The first is about your cramps. Have two irons made that you can grasp
at the moment the cramps seize you; have them made strongly magnetic.
Here is the shape: O. As soon as you hold them in your hand the cramps
will cease. If that does not stop them, write to me. But be sure the
irons are strongly magnetized, and keep them near you, at your bed's
head.
Fear nothing about corrections. In our language there are incontestable
things. Ask for the third edition of the "Médecin de campagne," just
out; read it. You will see if it is not improved. There are still a
hundred incorrectnesses. It will only be perfect in the fourth edition.
Re-read "Louis Lambert" in the "Livre Mystique,"--that is, if such work
pleases you; if not, it becomes wearisome.
No, no, style is style. Massillon is Massillon, and Racine is Racine.
According to the critics, the "Lys" is my culminating point. You will
judge of it.
In re-reading your letter I find some bitter little epigrams against
life; but, surely, there are enormous sufferings which you do not know,
and never can know. The openings of life are never delightful except in
the matter of sentiment. I will prove to you that there is something
more delightful: I mean the perfect quietude of a life beloved, of a
constancy intellectual enough to destroy monotony.
Adieu, re-adieu--if, indeed, that word is a friend's word. It should
be _au revoir_, for in writing to you I have, like all solitaries,
the gift of second sight, and I see you perfectly. Kiss Anna on the
forehead from me for the joys she gives you; have the irons made
at once, so that you may no longer curse life; which is a serious
insult to those who love you; amuse yourself without dissipation; for
dissipation fritters away the soul, and is to the detriment of all
affections.
Here is a return to the lansquenet, and for that I beg your pardon;
you have a soul rich enough to throw a little of it into cards if
it pleases you. As for me, who live under the despotic rule of a
Chartreux, I find I have not soul enough to suffice for my work and my
affections. But I have not the luck to be a woman.
PARIS, March 27, 1836.
I receive to-day your good packet, my dear number 7, in which you
tell me of two afflicting deaths, but in which you also give me much
pleasure by the exact detail of what happens to you. I am going,
therefore, to write you at length on all that you inquire about; but on
condition that you write to me punctually every week.
Your passage about fidelity, understood, after the Wronski manner, as
intuitive truth, made my heart bound with joy. We love to find our
own ideas expressed by a friend and to know that the moral sensations
of both are of equal purity. Is not this the sentiment that a fine
passage of Beethoven makes us feel, by representing to us, in its
purest expression, a whole sentiment, a whole nature? For myself, I
am convinced that in carrying very high our sentiments we multiply
a thousand-fold our pleasures; a little lower, and all would be
suffering; but in the heaven above us all is infinite. This is what
your "Séraphita" shows. How is it you have not received February 24
(old style) a book published here in December? It is no longer even
spoken of in France. What grief that I cannot obtain a permit for a
single parcel to Wierzchownia. I'll go myself to Saint Petersburg
and ask one of the Emperor! What! you, to whom the statue belongs,
you have not seen it! It is not in the temple for which it was made!
Everybody here has wondered over the dedication, and you have not read
it printed, when the author is your devoted moujik. The world is upside
down!
You are always talking to me of that detestable "Lys" which is not my
"Lys." Wait, in order to know "Le Lys dans la Vallée," for Werdet's
edition.
Your poor moujik will never be impertinent or defiant. But, writing
in great haste, from heart to heart, and never reading over a
letter, there may have been, apropos of Roger, a little too hearty a
laugh--which was not right. No, _cara_, Nature gave me a trustfulness
unbounded, a soul that is proof against everything. I have always
had in me a something, I don't know what, which leads me to do quite
otherwise than other people, and it may be that in me fidelity is
pride. Having no other point of support but myself, I have been forced
to magnify it, to reinforce _the myself_. All my life is there; a life
without vulgar pleasures. None of those who are near me would live it
"at the price of Napoleon's and Byron's fame united," de Belloy said to
me. But de Belloy saw only the hermit on his rock with his cruse and
his loaf not bestowing a glance on the siren tempters. He did not see
the ecstasy in the heavens, he did not know the revery, the evenings,
the chimney-corner, the poems of Hope! I am a gambler, poor to the eyes
of all; but I play my whole fortune once a year, when I gather in that
which others squander!
My lawsuit has been postponed for a fortnight. Chaix d'Estange, who
pleads against me, had to plead a case in the provinces. There's the
"Lys" delayed!
You ask for details about the "Chronique de Paris." I have
not given you any because it was a paper both _political_ and
literary--_Bedouck!_--I forget nothing that I ought to do. Did I not
tell you in Geneva that within three years I should begin to build the
scaffolding for my political preponderance? Did I not repeat it in
Vienna? Well, the "Chronique" is the old "Globe" (same idea) but placed
to the Right instead of being to the Left; it is the new _doctrine_ of
the Royalist party. We make the Opposition, and we preach autocratic
power; that means that on arriving at the management of affairs we
shall not be found in contradiction with what we have said. I am the
supreme director of this journal, which appears twice a week, in a
monstrous quarto form. It gives the amount of four _feuilles_ of the
"Revue de Paris," which makes eight a week; and we cost only sixty
francs a year, whereas the "Revue" costs eighty, and gives only four
_feuilles_ a week. The higher criticism of politics, literature, art,
sciences, administration, and a portion devoted to individual work,
novels, etc., that is the scheme of the paper.
We have obtained Gustave Planche, an immense and grand critic. We are
going to have Sainte-Beuve, and, perhaps, Victor Hugo. Capefigue is
charged with domestic politics, and does it pretty well. I have an
interest which is equivalent to thirty-two thousand francs capital, and
if the "Chronique" goes beyond two thousand subscribers it may bring
me in twenty thousand francs income, not counting my work, very dearly
paid, and my salary as director. We have enough funds to go on for two
years. We are between the "Gazette de France," the "Quotidienne," and
the Right Centre. These two newspapers are so placed that they can
make no concessions to the present régime, whereas we can, ourselves,
compromise. We are going to ask to be allowed to enter Russia, because
we are in favour of an alliance with Russia against an English
alliance, and for autocracy in the matter of government. Our doctrines
as to criticism of art and literature are in favour of the highest
moral expression. Is there not something grandiose in this enterprise?
So, for the three months that I have now directed it, it has gained
daily in respect and authority; only, the costs do crush us. Each
_feuille_ pays ten centimes tax to the treasury, and we have to go into
bonds for seventy-five thousand francs in specie.
Extraordinary thing! It is this very operation that will financially
save me. I hope to-morrow to sell sixteen of my shares (without cutting
into the thirty-two). Besides which, the affair of the "Cent Contes
Drolatiques," published in numbers and illustrated, appears on the
point of being concluded. Louis Boulanger will do the drawings, and
Perret the wood-cuts. Six thousand copies are to be struck off, which
will give me thirty thousand francs of author's rights. So, in a few
days from now, I shall have before me forty-five thousand francs,
without counting the twenty-four thousand awaiting me on the day when
Madame Bêchet gets her last Part. In all, seventy thousand francs. Now,
as I only owe fifty thousand (not counting the debt to my mother), I
shall see the end of my miseries.
But let me paint to you one of the thousand dramas of my life as artist
and soldier. On my return from Vienna (you know what disasters that
absence caused me), my silver-plate was pawned. I have never yet been
able to redeem it. I have to pay three thousand francs to do so, and
I have never had three thousand francs. I owe on the 31st about eight
thousand four hundred. In order to live honourably until now, and meet
all my obligations, I have used up my resources; all are exhausted.
I am, as it were, at Marengo. Desaix must come and Kellermann must
charge; then all is said. But, the men who are to give me sixteen
thousand francs for my sixteen shares in the "Chronique" are coming to
dine with me. You know that people lend and show confidence to none but
the rich. All about me breathes opulence, ease, the wealth of a lucky
artist. If at the dinner my silver is hired, all will fail; the man who
is arranging the affair is a painter,--an observing race, satirical,
deep, like Henri Monnier, in its _coup d'œil_; he will see the weak
spot in the cuirass, he will guess the Mont-de-Piété--which he knows
better than any one. Adieu, my affair. All my future lies in redeeming
that silver, which is worth five thousand francs and is pledged for
three thousand. I must have it to-morrow, or perish. Isn't it curious?
This is the 27th; on the 31st of March I must pay six thousand francs,
and I haven't a farthing. But on the 5th of April the signing of the
"Drolatiques" affair may give me fifteen thousand francs!
I cannot ask a single person in Paris to lend me money, for I am
thought rich and my prestige would fall, would vanish away. The affair
of the "Chronique" is due to the credit I enjoy. I was able to speak
_en maître_. Put oil on this flame by representing to yourself the
perpetual fire, the ardour of a soul that is consuming itself, and tell
me if that is not a drama. One ought to be a great financier, a cold,
wise, prudent man; one _must_ be!--I say no more, for yesterday one
of my friends said truly: "When your statue is made it ought to be in
bronze, to rightly picture the man."
My health is at this moment so greatly affected that Dr. Nacquart
issues an edict which has to be obeyed. Coffee is suppressed. Every
evening they put upon my stomach a linseed poultice. I am kept on
chicken broth, and eat nothing but white meat. I drink gum water, and
they give me inward sedatives. I have to follow this regimen for ten
days and then go to Touraine for a month, to recover life and health.
All the mucous membranes are violently inflamed; I cannot digest
without horrible suffering.
If my money matters could be well done, and done quickly, instead of
going to Touraine I would go and see you for a few days. Would it be
possible? I desire it so keenly. A journey would restore me. In any
case, do not be vexed with me; it is better to do my business and pay
my debts, to recover my sacred liberty, to be able to come and go as I
like, to owe neither sou nor line, and postpone the joy of seeing you.
Better to put one's fortune in a place inaccessible to storm, than to
discount it like a spendthrift.
I may tell you now that the dawn of my liberation begins to show, and
that all foretells the end of my troubles. The journey to Vienna was
the signal folly of my life. It cost five thousand francs and upset all
my affairs. We can laugh about it, and I do not tell it to you now to
give myself the smallest little merit, but only to prove to you that
if I do not go to see you it is from a wise calculation of friendship;
it is a proof of attachment; it will enable me to show you a friend
whom you have never yet known, the man a child, without cares, without
troubles that gnaw the heart, taking from him his grace, distorting his
nature, everything, even to his glance.
If you only knew how, after this solitary life, I long to grasp Nature
by a rapid rush across Europe, how my soul thirsts for the immense, the
infinite; for Nature seen in the mass, not in detail, judged on its
grand lines, sometimes damp with rain, sometimes rich with sun, as we
bound across space, seeing lands instead of villages! If you knew this
you would not tell me to come, for that redoubles my torture, it fans
the furnace on which I sleep.[1]
Grant heaven that I sell the sixteen shares of the "Chronique" and that
the matter of the "Drolatiques" may be decided. And then, then! Above
all, if Werdet can buy back from Madame Bêchet the "Études de Mœurs,"
then I could travel, I could go and spend a week at Wierzchownia.
You would find the heart of the intellectual moujik ever young,
but the moujik himself is deteriorating physically. "No one fights
with impunity against the will of Nature," Dr. Nacquart said to me
yesterday, ordering me his prescriptions and wanting things I refused:
such as not working, and taking much amusement--which the Wronski
theory forbids. As for me, I love the noble absolute. I don't forget
how indulgent you were in your advice at Vienna; but I have intolerant
superstitions.
I have long thought what I wrote to you about your brother; this is not
a consolation _ad hoc_, it is a sentiment of my own; there are none but
those that have an iron will who can be indulgent to such weaknesses,
for they have often been so near, they have so often measured the
depths of the gulf! But these thoughts are not social; they can only
be uttered in the ear of a friend; they would do us harm. One must be
Walter Scott to risk Connachar in the "Fair Maid of Perth." And yet,
I mean to go farther; I shall give in "Les Héritiers Boirouge" [never
published] a body to my thoughts. I shall there introduce a personage
of that kind, but to my mind, more grandiose. I was able to give
interest to Vautrin; I shall be able to raise fallen men and give them
an aureole by introducing common souls into those souls, whose weakness
is the abuse of strength, and who fall because they go beyond it.
The loss of your sister's child is a dreadful misfortune, about which
only mothers understand each other, for they alone are in the secret of
what they lose; but at your sister's age, such losses are reparable.
Children, considered in their vital future are one of the great social
monstrosities. There are few fathers who give themselves the trouble
to reflect on their duties. My father had made great studies on this
subject; he communicated them to me (I mean their results) at an early
age, and I gained fixed ideas which dictated to me the "Physiologie
du Mariage,"--a book more profound than satirical or flippant; which
will be completed by my great work on "Education" taken in its broad
meaning, which I carry up to before generation, for the child is in the
father. I am a great proof, and so is my sister, of the principles of
my father. He was fifty-nine years old when I was born, and sixty-three
when my sister was born. Now, through the power of our vitality we have
both failed to succumb; we have centenarian constitutions. Without that
power of force and life transmitted by my father I should be dead under
my debts and obligations.
I see the children of rich families all enervated by the situation
of their fathers and mothers. The mother is worn-out by society, the
father by his vices; their children are weakly. But these great and
fruitful ideas do not come within the epistolary domain. The question
is immense; it has innumerable ramifications. It often absorbs me.
It is not suitable to discuss here, but I refer it to Sterne, whose
opinions I share entirely. "Tristram Shandy" is, in this respect, a
masterpiece.
I cannot tell you anything of Paris; I live in a monk's round,
directing my newspaper, writing, contending, more occupied in divining
secrets of State than those surrounding me. I want power in France,
and I shall have it; but one must be well prepared for the battle,
and trained in all questions. When a man of a certain compass does
not absorb himself in the real and material joys of love, he must
either give himself up to ambition, or vow his life to obscurity. All
medium stations are ignoble and vulgar. My youth is near to extinction
without ever being fully satisfied by the only destiny that I had;
for Madame de Berny was not young, and, believe me, youth and beauty
are something. My dream of those days was always incomplete. If I
continue my present life without change for only six years more, I can
truly say that my life is a failure. My life was Diodati. Two years,
three years would suffice. The month of May, 1836, is approaching and
I shall be thirty-seven years old; as yet I am nothing; I have done
nothing complete or great; I have only heaped up stones. In that young
Coliseum now constructing there is no sun, or at least its rays come
from afar, so far that the soul has need of imagination to give being
to the monument. But neither fame nor fortune gives back the grace of
youth. Something superhuman is needed to meet with love when one is
past forty. What a measure of belief in one's self--I do not say in
others--to hope to escape the common law! And yet I am all faith. When
troubles have gone I shall be twenty years old once more. And then I
wish to be so good.
Well, adieu. I desire that this letter full of hope may be confirmed to
you by the next, for as soon as the two affairs are concluded, I will
write you a line.
Answer me quickly about the portrait. Louis Boulanger is to paint it.
He has just left me, with the intention of making a great work of it.
[Footnote 1: Here is one of his rare revelations of the soul of his
work, of that which produced it, which conceived, for instance, the
"Majesty of cold," the scene on the Falberg, the breaking of the
ice-bonds in "Séraphita." The reader must have perceived how little,
amid his overwhelming talk about his work, he revealed the mind behind
the work. That was partly because he never thought of it as a personal
thing. He did not weaken his work by a study of his own mind: that is
Genius.--TR.]
PARIS, April 23, 1836.
_Cara._ I receive to-day your number 8 with twenty days' interval. How
many things have happened in twenty days! Yes, I have delayed writing,
but intentionally. I wanted to send you only good news, and my affairs
have been getting worse and worse. I have none but dreadful combats to
relate to you, struggles, sufferings, useless measures taken, nights
without sleep. To listen to my life a demon would weep.
Reading the last paragraphs of your letter I said to myself, "Well, I
will write to her, even if to sadden her." Sorrow has a strong life,
too strong perhaps.
My lawsuit is not yet tried. I must wait six days more for a verdict,
unless the trial is still further postponed. The matter of the
"Contes Drolatiques" is not decided. The shares of the "Chronique"
are difficult to dispose of. So, my embarrassments redouble. For two
months, since I have had so much business, I have done little work;
here are two months lost; that is to say, the goose with the golden
eggs is ill. Not only am I discouraged, but the imagination needs rest.
A journey of two months would restore me. But a journey of two months
means ten thousand francs, and I cannot have that sum when, on the
contrary, I am behindhand with just that money. My liberation retreats;
my dear independence comes not.
"Le Livre Mystique" is little liked here; the sale of the second
edition does not go off. But in foreign countries it is very different;
there the feeling is passionate. I have just received a very graceful
letter from a Princess Angelina Radziwill, who envies you your
dedication, and says it is all of life for a woman to have inspired
that book. I was very pleased for you. _Mon Dieu!_ if you could have
seen how in my quivering there was nothing personal. How happy I was to
feel myself full of pride for you! What a moment of complete pleasure,
and all unmixed! I shall thank the princess for you and not for
myself--as we give treasures to a doctor who saves a beloved person.
Besides, this is the first testimony to my success which has reached me
from abroad.
_Cara_, write me quickly if you have any very trustworthy person in
Saint Petersburg, because I have the means, or shall have, to send
you those manuscripts through the French embassy. They can instantly
reach Saint Petersburg; but from there to you, you must find the
intermediary.
My letter was interrupted by the arrival of a commissary of police and
two agents, who arrested me, and took me to the prison of the National
Guard, where I am at this moment, and where I continue my letter
peacefully. I am here for five days. I shall celebrate the birthday of
the King of the French. But I lose the fine fireworks I intended to go
and see![1]
My publisher [Werdet] has come, and given me an explanation of the
non-arrival of the "Livre Mystique" to your hands. It is forbidden by
the censor. So now I don't know what we shall do. Is it not singular
that the person to whom it is dedicated should be the only one who has
not read it? You must find out what is proper to do about it. I await
your orders.
Here are all my ideas put to flight. This prison is horrid; all
the prisoners are together. It is cold, and we have no fire. The
prisoners are of the lowest class, they are playing cards and shouting.
Impossible to have a moment's tranquillity. They are mostly poor
workmen, who cannot give two days of their time to guard duty without
losing the subsistence of their families; and here and there are a
few artists and writers, for whom this prison is even better than the
guard-house. They say the beds are dreadful.
I have just got a table, a sofa, and a chair, and I am in a corner of a
great, bare hall. Here I shall finish the "Lys dans la Vallée." All my
affairs are suspended; and this happens on a day when my paper appears,
and almost on the eve of the 30th, when I have three thousand francs to
pay.
This is one of the thousand accidents of our Parisian life; and every
day the like happens in all business. A man on whom you count to do
you a service is in the country, and your plan fails. A sum that
should have been paid to you is not paid. You must make ten tramps
to find some one (and often at the last moment) for the success
of some important matter. You can never imagine how much agony
accompanies these hours, these days, lost. Many a time I have lain down
wearied,--incapable of undertaking to write a single word, of thinking
my most dear ideas!
I cannot too often repeat it--it is a battle equal to those of war; the
same fatigues under other forms. No real benevolence, no succour. All
is protestation without efficacy. I have vanquished for six years, even
seven; well, discouragement lays hold upon me when only one quarter of
my debt remains to be paid, the last quarter. I don't know what to do.
My life stops short before those last four thousand ducats.
[Footnote 1: Under Louis-Philippe all citizens were compelled to leave
their homes and do guard-duty, or, as Werdet says, paddle in the mud
with knapsacks on their backs and muskets on their shoulders, for one
or two nights every month. Many were the devices of worthy citizens
to escape this nuisance. Balzac retreated to Chaillot and fenced
himself in with a series of pass-words that made access to him nearly
impossible. He was, however, so Werdet says, summoned twelve times
before the authorities, and escaped only by bribing the agents. But the
thirteenth time he was "empoigné" and locked up in what was satirically
called the "Hôtel des Haricots." Werdet's account of this is very
amusing (pp. 247-272 of his book), but absolutely false, for he gives
an account of how the famous cane originated in the prison, whereas we
know that Balzac described it to Madame Hanska March 30, 1835, more
than a year earlier.--TR.]
Monday, 25th.
I have again interrupted my letter for forty-eight hours. Just as I
was writing the word _ducats_ Eugène Sue arrived. He is imprisoned
for forty-eight hours. We have spent them together, and I would not
continue this letter before him. He talked to me of his occupations, of
his fortune. He is rich, and sheltered from everything. He no longer
thinks of literature; he lives for himself alone; he has developed a
complete selfishness; he does nothing for others, all for himself;
he wants, at the end of his day, to be able to say that all that he
has done, and all that has been done was for him. Woman is merely an
instrument; he does not wish to marry. He is incapable of feeling
any sentiment. I listened to all this tranquilly, thinking of my
interrupted letter. It pained me for him. Oh! these forty-eight hours
were all I needed to prove to me that men without ambition love no
one. He went away, without thanking me for having sacrificed for him
the concession I had obtained of being alone in the dormitory; for his
admission came near compromising the little comforts a few friends had
extracted for me from the inflexible staff of grocers, anxious to club
all classes together in this fetid galley. I am going to bed.
Saturday, 30.
Great news! The bill for the lateral canal in the Lower Loire, which
will go from Nantes to Orléans, has passed the Chamber of Deputies, and
will be presented, May 3, to the Chamber of Peers, where the Marquis
de la Place, the friend of all pupils of the École Polytechnique, has
promised my brother-in-law to have it passed. So, there are my sister
and her husband attaining, after ten years' struggle, to their ends.
You know I told you at Geneva about that fine enterprise. Now, the only
point is to find the twenty-six millions. But that is nothing after
what has been done. The stock will be rated so high that money will not
be lacking.
At this moment I have a hope on my own account. That is to buy the
grant of the grantee, M. de Villevêque, and try to make something on it
by selling to a banker. My brother-in-law has just left my prison to
try and arrange this affair. If I have this luck, I might in two months
make a couple of hundred thousand francs, which would heal all my
wounds. It is especially in political warfare that money is the nerve.
Sue drew caricatures with pen and ink on a bit of paper to which he
put his name; so I send it to you as autograph. It will remind you of
my seven days in prison.
Here, I am dying of consuming activity, while, from what you say, you
are living in stagnation, without aliment, without your emotions of
travel, which makes you desire either travel or complete solitude.
What you tell me of Anna delights me; I had some fears for that frail
health, but the fears came from my affection, for I know that these
organizations, apparently weak, are sometimes of astonishing power.
I have just written to Hammer; he asked me for a second copy of "Le
Livre Mystique." I shall send him two; and as our dear Hammer is as
patient as a goat that is strangling herself, and thinks that books
can go as fast as the post, I shall request him to send you one by the
first opportunity. That's a first attempt, I'll try ten more, and out
of ten there may be a lucky chance.