[1]Werdet gives a long account of this affair ("Portrait intime de Balzac" pp. 147-169). On it, he bases a bitter complaint against Balzac of unfairly and to his, Werdet's, injury, delaying the publication fifteen months; which charge falls to the ground under the above evidence that M. Buloz returned "Séraphita," November 21, 1835 (not 1834 as Werdet says), and Werdet published the book two weeks later, December 2, 1835, on which day every copy was sold, and two hundred and fifty were promised. The second edition was published December 28, 1835.—TR.
[1]Werdet gives a long account of this affair ("Portrait intime de Balzac" pp. 147-169). On it, he bases a bitter complaint against Balzac of unfairly and to his, Werdet's, injury, delaying the publication fifteen months; which charge falls to the ground under the above evidence that M. Buloz returned "Séraphita," November 21, 1835 (not 1834 as Werdet says), and Werdet published the book two weeks later, December 2, 1835, on which day every copy was sold, and two hundred and fifty were promised. The second edition was published December 28, 1835.—TR.
Sunday, 22.
I beg of you to number your letters, beginning with the year 1836, as I do myself with this one; so that we may mutually know if our letters reach us safely; and when we want special answers to any question, the mention of the number will settle everything.
I have had, and I still have, violent griefs on the side of Nemours. Madame de Berny was decidedly better; her dreadful palpitations were relieved. There were hopes of saving her. Suddenly, the only son who resembles her, a young man handsome as the day, tender and spiritual like herself, like her full of noble sentiments, fell ill, and ill of a cold which amounts to an affection of the lungs. The only child out ofninewith whom she can sympathize! Of the nine, only four remain; and her youngest daughter has become hysterically insane, without any hope of cure. That blow nearly killed her. I was correcting the "Lys" beside her; but my affection was powerless even to temper this last blow. Her son (twenty-three years old) was in Belgium, where he was directing an establishment of great importance. His brother Alexandre went to fetch him, and he arrived a month ago, in a deplorable condition. This mother, without strength, almost expiring, sits up at night to nurse Armand. She has nurses and doctors. She implores me not to come and not to write to her. You know how at moments, when all within us is tension, the slightest shock, whether it comes from tried affection or from clumsiness, breaks us down.What a situation! So that I have a double anxiety in that direction, where I live so much.
My mother and my brother give me other anxieties of so cruel and disastrous a kind that I do not speak to you of them, for they are not of a nature to be written. One must have much faith in the future to live thus,—to take up, every morning, one's heavy burden. My friends have all limited means, and cannot relieve my financial situation, which twenty-five thousand francs would render endurable, were they only lent to me for six months. I must still march on to the last moment in triple distresses,—those of my family, those of my work, those of my finances. I don't speak of calumnies or of the wretches who throw sticks between my legs when I run. That is nothing. That which would kill an artist I scarcely consider an annoyance.
I have of late been twenty-six hours in my study without leaving it. I get the air at that window which commands all Paris, which I will some day command.
I have received your last letter written from your desolate land. I reckon that by this time you have reached Wierzchownia, reviewed your wheat-fields, resumed your habits, and that you can surely write to me twice a month. Following your custom, you have given me your address very imperfectly, and that of the Chanoinesse with a perfection quite hieroglyphic. Write and tell her that for me it is as impossible to write to her as it would be to take the moon in my teeth. Society people, the rich, the idle, imagine nothing of the busy lives of artists and poor men. It is humorous to a degree. Especially do they believe in our ingratitude, our forgetfulness; they never view us as toiling night and day. To explain myself wholly, think of those seventeen volumes manufactured by me without help; compute that that makes three hundredfeuilles[4800 octavo pages], each read more than ten times,and that makes three thousand [48,000], besides the conception and the writing; and also that beyond the will to do I must havedu bonheur[the luck of inspiration].
So, whatever they tell you of me, laugh at it, and think of this, the proof of which exists. One of my bitterest literary enemies says of me: "Talent, genius, his incredible power of will, I can understand, I can believe it;but where, and how, does he manufactureTime?"
Ah! madame, I have brought myself, I, such a sleeper, to do without sleep; I sleep only four hours; and I, so eager, so much a child, I have resolved my whole life into dreams of hope. I live by suffering, work, and hope only. My fortune will be made by three months spent at Wierzchownia without care, without anxieties, in writing two fine plays.
By the singular will of Providence your friendship is joined to the three halts I have made during the last three years. Neufchâtel, Geneva, Vienna, have been to me three oases. There, I thought of nothing; I renewed my strength. You will see me arrive dying at Wierzchownia, and I shall leave it living.
Adieu; my friendly regards to the Benassis of Wierzchownia. My compliments to the three young ladies. A kiss on Anna's forehead. Be without anxiety as to the manner in which I shall make the journey. I shall come alone, without anything to contest at the custom-house, without books, without papers,—only linen and clothes. I will write you, in advance, the names of the books I shall need, to see if you have them in your library; that is the only tax I shall place upon you. I shall not bring a score of heavy books. I have all my intellectual riches in my head, and all my treasures in my heart. You must have indulgence for my one coat, my poet's wardrobe. I shall go light as an arrow, rapid as an arrow, but heavy with hopes,with pleasures to take in that chimney-corner by which you entice me.
Chaillot, November 25, 1835.
If "Séraphita" is not for sale on Saturday there will be no winter for me in Russia; Werdet is ruined if "Séraphita," that is to say, "Le Livre Mystique," is not a great success, and if the second and third Parts of the "Études Philosophiques" do not appear in December and January. I lose six thousand francs with Madame Bêchet if her last Part does not appear in February. Keep the above before your eyes so that you may not blame me. I must fulfil my engagements or I die, killed at last by grief. To write a letter is impossible. People who lead a fixed life, by whom the want of money is never felt, are unable to judge of the lives of those who work night and day, and have to beg for the money they earn.
I had forty thousand francs to pay after my return from Vienna, and before this coming December. Therefore judge what efforts and resources I needed to make head against that without credit; so that what you say to me in the letter I received to-day seems to me very singular. You do not know the bitterness of the epigram which your fear has made upon a poor artist, in hiding on account of the National Guard, who for five months has gone to bed at six o'clock (with rare exceptions) to rise at midnight, and who is working superhumanly to earn a few months' freedom in order to go and see you. To ask me for letters under these circumstances is as if you had been a Frenchman and asked some colonel to write to you during the retreat from Moscow—with this difference, that the warmth of my soul can never lessen, and triumph will take the place of defeat.
Mon Dieu!I can't foresee any peace under three months, unless through fortunate events that are impossible:exhausted editions that would give me money, or falling ill myself. Then I would write to you. But would you not rather have my silence, which tells you I am working fruitfully, and bringing nearer the happy day of my freedom? Have I made you too great in counting on your intelligent friendship to divine these things?
Here comes Werdet withten feuilles, one hundred and sixty pages, to correct! I have, since I wrote letter No. 1, now on its way, quarrelled with the Revues, for the same causes that I quarrelled with Pichot; you know them.
Well, adieu. I have lived a few minutes with you in the pretty home of your sister, for you are indeed a good painter.
Though I am not ill, I am horribly fatigued,—more than I have ever been. I have not been able to go and breathe my native air of Touraine, which would revive me.
A thousand caressing things. Never doubt your poor future guest again.
P. S. I have lost in a diligence my Geneva pencil-case with theAve. I did not have the luck that you had with your watch. I have not recovered it.
Chaillot, December 18, 1835.
I receive to-day the letter in which you tell me you have read the first number of the "Lys." When you receive this letter you will doubtless have read the second. (Shameful cheatery has sold them to Bellizard, and I shall prosecute such thefts; that is, if I have the courage to protest against a fraud which hastens the enjoyment that you say you take in my things.)[1]Youwill understand better the three hundred hours. I leave the enervating corrections of the third number to write to you.
You are right in your philological criticisms. I perceive my faults every day, and correct them. You will find, some day, a great difference between the acknowledged work and all preceding editions.
Imagine my happiness! Thomassy [a collaborator of Augustin Thierry] came to embrace me after reading "Séraphita." He told me that he regarded the "Livre Mystique" as one of the masterpieces of the French language, and that he saw no fault to find with it.
There must be some faults still in "La Grenadière;" but these last stains upon the white robe shall be removed by the soap of patience and the wash-board of courage, which love of art for art's sake gives. It is useless to tell you what the "Lys" has cost me. I have now spent fifteen days on the third number, and I need eight more.
A dreadful misfortune has happened to me. The fire in the rue du Pot-de-Fer destroyed the hundred and sixty first pages, printed at my cost, of the thirddizainof the "Contes Drolatiques," and five hundred volumes, which cost me four francs each, of the first and seconddizains. Not only do I lose an actual amount of three thousand five hundred francs in money and interest, but I also lose an agreement for six thousand francs, on which I counted to pay my expenses at the end of the year, which is now broken, because I have nothing to give Werdet and an associate in this affair who bought the threedizains.
I must face this misfortune, which comes at the moment whenhopewas no longer a vain word, when gleams of blue were lighting up my heaven, beside the lovely form so rarely seen there. Well! I have always shown an iron front to trouble; there's nought but happinesswhich breaks me down—for I ill know how to bear it. Madame de Berny has kept silence since this fatal event. That is another trouble. And my journey to Wierzchownia recedes.
You have no idea of our civilization; the trouble it is to do business; what distances, what visits wasted on moneyed people; their caprices, which make the promise of one day withdrawn the next! My life is a torrent. I sleep only five hours. To go and see you would be a rest, no matter how fatiguing a rapid journey might be.
I have few events to tell you. I have dined once with Madame Kisseleff; and once at the Austrian embassy, and I went to a rout at the latter place. One must keep up relations there. I have seen Princess Schonberg. But I do no more than is necessary.
I am to have two secretaries, two young men who espouse the hopes of my political life, which, alas! is dawning. I am embarrassed how to tell you when, how, and why, because you have forbidden the subject;[2]but you will guess all when I tell you that five days ago I bought a political newspaper. These young men are: (1) The Comte de Belloy, friend of Sandeau, nephew of the cardinal; twenty-four years old, face happy, wit abundant, conduct bad, poverty dreadful, talent and future rich, confidence and devotion entire, nobility immemorial. (2) A Comte de Gramont, one of whose ancestors went security for a Duc de Bourgogne. He does not belong to the family of the Ducs de Grammont. I know him less than I do de Belloy. These are my two aides-de-camp.
You will be surprised to see Sandeau excluded. But Sandeau is not, like these gentlemen, legitimist; he does not share my opinions. That says all. I have doneeverything to convert him to the doctrines of absolute power, he is as silly as a propagandist.
You see that here is a second mine; a second cause for arduous work. You see also thatBedouckis not a talisman without force in me. But it needs much money, and still more talent. I don't know where to get the money.
You are very right to economize; and I do not understand why you do not beat M. Hanski into sending away forty out of his eighty workmen. Shickler and all our great seigneurs here do not employ more than forty.
Reserve your sublime analytical thoughts to act like your neighbour, the Countess Branicka. Money can do everything to vanquish material obstacles. Be miserly by juxtaposition; miserly with an object.
My brother-in-law is negotiating the purchase of my house. I desire it extremely. It fulfils all the conditions that you require in a dwelling. How I wish that you could so arrange your affairs that you might be in it three years hence, without M. Hanski having one anxiety. Is not M. Mitgislas P... happy as a king? He has all the wealth that he wants, and possesses enough in the public funds to bring down the stock by a sale! Nothing is easier to administer and collect than such revenues, nothing harder thanliterary revenues, although they are so simple that nothing is simpler!
"If you love me" (Anna's style) you will make me a pretty little daily journal, not a periodical one; so that every eight days I shall receive your letter, and mine will cross yours. Can you do less for a man who writes only to you in all the world?
As for my present life, I have returned to the rue des Batailles. I go to bed at seven and get up at two; between those two periods see me in the boudoir of the"Fille aux yeux d'or," seated at a table and working without other distraction than to go to my window and contemplate that Paris which I will some day subjugate. And here I am for three months, until my house is bought, and my new arrangements for lodging and living made.[3]
I imagine that Anna is well, that you flourish inla cara patria, that M. Hanski is busy, that Mesdemoiselles Séverine and Denise are at their best, that Mademoiselle Borel has restored her good graces to the author of "Séraphita," and prays God for him after praying for you and Anna, that all goes well, even Pierre, that the confectioner makes you delicious things, and, in short, that nothing is lacking in your Eden but a poor foreigner who glides there in thought. At night, when the fire crackles or a spark darts from a candle, say to yourself, "'Tis he!" Think, then, that a too ardent memory has crossed the spaces and fallen on your table like an aërolite detached from a distant sphere.
Farewell again. I would that I could sayà bientôt. When you begin the third number of the "Lys" you will know that if the first pages are bad it is because you have taken the time necessary to make them good, and that nothing is sweeter to me than to abandon for you my author's vanity and the public.
[1]The publication of "Le Lys dans la Vallée" in Russia. See "Memoir of Balzac," pp. 160, 161, 231-237.—TR.
[1]The publication of "Le Lys dans la Vallée" in Russia. See "Memoir of Balzac," pp. 160, 161, 231-237.—TR.
[2]All his political interests and occupations were excluded from his letters to Russia, in fear of the censorship.—TR.
[2]All his political interests and occupations were excluded from his letters to Russia, in fear of the censorship.—TR.
[3]It seems, at first sight, rather astonishing that a man so deeply in debt should talk of buying property. But in a letter to his sister respecting his building of "Les Jardies," he says it is as an investment for his mother, who was one of his creditors. The same statement is made by Théophile Gautier in his record of Balzac. From this point of view, a purchase of real estate was safety, not extravagance.—TR.
[3]It seems, at first sight, rather astonishing that a man so deeply in debt should talk of buying property. But in a letter to his sister respecting his building of "Les Jardies," he says it is as an investment for his mother, who was one of his creditors. The same statement is made by Théophile Gautier in his record of Balzac. From this point of view, a purchase of real estate was safety, not extravagance.—TR.
Chaillot, January 18, 1836.
In spite of my entreaty, your letter, which I received to-day, after nearly one month's interregnum, is neither dated nor numbered; so that it is impossible to answer each other understandingly at such a distance.
Your letter contains two reproaches which have keenly affected me; and I think I have already told you that a few chance expressions would suffice to make me go to Wierzchownia, which would be a misfortune in my present perilous situation; but I would rather lose everything than lose a true friendship.
In the first place, as for letters, count up those that you have written me, and my replies; the balance will be much in my favour. When you speak of the rarity of my letters you make me think that some must be lost, and I feel uneasy. In short, you distrust me at a distance, just as you distrusted me near by, without any reason. I read quite despairingly the paragraph of your letter in which you do the honours of my heart to my mind, and sacrifice my whole personality to my brain.
I laughed much at your reckoning of my work by quantity, not quality. I laughed, because I thought of your analytical forehead; I laughed, because I thought that at the moment when I was reading those falsely accusing pages, you, perhaps, were holding in your hand"Séraphita" and making me in the depths of your heart some honourable amends.
Ah!cara, if you were in the secret of those work-sessions, which begin at midnight and end at midday, if you knew that the new edition of the "Médecin de campagne" and the second of the "Livre Mystique" have cost me six hundred hours, that I must deliver February 1 the manuscripts of two new octavo volumes, and that I have business and lawsuits besides, you would see, with pain, that you have accused afriendfalsely, that "Marie Touchet" is going on, and that—that—etc.
To-day, I have so much on my hands that I am compelled to extreme rapidity. I am irreconcilably parted from the two Revues. I have in my own hands "La Chronique de Paris," a newspaper that comes out twice a week, and expresses my royalist sympathies. I have begun the year by "La Messe de l'Athée," a work conceived, written, and printed in a single night. I must deliver in February a work entitled "L'Interdiction," which is equivalent to seventy pages of the "Revue de Paris." This is over and above what I have to do for Madame Bêchet and Werdet. In two months I shall have ended the agreement with Madame Bêchet, and be free of her.
In the enumeration which you make of my works you count as nothing the enormous corrections which the reprints cost me. Is it not sad to have to count up with you,—to make for friendship calculations such as I have to make with my publishers? You took amiss what I said to you in asking you not to cause me false sorrows, because I was bending beneath the weight of real ones. To tell you those, I should have to write you volumes. They are such that the success of "Séraphita" did not bring into my soul the slightest joy. Did there not come a moment when Sisyphus neither wept nor smiled, but became of the nature of the rocks he was ever lifting?
My life is becoming too much that of a steam-engine. Toil to-day, toil to-morrow; always toil, and small results. 1836 is begun. I shall soon be thirty-seven years old. I have six months before me, during which I have accumulated fifty thousand francs to pay. Those paid, I shall have paid off what I owe to strangers. There remains my mother. But I shall have spent nine years of life at the edge of a table, with an inkstand before me. I have had but three diversions, permit me to say three happinesses: my three journeys,—three recreations snatched, stolen, perilously torn from the midst of my battles, leaving the enemy to make headway; three halts, during which I breathed!
And you find fault with the poor soldier who has resumed his life of abnegation, his life militant, the poor writer who has not taken a penful of ink these two years without looking at your visiting card placed below his inkstand.
No, surely, I would not have you hide from me a single one of the sad or gay thoughts that come to you; but while I sympathize keenly with all that is of you, believe that I suffer horribly from the worries that you make for yourself about me, by supposing facts or sentiments that are false or foreign to my nature. Then it is that I measure the distance that parts us, and drop my head. The wound is given, here, at the moment when at Wierzchownia you ought, on receiving a letter from me, to regret having been too quick to blame a heart which is wholly devoted to you. Here are explanations enough.
I am very desirous that you should have the second edition of the "Livre Mystique" in which I have made some changes, but all is not done yet in the matter of corrections. Madame de Berny sent me her observations too late, and I could not rewrite the second chapter, entitled "Séraphita." She alone had the courage to tell me that the angel talked too much like a grisette; thatwhat seemed pretty so long as the end was not known is paltry. I see now that I mustsynthesizewoman, as I have all the rest of the book. Unhappily, I need six months to remake this part, and during that time noble souls will all blame me for that fault which will be so obvious to their eyes.
I send Hammer a copy of the second edition, in memory of his kind deeds and his friendly reception.
Did I tell you that the Princess Schonberg has put her child here in the house where I am, on account of its vicinity to the Orthopædic hospital? Yesterday I met her in the garden and we talked Vienna; she did not tell me a word about you, but much about Loulou. She said that Lady ... had again run away with a Greek, that Prince Alfred had prevented her from getting beyond Stuttgard. The husband arrived, fought a duel with the Greek, and took back his wife. What a singular wife!
Forgive me this gossip. I was so happy in the solitude of this house, rue des Batailles! The landlord said to me one morning that a Prince Schudenberg had come. I replied, "No, there are only Counts of Schuttenberg." The next day on the staircase I saw a German valet, who looked at me, smiling, and three days later Prince Schonberg told me, at Madame Appony's, that he had put his heir under the care of our good air and garden.
If the play of "Marie Touchet" succeeds I can buy the house I have in view. With what delight I shall enjoy a home of my own! But the damned seller will not accept my terms of payment; he wants twenty-five thousand francs down, and I don't know when I shall have them. If I earn them in six months the house may then have been sold. Well, one must submit.
I have still twenty days' more work on the "Médecin de campagne;" only one volume is printed; I must finish the second. I hope that this time the text will be definitive, and that it will be pure, without spot or blemish.
You see, nothing can be more monotonous than my life in the midst of this whirling Paris. I refuse all invitations; laboriously I do my work; I amass—to win a few days' freedom. One more journey that I want to make! Some nights more of toil and perhaps I can go and see you about the middle of this year. It cannot be until after I clear my debt. I would not show you even once that anxious face that so struck you the day you were singing and I was looking out across the Waltergarten.
No, you never spoke to me of that Roger. You commit little sins, which, like spoilt children, you do not own till a long time afterwards.
At this moment I am a prey to the horrible spasmodic cough I had at Geneva, and which, since then, returns every year at the same time. Dr. Nacquart declares that I ought to pay attention to it, and that I got something, which he does not define, in crossing the Jura. The good doctor is going to study my lungs. This year I suffer with it more than usual. If I am at Wierzchownia this time next year you will have an old man to nurse.
I am in despair at the delay the "Revue de Paris" makes in bringing out the "Lys dans la Vallée." No work ever cost more labour. The "Lys," "Séraphita," the "Médecin de campagne" are the three gulfs into which I have flung the most nights, money, and thoughts. The finest part, the end, is that which has not yet appeared.
We are reprinting at this moment the fourth volume of the "Scènes de la Vie privée," in which I have made great changes in relation to the general meaning in "Même Histoire;" so that Hélène's flight with the murderer is rendered more probable. It took me a long time to make these last knots.
To sum up your questions: my health is not good just now; business matters are multiplying; work also; I amunder suspicion by you, whereas I am exterminating myself to earn money here. No pleasures, many annoyances. Nothing has varied since my last letter, neither my heart nor my occupations. I am awaiting some news. I have imagined a thousand evils; I fancied that Anna, or you, or M. Hanski were ill. I now learn that you really are suffering with your heart. Remember all that I have written to you about it. Avoid emotions, do not make violent exertions, and no harm will come of it. As for the cure, when you come to Paris it will be completed; we have physicians very learned on that point. It needs digitalis in doses adapted to the temperament.
January 22.
Since the night I last wrote to you, this letter has lain here without my having one moment in which to finish or close it. This wheel, this machine of a life must be seen to be understood. Werdet saw the mother of the woman who is near him burned on New Year's day. He tried to put out the flames and burned his hands. The poor old woman died in ten minutes; and Werdet has had to keep his bed twenty days to cure his burns. I had to do his business for him, for Werdet is I. I had to obtain five thousand francs for myself and eight thousand for him. We have ten months' distress before us, both he and I. The last four days have been spent in marches and countermarches. What hours lost! I am never at home except to sleep a few hours. I have a dreadful month of February before me, full of work that will not return me a farthing.
Well, I must bid you adieu, to you and all those about you; work is waiting; the case of proofs is full, and I am in arrears with several folios of copy still to do. I have more work than generals on a campaign, but such work is obscure. You can imagine that a soldier on a campaign cannot write, and yet you expect a writer forced along onfour lines of combat to be liberal of his letters. I assure you that the problem of my time is more than ever insoluble. When I am with you, ask me why, and I will tell you. As for writing it, it would take volumes, and I must now rely on the confidence that should exist between friends to take my devotion, my testimonies of heart and soul under their simplest expression; certain that that expression will suffice, in spite of distance, to make us comprehend each other. Is that true? Say yes—"if you love me."
Adieu; accept the wishes that I make for your happiness such as you wish it. If I were God! Ah!
You are not ignorant of how rare lofty sentiments are; I do not speak here of talents; no, I mean sentiments enlightened by pure intelligence.
Did I tell you that the little silver pencil-case for which I cared so much, and on which I had theAveengraved, that gracious and religious Faber, I lost from my pocket while asleep in a public conveyance? I will not have another; I cared for that one so much! It fell from my pocket; it needed a chain; I thought of that too late. The lizard chain of my watch is taken off. It was so easily broken; it caught in everything. I return it to you in idea; Lecointe has put acassoletteupon it. I shall keep it for you preciously, and you will some day wear it.
Excuse me for talking of such trifles, but I wanted to explain the absence of theAve—a prayer I often make.
Dear, I would that when looking at your flowers you heard the gentle words my heart is saying at this moment to you; I would that in breathing their perfume you might feel the spirit that consoles; I would that the silence were eloquent; that all Nature in what she has that is most endearing were my interpreter. But these, perhaps, are not all the things we should require; we should live too happy in their contact. We need to flee to loftier regions,to the bare and stormy summits, where all will make us humble by its grandeur and by the demonstration of vast struggles. You could find in what I do not tell you of myself something analogous. But I have not the sad courage to uncover all my wounds.
Well, adieu. Like the fisherman in Walter Scott's "Antiquary," I must saw my plank without risking the blunder of an inch; I must write. Oh!cara, write! when one's soul is mourning, and when the sister-soul is mourning also, and something is lost to us of our faith in losing the soul that inspired it!—Let us bury that secret in our hearts.
There is an autograph for you in the envelope of this letter. It is that of Silvio Pellico.
A thousand greetings to M. Hanski and to those about you. May heaven dictate to them the honey words, the tender silences, the grace of heart, the religious efforts of the mind, which are so needed in those terrible transition days which we call bad days, sad days.
Accept a very affectionate pressure of the hand.
Paris, January 30, 1836.
Cara, I have this moment received yours of December 24 (old style), in which you speak to me of Princess G..., "that little stupid." I should have laughed at your suspicions, if you had not revealed your displeasure in those three furious pages, the fury of which I adore. I have never but once set foot in the house of that "little stupid," for, without having read your adorable advice relative to society, I have followed it to the letter. All that you say convinces me that our thoughts are identical. Let me repeat, for the last time, that in the situation in which I am placed I am the subject of gossip and calumnies without foundation, and that those who wish to pull me down will never know the secrets ofmy heart. I can deliver up my works to them, I can let them say all they like about my person, and about my business affairs; butall that you do not hear directly from meabout the matters that trouble you, believe it to be false. I hasten to write you these few words so as not to delay this letter, so important to friendship.
I saw Madame Kisseleff at the Opera, and she talked to me of you and of your brother; she begged me to remember her to you with many amiable expressions. She has never said any harm of you; on the contrary, she praised me much for my attachment to you, without saying anything to lessen it. But she did say of your brother what you told me yourself in Vienna. I share the grief you express to me on the fatal event; but I am not entirely of your opinion. Amongspecialists, judgments go more to the root of things. If Count Henry is all that you say of him, you should consider the nervous disposition of poets, of men who live in thought. Yes, the whole world will condemn him, and especially for the last phases of the affair. But believe that there are some souls who, without absolving him—for a man cannot be absolved for a failure of moral character—will pity him as they pity "Louis Lambert," of whom you speak. Without comparing your brother to aseer, there are in the nature of men of mobile and changeable impressions, lacunæ, lassitudes, solutions of continuity under the pressure of misfortunes, of which we should take account. As judge, I should cut him off, as you do, from communion with the faithful; but I should open to him my poet's heart and comfort him, as you are doing. Yes,cara, the union of talent, genius, poesy, love, and a great, indomitable character, a rectangular will, is a miracle of nature—possibly an effect of temperament. I will not go farther on this dolorous subject.
The "Chronique de Paris" takes all my time. I sleeponly five hours. But if your affairs and M. Hanski's are doing well, mine are beginning to prosper. Subscriptions are received in miraculous abundance, and the shares I possess have risen to a value of ninety thousand francs capital in one month.[1]It is impossible for me to go into society; I am even uncivil. I hardly see my most intimate friends. If you were a witness of my life you would pity it. But my thirst for work is in direct ratio to my thirst for independence. I have renewed negotiations for the Beaujon house. My lawsuit will be called before the court to-morrow. It is now five o'clock in the morning. I am preparing the means of defence for my lawyer. I thank you much for your good long letter. There's a letter—a pretty letter—in in which affection scolds, and caresses as it scolds, but tells me all that you are doing!
I have broken the last frail relations of politeness with Madame de Castries. She makes her society now of MM. Jules Janin and Sainte-Beuve, who have so outrageously wounded me. It seemed to me bad taste, and now I am happily out of it.
"Marie Touchet" is getting on. You ought to have "Séraphita" by this time. The second edition of the "Livre Mystique" appears on February 1. I am sorry you should read the bad edition before this one, though this has faults and must still undergo some changes. Werdet is quite pleased; yesterday he sold a hundred and fifty copies to foreign countries; he hopes to sell as many more from that advertisement. I have ten days more of corrections on the "Médecin de campagne," third edition, 8vo. Ask for it; it is fine, in type, printing, and paper; except for a few imperceptible blemishes, the text is settled, fixed, as that of "Louis Lambert" is fixed. "Louis Lambert" is much changed; it is nowcomplete. The last thoughts accord with "Séraphita;" all is co-ordinated. Moreover, the gap between college and Blois is filled up; you will see that.
The "Messe de l'Athée" has had the greatest success in the "Chronique de Paris." To-morrow the first chapter of the "Interdiction" will appear. And you think I court society! I think it is you who are the "little stupid."
A thousand pretty flowers of affection; take them, gather them, wear them on that intelligent brow, which refuses only one comprehension, that of understanding the extent of the affections you inspire. You saw them in Vienna, you doubt them in Paris. Oh! that is not right; above all, when it concerns one who is devoted to you at all points, like your poor moujik.
Do not fail to remember me to every one about you; and M. Hanski will find here affectionate compliments, and all friendly things.
[1]For a brief account of this enterprise, see Memoir, pp. 164, 165.—TR.
[1]For a brief account of this enterprise, see Memoir, pp. 164, 165.—TR.
Paris, March 8, 1836.
Nothing can describe my anxiety. It is now more than a month since I have heard from you. A silence of a month can only have been caused by some grave event. Is M. Hanski ill? Is it Anna? Is it you? What has happened? Are you so busy at Kiew that you have not found a single little moment to give to so old and devoted a friendship? Has a letter been lost? Has some foolish story reached you, like that of a journey to Saint-Petersburg?—for, in my presence, a person who did not know me, but who said he did, declared I was there.[1]Others assert that I am in Naples.
The truth being, that I work more now than I ever did in my life; and that never before have I had such a desire for independence. Rossini encouraged me by telling me he had never breathed at his ease until the day when he was certain of having bread. I am not there yet.
My suit with the "Revue" gives me many worries. I must sustain the "Chronique," master my financial crisis, work for Werdet, and work for Madame Bêchet. It is enough to die of! And, speaking literally, Iamkilling myself. Physical strength is beginning to fail me. If I had the money I should be on my way, for there is no other resource for me than a journey of three months, at the least.
You have not said anything to me of "Séraphita." Another month, and the true "Lys dans la Vallée" will be finished and out. In the opinion of all critics, and mine, it will be my most perfect work in style, regarding "Séraphita" and "Louis Lambert" as exceptions.
It appears that they are making from Dantan's bad caricature a horrible lithograph of me for foreign countries, and "Le Voleur" has published one also. This obliges me to have myself painted, and abandon my habit of modesty. After examining the present condition of French art, and in default of your dear Grosclaude, who left me in the lurch, I have elected Louis Boulanger toportrayme. As you wished for a copy of that which Grosclaude desired to do, I ask you candidly if you would like a second original of the portrait which Boulanger is to make? I ask this the more easily as the price is very much less. I think he does not ask more than fifteen hundred francs, which will be full length, the size of nature. If you would like the bust only, say so.
I am at this moment in a state of moral and physical exhaustion of which I can give you no idea. I haveeven extreme sufferings. Every evening an inflammation of the eyes warns me that I have gone beyond my strength, and yet I was never so much in need of it.
Never have I gone through such extremes of hope and of despair. Sometimes the affair of the "Cent Contes Drolatiques" (which would wholly liquidate me) seems to be settled, sometimes it will not be settled at all. Sometimes my money matters have an air of arranging themselves, and then all fails. Around me my friends are in trouble. Madame de Berny has not yet been willing since the death of her son to see me. She sees no one but her eldest son. My heavy cold has returned. Body and soul are wrung. The newspapers are full of redoubled hate and malevolence. That is nothing to me, but there are many men who would not be as philosophical.
And now, to crown this poesy of ill, this sorrowful situation, you leave me one whole month without letters, to run the gamut of suppositions and believe daily that some grievous news will reach me. For several days past, life, thus made, seems odious. Nine years of toil without immediate result, without means of living obtained—this kills me, in addition to all the other causes of distress I have enumerated.
I have not been out three times this winter. I dined with Madame Kisseleff, and once with Madame Appony, and I went to a fancy ball given by an Englishman, and, six times in all, to the Italian Opera. But nothing distracts my mind or amuses me. Since the pleasure that I had in travelling so rapidly to Vienna I have tasted the delights of Nature seen on a grand scale; I have conceived the mightiest of arts—that which puts into the soul the sentiment of Nature. To grasp vast landscapes, to see the earth under its many colours, its thousand aspects, and to have an object at the end of this kaleidoscopic vision—I know nothing that equals that passagethrough space. There are moments when I stand with my head buried on the chimney-piece, engaged in recalling the vast incidents of that last journey.
I am going to order a carriage, and await my first bag of two thousand ducats, and my first month of liberty.
I entreat you, whatever happens, never leave me a month again without news, and, if you are ill, dictate one line to M. Hanski. You don't know what troubles it puts into my poor solitary life.
Jules Sandeau has been one of my blunders. You cannot imagine such indolence, such nonchalance. He is without energy, without will. The noblest sentiments in words, nothing in action, or in reality. No devotion of thought or of body. When I had spent on him what a great seigneur would spend on a caprice, I said to him:
"Jules, here is a drama, write it. And after that another, and a vaudeville for the Gymnase."
He answered that it was impossible for him to put himself in the train of any one, no matter who. As that implied that I speculated on his gratitude, I did not insist. He would not even put his name to a work done in common.
"Well, then, get a living by writing books?"
He has not, in three years, written half a volume. Criticism? He thinks that too difficult. He is a stable horse. He is the despair of friendship, as he was the despair of love. That's over; as soon as I get the La Grenadière, I shall leave the rue Cassini.
The two young men, de Belloy and de Gramont, have not the firm will that enables a man to rise above adversity and men, and to make for himself the events of his life. They will not subordinate themselves to reach a result. In France, associations of men are impossible, partly because of individual pretensions, partly because of wit, talent, name, and fortune, four causes of insubordination. Since I have taken Diogenes' lantern to lookthrough this vaunted Paris for men of talent I have heard many a cry of poverty; but when you offer to those who utter the cry money for work well done, they "can't do it," and I have not obtained the work.
Capefigue is my editor [on the "Chronique de Paris"] and takes my directions. A good little political condottiere!Mon Dieu, how heartily you would laugh if I were in the chimney-corner at Wierzchownia explaining to you what I see here daily.
Well, here are piles of proof to send off, and much work to finish. My spirit, one moment let loose to roam across your lands, must resume its yoke of misery. I am in the rue Cassini; I have no autograph to send you; I came near asking at the Court of Peers for one of Fieschi, but I thought it might not be agreeable to you.
The other day I went to Frascati, out of curiosity, to see a gambling-house. There I found a person of your acquaintance—one who was the devoted, in Geneva, of Madame Marie. He told me he had come there for the first time. He was playingcraps[a game of dice] with incredible facility, practice, and cleverness; and all the women who were present knew him. I laughed in my sleeve. Day before yesterday he invited me to a magnificent dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, where were Madame Kisseleff and Madame Hamelin, an elderly celebrity. Among the guests was an illustrious friend of the present King of Sardinia, who has just returned to power. I set a trap for the friend of the dear Countess Marie. On leaving at eleven o'clock I said to him:—
"It is too late for the theatres, will you go and play?"
We went to the "Salon des Étrangers." He was as well known in that place as Barabbas, and, to my great astonishment, I found there all the most virtuous andrangésmen of the great world. And what did I see a quarter of an hour later? The friend of the King ofSardinia, who had told us he had a rendezvous to avoid coming out with us! And this dear Italian said to me, pointing to our late Amphytrion:—
"You know the Italian proverb: 'gambler like a Pole.'"
The friend of the Countess Marie is henceforth to me a book in which I can read at any time. Little Komar was there also. That young man, old in the flower of his age, makes me ache to see him. I perceive that in order to understand society I must go to such places three times a year, to know the men with whom one has to do. These are the only two times in my life that I have set foot in such dens. I shall return to the Salon once more to see Hope play; he stakes a hundred thousand francs with supernatural indolence, confronting chance, as one power stands facing another power.
Addio!I am awaiting a letter from you. Last night I dreamed that I saw a letter and a parcel sent by you; in the parcel were apples. I never had so real a dream. When Auguste came to wake me at five in the morning, I said, "Where are the apples?" He saw I had been dreaming. I wish I could explain these dreams.