Reparation to the poor miss. She drinks nothing but water; it was my
unexpected visit that intoxicated her. I retract all I wrote to you,
and leave it for my punishment; but you will not think me the worse or
the better for it.
I am about to start for Marseille, to go to Corsica and from there to
Sardinia. I shall try to be back the first week in December. It is an
affair of fortune of the highest importance that takes me there, and
I can only tell you about it if it fails; for if it succeeds I must
whisper it into the tube of your ear. It is now three weeks since I
began to think of this journey; but the money for it lacks and I do not
know where to find it. I need about twelve hundred francs to go and get
a "yes" or a "no" about a fortune, a rapid fortune, to be made in a few
months.[1]
[Footnote 1: For the amusing history of this chimera, see his sister's
account of it; "Memoir of Balzac," pp. 103-107.--TR.]
_Addio, cara._ Here are three letters that I have written you against
your one. I have never seen Provence or Marseille, and I promise myself
a little diversion on this trip. I shall go by the mail-cart to the
sea; the rest of the way by steamboat; so that I hope to have finished
my errand in fifteen days, for no one must perceive my absence. My
publishers would grumble.
The tontine is withdrawn; my works will appear purely and simply in
parts, with steel engravings inserted in the text. So we fall back once
more into the rut of publications such as have been made for the last
hundred years in France.
November 13.
My comedy has begotten a preliminary. It is impossible to make
"Prudhomme parvenu" without first showing "Prudhomme se mariant;" all
the more because "Le Mariage de Prudhomme" is excellent comedy and
full of comic situations. So here I am, with eight acts on my hands
instead of five.
November 14.
Adieu; I must throw myself into unexpected labour which may give me an
_arachnitis_. I am offered twenty thousand francs for "César Birotteau"
by December 10. It is one volume and a half to do, but my poverty has
made me promise it. I must work twenty-five nights and twenty-five
days. So, to you all tender things. I must rush to Sèvres and find the
manuscript already begun and the proofs of the work. There are only
nine _feuilles_ done, and forty-six are needed; thirty-five to do.
There's not a minute to be lost. Adieu, I must be twenty-five days
without writing to you.
PARIS, December 20, 1837.
I have just finished, as I promised to do, and I wrote you hastily
in my last letter I should do, "César Birotteau." I had to do at the
same time "La Maison Nucingen" for the "Presse." That is enough to
tell you that I am worn-out, in a state of inexpressible annihilation.
It requires a certain effort to write to you, and I do it under the
inspiration of horrible fears and anxieties. I have heard nothing from
you since your number 34, dated October 6. You have never left me so
long without news of you, and you could scarcely believe how, in the
midst of my work, this silence has alarmed me, for I know it is not
without some reason that you have failed to write to me.
To-day I can only write in haste, to tell you that I am not dead with
fatigue or inflammation of the brain; that "César Birotteau" and the
third _dizain_ are both out; that "La Maison Nucingen," finished a
month ago, will soon appear; that I am about to finish "Massimilla
Doni;" that the edition called "Balzac Illustrated" will appear,
and will be an astounding thing in typography and engraving; that
for twenty-five days I have only slept a few hours; that I have been
within an ace of apoplexy; that I shall never again undertake such a
feat of strength; that my cot at Sèvres is nearly built; and that you
can now always address your letters to "Madame Veuve Durand, 13 rue
des Batailles," because I am still obliged to stay there to finish
certain pressing works which need constant communication between the
printing-office and me. My house will not be ready till February 15 at
the earliest.
My portrait makes my head swim. I don't know precisely where it is. In
any case, write to M. Halperine, who ought to have it, or could reclaim
it on the road between Strasburg and Brody. M. Hanski may not know
that the Rothschilds do not do business with the Halperines, and their
couriers do not take charge of such large packages.
I have no interesting news to give you, for I have not left my study
and proofs since my last letter. Heine came to see me and told me all
about the L... affair. It goes beyond anything I had imagined, as
much for the illness as for the family details. The English lords are
infamous. Koreff and Wolowski are demigods; I do not think a million
could pay them. We will talk of this later in the chimney-corner.
Perhaps you have been away; perhaps you have left Wierzchownia to nurse
your sister. My imagination rushes through all the possibilities in
the circumference of suppositions till it reaches the absurd. What has
happened to you? I see no case in which you would leave me without one
word from you or another. Adieu. Find here the expression of an old
and tried friendship and the effusions of an affection that resembles
no other. I cannot write more, for I am in such a state of exhaustion
that nothing can better prove my attachment than this very letter.
Nevertheless, I must, in a few days, resume my yoke of misery. Then
I can write to you more at length and tell you all that I keep in my
heart.
Remember me to all of yours, and beg M. Hanski to claim the portrait
from the Halperines, so that they in turn may inquire for it all along
the line. I have been to see the shippers here, and I shall sue them if
you do not get the picture within a fortnight. Therefore, answer me by
a line on this subject.