Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833-1846. Honore de Balzac
… It is ten months since I have seen Eugène Sue, and really I have no male friends in the true acceptation of the word.
Do not read the "Écho de la Jeune France." The second part of "Histoire des Treize" ought to be in it, but those men have acted so badly towards me that I have ceased to do what, out of extreme good-will to a college friend interested in the enterprise, I began by doing. You will find a grand and beautiful story just begun; the first chapter good, the second bad. They had the impertinence to print my notes, without waiting for the work I always undertake as it goes through the press, and I shall now not complete the history till I put it in the "Scènes de la Vie Parisienne" which will appear this winter.
I have only a moment in which to answer you; I live by chance, and by fits and starts. Perdonatemi.
Since I last wrote to you in such a hurry I have had more troubles than I ever had before in my life.
My lawyers, my solicitors, everybody, implore me not to spend eight months of my life in the law-courts, and yesterday I signed a compromise allowing all questions in litigation to be sovereignly decided by two arbitrators. That is how I now stand. The affair will be decided by the end of the week, and I shall then know the extent of my losses and my obligations.
Of the three copies I have had made of "Le Médecin de campagne" nothing exists that I can send you, unless it be the first volume. But here is what I shall do: I shall have duplicate proofs made of the second volume, and you shall read them ten days hence, before the rest of the world. I have already found many blemishes, therefore it is a copy of the second edition only that I wish to give you; which will prove to you my tenderness, for I don't know for whom else I would take the trouble to write myself the title for printing [le titre en regard de l'impression].
The extreme disorder which this lawsuit and the time taken in making this book has brought into my affairs, obliges me to take service once more in the newspapers. For the last week I have been very actively working on "L'Europe littéraire" in which I own a share. Thursday next the "Théorie de la Démarche" will be finished. It is a long and very tiresome treatise. But by the end of the month there will be a "Scène de la Vie de province," in the style of "Les Célibataires," called "Eugénie Grandet," which will be better. Take "L'Europe littéraire" for three months.
You have not told me whether you have read "Juana" in the "Revue de Paris," nor whether you have found the end of "Ferragus." I would like to know if I ought to send you those two things. As for the dizains of the "Contes Drolatiques," do not read them. The third you might read. The first two belong, like those which follow the third, to a special literature. I know women of exquisite taste and lofty devotion who do read them; but in truth I never reckoned on such rare suffrages. It is a work that cannot be judged until completed, and ten years hence. It is a literary monument built for a few connoisseurs. If you do not like La Fontaine's Tales, nor those of Boccaccio, and if you are not an adorer of Ariosto, let the "Contes Drolatiques" alone; although they will be my finest meed of fame in the future. I tell you this once for all, not to return to it.
I send to you, to the address of Henriette Borel,[2] by to-morrow's carrier, a unique "Louis Lambert" on Chinese paper, which I have had printed for you, believing my work perfect. But I have the grief to tell you that there is now a new manuscript for the future edition of the "Études Philosophiques." You will also find in the package the first volume of "Le Médecin de campagne," and I will send you the second as soon as there is a copy. I hope to make you wait not more than eight or ten days for it. Evelina is in the second volume. If you receive these volumes safely I will send you the Chénier I have here for you.
Now that what I regard as business is ended, let us speak of ourselves—Ourselves! Who told you about the little Metternich? As to the services I have rendered Eugène Sue, I do not understand. But, I entreat, do not listen to either calumny or gossip; I am the butt of evil tongues. Yesterday one of my friends heard a fool relating that I had two talismans in my house, in which I believed; two drinking-glasses; on one of which depended my life, on the other my talent. You cannot imagine what nonsense is told about me, calumnies, crazy incriminations! There is but one thing true—my solitary life, increasing toil, and sorrows.
No, you do not know how cruel and bitter it is to a loving man to ever desire happiness and never meet it. Woman has been my dream; yet I have stretched my arms to none but illusions. I have conceived of the greatest sacrifices. I have even dreamed of one sole day of perfect happiness in a year; of a woman who would have been as a fairy to me. With that I could have been content and faithful. And here I am, advancing in life, thirty-four years old, withering myself with toil that is more and more exacting, having lost already my finest years and gained nothing real.
You, you, my dear star, you fear—you, young and beautiful—to see me; you overwhelm me with unjust suspicions. Those who suffer never betray; they are the betrayed.
Benjamin Constant has made, as I think, the arraignment of men of the world and intriguers; but there are noble exceptions. When you have read the Confession in the "Médecin de campagne" you will change your opinion, and you will understand that he who, for the first time, revealed his heart in that book ought not to be classed among the cold men who calculate everything. O my unknown love, do not distrust me, do not think evil of me. I am a child, that is the whole of it—a child, with more levity than you suppose, but pure as a child and loving as a child. Stay in Switzerland or near France. In two months I must have rest. Well, you shall hear, perhaps without terror, a "Conte Drolatique" from the lips of the author. Oh! yes, let me find near you the rest I need after this twelvemonth of labour. I can take a name that is not known, beneath which I will hide myself. It will be a secret between you and me. Everybody would suspect M. de Balzac, but who knows M. d'Entragues? Nobody.[3]
Mon Dieu! what you wish, I wish. We have the same desires, the same anxieties, the same apprehensions, the same pride. I, too, cannot conceive of love otherwise than as eternal, applying that word to the duration of life. I do not comprehend that persons [on] should quit each other, and, to me, one woman is all women. I would break my pen to-morrow if you desired it; to-morrow no other woman should hear my voice. I should ask exception for my dilecta, who is a mother to me. She is nearly fifty-eight years old, and you could not be jealous of her—you, so young. Oh! take, accept my sentiments and keep them as a treasure! Dispose of my dreams, realize them? I do not think that God would be severe to one who presents herself before him followed by an adorable cortège of beautiful hours, happiness, and delightful life given by her to a faithful being. I tell you all my thoughts. As for me, I dread to see you, because I shall not realize your preconceived ideas; and yet I wish to see you. Truly, dear, unknown soul who animate my life, who bid my sorrows flee, who revive my courage during grievous hours, this hope caresses me and gives me heart. You are the all in all of my prodigious labour. If I wish to be something, if I work, if I turn pale through laborious nights, it is, I swear to you, because I live in your emotions, I try to guess them in advance; and for this I am desperate to know if you have finished "Ferragus;" for the letter of Madame Jules is a page full of tears, and in writing it I thought much of you; offering to you there the image of the love that is in my heart, the love that I desire, and which, in me, has been constantly unrecognized. Why? I love too well, no doubt. I have a horror of littlenesses, and I believe in what is noble, without distrust. I have written in your "Louis Lambert" a saying of Saint Paul, in Latin: Una fides; one only faith, a single love.
Mon Dieu! I love you well; know that. Tell me where you will be in October. In October I shall have a fortnight to myself. Choose a beautiful place; let it be all of heaven to me.
Adieu, you who despotically fill my heart; adieu. I will write to you once every week at least. You, whose letters do me so much good, be charitable; cast, in profusion, the balm of your words into a heart that is athirst for them. Be sure, dear, that my thought goes out to you daily; that my courage comes from you; that one hard word is a wound, a mourning. Be good and great; you will never find (and here I would fain be on my knees before you that you might see my soul in a look) a heart more delicately faithful, nor more vast, more exclusive.