[Footnote 1: Balzac's visit to Wiesbaden, Stuttgard, etc., was paid
between the date of the last letter and that of the present one. It
has been stated, on what proof I do not know, that during this visit
Madame Hanska promised definitively to marry him as soon as permission
could be obtained from her government. Before Balzac left Paris he
purchased the little house in the Beaujon quarter, since known as the
house in the rue Fortunée, now rue Balzac, and began to store it with
his treasures of furniture, pictures, and bric-à-brac, many of which,
he says in a letter to his sister, belonged to Madame Hanska.--TR.]
Here I am, dear sovereign star, imperturbably before my desk, at the
hour named, as I announced to you yesterday in the little letter
hastily written in the office of "Le Messager;" and before resuming
my work, my heart, that poor heart all yours, feels an imperious need
to shed itself into your heart, and tell you the little details of
a life become your life through that miracle of thought, constant,
immutable, during so many years of exclusive affection, of which you
alone, besides myself, can appreciate the immensity and the depth. From
Frankfort to Forbach I lived in you only; I went over those four days
like a cat which has finished her milk and licks her whiskers. All the
precautions with which your kindness and that of your dear children
surrounded me, the shawl, the hood, cured my cold perfectly; I feel
admirably well. While they changed the luggage I wrote you a line, to
prevent you from doing yourself harm, so anxious about me did I leave
you.
I paid the duties on the little Dresden service. They told me at the
custom-house that they had orders to send my cases to Paris, and I
asked them to wait till the Wiesbaden cases came so that all might
go together. Custom-houses do not respect heart-griefs, and I had to
leave my reveries and memories (more and more tender beneath the charm
of your smile, and your glance ever present with me) and attend to my
cases. As my cold disturbed my stomach I relayed that organ with two
little rolls and two large slices of Wiesbaden ham between Frankfort
and Forbach. This, I hope, is a sufficient bulletin.
I was alone in the mail, and that was a blessing from heaven. At Metz,
no one. At Verdun I encountered Germeau, coming from Paris with his
wife, and I thanked him for his intervention at the custom-house. When
you come to Forbach in your carriage you will be received with all
the respect due to your social position, and your things will not be
searched, I promise you that. I flew with the mail to Paris and arrived
here at six o'clock in the morning; I went to bed at seven, and got up
at eleven to breakfast. In the midst of my frugal repast the editor
of the "Constitutionnel" fell from the clouds upon me, and found me
half eating, half correcting the proofs of "La Cousine Bette," which
he owned to me was having an astounding success. Véron's anxiety was
consequently all the greater; but I calmed it by telling him of my
journey and assuring him I had come back to finish everything. All this
kept me till one o'clock.
I have written to Lirette, and shall send her your collective letter.
But I shall soon go and see her and give her all details. Here is
the dawn, just breaking; I must leave you, you, who are always there
before me, blessing my work, like the soft white dove that you are.
You will hear with some pleasure, I am sure, that an immense reaction
in my favour has set in. I have conquered at last! Once more has my
protecting star watched over me; once more an angel of peace and hope
has touched me with her vigilant, guardian wing. At this moment society
and the newspapers are turning favourably towards me; more than that,
there is something like an acclamation, a general coronation. Those
who fought me most fight no longer; those who were most hostile to me,
Soulié for instance, are coming back to me. You know that he (Soulié)
made me honourable amends in his new drama at the Ambigu. It is a great
year for me, dear countess, especially if "Les Paysans" and "Les Petits
Bourgeois" are published rapidly one after the other, and if I have the
happiness of doing them well, and if your taste and that of the public
should agree in thinking them fine--Come, tell me to stop, and bring
myself back to "Cousine Bette;" truly, I am talking too much, and with
too much pleasure; but it is to me such delicious, irresistible joy to
throw myself thus wholly into your fraternal soul.
Ah! I have read your pretty letter which arrived the morning after I
had left Paris, as I see by the postmark; had it reached me in time
I would have dressed differently and so escaped my cold. Poor dear,
you see once more in this that I comprehend you at a distance. I was
already at Mayence when your letter reached Passy telling me that as I
was ill I must drop the "Constitutionnel" and come and rest near you.
You have so spoilt me by kindness that I had already done this without
knowing whether you would approve of it.
The time that I have lost on business errands and proposals is really
frightful. Furne is making gigantic announcements of LA COMÉDIE
HUMAINE. I hasten to tell you this as I don't know whether I shall be
able to write to you again for some time. It is now the 20th. This
letter can only go to Dresden, Hôtel de Saxe, and it must even wait for
a line from you before I send it.
_Allons!_ to the pen, and to work!
October 24.
Yesterday I worked like a negro; I wrote the amount of two chapters
and corrected thirty columns of proof which I had on my desk. Just
now, I can only count on money from the "Constitutionnel," or on that
of a treaty by which I should bind myself for another work, but that
other work is quite impossible for me to do. In my present labyrinth
I must work and work without cessation to end, first of all, "Les
Parents pauvres." It is not elegies that will give me money, and I need
some; there is none here just now, at this moment, and I am at the
mercy of certain payments to make, besides which I am expecting cases
from everywhere, Geneva, Wiesbaden, etc. Nevertheless, do not think
of my affairs or cloud the purity of your brow by useless anxieties.
Publications will give something--but when? _Voilà!_
I hoped to find a letter from you at the post-office this morning
telling me where to address you. I have half a mind to send this letter
to Dresden by Bossange; but suppose that by chance you do not go to
Dresden? Evidently I ought to wait for your next letter, which cannot
be long in coming. I entreat you, do not harass yourself about all
this: do not punish me for having believed in the luck of business in
default of other happiness, more complete but impossible. I shall work,
as I have always worked. It is only a habit to resume, not to begin,
which would be more difficult. I feel young, full of energy and of
talent before new difficulties. When I am settled in my little house
at Beaujon [rue Fortunée], very cosy, well furnished, very quiet, safe
from the intrusion of unwelcome persons, I shall write successively
"Les Paysans," "Les Petits Bourgeois," "La Dernière Incarnation de
Vautrin," "Le Député d'Arcis," "Une Mère de famille;" and the plays
will go on as well. It was especially to give myself up to this
immense, but necessary production, that I wished to house myself as
soon as possible at Beaujon, for it is quite impossible to stay longer
at Passy.
Most Parisians think I did not go to Wiesbaden; that it was only a
_canard_; that's Paris! Madame de Girardin told me that she had heard
from a person who knew you well, that you were excessively flattered
by my homage, and sent for me to join you wherever you went, out of
pride and vanity, being much gratified in having a man of genius for
_patito_, though your social position was too high to allow him to
aspire to anything else! And thereupon she laughed satirically, and
told me I was wasting my time running after great ladies, who would
only strand me! Isn't that Parisian? But, as you see, the contradictory
statements of the Paris cancans make them little dangerous.
To-day, all the exterior work on the Beaujon house is finished, except
the gallery which is to be added, and is, in fact, a new building; that
will be covered in this week. So, in this respect, at any rate, I am
tranquil.
It is four o'clock; I must brush up copy; I salute you as the birds are
saluting the dawn.
The combined letter of your dear children has made me very happy. I see
them so contented, so charmed, without the slightest fear of mischance
in the future; but then, how you have brought-up your Anna! morally and
physically how you have trained her! In truth, Georges owes you much,
and I think he feels it, for a brain like his comprehends everything;
there is in him the union of great knowledge and great character.
Pity me to be once more battling with business, the house, repairs,
buildings, contractors; I go from one to the other, on foolish errands
and vexations of all sorts. Yet I must write as if I were tranquil, and
devote myself exclusively to that intolerable and hideous old maid who
calls herself Cousine Bette, when I would much rather be with you and
you only. It is really atrocious; and I never had such a time in my
life. But my faith and belief in you give me a courage, a patience, a
lucidity and a talent that amaze the boldest and most hardened toilers.
Alas! I must leave you; time has marched while I have been talking thus
at random with you. I must carry this letter to the post.
PARIS, November 20, 1846.
I was saying yesterday, dear countess, that I had scarcely more than
time to write to you if I were going to see you on the 6th in Dresden.
But how can I help writing? heart and soul are at Dresden, only body
and courage are in Paris. To talk with you is an imperative need; I
must write to you, tell you, relate to you everything--about my books,
my furniture, my financial calculations, the architect, the house, the
bothers, the nothings, the conversations, just as I talk to myself--are
you not _myself_? have you not long been my conscience? If you were
not, should I have talked to you with such freedom and sincerity of my
follies, my faults,--in short, of all that I have done either of good
or evil?
Yesterday I went to the Vaudeville, where Arnal made me die of laughing
in "Le Capitaine de Voleurs," and I put my letter into the post for
yesterday's mail. It will not go till to-day. This morning I have still
thirty-two pages to do on "Cousine Bette" and sixty-four on "Cousin
Pons." Total, one hundred between now and the 29th. On Friday I shall
go and book my place in the mail.
Ouf! I have just corrected eight hundred lines of "Cousine Bette" and
the eight first chapters of "Cousin Pons." Since this morning I have
not risen from my chair, and it is now a quarter past three. I put wood
on the fire, and think of you, there, as if near me. What happiness
in the idea of soon seeing you again! My whole soul quivers at the
thought. I have such need to be with you three. And to think that I
have still a hundred pages to write and correct!
Decidedly, I shall send to Tours for that secretary and bureau of Louis
XVI.; the bedroom will then be complete. It is an affair of a thousand
francs; but for that money what sort of modern furniture does one get?
bourgeois platitudes, paltry things without taste or value.
November 22.
I have your letters, yours and those of the children. Thanks be to God,
they tell me you are better, and that I can meet you on the 6th at
Leipzig. I have just re-read your letter, for the paper is so thin that
one side of the page prevented me from reading the other in a carriage.
I went to the post, from there to your house, where nothing is getting
on. You tell me not to work so hard, to take care of my health, to
amuse myself, to go into society. But, dear countess, did I not write
you that I had pledged myself to the payment of my last debts, counting
on a rise to sell my shares in the Chemin de Fer du Nord? Well the
Nord fell yesterday from 627 frs. to 575--two hundred francs below
the price at which I bought them. So, you see, my pen must earn what
the shares should have given me, and work to pay my creditors, to
whom I will keep my word. Do you think I have time to amuse myself?
It will be a miracle if I pull through at all. I have almost doubled
in production; I have done forty-eight folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE
instead of twenty-four; and you know that can't be done by scribbling
as I am doing now to you. Ah! _bon Dieu_, it is fearful! I tremble as I
write of it. I am not sure that even that will get me through. I must
finish "Les Paysans" and perhaps something more. It is necessary, even
indispensable. If I go to you I shall hardly see you, for I could not
leave my table and papers. I cannot think about my health, or take any
care or thought of myself; I am a copy-machine, and nothing else. My
courage is really amazing; I recognize that, and you will be convinced
of it when I tell you that since my return from Wiesbaden I have done
all you will read of "La Cousine Bette,"--which, parenthetically, has
a prodigious success--all those twenty chapters, dear countess, were
written _currente calamo,_ done at night for the next day, without
proofs. You have been, this time as ever, my inspiring genius.
November 23, 1846.
Yesterday I went to see Laurent-Jan and proposed to him to dialogue my
play for the Variétés, for I have an avalanche of work up to November
30, and as I want to start December 1, I have no time to do the play.
It would have paid him some thousands of francs, but he declined,
on the pretext that it was too strong, too colossal for his "feeble
talent." The real cause of this touching modesty is his invincible
laziness. Nature gives talent, but it is for man to put it to work
and bring it to sight by force of will, perseverance, and courage.
Now, that fellow has talent, but he will never do anything with it
except spend it in pure waste, wearing it out, like his boots, on the
boulevards, or in the boxes of the lesser theatres with actresses who
laugh at him.
Here I was interrupted by Dr. Nacquart; he scolded me well when he
found me at my table writing, after all he had said to me about it.
Neither he nor any of his friends the doctors can conceive how a
man should subject his brain to such excesses. He said to me, and
repeated his words with a threatening air, that harm would come of
it. He entreated me to at least put some interval of time between the
"debauches of the brain," as he called them. The efforts on "Cousine
Bette," improvised in a week, especially alarmed him. He said, "This
will necessarily end in something fatal."
The fact is, I feel myself in some degree affected; sometimes in
conversation I search, and often very painfully, for nouns. My memory
for _names_ fails me. It is true that I ought to rest. If I had not
had so much anxiety about my last financial affairs, the cares to be
given to the arrangement of my little house would have been a happy
and good diversion to my literary occupations. I have continued to be
unlucky financially. When the doctor made me the above observations on
my literary excesses, I said to him:--
"My friend, you forget my debts. I have obligations which I have bound
myself to meet at certain fixed dates, at the end of each month, and I
will not fail to do so; I must therefore earn money; that is to say,
I must write until I make my chains fall off by force of courage and
toil."
You will never divine the doctor's answer. It paints the man; but start
with the principle that he is a friend, who loves me truly and has not
only much affection, but also much esteem for me.
"Well, my friend," he said, "I can't write fine things like you, but I
manage my affairs better. As a proof, I'll tell you that I bought at
auction three days ago, a house of five stories in the rue de Trévise,
for which I paid two hundred and thirty-five thousand francs; as there
were twenty-five thousand to pay on costs, that makes two hundred and
sixty thousand francs."
The whole spirit, the whole character of our bourgeoisie is in that; it
turns its money over and over, as the aristocracy of old made theirs by
privileges and personal advantages. You must not find fault with the
poor doctor, he is an excellent, worthy man; he is of his caste and his
epoch, that is all.
Regarding what you say to me of your affairs, I shall not cease to
repeat to you, "Make haste!"
You must have read the article in the "Constitutionnel" on Siberia; it
is enough to make persons more confiding than you shudder. Therefore,
do not lose any time, for the future does not seem to me _couleur de
rose_, I assure you. I see Italy and Germany very ready to rise; the
present state of peace hangs by a thread, the life of Louis-Philippe,
who is getting old, and God knows, when the struggle comes, what will
happen to us. For a young and ambitious sovereign, not willing, like
Louis Philippe, to die tranquilly in his bed, see how favourable this
moment would be to recover the right bank of the Rhine! The populations
are harassed by idiotic little sovereigns; England is grappling with
Ireland, which wants to ruin her or separate from her; the whole
of Italy is making ready to shake off the yoke of Austria; Germany
wants its unity, or perhaps, only more liberty. In short, believe it
firmly, we are on the eve of great political catastrophes. In France,
our interest lies in gaining time,--our cavalry and our navy not
being strong enough to make us triumph by sea or land. But the day
when those two arms are strengthened, the fortifications mounted, our
defences finished, and our public works completed, France will be very
formidable.
It must be owned that by the way Louis-Philippe has administered and
governed the country he has made it the first power in the world.
Reflect on that! Nothing is factitious; our army is a fine army;
we have money; all is strong, is real, at this moment. The port of
Algiers, just finished, gives us a second Toulon opposite to Gibraltar;
we advance towards controlling the Mediterranean. We now have Belgium
and Spain with us. Certainly Louis-Philippe has made great way; you
are right in that. If he were ambitious he could sing the Marseillaise
and demolish three empires to his profit. If he puts a paw on
Mehemet-Ali, as he has on the Bey of Tunis, the Mediterranean will be
all for France in case of war. It is a conquest made morally, without
firing a gun. We have, moreover, made giant strides in Algeria by the
displacement of the centres of military action. This means conquest
consolidated, and revolt rendered impossible.
I hope you will be content with me, and will think that I at last do
justice to a sovereign whom you have always supported against me, not
from sympathy, you say, but from conviction. Perhaps you are right in
the main. Perhaps France has less need of glory than of liberty and
security; and inasmuch as she has obtained these two great benefits,
let us wish that she may know how to appreciate them and keep the
government that has given them to her.
Here is the dawn; for two hours I have been talking to you with
pleasure and no fatigue; and I say to you, joyfully, _à bientôt_.[1]
[Footnote 1: This is the last letter to Madame Hanska given in Balzac's
Correspondence in the Édition Définitive of his works. Soon after
writing it he went to Dresden, and brought Madame Hanska, without M.
and Mme. Mniszech, to Paris, in January, 1847,--TR.]
To M. LE COMTE GEORGES MNISZECH, AT WIERZCHOWNIA.
PARIS, February 27, 1847.
My dear Anna and my dear Georges: do not have the slightest uneasiness
about your dear mamma. In the first place, she is here in the strictest
incognito; next she is thoroughly re-assured about her health; and
lastly, charged with the immense duty of taking the place of her
beloved children so essential to her happiness (and I may say to my
own, for all my human affections are centred on three cherished heads),
I have put myself into forty thousand pieces, not to make her forget
those who are the soul of her thought and life but, to render their
absence as endurable as possible.
Our dear Atala [his family name for her] is in a charming and
magnificent apartment (not too expensive); she has a garden, and goes
much to the convent and a little to the theatre. I try to amuse her,
and to be as much Anna to her as possible; but the name of her dear
daughter is so daily and continually on her lips that last night,
as she was amusing herself much at the Variétés and laughing with
all her heart at the "Filleul de tout le monde," played by Bouffé
and Hyacinthe, in the midst of her gaiety she asked herself, in a
heart-rending tone that brought the tears to my eyes, how she could
laugh and amuse herself without her "dear little one." ...
You know that in the month of April I take her back to Germany, and
from there she will go to join you at Wierzchownia. As for me, who
cannot now live away from you, I hope to follow her a little later.
* * * * *
[NOTE.--Balzac left Paris early in September, and reached his much
longed for Wierzchownia by October 1, 1847.
The rest of this sad story will be found in the Memoir to this edition,
pp. 318-349; and in the Correspondence, vol. xxiv. of the Édition
Définitive, pp. 561-662.--TR.]