Chapter II: Letters During 1834 (2)

My dearest, I have many griefs; this flaming happiness is surrounded by briars, thorns, stones. I cannot speak to you of family troubles; they are endless. You will know them from one word, you who feel through a sister what, in another order of things, I feel through my mother. My mother has committed, with good intentions, follies that bring a person into disrepute. Here am I, I, so busy, forced to undertake the education of my mother, hold her in check, make a child of her.[2] Dear angel, what a sad thing to think that if the world has accumulated obstacles in my life, my family have done worse in being of no use to me, and secretly hampering me. One day or other the world counts us as a victor to have beaten it. But family griefs are between _us_ and God.

I told Borget that September would see me in Vienna, and a whole year in the Ukraine and the Crimea, and you know I wrote him that he could meet you in Italy. I send you a scrap of a letter from that excellent friend; it will please you; you will see in it that nobility of soul, that beauty of sentiment, that make us love him. What rush of love he has to those who love his friend! But do not go and love him too much, _Madame_. He will take to you _your chain_, the sketches of my apartment, and your seal, if it is done, without knowing what he hands to you. So tell me the day you will be in Venice; he will go there. He is my Thaddeus, you see. What he does for me, I should do for him. One is never jealous of fine sentiments. As much as _death_ entered cold into your husband's heart when you spoke of a coquetry to Séverine, so much should I go joyously to accomplish in your name a service to your Thaddeus.

From to-day, Sunday, I shall write to you every day a word, on a little diary. Yes, the Würtemberg Coquebin shall alone touch the manuscript of "Séraphita," which will be coarsely bound in the gray cloth which slipped so easily on the floors. Am I not a little of a woman, hey, _minette_? Have I not found a pretty use for what you wanted destroyed, and a souvenir? Nothing can be more precious, or simpler. Book of celestial love, clothed in love and in joys terrestrial as complete as it is possible to have here below. Yes, angel, complete, full! Yes, my ambitious one, you fill all my life! Yes, we can be happy every day, feeling every day new joys.

_Mon Dieu!_ Friday at dinner I saw in my sister's home one of those scenes which prove that inspired love, that jealous love, that nothing in Paris can resist continued poverty. Oh! dear angel, what a terrible reaction in my heart, thinking of the little home in the rue Cassini. How I swore to myself then, with that iron will, never to expose the flowers of my life to be in the brown pot in which were the pinks of Ida's mother,--you know, in "Ferragus." No, no, I never could have that experience, for never shall I forget the 14th of February, 1834, any more than the 26th of January; there is a lesson in it for me. Yes, I want too much; there exists in my being an invincible need to love you always better, that I may never expose my love to any misunderstanding. Oh, my heart, my soul, my life, with what joy I recognize at every step that I love you as you dream of being loved. The most indifferent things enter into this circumference.

No, your young girl's chain shall remain pure. I would like to employ it. It is too pretty for a man. That is why I wanted your head by Grosclaude. What a delicious border I could have made of it, and what a delicious thought to surround you, you, my dear wife, with all the superstitions of your childhood which I adore. Your childhood was mine. We are brothers and sisters through the sorrows of childhood.

There is one of your smiles of happiness, a ravishing little contraction, a paleness that takes you at the moment of joy, which returns to stab me with intoxicating memories. Oh! you do not know with what depth you correspond to the caprices, the loves, the pleasures, the poesies, the sentiments of my nature!

Come, adieu. Think, my beloved, that at every instant of the day a thought of love surrounds you; that a light more brilliant and secret gilds your atmosphere; that my thought is all about you; that my interior eyes see you; that a constant desire caresses you; that I work in your name and for you. Take good care of yourself; and remember that the only serious order that is given to you by him who loves you and whom you have told me you wished to obey is to _walk_ a great deal whatever the weather may be. You must. Ah! the doctor laughed at my fears. Nevertheless, there are baths to be taken, and some precautions, "fruits of my excessive labour," he said. "So long as you lead your chaste, monkish life and work your twelve hours a day, take every morning an infusion of _wild pansy_." Isn't his prescription droll?

You know all the caressing desires that I send you. Well, I hope that every Wednesday you will know how to draw my letter from the claws of the post. From now till the end of the month I shall work only my twelve hours, sleep seven, and spread out the five others in rest, reading, baths, and the bustle of life. Your Bengali is wise. Well, a thousand flowers of the soul. All reflection made, I shall send your ostensible letter by Borget.

[Footnote 1: This ridiculous stuff is carefully translated word for word. The reader must make what he can of it. It is ludicrous to suppose that Balzac ever wrote those vapourings of a shop-boy to his female kind.--TR.]

[Footnote 2: His whole correspondence, and all that we know and can gather of his life go to prove that he never could have written this. His family then consisted of his mother and Mme. Surville. His affection for M. and Mme. Surville appears in every part of his life. His mother seems to have been at times irritating, and very injudicious with him, but not in the way suggested. At one period he intrusted her with all his affairs, and she was his business agent. He shows in his life and writings a strong respect for the Family bond, and his last letter to his mother is signed "Ton fils soumis"--"Your submissive son."--TR.]

PARIS, February 17--February 23, 1834.

No letter to-day, my dearest Eve. _Mon Dieu!_ are you ill? What tortures one has at such a distance! If you are ill, and they have taken your letters! A thousand thoughts enter my brain and make me desperate.

To-day I work much, but get on little. To-morrow I am forced to go and dine with M. de Margonne, the lord of Saché. Nevertheless, I get up at half-past one in the morning and go to bed at half-past six. My habits of work are resumed and the fatigues of toil; but I bear them well. I find unheard-of difficulties in doing well what I have to do at this moment. At every instant of the day my thought flies to you. I have mortal fears of being less loved. I adore you with such complete abandonment! I have such need of knowing myself loved! I can be happy only when I receive a letter from you, not every day, but every two days. Your letters refresh my soul; they cast into it celestial balm.

You cannot doubt me; I work night and day, and every line brings me nearer to you. But you, my beloved angel, what are you doing? You are idle; you still see a little company. _Mon Dieu!_ what ties are between us! They will not break, say! You do not know how much I am attached to you by all the things that you thought would detach me. There is not only ungovernable love, passions, happiness, pleasures, there is also, from me to you, I know not what profound esteem of moral qualities. Your mind will always please me; your soul is strong; you are fully the _wife_ I desire for mine. I go over deliciously within me those forty-five days, and everything proves to me that I am right in my love. Yes, I can love you always; always hold out to you a hand full of true affection and receive you in a heart that is always full of you. I like to speak to you of your superiority because it is real. Every sound your soul gives out is grand, strong, and true. I am very happy through you in thinking that you have all the qualities which perpetuate attachment in life.

My dear flower of love, I wrote in my last letter that I wished you to walk; but I wish more, I also wish you to give up coffee _au lait_ and tea. I wish you to obey me, and I desire that you shall only eat dark meats. Above all, that you bring yourself gradually to using cold water when you dress. Will you not do all that when it is asked of you in the name of love? Do not depart in any way from that regimen. As for walking, begin by short walks and increase every day till you can do six miles on foot. Take your walk fasting, getting up, and coming back to breakfast on a little meat, but dark and always roasted. If you love me you will manage yourself in this way with a constancy that nothing hinders. Then your beauty will remain the same; you will get slightly thinner, your health will be good, and you will prevent many illnesses. Oh! I implore you, follow this regimen, and when you are near the sea take sea-baths. You do not know how I love you.

Tuesday, 18.

Still no letter; what anguish! I have just returned from Madame de C[astries], whom I do not want for an enemy when my book comes out, and the best means of obtaining a defender against the faubourg Saint-Germain is to make her approve of the work in advance; and she greatly approved of it. I carried to Madame Appony Madame Potoçka's letter. The ambassadress [of Austria] was at her toilet; I did not see her, and, on the whole, I am content; I do not want to be disturbed, I wish to go nowhere, and the singular idea has come to me of shaving my head like a monk so as to be unable to go out of the house. I have to go to a ball Saturday at Dablin's; he has done me services, and I am forced to have some gratitude.

Do you know there is some question of my taking my mother, sister, and brother-in-law to live here? I await a family council upon it. I see many inconveniences; the lessening of my liberty, though nothing would prevent my going to the Ukraine and Vienna and absenting myself two years. But, for the last two days, my reason tells me to refuse this union; and yet it is the only means to prevent my mother from committing follies. What vexations and impediments! I have worked little to-day and have rushed about much.

Wednesday, 19.

Furious work. The "Duchesse de Langeais" costs me more than I can tell you. In my opinion it is colossal in work, but it will be little appreciated by the crowd. My publisher refuses me any money for my month's bills; here I am constrained to a thousand annoying efforts, and shall I succeed? he is right; he represents Madame Bêchet, and tells me he can't ask her to pay in advance; the new Part must absolutely be brought out. So I send you a thousand tendernesses. Here, reading this line, you must think that the heart of your lover was full of love, that he had _need_ to write to you a thousand gracious things, but that he must be silent and work! Till to-morrow.

Thursday, 20, five o'clock.

My mother, sister, and brother-in-law are coming to dinner to talk over affairs. I have worked since one hour after midnight till three hours after midday without leaving off. Now, angel of mine, decidedly you will shudder, you will palpitate, when you read the "Duchesse de Langeais," for it is the greatest thing in women that I have so far done. No woman of this Faubourg resembles her.

You have a thousand thoughts of love, a thousand caresses, a thousand prettinesses. I think of you and your pleasure when I hear my name uttered gloriously everywhere. I wish to become great for a sentiment greater still.

Till to-morrow. A kiss to the wife, a little _pigeonnerie_ to Eve. A thousand souls for you in my soul.

Friday, 21.

I have your letter, the second letter written to your dearest one. _Mon Dieu!_ how I love you! The thousand desires, the hopes of happiness which fired my heart at each turn of the wheel as I went to Neufchâtel, the certain delights that I went to find in Geneva and which made you sublime, ravishing, in short a wife, forever mine,--well, I have felt all those divers emotions once more, augmented by dear joys, by the adorable security of an angel in his sky.

Oh! my love, what rapid wings have borne me near to you! Yes, my thought has kissed your magnificent forehead, my heart has been in your heart, my thought in your beautiful hair, and my mouth--I dare not say, but certainly it breathed love and kissed you with unheard-of ardour. Oh! dear Eve, dear treasure of happiness, dear, noble soul, dear light, dear world, my only happiness, how shall I tell you fully that I felt there that I loved you _in æternum_? I ought to have read that letter on my knees before your portrait! What courage you communicate to me!

_Eh bien_, I am glad at what you inform me of. To have it so, it must be the fruit of conscientious thought. Oh! dear darling, I want that this other _you_, this other _we_, well, I wish he may have all that can flatter the vanities of a mother, that he may be tall, that he have your forehead, my energy, that he be handsome and noble, a great heart and a fine soul. For all that, wisdom! At Vienna, my love, at Vienna, we will try. What delights in chastity, in fame, in work that has an object. Fidelity, fame, toil, all that for a woman, one only, for her whose love shines already upon me for all my life. Yes, Eva, Eva of love, my beautiful and noble mistress, my pretty, naïve servant, my great sovereign, my fairy, my flower, yes, you light all things! Persist in your projects; be a woman as superior in your conduct as you are in your plans. Be as strong in your house as you are in your love.

Oh! your letters, they ravish me, they stir me; oh! you make me dote upon you! What a soul, what a heart, what a dear mind! You crown my ambitions, and yesterday I was saying to Mme. de B... that you were--you, the unknown of Geneva and Neufchâtel--the realization of the ambitious programme I had made of a woman.

Ah! my love, it is something, after the triumph that all women desire to obtain over the senses and the heart of their lovers, to obtain also the complete and entire assurance that they are admired from afar, that we can always esteem them, cherish them, take pleasure beside them. Such as you have seen me near you, such I shall ever be. To you all my smiles, to you the flowers of heart and love, inexhaustible in their bloom. To you the candour and freshness of my sentiments, to you all. To you, who understand the mind, the gaiety, the melancholy, the grandeur, the transports of the ever diverse love of a poet! Oh! I stop, kissing your eyes.

To-morrow I rush, about; I have tiresome business matters; but this is the last time. I shall finish at one blow the difficulty about the "Physiologie du Mariage," and by the end of March I shall not owe a sou to Madame Delannoy. After? Well, I shall resume work to accomplish the rest. I tell you nothing of these tramps, but they take much time, weary me, exhaust me, and my love, as much as necessity, cries to me every morning, "March!"

My love, my Eve, night and day I go to sleep and wake in your heart, in your thought. To suffer, to work for you, these are pleasures. Till to-morrow.

Saturday, 22.

I have just received your ostensible letter and have answered it. I spoke _stupidly_ of your chain, but I have not the heart to throw the letter into the fire and write it over again. I am tired. To-night I must go to a ball; I, at a ball! But, my love, I must. It is at the house of the only friend who has ever gallantly served me. I will send you the pattern of a chain, that of Vaucanson; have it made solid, and Liodet can send it to me and draw on me for the cost. Tell me if bronze-gilt things can enter Russia. I have had an admirable three-branched candelabrum made here, and I should like to send you one; also an inkstand and an alarm-clock (a very useful thing to a woman), in short, all that I use here to be the same with you. If I had been richer do you think I would not have substituted to you a chain like yours and taken yours, in order that you might say to yourself while playing with it, "He plays with that chain!" But I can make such joys for ourselves later. Answer me about the bronze, because I want you to have that masterpiece before your eyes. Think, what happiness to see as you write to me, _Exsultat vitam angelorum_, which I shall see in writing to you. Oh! I am greedy, hungry for such things, which put two lovers unceasingly in each other's hearts! I shall have your room at Wierzchownia made just like mine here. I want you to have the same carpet.

Oh! I adore you. Just now I wept on thinking of the floor of your house in Geneva. How lucky to have the strength not to cough! These tears have told me that I shall be at Vienna, September 10, and that I shall press you, happy one, on this heart that is all yours.

_Bébête_, in ten years you will be thirty-seven and I forty-five, and, at that age we can love, marry, and adore each other for a lifetime. Come, my noble companion, my dear Eve, never any doubts,--you have promised me. Love with confidence. Séraphita is we two. Let us spread our wings with the same movement, and love in the same way. I adore you, looking neither before nor behind. _You_ are the present, all my happiness at every moment.

Do not be jealous of Madame P...'s letter; that woman must be _for us_. I have flattered her, and I want her to think that you are disdained. All that I read you in the "Duchesse de Langeais" has been changed. You will read a new book.

Dear angel, no, we will never quit the sphere of happiness where you have made me a happiness so complete. Love me always, you will see me always happy; oh, my life, oh, my beautiful life! Here, I no longer know what an annoyance is in seeing my whole life ardent with one sole love. Tell me what you are doing. Your visit to Genthod delighted me. Never let any woman bite you without biting her deeper. They will fear you and esteem you.

Thanks for the violet; but an end of white ribbon would please me better; it has no longer any smell. I send you a violet from my garden.

Sunday, 23.

Adieu, soul of my soul; will this letter tell you how you are loved? Will it tell it to you really? No; never really. _Il faut mes coups de bec là où est l'amour_.

I hope to finish my volume this week. You will receive it in Geneva. I will attend to your orders, and do blindly what you tell me. But write _names_ legibly in all business.

Would you believe that two young men dined with me yesterday and told me that several men, two of them friends of theirs, said _they were I_ at the [masked] ball at the Opera, and obtained the favours of well-bred women while I was at Geneva, and that I have been thus calumniated. There are women who boast they have been mine, and that they come to me, to me, who see only _la dilecta_, who receive nobody, who want to live in your heart! I learned that last night.

Well, adieu my love; no, not adieu, but _à bientôt_, at Vienna, _cara mia_, my treasure. I have to work horribly, still; seven or eight proofs to a sheet. Ah! you will never know what the volume you will soon read has cost.

I hope to be in funds for my payments; I hope that on March 25th the third Part will appear. So, all goes well. I lose five hundred francs more by Gosselin, but pooh! The violet will tell you a thousand things of love. The Würtemberg Coquebin will bind "Séraphita" marvellously with the gray cloth; do you understand, treasure?

I go to-day at three o'clock to Madame Appony. Perhaps I shall wish to go to Madame Potoçka of Paris. I will speak to you of that.

PARIS, March 2, 1834.

My salvation! For my salvation! No, let me believe that between the two persons of whom you are thinking and me, you have not hesitated, you have condemned me. At least, there is in that all the grandeur of true love.

I was working night and day to go to you. Now I shall certainly work as much, for it is not possible for me to take the slightest resolution till my mother is physically happy. I have still a year to suffer.

Let us say no more of me. So you have been cruelly agitated? A sentiment which gives such remorse was feeble, and it is my heart that was blamed!--I, to whom _adoremus in æternum_ meant something!

Fate is about to take from me a true affection, and to-day I lose all my beliefs in happiness, without anything being able to disengage me from myself. Ah! you have not known me! All those who have suffered forgive, you know. I shall stay as I am; I cannot change. You said yourself: "The Jules women love faithfully, in spite of desertion." Am I therefore not a man? Is this another test? It costs me more than life; it costs me my courage.

I cannot oppose to this blow either disdain, contempt, or any of the egotistical sentiments that console. I remain in my stupor, without understanding. Ah! I knew not that I was writing for myself: _To wounded hearts, silence and, shade_.

_Mon Dieu!_ my book is finished; I am not rich enough to destroy it, but I lay it at your knees, begging you not to read it: Eve should not open a book in which is the "Duchesse de Langeais." You might, though certain of the entire devotion of him who writes to you, be wounded, as one is pricked by bushes. I shall always weep at being unable to suppress it.

I cannot bid you adieu; I shall never quit you more, and, from this day, I shall not allow myself even the sight of a woman. But you have not told me all! I have been odiously calumniated. You have given ear to impostors. There is room for many blows in a heart like mine; you cannot kill it easily. It is eternally yours, without division.

I tell you nothing of what is in my soul; I have neither strength nor ideas. I suffer through you. So long as it is from your hand, why should I complain? Ah! you shall see that I know how to love. Our hearts will always understand each other.

PARIS, March 9, 1834.

My angel returns to me; ah! I will hide my anguish from you, my griefs, my terrible resolutions of a week in which all things have come together to rend my heart. You, Monday; Tuesday. I quarrelled, perhaps to fight, with Émile de Girardin,--that was happiness. There's a society I shall never see again and never want to see. My enemies are setting about a rumour of my liaison with a Russian princess; they name Madame P... I have seen since my return only Madame Appony, Madame de C..., Madame de G..., and, for one hour, Madame de la B... That rumour can come only from Geneva, and not from me, who have never opened my mouth about my journey. Here I am, on bad terms with Madame de C[astries] on account of the "Duchesse de Langeais"--so much the better. But all this happens at once. So, no _solitude_ shall ever be more complete than mine.

I have but an hour in which to answer you. Oh! my love, I swear to you I wrote to Madame P... only to prevent the road to Russia being closed to me. It would be poor cleverness to have it said here, in Paris, that I am starting for Russia. That is the way to have passports refused to me when I ask for them. I have not seen Zaluzki. Is it he who talks? _Mon Dieu!_ I, in my hole, to be subjected to such griefs. Read the "Duchesse de Langeais." You will read it with delight. As true as that I love and adore you, I never said more than two sentences to Madame Bossi, and I never looked at her.

You desire, oh, my angel, that I shall not again be coquettish except with men. But between now and Vienna there is only toil and solitude. Give me the means to send you my book, and your coffee, in which will be your hair-chain. Therefore, undo the parcel yourself.

Never give yourself such anxieties again; yesterday, Saturday, without _la dilecta_, I should have killed myself. Oh! I entreat you, if you wish that I should esteem you and adore you to the end of our days, do not change; be solely mine. I, do you see? have none but you. The superhuman efforts that I make are the greatest proofs of love a man can give. Oh, dear, adored one, my Eve, my Eva, to give his life, what is that? Nothing. Each time that I saw you I gave it without regret. I sacrificed all to you. But to rise every day at midnight to plunge into a crater of work, and to do it with one name upon my lips, one image in my heart, one woman before me!--_strength and constancy_; I live only by the sentiment of grandeur which a mysterious love conveys to me. This is loving. Oh! be my true Beatrice, a Beatrice who gives herself, but remains an angel, a light! All that your jealousy can demand, all that your caprice can exact shall be done with joy. Except the _dilecta_, who corrects my proofs and who, I swear to you, is a mother, no woman shall hear me, shall see me.

My mother and sister have decided. They will live together, and not come to me. I am still free.

Oh, my love, my love, dear and adored, forgive me my answer to your letter; but to sacrifice a love like mine to a child, to a husband, to reject it for any interest whatever; that kills me. Oh, my angel, to think that you are a fancy, after all that you said to me, after all that you exacted, all that I accomplished,--it is enough to die of it! I am proudly a poet; I live by the heart, by sentiments only, and I have but one sentiment. My _dilecta_, at sixty years of age, is no longer anything but a mother; she is all my family, as you are all my heart, all my future! I have to work hard; the "Duchesse" will appear on the 15th; she excites all Paris already. _Mon Dieu!_ a thousand kisses; may each be worth a thousand. Oh, my angel, I hope I may not again have to tell you that to betray me in the name of any one whatever is to put me to death. I kiss you with transport. The Bengali is virtuous. He is dead under his toil.

Put _Ave_ on the inkstand. The "Contes Drolatiques" will tell you why.

I have said nothing. I had a thousand effusions of the soul; I am forced to keep them back. This letter must go to the post at one o'clock. I received yours at midday.

PARIS, March 11, 1834.

My flower, my one sole love, I have just received the letter you wrote me after having received the letter of _badnesses_. Oh! what happiness to be able to write to you once more so that you can leave Geneva without a regret! Since the letter in which you return to me, you cannot imagine how beautiful, grand, sumptuous, has been the fête in my heart at the recovery of your cherished heart. What joy, what intoxication of thought, what forgetfulness of pain, or rather how sweet its memory is, since it tells me how much you are loved, adored, as you wish to be. Oh! if you had seen all that, never a suspicion, nor a doubting word, nor a written phrase would dishonour the purity, the blue immensity of this love that dyes all my soul, fills all my life, is become the foundation of all my thoughts.

For the last two days I am drunk with happiness, glad, joyous, dancing, when I have a moment, jumping like a child. Oh, dear talisman of happiness, darling Eva, _minette_, wife, sister, family, light, all! I live alone in delights; I have said a sincere farewell to the world, to all. _Mon Dieu!_ forgive what you call my coquetries; I kneel at your beloved knees, dimpled, loved, kissed, caressed; I lay my head against you, I ask pardon, I will be solitary, a worker, I will walk with none but Madame de B..., I will work without ceasing. Oh! blessed be the Salève, if the Salève gives me my happy Eve! Ah! dearest, I adore you, don't you see? I have no other life, no other future.

I received yesterday a letter from Madame P... I shall not answer it, to end the correspondence. Besides, I can write only to you. My time is taken up in a frightful manner. For the last ten days I have not varied it; to bed at six o'clock, rising at midnight. I shall do this till April 20. After which I shall take two weeks' liberty to rest. My book will appear on the 16th, the day of your departure from Geneva. You will find it addressed to you, _bureau restant_, at the coach office in Genoa.

I wrote you in great haste on Sunday. Incredible tales are being told about me. While I am sitting up all night they say an Englishwoman has eloped with me. It is no longer a Russian princess; it is an Englishwoman. Oh! my dear treasure, I implore you, never let your dear celestial forehead be clouded by the effect of a "they say," for you will hear it gravely said that I am crazy, and a thousand absurdities. Write to me and expect an answer. I never keep you waiting. Your dear writing overcomes me; it shines in my eyes like the sun. I _feel_ you, I breathe you when I see it.

You will travel surrounded by the thoughts of love; I accompany you in idea, I never leave you. At each correction made, at each page written, I cry, "Vienna!" That is my word of joy, my exclamation of happiness. Why do you speak of God? There are not two religions, and you are mine. If you totter, I shall believe in nothing. Oh! my love, you have given me _yourself_; you will never withdraw it. One alone cannot break that which belongs to two. You are all nobleness, be all constancy. I shall be that without effort, with joy; I love you like my breath, and _in æternum_; oh, yes, for all my life.

I cannot tell you the sufferings of my week of passion, of my desire to go and end my days at your house in Neufchâtel. I told Borget to come at once. I withdrew "Séraphita" from the printers, and meant to send you a sole copy (without the manuscript), bound with your gifts of love. In short, a thousand follies, a thousand tempests agitated my heart cruelly. Oh! I am much of a child! It is a crime to torment a love so true, so pure, so unutterable! Oh! how angry I was with you! I cursed your _analyzing_ forehead, on which I place a thousand kisses of love. Oh! my good treasure, make me no more bitterness. In writing a few sweet things to Madame P... I had in view to stand well with the dear ambassadress, because, through her, I shall have Pozzo di Borgo, and I do not want any hindrance to my year in the Ukraine, the first complete happiness of my life. So, if your cousin shows you my letter triumphantly, play the disdained, I entreat you. To see the Ukraine, eighteen good months! and no money interests to hamper me! I can even die for you without wronging any one. Listen, my love; this is the secret of my nights: that I may be happy without a thought to tarnish my joy! After that, I can die happy, if I have lived one year beside you. Every hour would be the most beautiful poem of love. At every hour I should be happy with the happiness of a child, a schoolboy, who believes with delight in the love of a woman. If heaven marries us some day, at whatever moment of my life it be, it will be the union of two souls in one. You are a dear, loved spirit. You please me in all ways, and you are, far-off or near, the superior woman, the mistress always desired, each of us sustaining the other. It is so sweet to a man to find that the mind, the heart, the soul, the understanding of the woman who pours out to him his pleasures, is not narrow.

Oh! dearest, all is in you. I believe in you, I love you, and as I have known you better I have found a thousand reasons for eternal attachment in esteem and in the thousand things of your heart and mind. There is no evil possible for me when I think of the life that you can make me by your love. In writing this, which you will read in that room of love before quitting it, I wish to cast upon this paper which you will hold all my soul, all the tangible qualities of a being who is yours forever; never withdraw from me the heart I have pressed, the adorable charms of that cherished soul--yourself in short.

Adieu, soul of my soul, my faith, strength, courage, love--all the great sentiments that make a great man, and a happy life. Adieu; _à bientôt_, and sooner than you think, dearest.

Yes, I will love you better than any woman was ever loved, and our "Chêne" will be better than that you picture to me. Coquette, indeed! You know well that my heart will rest in yours without other clouds to our love than those you make.

Come, Auguste, carry this to the general post-office.[1]

[Footnote 1: This is the last but one of these spurious letters. There is one other which plainly belongs to this series, but it has been placed at a later date for a purpose which will appear farther on.--TR.]

PARIS, March 30--April 3, 1834.

I have not written to you sooner, madame, because I presumed that you would not be in Florence before the 1st of April. I have sent to the address of MM. Borri & Co. a little package containing your copy of the second part of the "Études de Mœurs au XIXe Siècle," and I have added the Prologue of the third _dizain_ of the "Contes Drolatiques" for M. Hanski, inasmuch as there is something in it about a famous inkstand, and things that will make him laugh; for I do not insult you with my Prologue, pay attention to that. It is to M. Hanski, and not to you, that this proof belongs.

You will see at the end of the "Duchesse de Langeais" that I have preserved a remembrance of the Pré-l'Évêque by dating the work from that revolutionary and military spot where we saw such warlike intentions. The third _dizain_ is also dated from the Eaux Vives, and the Hôtel de l'Arc.

I have many things to tell you, but little time to myself. My third Part is in the press, and I ought to make up for time lost. Nevertheless, Madame Bêchet is a very good person.

Forgive the want of order in my letter, but I will tell you the events that have happened to me as they come into my memory.

In the first place, I have said adieu to that mole-hill of Gay, Émile de Girardin and Company. I seized the first opportunity, and it was so favorable that I broke off, point-blank. A disagreeable affair came near following; but my susceptibility as man of the pen was calmed by a college friend, ex-captain in the ex-Royal Guard, who advised me. It all ended with a piquant speech replying to a jest.

Another thing I must tell you is that I have recently quarrelled also with the Fitz-James. And here I am, as much alone as the woman most ambitious of love could desire, if any woman could wish for a man whom excessive work is withering more and more. It is two months to-day that I have been working eighteen hours a day.

The "Médecin de campagne" will be completely sold off in a few days. I am in all the fuss and worries of getting out a new edition of that book, which I want to sell at thirty sous, in order to popularize it.

Thursday, April 3.

From March 30, the day on which I began to write to you, until this evening, I have been lying on my pallet unable to write, read, or work, or do anything at all. A prostration of all my forces made me very anxious; but to-day I am quite well, and I am going for a week to the Pavilion in the forest of Fontainebleau. I have ordered all my letters to be kept in Paris. I want change of air, and to work at one thing only; for I have just suffered very much, but, thank God, it is all over. I resume my letter.

I invited your cousin Bernard ... to dinner, with Zaluski, and Mickiewicz, your dearest poet, whose face pleased me much. Bernard is very handsome and was very witty.

I entreat you, madame, to send me word, by return of post, if you will still be in Florence May 10th, how much time you stay in Rome, when you arrive, and when you will leave; because when my third Part is done I shall have twenty days to myself. I want to use them in travelling and doing nothing, and I shall accompany Auguste Borget to Florence. We shall leave May 1st and it takes only eight days from Paris to Florence.

Do not blame me too much for the unpunctuality of my correspondence. In the extreme desire for LIBERTY which possesses me, I don't consult human forces, I work exorbitantly. I have at this moment in press: two volumes of my third Part of the "Études de Mœurs," two volumes of "Les Chouans," and the third _dizain_; then, in a week from now, two volumes for Gosselin. It is enough to terrify one. But there are two magic words which make me able to do all: _liberty_ on the 1st of September; _Vienna_ on that day; and I shall not regret my nights or my tortures, for pen-receipts will tally with expenses.

_Mon Dieu!_ what a charming project,--to be in Florence May 10, and back in Paris for the 20th! To see Florence with you! Write me quickly; for after these terrible toils through the month of April I must have twenty days' rest, and I know nothing more delightful than to see an Italian city while accompanying a friend.

I think of you very often, and I much regret Geneva, where I worked so much, all the while amusing myself. Except for a few worries, my affairs are going well. Some flatterers say that my fame is increasing, but I know nothing of that, for I live in my chimney-corner, working for citizen rights in the Ukraine. Your poor "Séraphita" is laid aside. What is promised must be done before all else. You yourself, without knowing it, tell me to work. I keep before me the _bon à tirer_ [order to print] which you gave for one sheet in Geneva, and it seems to me a perpetual counsel. Do you know, it is rather melancholy to think of you only with regrets. You do not know that for twelve or fifteen years, Neufchâtel and Geneva are the two sole periods when I have been permitted, by what grace of heaven I know not, to look neither forward nor back; to live beneath the sky without thinking of griefs, or business, or poverty; you have been to me something beneficent. There is more gratitude in my remembrance than you know. And now that I have been nailed to an insatiable table for two months, and shall be for another month, leaving it only to sleep, I cannot think without emotion of the walks to Sacconex, to Coppet, and of your house, and my hunger which made us leave the garden where we were sitting under the willows and you discovered that good smell in the Indian chestnut, macerated in water. There are none of those tranquil pleasures in Paris. But I am not in Paris now.

Here I am alone, much alone. I have parted from society, and have returned to my former fruitful solitude. Before all things else, I must finish a book, and the "Études de Mœurs" ought to be finished this year. My liberty will be to go and come and remain where I please to go and remain. Nevertheless, I do not know a more agreeable trip than to Florence to see you for five days, and hear you for one single evening say "tiyeuilles" or "Iodet." That, I think, would restore my courage for another three months.

Perhaps I shall bring M. Hanski the third _dizain_ to laugh away his "blue devils;" at any rate, he must be very ill if he resists my wild joy. It is two months since I laughed; one more will make three; but _then_ he shall die of laughing. Tell him that as Geneva was so base in the matter of the poor Poles, I will never speak well of Geneva again. Are you comfortable in Italy? How did you cross the mountains? I follow you in thought. Have you thought of your poor, humble moujik and his _blonde capricieuse_ at Aix? You ought to have thought of him at Aiguebelles, where the servants at the inn are so gracious, and at Turin, where he wished to go. Thank you, madame, if you think a little of him who thinks much of you.

I have not seen Grosclaude. Our Exhibition is detestable. There are five to ten fine pictures in three thousand five hundred canvases.

How is your dear Anna? You will tell me, won't you, how your little caravan rolls on? M. Bernard ... came yesterday to make me compliments on the "Duchesse de Langeais," and was very gracious.

_Mon Dieu!_ you will forgive me--me, a poor hermit toiler--for talking to you so much of myself, because I am calling for your egotism in reply; to talk to me solely of yourself would be doing well by me. I can tell you only two things: I work constantly, I pay, I think of my friends. I have in my heart a happy corner, and that ought to suffice to make a noble life. My "blue devils" have no time to rise to the surface.

Do you still intend to play Grandet at Wierzchownia? for in that case I shall await thirty invitations before going there, to save provisions. Do you want anything in Paris? I hope that you and M. Hanski will not employ any other correspondent than me. But Borget and I will arrive laden with cotignac, peach preserves, and Angoulême and Strasburg pâtés. You ought to give me a commission; you don't know what pleasure it is to me to busy myself for something a friend asks of me, how it brightens my life. A fancy--that's myself only; but the fancy of another, whom I love, is a double fancy.

Spachmann [binder] has done your album, and I am beginning to collect the autographs. It will take long, but you shall have it, with patience. I begin with the oldest. Pigault-Lebrun is eighty-five years old; he shall begin it.

Adieu, madame, I would like to keep on writing to you always, just as when I was by your fireside I did not want to go away. But I must bid you adieu--no, not adieu, but au revoir. I shall await with great impatience your answer, to know if you will be in Florence May 10. Do be there! The shorter the journey, the longer time I shall have to see you; I have twenty days to myself, no more. The twenty-first I must resume the _yoke of misery_.

Madame de G[irardin] has made many efforts to get me back again, but your obstinate moujik--he would not be moujik if he did not say "nie"--has said nay as elegantly as he could, for he is a little civilized, your devoted moujik.[1]

HONORÉ DE BALZAC.

You know that all I wish to say to those about you; my regards, my respects, will have more value by passing through your lips.

[Footnote 1: Delphine de Girardin made many attempts to recover him, and did so, finally. In spite of his estrangement from her house she was always loyal to him; and during the time of his quarrel with her husband she wrote many kind things of him in "La Presse."--TR.]

FRAPESLE, near ISSOUDUN, April 10, 1834.

MADAME,--Since I had the pleasure of writing to you I have been very ill. My night work, my excesses, have been paid for. I fell into a state of prostration which did not allow me to read or write or even to listen to a sustained discussion. My bodily weakness equalled the intellectual weakness. I could not move. What has frightened me most is that for the last two years these attacks of debility have increased. At first, after a month of toil, I would feel one or two hours' weakness; then five hours, then a whole day. Since then the weakness has become excessive, lasting two days, three days. This time it came near death; but for the last ten days I am convalescent.[1] The doctor ordered me change of air, absolute repose, no occupation, and nourishing food. So I am here for ten days in Berry, at Issoudun, with Madame Carraud.

To-day, April 10th, I am better; I can write to you and tell you of my little death-struggle, my despair, for, feeling no force, no thought within me, I wept like a child. But to-day I recover courage; _passato, pericolo, gabbato il santo_. I shall laugh at the doctor who said to me:--

"You will die like Bichat, like Béclard, like all those who abuse by their brain the human forces; and what is so extraordinary in this is that you--you the most energetic _forbidder_ of emotion, you the apostle who preach the absence of thought, you who pretend that life goes off in the passions and by the action of the brain more than by bodily motions,--you will be dead for having neglected the formulas you formulated!"

From all this has resulted, madame, a good and beautiful project of opposing to each month of toil a full month of amusement. So, from the 10th or 12th of May, I shall take twenty days in which to go and see you for two or three days wherever you are in Italy. If you are willing to see Saint Peter's at Rome in June, we will see Rome together. Then, after admiring Rome for five days, I will come back and take up my yoke. Next, having spent July and August on new _pensums_, I will go to see Germany, and salute you once more in Vienna, for I don't know anything sweeter than to give a purpose of friendship to a journey of pure amusement, to go in search of two or three gentle evenings, and make you laugh, and chase away the "blue devils."

You have not written to me; do you know that there is ingratitude in you? it is you who have a "French" heart. What! not the smallest little line! Nothing from Genoa, nothing from Florence. You received, I hope, in Florence, my third Part, and the third _dizain_ to make M. Hanski laugh.

Just now I am completing the third Part, and doing a master-work,--"César Birotteau,"--the brother of him whom you know, victim like his brother, but victim of Parisian civilization, whereas his brother is the victim of a single man. It is another "Médecin de campagne," but in Paris; it is Socrates _stupid_, drinking, in shadow and drop by drop, his hemlock; an angel trodden underfoot, an honest man misjudged. Ah! it is a great picture; it will be grander, more vast than anything I have yet done. I want, if you forget me, that my name should be cast to you by Fame, as a reproach.

Do you know, madame, that you are very seriously in my prayers of night and morning,--you and all those you care for? You do not truly know the heart which chance has made you meet. A desire to boast possesses me--but no; time will be to you a too constant, too noble eulogy on me. I do not wish to add to it.

As soon as "Birotteau" is printed, the third Part out, the _dizain_ in the light, I shall rush joyously to Italy to seek your approbation as a sweet reward. Maître Borget cannot come with me; you will see him, no doubt, in Venice; but the artist moves slowly, he sips all, whereas I am forced to go like the wind and return like a vapour. Borget is here, and returns with me to Paris, April 20.

Poor Madame Carraud is very unwell, and is causing alarm to her friends. She confided to me the secret of her sufferings. She is perhaps pregnant, and another child would be her death. She has hardly strength to live.

I beg of you, write me in detail about your travelling life, that I may know all your joys and even your disappointments. I have so much admired the splendid face of Mickiewicz; what a noble head! Write me what you think of the "Duchesse de Langeais." Kiss Anna on the forehead for me, her poor _horse_. Present my regards to M. Hanski; how does Italy suit him? My respects to Mademoiselle Séverine. To you, madame, my most affectionate thoughts.

I must bid you adieu for to-day, because work calls me. In ten days, after "Birotteau" is done, I will write you a long letter and make up arrears. I will tell you my past troubles, my sufferings laid to rest, and my sensations, inasmuch as you deign to take an interest in your poor literary moujik. Your beautiful Séraphita is very mournful; she has folded her wings and awaits the hour to be yours. I will not have a single rival thought disturb that thought you have adopted. Perhaps I will bring her to Rome that she may be done, little by little, under your eyes. Each day enlarges the picture and _magnifies it_.