am finishing "L'Enfant Maudit," remaking "Louis Lambert," and completing "La Fille aux yeux d'or." I have finished a rather important work, entitled, "Melmoth réconcilié," and I am preparing a great and beautiful work, called "Le Lys dans la Vallée," the figure of a charming woman, full of heart and having a sulky husband, but virtuous. This will be, under a form purely human, terrestrial perfection, just as "Séraphita" will be celestial perfection. The "Lys dans la Vallée" is the last picture in the "Études de Mœurs," just as "Séraphita" will be the last picture in the "Études Philosophiques." Then, the third dizain.

You will have received the letter in which I tell you of my seclusion. It is deep. No one comes here. No, no more Lormois. Why do you trouble yourself about things I pay no heed to? I have renounced pleasures. No more Opera, no more Bouffons, no more anything; solitude and work. Séraphita! There, will be my great stroke; there, I shall receive the cold mockery of Parisians, but there, too, I shall strike to the heart of all privileged beings. In it is a treatise on prayer, headed "The Path to God," in which are the last words of the angel, which will surely give desire to live by the soul. These mystical ideas have filled me. I am the artist-believer. Pygmalion and his statue are no longer a fable to me. "Goriot" could be done every day; "Séraphita" but once in a lifetime.

So, then, since my last letter I have had no events in my material life, but many in the life of my heart, because my heart is involved in this majestic occupation.

I have to do the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée," a work in filagree, which will be a wonder to the little women who find the pinions of "Séraphita" incomprehensible.

No, I cannot buy La Grenadière as yet; I need seven or eight thousand francs for that, which I don't possess. Though my cane with its ebullition of turquoises has made me notorious as a new Aboulcasem, I have nothing but debts. When I am free of those, I will see about getting the money for La Grenadière.

If I were in Vienna, I would make you laugh; oh, yes! I don't laugh now except with those who love me. Judge, therefore, how precious our friendship has become to me. Other laughs are compromising. I am taken seriously; so much so that Dantan has caricatured me. Would you like to see it? I will send it with the volumes I have for you. I have never lost any time in transmitting to you those of my poor works that you have the goodness to like.

My sobriety and regularity of life can alone save me under the ardent work I have to complete to win that liberty so longed-for. It is now twenty days that I have risen at midnight and gone to bed at six o'clock. I shall persevere until I am delivered from the Bêchet contract, and the fourth Part is given to Werdet.

I hope I can send the box to you April 17. I shall address it, in any case, to Baron Sina.

Madame Delphine P... was at the Opera Sunday, and gave birth to a child Monday.

I thank you for your glimpses of Viennese society. What I have learned about Germans in their relations elsewhere confirms what you say of them. Your story of General H... comes up periodically. There has been something like it in all countries, but I thank you for having told it to me. The circumstances give it novelty.

I respect your wishes in sending you the manuscript of "Goriot" in its dirty condition. It bears the trace of many worries and much fatigue.

Madame de Berny is a little better, but alas! this is only obtained by digitalis. I hope I may still keep that light of my life, that conscience so pure, that tenderness so delicate.

Madame Carraud is safely confined of a son.

I saw Borget this morning, returned from Italy, and I have your letter; so this has been a good day.

Well, I must say adieu; but remember that while writing a book that bears your name, I do not quit you.

The Emperor of Russia has prohibited "Goriot;" probably on account of Vautrin.

There is pleasure in breaking all one's bonds to society; one has no remorse; society does not cling to you, and one can only pity those who cling to it. I am happy. I can march on in solitude, led by a beautiful and noble thought.

I am sorry you have not seen the satirical preface I put to "Goriot;" you shall have it later. I won't make a package of that only.

I have a hundred thousand things to say, but when I begin to talk with you I seem to see you; I forget my ideas. However, I intend to begin a journal-letter, and put in every day some of my ideas.

At this moment I am a little drunk with work; my hand is tired; the heart is full, but the head is empty; you will get neither mind nor gaiety, but all that affection has of truest, all that memory has of freshest, and the tenderest gratitude.

You ask me what becomes of Madame de Nucingen. She will be, and so will her husband, a most comic dramatic personage in "Une Vue du Monde" long advertised by the "Revue de Paris." It is called "La Faillite de M. de Nucingen." But I need time for all these conceptions, and especially for their execution; above all when (as for Séraphita) I work often a year or two in thought before taking a pen. Adoremus in æternum means for me, "Toil ever."

You speak of the stage. The stage might bring me in two hundred thousand francs a year. I know, beyond a doubt, that I could make my fortune there in a short time; but you forget that I have not six months to myself, not one month; and if I had I should not write a play, I should go and see you. Six months of my time represent forty thousand francs; and I must have that money in hand before I can do either "La Grande Mademoiselle" or "Philippe le Discret." Where the devil am I to get it? Out of my ink-pot. There is no Leo X. in these days. Work is the artist's bank.

If you knew the annoyances that Madame Bêchet's business embarrassments cause me. She cannot pay unless my numbers appear. So, when I am inspired for "Séraphita," when I listen to the music of angels, when I am sick with ecstasy, I must come down to corrections, I must finish that stupidity "La Fille aux yeux d'or," etc. It is horrible suffering. I would like to do the comedy of "La Grande Mademoiselle," but no! I must work for Werdet, who is ripping himself open to give me the money for my payments, my livelihood. Honesty has made a galley of my study. That is something you ought to know well. I have not a minute to myself, and I never take any distraction except when my brain comes down like a foundered horse.

You know all that my heart contains of affection and good wishes for yours. Affectionate compliments to M. Hanski, and take all you will for yourself of my most devoted feelings.

Grosclaude is coming to make my full-length portrait. I have never dared to ask for a sketch of yours.

This is the dedication:--

"MADAME,--Here is the work you asked of me; and to you I dedicate it, happy in being able thus to prove the respectful and constant affection which you permit me to feel for you. But read it as some bad transcript of a hymn dreamed from my childhood; the fervent rhythm of which, heard on the summits of the azure mountains, and its prophetic poesy, revealed here and there at times in Nature, it is impossible to present in human language.

"If I have risked being accused of impotence in thus attempting a sacred book which demands the light of Orient beneath the translucent veil of our noble language, was it not you who urged me to the effort, by saying that the most imperfect drawing of that figure would still be something that would please you? Here, then, it is, that something. I could wish that this book were read by none but minds preserved, like yours, from worldly pettiness by solitude; such as they alone know how to complete this poem; to them it may be, perhaps, a stepping-stone, or else a rough and humble flag on which to kneel and pray within the temple!

"I am, with respect, your devoted servant."

[Footnote 1: Ducat: gold coin, value from ten to twelve francs, according to country (Littré).--TR.]

PARIS, March 30, 1835.

Do not be vexed with me for the irregularity of my letters. I am overwhelmed with work, and I feel the necessity of getting through with it if I want my dear liberty. Madame Bêchet has become singularly ill-natured and will hurt my interests much. In paying me, she charges me with corrections which amount on the twelve volumes to three thousand francs, and also for my copies, which will cost me fifteen hundred more. Thus four thousand five hundred francs less, and my discounts, diminish by six thousand the thirty-three thousand. She could not lose a great fortune more clumsily, for Werdet estimates at five hundred thousand francs the profits to be made out of the next edition of the "Études de Mœurs."

I find Werdet the active, intelligent, and devoted editor that I want. I have still six months before I can be rid of Madame Bêchet; for I have three volumes more to do, and it is impossible to count on less than two months to each volume. Thus you see I am held here till September. Between now and then I ought to give Werdet three Parts of the "Études Philosophiques," and do much work for the Revues. For the last twenty days I have worked steadily twelve hours a day on "Séraphita." The world is ignorant of this immense toil; it only sees, and should only see, results. But I have had to master the whole of mysticism to formulate it. "Séraphita" is a consuming work for those who believe. Unhappily, in this sad Paris the Angel may chance to furnish the subject for a ballet. I shall meet with sarcasm, but I will not go into society. I will stay here tranquilly and do "La Fleur des Poix," "L'Enfant Maudit," "Sœur Marie des Anges," and "Les Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée."

What has tired me horribly the last few days is the reprinting of "Louis Lambert," which I have tried to bring to a point of perfection that would leave me in peace as to that work; and Lambert's thoughts when he was at Villenoix remained to be done. I had put, as it were, a hat on that place to keep it, or the cover on a dish at a meal. However, it is all done now; it is a new formula for humanity, which is the tie that binds "Louis Lambert" to "Séraphita."

Next, I have twenty days' work in remaking the "Comtesse à deux Maris" ["Colonel Chabert"]. I think it detestable, wanting in taste and truth; and I have had the courage to begin it all over again on the press. It was in that way I did my last work on the "Chouans." At this rate my hair turns frightfully white. No, you will never recognize me.

Madame de Berny is rather better,--much better, she says. But she still has sudden attacks which show that the cause is there. I have wept much over her; I have prepared myself for a grief which will act upon my whole life. In May I shall go and spend a month with her.

I need seven or eight thousand francs to buy the Grenadière, and I cannot yet put my hand on that sum. If I finish "La Fleur des Poix" in April and go to Touraine in May, I may possibly return with the sacred title of land-owner. On the 20th of May (my birthday) or the 16th of May (my fête-day) we shall baptize my brother's child. I am godfather, with my niece Sophie as godmother. I always swore I would never be godfather to any child; but my brother is so unfortunate it is impossible to refuse. I should like to complete the fête by buying the Grenadière. It would be a first sign of prosperity.

I will put into my parcel of April 17th the two caricatures of me in plaster by Dantan, who has caricatured all the great men. The chief point of mine is the famous cane bubbling with turquoise on a chased gold knob, which has had more success in France than all my works. As for me, he has caricatured my stoutness. I look like Louis XVIII. These two caricatures have had such success that I have not as yet been able to get them. It is true that I go out little, and sit at my work for twenty hours. You can't imagine what success this jewelled cane has had; it threatens to become European. Borget, who has returned from Italy, and who did not say he was my friend, told me he heard of it in Naples and Rome. All the dandies in Paris are jealous, and the little journals have been supplied with items for six months. Excuse me for telling you this, but it seems to me it is biographical; and if they tell you on your travels that I have a fairy-cane, which summons horses, erects palaces, and spits diamonds, do not be surprised, but laugh as I do. Never did the tail of Alcibiades' dog wag harder. But I have three or four other tails of the same kind for the Parisians.

Our exhibition of paintings is quite fine this year. There are seven or eight leading masterpieces. Grosclaude's picture is much liked. He is honourably hung in the large Salon. But they think he has only colour and drawing, and lacks soul and composition. Gérard, however, thinks he is really a man of talent. He told him so sincerely; and repeated the same to me, adding that there was nothing for a man like him to do but to produce; he calls this a good and fine picture. There is much good luck for him in appearing without disadvantage in the large Salon, where there are ten or twelve splendid pictures. There is a landscape by Brascassat in which is a bull, which could be bought for six thousand francs, and may be worth a hundred thousand. It is, like Pagnest's "Portrait," the despair of artists. Brascassat is, like Pagnest, a poor young consumptive. He is a shepherd, taken, like Foyatier the sculptor, from his flocks, and, if he lives, he will be a great painter. Our nineteenth century will be great. We cannot doubt it. There is a deluge of talent here.

I regretted you much. I should have liked to see you in Paris this winter. The Exhibition, and the Italian opera have offered an unheard-of combination: Lablache, Tamburini, Rubini. Then Beethoven, executed at the Conservatoire as he is nowhere else. Besides which, Paris is being cleaned and completed, thanks to Louis-Philippe's trowel. But there's a hundred years' work still to do at the Louvre. When I pass along the quay of the Tuileries, my artist-heart bleeds to see the stones placed by Catherine de' Medici, corroded by the sun before being carved--and this for three hundred years.

Adieu! it is two in the morning. Here is an hour and a half stolen from "Séraphita." She groans, she calls; I must finish her, for the "Revue de Paris" groans too; it has advanced me nineteen hundred francs, and "Séraphita" must settle the account.

Adieu! imagine how I think of you in finishing the work that is yours. It is time it appeared. Literature here has decided that I shall never finish that work; they say it is impossible.

Graceful things to Anna, my respects to Mademoiselle Séverine, my regards to M. Hanski; and to you nothing, for all is yours. It would be giving you a bit of your own property to send you anything, and I have, in this low world, too few friendships to diminish the truest of them all.

PARIS, May 1, 1835.

MADAME,--I greeted M. le Prince de Schonberg as I never did any one, for he came from you. "Séraphita" exacts more work. I had hoped to send you the manuscript by the prince, but it cannot be finished before my fête-day, May 16, and the prince starts to-day or to-morrow. I cannot even profit by his journey to write you in detail about my life and occupations. I have perhaps presumed too far upon my strength in supposing I could do so many things in so little time. I shall be lucky indeed if I can get off and divert myself in September. But nothing shall hinder me when my obligations have been met.

When I have finished with Madame Bêchet and Werdet, yes, then I shall have six months before me. On that day I shall owe nothing to any one, for the approaching reissue of the "Études de Mœurs" enlarged by what will be added to them, will release me of all, even my debt to my mother. Wealth will come both for her and for me, in 1837, when my works will be issued as the "Études Sociales." There is my future sketched out. There is my hope and my toil.

If sometimes the grief of not possessing the happiness that I dream saddens and consumes me, the hope of one day seeing my mother happy through me, and my fortune built up, all by myself, without help, sustains me. But what are the hopes of material life compared to the disappointment of the prayers of the heart? And so, now that I advance toward the graver life, and doubt at times of affections, finding myself so changed by toil, there come moments of cruel melancholy and gray hours. Then the weather clears; the azure sky we saw upon the Alps comes back; Diodati, that image of a happy life, reappears, like a star for a moment clouded, and I laugh--as you know I can laugh. I tell myself that so much work will have its recompense, and that I shall some day have, like Lord Byron, my Diodati, and I sing in my bad voice: "Diodati! Diodati!"

What grief for me to delay that glorious apparition of "Séraphita." I tremble lest you should have left Vienna before the prince arrives there. But if so, Sina will forward all.

Be happy on your journey; may no untoward event distress you; return to your penates, and I, under my pressure here, I see that dwelling as an object ... [The letter is unfinished.]

PARIS, May 3, 1835.

I have this instant received yours of April 24. I have written you by the Prince de Schonberg, who was to carry to you all that remains of the manuscript of the "Duchesse de Langeais," of which part was lost in the printing-office, the part I cared for most, that which I did in Geneva beside you, laughing and explaining to you proof corrections.

How many things I have to answer in your last letter. But before doing so I must tell you something that is the best of all answers. You do not leave till May 15th; well, don't leave till the 25th. I have my passports, and you will receive my farewells. I cannot let you plunge back into your desert until I have pressed your hand. I will not commit to any one the manuscript of "Séraphita." I shall bring it to you myself. I want ten days more to print the rest. The 16th, my fête-day, I shall start for Vienna; I can get there in ten days; I shall be there on the 25th or 26th. If I can arrive sooner, I shall be there sooner. Wait for me; give credit for ten days to a friend. I shall stay four days in Vienna, see Essling and Wagram, and return.

I cannot tell you more, for I must spend the days and nights in getting all things in order here, and in finishing the books begun. "Séraphita" must have eight days and nights for herself alone.

I say nothing to M. Hanski, as I shall see you all so soon. I am joyous as a child at the escapade. Quit my galley and see new lands! Well, well, à bientôt. I send my things to Sina. Ask him, if they arrive before me, to wait till I come before opening my trunk at the custom-house. It is proper that you should see the cane for which you blame me, and I confide it to the customs.

Addio. Kiss Anna on the forehead for her horse.

VIENNA, May, 1835.

Can you lend me your valet de place again this morning?--for I still have not obtained one.

I think you have not read "Obermann;" I send it to you; but I shall want it in two or three days. It is one of the finest books of the period.

A thousand heart compliments.

VIENNA, May, 1835.

My cold is precisely the same. It is nothing at all. I have just received a letter from M. Hammer. I think he is annoyed, for he uses towards me that wealth of civility which is often the irony of great souls.

Did you know that the French are very coustumiers to the fact of bartering Austrian uniforms against victories, but that this ruins young empires?

I shall stay in town only the time necessary to fulfil your Majesty's orders.

I entreat you don't worry about me. People are never ill when they are happy. I do nothing; I let myself go to the happiness of living, and that is so rare with me that when it is so I don't know what could hurt me.

A thousand heart assurances.

VIENNA, May, 1835.

The heat has so prostrated me that I don't know what will become of me; but as for the illness itself, it has ceased. A thousand thanks for your kindness.

I shall rush with the celerity of your valet, who is a veritable kid, and this is difficult for a Mar [Balzac's nickname among his friends was Dom Mar] whose paunch is worthy of all the illustrious paunches your cousin used to laugh at.

I have dreamed ta, I have dreamed ti, I have dreamed tchef, and of his casalba. I have come to breathe in the Walter-garten, and I send you "Lauzun" to convince you of the reality of the comedy that could be made of his amours with Mademoiselle, for I think you do not know the book.

VIENNA, May, 1835.

You know, madame, that if anything can equal the respectful attachment that I feel for you it is the will that I am forced to display to keep within the limits that my work imposes on my pleasures.

Here, as in Paris, my life must be completely inharmonious with the life of society. To get my twelve hours of work, I must go to bed at nine o'clock in order to rise at three; and this truly monastic rule, to which I am compelled, dominates everything. I have yielded something of my stern observance to you, by giving myself three hours' more freedom here than in Paris, where I go to bed at six; but that is all I can do.

However sweet and gracious are the invitations, and however flattering the eagerness of which I feel the full value, I am obliged to be the enemy of my dearest pleasures. You know that the persons who love me, and who have every right to be exacting, conform to my ways of going nowhere; and treat me as a spoilt child.

These explanations have a conceited aspect which I dislike, and which would make me ridiculous if you did not constrain me to give my true reasons.

So, I count upon your precious friendship to explain them, and save me from their accompanying dangers. You have long known that I am a soldier on a battlefield, swept onward, without other liberty than that of fighting the enemy and all the difficulties of my position.

You will give--will you not?--what value you can to my regrets, and I shall thus have another obligation to add to the hundred thousand I already owe you. But you are so noble there is no fear in being indebted to you.

Yes, I am altogether better. I have recovered from the fatigues of the journey, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your dear and delicate attentions. A thousand affectionate compliments to M. Hanski. As for you, I should have to express too many things, and, as you see, paper is lacking. Here begin the things of the heart.

VIENNA, May, 1835.

It is impossible for me to work if I have to go out, and I never work merely for an hour or two. You arranged so well that I did not go to bed till one o'clock. Consequently, I did not rise till eight; so from nine till one I have only time to pay you a visit in order to put the visit to the prince between two good things which may weaken the diplomatic influence.

I want to go and see the Prater in the morning, in its solitude. If you will, it would be very gracious; for by not beginning on the "Lys dans la Vallée" till to-morrow I must then work fourteen hours to make up for time lost. I have sworn to myself to do that work in Vienna, or else--throw myself into the Danube.

So, in twenty minutes I shall be with you to ask counsel. As for the seductions of the prince, he caught me once, but I have too much pride to be caught again; I should pass for a ninny.

A thousand heart-felt regards.

VIENNA, May, 1835. I am incapable of writing the nothings that I see come naturally to very intelligent persons; I simply put down just what comes into my head; and what came into my head was one of the things that I have at heart. Excuse me to the countess, and assure her that this is the second time I have failed over an album, and that not having the habit--and even having a horror--of them, I hope she will be indulgent to me.

Though I am not dirty, I am decidedly stupid, for I don't understand a word of what you do me the honour to say about Madame Sophie. I entreat you, have pity on my mental infirmities, and, when you make romances, put them on the level of my intellectual faculties. This may seem impertinent--it is only artless.

I have still another hour to work, and then I will come. I am busy with planning rather than writing, and I can see you while thinking; which is not the same as thinking of other things than you while seeing you.

A thousand gracious and humble thoughts before your August Despotism.

VIENNA, May, 1835.

I cannot wait till one o'clock to know if you are better, whether your hoarseness and oppression have lessened, whether the foot-bath was efficacious--in short, whether all is well. Have the charity to send me a word on these important matters--for it is important to subjects to know how their princes are.

Affectionate compliments, and accept my obeisances

VIENNA, June, 1835.

You know well, my dear beloved, that my soul is not narrow enough to distinguish what is yours from what is mine. All is ours--heart, soul, body, sentiments, all, from the least word to the slightest look; from life to death. But do not ruin us, for I should send you back a hundred Austrians for your one, and you would cry out at the folly.

My Eve, adored, I have never been so happy, I have never suffered so much. A heart more ardent than the imagination is vivid is a fatal gift when complete happiness does not quench the daily thirst. I knew what I came to seek of sufferings, and I have found them. In Paris, those sufferings seemed to me the greatest of pleasures, and I was not mistaken. The two parts are equal.

For this you had to be more lovely, and nothing is truer. Yesterday you were enough to render mad. If I did not know that we are bound forever, I should die of grief. Therefore, never abandon me; it would be murder. Never destroy the confidence which is our sole complete possession in this love so pure. Have no jealousies, which never have foundation. You know how faithful the unhappy are; feelings are all their treasure, their fortune, and we cannot be more unhappy than we are here.

Nothing can detach me from you; you are my life, my happiness, all my hopes. I believe in life only with you. What can you fear? My toil proves to you my love; it was preferring the present to the future to come here now; it was the folly of impassioned love, for by it I postponed for many months, that I might enjoy this moment, the days when you think we shall be free--more free, for free, oh! I dare not think of that. God must will it! I love you so much, and all things unite us so truly that it must be; but when?

A thousand kisses; for I have a thirst those little sudden pleasures but increase. We have not an hour, nor a minute. And these obstacles fan such ardour that, believe me, I do right to hasten my departure.

I press you on all sides to my heart, where you are held but mentally. Would that I held you there living![1]

[Footnote 1: This letter in itself shows the falseness of those which purport to have been written in January, February, and March. It is that of a man true to himself in one of the greatest struggles of humanity; for, it must be remembered, such trials were not negative in a man of Balzac's nature.--TR.]

MUNICH, June 7, 1835.

I arrived here in Munich at eleven o'clock last night; but I might have come in thirty-six hours instead of forty-eight if it had not been for three bad postilions, whom no human power could make go, and who, each of them, lost me three hours apiece. I slept seven hours, and have just waked to keep the promise I made of writing you a line. Then, at ten o'clock, after seeing the exterior of the public buildings, I shall start again with the same celerity.

I have nothing romantic to tell you of the journey, always sad on leaving kind friends. I had no other adventure than two horses accustomed to fetch sand, who nearly flung me into a quarry, the postilion being unable to prevent them from keeping to their habits. I jumped out in time, and began, like the horses, to go back to Vienna; but it was proved to the horses, by the whip, that they had to go to Hohenlinden, and to me, by necessity, that I had to go to Paris. The postilion was afraid I should scold him. But he did not know that the horses and I were equally faithful to our habits in spite of duty. I made many sad reflections on the manner in which horses and men have no liberty, on the various curbs that are put upon them, on the blows of fate, and the lashing of whips. But I spare you all that. You will tell me that my sadness is too humorous to be believed; whereas, in me, great disappointed affections turn always to a sort of rage, which I express by expending it on some one, as I did Thursday evening at Prince R...'s, where, because I could not do what I wished, I talked magnetism.

In heaven's name, don't forget, I entreat you, to explain to M. Vatischef how it happened that he received neither my card nor my visit; you do not know how much I care about fuelling the duties of politeness punctually.

Though I did not like your valet de place, he was useful to me on several occasions. I gave money to all, except to him, and he was not there. Do me the kindness to give him a ducat for me. I will return it in my next letter. One should be neither unjust nor forgetful. Otherwise, nothing is ever great.

I should have liked to go through Munich without stopping; but you asked me to write you a line from here, and so I have stopped. I don't like to stop in this way. The noise and motion of the carriage, the business of paying, and of making the postilions get on, all divert and excite me. But to stop is to think; and there are but sad thoughts on leaving you.

Don't you recognize me, the man of debts, in my leaving two behind me for you to pay--Koller and the valet de place? Ask M. Hanski to tell the carriage-maker not to take me for a swindler, and to give me credit till my return, an epoch at which I will order a carriage. You see I mean to return soon.

Well, adieu until Paris; there, I will give you my news. Meanwhile accept a thousand tender thanks.

PARIS, June 12, 1835.

I arrived on the 11th, at two in the morning. So, deducting the time I stayed in Munich, I did the journey in five days. But I am sure now that it can be done in four, and that I can go in eleven days to Wierzchownia.

I arrived horribly tired, brown as a negro, and only able to fling myself on a bed and sleep. I write to you this evening, according to promise.

You will receive from M. de la Rochefoucauld (to whom I beg you to write a line) by the first embassy opportunity,--that of Austria, if M. le Comte Maurice Esterhazy is a good fellow, and will do me this service,--a parcel containing, first, "Le Père Goriot," third edition, in the first volume of which you will find a pen-holder worthy of you, and in the second volume a paper-knife to thank you for the one you gave me; second, a copy of the "Livre des Conteurs," in which is "Melmoth réconcilié."

I will attend to your pearls at the earliest moment.

I find my affairs in horrible disorder. Werdet had paid the bill of exchange, but he had not been able to pay my notes falling due on the 15th and the 31st of May, so that my sister, to whom such affairs are not familiar, being terrified, took--not my diamonds, but--my silver-ware and pawned it. So now I must work night and day to repair the stupidities they have done me.

I have therefore three or four months at "hard labour," during which I must ask you to have indulgence for me. I can't write to you as often as I would like. I must produce, one after another, "Le Lys," "Les Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée," the Part for Werdet, and that for Madame Bêchet. They are all complaining of me horribly. But feel no remorse; I shall never regret the journey, however short it was, nor, above all, the time, brief as it was, society left us to ourselves.

I am not pleased with Munich. There are too many frescos, and too many bad frescos. Those of the upper ceiling of the Pinakothek, and those of the lower halls of the Kœnigsbaugh(?), are alone of value. All the rest is not above the level of our café decorations in Paris.

Adieu, for to-day. Kiss Anna's pretty little knuckles for me, offer my regards to M. Hanski, and recall me to the memory of all about you.

You will find the ducat for Jean, the valet de place, in the first volume of "Père Goriot."

CHAILLOT [rue des Batailles], July 1, 1835.

What I send you will decidedly be subjected to the chances that politics may have of sending a courier to M. de la Rochefoucauld; for the lucky attaché was married and gone before I knew it.

Since I last wrote you time has elapsed; but that time was taken up by enormous troubles, such as whiten or thin the hair. The person who is with my mother writes me, confidentially, that it is a question of saving her life or her reason, for that if she does not die, grief may make her crazy. My brother, incapable in every way, reduced to the deepest distress, talks of blowing out his brains, instead of trying to do something for himself. My sister is in a state that grows worse; her illness had made frightful advances. All this is killing my mother.

So, in four days there is added to the difficulties created by my journey, my financial crisis and delayed work, that of two existences to guide and providentially manage!

It is a gloomy evening. I am seated at my window; I have gazed through space at the lands I have just quitted, and where I went to seek, near you, youth, rest, strength--to refresh both heart and head, to forget the hell of Paris; and sitting here, a few tears fall. I measure the extent of the abyss; I weigh the burden; I seek in the depths of my heart the corner where lies the principle of my power; and I resign myself. Of these great scenes, the secret lies between God and ourselves. My God!--If you could see me you would know why I was so sad in leaving you, you would comprehend the meaning of what I said when I cried out with apparent gaiety: "I go to plunge back into the vat and renew my miseries."

By what sweet destiny is it that for two years past I owe to you the only calm and peaceful intervals in my life?

Now, I have begun to raise a barrier, not to be surmounted, between my mother and her children, between her and the world of self-interests that come roaring round her. I have secured to her the peace and calmness of her retreat. Next, I have formed a plan of liquidation for my brother, and another plan to provide for two years for his family subsistence. In fifteen days all this will be settled. Then in the course of those two years I shall be able to find him a position.

If you will think for a moment that small interests are more complicated and more difficult to handle than great ones, you will divine the goings and comings, the difficulties, the conferences of all this. I had my own financial crisis to overcome. The continual calumnies in the newspapers piling lampoons upon me--that I had absconded, that I was in Sainte-Pélagie--found credence in the stupid part of Paris; and that belief has paralyzed the resources of credit that I had. But, at the hour of my present writing I have vanquished all for myself as well as for my mother and for my brother. Still a day or so, and I shall be astride of the prettiest winged courser I ever mounted in the fields of the classic valley; and I shall fire away in both Revues in July and August, while my two Parts--of the "Études de Mœurs" and the "Études Philosophiques"--will appear simultaneously. The purely pecuniary damage done by my journey will be repaired. Then I shall work deliciously once more, thinking that my reward will be the journey to Wierzchownia without a care.

It was under these circumstances that I busied myself about your paper-knife and your pen-holder; I thought those trifles would be the dearer to you, and that M. Hanski would suffer friendship to impinge upon his rights. So, into the midst of my troubles a sweet thought glided when I went to Lecointe, the jeweller. Oh! preserve me, very pure and very bright, that affection which, you see, is a source of consolation amid the tortures of life.

I presume your long silence comes from your journey to Ischl. Nevertheless, I had news of you yesterday. It was not good. From the 27th to the 28th you were ill, harassed. You saw Madame de Lucchesi-Palli [Duchesse de Berry]. A somnambulist whom I had put to sleep told me that. She must have told the truth, for she spoke of certain annoyances which you feel, and of which she could know nothing except from you. The last experiments that I have made here in Paris since my return decide me to always have somnambulists at hand. This one told me that you wrote to Paris (or intended to write to Paris) for information about me. But she saw this so confusedly that it proved nothing clearly. She thought your heart was larger than it ought to be, and advised me earnestly to tell you to avoid painful emotions and live calmly; but she said there was no danger. Your heart is, like your forehead, an organ largely developed. I was much moved when she said to me with that solemn expression of somnambulists: "These are persons very much attached to you, who love you very truly."

What an imposing and awful power! To know what is passing in the soul of others at a great distance! To know what they do! I will try to give you a proof of this. Tell M. Hanski to write me a letter, calculate the day I shall receive it, and then remember all he says, and does, and thinks on that day, so that he may know whether I, in Paris, have seen Ischl. It will be the finest of our experiments. A month hence I shall have several somnambulists. It is one means not to be cheated by anyone. I have nothing of Anna's, so I cannot know anything about her. If you are curious to consult, send me a little piece of linen or cotton, which you must put on her stomach during the night, and which she must put herself (without any one touching it) into a paper which she must put inside your letter.

I have to-day resumed my great labours. Madame de Castries seems satisfied with what I did for her; but I did well to put my relations with her on the footing of social politeness. If you have read, or if you should read "Léone Léoni," you must know that Madame Dudevant has been far beneath d'U..., the husband of the Wallachian. I have heard strange things about that household, but I cannot write them; they go beyond the limits of a letter. I will keep them for an evening at Wierzchownia. Good God! what a life!

Yesterday the most horrible thing happened to me. You know, or you don't know, that waiting in expectation is dreadful torture to me. Sandeau went to the rue Cassini, and there heard that a package had come by post from Vienna, and, the postage being thirty-six francs, Rose had refused to take it in, not having the money. My head gave way. I felt that no one but you could be sending to me from Vienna. I sent Auguste off in a cabriolet, told him where to get the money, and to bring me the package, living or dead. Auguste was gone four hours. I was four hours in hell, inventing dramas. What do you suppose he brought? That copy of "Père Goriot," which I asked you to give to any one who might like it, and it was returned to me from Vienna!--by the post! They may refuse me entrance to paradise, "Philippe le Discret" may be a failure--such would be mere misfortunes, but this! I did as the possessor of slippers did in the Arabian Nights,--I burned that copy lest it might cause me some other misfortune.

I have had another grief. A little Savoyard, whom T call Anchises [Grain-de-mil], who was zeal, discretion, honesty, intelligence personified,--my little groom, to whom I was singularly attached,--died at the Hôtel-Dieu on the twenty-first day after an operation performed by M. Roux, Dupuytren's successor, and done with great success,--the removal of a large tumour on the knee. The-putrid reaction of so large a wound set in violently. I am grieved. He decided on the operation, which became necessary in my absence, in order that I might find him cured and relieved of an infirmity which would in the end have carried him off. Poor child! all those who knew him regret him; he pleased every one.

After a few more words to you I must go and put myself to finishing "l'Enfant Maudit." I am in a suitable frame of mind to do that work of melancholy. Now that I have returned to my life of eighteen hours' daily toil I shall write you a species of journal every day, and send you the whole weekly. This is written Sunday, June 28, twenty-four days after leaving you, and fifteen days since I last wrote to you. But these fifteen days have been fatally full of griefs, occupations, and difficulties of all sorts; such things cannot be told. It would need volumes to explain what is done and thought in an hour. You have it in bulk. Werdet has been to London to see about our counterfeits and translations.

Monday, 29.

It was midnight when I finished. I said adieu to you in my heart and went to bed. I should like to change something in my way of life. I should like to get up at four in the morning, and go to bed at nine in the evening. I would then sleep seven hours and work fifteen. It is difficult to change, for my hours are so inverted.

Here Auguste comes in and tells me that all the arrangements I had made for my payments to-morrow, 30th, are overturned by a discounter who sends me back, not accepting it, a note of Spachmann's for one thousand francs. So I must dress and rush out. Conceive of such a life! I was about to begin, in peace, a work of melancholy, and here's a bombshell fallen into my study! But it is not a despatch I have to write, and I can't say, like Charles XII., "What has a bombshell to do with L'Enfant Maudit?" Adieu, for to-day.

Tuesday, 30.

I got to bed late, but I managed my affair and shall have the money, less a few ducats, to-day.

In my tramps I went to see a somnambulist; she told me you were on the road to Ischl, thus contradicting the other, who said you had seen Madame Lucchesi-Palli. But I know how this happened. It would take too long to explain it to you. I have, unfortunately, too little time to myself to study these effects according to my new ideas, and to classify my observations. The difficulty of getting subjects, the necessities imposed on a magnetizer, all interfere with what I would like to do. Here, as in the case of writing a play, one must have time and quiet; now time and quiet are for me the two causes of fortune, and fortune is that which stops me in all things. Recapitulation made: I must have a year of toil and much luck in that toil to be entirely free and liberated.

Well, adieu; I have before me one whole month of tranquillity, for I have nothing to pay before July 31.

Mon Dieu! how I wish I had two good somnambulists! I should know every morning how you are, what you are doing; and this small satisfaction joined to my constant work would keep me happy.

July 1st.

Yesterday I had to rush about to complete the payments, which was only done this morning. These 30ths of a month bring strange commotions!

To-night I am very sad. The east wind blows, I have no strength. I have not yet recovered my power of work; I have neither inspiration nor anything fructifying. Nevertheless, the necessity is great. I shall take to coffee again. When one has no illusions as to fame and looks for one's reward elsewhere, it is very grievous to be alone with one's work.

A thousand tender affections. Write me often, for your writing is a talisman. You know what belongs to all those about you. Don't walk too much, only a little. At Ischl the air suffices. Besides, a carriage in any case suits you best; I have observed that; so the great doctor says: "No more walking."

CHAILLOT, July 18, 1835.

I have no time to write to you. Calumny has ruined my credit. Men who would never have thought of coming to ask for money and everybody else have swooped down upon me. My omnipotent pen must coin money; and yet nothing must be sacrificed to necessity at the expense of art. Do you know what I am doing? I am working twenty-four hours running. Then I sleep five hours; which gives me twenty-one hours and a half to work per day.

Your letter grieves me, for you make me responsible for Liszt's letter. Mon Dieu! how is it that with such a splendid forehead you can think little things. I do not understand why, knowing my aversion for George Sand, you make me out her friend.

You have not given me your address at Ischl. I send this to Sina. Pray let me know how long you stay there, that I may send you a package of books. "Louis Lambert" is finished. I have also finished a volume for Madame Bêchet, and in eight days more I shall have only two to finish. Werdet will also get his two Parts of the "Études Philosophiques" within twenty days. I go on by the grace of God; when I fall--well, I shall have fallen; but one must fight and grow greater.

You tell me to write to the Countess Loulou.[1] But how can I? Explain to her yourself my involuntary tardiness. I can't attend to my own affairs, I do not go out, I only write pages. In all conscience, I cannot seek for the impossible. No one here would accept the small salary the prince offers and three hundred francs for the journey! A reader who knows how to read is not an ordinary man, and yet the prince denies him a seat at his table. A man of intelligence can earn more here than three hundred francs a month by literature, and to read well is literature. I do not undertake the impossible. Every one, even those who die of hunger, laugh in my face. Leave Paris for Vienna for such pay as that! They had rather die of hunger in Paris, with hopes, than live without cares elsewhere. I will write to the princess and to the countess when I can, but I must provide for the defence of all points attacked, and I am firing from the three batteries of the Revues and my "Études."

Tell the countess that the novel by Madame de Girardin, "The Marquis de Pontanges," is worth reading. It is the only one in six months.

Adieu; I will write when I have done something, and obtained results which will put your soul at rest about my works and my vigils. These strivings of a man with his thought, ink, and paper, have nothing very poetic about them. It is silence; it is obscurity. Lassitude, efforts, tension, headaches, weariness, all go on between the four walls of that rose-and-white boudoir which you know by its description in the "Fille aux yeux d'or." And I have nothing to console me but that distant affection,--which is angry with me at Ischl for a few words written foolishly while I was in Vienna,--and the prospect of going to seek harshness at Wierzchownia, when I shall be, in six or seven months, dying as a result of my efforts! I ought to say, like some general, I don't know who, "A few more such victories and we are beaten."

Adieu; I kiss Anna on the forehead, and send you and M. Hanski a thousand assurances of affection. Think of me as much as I think of you; that will content me. But from you no letter since June 26, and here it is July 18. You are punishing me.

[Footnote 1: Countess Louise Turheim, chanoinesse, whose brother-in-law, Prince Rasumofski, had asked Balzac to send him a reader from Paris.]

PARIS, August 11, 1835.

I have just returned from Berry, where I went to see Madame Carraud, who had something to say to me, and I find on my return your last letter, the one in which you speak of the visit you paid to MADAME [the Duchesse de Berry] at the moment when our newspapers were representing her as inventing the infernal machine of Fieschi and awaiting its success at Aix, where she conferred about it with Berryer! Try to govern a people who, for twenty-four hours and over two hundred square leagues, can be made to believe such things as that!

You complain very amiably of the rarity of my letters, but you know I write as often as I can. I work now twenty hours a day. Can I endure it? I do not know.

I do not understand why you did not receive my parcel. The Austrian embassy took it under their protection, and it is addressed to M. de la Rochefoucauld. Inquire for it, I beg of you.

I am surprised at your enthusiasm for Lherminier. It is plain that you have not read his other works. They have prevented me from reading "Au delà du Rhin," the fragments of which published in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" did not seem to me very strong. Do not confound Lherminier and Capefigue with the roses and lilies. Leave them among the thistles, which are dear, for more reasons than one, to their Excellencies. You will oblige me to read "Au delà du Rhin;" but I fear--in spite of your fine forehead.

I did not "chant marvels" to you about Madame de Girardin's book. It is better than what she has so far done; it is not a very remarkable work, but it is literature, and not dogmatic politics.

Mon Dieu! have I not already written to you that the two somnambulists forbid you to walk? Why, then, do you walk?

Your letter saddens me; it seems cold and indifferent, as if the ice on which thrones rest had invaded you. I like it better when you quarrel with me, find fault with me. If you do not stay long in Vienna, how shall I send you the manuscripts of "Séraphita," and the "Lys dans la Vallée"? The end of "Séraphita" will not appear in the "Revue de Paris" till the third, or perhaps fourth Sunday in October. If you leave, give me some certain address at Brody; you will there find the precious package.

Mon Dieu! I need an almost exaggerated tenderness on the part of my friends, for I assure you that a cruel conviction is laying hold of me: I do not hope to bear up under such heavy toil. One may indeed be broken down by violent efforts in art, sciences, and letters, and in this increase of labor which has come upon me, driven as I am by necessity, nothing sustains me. Work, always work; nights of flame succeeding nights of flame, days of meditation to days of meditation, execution to conception, conception to execution. Little money in comparison with what I need, immensity of money in relation to the thing done. If each of my books were paid like those of Walter Scott, I could bring myself safely out of this. But, although well paid, I do not come out of it. I shall have earned twelve thousand francs in August. The "Lys" has brought me eight thousand,--half from the "Revue des deux Mondes," half from the publishers. The article in the "Conservateur" will receive three thousand francs. I shall have finished "Séraphita," begun the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée," and finished the last Part for Madame Bêchet. I don't know that brain, pen, and hand have ever done such a feat of strength. And there exists a dear person, sacredly beloved, who complains that the correspondence languishes, although I answer scrupulously all her letters.

It is impossible for me to speak to you in letters of Fieschi and his machine. The wise men in politics, and I myself, who am not without a certain gift of second-sight, believe that it is neither the Republic nor Carlism which is the author of the attempt. Fieschi has told nothing; of that you may be sure. He will probably never speak. Lisfranc, the surgeon, who is taking care of him in prison, told this to my sister whom he is attending. He has had much money given him. Perhaps he himself does not know who made him act.

I am on the eve of beginning a political existence. I am cowardly enough to wish to hold back in order not to risk my journey to Wierzchownia. The two Revues form a large party, for the "Revue des Deux Mondes" has fifteen hundred subscribers, five hundred being in Europe; it becomes, therefore, a power. They unite in me, take me as head, for I have vanquished many men and things by my Bedouck! They support me. I shall make two other newspapers. That will give us four, and we are to-day in treaty for a fifth! We think of calling ourselves the party of the Intelligentials, a name which lends itself but little to ridicule, and will constitute a party to which many will feel flattered to belong. To be head of this in France, that is worth thinking of. For a long time these principal lines of our work have been discussed between me and a man powerful by his will, who organized four years ago and directed the "Revue des Deux Mondes" [Charles Rabou]. We have had several conferences. The two newspapers, the two Revues enable us to skim the cream of the salons, to assimilate them, to unite the seriously able intellects; and nothing can resist this amicable league of a press which will have nothing blind, nothing disorganized about it.

You see that as I advance in my own work I act on another and parallel line, important and broader; in a word, I shall not stop short in politics any more than in literature. Time presses, events are complicating. I should have been stopped for want of a hundred thousand francs; but I think I am about to write a drama, under the name of my future secretary, to procure them. I must be done with this money question which strangles me.

You see that, in spite of your coldness, I keep you informed of the great operations of your devoted moujik. But if the law passes, the new law which requires that political articles be signed, I shall have to renounce a great deal in order to go to Paulowska. In short, we cannot have intellect for nothing!

To speak to you of my every-day affairs would be to tell you of too many great miseries. I have always an infinite number of errands, goings and comings to pay my notes and meet my engagements, without ever being able to end them. In Paris everything involves a frightful loss of time, and time is the great material of which life is made.

So, when I am bending over my paper in the light of my candles in the salon of the "Fille aux yeux d'or," or lying, weary, on the sofa, I am breathless with pecuniary difficulties, sleeping little, eating little, seeing no one,--in short, like a republican general making a campaign without bread, without shoes. Solitude, however, pleases me much. I hate society. I must finish what I have begun, and whatever turns me from it is bad, especially when it is wearisome.

You ask me, I think, about Madame de C... She has taken the thing, as I told you, tragically, and now distrusts the M... family. Beneath all this, on both sides there is something inexplicable, and I have no desire to look for the key of mysteries which do not concern me. I am with Madame de C... on the proper terms of politeness and as you yourself would wish me to be.

Do not make any comparison between the affection which you inspire, and that which you grant; for in that, those who love you have the advantage. Never believe that I cease to think of you, for even though I be occupied as I am now, it is impossible that in hours of fatigue and despair, hours when our energy relaxes, and we sit with pendent arms and sunken head, body weary and mind distressed, the wings of memory should not bear us back to moments when we refreshed our soul beneath green shades, to her who smiled to us, who has nothing in her heart that is not sincere, who is to us a spirit, who reanimates us, and renews, so to speak, by distractions of the soul, those powers to which others give the name of talent. You are all these things to me, you know it; therefore never jest about my feelings; I fear lest there mingle in it too much of gratitude.

Adieu. At Wierzchownia! I must cross Europe to show you an aging face, but a heart that is ever deplorably young, which beats at a word, at a line ill-written, an address, a perfume, as though it were not thirty-six years old.

I hope when you are regularly settled in your Wierzchownia, that you will write me the journal of your daily life and be to me more faithfully a friend, so that we shall be as if we had seen ourselves yesterday when I arrive. A thousand kind things to M. Hanski. Write me whether the parcel is lost or you received it. I am afraid it went to Ischl after you had left. Also write me by return of courier, inclosing in your letter a seal in red wax of your arms, which are to be engraved on the title-page of "Séraphita," in the edition of the "Études philosophiques" and "Le Livre Mystique." Isn't it a piece of gallantry to sound the heraldic chord which you have within you, I know not where, for it is not in your heart? Kiss Anna on the forehead for me. All tender sentiments, and recall me to the recollection of the Viennese, to whom I owe memories.

PARIS, August 24, 1835.

My letters are becoming short, you say, and you no longer know whom I see. I see no one; I work so continually that I have not a moment for writing. But I do have moments of lassitude for thinking. Some day you will be astonished at what I have been able to do, and yet write to a friend at all.

Listen: to settle this point, reflect on this: Walter Scott wrote two novels a year, and was thought to have luck in his labour; he astonished England. This year I shall have produced: (1) "Le Père Goriot;" (2) "Le Lys dans la Vallée;" (3) "Les Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée;" (4) "César Birotteau." I have done three Parts of the "Études de Mœurs" for Madame Bêchet; and three Parts of the "Études Philosophiques" for Werdet. And, finally, I shall have finished the third dizain, and "Séraphita." But then, shall I be living, or in my sound mind in 1836? I doubt it. Sometimes I think that my brain is inflaming. I shall die on the breach of intellect.

These efforts have not yet saved me from my financial crisis. This fearful production of books, involving as it does such masses of proofs, has not sufficed to liquidate me. I must come to the stage; the returns of which are enormous compared to those we get from books. The intellectual battle-fields are more fatiguing to work than the fields where men die or the fields where they sow their corn; know this. France drinks brains, as once she cut off noble heads.

Yes, I can only write you a few pages, and soon I may only send you despairing ones; for courage is beginning to desert me. I am weary of this struggle without rest, of this constant production without productive success. A fine thing truly to excite moral sympathies when a mother and a brother are needing bread! A fine thing to hear silly compliments on works that are written with one's blood and do not sell, while M. Paul de Kock sells three thousand copies of his, and the "Magasin Pittoresque" sixty thousand! We shall see each other again if I triumph, but I doubt success!

Monday, 24.

Forgive me for having uttered that cry of pain, and do not be too much alarmed by it. But if I perish, carried off by excess of toil, it must not surprise you. The end of "Séraphita" cannot appear in the "Revue de Paris" before September. The corrections, the efforts are crushing. Already there have been one hundred and sixty hours' work on the first proof; and I don't know what the others will cost.

If you are kind you will write me oftener. It seems as though the air were fresher about me, my brain cooler, as if I were in an oasis, when I have read your letters. They make me think I am at some wayside haven. Fifteen days had passed without one when I received the last from Ischl. I am well advanced in corrections of the "Lys dans la Vallée." It will appear in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" while you are travelling. I think I have not done a finer work as painting of an interior. I have rewritten and finished "Gobseck." In "La Fleur des Pois" I have swung round upon myself. Hitherto, I have painted the misfortunes of wives; it is time to show also the sorrows of husbands.

Here is something singular: it is that I was composing this work while you were thinking of its leading idea, and during the time it took your letter in which you spoke of the sufferings that fall upon men to reach me! Is it not enough to make one believe that space does not exist and that we had talked together?

Adieu, I have no more time to write. But, as I told you, I have time to think, and I think of you in all my hours of recreation. I must earn money to go to the Ukraine, for in order to travel tranquilly I cannot owe anything here.

Adieu; remember me to all about you.

CHAILLOT, October 11, 1835.

Do not be surprised at my silence; it is easily explained by the abundant work I have done. For the last forty days I have risen at midnight and gone to bed at six o'clock. Between those periods there has been nothing but work, ardent, passionate work,--the desperate struggle of battle-fields.

Do me the favour not to believe that the friendship you grant me is the common friendship of women; consider quand même to be the noblest of mottoes. Yes, I shall not perish; yes, I shall triumph!

But you ought to have received two letters through Sina, one of which carried to you the dedication. By the first of next March I shall owe nothing to any one. And thus will end this horrible battle between misfortune and me. My wealth will be my pen and my liberty.

Yesterday, returning along the quays on foot, meditating the corrections of "Séraphita," I saw, in a carriage that went by rapidly, Madame Kisseleff. Imagine my astonishment! She was returning no doubt from Bellevue, the residence of the Austrian embassy.

Another piece of news. By getting up at midnight and going to bed at six o'clock for forty days I am beginning to get thin during my eighteen hours' vigil and toil. I wish the "Lys" and "Séraphita" and the new "Louis Lambert" to be the culminating points of my literary life so far.

We are reprinting the "Médecin de campagne." I am having a travelling-carriage built; and I think of buying a house, so that when you come to Paris I can offer you a whole one to yourself, in thanks for the hospitality you promise me at Wierzchownia. M. de Custine is in Paris, faithless man!

Will you permit me to have a watch made for you in Geneva? I will bring it to you with the manuscripts that belong to you. I will thus repair the disaster of your journey; you are too far from Geneva to do it yourself.

Take care of yourself. Play Grandet and Benassis. I will be your critic when I come, as you are mine on my works.

Oh! I entreat you, have confidence in me. Do not be vexed with me for anything, neither the brevity, nor the careless scribbling of my letters. I must work on,--nothing can be allowed to wait; and I have always around me three or four volumes in proofs to read; and besides this, financial matters. In truth, I do not live; but, in my most weary hours, I can rest my head upon the mantel-piece and lose myself in dreams, like a woman.

A thousand kind memories to all, and to you all the friendships. I expect to hear from you on "Le Lys dans la Vallée." I worked long over that book. I wanted to use the language of Massillon, and that instrument is heavy to wield.

Ardent wishes for all that is dear to you; my friendship to the Grand Marshal.

CHAILLOT, October, 1835.

I have received your letter from Brody, and thank you from the bottom of my heart. The more you forbid me to go to Wierzchownia, under pretext of too great fatigue, the quicker I shall go. But be easy; I cannot breathe the air of liberty, or feel myself free of chains, before April, May, or June. But I shall surely go and do "Philippe II." and "Marie Touchet" at Wierzchownia tranquilly; or a few good works which will give me my financial independence,--the three francs a day that the dethroned Napoleon wanted.

Yes, Madame Kisseleff is in Paris. Happy Monsieur E...! I am out of society; until my liberation I see no one, and I work as I told you. You will not read till you reach Wierzchownia "Le Livre Mystique," which is composed of my new "Louis Lambert" and "Séraphita." The Emperor Nicholas will not forbid those books.

I should like to be able to buy the house of which I spoke to you. It would be a good investment, and I should be forced to be economical.

I am getting a bad opinion of your firmness. In proportion as you approach your caret patria your sublime resolutions as to government vanish, and you are becoming once more the great lady, creole and indolent. Come, be queen of Wierzchownia; do not be an unpublished Benassis at Paulowska. Be, rather, an intellectual growth, develop that fine forehead where shines the most luminous of divine lights.

I wish to reach Wierzchownia by travelling through Germany,--that country worthy of the renown against which we lie so much. From now to seven months hence I shall have accomplished great works. "César Birotteau" will have been followed by many others. But the "Lys"! If the "Lys" is not a female breviary, I am nothing. The virtue in it is sublime, and not wearying. To be dramatic with virtue, to be ardent and use the language and style of Massillon,--let me tell you, that is a problem, to solve which, in the first number, cost three hundred hours of corrections, four hundred francs to the "Revue" and to me a trouble in my liver. Dr. Nacquart put me into a bath for three hours a day, on ten pounds of grapes, and wanted me not to work; but I do work all night.

Madame de Berny is much better; she has borne a last shock, the illness of a beloved son whose brother has gone to bring him home from Belgium. I was there to lessen her sorrows. She told me she could say but one word about my "Lys": that it was indeed the Lily of the Valley. From her lips that is great praise; she is very hard to satisfy. The first number is finished and I have two others; at twenty days apiece, that makes forty days. Sainte-Beuve worked four years at "Volupté." Compare that!

I send you many heartfelt wishes, and beg you to recall me to the memory of all. Your paper-knife broke in my hand; it almost cut me; I felt grieved about it. Besides which, I don't know where the little pencil-case of Geneva has hid itself; I am grieved about that also; but it may be found in some pocket. I am so full of ideas and work that here is distraction beginning. But the heart has none, only the head.

CHAILLOT, November 22, 1835.

Do not be surprised at the number of days since I have written to you. This interruption is due to the sharpness of the conflict, the necessity of a work that takes days and nights. I am in fear of succumbing. Also, events have become very serious in my family. Something had to be done about my brother,--get him off to India, or induce him to go.

You, so little concerned about money, you will never know, until I relate them to you by the fireside in your steppe, the difficulties there are in paying ten thousand francs a month, without other resource than one's pen. Still, I have almost the hope of arriving, if not free, at least with honour safe and no misfortune, at December 31.

You will comprehend nothing of these two months until you see the frightful labour on "Séraphita" and the "Lys" bound in green and placed upon your bookshelves. Then you will ask yourself, seeing that mass of proofs and corrections, if there were years in those months, days in those hours.

Madame Bêchet has paid us our thirty-three thousand francs; and we are offered forty-five thousand for the thirteen following volumes, which will complete, in twenty-five volumes, the first edition of the "Études de Mœurs." That is how our affairs stand now. We owe thirty-five thousand francs, and we possess, in expectation, fifty thousand. There's the account of our household. The sole point now is, not to die of fatigue on the day when the burden becomes endurable!

To-morrow, Sunday, 22, the first number of the "Lys dans la Vallée" appears in the "Revue de Paris." But learn from one fact the nature of my struggle and my daily combats. Since my return from Vienna the "Revue de Paris" made immense sacrifices for "Séraphita." After six months of toil and money spent, "Séraphita," finished, was to have appeared to-morrow. Suddenly the director told me it was incomprehensible, and that he preferred not to publish it on account of the long interruption which had occurred between the first numbers and the end, with a hundred other reasons which I spare you. I at once proposed to pay him his costs and take back my article. Accepted. I rushed to Werdet, and told him about it. He rushed to Buloz with the money; and the wrath of publisher and author is such that "Séraphita" has gone from one printing-press to the other and that the "Livre Mystique," will appear on Saturday, 28th. The literature of the periodical press will seize upon the singular anecdote of this refusal; it will make such an uproar, inasmuch as the editor of the "Revue" is not liked, that Werdet feels sure of selling "Séraphita" in a single day.[1] There is a copy on Chinese paper for you, besides the collection of manuscripts and proofs. But such displays of force require prodigious efforts: they are like the campaigns of Italy.

You understand that in a literary campaign like mine society is impossible. Therefore I have openly renounced it. I go nowhere, I answer no letter and no invitation. I only allow myself the Italian opera once a fortnight. Thursday last I saw Madame Kisseleff there. Alas! how little effect her beauty made! If you only knew how everything becomes belittled in Paris! In spite of her protecting passion for Poggi, she understands what I tried to tell her in Vienna, and Poggi now gives her the impression of a full stop in the Encyclopædia after hearing Rubini.

I cannot tell you the memories that assailed me when I found myself beside some one from Vienna, a friend of yours, and listening to the "Somnambula" which recalled to me two of our evenings. The Princess Schonberg was there also. I paid a visit of politeness to her; and I shall also go and see Madame Kisseleff once.

So, my life is a strange monotony, and your letters are so rare that I have no longer the regular event that varied it,--your letters, that always came of a Monday. I have no longer my good Monday. I can only tell you about my work and my payments,--a chant as monotonous as that of the waves of ocean surging upon a granite rock.

I am going to dine in town to get you an autograph of Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of Saint-Jean-d'Acre. I will also send you one of Alphonse Karr.

[Footnote 1: Werdet gives a long account of this affair ("Portrait intime de Balzac" pp. 147-169). On it, he bases a bitter complaint against Balzac of unfairly and to his, Werdet's, injury, delaying the publication fifteen months; which charge falls to the ground under the above evidence that M. Buloz returned "Séraphita," November 21, 1835 (not 1834 as Werdet says), and Werdet published the book two weeks later, December 2, 1835, on which day every copy was sold, and two hundred and fifty were promised. The second edition was published December 28, 1835.--TR.]

Sunday, 22.

I beg of you to number your letters, beginning with the year 1836, as I do myself with this one; so that we may mutually know if our letters reach us safely; and when we want special answers to any question, the mention of the number will settle everything.

I have had, and I still have, violent griefs on the side of Nemours. Madame de Berny was decidedly better; her dreadful palpitations were relieved. There were hopes of saving her. Suddenly, the only son who resembles her, a young man handsome as the day, tender and spiritual like herself, like her full of noble sentiments, fell ill, and ill of a cold which amounts to an affection of the lungs. The only child out of nine with whom she can sympathize! Of the nine, only four remain; and her youngest daughter has become hysterically insane, without any hope of cure. That blow nearly killed her. I was correcting the "Lys" beside her; but my affection was powerless even to temper this last blow. Her son (twenty-three years old) was in Belgium, where he was directing an establishment of great importance. His brother Alexandre went to fetch him, and he arrived a month ago, in a deplorable condition. This mother, without strength, almost expiring, sits up at night to nurse Armand. She has nurses and doctors. She implores me not to come and not to write to her. You know how at moments, when all within us is tension, the slightest shock, whether it comes from tried affection or from clumsiness, breaks us down. What a situation! So that I have a double anxiety in that direction, where I live so much.

My mother and my brother give me other anxieties of so cruel and disastrous a kind that I do not speak to you of them, for they are not of a nature to be written. One must have much faith in the future to live thus,--to take up, every morning, one's heavy burden. My friends have all limited means, and cannot relieve my financial situation, which twenty-five thousand francs would render endurable, were they only lent to me for six months. I must still march on to the last moment in triple distresses,--those of my family, those of my work, those of my finances. I don't speak of calumnies or of the wretches who throw sticks between my legs when I run. That is nothing. That which would kill an artist I scarcely consider an annoyance.

I have of late been twenty-six hours in my study without leaving it. I get the air at that window which commands all Paris, which I will some day command.

I have received your last letter written from your desolate land. I reckon that by this time you have reached Wierzchownia, reviewed your wheat-fields, resumed your habits, and that you can surely write to me twice a month. Following your custom, you have given me your address very imperfectly, and that of the Chanoinesse with a perfection quite hieroglyphic. Write and tell her that for me it is as impossible to write to her as it would be to take the moon in my teeth. Society people, the rich, the idle, imagine nothing of the busy lives of artists and poor men. It is humorous to a degree. Especially do they believe in our ingratitude, our forgetfulness; they never view us as toiling night and day. To explain myself wholly, think of those seventeen volumes manufactured by me without help; compute that that makes three hundred feuilles [4800 octavo pages], each read more than ten times, and that makes three thousand [48,000], besides the conception and the writing; and also that beyond the will to do I must have du bonheur [the luck of inspiration].

So, whatever they tell you of me, laugh at it, and think of this, the proof of which exists. One of my bitterest literary enemies says of me: "Talent, genius, his incredible power of will, I can understand, I can believe it; but where, and how, does he manufacture TIME?"

Ah! madame, I have brought myself, I, such a sleeper, to do without sleep; I sleep only four hours; and I, so eager, so much a child, I have resolved my whole life into dreams of hope. I live by suffering, work, and hope only. My fortune will be made by three months spent at Wierzchownia without care, without anxieties, in writing two fine plays.

By the singular will of Providence your friendship is joined to the three halts I have made during the last three years. Neufchâtel, Geneva, Vienna, have been to me three oases. There, I thought of nothing; I renewed my strength. You will see me arrive dying at Wierzchownia, and I shall leave it living.

Adieu; my friendly regards to the Benassis of Wierzchownia. My compliments to the three young ladies. A kiss on Anna's forehead. Be without anxiety as to the manner in which I shall make the journey. I shall come alone, without anything to contest at the custom-house, without books, without papers,--only linen and clothes. I will write you, in advance, the names of the books I shall need, to see if you have them in your library; that is the only tax I shall place upon you. I shall not bring a score of heavy books. I have all my intellectual riches in my head, and all my treasures in my heart. You must have indulgence for my one coat, my poet's wardrobe. I shall go light as an arrow, rapid as an arrow, but heavy with hopes, with pleasures to take in that chimney-corner by which you entice me.

CHAILLOT, November 25, 1835.

If "Séraphita" is not for sale on Saturday there will be no winter for me in Russia; Werdet is ruined if "Séraphita," that is to say, "Le Livre Mystique," is not a great success, and if the second and third Parts of the "Études Philosophiques" do not appear in December and January. I lose six thousand francs with Madame Bêchet if her last Part does not appear in February. Keep the above before your eyes so that you may not blame me. I must fulfil my engagements or I die, killed at last by grief. To write a letter is impossible. People who lead a fixed life, by whom the want of money is never felt, are unable to judge of the lives of those who work night and day, and have to beg for the money they earn.

I had forty thousand francs to pay after my return from Vienna, and before this coming December. Therefore judge what efforts and resources I needed to make head against that without credit; so that what you say to me in the letter I received to-day seems to me very singular. You do not know the bitterness of the epigram which your fear has made upon a poor artist, in hiding on account of the National Guard, who for five months has gone to bed at six o'clock (with rare exceptions) to rise at midnight, and who is working superhumanly to earn a few months' freedom in order to go and see you. To ask me for letters under these circumstances is as if you had been a Frenchman and asked some colonel to write to you during the retreat from Moscow--with this difference, that the warmth of my soul can never lessen, and triumph will take the place of defeat.

Mon Dieu! I can't foresee any peace under three months, unless through fortunate events that are impossible: exhausted editions that would give me money, or falling ill myself. Then I would write to you. But would you not rather have my silence, which tells you I am working fruitfully, and bringing nearer the happy day of my freedom? Have I made you too great in counting on your intelligent friendship to divine these things?

Here comes Werdet with ten feuilles, one hundred and sixty pages, to correct! I have, since I wrote letter No. 1, now on its way, quarrelled with the Revues, for the same causes that I quarrelled with Pichot; you know them.

Well, adieu. I have lived a few minutes with you in the pretty home of your sister, for you are indeed a good painter.

Though I am not ill, I am horribly fatigued,--more than I have ever been. I have not been able to go and breathe my native air of Touraine, which would revive me.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us