"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.