Part 53

However, let me tell you that there are two hearts here that are full of you and love you for yourself only: Lirette and I. Lirette, with whom I have been talking at her convent grating of your situation, shares my ideas wholly as to the future about which I have made allusion, and apropos of which I have, perhaps indiscreetly, given you some really wise counsel. As to the personal dangers _to me_ of which you speak, those are things I laugh at; you are not as familiar with them as I. Here, in Paris, there are plenty of persons who dislike me and would be glad to have me out of the world, men who have hatreds that are more than ferocious against me, but who bow to me all the same. It is possible that, like Carter when he undertook to tame two lions, I might find your Saxons rather too ferocious and my lion-taming trade a little too visible. But I can assure you, dear countess, that if that fear is the cause of the dreadful three months I have just passed, ah! dear fraternal heart, I should be the one to say the words which I have kissed in your letter: "I forgive you!" I have contemplated those words with tears in my eyes; in them is the whole of your adorable nature. You thought yourself affronted by your most faithful servant, the most devoted that ever could be, and you forgave him. I have been more moved by that than by all my griefs put together. Oh! thank you for the pain that makes me fathom your perfection; pardon me for having misjudged you; be _you_, yourself, as much as you wish; do all that you will, and if, by impossibility, you do wrong, it shall be my joy to repair the broken armour. I was wrong. I was guilty and very guilty, because to goodness one should ever respond by gentleness and adoration. Write me little or much, or do not write me at all; I shall suffer, but say nothing. Do what you think best for your future and that of your child; only, do not root yourself too firmly in the present; look always before you, and tear out the brambles in the path before you follow it.

Another academician is dead, Soumet, and five or six others are declining to the tomb; the force of things may make me an academician in spite of your ridicule and repugnance.

I have done everything I could to remain at Passy, where I live tranquilly and comfortably, but all has failed. I have notice to leave in October of this year, and I must move to Paris and live for two years in an apartment, until I can build a little house at Monceau. I shall look for one in the faubourg Saint-Germain. This removal means the spending of several thousand francs, which I regret. My money-matters, even more than my work, imperatively require me to stay in Paris through April.

I am almost certain of recovering my habits of work and those of food and sleeping; and if the difficulty of the lodging were only solved, I should have tranquillity of soul, for this house is at my disposition and I can remove at my ease, working here till the last moment.

Sunday, half-past two o'clock.

I have just risen. I look at my Daffinger with delight. At last I received your letter, yesterday. Imagine, dear, what a real misfortune happened to me. Your letter had a spot of ink which glued it to another letter, and delayed it, as was stated by the post on its envelope. The post-mistress, who for two days had seen my anxiety, cried out eagerly when she saw me, "Monsieur, here's a letter!" and held it for me to see with a joy that did her honour. And what a letter! I read it, walking gently along in solitary places. To read things so charming addressed to one's self is enough to make one never write a line again, but lie at the feet of one's sovereign like her faithful dog. Finally, I went to sleep, for I must own I had not closed my eyes for two days, so much did this delay disquiet me.

PASSY, April 18, 1845.

You write me, "I want to see you!" Well, then, when you hold this letter between your dainty fingers may they tremble a little, for I shall be very near to you, at Eisenach, at Erfurt, I don't know where, for I shall follow my letter closely. This is Friday; I shall leave Sunday at the latest.

What! you could receive an order from your government to return to your own country, and I not see you! Oh! dear countess; and you tell me I have been amusing myself. But you know my life from the letters in which it is written down day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute; you have surely read, you surely know that my only pleasures are thinking of you, and proving it to you by writing. I have spent these last five months in saying to myself every day: "I start to-morrow; I shall see her! if only for a month, for two minutes, I shall see her!"

Do not write again; expect me.

I am grieved that you have read "Les Petits Manèges d'une Femme vertueuse" without waiting for the Chlendowski edition in Vol. IV. of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, where it bears the name of "Béatrix," the last Part. Have you received the two lines which told you the state I was in from Monday to Sunday? "I shall see her!"--a thought which has defrayed many a journey of seven hundred leagues.

I have sent everything to the right-about--COMÉDIE HUMAINE, "Les Paysans," the "Presse," the public, and Chlendowski, to whom I owe ten folios of the COMÉDIE HUMAINE--hum! also my business affairs, a projected volume (which I will do as I travel), and my affair with the "Siècle;" in short, all. I am so happy to go that I can't write steadily; I don't know whether you can read this, but you will see my joy in my scribbling. Read "intoxication of happiness" for all the words you can't decipher. Tell the people about you that, having gone to Leipzig on business, I am coming to Dresden from politeness, to bid you adieu before your return to your own country. Have an apartment engaged for me at the Stadt-Rom; I need three rooms: a small salon, bedroom, and study. I shall have to work from five in the morning till midday. But from midday till after seven o'clock I shall be with you, and bid you good-night by eight o'clock. As you see, there is no place for a Saxon or a Pole in all this.

This time I bid you adieu without pain, for my trunks are packed, and I am now going out for my passport and my proofs.

I should not like to be lodged under the roof at the Stadt-Rom, as I was at my first hasty visit to Dresden; not higher than the second floor. I shall bring my sad hippocrene with me, my coffee; for seven hours a day is the least I can work, with all I have to do. Now I leave you; adieu! This time, I am certain of seeing you soon, and sooner perhaps than you think.[1]

[Footnote 1: Balzac joined Madame Hanska at this time in Dresden, and they travelled in Germany and Holland; after which Madame Hanska and her daughter accompanied him to Paris, where they stayed some time. This visit was kept a profound secret lest it should reach the ears of the Russian government.--TR.]

PASSY, September 8, 1845.

Dear star, alas! so distant! No, I cannot accustom myself to see you again beaming upon me through such space. No, truly, I cannot bear it. Tell me, for pity's sake, in your next letter where you will be early in October, and I shall be there too; do not doubt it. How and when is my secret, and I shall not return to Paris till you set out for home with your smala.

It is now decided that I am not to move again. I meet with people who do not keep their word, and I am released from the obligation of doing twenty-five folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE. I have only thirteen to do, and I can roast those with a turn of my hand. What need have I of money? I need to see you, and I am going back to you. I know very well we shall no longer have any freedom in our walks or our talks, and that many duties will too often deprive me of the charm of your incomparable companionship; but chance will favour me sometimes with a blessed ten minutes, when I can tell you in a mass what I feel in detail; and if chance should be against me, at least I should see you, I could look at you. I should hear your sweet voice, I should know you were really there, that distance was abolished between us, that we were both in the same land, the same town. My affection for you is so great and so minute, or, if you like it better, so puerile, that I even grieve on eating a good fruit, thinking that you have none; and the notion takes me to eat no more, so as not to enjoy a pleasure of which you are deprived. Ah! believe me, you are the first and the last, or rather the sole and the continual thought of my life.

I have come to an understanding with that old gambler on the Bourse, Salluon, who owns the house of which I told you, and shall look at the place to-morrow.

Royer-Collard is dead. He was the counterpart of Sieyès.

I went yesterday at two o'clock to see Madame de Girardin. I went on foot, and returned on foot. She said to me several times that I ought to present myself for the Academy; although they desire, this time, to put in Rémusat, who has not many claims. But do not be uneasy, I know how it would vex you, and you may feel assured that in this, as in everything else, I will only do what you wish. I returned by the post-office, thinking you more generous to me than you are in reality. I said to myself: "She will have found two letters at Frankfort, and the little case from Froment-Meurice [goldsmith], and she will send me just a line outside of her regular missive." Nothing! I was sad. I send you volumes, and you only give me what is agreed upon.

September 10.

This morning I have only ten more _feuillets_ to do to be done with Chlendowski, that is to say, to complete "Les Petites Misères;" and to-morrow I begin the last part of "Splendeurs et Misères." That means six folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE still to do. This will take fully ten days; that brings me to the 30th. Evidently, I could start the first week of October, from the 1st to the 5th, and I could be in Dresden the 10th to return here November 5th. That would be nearly a month, dear countess! Do not neglect as soon as you receive this letter to send me, 1st, Anna's arms, blazoned; 2nd, your own; 3rd, those of Georges; ask him to make me those three little drawings that I may have exact models made of them, and if there are supporters tell him to draw those also; it is possible that Froment-Meurice may find effects there which he can make use of in the things he has to make for Georges and Anna.

I have recovered my faculties, more brilliant than ever, and I am now sure that my twelve folios, which will be two novels of six folios each, will be worthy of the former ones. I tell you this to quiet the anxiety of your fraternal soul in regard to the reaction of the physical on the mental, and to prove to you for the hundred-millionth time that I tell you everything, not concealing the smallest scrap of either good or evil. Go therefore to the baths of Teplitz or elsewhere, if you think it necessary, provided you are faithful to your promise of Sarmate. Meantime I shall reduce my work to its simplest expression, and about April 20 I shall go North to contemplate you in the midst of your grandeurs.

Laurent-Jan has been here; he distracted my mind and amused me, but he stole three hours.

Well, I must end this little conversation, a pale joy in comparison to our real talks, embellished by the charms of presence, and the certainty of reality. This is Wednesday, and I have still no letters; how is it you did not write me a line from Frankfort, acknowledging the two letters, and the package from Froment-Meurice. I am lost in conjectures and very unhappy.

September 12.

At last, I have your letter. Oh, _mon Dieu!_ who knows what a letter is? I tremble all over with happiness. To know what you are doing, where you are, what you are thinking, is happiness to me here. What a fine page that is on families of cathedrals and cemeteries. Ah! it is you who know how to write! But I must leave you to go and see Georges' cane at Froment-Meurice's, and execute your sovereign orders.

So you have seen Heidelberg! Thank you for the view and the branch of box. But why did you not tell me what name Dr. Chelius gave to your illness, and for what reason he sends you to Baden, the waters of which always seem to me a farce? However, I am far from murmuring at a decision which puts you on the frontier of France; thirty-six hours from Paris. Only, I do want details as to your health. Anna's jewels have been sent by a courier of the Rothschilds, directed to Baron Anselme Rothschild at Frankfort. Write for them there and have them sent wherever you are. You did not tell me how you passed the Prussian frontier. You are very sure, are you not, that all your heart-griefs are mine? I cannot get accustomed to life here now, I never cross the Place de la Concorde without sighing heavily. When you are at Baden, try to form the good habit of writing to me twice a week. You, so kind, you will not refuse me that, will you? and you will not think me too exacting, too tiresome, too importunate? Selfish, yes, I am that; but your letters are my life.

I have not yet sold anything to the newspapers; I have had many parleys, but no money; they think my price too high.

I have many annoyances about which I tell you nothing in my letters. Alas! you have enough of your own; and besides, they would take up too much space. I will relate them to you twenty-five days hence, to be consoled as you alone know how to console. You will be frightened at the blackness of the world, its injustices, its persecutions, its hatreds. One might truly believe that there were none good in the world but us two; at least to one another. Therefore, I no longer want to live in Paris; I would much prefer living at Passy, seeing no one, working under your eyes and never leaving you. There is nothing true, believe me, but the one sentiment that rules me, especially when doubled by the friendship which unites us: same tastes, same mind, same efforts, same fraternal souls. I will put in for you here a morning-glory out of my garden, and a bit of mignonette, gathered in that path where we walked together so often; and I send you also the little bit of lead type which was lost and has now been found. These little things will come to you full of earnest wishes for your dear health. Take good care of yourself; be selfish; that will be loving your child, that will be proving once more that you do have some regard for your faithful and devoted believer. Tell me what Dr. Chelius said to you. Be very prudent at Baden; it is full of Frenchmen, gamblers, journalists. Avoid the company there, see no one, for this fatal celebrity of mine, which I curse, might cling to you who would abhor it, sweet and simple violet that you are, and cause you much annoyance and even, though God forbid it, grief.

All true flowers of affection, a thousand thoughts (unpublished ones, if you please) to the great lady, the young girl, the stern critic, to my indulgent public, to all that world that is contained in you, to all those personages who are so many aspects of my sovereign so faithfully and solely cherished.

PARIS, October 15, 1845.[1]

[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, at Dresden.]

Dear countess; I leave Paris by the mail coach on the 22nd, just as you are starting from Mulhausen, and I shall be at Chalon at five o'clock on the 25th, just in time to give you a hand on getting out of your carriage. My place is booked and paid for. How do you expect me to write you from Paris _Wednesday_ a letter to Frankfort-on-the-Main, when you leave that town on Thursday? I received your third letter yesterday at Passy, in which you give me these directions, impossible to follow. I groan the more as I cannot send you a letter for the custom-house at Strasburg, where I wanted to recommend you to attention.

Tell your social fortune-teller that her cards have lied; that I am not preoccupied with any blonde, except Dame Fortune. No, I have no words except the mute language of the heart wherewith to thank you for that adorable letter No. 2, in which your gaiety breaks out with its sparkling gush, sweet treasure of a charming wit which the fine weather has brought back to you; for, as you once said to me, "It is only wrong-doers who stay sad when the joyful sun shines."

I make use of the excellent M. Silbermann, who will take to you these lines, not so much to tell you that you will find me at Chalon (your instinct will have told you that), but to paint to you my delight on reading your letter. Your infantine and purely physical joy enters my heart; I admire that adorable nature, so playful, so spontaneous, and so serious withal, because it is composed of lively impressions and deep sentiments. My eyes were filled with tears in thanking God with fervour that he had restored that health which you value for the sake of others,--those who love you, like your children and your old and faithful serf. Every time I go to breathe your atmosphere, your heart, your presence, I come back desperate at the obstacles that prevent me from staying in that heaven. I work, God knows how, for God alone knows why. When you hold this letter I shall probably have no debts whatever, except to my family. We will talk of my affairs on the boat between Chalon and Lyon. I shall have much to tell you thereupon, and I hope this time you will not be discontented with your servant. I have enormously much to do, write, correct, in order to meet you. I hope to take you as far as Genoa. But to whom could I confide the care of holding your head if you are sea-sick? If you will let me do as I wish I will go to Naples. I would give up everything, even fortune, to guard a friend like you and care for her in case of illness. I cannot think of you given over to strangers, to indifferent persons. I want to be with you, dear countess, my brilliant star, my happiness!

All this week I have been like a balloon; you know what my tramps on business errands are in Paris; I have been really overwhelmed by them. Minutes are worth hours to me if I do not want to lose money by travelling, for I must myself collect the sums due me. Also Les Jardies will be paid for this week; and I have been five times to see Gavault without finding him. You see I tell you all; it is stupid to talk of these things here when we shall have a whole day on the boat from Chalon to Lyon, and another from Lyon to Avignon. I will try to have lodgings prepared for you in advance, as on our other journeys, for I think you will be obliged to stop sometimes to rest.

I have not received the cup. I don't know whether the post takes charge of such things. In any case, however, it cannot be lost. You know I want to make a symbolic souvenir of it. It is to be supported by four figures: Constancy, Labour, Friendship, Victory.

Baden was to me a bouquet of flowers without a thorn. We lived there so sweetly, so peacefully, so heart to heart! I have never been as happy in my life; I seemed to catch a glimpse of that future I call to, I dream of, amid my troubles and my crushing labour. I would go to the end of the world on foot to tell you that your letters are to me in absence what you were yourself in Baden,--a masterpiece of the heart which is not met with twice in life. Oh! if you knew how you are blessed and invoked at every moment. My eyes are filled with happy tears as I think of all you are to me; those are thoughts I dwell on with a sweetness of recollection that nothing equals; that is my excess; I allow myself that, as your dainty daughter allows herself peaches.

I leave you; I have five folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE to correct. I will write you to-morrow before beginning work. You can tell yourself that in spite of toil, errands, business of all kinds and at all hours, I am thinking of you; that your name is on my lips, in my head, in my heart, and that I only live and breathe in you. You can add that I am saying and repeating to myself incessantly: "On the 24th I shall see her! I shall live ten days of her life!"

October 16.

Dear countess, I am working much; I wrote you in such haste yesterday that I had no time to read over what I had written. I shall see you perhaps this day week.

With the enticing prospect of that blessed 24th it is impossible for me to put two ideas together; on the other hand, I have the sad certainty of being unable to do fine literary work so long as I cannot see daylight in my business affairs and have not paid integrally all my creditors. Worried on that side, and absorbed on the other by a deep, exclusive, passionately controlling sentiment, I can do nothing--the mind is no longer here. This is not a complaint, nor a compliment, it is truth. I have just come to a decision which will obviate this misfortune; it is to end the twelfth volume of the COMÉDIE HUMAINE with "Madame de la Chanterie." That relieves me from making seven folios (which would have brought in nine thousand francs). Far from you I am only happy when I am seeing you in thought and memory, when I am thinking of you; and I think of you too much _for copy_.

I have received the pretty cup, and I want to make a marvel of it. When you hold this letter, tell yourself that we are each going toward the other. Take care in every way. Attend to your health; it is the property of your child--I dare not say mine, and yet, what have I else in this world? If anything in what I say displeases you, excuse it by the haste in which I scribble. I have only time to close my letter by saying, _à bientôt_.

MARSEILLE, November 12, 1845.[1]

[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, Naples. Balzac had joined her at Chalon and accompanied her, with her daughter and Count Mniszech (whom Anna was now engaged to marry), to Naples. This letter was written on his way back to Paris.--TR.]

I have this instant arrived, without my luggage or my passport; I have not breakfasted; but while they are laying the table, I sit down to write to you, dear countess, as usual; for it is, on arriving, my first and greatest need.

It has _blown_ ever since I left Naples, "blown a gale" as they said on the boat, with "a heavy sea." Those, as you know, are the innocent words with which sailors disguise the most frightful weather. Ours was so bad that we were obliged to put into Toulon yesterday, but _La Santé_ [health officers] would not allow the purser of the ship, or your humble diplomatic servant to land with the most important despatches the East ever forwarded. It was seven o'clock; the sun was down; _La Santé_ vacated its office. We told _La Santé_ that it took upon its own head the greatest responsibility and was terribly high-handed. _La Santé_ laughed in our faces, and we were forced to spend the night on board and come on to Marseille. I was not sea-sick, but everybody else, sailors excepted, was badly so. That was not all; it rained in torrents the whole way. The yellow waters of the Tiber and the Arno could be seen in the sea to a great distance; the littoral was flooded. To all my griefs no aggravation was lacking. But I had one diversion. I went to Pisa, and in spite of the beating rain I saw all; except your admirer, M. C. The cathedral and the baptistery enchanted me; but that enchantment was mingled with the thought that during this year I had admired nothing without you until now; and I looked at those noble things with deep melancholy.