May 15.
This is the evening of my Catholic fête, and four days hence is my
birthday. I have never, since I lived, seen a fête on those days;
no one has ever wished me returns of them, except once, when Madame
de Castries, the first year of our acquaintance, sent me the most
magnificent bouquet I ever saw. Therefore I am always sad on these
days. My mother cares little for me. I am so busy I have always told
my sister not to keep our fêtes, and there has never been any one else
to fête me. I do not count Madame de Berny, for that was a daily fête.
But then, from 1822 to 1832 my life was exceptional. Chance has acted
towards me as fate with those fantastic animals of the desert who
have but a few rare joys in their life, and die without perpetuating
themselves. This is how it was that the unicorn became a lost species,
and why that sublime painter of "Chastity," Il Pontormo, has placed a
unicorn beside that beautiful emblematical figure. I will own to you in
your ear, that I would rather, by far, have happiness than fame; that I
would give all my works to be happy as I see certain fools being happy.
Believe, dear, that in what I said to you about not writing to the rue
de La Rochefoucauld, there was a reason superior to all pettiness. That
person is about to publish a book such as he published on England, and
I believe it will be terrible [de Custine's book on Russia]. I cannot
tell you more; your intelligence will do the rest. I am extremely glad,
knowing how things may turn, that he has not been in your regions.
The friendship of which I spoke to you, and at which you laugh
apropos of my dedication, is not all I thought it. English prejudices
are terrible, they take away an essential to all artists, the
_laisser-aller_, unconstraint. In the "Lys dans la Vallée," I explained
the women of that county in a few words, as I divined it in Lady
Ellenborough during the two hours I walked about her park, while that
silly Prince Schonberg was making love to her, and during dinner.
Each step I take in life gives me a profound respect for the past. I
cannot tell you all I feel on that subject, not here at least, but I
will at Wierzchownia, where you will see me appear unexpectedly; for I
look to your region as to an asylum for my sorrows on the day when they
become intolerable. So I am not sure whether you ought to desire to see
me, with the white staff in my hand and the wallet on my back.
I beg of you, write me at least once a month, and remember that no
letter of yours has ever gone without an answer. The autograph is from
Meissonier, who is reviving the Flemish school among us,--the painter
of "Le Fumeur," "Le Liseur," and "La Partie d'échecs."
AUX JARDIES, June, 1840.
_Mon Dieu!_ what intervals between your letters, dear! If you knew what
uneasiness you give me, how often I spend hours with my elbows on the
table and my chin in my hands, asking myself what has happened to you.
And the visions far beyond sight! As for me, I have my excuse for the
months that separate my letters: either I have suffered beyond measure,
or I have worked enormously, or I have had some of those deplorable
affairs of which you know nothing.
It is now twenty days that I have suffered much with a species of
cholerine, or inflammation of the bowels, caused by an increase of
anxieties and labour; for the one leads to the other. I have written
the comedy in five acts, "Mercadet;" but Frédérick wants changes.
The interests which are fighting each other over the corpse of the
Porte-Saint-Martin prevent the provisional opening which the minister
had granted me; so the three or four hopes which had been successively
lighted are successively extinguished. In these last hopes, these
last efforts, my energy has broken down, and, at this moment I am
not worth an insect pinned to the card-board of a naturalist's box. I
am over-burdened with toil, obligations, business, till I no longer
recognize myself, and a life so embarrassed as mine no longer interests
me. This is strictly the fact. I would offer half my burden to any
benevolent passer-by. If you know a woman who needs to exercise great
faculties, who is tired of a monotonous life, who desires a position in
which there is much to combat and to conquer, who would be enticed by
the first campaign in Italy, who is thirty-six to forty years of age,
and has the wherewithal to fight with, send her to me; I will occupy
her.
Joking apart; I am very lonely when my brain ceases to work, or lies
down to rest. There is something humiliating, in the thought that a
trifling inflammation of insignificant viscera prevents the exercise of
our highest powers.
I have "Le Curé de village" to finish and a crowd of other things.
"Pierrette" is delayed for the preface by the publisher, I don't know
for what reason. The business of publishing books has become so bad
that I believe not ten volumes will be written in the next two years.
Belgium has ruined French literature. What _ungenerosity_ in those who
read us! If every one had refused the Belgian editions and insisted, as
you have, on the French editions, if only two thousand persons on the
continent had acted thus, we should have been saved. But Belgium has
sold already some twenty to thirty thousand copies. This evil will end
by force of evil. Meantime our poets starve or go mad.
June 21.
To go to see you, to go down the Rhine, to see Prussia and Saxony is
in me the desire of a lover, of a nun, of a child, of a young girl, of
all that is most vehement. But my interests are so threatened and I am
so poor that travel is forbidden me. Oh! you do not know how much there
is of longing, of repressed desires and wishes in what I now write
to you, or how many times my imagination and my heart have made that
journey.
Your last letter came in the midst of my cruel trouble, and I could not
answer you immediately. Our two existences, one so tranquil and deep,
the other so foaming and rapid, flow ever parallel; but that which
afflicts me grievously is that there is no cohesion. When thought has
constantly traversed space, when a thousand times it has filled the
void, one feels that this is not all. Something, I know not what, is
wanting, or rather, I know too well. These wings incessantly spread
and folded cause suffering; it is not lassitude, it is worse. Violent
desires possess me at times to quit all, to begin some other thing than
this present life, like children quitting play. I would like to know
if you too have these impulses of soul; I ask you to tell me because I
know that you are true, and above the pettiness of vanity, which makes
people drape themselves for themselves. But you will answer me by some
religious turn to things celestial, or by a blasting phrase against
our human nature. Yet I would not take from your religion what the eye
takes from a mirror as we use it, for it is one of the greatest charms
of your heart and mind. I never lay down a letter from you without
believing in something divine, and I will not tell you now of the
regrets that then assail me at the intolerable idea of our separation.
It seems to me that all would be well with me if the divinity were near
me.
I entreat you, write me every fortnight; you live in solitude, without
so much to do; it would be easy for you; and when one knows that one
does good to a poor being who has no one and who can thus be comforted,
is not that a work of charity?
June 30.
I shall send this letter, having nothing more to tell you of my
affairs, though much to add on my grief at your abandonment.
July 3.
I have your letter, number 55, and I answer its questions. _Primo_:
I have not received the picture of Wierzchownia; no, I have received
nothing, absolutely nothing. _Secundo_: Borget is in China. _Tertio_:
I forgot to tell you of M. de Custine; but he was superb at the
representation of "Vautrin." He had a proscenium box and applauded
vehemently; he behaved in the most superior way. If I told you not to
write to the rue de La Rochefoucauld it was because in that street a
book is being written which will be terrible, and I do not want you
to commit the slightest imprudence. There will be anger; all the more
justifiable because _they_ have been very well received. My friendship
saw danger ahead, and signalled it to you; believe me as to this.
I thank you from the bottom of my soul for your letter, but I am in
despair to know that you were ill while I was blaming you for not
writing. Solicitude at a distance is often injustice. Yes, I am very
willing that "Les Paysans" should be for M. Hanski if I write it. I
am at the end of my resignation. I believe that I shall leave France
and carry my bones to Brazil, in a mad enterprise, which I choose on
account of its madness. I will no longer bear the life I lead; enough
of useless toil! I shall burn my letters, all my papers, leave nothing
but my furniture and Les Jardies, and depart; confiding a few little
things that I value to my sister's friendship. She will be a faithful
dragon to those treasures. I will give a power of attorney to some
one; I will leave my works to be managed by others, and go to seek the
fortune that is lacking to me here. Either I shall return rich, or no
one shall ever know what becomes of me. This is a very fixed project
in my mind, which I shall put into execution this winter resolutely,
without mercy. My work can never pay my debt. I must look to something
else. I have not more than ten years left of real energy, and if I
do not profit by them I am a lost man. You are the only person who
will be informed of this decision. Certain circumstances may hasten my
departure. Nevertheless, however rapid may be the execution of this
plan, you shall receive my farewell. A letter from Havre or Marseille
will tell you all. This project has not been formed without sad hours
of days and nights. Do not think that I could renounce a literary
life and France without the most frightful wrenching. But poverty is
implacable, and if I go farther it will become shameful, intolerable.
I know that what I write will give you infinite pain; but is it not
better to tell you of it and explain my reasons, than leave you to hear
it brutally from the newspapers? But first I shall try a last throw of
the dice, my pen aiding; If that succeeds, I may pull through for the
time being. Perhaps I might be able to go and bid you farewell; perhaps
there are chances that I could rest three months with you, instead of
resting three months with Madame Carraud.
Ah! dear, you don't know what it is, after writing fifteen volumes
in fifteen months, to do sixteen acts of plays--"Vautrin," "Pamela
Giraud," "Mercadet"--uselessly; for there is no longer any hope of
opening the Porte-Saint-Martin. Lawsuits, battling over a coffin,
prevent that, The Français is closed three months for repairs. The
Renaissance is dead. There is no theatre where Frédérick can play. I
tried the Vaudeville in its new building, but the manager has no money.
You ask me for details about Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo is an extremely
brilliant man; he has as much wit as poesy. He is most fascinating
in conversation, a little like Humboldt, but superior, and admitting
more dialogue. He is full of bourgeois ideas. He execrates Racine, and
considers him a secondary man. He is crazy in that direction. There is
more of good than of evil in him. Though the good is an outcome of
vanity, and though all things are deeply calculated in him, he is, in
the main, a charming man, besides being the great poet that he is. He
has lost much of his quality, his force, and his value by the life he
leads.
August, 1840.
I have attempted a last effort; I am doing, by myself alone, the "Revue
Parisienne," just as Karr does "Les Guêpes."[1] The first number has
appeared. I postpone the execution of my project on Brazil. One loves
France so well! I will bear up. I am going to undertake the "Scènes de
la Vie militaire." I shall begin with Montenotte, and shall, no doubt,
go, in September or October, to the region about Nice, Albenga, and
Savona, and examine the ground where those fine manœuvres took place.
This letter has been lying two months on my table. It has been hindered
by so many matters! But at last it goes, bearing to you the testimony
of an affection always on the morrow of our meeting on the Crêt, and
eight years old.
A thousand tender regards and a thousand more. I am writing politics,
and posing as the friend of Russia. May God bless you! The Russian
alliance is much in my mind. I hate the English.
"Pierrette" is about to appear. You can let Anna read it, for all you
say. There is nothing "improper" in it.
[Footnote 1: Three numbers alone appeared: July 25, August 25,
September 25. Some of his best criticism, that on Cooper and Stendhal,
was in it; also the tale of "Z. Marcas," etc. The first number begins
thus: "We have always thought that nothing was more interesting, comic,
and dramatic than the comedy of government." See Édition Définitive,
vol. xxiii., pp. 567-785.--TR.]
SÈVRES, October 1, 1840.
Dear countess, I have this moment received your last letter. _Mon
Dieu!_ what can I say to you? All that it contains of kind, expansive,
and consoling is enough to make one accept worse miseries than mine, if
such existed. I have only sad things to reply to sad things.
In the first place, I had completely settled the project of going
to spend the winter with you; but my lawyer opposed it with wise
reasons--that do not satisfy me. Yes, I dreamed of seven or eight
months' peace and tranquillity, constant work, but without fatigue,
complete forgetfulness of all my tortures of all kinds. My arrangements
were made; I was to see Berlin and Dresden, and then go to you. Well,
it is all put off. Your presentiment was true. All _was_ to have taken
place; I felt a joy so infinite that nothing can express it. But it
would be, alas! mad and imprudent. My affairs are in too bad a state. I
spike my cannon, I retreat, to return in force. I will explain all this
in detail.
But, first of all, I must answer what you asked me, Which made me
smile, for I thought that you did not need to ask it; you ought to
have felt sure of that. Yes, I will never take any extreme resolution,
in whatever way it be, without first letting you know of it. When
I abandon myself, as they say, to the grace of God, I will begin
by abandoning myself to the grace of your Highness, like a good
moujik. You have precedence of God; for I confess to you, to my great
detriment, that I love you much more than him. You will scold me, but
why should I lie? I shall skip about your lands of Paulowska with you,
reading to you. For a nothing I'd make myself Russian, if--But the
_if_ is too long to unravel. All is not said about my journey; they
have made me abandon it--but I have not abandoned it. It depends a good
deal on finance, and the outcome of political affairs, for we are
furiously at war. I can't understand why an understanding is not come
to.
If you knew what it is in the midst of my agitated life to get a letter
from you, especially such a letter as I have just received, oh! you
would write me oftener, you would tell me fully all you do and all you
think.
By this time you must have received "Vautrin" and "Pierrette."
"Pierrette" is a diamond. In another twenty days the "Curé de village"
will be out, but lopped. I had not time to finish the book. It lacks
precisely all that concerns the _curé_, the amount of a volume, which
I shall write for the second edition [it was never written]. The
publisher and I could not come to an understanding on this increase of
volumes.
November 16, 1840.
Precisely one month and a half interval! And so many things to tell you
that I can't tell you; it would take volumes. Perhaps this fact will
enlighten you: From the time you receive this letter write to me at the
following address: "Monsieur de Brugnol, rue Basse, No. 19, Passy, near
Paris." I am here, in hiding for some time. Nevertheless, if, in the
meantime, you have addressed me at Sèvres, I shall get the letters.
Dear countess, I had to move very hastily and hide myself here, where I
am. But, as Marie Dorval says, money troubles are mere vexations; it is
only in the things of the heart that grief and misery are. Though all
goes badly with me, financially speaking, all goes well, for I'm going
to Russia; I'm going to see you as soon as I can earn the money for the
trip. I hope to leave for Berlin in February; I shall stay a month in
Berlin, fifteen days in Dresden, and be with you by the middle of April.
I have taken my mother to live with me, and I cannot leave home without
leaving the household provided-for for a year. It is probable that I
shall stay, June and July, in Saint-Petersburg, and return to you a
second time in the autumn.
During the period when this letter has lain, begun but unfinished,
among my papers (which have been for the past month in boxes, mixed
up with those of my whole library), I have received a letter from the
banking-house of Rougemont and Löwenberg, telling me to send there for
the picture you announced to me. So, be at ease on that subject, as
well as on the other subjects that interest us, about which you write
superfluous things.
It goes without saying that if I earn my ducats more quickly than I
expect, I shall start the earlier. I begin to feel a deep execration
for my dear country. You don't know what a bear-garden it is; I should
like Holland better, I think,--the most unliterary country in the
world. We will talk about this, dear, before long, and there's enough
in it for more than one evening. _Mon Dieu!_ how long it is since I
have seen you! It seems to me a dream to know within myself that I am
starting, going,--that every step will be bringing me nearer to you!
I have recovered strength for the work I am doing at this moment, in
thinking that it will give me liberty to go to Germany, and to find you
at the end of my errand.
I am just now finishing "Le Curé de village;" it is a great thing,
which occupies me much.
My last efforts have been poisoned by sufferings beyond the measure
of those that a man can bear; but I have neither time nor strength to
tell you anything about them. It must be for later. I can only send
you this letter, written in the course of nearly two months--for it is
now November 26; and provided it tells you my final decision, that's
enough, I think; but there are many things beneath that decision.
No longer adieu, dear, but _à bientôt_, for three months _is soon_. I
shall write you once, or twice, between now and the time I take the
steamer. A thousand tender regards, a thousand good hopes, and all
that a long attachment brings of gracious thoughts and flowers long
compressed in the depths of the soul. Many things in your last letter
did me good, of which I will not speak to you; but I did not think you
had so much persistence, or so much will. When you show me that the
excellent advice I gave you in Geneva has been followed, I quiver all
over.
All kind remembrances to those whom I know among the many who surround
you, and many things to M. Hanski.
You have again harped on the "elegant empire"---Coquette! but you make
me smile rather sadly.
There is one piece of serious news with me. I have taken my mother to
live with me. An increase of trouble and work. But!--
December 16, 1840.
At last I have been able to go to Rougemont and Löwenberg and obtain
the picture of Wierzchownia. I brought home, myself, the box made of
those northern woods, which, on being broken, exhaled such delicious,
enchanting odours that they gave me a sort of nostalgia. If you burn
such wood as that it must be a sensuous delight to stir your fire; more
than a pleasure. The picture has been injured; all journeys, though
they may form youth, hurt pictures. But, dearest of dears, the canvas
is immense; we have no spaces large enough in our honeycomb cells that
are called in Paris apartments. I shall put the original at Les Jardies
(if I can keep that place), and I will have a reduced copy made by
my dear Borget, who has just returned from China, and is working for
the Salon this year; thus I can have it before my eyes in my study.
I have had much pleasure in contemplating that picture; but you never
told me that a river ran before your lawn, nor that you had a Louvre.
It all seems very lovely, very beautiful, very fresh. The buildings
are elegant; we have nothing better here. What melancholy in the
background! How one divines the steppes and a country without a rise!
You did well; it was a good action to send me the likeness of your
dwelling; but I would also like a view of Paulowska.
Dear, it does not lessen my desire to go and see you, which I shall
put into execution. I am working night and day to arrange my affairs
here, and make a purse for my journey. You will see me, some fine day,
landing on that charming bridge.
This is only a little line to tell you that my eyes will be forever on
your windows, on the columns of your peristyle, and, while examining my
ideas, I shall be walking on that lawn.
"Le Curé de village" will be out in a few days; "Les Mémoires de deux
jeunes Mariées" are nearly finished. My lawyer, a man of admirable
character, maintains my debt by legal process [_maintient ma dette par
la procédure_]. I shall give two plays and a quantity of articles. I
shall leave my proofs to be corrected by friends in my absence, for a
dozen volumes will be re-issued during my travels.
Perhaps I shall come to you an Academician; but certainly with the
satisfaction of having published "Le Curé de village," which is one of
the stones of my pediment. I shall bring that work with me. I would
like to know to whom I shall address myself to avoid all annoyance at
the frontier regarding my manuscripts. Do you think I ought to write
to Saint Petersburg, or will a few words from Pablen, your ambassador,
suffice? I should like to obtain information about this because I would
then bring you my manuscripts.
When I saw your cage, it seemed to me it was mine, and I ought to be
living in it. You have made me very happy, and you must have had a
presentiment of my pleasure when you asked me so often if the picture
had arrived.
Yesterday, December 15, one hundred thousand persons were in the Champs
Élysées. A thing happened that would make one believe that natural
effects had intentions: at the moment when the body of Napoleon entered
the Invalides, a rainbow formed above that building. Victor Hugo has
written a sublime poem, an ode, on the return of the Emperor. From
Havre to Pecq both banks of the Seine were black with people, and all
those populations knelt as the boat passed them. It was more grand
than the Roman Triumphs, he was recognizable in his coffin; the flesh
was white; the hand speaking. He is the man of prestige to the last;
and Paris is the city of miracles. In five days one hundred and twenty
statues were made, seven or eight of them very fine, also one hundred
triumphal columns, urns twenty feet high, and tiers of seats for a
hundred thousand spectators. The Invalides was draped in violet velvet
powdered with bees. My upholsterer said to me, to explain the thing:
"Monsieur, in such cases, all the world upholsters."[1]
Well, adieu. I work, and every hour lost delays my journey. I send you
to-day the most precious of autographs, for Frédérick Lemaître never
writes a line; he is as great as Talma.
All tender and gracious homage. My regards and remembrances to those
about you. You ought by this time to have "Pierrette" complete.
[Footnote 1: This relates to the return of Napoleon's body from Saint
Helena. The translator of this volume was present. The Champs Élysées
from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde were lined with
those statues, between which were the urns, filled with burning
incense. As the catafalque (all gold, and draped with violet gauze)
paused beneath the Arch, the populace fell on their knees, believing
that Napoleon would rise from the dead. The remnant of the Old Guard
followed him on foot. The weather was so terribly cold that fifteen
hundred persons were said to have died of it; three hundred of them
English.---TR.]
March, 1841.
Dear countess; I have received your dear letter number 57, dated
December 20, 1840, and if I reply rather late it is that I have been so
busy.
I cannot leave till I have settled my affairs in a manner to have a
truce, and I have still many things to do for that: three volumes to
write and a comedy; but patience! some day I shall take my flight. Do
not fear; when I start, I will write to you from each town in Germany,
where I make any stay.
"Le Curé de village" has appeared. It is a book that has cost me much
time; you will see that when you read it. It is not yet finished, nor
perfected.
I work immensely, and I have scarcely the time to write to you. Last
month I wrote a novel for the newspaper "Le Commerce," entitled "Une
Ténébreuse Affaire," and the beginning of a book called "Les Deux
Frères," for the "Presse." I have also "Les Lecamus" in the "Siècle,"
which is a study on Catherine de' Medici, in the style of the "Secret
des Ruggieri." At this moment I am doing a novel for "Le Messager," and
finishing for my publisher "Les Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées." That
is a good deal of work, all that!--without counting nonsense like "Les
Peines de cœur d'une chatte Anglaise," and a "Note" to the Chamber of
Deputies on literary property, etc. So, to win a moment of liberty I
work like a poor wretch; but I look at the promised land: that balcony,
the corner of the house, the study for work!
Before I have Les Jardies painted for you I must know if that cottage
remains to me, if I shall not be despoiled of it.
When I start, I shall take care to avoid being stopped at the
custom-house, by taking nothing or almost nothing with me, and
fortifying myself with introductions; be easy in mind about that. I
think I shall be able to start in May, and reach you in June or July.
My traveller, Borget, is working for fame on his landscapes; but I am
very much afraid he has not genius, and we have so many _talents_ that
one more will not be remarked.
You do not tell me anything of all that interests me most,--your
health, your person, yourself; and that is very wrong. Is it to make
me come and see for myself? I don't need that. You know well that I
am kept here by my obligations, which are enormous, and the weight of
which will end by dragging me under.
I am grieved to know that months must pass before you receive "Le Curé
de village," for that is one of the books which I should like you to
read as soon as it is finished. A copy has gone to Henri de France with
these words: "Homage of a faithful subject." You will read a certain
passage in favour of Charles X., which will prevent the book from
obtaining the Montyon prize.
They tell me there is a cousin of yours here, but he has not looked me
up any more than your brother did. George Sand, whom I go to see quite
often, could have told him where to find me. This cousin seems to me
a simpleton, who swallows a quantity of nonsense about me, if I may
judge by what I am told of him. You must admit, dear, that your brother
has been wilfully mistaken; for George Sand and I continue pretty good
friends, and I see her about once every month. I lead a very retired
life on account of my work, but I am not unfindable to my friends.
March 15.
I have just returned from George Sand, who has never seen or known
Comte Adam Rzewuski. I stirred her up and questioned her with much
pertinacity; and as for the last three years she has had Chopin for
friend, that illustrious Pole, who remembers Léonce and his brother
[cousins of Madame Hanska], would certainly have known your dear Adam.
Besides which, Grzymala, the lover of Mme. Z..., and Gurowski and all
the Poles who cram her rooms would surely know that Adam was Adam
Rzewuski. Do not show that you know this, for men are terrible in a
matter of self-love, and you would make him my enemy. George Sand did
not leave Paris at all last year. She lives at number 16 rue Pigalle,
at the end of a garden, and over the stables and coach-house which
belong to the house on the street. She has a dining-room in which the
furniture is carved oak. Her little salon is _café-au-lait_ coloured,
and the salon in which she receives has many superb Chinese vases
full of flowers. There is always a jardinière full of flowers. The
furniture is green; there is a side table covered with curiosities;
also pictures by Delacroix, and her own portrait by Calamatta. Question
your brother, and ascertain if he saw these things, which are striking
and quite impossible not to see. The piano is magnificent and upright,
in rosewood. Chopin is always there. She smokes cigarettes, and _never_
anything else. She rises at four o'clock; at four Chopin has finished
giving his lessons. You reach her rooms by what is called a miller's
staircase, steep and straight. Her bedroom is brown; her bed two
mattresses on the floor, in the Turkish fashion. _Ecco, contessa._ She
has the pretty, tiny little hands of a child. And finally, the portrait
of the lover of Mme. Z... as a Polish castellan, three-quarter length,
hangs in the dining-room, and nothing would more strike a stranger's
eye. If your brother can bring himself out of that, you will know the
truth. But let yourself be fooled--Oh! travellers!
If you only knew how many Balzacs there are at the different carnival
balls in Paris. What adventures I shoulder! This year I have cheated
everybody, for I have not set foot in any of them.
I hasten to send you this scrap of a letter, to acknowledge yours,
and assure you that my desire to start increases. What your brother
is right about is the incredible influence of the atmosphere of
Paris; literally, one drinks ideas. At all times, all hours, there is
something new; whoso sets foot on the boulevard is lost; he must amuse
himself.
March 25.
Your cousin, or M. Hanski's cousin, is named Gericht or Geritch. I
don't know who they all are who call themselves your cousins, but this
I know, you have no more cruel enemies; they loudly exclaim at my
friendship for you, and make much noise about it; while I am living
in my corner and have not uttered your name ten times. When an exiled
princess said to me, "We all know you love Poland, M. de Balzac," I
answered, "It would be difficult not to love _your_ country."
But I am very silly to be irritated by such things! The world is the
world. Some of your "cousins" say such things as this, accepting all
the calumnies they hear about me: "Ah! if my cousin knew what M. de
Balzac has done!" They cannot know that I write you my life very nearly
as it passes. However, this has wounded me deeply, and will, no doubt,
cause you pain. There is another cousin of yours here, I am told. This
M. Gericht is very proud of our illustrious friendship, but the other
cousin is much grieved by it. So be it! Is it not enough to make one
hate that smoke called fashion or fame, whichever you like?
I tell you these silly trifles because I have just been thrashed by
them; and every time I go out I am wounded by something of the kind,
which, however, does not concern you, and therefore I bear it better
than what touches you.
That silly Princess R... came here, and does not distinguish between
Vienna and Paris; she has, perhaps, the same _bonhomie_, but Paris is
not _bonhomme_. There are, as your brother told you, ideas in the very
air, and an animation which is not to be seen in any other people or
any other capital. Imagine what a city is in which superiorities of all
kinds are collected.
I made George Sand repeat to me that she had never seen a Pole or a
Russian of your brother's name. I spent, two days ago, a charming
evening with Lamartine, Hugo, Madame d'Agoult, Gautier, and Karr at
Madame de Girardin's. I have not laughed so much since our days in
Geneva.[1]
Adieu, dear; _à bientôt_. I shall start for Germany, in all
probability, in May, and I hope, after so much toil, to have well
earned seeing you and saying, _Sempre medesimo_.
[Footnote 1: See Lamartine's portrait of Balzac at Mme. de Girardin's;
Memoir to this edition, pp. 123-125.--TR.]
PASSY, June 1, 1841.
This night, dear countess, I have seen you in a dream, in a manner most
accurate, most precise, and I renew the fable of "Les Deux Amis." I
write to you instantly. I was frightened by seeing you so distinctly;
then I woke, went to sleep again, and read a good, long letter from
you. You were not changed; and I was in ecstasies at seeing you thus.
You were both far and near; I did not even have the pleasure of
pressing your hand.
Did this come from my speaking of you to a Russian lady the evening
before, at the house of the daughter of the late Prince Koslowski,--a
Mademoiselle Crewuzki, who was in Vienna when we were there, and who
tried to prove to me that you were not beautiful (she is hideous)?
Or is it that a letter from you is on its way to me? The same thing
happened to Madame de Berny; whenever I wrote to her, she dreamed of
the letter. That thought overcame me just now, at my desk, before
beginning to write to you.
Alas! dear, no journey; at any rate, not for another year at least. So
many events have happened that I know not how to relate them all. I sum
them up.
When I wrote to you, "I am coming," I doubted the possibility of living
in France amid the dreadful struggles which consumed my life; and I
had the idea of going to you in Petersburg and renouncing France. But
a last effort has drawn me out of the claws of the publisher to whom I
owed a hundred thousand francs. By working day and night, and pledging
myself for six months to the labours of a literary Hercules, I have
paid him that money.
I do not owe more than one hundred and fifty thousand; and though age
is advancing on me, and work becomes each day more toilsome, I conceive
the hope of ending this horrible debt in eighteen months by putting
myself in a situation which my lawyer wishes me to hold, in order not
to be sued and not to pay more costs. "Les Jardies" will be sold to a
_locum tenens_, and when my debts are paid I shall recover it. On the
other hand, my mother has ruined herself for my brother Henry, who
is now in the colonies, and she lives with me. Besides which, I have
almost my majority for the Academy. All these things made me renounce
the project of going to Russia, and I have signed an agreement to do
ten new volumes the coming year. I have also to write articles promised
to the "Presse" and the "Siècle." And finally, _cara_, I have signed a
bargain for a complete edition of my works, to be managed by a great
publishing house, printed with the utmost luxury, and sold at a low
price.
All these things, so great, so important to me, have been settled since
my last letter. But I have not worked, published, and attended to
affairs with impunity.
Do not be vexed with me. For two months I literally have not had time
to write or do anything but what I have done. Les Jardies were seized,
a creditor was about to have them sold; I had to get fifty thousand
francs in a month, and I did get them. I had to publish my books and
articles, and attend to business without money--absolutely without
money. It was raining incessantly; I went on foot from Passy to do my
business, tramping all day and writing all night. _Primo_: I did not
go mad. _Secundo_: I fell ill. I had to travel. As soon as the result
was obtained I was seized with an inflammation of the blood which
threatened to attack the brain. I went to Touraine for two weeks; but
on my return Dr. Nacquart condemned me to a bath of three hours a day,
to drink four pints of water, and take no food, inasmuch as my blood
was coagulating. I am just out of this barbarous but heroic treatment,
with complexion clear, refreshed, and ready for new struggles.
That is the summing up of my history; for if I had to go into details
it would take volumes.
Dear, I have not received from you the least little word since your
number 57, dated December 29. Oh! how wrong that is, when you are
loved as you are by me, when you alone are in this heart with poverty
and toil--two incorruptible guardians. Why have you abandoned me thus
when you are my only thought, the end and the bond of so much work,
when, ever since I have had Wierzchownia before me in painting, I have
found nothing in my fields of thought that I did not seek on the waters
of your river, beneath your windows, among your roses and on your
carpets of green grass? Oh! has remorse never touched your heart? Has
no thought ever come to you in a sparkle from your candle at night,
saying, "He thinks of you!" M. Hanski himself, has he never said to
you, "Why don't you write to that poor fellow?"
Has nothing pleaded for the poor unhappy one, the sufferer, the
night-watchman, the maker of books and articles, the pretended
poet--for me, in short, for the traveller to Neufchâtel, Geneva, and
Vienna, who is not present before you now because the journey costs
money, and money and publishing are two irreconcilable terms.
Yes! six months without writing to me! I have always had good reasons
for my silence; but you have none for yours; you ought to write me
three times against my once, and it is I who write twice to your once!
_Ingrato cuore!_
My excuses are these: I have published "Le Curé de village" (still
incomplete). I have done three quarters of "Les Mémoires de deux jeunes
Mariées." I have published "Une Ténébreuse Affaire." "Les Lecamus,"
"Les Deux Frères" and I am about to publish "Les Paysans;" I have done
many useless works for a living; what I call useless because they are
outside of my real works, and therefore, except for the money earned,
lost time. And finally, between now and a month hence, my Work will be
published in parts under the title of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, and I must
correct at least three times five hundred _feuilles_ of compact type!
Ah! dear, the woman beloved, a little bread in a corner, tranquillity,
moderate work--that is my hope. I know it is enormous in one respect,
but it is humble for the rest. Why is it not granted? God wills it not;
but I cannot see his reasons.
Dear, here are my present hopes and my programme. I am about to write
a book for _the prix_ Montyon, which will pay a third of my debt.
Another third will be paid by the theatre; the last third by my usual
work. You will come to Baden and I shall see you there, for I could
absent myself _one_ month; but two or three, no, not under present
circumstances.
My sister still wants to marry me. She has among her friends a
goddaughter of Louis-Philippe, daughter of that Bonnard who brought up
the King of the French. I laughed so that my sister was speechless.
"In the first place," I said to her, "I will not marry any woman under
thirty-six, preferably forty, inasmuch as I am forty-two."
Apropos of that, I expected a letter, from you May 16, Saint Honoré's
day, or the 20th, my birthday, and I had palpitations for nothing at
post-time. _Ingrato cuore!_ But you are loved _quand même_. During
these six months there have been moments when I fancied you were coming.
So Gurowski elopes with an Infanta and marries her! Oh! how much better
to be a fool like Gurowski than an intrepid traveller like me.
If you only knew what I would give to have a child. No, there are
moments when the fear of waking up old, ill, incapable of inspiring any
sentiment (and that is beginning) seizes me, and I almost go mad. I go
and walk alone in some solitary place, cursing life and our execrable
country--and yet the only one where it is possible to live.
I have here, before my eyes, your last letter of December 29, alas!
You were looking at a ray of sunshine thawing your windows; you saw
the past in that, and the future! Would to heaven that ray would come
to me. I await it with impatience--that ray, your letter, which shines
upon me from time to time. Six months' silence, a winter of the heart!
What has happened to you during all that time? Have you been ill? Are
you suffering? What? The mind and heart wander dolorously through all
the zones of supposition, doubt, anxiety.
If I were less ruined, less bound to give all my money to my lawyer, I
should go to see you, because I am ordered to go away for a time; but I
am only allowed five hundred francs' worth of liberty.
Well, adieu, dear; or rather, _à bientôt_. In spite of my promises,
always baffled by fate and misfortune, believe that the only thing I
desire is to go and see you. I will not talk of it any more. I will try
for it. Perhaps the very force of work may exact a longer rest than
fifteen days spent in Touraine by the combined commands of lawyer and
doctor. When I shall have finished bringing out the books which I must
still do for Souverain (that is, five volumes), I shall, no doubt, find
a moment. Do not be vexed with me for postponing this, to me, great
happiness; I had to do so for my interests. I had to rescue the hundred
thousand francs Les Jardies cost, and persevere in that great and noble
task--of paying debts. You owe me to my own despair, and now I have
begun to hope again. HOPE is, above all to me, a virtue; it is a duty,
not done without many tears shed secretly, which you do not see. God
owes me a great compensation, and among those he does send me I count
the pure benedictions your sweet hand wafts me with the adieus of your
dear letters.
A thousand wishes for the happiness of your dear Anna. My affectionate
compliments to all those I know about you, and my friendship to the
Count. I have not forgotten him among my dedications; he will find his
in the beautiful complete edition I am now preparing.
As for you, dear Elect Lady, the most adored among all my friendships,
preferred even to my natural affections, you who are before the sister,
and whom I shall ever hold in affection, I do not bid you farewell; I
offer you afresh all that is yours--but one cannot give one's self
twice.
June 30, 1841.
Dear countess, I cannot understand your silence. It is many days now
that I have looked for your answer. I have written to you twice since
I received your last letter, and I am a prey to the keenest anxiety.
These fears and uncertainties seize me in the midst of my work; I
interrupt it to ask myself where you are, and what you are doing.
Perhaps you have been elsewhere than at Wierzchownia; perhaps you have
only lately returned there. In short, I torment myself strangely, and
I have, in my laborious life, amid all my thoughts, one thought which
masters the rest and puts among them an anxiety that is truly dreadful,
for it attacks the sentiment by which I live.
I have succinctly related to you the business I have done, and how I
have drawn myself out of certain bad troubles. The physical and moral
fatigue which labours of all kinds caused me, made me make a little
journey of two weeks into Bretagne in April and a few days in May. I
returned ill, and spent the rest of the month in taking baths of three
hours to quell the inflammation that threatened me and in following a
debilitating regimen. No more work, not the slightest strength, and
I continued till the beginning of the present month in the agreeable
condition of an oyster. At last, Dr. Nacquart being satisfied, I began
to write again, and I have done "Ursule Mirouët," one of the privileged
books, which you will read, and I am now going to work on a book for
the _prix_ Montyon.
To relate to you my life, dear, is only to enumerate my labours, and
what labours! The edition of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE (that is the title of
the complete work, the fragments of which have, until now, composed the
works I have published) will take two years to bring out; it contains
five hundred folios of compact type. These I must read three times! It
is as if I had fifteen hundred folios [24,000 pages] of compact type to
read! And my regular work must not be allowed to suffer. My publishers
have decided to add to each Part a vignette. This general revision of
my works, their classification, the completion of the divers portions
of the edifice, give me an increase of work which I alone know, and it
is crushing.
Dear, this is what I shall have written this year: 1. "Le Curé de
village;" 2. "Une Ténébreuse Affaire;" 3. "Le Martyr calviniste;" 4.
"Le Ménage d'un Garçon;" 5. "Ursule Mirouët;" 6. The book for the
_prix_ Montyon. And besides those ten volumes I shall have written the
amount of two volumes in little detached articles; and I must also,
for my living, write two novels that are rather indispensable to the
part of my works which is to be first published, namely: "Scènes de la
Vie privée," which is to have twenty books.[1] That will make eighteen
volumes in all. Judge, therefore, of what I shall have done. I have
lived in ink, proofs, and literary difficulties to solve. I have slept
little. I have, I think, ended, like Mithridates, in being impervious
to coffee.
If my lawyer puts me, as to my affairs, in a tranquil state, I could
travel in September and October. I could go as far as the Ukraine for
a few days. But that depends entirely on my work; for all that the
publisher pays goes to my lawyer to settle my affairs, and for my
living I have only what the newspapers give me. So you can judge the
difficulty of working for two masters, two necessities.
I shall wait a few days before sending this letter, hoping that you
will have written to me. Since the last two pages were written I have
been present at Victor Hugo's reception [at the Academy], where the
poet deserted his colours and the Elder Branch, and tried to justify
the Convention. His speech has caused extreme pain to his friends.
He tried to caress parties; but that which might pass in shadow and
privacy never goes well in public. This great poet, this fine maker
of imagery, received his spurs, from whom?--Salvandy! The assemblage
was brilliant; but the two orators were both bad. Praises were given
to France, which I thought ridiculous. Let our pens be the masters
of the world of intellect, I desire it; but that we should say it of
ourselves, without contradictors, in our own Academy, is bad taste, and
it disgusts me.
I am worried about my affairs. I am forced to await the conclusion of
my lawyer's principal arrangement, which is to sell Les Jardies. The
sale takes place July 15th.
[Footnote 1: For complete bibliographical lists of Balzac's Works
of all kinds, with dates of publication, etc., see Memoir to this
translated edition, pp. 351-369.--TR.]
July 15.
Les Jardies were sold this morning for seventeen thousand five hundred
francs, having cost me a hundred thousand! Here I am, without house,
hearth, or home. A few days hence I shall begin to fulfil my last _pen_
obligations; there are but six volumes still to do, and then, having
neither house, nor furniture, nor prosecution to fear, I can travel!
But still I am separated from that travel by six volumes, and the
reprinting of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, which would appear during my journey.
It seems hardly likely I could do the six volumes and four of the
reprints between now and October 15; however, I shall try.
No letter from you; my anxiety has reached the highest point. I
begin to yield myself to the most absurd ideas. I shall consult a
somnambulist to know if you are ill. A few days ago I had my fortune
told with cards by a very famous wizard. I had never seen one of
those singular phenomena. The man told me, after consulting his cards,
things of incredible accuracy, with particulars about my past life; and
he explained to me his prognostics for the future. This man, without
education, and extremely common, uses choice expressions the moment he
is with his cards. The man and the cards is another being to the man
without the cards. He told me--not knowing me from Adam--me, who did
not myself know at two o'clock that I should consult him at three, that
my life until to-day had been one continued series of struggles, in
which I had always been victorious. He also told me that I should soon
be married; which was my _great curiosity_.
July 16.
Ought I to send this letter? Ought I to wait longer? You have left two
letters from me without an answer; this will be the third. In the midst
of my toil, under which I bend, but do not break, this is a continual
anxiety which distresses me.
I have always the intention to pass part of the coming winter with
you; but all depends on the reprinting of my works, which becomes
problematical in spite of the fifteen thousand francs already paid
me for it. The affair seems to be heavy and difficult, and I live in
conferences with my lawyer and the three publishers, who want so many
guarantees that I believe I shall begin all over again the troubles of
the agreement I have just bought out, at a cost of one hundred thousand
francs.
You are very courageous if you have done all you said in your last
letter, and you must now see that I was right when I spoke to you of
the value that a woman ought to have in her own house--which is a
wholly French idea. For pity's sake, dear, send me a line the moment
you receive this letter, which I shall send off to-day. I have great
need to know how you are, what you are doing, whether you or any of
yours are ill; for surely nothing but illness could thus interrupt all
news between us. Remember that the corner of earth where Wierzchownia
is interests me more than all the other lands of the world put together.
I begin to weary extremely of my continual toil. It is now nearly five
years that I have not ceased to work; the wizard who told me I should
soon have my tranquillity must have lied.
Adieu, dear; all tender regards and remembrances across the spaces
which I too, sooner or later, will cross; with what pleasure none but
myself can know! But, for pity's sake, a word, a letter. I await it
with an impatience that so much delay has made a soul-sickness. The
wizard told me that within six weeks I should receive a letter which
would change all my life; and in the live combinations of cards which
he made, that fact reappeared in all of them. I will relate to you some
day that _séance_ and make you laugh heartily.
Adieu, _sempre medesimo_.
PARIS, September, 1841.
Dear countess, it is now nearly ten months since I have received any
letters from you; and this is the fifth letter I have written without
receiving any reply. I am more than anxious; I know not what to think.
This time, I have good news to tell you. _Primo_: I have at length
paid off the debt which crushed my life and my efforts. The hundred
thousand francs due to those with whom I made that fatal treaty of
1836 are paid. _Secundo_: Les Jardies are sold to a friend who will
keep them for me. _Tertio_: no one can any longer harass me; my debts
are fixed at a certain figure. I spend nothing, and, if I keep my
health and force, they will _all_ be paid in eighteen months. _Quarto_:
three firms of publishers, Dubochet, Furne, and Hetzel and Paulin,
unite to undertake the publication of all my works, a great number,
with engravings, to be sold cheaply. LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE is at last to
arise, beautiful, well corrected, and almost complete. My works will be
purchasable; for as they are now, no one knows where to buy them, or
has the money to do so; they have hitherto cost three hundred francs,
whereas now they will cost eighty and be well printed. This is an
affair which alone might pay my debts. But I do not count upon it; I
rely only on my pen and new works.
During this year I have written thirty thousand lines for the
newspapers. In 1842 I shall write forty thousand. I have, besides, a
comedy in five acts for the Théâtre-Français, not counting "Mercadet,"
which is always on the stocks. I have written this year, in all,
sixteen volumes. But in the spring, if my play is played, I shall go to
Germany and to you; for between now and then you will have told me why
you have punished me and deprived me of my bread. I could not travel
now; I must prepare enough volumes of my complete works, so that this
new publication might not suffer by my absence. I have to fill up my
frame-work. Many things are still lacking in the "Scènes de province"
and "Scènes Parisiennes." As for the "Scènes de la Vie politique,
militaire, and campagne," two-thirds are still wanting, and I must
finish them all in seven years, under pain of never doing LA COMÉDIE
HUMAINE,--which is the title of my history of society painted in action.
In the midst of all this business and toil, and I may say, _renascent
pains_, the grief that your silence causes is the greatest of all;
each day more poignant; and I no longer seek for the reasons of your
silence. I await them.
As soon as, through the devotion of Gavault (my lawyer, the solicitor
of the city of Paris), I saw that there was still a means to remain
in France and pull myself through my difficulties, and that I could
respond to his advances of money by pecuniary profits, I redoubled in
courage and I sacrificed the journey I was to have made to you. But
I told you so, instantly, in a letter telling you all my hopes. This
year, the _better_ has made long strides. I shall attain to--death
perhaps, but my last glance shall see the Romans fly!
How shall I explain to you that amid these triple battles I feel a cold
place in my heart; that I can no longer complain, or write to you; I
can only suffer! How many explanations have I given to your silence,
all either wounding or irritating! This letter leaves in September; you
will receive it in October or November. I cannot, therefore, receive
a reply to it before January. That will be four or five months more
of uncertainty and fears, amid the most terrible, most active, most
occupied life that there is in the world--for I move a world, and you
do not know what a Prometheus afoot, acting, with an unseen vulture
within his heart, is. I have moments when I cannot invent reasons for
your silence; I have reviewed them all and have found each more bitter
than the others.
This year I have worked through two hundred nights, and I must begin
another in the same way to conquer my liberty. Ah! they may well make a
goddess of her!
The address "M. de Brugnol, rue Basse No. 19, Passy, department of the
Seine," is always the direct and right address.
PARIS, September 30, 1841.
Dear countess, I have just received the letter you have sent me under
cover to Souverain, and I am amazed beyond measure. First of all, have
the charity to answer by return of mail the following questions:--
1. Did you address the letters which have been returned to you to M.
de Brugnol, rue Basse No. 19; Passy; or were they directed to Sèvres?