[1]This is the last of these odious and ridiculous letters. It belongs properly to the series which ended March 11, 1834. In my opinion it has been concocted and placed under this date to convey the idea that it is one of the letters which Balzac mentions in his letter to M. Hanski of September 16 (see p. 199); and, furthermore, this is done with the intention of convincing the reader that the whole series of forged letters (which are plainly identical in character with this letter) were written by Balzac.Putting aside, for a moment, theproofsof deception which I have produced, I must say in conclusion that I think no one of literary judgment will believe that the author of the "Comédie Humaine" wrote these spurious letters.From this date the letters go on in Balzac's characteristic manner,—expansive, impulsive, boyish at times, and too full, certainly, of his debts and his troubles; but with it all is the strong underflow of a great and dauntless soul allied to things pure and noble. The story is tragic; and not the least tragic part of it is the wicked present attempt of degenerate men to degrade a hero.I here place a letter of the same date from Monsieur Hanski to Balzac, which will serve to show the sort of man he was, and how he regarded his own and his wife's friendship for Balzac.I now leave the whole subject to the judgment of the reader.—TR.
[1]This is the last of these odious and ridiculous letters. It belongs properly to the series which ended March 11, 1834. In my opinion it has been concocted and placed under this date to convey the idea that it is one of the letters which Balzac mentions in his letter to M. Hanski of September 16 (see p. 199); and, furthermore, this is done with the intention of convincing the reader that the whole series of forged letters (which are plainly identical in character with this letter) were written by Balzac.
Putting aside, for a moment, theproofsof deception which I have produced, I must say in conclusion that I think no one of literary judgment will believe that the author of the "Comédie Humaine" wrote these spurious letters.
From this date the letters go on in Balzac's characteristic manner,—expansive, impulsive, boyish at times, and too full, certainly, of his debts and his troubles; but with it all is the strong underflow of a great and dauntless soul allied to things pure and noble. The story is tragic; and not the least tragic part of it is the wicked present attempt of degenerate men to degrade a hero.
I here place a letter of the same date from Monsieur Hanski to Balzac, which will serve to show the sort of man he was, and how he regarded his own and his wife's friendship for Balzac.
I now leave the whole subject to the judgment of the reader.—TR.
From M. Hanski to M. Honoré De Balzac.
Vienna, August 3, 1834.
I have just received, monsieur, the copy of the "Médecin de campagne,"—that one of your works which I like best; the real merit of which I could wish were felt and recognized at its just value. I allowed myself, some time ago, to write to you fully on the impression this book made upon me; therefore I will not return to it, but simply beg you to receive my thanks for so precious a souvenir of your good friendship. My wife has told you, no doubt, of the way I was taken in by the "Moniteur." But explain to us who your legitimist homonym is who is made deputy from Villefranche? We thought there was for France, as for us, only one M. de Balzac; and, in that conviction, I was preparing a long letter of congratulation. In it I spoke of acertain cause[he means that of the Duchesse de Berry, then imprisoned at Blaye], of which, knowing your generous heart, I hoped to see you the champion. But, at the sweetest moment of these illusory dreams, my wife brought me your letter, and told me that you were not a deputy. Disappointed, I cursed the fatality that presides over the things of this world; I consigned my fine epistle to the flames, and the blue devils returned in troops to assail me.
But adieu, monsieur; my wife is, no doubt, writing you a long gossip. More at this time would bore you. I therefore end, assuring you of all my friendship.
Venceslas Hanski.
ToMadame Hanska.
Paris, August 1—August 4, 1834.
I have received your letter, written from Vienna, madame. You have probably received two from me, addressed to J. Collioud, with the "Chouans" and the "Médecin de campagne." Distances are so little calculable.I believe that up to the present time I have had such true sympathies that my inspirations have always been like those of my friends. I have forgotten nothing,—neither Marie de Verneuil, nor your "Chouans," nor M. Hanski, who will have his "Médecin de campagne."
I am a little chagrined. The imbeciles of Paris declare me crazy in view of the second number of "Séraphita," whereas the elevated minds are secretly jealous of it. I am worn out with work. Too much is too much. For three days past I have been seized by unconquerable sleep, which shows the last degree of cerebral weariness. I dare not tell you what an effort I am making now to write to you. I have a plumophobia, an inkophobia, which amount to suffering. However, I hope to finish my third Part by August 15. It will have cost me much. And for that reason I am afraid of some heaviness in the style and in the conception. You must judge.
The "Cabinet des Antiques" will appear in the "Revue de Paris," between the second number of "Séraphita" and the last, for the "Revue" makes the sacrifice of holding the latter back till I can finish it. You know the beginning of the "Cabinet des Antiques." It made one of our good evenings in Geneva.
Let M. Hanski console himself; I shall be deputy in 1839, and then I can better, being free of all care and all worries, act so as to render my country some service, if I am worth anything. Between now and then I expect to be able to rule in European questions by means of a political publication. We will talk about that.
I have had many troubles. My brother made a bad marriage in the Indies, and the poor boy has neither spirit, energy, nor talent. Men of will are rare!
I shall go to see you in Vienna if I can get twenty days to myself; a pretty watch given at the rightmoment to Madame Bêchet may win me a month's freedom. I am going to overwhelm her with gifts to get peace.
I have many troubles, many worries. The kind M. Hanski would not have his black butterflies if he were in my place. My second line of operations is now to be drawn out. I shall have the first Part of the "Études Philosophiques" printed within ten days. It will appear at the same time as the third Part of the "Études de Mœurs." There is but God and I, and the third person, who is never named, who are in the secret of these works which affright literature. I have sixty thousand volumes this year in the commerce of publishers, and I shall have earned seventy thousand francs. Hence, hatreds. But, alas! of those seventy thousand francs nothing will remain to me but the happiness of being free of all debt after being ruined by it.
You are very fortunate, madame, to be able to take the Danube baths; but write me soon if they are removing those frightful nervous headaches which frightened me so much. Do not suffer. Preserve your health. When you walk, do not wear those little shoes that let in water, as they did the day we went to Ferney.
Do you know I feel a little vexed with you that you can think that a man who hasmy faith and my willcan change, after all I have written to you. In the matter of money alone I do not do all I would; but in whatever belongs to the heart, to the feelings, in all that isthe manyou can have few reproaches to make to me.
Write me, very legibly, your addresses in Vienna and Baden, for I find it impossible to make out the name of the hotel where you are now.
I am to see, some day soon, an illustrious Pole, Wronsky, great mathematician, great mystic, great mechanician, but whose conduct has irregularities which the law calls swindling; though, if closely viewed, theyare seen to be the effects of dreadful poverty and a genius so superior that one can hardly blame him. He has, they say, one of the most powerful intellects in Europe.
Monday, 4.
I have been forced to interrupt my letter for a day and a half; I have not had two minutes to myself to collect my thoughts. There has been a deluge of hurried proofs and corrections; ouf! I beg you to recall me to the memory of all who compose your caravan.
Our Paris is very flat, very sad. MM. Thiers and Rigny have, they say, lost five millions at the Bourse, in consequence of the invasion that Don Carlos has made all alone. Every one talks war here, but no one believes in it. The king has dismissed Soult in order to remain at peace.
Adieu. I hope, madame, that you will amuse yourself at the Baths, and gain health; but you must walk a little. My life is so monotonous that I can tell you little of myself that is worth telling. One thought and work, that is the life of your moujik. You—you are seeing countries, you have the movement of travel which occupies and diverts. Ah! if I could travel, I would go to Moravia.
Adieu. If you hear anything in the air, if a pebble rolls at your feet, if a light sparkles, tell yourself that my spirit and my heart are frolicking in Germany. Wholly yours,
Honoré.
Paris, August 11, 1834.
Thank you, madame, for your good and amiable letter of the 3rd of this month. The envelope delighted me with its hieroglyphics, in which you have put such religious ideas.
I have many answers to give you. But a thousandmillion wafts of incense for your ideas on "Philippe le Discret." You share my sentiments on Schiller and my ideas of what I ought to do.
Oh! spend the winter in Vienna? I shall be there, yes—You have the books? Good.
No, I see no one, neither man nor woman. Mytigersbore me; they have neither claws nor brains. Besides, I seldom go to the Opera now.
How sweet your letter is! with what happiness I have read it! that description of your house, the flowers, the garden, your life so well arranged, even the blue devils on the watch for M. Hanski. Thank you for all the details you give me.
At the moment when I was reading the religious part of your letter, that where the good thoughts went to my heart, my Carmelite nuns, who had opened the windows of their chapel on account of the heat, began to sing a hymn which crossed our little street and my courtyard. I was strangely moved. Your writing gleamed in my eyes and softly entered my heart, more living than ever. This is not poesy, but one of those realities that are rare in life.
"La Recherche de l'Absolu" kills me. It is an immense subject; the finest book I can do, saysome. Alas! I shall not be through with it before the 20th of this month, in nine days. After that, I spread my wings and take a three weeks' furlough, for my head cannot sustain another idea. On the 21st I shout: "Vive l'Almanach de Gotha!" God grant that ten days later I present to you myself the "Absolu." I will not tell you anything about it. That's an author's coquetry, which you will pardon when you lay down the book.
My life, it is fifteen hours' toil, proofs, author's anxieties, phrases to polish; but, there's a distant gleam, a hope which lights me.
At last, France is beginning to bestir itself about my books. Fame will come too late; I prefer happiness. I want to be something great to increase the enjoyments of the person loved. I can only say that to you. You understand me and you will not be jealous of that thought.
Madame de Castries is dying; the paralysis has attacked the other leg. Her beauty is no more; she is blighted. Oh! I pity her. She suffers horribly and inspires pity only. She is the only person I go to see, and then for one hour every week. It is more than I really can do, but that hour is compelled by the sight of that slow death. She lives with a cataplasm of Burgundy pitch from the nape of the neck to the loins. I give you these details because you ask for them.
So, constant labour, sundry griefs, the condition of Madame de Berny, who, on her side, droops her head like a flower when its calyx is heavy with rain. She cannot bear up under her last sorrows. Never did a woman have more to endure. Will she come safely out of these crises? I weep tears of blood in thinking that she is necessarily in the country, while I am necessarily in Paris. Great sorrows are preparing for me. That gentle spirit, that dear creature who put me in her heart, like the child she most loved, is perishing, while our affection (that of her eldest son, and mine) can do nothing to allay her wounds? Oh! madame, if death takes this light from my life, be good and generous, receive me. I could think only of going to weep near you. You are the only person (Borget and Madame Carraud excepted) in whom I have found the true and sanctifying friendship. In case she dies, France would be horrible to me. Borget is away; Madame Carraud has not, in herself, the feminine softness that one needs. Hers is an antique rectitude, a reasoning friendship which has its angles. Youfeel, you!
Yes, I am overwhelmed by this sorrow which approaches; and that divine soul prepares me for it, so to speak, in the few lines she is able to write to me. Yes, I have only your heart into which I can shed the tears that are in my eyes while writing this in Paris.[1]I am horribly alone; no one knows the secrets of my heart. I suffer, and before others I smile. Neither my sister nor my mother comprehend me.
These are sad pages. I have some hope. Mme. de Berny has such a rich constitution; but her age makes me tremble; a heart so young in a body that is nearly sixty, that is, indeed, a violent contrast. She has dreadful inflammations between the heart and lungs. My hand, when I magnetize her, increases the inflammation. We were obliged, therefore, to renounce that means of cure; for, as I wrote you, I was able to spend ten days with her the last of July. Oh! be well yourself! you and yours! Let me not tremble for the only beings who are dear to me, for all, at once!
I needed your letter this morning, for this morning I received a letter from a mutual friend of Madame Bêchet and me, telling me of her commercial distresses. If my book is not ready to appear she wants compensation for the delay; the "Absolu"oughtto have been finished in two months! That irritated me. I was weeping with rage—for he does weep, thistiger; he cries out, this eagle!—when your letter came. It fell into my heart like dew. I blessed you. I clasped you like a friend. You serened me, you refreshed my soul. Be happy. Shall I ever cause you a like joy? No, I shall always be your debtor in this way.
I have had other griefs. My Boileau [M. Charles Lemesle], my hypercritic, my friend, who judges and corrects me without appeal, has found a good manyblunders in the first two 12mo volumes of the "Médecin de campagne." That makes me desperate. However, we will take them out. The work shall, some day, be perfect. I was ill for two days after he showed me those blunders. They are real. We are washing up between us "La Peau de Chagrin." There must be no faults left on that edition. Add to all this money anxieties, which will not leave me tranquil till January, 1835, and there you have all the secrets of my life. There is one about which I do not speak to you. That one is the very spring of my life; it is my azure heaven, my hope, my courage, my strength, my star; it is all that one cannot tell, but it is that which you will divine. It is the oleander, the rose-bay tree, a lovely form adored beneath it, the twilight hour, a revery!
Adieu; I return to my furrow, my plough, my goad, and I shout to my oxen, "Hue!" I am just now writing thedeath of Madame Claës. I write to you between that scene of sorrow entitled the Death of a Mother, and the chapter entitled, Devotions of Youth. Remember this. Remember that between these two chapters your greeting, your letter, full of friendship, came to give me back a little courage and drive away a thousand gloomy phantoms.Thereyou were, shining like a star.
The happy husband, no longercoquebinSpachmann, will bind the manuscript which you must put with that of "Eugénie Grandet." As for that of the "Duchesse de Langeais," it has been dispersed, I don't know how. I am very careless about my manuscripts. You had to set a value upon them which made me proud, in order to make me keep them for you. So with those of "Séraphita," I am like a mother defending her young.
Do you know what courage there is in calling one's self legitimist? That party is very abject. The three parties that divide France have all descended into the mud.Oh! my poor country! I am humiliated, unhappy at all this. We shall rise out of it, I hope.
I send you no commonplaces. To tell you that I keep in reserve a thousand sincere and gentle, tender feelings would be nothing; a feeble portion, indeed, of a friendship which makes me conceive of the infinite. May the Danube make you strong and give you health; I love the Danube better than I love the Seine.
I have seen Prince Puckler Muskau here, and he seemed to me a little Mephistophelean, sprinkled with Voltaireanism. He told me that I was much appreciated in Berlin, and that if I went there—Ha! ha! bravi! brava!—But what I like in foreign lands is the good nonsense that I shall talk in the chimney-corner of 73 Landstrasse.
Adieu; distribute my friendship, regards, and remembrances to those about you as you will.
[1]Compare this with the shameful letter supposed to have been written about her to Mme. Hanska, Jan. 1834. See p. 112.—TR.
[1]Compare this with the shameful letter supposed to have been written about her to Mme. Hanska, Jan. 1834. See p. 112.—TR.
Paris, August 20, 1834.
Yesterday I had an inflammation of the brain, in consequence of my too hard work; but, by the merest chance, I was with my mother, who had a phial ofbalm tranquil, and bathed my head with it. I suffered horribly for nine or ten hours. I am better to-day. The doctor wants me to travel for two months. My unfortunate affairs allow me only twenty days. I have still ten days' work on the "Recherche de l'Absolu," which has, like "Louis Lambert," two years ago, very nearly carried me off. But on the 1st or 2nd of September I shall be on my way to see Vienna. Impossible to give myself a more agreeable object for a journey. So, between the 7th and 10th, I shall have the pleasure, you will let me say happiness, of seeing you.
No, I have had no more letters from your cousin. Something that I do not know must have made her quarrel with me.
I think as you do on Lamennais' work, "Les Paroles d'un Croyant." I nearly got myself devoured for saying that from a literary point of view the form was mere silliness, and that Volney and Byron had already employed it, and that as to doctrines, they were all taken from the Saint-Simonians. Really, those kings on a slimy, evil-smelling rock are only fit for children.
Adieu; you will be indulgent to a poor artist who rattles on with the intention of having no thought, of being very boyish, and desires only to let himself go to the one affection that never wearies: friendship and the sweetest things of the heart. Thank M. Hanski in advance for his good little letter. At this moment I have no strength to write more than what I do here. That strength is what in the eighteenth century they would have called "force of sentiment."
I am so glad to know that you are well lodged and pleased with your house.
Paris, August 25, 1834.
I may have alarmed you, madame, but Madame de Berny is better. She is not recovered, however. No, she remains in a condition of cruel weakness.
Two days ago I wrote that I should start for Germany; but that was folly, for it takes ten or twelve days to get to Vienna, as much to return, and I have but twenty to dispose of. No, it is not possible in the situation in which I am. "La Recherche de l'Absolu" consumes so much time that I find myself in arrears in all my deliveries of copy, consequently in all my payments.
On another hand, I cannot go without leaving the end of "Séraphita" for the "Revue de Paris," and how can I determine the time it will take me to finish that work, angelical to some, diabolical to me?
All this worries me; I cannot have my liberty till the month of November, and then will you still be inVienna? Yes. But I shall have only a month to myself, and the question will still be the same. I see how it is; I must wait till "Philippe II. is done."
I have the weakness and the species of physical melancholy that comes from abuse of toil. The life of Paris no longer suits me; and while I feel in my heart a veritable childhood, all that is exterior is aging. I begin to understand Metternichism in whatever is not the sole and only sentiment by which I live.
A book has just appeared, very fine for certain souls, often ill-written, feeble, cowardly, diffuse, which all the world has proscribed, but which I have read courageously, and in which there are fine things. It is "Volupté" by Sainte-Beuve. Whoso has not had his Madame de Couaën is not worthy to live. There are in that dangerous friendship with a married woman beside whom the soul crouches, rises, abases itself, is undecided, never resolving on audacity, desiring the wrong, not committing it, all the delicious emotions of early youth. In this book there are fine sentences, fine pages, but nothing. It is the nothing that I like, the nothing that permits me to mingle myself with it. Yes, the first woman that one meets with the illusions of youth is something holy and sacred. Unfortunately, there is not in this book the enticing joyousness, the liberty, the imprudence which characterize passions in France. The book is puritanical. Madame de Couaën is not sufficiently a woman, and the danger does not exist. But I regard the book as very treacherously dangerous. There are so many precautions taken to represent the passion as weak that we suspect it of being immense; the rarity of the pleasures renders them infinite in their short and slight apparitions. The book has made me make a great reflection. Woman has a duel with man: if she does not triumph, she dies; if she is not right, she dies; if she is not happy, she dies. It is appalling.
I have real need of seeing Vienna. I must explore the fields of Wagram and Essling before next June. I specially want engravings which show the uniforms of the German army, and I must go in search of them. Have the kindness to tell me merely if such things exist.
To-day, 25th, it is almost twelve days since I have received any letters from you. I live in such isolation that I count upon and look eagerly for the pleasures that come into my desert. Alas! Madame de Berny's illness has cast me into horrible thoughts. That angelic creature who, since 1821, has shed the fragrance of heaven into my life is transformed; she is turning to ice. Tears, griefs, and I can do nothing. One daughter become insane, another daughter dead, a third dying, what blows!—And a wound more violent still, of which nothing can be told. And at last, after thirty years of patience and devotion, she is forced to separate from her husband under pain of dying if she remains with him. All this in a short space of time. This is what I suffer through the heart that created me.
Then, in Berry, Madame Carraud's life is in peril through her pregnancy. Borget is in Italy. My mother is in despair about my brother's marriage; she has aged twenty years in twenty days. I am hemmed in by enormous, obligatory work, and by money cares, also by two little lawsuits which I have brought to solve the last difficulties of my literary life.
For all this one needs, as my doctor says, a skull of iron. Unhappily, the heart may burst the skull. I counted on the trip to Vienna as the traveller counts on the oasis in the desert; but the impossibility of it faces me. I must be in Paris from the 20th to the 30th of September. I have then to pay five hundred ducats, and when one digs the soil with a pen gold is rare. However, labour will suffice. I shall be free in a few months, if the abuse of study does not kill me. I begin to fear it.
Tuesday, 26.
To-day I have finished "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Heaven grant that the work be good and beautiful. I cannot judge of it; I am too weary with toil, too exhausted by the fatigues of conception. I see only the reverse side of the canvas. Everything in it is pure. Conjugal love is here a sublime passion. The love of the young girl is fresh. It is the Home, at its source. You will read it. You will also read "Souffrances inconnues," which have cost me four months' labour. They are forty pages of which I could not write but two sentences a day. It is a horrible cry, without brilliancy of style, without pretensions to drama. There are too many thoughts in it, and too much drama to show on the outside. It is enough to make you shudder, and it is all true. Never have I been so stirred by any work. It is more than "La Grenadière," more than "La Femme abandonnée."
At the present moment I am making the final corrections of style on the "Peau de Chagrin." I reprint it and remove the last blemishes. Oh! my sixteen hours a day are well employed! I go to the Opera only once a week now.
Day before yesterday Madame Sand, or Dudevant, just returned from Italy, met me in thefoyerof the Opera, and we took two or three turns together. I was to breakfast with her the next day, but I could not go. To-day I have had Sandeau to breakfast, who told me that the day after that woman abandoned him he took such a quantity of acetate of morphia that his stomach rejected it, and threw it up without there having been the slightest absorption. I was sorry I had not received the confidences of Madame George Sand. He regretted it too,—-Jules Sandeau. The poor lad is very unhappy at this moment. I have advised him to come and take Borget's room, and share with me until he can makehimself an existence with his plays. That is what has most struck me the last few days.
Well, I must bid you adieu, and this adieu, in place of theau revoir bientôton which I had counted, saddens me to a point I cannot express. Remember me to all about you. I shall write next to M. Hanski to thank him for his letter, and explain to him that the present parliament will be, for the next five years, insignificant. All the European questions in connection with France are postponed till 1839.
A thousand constant regards.
From H. De Balzac to M. Hanski.
Paris, September 16, 1834.
Monsieur,—I should be in despair if you would not undertake my defence towards Madame Hanska, though I feel, indeed, that even if she would deign to forget two letters which she has the right to think more than improper, the friendship she would then have the goodness to give me would never be like that with which she honoured me before my culpability. Nothing restores a broken tie, the join shows always; an indelible distrust remains.
But permit me to explain to you, the only person to whom I can speak of this, the mistake which gave rise to what I shall always regard in my life as a misfortune. But consider for a moment the boyish, laughing nature that I have, and on which I would not now intrench myself if I had not made you know it; it is because I have been with you as I am with myself, with the person I love best, that I justify myself.
Together with this hearty boyishness there is pride. From any other I would rather receive a sword-thrust, were it even mortal, than lower myself to explain what I have done. But to mend the chain, to-day broken, ofan affection that was dear to me, I don't know what I would not do.
Madame Hanska is, indeed, the purest nature, the most childlike, the gravest, the gayest, the best educated, the most saintly and the most philosophical that I know, and I have been won to her by all that I love best. I have told her the secret of my affections, so that I could always be with her as I wished.
One evening, in jest, she said to me that she would like to know what a love-letter was. This was said wholly without meaning, for at the moment it referred to a letter I had been writing that morning to a lady whom I will not name. But I said, laughing: "A letter from Montauran to Marie de Verneuii?" and we joked about it.
Being at Trieste, Madame Hanska wrote me: "Have you forgotten Marie de Verneuii?" (I saw she referred to the "Chouans," for which she was impatient) and I wrote those two unfortunate letters to Vienna, supposing that she remembered our joke, and replying to her that she would find Marie de Verneuii in Vienna.
You could never believe how shocked I was at my folly when she answered me coldly on account of the first, when I knew there was a second; and when I received the three lines that she wrote me, of which, perhaps, you are ignorant, I was truly in despair.
For myself, monsieur, I would give you satisfaction; it is very indifferent to me to be or not to be (from man to man); but I should be, for the rest of my days, the most unhappy man in the world if this childish folly harmed, in any way, Madame Hanska; and that is what makes me write to you thus.
Therefore, on my part there was neither vanity nor presumption, nor anything whatever that is contemptible. I wrote (admitting myself to blame) things that were unintelligible to Madame Hanska. I am here in asituation of dependence that excludes all evil interpretation; besides which, Madame Hanska's negligence is a very noble proof of my folly and her sanctity. That is what consoles me.
I earnestly desire, monsieur, that these explanations, so natural, should reach you; for though Madame Hanska has forbidden me to write to her, and said that she was leaving for Petersburg, I imagine that you will still be in Vienna to receive this letter, or that M. Sina will send it to you.
Tell her from me, monsieur, how profoundly humiliated I am—not to be grossly mistaken, for I never thought to do more than continue the jokes we made on the shores of the lake of Geneva when we talked of the Incroyables, but—to have caused her the slightest grief. She is so good, so completely innocent, that she will pardon me perhaps for what I shall never pardon myself. I am becoming once more truly a moujik.
As for you, monsieur, if I had to justify myself to you, you will understand that I should not do it.Mon Dieu!I was so seriously occupied that I lost precious moments in writing those two letters I now desire to annihilate.
If friendship, even if lost, still has its rights, would you have the kindness to present to Madame Hanska, from me, the third Part of the "Études de Mœurs," which I finished yesterday, and which will appear Thursday, September 18? You will find the manuscripts and the volumes with M. Sina, to whom I addressed them.
If Madame Hanska, or you, monsieur, do not think this proper, I beg you to burn the manuscripts and the volumes. I should not like that what I destined for Madame Hanska at a time when she thought me worthy of her friendship should exist and go into other hands.
"Séraphita," which belongs to her also, will be finishedin the "Revue de Paris," September 25. I dare not send it to her without knowing whether she would accept it. I shall await your answer, and silence will be one. As "Séraphita" will be immediately published in a volume, I shall, if she is merciful, make her the humble dedication of this work by putting her arms and name on the first leaf, with these simple words: "This page is dedicated to Madame H... by the author;" and she shall receive, at any place you indicate, the volume and the manuscript.
However it be, and even if Madame Hanska offers me a generous and complete pardon, I feel that I shall always have I know not what in my soul to embarrass me. So, though I have made to this precious friendship the greatest of sacrifices in writing the present letter—for it contains things humiliating to me, and which cost me dear—I am destined, no doubt, never to see you again, and I may therefore express to you my keen regrets. I have not so many affections round me that I can lose one without tears. I was never so young, so truly "nineteen years old," as I was with her. But I shall have the consolation to grow, to do better, to become something so powerful, so nobly illustrious, that some day she can say of me: "No, there was no wicked intention, and nothing small in his error."
In whatever situation we may hold to each other when you receive this letter, permit me to thank you for the kind things you have said to me about my false election and the "Médecin de campagne." Yes, if I ever enter the tribune, and seize power, the thing you speak of would crown my desires and be, in my political life, the object of my ambition. I can say this without flattery, inasmuch as it was a fixed determination before I ever knew you. I consider the primary cause a shame to France of the eighteenth century as much as to that of the nineteenth.
I have much work to do, monsieur; and I am overwhelmed by it. I did not expect this additional grief, for which I can only blame myself. Express to Madame Hanska all my sorrow, and, though she may reject them, I send her my respects, mingled with repentance and the assurance of my obedience. But perhaps she has punished me already by one of those forgettings from which there is no return, and will not even remember what occasioned my error.
Adieu, monsieur; accept my sentiments and my regrets.De Balzac.
In case you are no longer in Vienna, I have notified M. Sina of the parcel.
To Madame Hanska.
Paris, October 18, 1834.
Madame,—I went to spend a fortnight at Saché, in Touraine. After the "Absolu" Dr. Nacquart thought me so debilitated that, not wishing (as he said in his flattering way) that I should die on the last step of the ladder, he ordered me my native air, and told me to write nothing, read nothing, do nothing, and think nothing—if I could, he said, laughing.
I went to Touraine, but I worked there. My mother came here and took charge of my letters. On arriving this morning I found a heap of them, but I sought for one only. I recognized the Vienna postmark and your handwriting, which brought me, no doubt, a pardon that I accept without any misplaced pride. Had I the wings and freedom of a bird you would see me in Vienna before this letter, and I should have brought you the most radiantly happy face in the world. But here I can only send you, on the wings of the soul, a respectful effusion. In my joy I saw three Vienna postmarks, just as Pitt, drunk, saw two orators in the tribune, while Sheridan saw none at all.
I resume my correspondence according to the orders of your Beauty (capital B, as for Highness, Grace, Holiness, Excellency, Majesty, for Beauty is all that); but what can I tell you that is good? I am gay in my distress, gay because my thoughts can fly, rainbow-hued and fearless, to you; but I am, in reality, fatigued and overwhelmed with work and obstacles. Do you really care much to know about this life of a bloody crater? How can I send to you, so fresh, so pure, the tale of so many sorrows? Do you know, can you know, what sufferings a publisher can cause us by launching badly into the world a book which has cost us a hundred nights, like "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Two members of the Academy of Sciences taught me chemistry that the book might be truly scientific. They made me correct my proofs for the tenth or twelfth time. I had to read Berzelius, toil to be right as to science, and toil to maintain style so as not to bore with chemistry the cold French reader by making a book in which the interest is based on chemistry,—in point of fact, there are not eight pages in all of science in the four hundred pages of the book.
Well, these gigantic labours which, done within a given time, have worn out twenty printers, who call me a "slayer of men," because when I sit up ten nights they sit up five—well, these lion toils are compromised! The "Absolu," ten times greater, in my opinion, than "Eugénie Grandet," will go without success, and my twelve volumes will not be exhausted (as I am in making them); my freedom is delayed! Do you understand my wrath? I hoped to finish "Séraphita" in Touraine; but I have worn myself out, like Sisyphus, in useless efforts. It is not every day that we can go to heaven.
I began in Touraine a great work,—"Le Père Goriot." You will see it in the coming numbers of the "Revue de Paris." I put intiyeuilles, laughing like amaniac; but not in the mouth of a young woman, no; in that of a horrible old one. I would not allow you to have a rival.
I come back here; I have my two last lawsuits to compound, my first part of the "Études Philosophiques" to launch; happily Werdet is an intelligent man and most devoted; but he has very little money. I must, under pain of seeing him fail, do "César Birotteau" by December 15; besides which, Madame Bêchet must have her fourth Part of the "Études de Mœurs" by the 1st to the 15th of November.
My pecuniary obligations are coming due, and my payments are made with difficulty. Besides which I have taken J. Sandeau to live with me; I must furnish for him, and pilot him through the literary ocean, poor shipwrecked fellow, full of heart. In short, one ought to be ten men, have relays of brains, never sleep, be always blest with inspiration, and refuse all distractions.
It is now three months since I last saw Madame de Berny; judge of my life by that feature of it. Ah! if I were loved, my mistress might sleep in peace; there is no place in my life—-I won't say for an infidelity, but—for a thought. It wouldn't be a merit; I am even ashamed of myself. I should have to do six hundred leagues on foot, go to Wierzchownia on a pilgrimage, to present myself in youthful shape, for I am so fat that the newspapers joke me, the wretches! That is France,la belle France; they laugh at ills produced by toil; they laugh at my "abdomen." So be it! they have nothing else to say. They cannot find in me either baseness or cowardice, or anything of what dishonours them; and, as Philippon of "La Caricature" said to me: "Be happy;all who do not live by writingadmire your character as much as your works." I grasped his hand well that day. He gave me back my strength.
You know by the announcement of the fourth Part,that I am busy with the second volume of the "Scènes de la Vie privée," but what you did not know of is "Le Père Goriot," a master work! the painting of a sentiment so great that nothing can exhaust it, neither rebuffs, nor wounds, nor injustice; a man who isfather, as a saint, a martyr is Christian. As for "César Birotteau," I have told you about him.
Yes, I inhaled a little of the autumn in Touraine; I playedplantandoyster, and when the skies were clear I thought it was an omen, and that a dove was coming from Vienna with a green leaflet in her beak.
I am now in my winter condition, in my study, with the Chartreuse gown you know of, working for the future. As for my joys, they are innocent,—the refurnishing of my bedroom, a cane that has made all Paris gabble, a divine opera-glass which my chemists have had made for me by the optician of the Observatoire; besides which, gold buttons on my blue coat; buttons chiselled by fairy hands,—for the man who carries, in the nineteenth century, a cane worthy of Louis XIV. cannot keep upon his coat ignoble pinchbeck buttons. It is these little innocent crotchets that make me pass for a millionaire. I have created the sect of Canophilists in the fashionable world, and they take me for a frivolous man. It is very amusing.
It is a month now since I have set foot at the Opera. I have, I think, a box at the Bouffons. Is not that, you will say to me, very comfortable poverty? But remember that music, chased gold canes, buttons, and opera-glasses, are my sole amusements. No, you will not blame them.
Shall I send you the corrected "Peau de Chagrin"? Yes. Ten days hence that Baron Sina, who fills my mind on account of his name, will receive, addressed to him, a package containing five 12mo volumes, in the style of the four of "Le Médecin de campagne," whichMaître Werdet calls pretty little volumes. They are frightful; but this edition is an edition intended to fix, definitively, the type of the grand general edition of the work which, under the title of "Études Sociales," will include all these fragments, shafts, columns, capitals, bas-reliefs, walls, cupolas, in short, the building, which will be ugly or beautiful, which will win me theplaudite civesor the gemoniæ. Be tranquil; in that day, when the illustrated edition comes, we shall find asses on whose skin to print you a unique copy, enriched with designs. That shall be the votive offering of thepardoned one.Well, forget my fault, but I shall never forget it myself.
Do not fear, madame, that Zulma-Dudevant will ever see me attached to her chariot.... I only speak of this because more celebrity is fastened on that woman than she deserves; which is preparing for her a bad autumn.
Madame de Berny does not like "Volupté;" she condemns the book as full of rhetoric and empty of feeling. She was revolted by the passage where the lover of Madame de Couaën goes into evil places, and thinks that character ignoble. She has made me come down from my judgment; but there are, nevertheless, fine pages, flowers in a desert.
"Jacques," Madame Sand's last novel, is advice given to husbands who inconvenience their wives to kill themselves in order to leave them free. The book is not dangerous. You could write ten times better if you made a novel in letters. This one is empty and false from end to end. An artless young girl leaves, after six months of marriage, asuperiorman for a popinjay; a man of importance, passionate and loving, for a dandy, without any reason, physiological or moral. Then, there is a love for mules, as in "Lélia" for unfruitful beings; which is strange in a woman who is amother, and who loves a good deal in the German way, instinctively. All these authors roam the void, astride of a hollow; there is no truth there. I prefer ogres, Tom Thumb, and the Sleeping Beauty.
M. de G... has made a decent little failure. Those who have wounded me never prosper; isn't that singular? Decidedly, fate wills that I shall not see Madame de Castries. Each time that I rustle against her gown some misfortune happens to me. The last time, I went to Lormois, the residence of the Duc de Maillé, to see her, I came back on foot (to get thin). Between Lonjumeau and Antony, a sharp point inside my boot pushed up and wounded my foot. It was half-past eleven at night,—an hour at which a road is not furrowed with vehicles. I was just about to go to bed in a ditch, like a robber, when the cabriolet of one of my friends came by, empty. The groom picked me up and took me home. I believe in fate. It is in their harshness that we judge women. This one showed me a dry heart. As Eugène Sue says, the viscera were tinder; they would have stopped the blood instead of making it circulate. Pardon me; this is the remains of the nail in my boot.
Fancy, I am going to give myself the pleasure of seeing myself acted. I have imagined a buffoonery that I want to enjoy: "Prudhomme, bigamist." Prudhomme is miserly; keeps his wife very short; she does the household work and is a servant disguised by the title of wife. She has never been to an Opera ball. Her neighbour wants to take her, and being informed of the conjugal habits of Joseph Prudhomme, she assists the wife in making a lay figure resembling Madame Prudhomme, which the women put in the bed, and go off to the masked ball. Prudhomme comes home, says his monologues, questions his wife, who is asleep, and finally goes to bed. At five o'clock the wife returns; he wakes, and finds himself with two wives. You cannever imagine the fun our actors will make of that sketch; but I swear to you that, if it takes, Parisians will come and see it a hundred times. God grant it! It will only cost me a morning, and may perhaps be worth fifteen thousand francs. It is the best of buffoonery! But all depends on so many things. Some one must lend me a name; the theatres are sinks of vice, and my foot is virgin of stain. Perhaps the first and last representation will be in this letter. Better one fine page not paid for than a hundred thousand francs for a worthless farce. I have never separated fame from poverty,—poverty with canes, buttons, and opera-glasses, be it understood, and a fame easy to carry. That will be my lot.
Have I hid my real griefs? have I chattered gaily enough? Would you believe that I suffer,—that this morning I took up life with difficulty, I rebelled against my solitude, I wanted to roam the world, to see what the Landstrasse was, to put my fingers in the Danube, to listen to the Viennese stupidities—in short, to do anything but write pages; to belivinginstead of turning pale over phrases?
I await, with impatience, till your white hand writes a few lines in compensation of my toil; for to him who counts suffrages and estimates them, yours are worth millions. I await, as Bugeaud said, "my peck;" then I shall start off, joyous once more, on a new course across the fields of thought. Who will unfasten my bridle and take off my bit; who will give me my freedom; when shall I begin to write "Philippe le Discret," to work at my ease—to-day, a scene; to-morrow, nothing,—and date my work Wierzchownia?
Do you know what adoublionis? It is the key of the fields,—it is freedom! Come, come! another day, my sadness! to-day the moujik is all gaiety at having kissed the hand of his lady, as in church they kiss thegolden pax the priest holds out. I am well of opinion of those who love Musset; yes, he is a poet to put above Lamartine and V. Hugo; but this is not yet the gospel.
I place on you the care of thanking M. Hanski for his last letter. But I am sorry in my joy. I wish it had been any other cause than the dear little Anna's illness that detained you in Vienna. Kiss her for me, on the forehead, if that proud infant suffers it. And finally, remember me to all about you.
You cannot have the bound "Séraphita" until New Year's day. I would like to know if I may send Anna a little souvenir without fear of the inquisitive nose and hands of the German custom-house.
Adieu; I have given you my hours of sleep so as not to rob Werdet, or Madame Bêchet; a thousand respectful affections, and deign to accept my profound obedience.
Sunday, 19th, three in the morning.
I have not slept; I had not read all my letters. My last two difficulties are arrangeable. Two thorns less in my foot.
I have read over my scribblings. I am afraid you cannot read them; what shall I do? Have I told you all? Oh! no. There are many things that are never told.
My mother is very proud of the "Absolu;" my sister writes that she wept with joy in reading it and in saying to herself that I was her brother. Madame de Berny finds some spots upon it. She does not like that Claës should turn out his daughter; she thinks that forced. Madame de Castries writes me that she wept over it. I am sorry for the distance between Paris and Vienna. I would have liked to have your opinion first.
Ah! I may go to England for a few days (in all, ten, to go and return). My brother-in-law has just inventedsomething wonderful, he says, relating to railroads, which might be sold for a good little million to the English. I shall try.
Did I speak to you of Prince Puckler-Muskau, and of my dinner with him at the house of a species of German monster who calls herself the widow of Benjamin Constant, but has all the air of being a good woman? Well, if I did not speak of it it will be the subject of a conversation when I am on the estates of your Beauteousness.
On my way to England I shall stop one week at Ham. The illustrious Peyronnet has expected me there for six months, and the trip has always been delayed. The Duc de Fitz-James writes to invite me to Normandy; refused.
Mon Dieu!forty letters read; it is a sort of drunkenness. Among them are two unknown ladies. One modestly asks me to make her portrait and write her life. She has green eyes and she is a widow—that's the physical and the moral of her. The other sends me execrable verses. At last I understand thecachetsof Voltaire. They were not vanity; they were simply to avoid any but the letters of friends. This is what it is to have—I, a poor devil—neither Ferney, nor two hundred thousand francs income, nor one hundred francs for postage.
Sandeau will be lodged like a prince. He can't believe in his luck. I embark him on a career of masterpieces by a thousand crowns of debt, which we hypothecate on a bottle of ink. Poor lad! He does not know what duty is. He is free. I chain him. I am sorry for it. He is at this moment loved. A pretty young woman casts upon his wounds the balm of her smiles.
Re-adieu.
Paris. October 6, 1834.
I have been for the last few days so busy in settling Sandeau and furnishing him with everything, for he isa child, that I have not been able to write to you; and now I shall have to do so by fits and starts, according to the order of my ideas and not that of logic.
Ah! in the first place, can you conceive that they are finding fault with me for the nameMargueritein the "Recherche de l'Absolu." It is a Flemish name, and that is all there is to say about it. I must be very irreproachable when they have to find fault with me for that!
Next Saturday I give a dinner to the Tigers of my opera-box, and I am preparing sumptuosities out of all reason. I shall have Rossini and Olympe, hiscara donna[afterwards his wife], who will preside. Next Nodier; then fivetigers, Sandeau, and a certain Victor Bohain (a man of great political talent, unjustly smirched), the most exquisite wines of Europe, the rarest flowers, the best cheer; in short, I intend to distinguish myself.
I don't know who told me that your bitter-sweet cousin expected me in Geneva!Mon Dieu!how queer! If I wanted to be gallant I should tell you that I would not cross the Jura in winter for any one in the world after having had the Maison Mirabaud [Mme. Hanska's house] for joy during that stay in Geneva. Well, believe it.
I have worked much at "Père Goriot," which will be in the "Revue de Paris" for November. My first part of the "Études Philosophiques," the pieces of which have been corrected with excessive severity, will appear in a few days. I shall then busy myself with the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée," a delightful composition, and with "César Birotteau," which is taking immense proportions. Also Emmanuel Arago and Sandeau are going to do a great work in five acts, in which I have a third,—a fine subject, which will pay Sandeau's debts and mine; a drama, entitled "LesCourtisans." It will go first to the Porte-Saint-Martin; but it will certainly get to the Français. It is magnificent! (I am a little like Perrette and her jug of milk.) If we win the stage, and our anonymous society, under the title of E. J. San-Drago (Sand-Arago), is successful, I shall be free all the sooner, and Sandeau, trained by me to keep house, will allow me to travel. It is impossible that a man who destines himself to politics should not see Europe, not judge fundamentally of manners, morals, and interests. The struggle between France and other countries will always be decided by the North. I must know the North at any cost, and, as M. de Margonne says, one has to be young to travel. Therefore, my liberty! oh, how I long for it!
I shall go to Ham about November 5, and, perhaps, from there to England; but I shall return for the 15th in Paris. My life is varied only by ideas; physically, it is monotonous. I speak confidentially with no one but Madame de Berny or with you. I find that one should communicate but little with petty minds; one leaves one's wool there, as on bushes. I am vowed to great sentiments, unique, lofty, unalterable, exclusive, and itisan odd contrast with my apparent levity. I assure you it would take at least five or six years to know to what point solitude has made me susceptible, and of how many sacrifices I am capable without ostentation. What of sentiments, feelings, I have made visible in my work is but the faint shadow of the light that is in me. Up to the present time one woman only, Madame de Berny, has really known what I am, because she has seen my smile, always otherwise expressive, never cease.[1]In twelve years I have had neither anger nor impatience. The heaven of my heart has always been blue. Any other attitude is, to my thinking,impotence. Strength should be a unit; and after having for seven years measured myself with misfortune and vanquished it, and risen, to gain literary royalty, every night with a will more determined than that of the night before, I have, I think, the right to call myself strong. Thus inconstancy, infidelity areincomprehensibilitiesfor me. Nothing wearies me; neither waiting nor happiness. My friendship is of the race of the granites; all will wear-out before the feeling I have conceived. Madame de Berny is sixty years old; her griefs have changed and withered her. My affection has redoubled. I say it without pride, because I see no merit in it. It is my nature; which God has made oblivious of evil, while ceaselessly in presence of the good. A being who loves me always makes me quiver. Noble sentiments are so fruitful; why should we go in search of bad ones? God made me to smell the fragrance of flowers, not the fetor of mud. And why too, should I entangle myself in meannesses? All within me tends toward what is great. I choke in the plains, I live on the mountains! And then, I have undertaken so much! We have reached theera of intelligence. Material monarchs, brutal forces are passing away. There are worlds intellectual, in which Pizarro, Cortez, Columbus must appear. There will be sovereigns in the kingdom of thought. With this ambition no baseness, no pettiness is possible. Nothing wastes time like petty things; and so, I need something very great to fill my mind outside of this circle where I find the infinite. There is but one thing—to the infinite, the infinite—an immense love. If I have it, should I go in search of a Parisian woman, a Madame de ——? (Some one told me yesterday that she wished a scandal; that her husband left her free, but her vanity is such—I believe it—that she wants to be talked about.) I have such a horror of the women of Paris that I camp upon my work fromsix in the morning till six at night. At half-past six my hired coupé comes for me, and takes me one day to the Opera, another to the Italians, and I go to bed at midnight. Thus I have not a minute to give to any one. I receive visitors while I dine; I talk of our plans for the plays during dinner. I correspond with no one but you, Madame de Berny, my sister, and my mother. All other letters wait till Sunday, when I open them, and all that are not on business are handed over to Sandeau, who offers me his hand as secretary.
So doing, I shall end by extinguishing this fire of debt and accomplishing my promised work. Without it, no salvation, no liberty. The deuce! you will get the proof of what I now have the pleasure of writing to you, and of my firmness, when you see my books; for a man can't coquet and amuse himself, and bring out such publications. Toil and the Muse; that means that the toiling Muse is virtuous,—she is a virgin. It is deplorable that in this nineteenth century we are obliged to go to the images of Greek mythology; but I have never been so struck as I am now by the powerful truth of those myths.
Do not think that what I have been writing is a round-about way of telling you that, whatever be your age and face, my affection for you would be the same. I should not take circuitous ways to tell you a thing it would give me pleasure to express if I did not think you had enough perspicacity to have felt it, divined it. No; I was examining myself in good faith without any intention of showing myself off. I wish to be so great by intellect and fame that you can feel proud of my true friendship. Each of my works, which I want to make more and more extended, better thought, better written, will be a flattery for you, a flower, a bouquet that I shall send you! Distance alone admits of flowers of rhetoric.
My brother-in-law has just discovered a process which,in his opinion, solves on railways the problem of inclined planes, and will save great costs in construction and traction. It is possible to sell this invention to the English; here he has taken out a patent, and the English purchaser can take out an export patent. My brother-in-law does not want to go to London, and I am going to attempt this affair in the interests of my sister. That is the history of my journey to London.
We are not satisfied with our brother in Normandy. His wife is pregnant. He has complicated, still further, the difficulties of his life, poor creature. My mother is not well; I wish I could see her in good health to enjoy what I am preparing for her. But, good God! she has had many trials. To-day she turns to me, and heartily; she seems to recognize, without admitting it, the great wrong of her slight affection for my sister and me; she is punished in the child of her choice in a dreadful way. Henry is nothing, and will be nothing. He has spoiled the future his brother-in-law or I might have made for him by his marriage. All this is horribly sad.
Yesterday I re-read your letters. As I was putting them away, pressing them together to arrange them better, they exhaled a fragrance, I know not what, of grandeur and distinction that could not be mistaken. Those who talk of your forehead are not in error. But what is surprising in your letters is a turn of phrase, all your own, which issues from your heart as your glance from your eyes; it is our language written as Fénelon wrote it. You must have read Fénelon a great deal, or else you have in your soul his harmonious thought. When these letters come I read them first like a man in a hurry to talk with you; I do not really taste them till the second reading, which happens capriciously. When some thought saddens me I have recourse to you. I bring out the little box in which is my elixir, and I live again in your Italian journey. I see Diodati; I stretchmyself on that good sofa of the Maison Mirabaud I turn the leaves of the "Gotha," that pretty "Gotha;" and then, after an hour or two, all is serene. I find something cool within me. My soul has rested on a friendly soul. No one is in my secret. It is something like the prayer of the mystic, from which he rises radiant. Will you think me very poetic? But it is true.
My Sandeau has brought out a book which is already sold. It is "Madame de Sommerville." Read it, this first book of a young man. Hold out your hand to him; do not be severe. Keep your severities for me; they are my privilege. Madame de Berny pays me no more compliments. From her, criticisms. Criticisms are sweet when made by a friendly hand; we believe them; they sadden because they are, no doubt, true, but they do not rend.
Well, adieu. You ought to be reading my last letter at the moment I am writing this. If you wrote to me so that I should receive your letters on Sundays, I would answer on Mondays. We should gain by not crossing each other.
I shall send, without letter of advice, to Sina's address, the first part of the "Études Philosophiques." You know all that; but let me believe that you take an interest in these enormous correctionsà laBuffon (he corrected immensely), which ought to make my work, when completed ("Études Sociales," about which I told you), a monument in our fine language.[2]I believe that in 1838 the three parts of this gigantic work will be, if not wholly finished, at least built up, so that a judgment can be formed of the mass.
The "Études de Mœurs" will represent all social effects, without a single situation in life, physiognomy, character of man or woman, manner of living, profession,social zone, French region, or anything whatever of childhood, maturity, old age, politics, justice, or war, having been forgotten.
That done, the history of the human heart traced thread by thread, the social history given in all its parts, there isthe base. The facts will not be imaginary; they will be what is happening everywhere.
Then, the second structure is the "Études Philosophiques;" for after theeffectswill come thecauses. I shall have painted in the "Études de Mœurs" sentiments and their action, life and its deportment. In the "Études Philosophiques" I shall tellwhythe sentiments,on whatthe life; what is the line, what are the conditions beyond which neither society nor man exist; and, after having surveyed society in order to describe it, I shall survey it again in order to judge it. So, in the "Études de Mœurs"individualitiesare typified; in the "Études Philosophiques"typesare individualized. Thus I shall have given life everywhere: to the type by individualizing it, to the individual by typifying him. I shall have given thought to the fragment; I shall have given to thought the life of the individual.
Then, aftereffectsandcauses, will come the "Études Analytiques," of which the "Physiologie du Mariage" is a part; for aftereffectsandcauseswe must search forprinciples. Mannersandmorals [mœurs]are the play;causesare thecoulissesand themachinery. Principlesare themaker. But in proportion as the work winds spirally up to the heights of thought, it draws itself in and condenses. Though twenty-four volumes are required for the "Études de Mœurs," only fifteen are needed for the "Études Philosophiques," and only nine for the "Études Analytiques." Thus man, society, humanity will be described, judged, analyzed, without repetitions, and in a work which will be like an "Arabian Nights" of the West.
When all is done, my Madeleine scraped, my pediment carved, my last touches given, I shall have beenright, or I shall have beenwrong. But, after having made the poesy, the demonstration of a whole system, I shall make the science of it in an Essay on Human Forces ["Essai sur les Forces Humaines"]. And, on the cellar-walls of this palace I, child and jester, shall have drawn the immense arabesque of the "Contes Drolatiques."
Do you think, madame, that I have much time to lose at the feet of a Parisian woman? No; I had to choose. Well, I have now shown you my real mistress; I have removed her veils. There is the work, there is the gulf, there is the crater, there is the matter, there is the woman, there is she who takes my nights, my days, who puts a price on this very letter, taken from hours of study—but taken with delight. Ah! I entreat you, never attribute to me anything petty, low, or mean,—you, who are able to measure the spread of my wings!
Well, re-adieu. Recall the carver, the founder, the sculptor, the goldsmith, the galley-slave, the artist, the thinker, the poet, the—whatever you will, to the memory of those about you who love him, and think of the power of a lonely affection, that of a palm-tree in the desert, a palm-tree that rises to the skies for refreshment, if you would know the part that you have in it. Some day, when I have finished all, we will laugh heartily over it. To-day one must work!