[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, at Rome.]
Dear countess, I find in the "Presse" of yesterday an article sent
from Russia, which seems to me so disquieting that I send it to you.
To-morrow I will send you the "Presse" and the "Débats." You will
receive them for one month.
I rise at half-past three, not earlier, though I ought to be up at two.
Sleep will not come as it should at seven in the evening, on account of
the heat. It is now half-past four, and I have not yet written a line!
Adieu for to-day, till to-morrow. M. F... is coming to see me to-day,
and I shall have to talk business after working all night.
The Russian article in the "Presse" points to very serious matters.
I believe in the spoliation of the land-owners by the government; my
uneasiness about your interests is extreme. Will your children have
time? What does the article mean? Tell me fully what you think about
it. It seems to me to be written by some one who feigns ignorance on
the subject.
June 15.
Yesterday I wrote eight pages; the heat was so intense that I put
myself into a cold water bath. M. F... came to see me, and I did not
go to bed till half-past seven. But I had to be waked out of my first
sleep, for at half-past nine the carriers brought the "Adam and Eve"
and the "Saint Peter," and my presence was necessary. The concierge
had paid sixty francs too much, and I had to explain the error. The
discussions as to this lasted till half-past eleven, and I did not
get to sleep again till midnight. I had nothing to pay with but a
thousand-franc note, for which it was difficult at that hour to get
change; and besides, I opened the packages to amuse M. F. and an artist
who was with us. The Natoire is charming, signed and authentic. But
Holbein's Saint Peter was held to be sublime. The artist, who is a fine
connoisseur, said that at public sale it ought to bring three thousand
francs.
Now I have paid out one thousand and forty francs. I have only the
cases from Rome and the one from Geneva to receive, which will not be
more together than five hundred francs, and a third from Genoa, five
hundred more. So that leaves me still fifteen hundred francs, and the
Chemin du Nord pays a dividend in July; therefore, you see, I am not at
all embarrassed.
My situation is even better than I thought. With ten thousand francs
all will be brought to an end by M. F..., and my principal creditors
perfectly agree to the broad manner in which I am settling my accounts
with them.
I can easily suffice to pay all. My health is excellent, and my
talent--oh! I have recovered it in all its bloom. My various treaties
are to be concluded this week.
Write me the time when you will permit me to come and see you again, so
that I may get myself in readiness.
Among the serious paintings that I have in my study, it must be owned
that the Natoire [Adam and Eve] looks a little too mincing. I hope to
sell that false Breughel for five hundred francs, and that will pay for
Genoa, while returning me the cost of the picture.
Here is what I am now going to write: "L'Histoire des Parents pauvres,"
consisting of "Le Bonhomme Pons"[1] (which will make two or three
folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE) and "La Cousine Bette" which will make
sixteen; also "Les Méfaits d'un Procureur-du-roi," making six more;
in all, twenty-five folios, or twenty thousand francs, newspapers
and publishers combined; then, to conclude all, "Les Paysans." All
that surpasses my payments. I have besides, for this winter, "Les
Petits Bourgeois," and the regulating of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE; also the
reprinting of the "Contes Drolatiques" and my comedy. I shall thus have
acquired, I think, the right to travel a little. I shall have no debts,
and a little house of my own.
But much work is still necessary; if I do eight pages to-day that will
be a good deal, for the weather seems threatening to be hotter than
ever. I am now going to do a number of errands in Paris, and send you
the "Presse" and the "Débats." The Chemin du Nord will not be in full
activity for three weeks yet, and that is the cause of the fall in
stock which unnecessarily disturbs you. I have so much hope in it that,
had I the money, I would again buy into it. The great banking-houses
are not anxious, for they are buying it. If the railway has a hundred
thousand travellers in July, there will be a rise of two hundred
francs; for the funds are placed at ten per cent. I should like to keep
five or six hundred francs in the bank so as to buy thirty-five more
shares--in case they fall lower, be it understood.
No news from Rome. But I am not uneasy; I am in a phase of hope and
confidence which surprises myself; for nothing is really changed in
my position; yet I feel, I don't know how or why, less sad, less
discouraged than usual. It is as if currents, waves, floods of
affection came at moments through my heart for you; it seems to me to
be a sympathetic effect between us, and as if at that moment you were
thinking of me. You are indeed the principle of the new courage and
talent that I feel within me; if I strive to be free and esteemed, it
is for you. The world is nothing to me; I do not care for it. I seek
to pay all, to make my place clean, to have a home that is dignified
and suitable. I devote myself to that result, so often preached to me
by you, and the sense of the good I do for the future represses for
the moment the pain of an absence which your ideas consider necessary.
Moreover, the subjects I am now to write of please me, and can be
done with extreme rapidity. The publishing business is at this moment
in a bad state. This morning I am going to see Véron, Furne, and
Charpentier; but to-day is Monday, and to-morrow is the inauguration
of the Chemin de fer du Nord; so it is possible I may postpone these
visits till the day after.
[Footnote 1: In "Le Bonhomme Pons," afterwards called "Le Cousin Pons,"
will be found a description of Balzac's own passion for collecting
antiquities and bric-à-brac. This passion was partly his natural
instinct, and partly his desire to fill with treasures the home for
which he longed. His collection is described in "Le Cousin Pons." See
Memoir p. 323.--TR.]
June 16.
It is now a week since I returned from Tours and I have only a dozen
pages done, when I ought to have many more. But, as you know, one does
not easily resume either hours of work or the faculty of working. Every
day I go out for two hours to attend to business. I have not yet seen
Émile de Girardin, or Véron, or M. Deshayes.
M. Buquet has sent me a great many insects; show the list of them to
Georges, and send it back to me when he has chosen those he wants. Tell
him to mark in pencil against them. Tell him also how keenly and deeply
I have felt for his misfortune [the death of his father]. And this is
very sincere; for there are but you three in whom I take an interest
in this world. The others are not worth naming; and it is that I may no
longer be shackled, but wholly a thing all yours, that I throw myself
up to my chin into work. I am now finishing "Les Paysans" and "Les
Petits Bourgeois," and beginning to invent "Le Vieux Musicien" ["Cousin
Pons"] and "La Cousine Bette."
Those four works will pay my last debts, and this winter "L'Éducation
du Prince" and "La Dernière Incarnation de Vautrin" will give me the
first money which will be really mine, and the beginning of my fortune.
The times require that I should do two or three masterly works to
overthrow the false gods of our bastard literature, and prove that I am
younger, fresher, more fruitful than ever.
The "Vieux Musicien" is a poor relation, crushed by insults and
humiliations, full of heart, forgiving all, and avenging himself by
benefactions. "La Cousine Bette" is another poor relation, overwhelmed
by insults and humiliations, living in the homes of three or four
families, and meditating vengeance for her bruised self-love and
her wounded vanity. These two histories with that of "Pierrette"
constitute the "Histoire des Parents pauvres." I shall try to put
"Le Vieux Musicien" into the "Semaine," "La Cousine Bette" into the
"Constitutionnel," at the same time that "Les Paysans" appears, and
that the "Débats" prints "Les Petits Bourgeois."
I will send my letters Thursdays and Sundays; next Sunday you will
receive a packet. On that day I shall have begun "La Cousine Bette,"
and "Les Paysans" will be in full blast. Bertin does not want "Les
Petits Bourgeois" till next September. No, to be far from you now is to
be crucified daily. If you only knew under what heat I am working you
would pity me. May your letters give me courage and hope. _Au revoir_
and _à bientôt_, I trust.
PASSY, July 13, 1846.
Dear countess, a disagreeable thing has happened to me which will
take much time; a creditor to satisfy for a very small sum; but the
course he is taking is dangerous for me, and will annoy me much and
necessitate a multitude of steps. You see, the end of liquidations is
always difficult; it is not enough to have the money, the settlement
must be negotiated. That is what crushes me and hinders my work. This
new creditor will take a whole week of my time. I can't help it. M.
F... is in Brussels, pursuing a bankrupt. Besides, the creditor in
question refuses an intermediary, and insists on treating with me. When
this is over I will tell you what he has done to me. It is written
above that I shall know all the horrors of debt.
July 14.
I have nothing new to tell you, except that I am much fatigued. I have
passed the night in hunting for receipted bills and memoranda. It is an
excessive bore. Buisson has returned; we are not agreed as to figures.
If I do not settle this affair now it will become onerous in the future
and more difficult to terminate. I am fully aware that I must attend
to my liquidation before all else. I am really frightened to see very
honest men asking in good faith for money that has already been paid
to them and become stupefied when they have their own receipts before
their eyes. M. Picard, my lawyer, says it happens every day.
You have no idea what a hunted hare's life I have led from 1836 to
1846. The state of my papers expresses it in a lamentable fashion; it
is enough to break one's heart! It will take six months at least to put
them in order. In the hurry of my various movings the business papers
have been piled up without care, stuffed into boxes, twisted, pressed,
crushed, torn. I need a vast library with numerous drawers in which
to classify and put them away. Space is wanting here; I smother. The
furniture, which is fine, is getting spoiled; a house is a necessity as
urgent as the payment of my debts. I am really as much hurried as I was
in 1837, and it is an inexplicable miracle, to me how I ever did those
sixteen volumes of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE between 1841 and 1846.
Two years of calmness and tranquillity in a home like the Beaujon
house are absolutely necessary to heal my soul after sixteen years of
successive catastrophes. I feel, I do assure you, very weary of this
incessant struggle, as keen to-day in paying my last debts as when it
concerned the total of them. And always my crushing literary labour in
the midst of these worrying affairs! Were it not for the new causes of
courage which have come into my heart, I should, like that shipwrecked
man whose strength surmounted for one whole day the fury of the seas,
succumb to waves less rough and gentler within sight of port. To be
torn perpetually from calmness and works of the mind by vexations and
worries that drive ordinary men mad--is that living, I ask you?
No, I have not lived in these last years, except at Dresden, Carnstadt,
Baden, Rome, or in travelling. Thanks be to you, O dear and tender
consoling angel, who alone have poured into my desolate life some
drops of pure happiness, that marvellous oil which does at times give
courage and vigour to the fainting wrestler. That alone should open to
you the gates of paradise, if indeed, you have any sins with which to
reproach yourself--you, wife so perfect, mother so devoted, friend so
kind and compassionate. It is a great and very noble mission to console
those who have found no consolation upon earth. I have, in the treasure
of your letters, in the still greater treasure of my recollections,
in the grateful and constant thought of the good you have done to my
soul by your counsel and your example, a sovereign remedy against
all misfortunes; and I bless you very often, my dear and beneficent
star, in the silence of night and in the worst of my troubles. May
that blessing, which looks to God as the Author of all good, reach you
often. Try to hear it sometimes in the murmuring sounds that whisper
in the soul though we know not whence they come. My God! without you,
where should I be!
With what ever increasing gratitude do I look at the casket in which
are your letters, those treasures of intelligence, and kindness,
thinking how you have ever been to me a beneficent friend, gentle and
kind, without failure or deception of any sort, without reproaches or
regrets--like a spring ever flowing, so that, even now, in the midst
of your personal anxieties, you are still concerned for me, for my
literary and financial interests, for my future, in short!--
Ah! how well I comprehend the tears shed by Teano when the memory of
Caliste came back too powerfully to his sickened heart! It is a noble
thing, admit it, the sacred chrism of tears shed on a head, on a brow
irreproachable by a poor man who adores them and says, "Would that I
could love you more!"
July 15.
Yesterday the affair of that creditor took my whole day. I also went
to fetch my proofs at the "Constitutionnel." Alas! here it is July 15,
and it is doubtful if by the 31st I can have finished "Les Parents
pauvres." "Les Paysans" will take August and September; especially with
the journey I am to make [that to Wiesbaden]. There's the naked truth;
but if "Les Paysans" bring twenty-five thousand francs, that will be
thirty-five thousand in four or five months; that's a great deal. When
I am paid for LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, you see, my liquidation will be well
advanced; so I shall put off all solution till the month of November.
The Beaujon house will not be free till then; then I shall know what
to expect from the Chemin du Nord and from myself. I have my apartment
here till August 1; so I must be patient, work, and liquidate. To-day
I have to go again to the Palais de Justice about the affair of that
creditor; it is a day lost. I will write you another line to-night
before dinner. I have all my proofs to put in order.
July 16.
Yesterday I came in late and too tired to write you the promised line;
moreover, I found the picture restorer waiting for me. He is the
cleverest of his trade in Paris; a former pupil of David and of Gros;
he is a great connoisseur. He thinks "Le Jugement de Paris" superb, and
attributes it to Giorgione. He accepts the "Chevalier de Malte" for a
Sebastian del Piombo; he thinks it a very fine thing, and deplores the
accident to the Bronzino, which he considers a work of the first order;
the hand especially enchanted him. He will restore them all, and also
the flower-picture, which has been badly cleaned. He is a very good
little man, much of a connoisseur, and has promised me his help on
all occasions. He is to come back Saturday and make the toilet of the
"Chevalier de Malte," supposed to have a layer of church grease upon
him,--the smoke of candles and other disagreeable ecclesiastical glaze.
You see, dear countess, what Paris is. I sent for the little man in
question two weeks ago and it has taken him that time to get here.
And my frames! ordered a month ago and not yet begun. That is Paris!
it needs time and will to get the simplest and most trifling things;
imagine therefore what is needed for serious matters. "La Femme" by
Mireveldt, which you gave me, my restorer considered an admirable
thing, a real marvel. He consoled me for my false Breughel, and did
not despise it as Chenavard did. But no matter, I don't wish to keep
it, nor the landscape by Krug-Miville, nor "Les Sorciers." I want good
things or none.
Now just imagine that a pretended creditor,--I have his receipts,--a
mechanician, took an idea to complain of me at the office of the
_procureur-du-roi_, and I was troubled by a letter requesting me to go
there to answer a complaint; I! that is telling you all. I could not
understand what it meant; I was too sure of myself to be uneasy; but I
feared the malignancy of the newspapers, for I know of what they are
capable when it concerns me. You remember that story of Brussels in
1843. However, yesterday at half-past three, the substitute-procureur
gave my pretended creditor a good lecture, and showed him his own
receipt. He is a bad man, the accomplice of servants I had at Les
Jardies; and they no doubt plotted this fine thing among them. I owe
him nothing but some unimportant costs, for which he may try to sue me.
You see, of course, I can easily pay him those fifty francs (at the
most), but I want to give him a lesson and not pay him on account of
his complaint, for others might try the same means. I have a project of
making him pay five hundred francs to get his fifty. It is vengeance;
but I think it is permissible in such a case.
I am going valiantly to work, and with what ardour! I have now spent
two whole nights on "Les Parents pauvres." I think it will be really a
fine work, extraordinary among those with which I am most satisfied.
You shall see. You know it is dedicated to our dear Teano, and I want
it to be worthy of him.
It is seven in the morning; I have been at my proofs for three hours.
It is very arduous, for this history is something between "César
Birotteau" and the "Interdiction." The question is how to give interest
to a poor and simple-minded man, an old man. I have just been reading
the papers. "L'Époque" has passed over, skipped, forgotten to print
the twenty finest lines in Esther's letter to Lucien. I am in despair
because of you. I must get them replaced if possible.
You ought to be pleased with Méry's novel; it is enchanting! What wit
the fellow has! Too much, perhaps; it is like a shopful of crystals.
He breakfasts with me to-day, and we shall regale ourselves by talking
of you. I want also to communicate to him the idea of my farce on the
army, and propose to him to write it between us for Frédérick.
Must I bid you adieu, dear valiant soul, sister of my soul. I would I
could send you back the good you do me from those heights where you
shine, but that is impossible: I am a man, and you are an angel; I can
only equal myself to you by the reflection of your intelligence, so
powerful, yet at the same time so simple and so candid; to you, in whom
all gracious details attract yet without detriment to the _ensemble_
which charms and binds for life. If I did not fear to displease you I
could go on thus forever; but if I wish to satisfy you I must work,
work on, work ever. Besides, is not that being occupied with you? So I
leave you for my "Parents pauvres," and I hope you will reward me by
one of those exquisite letters of which you alone possess the secret.
PASSY, July 17, 1846.
Yesterday, dear countess, I had Bertin[1] to breakfast, which was
delicate, fine, superfine, I'll answer for it. He was charming, and he
stayed a long time, talking and looking at my pictures and bric-à-brac.
My whole day was taken up, or very nearly; and I profited by what
remained of it to go and see Véron, whom I did not find, and Gavault on
business. I dine to-day with Madame de Girardin; I want to confer with
her husband about "Les Paysans." You will receive three newspapers:
the "Presse," "Débats," and "Époque." I wish also to make you read an
Opposition journal.
Bertin was stupefied at my riches. He thought that tête-à-tête of
old Sèvres delicious; and declared I could sell my beautiful Chinese
porcelain service for three or four thousand francs. He told me he had
given commissions to one of the cleverest and most influential men of
our embassy to China; he wanted fine vases of old porcelain, but was
told there was nothing now to be bought in China but the modern. Old
china is all bought up by the mandarins, the court, and the rich; and
the prices are ten times higher than ours in Paris. All their admirable
productions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are now in
Europe. There is nothing left in Nankin or in Canton, and nothing in
the interior of the Empire, except what belongs to the emperor and
private persons.
I am notified that the pictures from Rome will be here in five or six
days, and the picture from Heidelberg in three or four. They were very
reasonable in Rome. I had only to pay twenty-five Roman crowns in
duties (about one hundred and fifty francs), but the total expense is
more than three hundred. So if the other Italian pictures arrive, what
will become of me? I must make preparations, for I have received no
letter from the consul-general, which seems to me ominous.
I asked Bertin to send you the beginning of Charles de Bernard's novel.
Tell me if you have received all, and whether you are satisfied. I
re-read yesterday, according to your sovereign orders, "L'Instruction
criminelle." You are right, as usual; it is a fine thing.
Your semi-compatriot Walewski is to marry, they say, Mademoiselle
Ricci, grand-daughter of Stanislas Poniatowski, and descendant of
Macchiavelli through the women. She has, I am told, a hundred thousand
francs as _dot_, and three hundred thousand in expectation. Walewski
was madly in love with her, and, in his quality of dandy he found no
other way of proving it to her than to marry her. What will become of
the son of the great man, _le grand Colonna Walewski_ with such a poor
little civil list?
I leave you to return to my old musician. I am very well; my head is
full of ideas; I work easily, for I have the hope of going to see you
at Kreuznach as soon as I have finished my three volumes: there's the
secret of my courage.
[Footnote 1: Armand Bertin; his father, Louis-François, founded the
"Journal des Débats;" after the latter's death in 1841, Armand Bertin
edited the paper.--TR.]
July 18.
No letters, dear countess! that is not nice of you. Here I am very
uneasy, very much worried, not to say quite discouraged. It is midday;
I got back at one in the morning from Madame de Girardin's. The dinner
was given for a Madame de Hahn, a famous German actress, whom a
gentleman endowed with fifty thousand francs a year withdrew from the
stage and married, in spite of all the petty magnates of his family and
caste. Madame de Girardin had her two great men, Hugo and Lamartine,
the two Germans, husband and wife, Dr. Cabarrus and his daughter (the
doctor is the son of Ouvrard and Madame de Tallien, and a friend from
childhood of Émile de Girardin), and your servant. The dinner was over
by ten o'clock. At the end of a political disquisition by Hugo I let
myself go to an improvisation in which I fought him and beat him, with
some success I do assure you. Lamartine seemed charmed and thanked me
effusively. He wants me more than ever to go to the Chamber; but do not
be anxious, I will never cross the threshold of mine to enter there.
I won Lamartine by my appreciation of his last speech (on Syrian
affairs); I was sincere, as I always am, for, truly, the speech was
magnificent from end to end. Lamartine has been very great, very
dazzling during this session. But what destruction from the physical
point of view! That man of fifty-six looks to be fully eighty; he is
destroyed, ended; he has but a few years of life in him; he is consumed
by ambition, and worn-out by the bad state of his pecuniary affairs.
Émile de Girardin went off to the Chamber, so I had no chance to speak
of "Les Paysans;" it must be for another time. As to Véron, he takes
my novel of "La Cousine Bette;" but we have not yet agreed as to price
and quantity. I am expecting the editor of "La Semaine" M. Hippolyte
Castille. Beside "Les Paysans" to finish, I have eighteen more folios
to do for LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE.
July 19.
I went to bed at half-past six last evening and slept the deepest
sleep, in spite of the 32 degrees of heat which we have here. I am
now ready to work from two to ten in the morning, when Dubochet and
Furne are to breakfast with me. We are to have a conference about the
COMÉDIE HUMAINE, and God knows what will come of it; new griefs and
worries perhaps! So I shall count only on my work and what I earn from
the newspapers for my financial solutions. If I spend the whole of the
month of August in doing "Les Paysans," Véron must have the manuscript
of "La Cousine Bette" the first days of the same month. I shall correct
"Cousine Bette" while I do "Les Paysans."
I wish that all my cases were unpacked, and all my beautiful things
visible; for the anxiety to know in what state they are reacts upon me
too vehemently, especially in the state of irritation I am in from a
continued fever of inspiration and insomnia. I hope to have finished
"Le Vieux Musicien" on Monday, by rising daily at half-past one in the
morning, as I did to-day, being quite re-established in my working
hours. I will tell you to-morrow how many pages I have done to-day; it
must be twelve to satisfy me.
July 20, 1846.
I received your letter yesterday at half-past six o'clock and I could
not answer then, for I had to dine, and after dinner Cailleux (to whom
I had written about the furniture, the Salomon de Caux, etc., and about
the portraits of the king and Madame Adélaïde, which are at Geneva)
chose the hour between eight and nine to come and see my collection. I
had scarcely time to read your letter in the street, and none in which
to answer it.
"Le Vieux Musicien," that novel of fifty sheets, will be finished
Tuesday. Wednesday I take up the other part of "Les Parents pauvres."
This morning I treat with Méry and an editor of "Le Messager." In
spite of the intolerable heat (30 degrees at nine in the morning!)
my activity has never been more violent or my work more desperate; I
am determined to pay integrally the sum total of my debts and win my
independence and peace.
I am very well satisfied with "Le Vieux Musicien;" but "La Cousine
Bette" is only a formless sketch; it is not yet a question of
perfecting it; much has still to be invented.
Well, I must go and do the amount of "copy" I ought to do every
morning. I send you my letters very regularly twice a week, but your
answers are, alas! short and rare. Oh! I entreat you, on my knees, be
less miserly of letters and details; scold me, tell me disagreeable
things, but write me! the sight of your pretty little writing softens
the bitterness of your wrath, which is never very terrible; for no
matter how much you are displeased or even wounded, the angel of peace
and mildness, who pardons and does not punish, is always in you.
Ballard, an editor of the "Messager," and Méry came to breakfast with
me this morning. I need the "Messager;" for thirty thousand francs
are not drawn too easily out of the well of the Parisian press. It
is needful to have the support in the "Débats" of Bertin, in the
"Constitutionnel" of Véron, in the "Presse" of de Girardin, in the
"Messager" of the Minister of the Interior, in the "Musée des Familles"
of Picquée. I have also some other newspapers without any leading
personal influence. Now these articles are more difficult than you
think; they are all invention, labour, drama; the payment is the
object. As for the publishing of books, that is dying out, they say.
The Public is going to sleep; it is necessary to wake up that bored
despot by things that interest and amuse him. Just now, I am very well
content with my "Vieux Musicien." When you read this letter it will be
finished, for I have now reached the thirty-fourth sheet, and there are
but forty-eight. Next week I shall work at "La Cousine Bette" for the
"Constitutionnel;" and as soon as those two manuscripts are delivered
to the compositors I shall finish "Les Paysans." In April I shall do
"Les Méfaits d'un procureur-du-roi;" and this coming winter "Les Petits
Bourgeois" and "L'Éducation du Prince." Will not this have been a
well-employed year, specially when one considers a moving like mine? I
am now searching in the faubourg Saint-Germain, or the rue Royale, for
a house.
And now let me beg of you to drive away all useless and unwholesome
reflections; do not be sad, do not even be pensive; be what you always
are, the providence and joy of your home; be its mind, its heart,
its blessing at all moments; a line of sadness, a word of anxiety in
your letters gives me such pain. I want you happy; that is my special
ambition; and my will is so strong in all which concerns you that I do
not doubt its success in this. There is not a day or a moment in my
life when I would not fling myself into a gulf to save you from care.
That is not a form of speech, it is a sentiment of the heart, deep and
true, and you have always seen it manifested in acts when occasion
offered; what has been done in the past will not fail you in the
future.
Write me often and gaily, and do not tell me you are "obsessed" as
an excuse; I am obsessed, too, by business, work, tramping; compare
the obsession of the world with yours; yet I write to you every day
as one makes one's prayer on rising; but this is because you are my
whole life, you are my very soul, and the slightest, vaguest of your
depressions casts its shadow upon me. Continue to relate to me your
life and all its impressions; hide nothing from me; tell me all,--the
good, the bad, and even the involuntary thoughts.
C... came to see me yesterday; he is bitterly dull; I am alarmed when
I see that the king takes him and M. Fontaine with him five times out
of ten wherever he goes. The king commits the same fault that Napoleon
committed; that is, in wishing to be _all_ himself. There comes a day
when empires perish because the man they rest on perishes or neglects
to supply his substitute. What is certain is that the peace and
tranquillity of Europe hang upon a thread, and that thread is the life
of an old man of seventy-six.
You speak of complications in your affairs; what are they? But, as you
say, we must trust in Providence, for all is danger when we sound the
earth beneath us. I acknowledge that nothing surprises me more than
to see you so troubled about things that you cannot change, you, whom
I have always seen so submissive to the divine will, you, who have
always walked straight before you without looking to one side or to
the other, and still less behind you, where the past like a corpse is
buried. Why not let yourself be led by the hand of God through the
world and through life as you have done hitherto, advancing towards
the future with that serenity, that calmness, that confidence, which
a faith like yours should inspire? I must admit that in this fact
of seeing my star which shines with so pure a lustre thus concerned
about material interests there is something, I know not what, that I
do not like and which makes me suffer. You have already given too much
of your time and your beautiful youth. In spite of your instincts and
your repugnances, you have been mastered by necessity, the welfare of
your child, and your sense of duty. Now that you have fulfilled with
such scrupulous and meritorious thoroughness your obligations to your
adorable daughter, who understands so well all that she owes to you,
and now that you have established her according to the choice of her
heart and in accordance with your own ideas and sympathies, you have
nothing further to do than to let yourself rest in that quietude of
repose which you have so fully earned, giving the burden of business
affairs into the hands of your children, who will continue the work
of your patient and laborious administration. What can you fear for
them, so wise, so enlightened, so sensible, so perfectly united, so
exactly suited to each other? Why foresee events that are hostile to
their safety?--why fear catastrophes which, I like to believe, will
never happen? By spending your strength in creating imaginary dangers
you will have none to defend you against real danger--should any ever
threaten you, which I do not believe will happen.
Doesn't it seem to you rather strange and odd---you who have so
often consoled and sustained me in my troubles and strengthened my
beliefs--that I should insolently take my turn in daring to give you
counsel, I who have constant and incessant need of being sustained,
guided, and sometimes scolded by your high wisdom?
I don't know if you can decipher this shorthand scribbling in haste,
which, according to our agreement, I do not take the trouble to read
over.
Be very tranquil on the subject of nostalgia; I have forbidden my
heart to have any more; it is crushed by toil. Do the same with your
dark ideas; disperse them by confiding them to me and permitting me to
combat them.
Adieu for to-day; to-morrow the continuation of this scribbled
conversation. My tenderest regards to your dear children; you know well
what is in my heart to both of them. Adieu and _au revoir_.
PASSY, July 27, 1846.
I hope my wandering and vagabond troupe will not be alarmed by a thing
which will bring us nearer to each other. For the last five days I
have not felt well, and this morning I went to see my doctor, who told
me an epidemic of severe cholerine was raging, due to the excessive
heat we are suffering at this moment; he has prescribed a strict diet,
and gum-water to drink. I intend, therefore, to rest myself by going
to meet you at Kreuznach and spending three or four days with you if
the mail-cart permits. This illness will be absolutely nothing, and
therefore do not disturb yourself about it; but if not taken in time it
might develop into a case of sporadic cholera. I have given up fruits,
which I ate in abundance. I had no strength, I slept incessantly, and
had to give up all work.
It is probable that I shall buy the Beaujon house. I will bring you the
plan of it. In August and September they are to make the repairs, put
in the heaters and do the painting. In October the upholsterer will
do his work, and in November I can move in. If my affairs go well, I
shall have a year to buy a bit of adjoining ground for a greenhouse
and the indispensable stable and coach-house. Then, perhaps, I shall
stay in this species of chartreuse for the rest of my days, "the world
forgetting, by the world forgot," as Chénier says.
Ah! dear luminous and sovereign star, this time last year we were at
Bourges when posting; but you were ill and sad, even while seeing those
beautiful things. To suffer amid happiness, that is my lot; for am I
not happy in loving you?--yet I suffer here, when I know you to be at
Kreuznach. But it must be, when fettered by work and business as I am
now.
July 28.
This day year we were at Montrichard; and you saw for a few hours the
beautiful valley of the Cher. Ah! how I feel, in thus turning back
to the past, that there is no happiness for me without you; since
yesterday, when I began to rest, I am a prey to one fixed idea,--see
her, listen to her! Do not be affronted, I entreat you, but I need to
see you as we need food when hungry; it is odious, it is brutal, it
is all that is most revolting, perhaps, but it is true. My thought
carries me to Kreuznach at every moment. I must finish my work for the
"Constitutionnel," and then go and book my place in the mail. Shall I
have a letter this morning? I dare not hope it.
July 29.
I found in the post a letter from your children. Anna had put in a
little line which makes me very uneasy. She writes: "Mamma is sad and
ill; you ought to come and help us to cheer her." I went at once and
took my place as far as Mayence, and I shall be there punctually to
meet you; you will not do me the wrong to doubt it, I am sure. Adieu
for to day.
July 30.
The king has again been shot at; you will see it in the papers. It is
truly odious! it will make our unhappy country impossible and hateful
to foreigners. I am very much better; the doctor was a prophet; in two
days all was over and restored in good order; I am still dieting, but
to-morrow I can resume my usual food and my work. The heat has become
more frightful than ever; as I write I am afloat; every pore, every
hair, has its drop of moisture; I am soaked as if I were just out of a
bath.
Last night I saw the fireworks; I had slept all day, so much had
weakness and heat reduced me. The illuminations were very fine; I doubt
if Peterhof ever showed anything finer (in spite of your admirations).
How I wished for you here! and how many times I said to myself that,
positively, you should see it with me next year. In spite of the heat
and the diet, I feel so recovered that I shall go this evening to the
first representation of "Le Docteur noir," and to-morrow I shall return
to my usual ways and my nocturnal work, minus coffee, be it understood;
and on the 17th you will see me at Kreuznach, rely upon it.
The end of "Esther" has had a great success. The letter was like an
electric shock, everybody is talking of it. The profound truth about
our judiciary morals, made dramatic, has startled the men of the robe.
Expect now "L'Histoire des Parents pauvres," and you will see that I
shall make a very fine work of it--but don't feel too much confidence,
for I may deceive myself about it.
So all goes well, and will go better and better. But I love you so
much that there is no other misfortune possible for me than that which
might come to _you_ either in health or feelings. Tears come into my
eyes as I recall certain gestures, certain motions of your dear person
in the dim chamber of my brain where are pictured all your features,
your adorable nature, your heart infinite in goodness, your mind, your
walks with me, our walks along the roadsides, even to your gentle
scoldings--in short, our whole history, in which you have always
been the noblest, purest, most saintly, and most excellent of human
creatures.
July 31.
Forty degrees of heat in my apartment! My weakness is extreme, on
account of the strict diet the doctor ordered me. This will explain to
you the brevity of my talk with you this morning.
Last night I saw "Le Docteur noir;" it is the height of stupidity, of
mediocrity in its saturnalia. I got to bed at one o'clock and did not
rise till nine. I have just returned from the post-office; no letters,
alas! 'Twas a soldier of the "Medusa," looking out on the horizon and
seeing nothing, who came back without letters just now! Well, I must
read and correct my proofs.