Part 57

Without adieu this time, but _à bientôt_.[1]

[Footnote 1: Balzac started for Rome March 20, and returned to Paris May 1, 1846.]

To MADAME LAURE SURVILLE, _Paris_.

ROME, the Eternal City, April, 1846.

My dear Laure, I feel in advance the pleasure you will enjoy in thinking that your brother has put his hand to the pen in the city of the Cæsars, popes, and others. Give you a description of it?--I could not do it. Read Lamennais ("Affaires de Rome") and you will know nearly as much as he or I. I have been received with distinction by our Holy Father; and you must tell my mother that in prostrating myself at the feet of the father of all faithful people, whose hierarchical slipper was kissed by me in company with a _podestat d'Avignone_ (a hideous mayor from the Vaucluse district, who claimed to be his former subject), I thought of her, and I am bringing her back a little chaplet prepared by Leo XII. much shorter to recite than the old one. It is called La Corona, and is blessed by his present Holiness.

I have seen all Rome from A to Z. The illumination of the dome of St. Peter's on Easter-Eve is alone worth the journey; but as the same might be said of the benediction given _urbi et orbi_, Saint Peter's itself, the Vatican, the ruins, etc., etc., my journey really counts as ten journeys.

I am so content in Rome that I am thinking of passing nearly the whole of next winter here, for I want to know everything about it. As there are three hundred churches, you can imagine that I have only been to see the principal ones. Saint Peter's surpasses all that one expects, but through reflection. I climbed to the ball above which is the cross. It would take a week to tell of Saint Peter's. Imagine that your house could easily be put into the cornice of one of the flat double-columns of the interior third tier of the dome. Nothing could surpass the _Miserere_ of the choir, which is so superior to the choir of the Sistina that I preferred to listen twice to that of Saint Peter's: the first time, it was the music of angels (Guglielmi); the second time it was learned music (Fioravanti), which I thought bad, though the execution was perfect.

Truly, everybody should lay by money and go once in his life to Rome, or he will know nothing of antiquity, architecture, splendour, and the impossible realized. Rome, in spite of the short time I have stayed here, will always be one of the grandest and most beautiful memories of my life.... I sail on the 22nd for Genoa, and shall go from there as quickly as possible to Paris.

PASSY, June 14, 1846.[1]

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

Dear countess, I find in the "Presse" of yesterday an article sent from Russia, which seems to me so disquieting that I send it to you. To-morrow I will send you the "Presse" and the "Débats." You will receive them for one month.

I rise at half-past three, not earlier, though I ought to be up at two. Sleep will not come as it should at seven in the evening, on account of the heat. It is now half-past four, and I have not yet written a line!

Adieu for to-day, till to-morrow. M. F... is coming to see me to-day, and I shall have to talk business after working all night.

The Russian article in the "Presse" points to very serious matters. I believe in the spoliation of the land-owners by the government; my uneasiness about your interests is extreme. Will your children have time? What does the article mean? Tell me fully what you think about it. It seems to me to be written by some one who feigns ignorance on the subject.

June 15.

Yesterday I wrote eight pages; the heat was so intense that I put myself into a cold water bath. M. F... came to see me, and I did not go to bed till half-past seven. But I had to be waked out of my first sleep, for at half-past nine the carriers brought the "Adam and Eve" and the "Saint Peter," and my presence was necessary. The concierge had paid sixty francs too much, and I had to explain the error. The discussions as to this lasted till half-past eleven, and I did not get to sleep again till midnight. I had nothing to pay with but a thousand-franc note, for which it was difficult at that hour to get change; and besides, I opened the packages to amuse M. F. and an artist who was with us. The Natoire is charming, signed and authentic. But Holbein's Saint Peter was held to be sublime. The artist, who is a fine connoisseur, said that at public sale it ought to bring three thousand francs.

Now I have paid out one thousand and forty francs. I have only the cases from Rome and the one from Geneva to receive, which will not be more together than five hundred francs, and a third from Genoa, five hundred more. So that leaves me still fifteen hundred francs, and the Chemin du Nord pays a dividend in July; therefore, you see, I am not at all embarrassed.

My situation is even better than I thought. With ten thousand francs all will be brought to an end by M. F..., and my principal creditors perfectly agree to the broad manner in which I am settling my accounts with them.

I can easily suffice to pay all. My health is excellent, and my talent--oh! I have recovered it in all its bloom. My various treaties are to be concluded this week.

Write me the time when you will permit me to come and see you again, so that I may get myself in readiness.

Among the serious paintings that I have in my study, it must be owned that the Natoire [Adam and Eve] looks a little too mincing. I hope to sell that false Breughel for five hundred francs, and that will pay for Genoa, while returning me the cost of the picture.

Here is what I am now going to write: "L'Histoire des Parents pauvres," consisting of "Le Bonhomme Pons"[1] (which will make two or three folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE) and "La Cousine Bette" which will make sixteen; also "Les Méfaits d'un Procureur-du-roi," making six more; in all, twenty-five folios, or twenty thousand francs, newspapers and publishers combined; then, to conclude all, "Les Paysans." All that surpasses my payments. I have besides, for this winter, "Les Petits Bourgeois," and the regulating of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE; also the reprinting of the "Contes Drolatiques" and my comedy. I shall thus have acquired, I think, the right to travel a little. I shall have no debts, and a little house of my own.

But much work is still necessary; if I do eight pages to-day that will be a good deal, for the weather seems threatening to be hotter than ever. I am now going to do a number of errands in Paris, and send you the "Presse" and the "Débats." The Chemin du Nord will not be in full activity for three weeks yet, and that is the cause of the fall in stock which unnecessarily disturbs you. I have so much hope in it that, had I the money, I would again buy into it. The great banking-houses are not anxious, for they are buying it. If the railway has a hundred thousand travellers in July, there will be a rise of two hundred francs; for the funds are placed at ten per cent. I should like to keep five or six hundred francs in the bank so as to buy thirty-five more shares--in case they fall lower, be it understood.

No news from Rome. But I am not uneasy; I am in a phase of hope and confidence which surprises myself; for nothing is really changed in my position; yet I feel, I don't know how or why, less sad, less discouraged than usual. It is as if currents, waves, floods of affection came at moments through my heart for you; it seems to me to be a sympathetic effect between us, and as if at that moment you were thinking of me. You are indeed the principle of the new courage and talent that I feel within me; if I strive to be free and esteemed, it is for you. The world is nothing to me; I do not care for it. I seek to pay all, to make my place clean, to have a home that is dignified and suitable. I devote myself to that result, so often preached to me by you, and the sense of the good I do for the future represses for the moment the pain of an absence which your ideas consider necessary. Moreover, the subjects I am now to write of please me, and can be done with extreme rapidity. The publishing business is at this moment in a bad state. This morning I am going to see Véron, Furne, and Charpentier; but to-day is Monday, and to-morrow is the inauguration of the Chemin de fer du Nord; so it is possible I may postpone these visits till the day after.

[Footnote 1: In "Le Bonhomme Pons," afterwards called "Le Cousin Pons," will be found a description of Balzac's own passion for collecting antiquities and bric-à-brac. This passion was partly his natural instinct, and partly his desire to fill with treasures the home for which he longed. His collection is described in "Le Cousin Pons." See Memoir p. 323.--TR.]

June 16.

It is now a week since I returned from Tours and I have only a dozen pages done, when I ought to have many more. But, as you know, one does not easily resume either hours of work or the faculty of working. Every day I go out for two hours to attend to business. I have not yet seen Émile de Girardin, or Véron, or M. Deshayes.

M. Buquet has sent me a great many insects; show the list of them to Georges, and send it back to me when he has chosen those he wants. Tell him to mark in pencil against them. Tell him also how keenly and deeply I have felt for his misfortune [the death of his father]. And this is very sincere; for there are but you three in whom I take an interest in this world. The others are not worth naming; and it is that I may no longer be shackled, but wholly a thing all yours, that I throw myself up to my chin into work. I am now finishing "Les Paysans" and "Les Petits Bourgeois," and beginning to invent "Le Vieux Musicien" ["Cousin Pons"] and "La Cousine Bette."

Those four works will pay my last debts, and this winter "L'Éducation du Prince" and "La Dernière Incarnation de Vautrin" will give me the first money which will be really mine, and the beginning of my fortune. The times require that I should do two or three masterly works to overthrow the false gods of our bastard literature, and prove that I am younger, fresher, more fruitful than ever.

The "Vieux Musicien" is a poor relation, crushed by insults and humiliations, full of heart, forgiving all, and avenging himself by benefactions. "La Cousine Bette" is another poor relation, overwhelmed by insults and humiliations, living in the homes of three or four families, and meditating vengeance for her bruised self-love and her wounded vanity. These two histories with that of "Pierrette" constitute the "Histoire des Parents pauvres." I shall try to put "Le Vieux Musicien" into the "Semaine," "La Cousine Bette" into the "Constitutionnel," at the same time that "Les Paysans" appears, and that the "Débats" prints "Les Petits Bourgeois."

I will send my letters Thursdays and Sundays; next Sunday you will receive a packet. On that day I shall have begun "La Cousine Bette," and "Les Paysans" will be in full blast. Bertin does not want "Les Petits Bourgeois" till next September. No, to be far from you now is to be crucified daily. If you only knew under what heat I am working you would pity me. May your letters give me courage and hope. _Au revoir_ and _à bientôt_, I trust.

PASSY, July 13, 1846.

Dear countess, a disagreeable thing has happened to me which will take much time; a creditor to satisfy for a very small sum; but the course he is taking is dangerous for me, and will annoy me much and necessitate a multitude of steps. You see, the end of liquidations is always difficult; it is not enough to have the money, the settlement must be negotiated. That is what crushes me and hinders my work. This new creditor will take a whole week of my time. I can't help it. M. F... is in Brussels, pursuing a bankrupt. Besides, the creditor in question refuses an intermediary, and insists on treating with me. When this is over I will tell you what he has done to me. It is written above that I shall know all the horrors of debt.

July 14.

I have nothing new to tell you, except that I am much fatigued. I have passed the night in hunting for receipted bills and memoranda. It is an excessive bore. Buisson has returned; we are not agreed as to figures. If I do not settle this affair now it will become onerous in the future and more difficult to terminate. I am fully aware that I must attend to my liquidation before all else. I am really frightened to see very honest men asking in good faith for money that has already been paid to them and become stupefied when they have their own receipts before their eyes. M. Picard, my lawyer, says it happens every day.

You have no idea what a hunted hare's life I have led from 1836 to 1846. The state of my papers expresses it in a lamentable fashion; it is enough to break one's heart! It will take six months at least to put them in order. In the hurry of my various movings the business papers have been piled up without care, stuffed into boxes, twisted, pressed, crushed, torn. I need a vast library with numerous drawers in which to classify and put them away. Space is wanting here; I smother. The furniture, which is fine, is getting spoiled; a house is a necessity as urgent as the payment of my debts. I am really as much hurried as I was in 1837, and it is an inexplicable miracle, to me how I ever did those sixteen volumes of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE between 1841 and 1846.

Two years of calmness and tranquillity in a home like the Beaujon house are absolutely necessary to heal my soul after sixteen years of successive catastrophes. I feel, I do assure you, very weary of this incessant struggle, as keen to-day in paying my last debts as when it concerned the total of them. And always my crushing literary labour in the midst of these worrying affairs! Were it not for the new causes of courage which have come into my heart, I should, like that shipwrecked man whose strength surmounted for one whole day the fury of the seas, succumb to waves less rough and gentler within sight of port. To be torn perpetually from calmness and works of the mind by vexations and worries that drive ordinary men mad--is that living, I ask you?

No, I have not lived in these last years, except at Dresden, Carnstadt, Baden, Rome, or in travelling. Thanks be to you, O dear and tender consoling angel, who alone have poured into my desolate life some drops of pure happiness, that marvellous oil which does at times give courage and vigour to the fainting wrestler. That alone should open to you the gates of paradise, if indeed, you have any sins with which to reproach yourself--you, wife so perfect, mother so devoted, friend so kind and compassionate. It is a great and very noble mission to console those who have found no consolation upon earth. I have, in the treasure of your letters, in the still greater treasure of my recollections, in the grateful and constant thought of the good you have done to my soul by your counsel and your example, a sovereign remedy against all misfortunes; and I bless you very often, my dear and beneficent star, in the silence of night and in the worst of my troubles. May that blessing, which looks to God as the Author of all good, reach you often. Try to hear it sometimes in the murmuring sounds that whisper in the soul though we know not whence they come. My God! without you, where should I be!

With what ever increasing gratitude do I look at the casket in which are your letters, those treasures of intelligence, and kindness, thinking how you have ever been to me a beneficent friend, gentle and kind, without failure or deception of any sort, without reproaches or regrets--like a spring ever flowing, so that, even now, in the midst of your personal anxieties, you are still concerned for me, for my literary and financial interests, for my future, in short!--

Ah! how well I comprehend the tears shed by Teano when the memory of Caliste came back too powerfully to his sickened heart! It is a noble thing, admit it, the sacred chrism of tears shed on a head, on a brow irreproachable by a poor man who adores them and says, "Would that I could love you more!"

July 15.

Yesterday the affair of that creditor took my whole day. I also went to fetch my proofs at the "Constitutionnel." Alas! here it is July 15, and it is doubtful if by the 31st I can have finished "Les Parents pauvres." "Les Paysans" will take August and September; especially with the journey I am to make [that to Wiesbaden]. There's the naked truth; but if "Les Paysans" bring twenty-five thousand francs, that will be thirty-five thousand in four or five months; that's a great deal. When I am paid for LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, you see, my liquidation will be well advanced; so I shall put off all solution till the month of November. The Beaujon house will not be free till then; then I shall know what to expect from the Chemin du Nord and from myself. I have my apartment here till August 1; so I must be patient, work, and liquidate. To-day I have to go again to the Palais de Justice about the affair of that creditor; it is a day lost. I will write you another line to-night before dinner. I have all my proofs to put in order.

July 16.

Yesterday I came in late and too tired to write you the promised line; moreover, I found the picture restorer waiting for me. He is the cleverest of his trade in Paris; a former pupil of David and of Gros; he is a great connoisseur. He thinks "Le Jugement de Paris" superb, and attributes it to Giorgione. He accepts the "Chevalier de Malte" for a Sebastian del Piombo; he thinks it a very fine thing, and deplores the accident to the Bronzino, which he considers a work of the first order; the hand especially enchanted him. He will restore them all, and also the flower-picture, which has been badly cleaned. He is a very good little man, much of a connoisseur, and has promised me his help on all occasions. He is to come back Saturday and make the toilet of the "Chevalier de Malte," supposed to have a layer of church grease upon him,--the smoke of candles and other disagreeable ecclesiastical glaze.

You see, dear countess, what Paris is. I sent for the little man in question two weeks ago and it has taken him that time to get here. And my frames! ordered a month ago and not yet begun. That is Paris! it needs time and will to get the simplest and most trifling things; imagine therefore what is needed for serious matters. "La Femme" by Mireveldt, which you gave me, my restorer considered an admirable thing, a real marvel. He consoled me for my false Breughel, and did not despise it as Chenavard did. But no matter, I don't wish to keep it, nor the landscape by Krug-Miville, nor "Les Sorciers." I want good things or none.

Now just imagine that a pretended creditor,--I have his receipts,--a mechanician, took an idea to complain of me at the office of the _procureur-du-roi_, and I was troubled by a letter requesting me to go there to answer a complaint; I! that is telling you all. I could not understand what it meant; I was too sure of myself to be uneasy; but I feared the malignancy of the newspapers, for I know of what they are capable when it concerns me. You remember that story of Brussels in 1843. However, yesterday at half-past three, the substitute-procureur gave my pretended creditor a good lecture, and showed him his own receipt. He is a bad man, the accomplice of servants I had at Les Jardies; and they no doubt plotted this fine thing among them. I owe him nothing but some unimportant costs, for which he may try to sue me. You see, of course, I can easily pay him those fifty francs (at the most), but I want to give him a lesson and not pay him on account of his complaint, for others might try the same means. I have a project of making him pay five hundred francs to get his fifty. It is vengeance; but I think it is permissible in such a case.

I am going valiantly to work, and with what ardour! I have now spent two whole nights on "Les Parents pauvres." I think it will be really a fine work, extraordinary among those with which I am most satisfied. You shall see. You know it is dedicated to our dear Teano, and I want it to be worthy of him.

It is seven in the morning; I have been at my proofs for three hours. It is very arduous, for this history is something between "César Birotteau" and the "Interdiction." The question is how to give interest to a poor and simple-minded man, an old man. I have just been reading the papers. "L'Époque" has passed over, skipped, forgotten to print the twenty finest lines in Esther's letter to Lucien. I am in despair because of you. I must get them replaced if possible.

You ought to be pleased with Méry's novel; it is enchanting! What wit the fellow has! Too much, perhaps; it is like a shopful of crystals. He breakfasts with me to-day, and we shall regale ourselves by talking of you. I want also to communicate to him the idea of my farce on the army, and propose to him to write it between us for Frédérick.

Must I bid you adieu, dear valiant soul, sister of my soul. I would I could send you back the good you do me from those heights where you shine, but that is impossible: I am a man, and you are an angel; I can only equal myself to you by the reflection of your intelligence, so powerful, yet at the same time so simple and so candid; to you, in whom all gracious details attract yet without detriment to the _ensemble_ which charms and binds for life. If I did not fear to displease you I could go on thus forever; but if I wish to satisfy you I must work, work on, work ever. Besides, is not that being occupied with you? So I leave you for my "Parents pauvres," and I hope you will reward me by one of those exquisite letters of which you alone possess the secret.

PASSY, July 17, 1846.

Yesterday, dear countess, I had Bertin[1] to breakfast, which was delicate, fine, superfine, I'll answer for it. He was charming, and he stayed a long time, talking and looking at my pictures and bric-à-brac. My whole day was taken up, or very nearly; and I profited by what remained of it to go and see Véron, whom I did not find, and Gavault on business. I dine to-day with Madame de Girardin; I want to confer with her husband about "Les Paysans." You will receive three newspapers: the "Presse," "Débats," and "Époque." I wish also to make you read an Opposition journal.

Bertin was stupefied at my riches. He thought that tête-à-tête of old Sèvres delicious; and declared I could sell my beautiful Chinese porcelain service for three or four thousand francs. He told me he had given commissions to one of the cleverest and most influential men of our embassy to China; he wanted fine vases of old porcelain, but was told there was nothing now to be bought in China but the modern. Old china is all bought up by the mandarins, the court, and the rich; and the prices are ten times higher than ours in Paris. All their admirable productions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are now in Europe. There is nothing left in Nankin or in Canton, and nothing in the interior of the Empire, except what belongs to the emperor and private persons.

I am notified that the pictures from Rome will be here in five or six days, and the picture from Heidelberg in three or four. They were very reasonable in Rome. I had only to pay twenty-five Roman crowns in duties (about one hundred and fifty francs), but the total expense is more than three hundred. So if the other Italian pictures arrive, what will become of me? I must make preparations, for I have received no letter from the consul-general, which seems to me ominous.

I asked Bertin to send you the beginning of Charles de Bernard's novel. Tell me if you have received all, and whether you are satisfied. I re-read yesterday, according to your sovereign orders, "L'Instruction criminelle." You are right, as usual; it is a fine thing.