[1]Frédérick Lemaître, with or without satirical intention, dressed himself as a Mexican general in a way to resemble Louis Philippe, especially by wearing a wig rising to a point, giving his head the famous pear shape for which that of Louis-Philippe was ridiculed.—TR.
[1]Frédérick Lemaître, with or without satirical intention, dressed himself as a Mexican general in a way to resemble Louis Philippe, especially by wearing a wig rising to a point, giving his head the famous pear shape for which that of Louis-Philippe was ridiculed.—TR.
May, 1840.
Nothing can better paint to you my life than this interruption. After six weeks' delay I must finish a sentence left unfinished in my desk without the possibility of returning to it. The end of that sentence is: "claws of steel into their hearts." I resume my narrative.
They came and offered me indemnities; five thousandfrancs to begin with. I blushed to the roots of my hair, and replied that I accepted no alms; that I had earned two hundred thousand francs' worth of debts in doing sundry masterpieces which counted for something in the sum total of the glory of France in the nineteenth century; that I had been three months rehearsing "Vautrin," during which time I might have earned by other work twenty-five thousand francs; that a pack of creditors were after me, but that if I could not pay them all, I did not care whether I was hunted by fifty or a hundred of them; and that my dose of courage to resist was the same. The director of the Beaux-Arts, Cavé, went away, saying that he was full of esteem and admiration for me. "This is the first time," he said, "that I have ever been refused." "So much the worse," I replied.
Since I wrote you the two preceding pages my life has been that of a stag at bay. I have come and gone about Paris helped by friends. And now, without a farthing, I begin the fight once more. Frédérick Lemaître will entice other actors, and I have obtained permission to present a new play, in five acts, at one of the closed theatres; about six weeks hence we shall re-appear, and then we shall see!
Aux Jardies, May 10.
Cara, I have just received your last letter, and again I must complain of the rarity of those letters. Oh! do not let what I have written of my distresses keep you from writing to me monthly. If I do not write to you as often in my periods of trouble, do not blame my heart. I often make my prayer to Hope, turning my face toward the Ukraine. Do not punish me for my confidences, which may, which must sadden you. Alas! with what rapidity time is flying. How many white hairs are in my head, faithful to all, even to toil.
You are laughing at me, and that is not right.Madame Visconti is an Englishwoman, not an Italian; and I have no vanity in my friendships; you know that. A man as busy as I am can attend very little to trifles. Certainly, I will acknowledge that I am not without the vanity of love, and I think that when we love we ought to love in all ways, and be very happy to seela dilectacarry off the palm from others in even the smallest things,—her toilet, for instance. I should have all those weaknesses, including blazons. But this was no ground on which to twit me; look in your mirror, dress yourself very elegantly to-morrow, and vindicate me,cara.
Every one comes up to me in Paris, admiring my courage as much and even more than the rest. They thought me crushed, buried under my disaster, and hearing that I am about to deliver battle once more, both friends and enemies have been equally surprised.
Frédérick Lemaître rejected my drama of "Richard Cœur d'Éponge," saying thatpaternitywas a selfish sentiment which had little chance of success with the masses. Moreover, he was not pleased with the dénouement; and as one must only give him things to play that he likes to play, I have been under the necessity of finding another play. It is found at last, and I write to you in the midst of labours necessitated by "Mercadet." "Mercadet" is the battle of a man against his creditors, and the schemes he employs to escape them. It is exclusively a comedy, and I hope this time to reach success, and also to satisfy literary requirements.
Besides doing this comedy I am at this moment finishing "Le Curé de village," one of the works to be included in the "Scènes de la Vie de campagne," and by no means the least of them. But it needs much labour to add a book to the "Lys dans la Vallée" and "Le Médecin de campagne." However, I hope that "Le Curé" will surpass both; and you will think it does yourself; for the"Curé de village" is the application of Catholic repentance to civilization, just as the "Médecin de campagne" is the application of philanthropy; and the first is far more poetic and loftier. One is of man; the other is of God.
I shall do this year "Les Paysans" which has been composed these two years, and the proofs are in my hands. But hunted as I am, without any tranquillity, I cannot give myself up to my literary sympathies. I do only that which is most pressing.
"Pierrette" is not yet out. You know why. Carried along by truth, by the drama, it was necessary to speak of marriage and the results of marriage. But you will see that all is kept to the most decorous language. I don't know when it will please the publisher to bring out the book. Wait for the Paris edition of both "Pierrette" and "Vautrin;" ask Bellizard for the third edition; that is the only good one, and it has a scene added.
I hope to publish this year a complete edition of the four Parts of the "Études de Mœurs," and I have before me still to do the "Scènes de la Vie politique" and "Scènes de la Vie militaire;" two rather long and very difficult portions. It will take me at least six years to get to the end of them.
I have great need to-day to feel my wounds nursed and healed, to be able to live without cares at Les Jardies, and to pass my days with my work and a woman. But it seems that the history of all other men will never be other than a romance for me. Debts are a burden under which I must succumb. Since the reckoning I gave you in Geneva—do you remember?—nothing has changed; I have lived, and I have marked my place, that is all. I have sustained myself on the surface of the waves by swimming. God grant that I may not go under! but you will pray for my soul's rest, will you not?
I leave you for "Mercadet."
May 15.
This is the evening of my Catholic fête, and four days hence is my birthday. I have never, since I lived, seen a fête on those days; no one has ever wished me returns of them, except once, when Madame de Castries, the first year of our acquaintance, sent me the most magnificent bouquet I ever saw. Therefore I am always sad on these days. My mother cares little for me. I am so busy I have always told my sister not to keep our fêtes, and there has never been any one else to fête me. I do not count Madame de Berny, for that was a daily fête. But then, from 1822 to 1832 my life was exceptional. Chance has acted towards me as fate with those fantastic animals of the desert who have but a few rare joys in their life, and die without perpetuating themselves. This is how it was that the unicorn became a lost species, and why that sublime painter of "Chastity," Il Pontormo, has placed a unicorn beside that beautiful emblematical figure. I will own to you in your ear, that I would rather, by far, have happiness than fame; that I would give all my works to be happy as I see certain fools being happy.
Believe, dear, that in what I said to you about not writing to the rue de La Rochefoucauld, there was a reason superior to all pettiness. That person is about to publish a book such as he published on England, and I believe it will be terrible [de Custine's book on Russia]. I cannot tell you more; your intelligence will do the rest. I am extremely glad, knowing how things may turn, that he has not been in your regions.
The friendship of which I spoke to you, and at which you laugh apropos of my dedication, is not all I thought it. English prejudices are terrible, they take away an essential to all artists, thelaisser-aller, unconstraint. In the "Lys dans la Vallée," I explained the women of that county in a few words, as I divined it in Lady Ellenborough during the two hours I walked about her park, whilethat silly Prince Schonberg was making love to her, and during dinner.
Each step I take in life gives me a profound respect for the past. I cannot tell you all I feel on that subject, not here at least, but I will at Wierzchownia, where you will see me appear unexpectedly; for I look to your region as to an asylum for my sorrows on the day when they become intolerable. So I am not sure whether you ought to desire to see me, with the white staff in my hand and the wallet on my back.
I beg of you, write me at least once a month, and remember that no letter of yours has ever gone without an answer. The autograph is from Meissonier, who is reviving the Flemish school among us,—the painter of "Le Fumeur," "Le Liseur," and "La Partie d'échecs."
Aux Jardies, June, 1840.
Mon Dieu!what intervals between your letters, dear! If you knew what uneasiness you give me, how often I spend hours with my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands, asking myself what has happened to you. And the visions far beyond sight! As for me, I have my excuse for the months that separate my letters: either I have suffered beyond measure, or I have worked enormously, or I have had some of those deplorable affairs of which you know nothing.
It is now twenty days that I have suffered much with a species of cholerine, or inflammation of the bowels, caused by an increase of anxieties and labour; for the one leads to the other. I have written the comedy in five acts, "Mercadet;" but Frédérick wants changes. The interests which are fighting each other over the corpse of the Porte-Saint-Martin prevent the provisional opening which the minister had granted me; so the three or four hopes which had been successively lighted are successively extinguished. In these last hopes, these last efforts, myenergy has broken down, and, at this moment I am not worth an insect pinned to the card-board of a naturalist's box. I am over-burdened with toil, obligations, business, till I no longer recognize myself, and a life so embarrassed as mine no longer interests me. This is strictly the fact. I would offer half my burden to any benevolent passer-by. If you know a woman who needs to exercise great faculties, who is tired of a monotonous life, who desires a position in which there is much to combat and to conquer, who would be enticed by the first campaign in Italy, who is thirty-six to forty years of age, and has the wherewithal to fight with, send her to me; I will occupy her.
Joking apart; I am very lonely when my brain ceases to work, or lies down to rest. There is something humiliating, in the thought that a trifling inflammation of insignificant viscera prevents the exercise of our highest powers.
I have "Le Curé de village" to finish and a crowd of other things. "Pierrette" is delayed for the preface by the publisher, I don't know for what reason. The business of publishing books has become so bad that I believe not ten volumes will be written in the next two years. Belgium has ruined French literature. Whatungenerosityin those who read us! If every one had refused the Belgian editions and insisted, as you have, on the French editions, if only two thousand persons on the continent had acted thus, we should have been saved. But Belgium has sold already some twenty to thirty thousand copies. This evil will end by force of evil. Meantime our poets starve or go mad.
June 21.
To go to see you, to go down the Rhine, to see Prussia and Saxony is in me the desire of a lover, of a nun, of a child, of a young girl, of all that is most vehement. But my interests are so threatened and I am so poor that travel is forbidden me. Oh! you do not know how much there is of longing, of repressed desires and wishes inwhat I now write to you, or how many times my imagination and my heart have made that journey.
Your last letter came in the midst of my cruel trouble, and I could not answer you immediately. Our two existences, one so tranquil and deep, the other so foaming and rapid, flow ever parallel; but that which afflicts me grievously is that there is no cohesion. When thought has constantly traversed space, when a thousand times it has filled the void, one feels that this is not all. Something, I know not what, is wanting, or rather, I know too well. These wings incessantly spread and folded cause suffering; it is not lassitude, it is worse. Violent desires possess me at times to quit all, to begin some other thing than this present life, like children quitting play. I would like to know if you too have these impulses of soul; I ask you to tell me because I know that you are true, and above the pettiness of vanity, which makes people drape themselves for themselves. But you will answer me by some religious turn to things celestial, or by a blasting phrase against our human nature. Yet I would not take from your religion what the eye takes from a mirror as we use it, for it is one of the greatest charms of your heart and mind. I never lay down a letter from you without believing in something divine, and I will not tell you now of the regrets that then assail me at the intolerable idea of our separation. It seems to me that all would be well with me if the divinity were near me.
I entreat you, write me every fortnight; you live in solitude, without so much to do; it would be easy for you; and when one knows that one does good to a poor being who has no one and who can thus be comforted, is not that a work of charity?
June 30.
I shall send this letter, having nothing more to tell you of my affairs, though much to add on my grief at your abandonment.
July 3.
I have your letter, number 55, and I answer its questions.Primo: I have not received the picture of Wierzchownia; no, I have received nothing, absolutely nothing.Secundo: Borget is in China.Tertio: I forgot to tell you of M. de Custine; but he was superb at the representation of "Vautrin." He had a proscenium box and applauded vehemently; he behaved in the most superior way. If I told you not to write to the rue de La Rochefoucauld it was because in that street a book is being written which will be terrible, and I do not want you to commit the slightest imprudence. There will be anger; all the more justifiable becausetheyhave been very well received. My friendship saw danger ahead, and signalled it to you; believe me as to this.
I thank you from the bottom of my soul for your letter, but I am in despair to know that you were ill while I was blaming you for not writing. Solicitude at a distance is often injustice. Yes, I am very willing that "Les Paysans" should be for M. Hanski if I write it. I am at the end of my resignation. I believe that I shall leave France and carry my bones to Brazil, in a mad enterprise, which I choose on account of its madness. I will no longer bear the life I lead; enough of useless toil! I shall burn my letters, all my papers, leave nothing but my furniture and Les Jardies, and depart; confiding a few little things that I value to my sister's friendship. She will be a faithful dragon to those treasures. I will give a power of attorney to some one; I will leave my works to be managed by others, and go to seek the fortune that is lacking to me here. Either I shall return rich, or no one shall ever know what becomes of me. This is a very fixed project in my mind, which I shall put into execution this winter resolutely, without mercy. My work can never pay my debt. I must look to something else. I have not more than ten years leftof real energy, and if I do not profit by them I am a lost man. You are the only person who will be informed of this decision. Certain circumstances may hasten my departure. Nevertheless, however rapid may be the execution of this plan, you shall receive my farewell. A letter from Havre or Marseille will tell you all. This project has not been formed without sad hours of days and nights. Do not think that I could renounce a literary life and France without the most frightful wrenching. But poverty is implacable, and if I go farther it will become shameful, intolerable.
I know that what I write will give you infinite pain; but is it not better to tell you of it and explain my reasons, than leave you to hear it brutally from the newspapers? But first I shall try a last throw of the dice, my pen aiding; If that succeeds, I may pull through for the time being. Perhaps I might be able to go and bid you farewell; perhaps there are chances that I could rest three months with you, instead of resting three months with Madame Carraud.
Ah! dear, you don't know what it is, after writing fifteen volumes in fifteen months, to do sixteen acts of plays—"Vautrin," "Pamela Giraud," "Mercadet"—uselessly; for there is no longer any hope of opening the Porte-Saint-Martin. Lawsuits, battling over a coffin, prevent that, The Français is closed three months for repairs. The Renaissance is dead. There is no theatre where Frédérick can play. I tried the Vaudeville in its new building, but the manager has no money.
You ask me for details about Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo is an extremely brilliant man; he has as much wit as poesy. He is most fascinating in conversation, a little like Humboldt, but superior, and admitting more dialogue. He is full of bourgeois ideas. He execrates Racine, and considers him a secondary man. He is crazy in that direction. There is more of good than ofevil in him. Though the good is an outcome of vanity, and though all things are deeply calculated in him, he is, in the main, a charming man, besides being the great poet that he is. He has lost much of his quality, his force, and his value by the life he leads.
August, 1840.
I have attempted a last effort; I am doing, by myself alone, the "Revue Parisienne," just as Karr does "Les Guêpes."[1]The first number has appeared. I postpone the execution of my project on Brazil. One loves France so well! I will bear up. I am going to undertake the "Scènes de la Vie militaire." I shall begin with Montenotte, and shall, no doubt, go, in September or October, to the region about Nice, Albenga, and Savona, and examine the ground where those fine manœuvres took place.
This letter has been lying two months on my table. It has been hindered by so many matters! But at last it goes, bearing to you the testimony of an affection always on the morrow of our meeting on the Crêt, and eight years old.
A thousand tender regards and a thousand more. I am writing politics, and posing as the friend of Russia. May God bless you! The Russian alliance is much in my mind. I hate the English.
"Pierrette" is about to appear. You can let Anna read it, for all you say. There is nothing "improper" in it.
[1]Three numbers alone appeared: July 25, August 25, September 25. Some of his best criticism, that on Cooper and Stendhal, was in it; also the tale of "Z. Marcas," etc. The first number begins thus: "We have always thought that nothing was more interesting, comic, and dramatic than the comedy of government." See Édition Définitive, vol. xxiii., pp. 567-785.—TR.
[1]Three numbers alone appeared: July 25, August 25, September 25. Some of his best criticism, that on Cooper and Stendhal, was in it; also the tale of "Z. Marcas," etc. The first number begins thus: "We have always thought that nothing was more interesting, comic, and dramatic than the comedy of government." See Édition Définitive, vol. xxiii., pp. 567-785.—TR.
Sèvres, October 1, 1840.
Dear countess, I have this moment received your last letter.Mon Dieu!what can I say to you? All that it contains of kind, expansive, and consoling is enough to make one accept worse miseries than mine, if such existed. I have only sad things to reply to sad things.
In the first place, I had completely settled the project of going to spend the winter with you; but my lawyer opposed it with wise reasons—that do not satisfy me. Yes, I dreamed of seven or eight months' peace and tranquillity, constant work, but without fatigue, complete forgetfulness of all my tortures of all kinds. My arrangements were made; I was to see Berlin and Dresden, and then go to you. Well, it is all put off. Your presentiment was true. Allwasto have taken place; I felt a joy so infinite that nothing can express it. But it would be, alas! mad and imprudent. My affairs are in too bad a state. I spike my cannon, I retreat, to return in force. I will explain all this in detail.
But, first of all, I must answer what you asked me, Which made me smile, for I thought that you did not need to ask it; you ought to have felt sure of that. Yes, I will never take any extreme resolution, in whatever way it be, without first letting you know of it. When I abandon myself, as they say, to the grace of God, I will begin by abandoning myself to the grace of your Highness, like a good moujik. You have precedence of God; for I confess to you, to my great detriment, that I love you much more than him. You will scold me, but why should I lie? I shall skip about your lands of Paulowska with you, reading to you. For a nothing I'd make myself Russian, if—But theifis too long to unravel. All is not said about my journey; they have made me abandon it—but I have not abandoned it. It depends a good deal on finance, and theoutcome of political affairs, for we are furiously at war. I can't understand why an understanding is not come to.
If you knew what it is in the midst of my agitated life to get a letter from you, especially such a letter as I have just received, oh! you would write me oftener, you would tell me fully all you do and all you think.
By this time you must have received "Vautrin" and "Pierrette." "Pierrette" is a diamond. In another twenty days the "Curé de village" will be out, but lopped. I had not time to finish the book. It lacks precisely all that concerns thecuré, the amount of a volume, which I shall write for the second edition [it was never written]. The publisher and I could not come to an understanding on this increase of volumes.
November 16, 1840.
Precisely one month and a half interval! And so many things to tell you that I can't tell you; it would take volumes. Perhaps this fact will enlighten you: From the time you receive this letter write to me at the following address: "Monsieur de Brugnol, rue Basse, No. 19, Passy, near Paris." I am here, in hiding for some time. Nevertheless, if, in the meantime, you have addressed me at Sèvres, I shall get the letters.
Dear countess, I had to move very hastily and hide myself here, where I am. But, as Marie Dorval says, money troubles are mere vexations; it is only in the things of the heart that grief and misery are. Though all goes badly with me, financially speaking, all goes well, for I'm going to Russia; I'm going to see you as soon as I can earn the money for the trip. I hope to leave for Berlin in February; I shall stay a month in Berlin, fifteen days in Dresden, and be with you by the middle of April.
I have taken my mother to live with me, and I cannot leave home without leaving the household provided-forfor a year. It is probable that I shall stay, June and July, in Saint-Petersburg, and return to you a second time in the autumn.
During the period when this letter has lain, begun but unfinished, among my papers (which have been for the past month in boxes, mixed up with those of my whole library), I have received a letter from the banking-house of Rougemont and Löwenberg, telling me to send there for the picture you announced to me. So, be at ease on that subject, as well as on the other subjects that interest us, about which you write superfluous things.
It goes without saying that if I earn my ducats more quickly than I expect, I shall start the earlier. I begin to feel a deep execration for my dear country. You don't know what a bear-garden it is; I should like Holland better, I think,—the most unliterary country in the world. We will talk about this, dear, before long, and there's enough in it for more than one evening.Mon Dieu!how long it is since I have seen you! It seems to me a dream to know within myself that I am starting, going,—that every step will be bringing me nearer to you! I have recovered strength for the work I am doing at this moment, in thinking that it will give me liberty to go to Germany, and to find you at the end of my errand.
I am just now finishing "Le Curé de village;" it is a great thing, which occupies me much.
My last efforts have been poisoned by sufferings beyond the measure of those that a man can bear; but I have neither time nor strength to tell you anything about them. It must be for later. I can only send you this letter, written in the course of nearly two months—for it is now November 26; and provided it tells you my final decision, that's enough, I think; but there are many things beneath that decision.
No longer adieu, dear, butà bientôt, for three monthsis soon. I shall write you once, or twice, between now and the time I take the steamer. A thousand tender regards, a thousand good hopes, and all that a long attachment brings of gracious thoughts and flowers long compressed in the depths of the soul. Many things in your last letter did me good, of which I will not speak to you; but I did not think you had so much persistence, or so much will. When you show me that the excellent advice I gave you in Geneva has been followed, I quiver all over.
All kind remembrances to those whom I know among the many who surround you, and many things to M. Hanski.
You have again harped on the "elegant empire"—-Coquette! but you make me smile rather sadly.
There is one piece of serious news with me. I have taken my mother to live with me. An increase of trouble and work. But!—
December 16, 1840.
At last I have been able to go to Rougemont and Löwenberg and obtain the picture of Wierzchownia. I brought home, myself, the box made of those northern woods, which, on being broken, exhaled such delicious, enchanting odours that they gave me a sort of nostalgia. If you burn such wood as that it must be a sensuous delight to stir your fire; more than a pleasure. The picture has been injured; all journeys, though they may form youth, hurt pictures. But, dearest of dears, the canvas is immense; we have no spaces large enough in our honeycomb cells that are called in Paris apartments. I shall put the original at Les Jardies (if I can keep that place), and I will have a reduced copy made by my dear Borget, who has just returned from China, and is working for the Salon this year; thus I can have it beforemy eyes in my study. I have had much pleasure in contemplating that picture; but you never told me that a river ran before your lawn, nor that you had a Louvre. It all seems very lovely, very beautiful, very fresh. The buildings are elegant; we have nothing better here. What melancholy in the background! How one divines the steppes and a country without a rise! You did well; it was a good action to send me the likeness of your dwelling; but I would also like a view of Paulowska.
Dear, it does not lessen my desire to go and see you, which I shall put into execution. I am working night and day to arrange my affairs here, and make a purse for my journey. You will see me, some fine day, landing on that charming bridge.
This is only a little line to tell you that my eyes will be forever on your windows, on the columns of your peristyle, and, while examining my ideas, I shall be walking on that lawn.
"Le Curé de village" will be out in a few days; "Les Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées" are nearly finished. My lawyer, a man of admirable character, maintains my debt by legal process [maintient ma dette par la procédure]. I shall give two plays and a quantity of articles. I shall leave my proofs to be corrected by friends in my absence, for a dozen volumes will be re-issued during my travels.
Perhaps I shall come to you an Academician; but certainly with the satisfaction of having published "Le Curé de village," which is one of the stones of my pediment. I shall bring that work with me. I would like to know to whom I shall address myself to avoid all annoyance at the frontier regarding my manuscripts. Do you think I ought to write to Saint Petersburg, or will a few words from Pablen, your ambassador, suffice? I should like to obtain information about this because I would then bring you my manuscripts.
When I saw your cage, it seemed to me it was mine, and I ought to be living in it. You have made me very happy, and you must have had a presentiment of my pleasure when you asked me so often if the picture had arrived.
Yesterday, December 15, one hundred thousand persons were in the Champs Élysées. A thing happened that would make one believe that natural effects had intentions: at the moment when the body of Napoleon entered the Invalides, a rainbow formed above that building. Victor Hugo has written a sublime poem, an ode, on the return of the Emperor. From Havre to Pecq both banks of the Seine were black with people, and all those populations knelt as the boat passed them. It was more grand than the Roman Triumphs, he was recognizable in his coffin; the flesh was white; the hand speaking. He is the man of prestige to the last; and Paris is the city of miracles. In five days one hundred and twenty statues were made, seven or eight of them very fine, also one hundred triumphal columns, urns twenty feet high, and tiers of seats for a hundred thousand spectators. The Invalides was draped in violet velvet powdered with bees. My upholsterer said to me, to explain the thing: "Monsieur, in such cases, all the world upholsters."[1]
Well, adieu. I work, and every hour lost delays my journey. I send you to-day the most precious of autographs,for Frédérick Lemaître never writes a line; he is as great as Talma.
All tender and gracious homage. My regards and remembrances to those about you. You ought by this time to have "Pierrette" complete.
[1]This relates to the return of Napoleon's body from Saint Helena. The translator of this volume was present. The Champs Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde were lined with those statues, between which were the urns, filled with burning incense. As the catafalque (all gold, and draped with violet gauze) paused beneath the Arch, the populace fell on their knees, believing that Napoleon would rise from the dead. The remnant of the Old Guard followed him on foot. The weather was so terribly cold that fifteen hundred persons were said to have died of it; three hundred of them English.—-TR.
[1]This relates to the return of Napoleon's body from Saint Helena. The translator of this volume was present. The Champs Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde were lined with those statues, between which were the urns, filled with burning incense. As the catafalque (all gold, and draped with violet gauze) paused beneath the Arch, the populace fell on their knees, believing that Napoleon would rise from the dead. The remnant of the Old Guard followed him on foot. The weather was so terribly cold that fifteen hundred persons were said to have died of it; three hundred of them English.—-TR.
March, 1841.
Dear countess; I have received your dear letter number 57, dated December 20, 1840, and if I reply rather late it is that I have been so busy.
I cannot leave till I have settled my affairs in a manner to have a truce, and I have still many things to do for that: three volumes to write and a comedy; but patience! some day I shall take my flight. Do not fear; when I start, I will write to you from each town in Germany, where I make any stay.
"Le Curé de village" has appeared. It is a book that has cost me much time; you will see that when you read it. It is not yet finished, nor perfected.
I work immensely, and I have scarcely the time to write to you. Last month I wrote a novel for the newspaper "Le Commerce," entitled "Une Ténébreuse Affaire," and the beginning of a book called "Les Deux Frères," for the "Presse." I have also "Les Lecamus" in the "Siècle," which is a study on Catherine de' Medici, in the style of the "Secret des Ruggieri." At this moment I am doing a novel for "Le Messager," and finishing for my publisher "Les Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées." That is a good deal of work, all that!—without counting nonsense like "Les Peines de cœur d'une chatte Anglaise," and a "Note" to the Chamber of Deputies on literary property, etc. So, to win a moment of liberty I work like a poor wretch; but I look at the promised land: that balcony, the corner of the house, the study for work!
Before I have Les Jardies painted for you I mustknow if that cottage remains to me, if I shall not be despoiled of it.
When I start, I shall take care to avoid being stopped at the custom-house, by taking nothing or almost nothing with me, and fortifying myself with introductions; be easy in mind about that. I think I shall be able to start in May, and reach you in June or July.
My traveller, Borget, is working for fame on his landscapes; but I am very much afraid he has not genius, and we have so manytalentsthat one more will not be remarked.
You do not tell me anything of all that interests me most,—your health, your person, yourself; and that is very wrong. Is it to make me come and see for myself? I don't need that. You know well that I am kept here by my obligations, which are enormous, and the weight of which will end by dragging me under.
I am grieved to know that months must pass before you receive "Le Curé de village," for that is one of the books which I should like you to read as soon as it is finished. A copy has gone to Henri de France with these words: "Homage of a faithful subject." You will read a certain passage in favour of Charles X., which will prevent the book from obtaining the Montyon prize.
They tell me there is a cousin of yours here, but he has not looked me up any more than your brother did. George Sand, whom I go to see quite often, could have told him where to find me. This cousin seems to me a simpleton, who swallows a quantity of nonsense about me, if I may judge by what I am told of him. You must admit, dear, that your brother has been wilfully mistaken; for George Sand and I continue pretty good friends, and I see her about once every month. I lead a very retired life on account of my work, but I am not unfindable to my friends.
March 15.
I have just returned from George Sand, who has never seen or known Comte Adam Rzewuski. I stirred her up and questioned her with much pertinacity; and as for the last three years she has had Chopin for friend, that illustrious Pole, who remembers Léonce and his brother [cousins of Madame Hanska], would certainly have known your dear Adam. Besides which, Grzymala, the lover of Mme. Z..., and Gurowski and all the Poles who cram her rooms would surely know that Adam was Adam Rzewuski. Do not show that you know this, for men are terrible in a matter of self-love, and you would make him my enemy. George Sand did not leave Paris at all last year. She lives at number 16 rue Pigalle, at the end of a garden, and over the stables and coach-house which belong to the house on the street. She has a dining-room in which the furniture is carved oak. Her little salon iscafé-au-laitcoloured, and the salon in which she receives has many superb Chinese vases full of flowers. There is always a jardinière full of flowers. The furniture is green; there is a side table covered with curiosities; also pictures by Delacroix, and her own portrait by Calamatta. Question your brother, and ascertain if he saw these things, which are striking and quite impossible not to see. The piano is magnificent and upright, in rosewood. Chopin is always there. She smokes cigarettes, andneveranything else. She rises at four o'clock; at four Chopin has finished giving his lessons. You reach her rooms by what is called a miller's staircase, steep and straight. Her bedroom is brown; her bed two mattresses on the floor, in the Turkish fashion.Ecco, contessa.She has the pretty, tiny little hands of a child. And finally, the portrait of the lover of Mme. Z... as a Polish castellan, three-quarter length, hangs in the dining-room, and nothing would more strike a stranger's eye. If yourbrother can bring himself out of that, you will know the truth. But let yourself be fooled—Oh! travellers!
If you only knew how many Balzacs there are at the different carnival balls in Paris. What adventures I shoulder! This year I have cheated everybody, for I have not set foot in any of them.
I hasten to send you this scrap of a letter, to acknowledge yours, and assure you that my desire to start increases. What your brother is right about is the incredible influence of the atmosphere of Paris; literally, one drinks ideas. At all times, all hours, there is something new; whoso sets foot on the boulevard is lost; he must amuse himself.
March 25.
Your cousin, or M. Hanski's cousin, is named Gericht or Geritch. I don't know who they all are who call themselves your cousins, but this I know, you have no more cruel enemies; they loudly exclaim at my friendship for you, and make much noise about it; while I am living in my corner and have not uttered your name ten times. When an exiled princess said to me, "We all know you love Poland, M. de Balzac," I answered, "It would be difficult not to loveyourcountry."
But I am very silly to be irritated by such things! The world is the world. Some of your "cousins" say such things as this, accepting all the calumnies they hear about me: "Ah! if my cousin knew what M. de Balzac has done!" They cannot know that I write you my life very nearly as it passes. However, this has wounded me deeply, and will, no doubt, cause you pain. There is another cousin of yours here, I am told. This M. Gericht is very proud of our illustrious friendship, but the other cousin is much grieved by it. So be it! Is it not enough to make one hate that smoke called fashion or fame, whichever you like?
I tell you these silly trifles because I have just been thrashed by them; and every time I go out I am wounded by something of the kind, which, however, does not concern you, and therefore I bear it better than what touches you.
That silly Princess R... came here, and does not distinguish between Vienna and Paris; she has, perhaps, the samebonhomie, but Paris is notbonhomme. There are, as your brother told you, ideas in the very air, and an animation which is not to be seen in any other people or any other capital. Imagine what a city is in which superiorities of all kinds are collected.
I made George Sand repeat to me that she had never seen a Pole or a Russian of your brother's name. I spent, two days ago, a charming evening with Lamartine, Hugo, Madame d'Agoult, Gautier, and Karr at Madame de Girardin's. I have not laughed so much since our days in Geneva.[1]
Adieu, dear;à bientôt. I shall start for Germany, in all probability, in May, and I hope, after so much toil, to have well earned seeing you and saying,Sempre medesimo.
[1]See Lamartine's portrait of Balzac at Mme. de Girardin's; Memoir to this edition, pp. 123-125.—TR.
[1]See Lamartine's portrait of Balzac at Mme. de Girardin's; Memoir to this edition, pp. 123-125.—TR.
Passy, June 1, 1841.
This night, dear countess, I have seen you in a dream, in a manner most accurate, most precise, and I renew the fable of "Les Deux Amis." I write to you instantly. I was frightened by seeing you so distinctly; then I woke, went to sleep again, and read a good, long letter from you. You were not changed; and I was in ecstasies at seeing you thus. You were both far and near; I did not even have the pleasure of pressing your hand.
Did this come from my speaking of you to a Russian lady the evening before, at the house of the daughter of the late Prince Koslowski,—a Mademoiselle Crewuzki,who was in Vienna when we were there, and who tried to prove to me that you were not beautiful (she is hideous)? Or is it that a letter from you is on its way to me? The same thing happened to Madame de Berny; whenever I wrote to her, she dreamed of the letter. That thought overcame me just now, at my desk, before beginning to write to you.
Alas! dear, no journey; at any rate, not for another year at least. So many events have happened that I know not how to relate them all. I sum them up.
When I wrote to you, "I am coming," I doubted the possibility of living in France amid the dreadful struggles which consumed my life; and I had the idea of going to you in Petersburg and renouncing France. But a last effort has drawn me out of the claws of the publisher to whom I owed a hundred thousand francs. By working day and night, and pledging myself for six months to the labours of a literary Hercules, I have paid him that money.
I do not owe more than one hundred and fifty thousand; and though age is advancing on me, and work becomes each day more toilsome, I conceive the hope of ending this horrible debt in eighteen months by putting myself in a situation which my lawyer wishes me to hold, in order not to be sued and not to pay more costs. "Les Jardies" will be sold to alocum tenens, and when my debts are paid I shall recover it. On the other hand, my mother has ruined herself for my brother Henry, who is now in the colonies, and she lives with me. Besides which, I have almost my majority for the Academy. All these things made me renounce the project of going to Russia, and I have signed an agreement to do ten new volumes the coming year. I have also to write articles promised to the "Presse" and the "Siècle." And finally,cara, I have signed a bargain for a complete edition of my works, to be managed by a great publishinghouse, printed with the utmost luxury, and sold at a low price.
All these things, so great, so important to me, have been settled since my last letter. But I have not worked, published, and attended to affairs with impunity.
Do not be vexed with me. For two months I literally have not had time to write or do anything but what I have done. Les Jardies were seized, a creditor was about to have them sold; I had to get fifty thousand francs in a month, and I did get them. I had to publish my books and articles, and attend to business without money—absolutely without money. It was raining incessantly; I went on foot from Passy to do my business, tramping all day and writing all night.Primo: I did not go mad.Secundo: I fell ill. I had to travel. As soon as the result was obtained I was seized with an inflammation of the blood which threatened to attack the brain. I went to Touraine for two weeks; but on my return Dr. Nacquart condemned me to a bath of three hours a day, to drink four pints of water, and take no food, inasmuch as my blood was coagulating. I am just out of this barbarous but heroic treatment, with complexion clear, refreshed, and ready for new struggles.
That is the summing up of my history; for if I had to go into details it would take volumes.
Dear, I have not received from you the least little word since your number 57, dated December 29. Oh! how wrong that is, when you are loved as you are by me, when you alone are in this heart with poverty and toil—two incorruptible guardians. Why have you abandoned me thus when you are my only thought, the end and the bond of so much work, when, ever since I have had Wierzchownia before me in painting, I have found nothing in my fields of thought that I did not seek on the waters of your river, beneath your windows,among your roses and on your carpets of green grass? Oh! has remorse never touched your heart? Has no thought ever come to you in a sparkle from your candle at night, saying, "He thinks of you!" M. Hanski himself, has he never said to you, "Why don't you write to that poor fellow?"
Has nothing pleaded for the poor unhappy one, the sufferer, the night-watchman, the maker of books and articles, the pretended poet—for me, in short, for the traveller to Neufchâtel, Geneva, and Vienna, who is not present before you now because the journey costs money, and money and publishing are two irreconcilable terms.
Yes! six months without writing to me! I have always had good reasons for my silence; but you have none for yours; you ought to write me three times against my once, and it is I who write twice to your once!Ingrato cuore!
My excuses are these: I have published "Le Curé de village" (still incomplete). I have done three quarters of "Les Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées." I have published "Une Ténébreuse Affaire." "Les Lecamus," "Les Deux Frères" and I am about to publish "Les Paysans;" I have done many useless works for a living; what I call useless because they are outside of my real works, and therefore, except for the money earned, lost time. And finally, between now and a month hence, my Work will be published in parts under the title ofLa Comédie Humaine, and I must correct at least three times five hundredfeuillesof compact type!
Ah! dear, the woman beloved, a little bread in a corner, tranquillity, moderate work—that is my hope. I know it is enormous in one respect, but it is humble for the rest. Why is it not granted? God wills it not; but I cannot see his reasons.
Dear, here are my present hopes and my programme. I am about to write a book forthe prixMontyon, whichwill pay a third of my debt. Another third will be paid by the theatre; the last third by my usual work. You will come to Baden and I shall see you there, for I could absent myselfonemonth; but two or three, no, not under present circumstances.
My sister still wants to marry me. She has among her friends a goddaughter of Louis-Philippe, daughter of that Bonnard who brought up the King of the French. I laughed so that my sister was speechless. "In the first place," I said to her, "I will not marry any woman under thirty-six, preferably forty, inasmuch as I am forty-two."
Apropos of that, I expected a letter, from you May 16, Saint Honoré's day, or the 20th, my birthday, and I had palpitations for nothing at post-time.Ingrato cuore!But you are lovedquand même. During these six months there have been moments when I fancied you were coming.
So Gurowski elopes with an Infanta and marries her! Oh! how much better to be a fool like Gurowski than an intrepid traveller like me.
If you only knew what I would give to have a child. No, there are moments when the fear of waking up old, ill, incapable of inspiring any sentiment (and that is beginning) seizes me, and I almost go mad. I go and walk alone in some solitary place, cursing life and our execrable country—and yet the only one where it is possible to live.
I have here, before my eyes, your last letter of December 29, alas! You were looking at a ray of sunshine thawing your windows; you saw the past in that, and the future! Would to heaven that ray would come to me. I await it with impatience—that ray, your letter, which shines upon me from time to time. Six months' silence, a winter of the heart! What has happened to you during all that time? Have you been ill? Are yousuffering? What? The mind and heart wander dolorously through all the zones of supposition, doubt, anxiety.
If I were less ruined, less bound to give all my money to my lawyer, I should go to see you, because I am ordered to go away for a time; but I am only allowed five hundred francs' worth of liberty.
Well, adieu, dear; or rather,à bientôt. In spite of my promises, always baffled by fate and misfortune, believe that the only thing I desire is to go and see you. I will not talk of it any more. I will try for it. Perhaps the very force of work may exact a longer rest than fifteen days spent in Touraine by the combined commands of lawyer and doctor. When I shall have finished bringing out the books which I must still do for Souverain (that is, five volumes), I shall, no doubt, find a moment. Do not be vexed with me for postponing this, to me, great happiness; I had to do so for my interests. I had to rescue the hundred thousand francs Les Jardies cost, and persevere in that great and noble task—of paying debts. You owe me to my own despair, and now I have begun to hope again.Hopeis, above all to me, a virtue; it is a duty, not done without many tears shed secretly, which you do not see. God owes me a great compensation, and among those he does send me I count the pure benedictions your sweet hand wafts me with the adieus of your dear letters.
A thousand wishes for the happiness of your dear Anna. My affectionate compliments to all those I know about you, and my friendship to the Count. I have not forgotten him among my dedications; he will find his in the beautiful complete edition I am now preparing.
As for you, dear Elect Lady, the most adored among all my friendships, preferred even to my natural affections, you who are before the sister, and whom I shall ever hold in affection, I do not bid you farewell; I offeryou afresh all that is yours—but one cannot give one's self twice.
June 30, 1841.
Dear countess, I cannot understand your silence. It is many days now that I have looked for your answer. I have written to you twice since I received your last letter, and I am a prey to the keenest anxiety. These fears and uncertainties seize me in the midst of my work; I interrupt it to ask myself where you are, and what you are doing. Perhaps you have been elsewhere than at Wierzchownia; perhaps you have only lately returned there. In short, I torment myself strangely, and I have, in my laborious life, amid all my thoughts, one thought which masters the rest and puts among them an anxiety that is truly dreadful, for it attacks the sentiment by which I live.
I have succinctly related to you the business I have done, and how I have drawn myself out of certain bad troubles. The physical and moral fatigue which labours of all kinds caused me, made me make a little journey of two weeks into Bretagne in April and a few days in May. I returned ill, and spent the rest of the month in taking baths of three hours to quell the inflammation that threatened me and in following a debilitating regimen. No more work, not the slightest strength, and I continued till the beginning of the present month in the agreeable condition of an oyster. At last, Dr. Nacquart being satisfied, I began to write again, and I have done "Ursule Mirouët," one of the privileged books, which you will read, and I am now going to work on a book for theprixMontyon.
To relate to you my life, dear, is only to enumerate my labours, and what labours! The edition ofLa Comédie Humaine(that is the title of the complete work, the fragments of which have, until now, composed the works I have published) will take two years to bringout; it contains five hundred folios of compact type. These I must read three times! It is as if I had fifteen hundred folios [24,000 pages] of compact type to read! And my regular work must not be allowed to suffer. My publishers have decided to add to each Part a vignette. This general revision of my works, their classification, the completion of the divers portions of the edifice, give me an increase of work which I alone know, and it is crushing.
Dear, this is what I shall have written this year: 1. "Le Curé de village;" 2. "Une Ténébreuse Affaire;" 3. "Le Martyr calviniste;" 4. "Le Ménage d'un Garçon;" 5. "Ursule Mirouët;" 6. The book for theprixMontyon. And besides those ten volumes I shall have written the amount of two volumes in little detached articles; and I must also, for my living, write two novels that are rather indispensable to the part of my works which is to be first published, namely: "Scènes de la Vie privée," which is to have twenty books.[1]That will make eighteen volumes in all. Judge, therefore, of what I shall have done. I have lived in ink, proofs, and literary difficulties to solve. I have slept little. I have, I think, ended, like Mithridates, in being impervious to coffee.
If my lawyer puts me, as to my affairs, in a tranquil state, I could travel in September and October. I could go as far as the Ukraine for a few days. But that depends entirely on my work; for all that the publisher pays goes to my lawyer to settle my affairs, and for my living I have only what the newspapers give me. So you can judge the difficulty of working for two masters, two necessities.
I shall wait a few days before sending this letter,hoping that you will have written to me. Since the last two pages were written I have been present at Victor Hugo's reception [at the Academy], where the poet deserted his colours and the Elder Branch, and tried to justify the Convention. His speech has caused extreme pain to his friends. He tried to caress parties; but that which might pass in shadow and privacy never goes well in public. This great poet, this fine maker of imagery, received his spurs, from whom?—Salvandy! The assemblage was brilliant; but the two orators were both bad. Praises were given to France, which I thought ridiculous. Let our pens be the masters of the world of intellect, I desire it; but that we should say it of ourselves, without contradictors, in our own Academy, is bad taste, and it disgusts me.
I am worried about my affairs. I am forced to await the conclusion of my lawyer's principal arrangement, which is to sell Les Jardies. The sale takes place July 15th.