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."