Part 19

Then, after _effects_ and _causes_, will come the "Études Analytiques," of which the "Physiologie du Mariage" is a part; for after _effects_ and _causes_ we must search for _principles. Manners_ and _morals [mœurs]_ are the play; _causes_ are the _coulisses_ and the _machinery. Principles_ are the _maker_. 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 been _right_, or I shall have been _wrong_. 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!

[Footnote 1: Probably misprinted in the French; but I leave it verbatim as it is given.--TR.]

[Footnote 2: He changed the title to "La Comédie Humaine," which is indeed a monument, and his monument.--TR.]

PARIS, November 22--December 1, 1834.

_Mon Dieu!_ I have to bear the burden of my own giddiness. I have not been to London; my brother-in-law changed his mind. You think me in England and you have not written. I am here without knowing what has become of you, or what you are doing. A thousand anxieties have seized me the last few days. Are you ill? Is M. Hanski ill? Is Anna? In short, I am making dragons for myself about you. I expected a letter, and the letter not coming I began to search out _why_. The why is your belief in my departure.

I have no good things to tell you. I am mortally sad. In spite of the consolations of work and the forced activities of poverty, there is a void in my life that weighs upon me. In moments of depression I am solitary. Madame de Berny still suffers cruelly, and she remains in the country. I have been to see her for a few days. Those few days are all I have been able to give her for five months. You can judge by that what my life has been,--a desert to cross. Shall I reach the happy land where streams and verdure and the gazelles are?

My poor mother is extremely ill. I expect her here to-morrow; consultations as to her health are necessary. My brother's household is more and more disheartening, and toward the close of every year business affairs are generally difficult. You see that all conspires to sadden me.

We have, Sandeau and I, begun a great comedy: "La Grande Mademoiselle," history of Lauzun, his marriage, and, for culmination, "Marie, pull off my boots." But with a subject of this kind we may fail before a public blasé with horrors. Whatever is merely witty seems pale. However!

I was writing this when your letter came, and I will answer it point by point. You know my character very little if you think that I ever abandon a sentiment, or an idea, or a friend. No, no, madame; it takes many wounds, many blows of the axe to cut down what is in my heart. Borget is in Italy; Borget is roving, painting, and does not write to me. I have had news of him only indirectly; nevertheless, he is always fresh in my thoughts, though we have known each other for several years.

I am not _infatuated_ about Sandeau; but I held out a pole to a poor swimmer who was going under. Where you are right is in believing firmly that I will let no one penetrate to the depths of my heart. For that, the "Open, Sesame" that you have uttered is necessary. Few persons know those sacramental words. I should be the most unhappy man in the world if the secrets of my soul were known. Conjectures, however, are not lacking. But I have too great a powder of jesting to allow of anything I wish to hide becoming known. In France, we are obliged to veil depths by levity; without it we should be ruined here.

Your letter re-animates me a little, much, extremely. You have put a balm into my heart, like the Fosseuse. I will send you, immediately, the five volumes of the "Études Philosophiques," my "Lettre à la littérature," and "Le Père Goriot" in manuscript; together with the two numbers of the "Revue de Paris" in which it will appear.

"César Birotteau" is getting on, and the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée" are on the ways. I work now twenty hours daily. Luxury will never prevent me from realizing my project of solitude at Wierzchownia, for I see plainly, on one hand, the impossibility of being here in presence of the literary discussions about me which are beginning to arise violently, and the need of preparing, far from pin-pricks, two great bludgeon blows,--the tragedy of "Philippe II." and "L'Histoire de la succession du Marquis de Carabas," in which the political question will be plainly decided in favour of the power of absolute monarchy. But without this reason I should still have the keenest desire for travel; and even without this cause, again, there is a greater reason than all others, which would make me surmount every obstacle. Do you know it? Will you have it? Do you care for it? Well, I know nothing sweeter, more endearing, grander, more delightful than your friendship. To go in search of it, to enjoy it for eight days, one could well travel eight hundred leagues and not mind the labour of the journey.

No, no, the _tigers_ will not pervert me. Alas! they are too stupid. I am compromised. I must give up my box on account of that neighbourhood. It is a stable of tigers!

I saw at the Opera, in a box near mine, Delphine P..., poor thing! withered, changed, faded, mistress of M. de F... _Mon Dieu!_ what a skeleton! What a wearied and wearying air! with a species of dead-leaf skin! No, that woman is not a woman! She looks like a corpse about to fall into putrefaction. On the other hand, behind our box is that of the Comtesse Comar, or Komar, or Komarck, for it was Zaluski who told me the name, and I don't know the spelling of it; never did I see a more amiable, more seductive old woman. She is Madame Jeroslas ... plus heart and frankness. She had two pretty creatures with her. Zaluski is to present me. You don't know how I like to be with persons of your country. A name in _ka_ or _ki_ goes to my heart.

Oh! if you are kind, _if you love me_ (I wish I could say that gracefully and irresistibly, as you say it), you will never leave me fifteen days without a letter. Whether you be in Vienna or at Wierzchownia, you do not know how sweet a true friendship is to the heart of a poor toiler who lives in the midst of Paris like a labourer in the Swedish mines. I have cut loose from everything. I have no duty to fulfil to society. I have a horror of false friends and grimaces. I am alone, like a rock in mid-ocean. My perpetual labour is not to the taste of any one. My poor sister Laure is angry at not seeing me. I want to triumph over the remainder of the distresses that envelop me; and I have not been strong, constant, and courageous for five years to fail in the sixth.

Should I get a month to myself at the beginning of the year, you will not be displeased if I bring my New Year's gifts to the pretty little Anna myself, inasmuch as the Custom-house is so malicious? I shall have the pleasure of going five hundred leagues to dine with you. But so much work must be done to attain this result that I only speak of it as one of those impossibilities that spur me to work and redouble my courage; something results from it. The "Recherche de l'Absolu" was only written through a hope of this kind. The compromise with Gosselin took the profits of that arduous labour. Oh! you do not know me. In your letters there are complaints, doubts, and polite accusations that dishearten me.

"Le Père Goriot" is a fine work, but monstrously sad. To make it complete, it was necessary to show the _moral sink-hole_ of Paris; and it has the effect of a disgusting sore.

Wednesday, 26.

I must tell you that yesterday (my letter has been interrupted) I copied out your portrait of Mademoiselle Céleste, and I said to two uncompromising judges: "Here is a sketch I have just flung on paper. I wanted to paint a woman under given circumstances, and launch her into life through such and such an event."

What do you think they said?--"Read that portrait again." After which they said:--

"That is your masterpiece. You have never before had that _laisser-aller_ of a writer which shows the hidden strength."

"Ha, ha!" I answered, striking my head; "that comes from the forehead of _an analyst_."

I kneel at your feet for this violation; but I left out all that was personal. Beat me, scold me, but I could not refuse myself the enjoyment of this praise; and I tasted the greatest of pleasures,--that of secretly hearing a person praised who is unknown and to whom one bears a deep affection. It is enjoyment twice over.

I am convinced of the immense superiority of your mind, and I am confounded to find in you such feminine graces, together with the force of mind which Madame Dudevant has and Madame de Staël once had; and I say this very loud, that you may not make yourself small behind that tall steeple you have so often boasted of to me. The opinion that I express upon you is a matured opinion. I am here, far from the prestige of your presence. I go over in my mind, impartially, your sayings, your opinions, your studies, and I write you these lines with a sort of joy, because Madame Carraud and Madame de Berny have made other women seem very small to me; and because, in the matter of grace, amenity, and the science hidden under the frivolity of smiles, I am a great connoisseur, having lovingly inhaled those flowers of womanhood, and what I say of you is conscientious and true. Besides, you are too _grande dame_ to be proud of it. What you should be proud of is your kindness, and those qualities which are acquired only by the practice of Christian virtues, at which I never jest now.

Forgive me the disconnectedness of my letters, the incompleteness of my sentences. I write to you at night before I begin to work. My letters are like a prayer made to a good genius.

Go to the Prater with M. Hanski! _Mon Dieu!_ you trample the world underfoot, and you do not set in the light that which is good!

Ah! I must tell you that literature, seeing my cane, my chiselled buttons, has decided that I am the Benjamin of an old English woman, Lady Anelsy (I write the name badly), whom I met at Madame d'Abrantès, and who has a box at the Opera, near mine (she separates me from Madame Delphine P...), and to whom I bow. I have answered friends (friends who are tigers in the guise of doves) that, not being able to bear the features of the old lady in my heart, I have had them carved on the knob of my cane. You have no idea what a fuss my movable property creates. I have much more success through that than through my works. That is Paris!

My dinner? Why, it made an excitement. Rossini declared he had never seen, eaten, or drunk anything better among sovereigns. It sparkled with wit. The beautiful Olympe was graceful, sensible, and perfect. Lautour-Mézeray was the wittiest of men; he extinguished the cross-fire of Rossini, Nodier, and Malitourne by an amazing artillery vigour. The master of the feast was the humble lighter who put the match to each sun in this array of fireworks. _Ecco._

I told you that "La Recherche de l'Absolu" would astonish you; well, you will be as little prepared for "Père Goriot." After that will come the glorious end of "Séraphita." Never will imagination have been in so many different spheres. I do not speak of the perfumer Birotteau, or of the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée;" those will be supporting the battle with fresh troops.

Do you know for whom is this success? Well, I want you to hear my name gloriously, respectfully pronounced. I want to give you the sweetest enjoyments of friendship; I want to have you say to yourself: "He laughed like a boy at Geneva, and he made campaigns into China!" For you think he is a moralist, a toiler, a cynic, a--I don't know what. But he _is_ a child who loves pebbles, and talks nonsense, and does it; who reads "Gotha," plays patience, and makes M. Hanski laugh.

Geneva is to me like a memory of childhood. There I quitted my chain; there I laughed without saying to myself, "To-morrow!" I shall always remember having tried to dance a galop down the long salon at Diodati, where Byron got drunk. And the country about la Bellotte! I must not think too much about all that; I should go to Vienna! I have such superstition, such veneration for persons with whom I can be _myself_. How has that come about among us? I don't know, but so it is. I can talk of my griefs, my joys, before you and Monsieur Hanski; here I am myself only with my sister and Madame de Berny,--probably because you resemble the latter, and are very much my sister. At this moment I would fain tell you, honourably, all graceful and sweet things, and send you, gathered one by one in the fields of friendship, the prettiest flowers,--those you like best; for I wish never again to lie for one moment under your displeasure.

If you ordain it, Lucullus will retreat into the skin of Diogenes in order not again to read these words: "Your goings-on as Lucullus will retard your freedom."

I dine to-day with one of those who _took_ Algiers, the commissary-general Denniée, who for the last three years is in love with an admired creature (rather a fool), Mademoiselle Amigo, of the Italian Opera. There, came Rossini, in dishabille and not sarcastic. Yesterday, at the first representation of "Erani," Olympe said to me, motioning to Rossini:--

"You cannot imagine how beautiful and sublime the soul of that being is; how kind he is, and to what point he is kind. To reserve his heart and its treasures for her he loves, he wraps himself in sarcasm to the eyes of others; he makes himself prickly."

I took Rossini's hand and pressed it joyfully.

_Mio maestro_," I said to him; "then we can understand each other."

"What, you too!" he said, smiling.

I lowered my head; then I showed him all that brilliant Paris which was present, and said:--

"To cast one's diamonds and pearls into that mud--"

And at that moment my eyes fell upon "Delmar's" box.

Monday, December 1.

My letter has remained for eight days on, in, and underneath "Le Père Goriot." I have had a thousand money worries, but I am getting out of them. Never have I been so powerful to get through this business by my firm will. Another few months, and I am saved.

Within a few days a little joy has come to me. After much pressing, and receiving no for an answer for the last three years, they have consented to sell me "La Grenadière." So I shall have a retreat for study, and the furniture, books, and arrangements I should make will remain mine. I could live there six months, incognito, without seeing any one. So here I am, very happy--so far as a material thing can give happiness.

You have been proud of "Père Goriot." My friends declare that it is comparable to nothing, and is above all my other compositions.

Do you know that I am uneasy on what your last letter said relating to depth of heart, to which no man could ever attain. Those few words make me think you do not know me well, and it grieves me, because you cannot love me as well as I might be loved if I were known better. _Mon Dieu!_ I am the object of a thousand calumnies, each more ignoble than the others, and I pay no more attention to them than he who is above the Jura listens to Pictet. Is that a merit? But a word from you puts alarm into my brain, into my heart.

Well, adieu. It is now eight days that I have been conversing with you. I will write a little more regularly in future. The doctors have obtained that I shall change my way of life. I am going to bed at midnight to rise at six in the morning, and work from then till three in the afternoon. I shall have from three to five for my pleasures, and I will write you each day a little line. After which I am ordered to go and amuse myself for six hours till midnight.

_Mon Dieu!_ I have the same difficulty in quitting my pen that I had in quitting the Maison Mirabaud when the master forced me to go by going to bed himself. A thousand prettinesses to Anna, my friendly regards to M. Hanski, if you don't keep them all for yourself.

PARIS, December 15, 1834.

Oh! how long it is since I have seen your writing! Have I fallen again into disgrace? Are you displeased with my long letters written at intervals? I can only give you--offer you a day here and there; it is a day of respite in the midst of my long combat. It is the moment when I, poor dove without a branch, rest my feet beside the living spring, the source where she dips her thirsty beak into the pure waters of affection.

Yes, all is enlarging--the circus and the athlete. To face all, I must imitate the French soldier during the first campaigns in Italy: never recoil before impossibilities, and find in victory the courage to beat back the morrow's enemy.

Last week I took in all but ten hours' sleep. So that yesterday and to-day I have been like a poor foundered horse on his side,--in my bed, not able to do anything, or hear anything. The fact is, the first number of "Père Goriot" made eighty-three pages in the "Revue de Paris," equivalent to half an octavo volume. I had to correct the proofs of those eighty-three pages three times in six days. If it is any glory, I alone could make that tremendous effort. But none the less must my other works be carried on.

Forgive me, therefore, the irregularity of my correspondence. To-day one flood, to-morrow another flood sweeps me along. I bruise myself against one rock, I recover, and am thrown upon a reef. These are struggles that no one can appreciate. No one knows what it is to change ink into gold!

I have begun to tremble. I am afraid that fatigue, lassitude, impotence may overtake me before I have erected my building. I need, from time to time, good little words said out of France, some great distractions, and the greatest come from the heart, do they not?

However, "Père Goriot" is an unheard-of success; there is but one voice: "Eugénie Grandet," the "Absolu," are surpassed. I am, so far, at the first number only, and the second is beyond that. _Tiyeuilles_ has made people laugh. I return you that success.

But you, what has become of you? No letters! nothing! A few days more, and I hope my work will be rewarded by reaching your ear like a reproach. I did believe you would periodically cast me a smile, a letter, a gracious dew of words written to refresh the brow, the heart, the soul, the will of your moujik. Which of us can dispose of our time? You. Who writes oftenest? I. I have most affection, that is natural; you are the most lovable, and I have more reasons to bear you friendship than you have to grant it to me. There is but one thing that pleads for me; misfortune, misery, toil; and as you have all the compassions of woman and of angel, you should think of me a little oftener than you do. In that, I am right. Write to me every week, and do not be vexed with me if I can only answer you twice a month. This torrential life is my excuse. Once I am freed, and you shall judge of me. Yes, forgive much to him who loves and toils much. Reckon to me as something nights without sleep, days without pleasures, without distractions. Madame Mitgislas ... invited me, but I did not accept; I have neither the time nor the wish to do so. Society gives so little and wants so much! and I am so ill at ease in it! I am so embarrassed on receiving silly compliments, and _true sounds_ of the heart are so rare!

Since I wrote to you there has been nothing but work in my life, slashed with a few little good debauches of music. We have had "Moïse" and "Semiramide" mounted and executed as those operas have never been before, and every time that either is given I go. It is my only pleasure. I do not meddle in politics. I say, like some grammarian, I don't know who, "Whatever happens, I have six thousand verbs conjugated." I bring daily, like an ant, a chip to my pile. There are days when the memory of the Île Saint-Pierre gives me frenzies; I thirst for a journey, I writhe in my chains. Then, the next day, I think that I have fifty ducats to pay at the end of the month, and I set to work again!

Will you like me with long hair? Everybody here says I look ridiculous. I persist. My hair has not been cut since my sweet Geneva. In order that you may know what I mean by "my sweet Geneva," you ought to see Chariot's caricature on "my sweet Falaise": a conscript on Mount Blanc, not seeing an apple-tree, calls it "Land of evil!"

At this moment I am working at two things: "La Fleur du Poix," and "Melmoth réconcilié." Then I have also to do the counterpart of "Louis Lambert," "Ecce Homo," and the end of the "Enfant Maudit," besides that of "Séraphita" (which belongs to you), and that of "Le Père Goriot," which will end the year 1834, just as the end of "Séraphita" began it.

You understand that all my time is fully employed, nights and days; for, besides these things, I have proofs of my reprints which are always going on. Sandeau is horrified. He says that fame can never pay for such toil, and that he would rather die than undertake it. He has no other feeling for me than the pity we give to sick people.

I shall see you, no doubt, in Vienna. I have very solidly determined within myself to go there in March, so as to be able to make a reconnoissance of the battlefields of Wagram and Essling. I shall start after the carnival.

Did I tell you that I am to have the Grenadière?

_Mon Dieu!_ I return to your silence; you do not know how uneasy I am about you, your little one, and M. Hanski. It would not cost you much just to say: "We are all well, and we think of you."

Well, I must say adieu, send you a thousand gracious thoughts, and beg you to offer my respects to M. Hanski, keeping my homage at your feet.

III.

LETTERS DURING 1835.

PARIS, January 4, 1835.

I have had the happiness to receive two letters from you within a few days of each other, while you have doubtless received both mine. I return to _mes moutons_ by asserting that you can write to me regularly, and that it is not permissible in you to deprive me of my sun.

Bah! I have not seen either K... or T... again. Why do you scold me? Don't take my magic-lantern views for realities.