Part 20

All is much changed since my last letter. Alas! I had the ambition to be near you on the 20th of January, and I began to work eighteen hours a day. I stood it for fifteen days, from my last letter till December 31; then I risked an insomnia; and I am now waking from a sleep of seventeen hours, taken at intervals, which has saved me. What has the public gained? "Le Père Goriot," on which these stupid Parisians dote. "Père Goriot" is put above everything else.

I wait till I have finished "Séraphita" to send it at the same time as the manuscript of "Séraphita," in its binding of cloth and silk as you wished, simple and mysterious as the book itself; also the manuscript of "Le Père Goriot" with the printed book, the first Part of the "Études Philosophiques," and the fourth of the "Études de Mœurs."

My works are beginning to be better paid. "Père Goriot" has brought me seven thousand francs, and as it will go into the "Études de Mœurs" in a few months, I may say that it will bring me a thousand ducats. Oh! I am very deeply humiliated to be so cruelly fastened to the glebe of my debts, to be able to do nothing, never to have the free disposal of myself. These are bitter tears, shed day and night in silence; they are sorrows inexpressible, for the power of my desires must be known, to comprehend that of my regrets.

So you fatigue yourself by going into society,--you, flower of solitude, and so beauteous in worldly inexperience! Your letter brought the whole social life of Vienna into this study where I work without ceasing. I became a worldling with you.

Alas! I am threatened with a grief that will spread over all my life. I went for two days to see Madame de Berny, who is eighteen leagues from here. I was witness of a terrible attack. I can no longer doubt it, she has aneurism of the heart. That life, so precious, is lost. At any moment death may take from me an angel who has watched over me for fourteen years; she, too, a flower of solitude, whom the world has never touched, and who has been my star. My work is not done without tears. The attentions due to her cast uncertainty upon any time of which I could dispose, though she herself unites with the doctor in advising me some strong diversions. She pushes friendship so far as to hide her sufferings from me; she tries to seem well for me. You will understand that I have not drawn Claës to do as he did. Great God! what changes in her have been wrought in two months! I am overwhelmed. To feel one's self well-nigh mad with grief, and yet to be condemned to toil! To lose that grand and noble part of my life and to know you so far away from me is enough to make one throw one's self into the Seine! The future of my mother which rests upon me, and that hope which shines afar, so far! are like two branches to which I cling. Therefore your _scolds_ about the K.s and the P.s and my dissipations make me smile sadly. Nevertheless, I have put your letter next to my heart, with that profound sense of egotism which makes us clasp the last friend who is left to us. You will be, if this person is taken from me, the only and sole person who has opened my heart. You alone will know the Sesame, for the feeling of Madame Carraud of Issoudun is in some sort the double of that of my sister.

You will never know with what power of cohesion I have recourse to the memories of that young friendship, while weeping to-day over a feeling which death is about to destroy, leaving all its ties behind it in me.

The reading of the second number of "Père Goriot" gave Madame de Berny such pleasure that she had an attack of the heart. So I, who did not suspect the gravity of the harm, was the innocent cause of suffering.

I began a letter quite gaily, after having received yours of the 12th; but I threw it into the fire. Its gaiety hurt me. You will forgive me, will you not, for that chastity of feeling?--.you, so like to _her!_ you in whom I find so many of the ideas, graces, noblenesses, which have made me name that person: my conscience.

Between this sorrow and the distant light I love, what are men, the world, society! There is nothing possible but the constant work into which I throw myself--work, my saviour, which will give me liberty, and return to me my wings. I quivered on reading your reasoning: "No letters; he is coming." That idea naturally came to you; I have too often been tortured by it. I am seized with periodic furies to leave all behind me, to escape, to spring into a carriage! Then the chains clang down; I see the thickness of my dungeon. If I come to you it will be as a surprise, for I can no longer make decisions on that subject. I must finish for Madame Bêchet the fifth Part of the "Études de Mœurs," finish the second part of the "Études Philosophiques" for Werdet, finish "Séraphita," and provide the necessary money to pay all here in my absence, and I have not a single friend of whom I can ask a farthing; it has all to be drawn from my inkstand. _There_ is my Potosi; but to work it I must do without sleep and lose my health. Poverty is a horrible thing. It makes us blame our own heart; it denaturalizes all things. In my case it is necessary that talent or power of writing be as punctual to time as the falling due of my notes. I must not be ill, or suffering, or ill-disposed for work. I must be, like the scales of the Mint, of iron and steel, and coining always! Yet I exist only by the heart. And so I suffer! Oh! I suffer, as much as any creature can suffer who is all independence, feeling, open to happiness, but clogged and groaning under the iron weight of the chain with which necessity crushes him!

At this time last year I was without my chain, far from my worries, near you. What a looking back to the past! Then I did not think about being able to release myself, I was thoughtless about my debts. To-day I believe in my liberation; I have nearly reached it. Six months more of sacrifices and I am saved, I become myself, I am free! I shall go and eat with you the first bit of bread that belongs to me, that will not be steeped in tears and ink and toil.

I do not want to sadden you, I only want to tell you that if I am oppressed I feel as keenly the happiness there is in being able to tell of it. But you neglect me as if you were nothing to me; you write me seldom. Why will you not give me, to me alone, one day in the week for a letter. Suppose I were in Vienna and went to see you every Sunday, I, poor workman, you would give me that day. Well, I declare to you that if I am not in Vienna in the body I can be there in thought. Write me therefore on that day. I shall then have a letter every week when this rolling of letters is once established. I will answer you. You have not written me a single letter to which I have not instantly replied.

I offer you no special New Year's wishes. Those wishes I make daily for you and yours.

I shall send by diligence to-day the first Part of the "Études Philosophiques" so that you may not wait but may always keep the run of my work. You will easily guess that the Introduction has cost me as much as it has M. Félix Davin, whom I had to teach and recorrect until he had suitably expressed my thought.

I do not know if the "Revue de Paris" reaches Vienna. You will have seen in it a "Letter" of mine to the French authors of our century, in which I expose our ills. If you have not seen it, tell me, and I will send you a copy.

The end of "Séraphita" is a work of great difficulty. The Germans have sent translators to Paris to get it hot.

Adieu; do not leave me again without letters, or I shall think myself abandoned for society, which returns you nothing. To whom do you think I should repeat your judgment on M. Anatole de Th...? You always think that I go and come and belong in the world of idlers. That is an opinion rooted in your mind; and because you are going and coming yourself you want me to be your accomplice in that grand conspiracy of ennui.

All your judgments on Vienna have been confirmed by Alphonse Royer, who stayed there. Thanks to you, I know Vienna by heart; but as long as you are there nothing could disgust me with it, were it a hundred times more stupid and more gluttonous. Ah! they still have reserved sofas, but they reserve nothing in their hearts.

PARIS, January 16, 1835.

In spite of constant work and the greatest efforts of concentrated will, I have not been able to finish what I ought to do in order to have the power to leave to-day, to profit by this mild weather (which reminds me of the winter of Geneva), and reach Vienna on the 26th. Everything is against it. The "Revue de Paris" would not double its number so that "Père Goriot" could be finished. I have still my "Cent Contes Drolatiques" on my hands, the purchase of them being delayed for a few days. I have not failed about anything, but men have failed me. If I finish all by the middle of February I shall count myself lucky, and have about a month during which the journey will be to me the sweetest of necessities.

I have, however, sacrificed everything, even writing to you, to that object.

You will receive, by diligence, the manuscript of "Père Goriot" and the two numbers printed in the "Revue." Here, every one, friends and enemies, agree in saying that this composition is superior to all else that I have done. I know nothing about it. I am always on the wrong side of my tapestry. But you will tell me your opinion.

Now I have to finish "L'Enfant Maudit" and "Séraphita," which will appear during the first ten days in February. Next, to finish "La Fille aux yeux d'or," and do "Sœur Marie des Anges." The latter is a female "Louis Lambert" [it was never written]. You will read it. It is one of my least bad ideas. The abysses of the cloister are revealed; a noble heart of woman, a lofty imagination, ardent, all that is grandest, belittled by monastic practices; and the most intense divine love so killed that Sœur Marie is brought to no longer comprehend God, the love and adoration of whom have brought her there. Then I have to do "La Fleur des Pois" and the counterpart of "Louis Lambert," entitled "Ecce Homo."

I am much fatigued, much tormented, much worried, especially about money. That wire, which pulls one back at every moment from on high into this heap of mud, is intolerable; it saws my neck.

I have dined with Madame Delphine P..., but I left nothing there of my sentiments. A pretty little creature was present, a Princess Galitzin, and I made her laugh by telling her there was a silly, stupid creature at Genthod who did her great wrong by synonymy. I thought Madame Delphine neither affectionate, nor kind, nor _grande dame_. I made a rapid turn to you and burned incense before you, recalling to mind certain of those perfections about which you will not let me speak to you. A few intonations in M. Mitgislas ...'s voice, vaguely reminded me of yours and made my heart beat.

How cold society is! I came home joyfully to my hermitage, of which you will find a drawing some day at Wierzchownia; for did you not tell me that you had subscribed to "Les Maisons de personnages célèbres"? Well, I am in it; which does not prove that I am a personage or celebrated, when you see what silly folk are there made famous.

A year without seeing you! How many times the desire has seized me to drop everything, to laugh at publishers, and flee away! Then I said to myself that though you might be glad to see me, you might, perhaps, blame me also, and that what makes us worthy of esteem and grand, ought never to make us less friends, you and me. Reassure me, tell me that you do not love me less because I have not been able to find a month in a year. The proof of my seclusion is in what I have _done_, which astonishes even publishers. Yet there are people who still say, "He brings nothing out."

But all this labour will seem nothing, so long as it gives me liberty, independence. When I think that I still need seventy thousand francs for that, and to get them I must spread six bottles of ink on twenty-four reams of paper, it makes me shudder. They offered me yesterday twelve thousand francs for the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée." But I prefer the four thousand of the "Revue de Paris" and the four thousand for a thousand copies bought by a publisher, to putting the three thousand copies on the public market. I tell you my little affairs.

Madame de Berny is better. She declares that the worst symptoms have ceased, but I am going there to assure myself of the truth of what may be a divine lie, of which I know her capable. To help me bear my burden she would fain take from me all anxieties and dry my tears. Oh! she is a noble angel! There is none but you to continue her to me. So, all these days, during my grief, my eyes, my hopes turn ever to you with a force that might make me believe you have heard me.

Oh! leave me, to me so far away from you, the sad privilege of telling you how sweet and good and precious your friendship is to me. What proud courage it gives me here against many a snare, what a principle of laborious constancy it has put into my life! But I lack a collar on which is printed, "Moujik de Paulowska."

Well, adieu; think a little of him who always thinks of you, of a Frenchman who has the heart of which you are all so boastful across the Danube, who never forgets you, who will bring you from here his white hairs and his big monk's face subdued by a cloister regimen,--a poor _solitary_, who pines for the talks, and would like to cast at your feet a thousand glorious crowns to serve you as floor, as pillow!

Well, re-adieu. Kiss Anna's forehead for me; remember me to all about you and those I had the pleasure to know. They seem to me so happy in being near you. Remind M. Hanski of his lively guest, who has now laid up a fine stock of hearty laughs, for he has been sad enough this long time. Write me always a little. I don't know how it is I have not had a line these ten days. Does society absorb you? Alas! your moujik has been himself _un poco_ into that market of false smiles and charming toilets; he has made his début at Madame Appony's,--for the house of Balzac must live on good terms with the house of Austria,--and your moujik had some success. He was examined with the curiosity felt for animals from distant regions. There were presentations on presentations, which bored him so that he went to collogue in a corner with Russians and Poles. But their names are so difficult to pronounce that he cannot tell you anything about them, further than that one was a very ugly dame, friend of Madame Hahn, and a Countess Schouwalof, sister of Madame Jeroslas ... Is that right? The moujik will go every two weeks, if his lady permits him.

Among the autographs sent, have I included one from Bra, who is one of our present sculptors? He is a curious man in this, that he was led to mysticism by the death of his wife, and for two months he went to evoke her from her grave. He told me that he saw her every evening. He has now remarried. Here is a saying of Stendhal: "We feel ourselves the intimate friend of a woman when we look at her portrait in miniature; we are so near to her! But oil-painting casts us off to a great distance." What shall we say of sculpture?

PARIS, January 26, 1835.

To-day I have finished "Le Père Goriot."

I leave to-morrow for a week, to work beside my dear invalid. She is better, she says, but I shall not really know anything until I have been with her a week.

On my return, I hope that "Père Goriot" will be reprinted. "Séraphita" will come to you later. But perhaps I shall bring you these things myself, accompanying the pomade, Anna's ring-case, and all the other things with which you have deigned to commission me. I have accepted too much of the sweets of hospitality that you should hesitate to use me as you please.

Yes, I have the possibility of resting for a month from March 2 to April 2. I must; and besides, my money affairs are becoming less hard. I shall have won this month of freedom by five months' exorbitant labour. But, if I have been sad, troubled, without heart-pleasure, at least my efforts have all succeeded. "Le Père Goriot" is a bewildering success; the most bitter enemies have bent the knee; I have triumphed over all, friends as well as enemies. When "Séraphita" has spread her glorious wings, when the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée" has shown the last lineaments of the human heart, when "Les Vendéens" has snatched a palm from Walter Scott, then, then I shall be content in being near you; you will not then have a friend without some value. As to the man himself, you will never find him anything but good, and a child.

I will not speak to you of the sadness mingled with joy that took possession of me this morning. To be at once so far off and so near! What is a year? This one has been long, agonizing within the soul, short through work. If gleams of a promised land did not shine as through a twilight, I think that my courage would abandon me at the last effort. It needs my sober, patient, equable, monkish life to resist it all. A woman is much in our life when she is Beatrice and Laura, and better still. If I had not had a star to see when I closed my eyes, I should have succumbed.

I have been, out of curiosity, to the Opera masked ball for the first time in my life. I was with my sister, who had committed the imprudence of going there against her husband's wishes. Knowing this, I went to fetch her and bring her home without giving her time to go round the hall. As I was leaving, and waiting for the carriage, a very elegant gentleman with a mask on his arm stopped me, and putting himself between me and the door whispered that the masked lady he had on his arm wished to speak to me. I rebuffed the mask; I think a woman has little dignity to come down to such trickery, and I said to the gentleman:--

"You know the laws of a masquerade; I obey the mask you see here, I am bound to do so."

The masked woman then said, in French mangled by an English tongue:--

"Oh! Monsieur de Balzac!"

But in such a lamentable accent that I was struck by it. Then she turned to my sister, who was laughing heartily, and said:--

"Well, then, between you and me, madame."

My sister told me afterwards that this mask was neither well dressed nor well shod.

There's my adventure, the sole and only one I shall probably ever have at a masked ball; for I have never before gone to one, and, doubtless, shall never go to another. I do not see what good they are. If two people love each other, the ball is useless. If they go in search of what are called _bonnes fortunes_ I think them very bad, and I ask myself if it isn't rather Jeroslas, that is to say, Jesuitical (this between ourselves), to satisfy, under a mask, a passion we will not own.

If I can leave on the first days of March, the sovereign of Paulowska will have had letters enough from me to let her know it. God grant that for one month more I may not be ill or ill-inspired! I shall make my preparations joyously. Be kind enough to write me a line in answer to the following: I should like, in order to go quickly and without care, to have no luggage. If I clear in the custom-house here for Vienna, to the address of Baron Sina, my personal effects, books, manuscripts, etc., will they be opened in Vienna without my presence? Will they get there without being opened on the way? Can I, without fear, put in all the things I want for my own use? And finally, how many days does it take for packages to go from Paris to Vienna? I would like to travel without stopping, and have only my own person to fling from one carriage to another till I get there.

Adieu; forty days are almost nothing to me now, and I tell myself that forty days hence I shall be in the mail-cart for Strasburg. I shall see Vienna, the Danube, the fields of Wagram, the island of Lobau; I don't say anything about the Landstrasse. As a faithful moujik I know nothing that is grander than those who inhabit it.

Do you still go into society? But of us two, the one who is busiest and the least rich in time is the one who writes oftenest. I growl, like a poor neglected dog, but to whom it suffices to say, "Here, Milord!" to make him happy.

PARIS, February 10, 1835.

Though I have scarcely time to write, I cannot be silent about the pleasure I felt yesterday at a fête given by Madame Appony, when Prince Esterhazy, having asked to see me, began to talk of a certain Madame Hanska, _née_ Rzewuska, whose mind, graces, and knowledge had astonished him, and who had given him the desire to see me. With what joy I said before seven or eight women, who all have pretensions, that I had never met in my life but two women who could match you for learning without pedantry, womanly charm, and lofty sentiments--I will not tell you all I said; I should seem to be begging a favourable glance from the sovereign of Paulowska. But all the women made faces, especially when the prince agreed with me about your beauty, and told how everybody knew that your wit did not make you spiteful, for you were graciously kind. I could have hugged that good little prince!

Well, a few days more, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing you.

I have just returned from Nemours. Alas! Madame de Berny is no better. The malady makes frightful progress, and I cannot express to you how that soul of my life was grand, and noble, and touching in those days measured by illness, and with what fervour she desires that another should be to me what she has been. She knows the inward spring and nobility that the habit of carrying all things to an idol gives me. My God is on earth. I have judged myself hourly by her. I say to myself in everything, "What would she think of this?" and this reflection corroborates my conscience, and prevents me from doing anything petty.

However violent attacks and calumnies may be, I march higher up. I answer nothing. Oh! madame, there was a memory, and a sense of horrible pain which rent me during the ten days I rested after "Père Goriot." I will tell you that that work was done in forty days; in those forty days I did not sleep eighty hours. But I must triumph.

I am going once more to risk, as the doctor says, my "intelligential life" in order to finish the second delivery to Werdet, the fourth to Madame Bêchet, and "Séraphita." As soon as that is done, I shall buy La Grenadière, and, the deeds signed, I shall fly to Vienna, see the battle-field of Essling, and from there, something of the Landstrasse, where you are. I shall come in search of a little praise--if you think that my year of toil deserves any; and you know that the words that escape you are put where I put those of _la dilecta_. Though she is ill, her children will stay with her during my absence, and she could not have me then, so I make this journey without remorse. Besides, she knows it is necessary, as diversion, for the weariness of my head.

So, unless I am ill between now and the 20th of March, which is not probable, I shall work with the sweet interest of going, my work accomplished, toward that Vienna where all my troubles will be forgotten. The atmosphere of Paris kills me; I smell toil, debt, enemies! I need an oasis. On the other hand, "Le Père Goriot" has created an excitement; there never was such eagerness to read a book; the booksellers advertise it in advance. It is true that it is grandiose. But you will judge.

As for the "Lettre aux Écrivains," alas! I cannot look at it without pain, for _la dilecta_ thought it so fine, so majestic, so varied, that she had palpitations of the heart which injured her, and I don't like those pages any more.

You know that one of the qualities of the bengali is illimitable fidelity. Poor bird of Asia, without his rose, without his peri, mute, sad, but very loving, the desire seizes me to write his story. I have begun it in the "Voyage à Java."