HONORÉ DE BALZAC (continued 3)

I would give my life that that horrible page had not been written. To reproach me for my very devotion! Do you believe that I would not leave all, and go with you to the depths of some retreat? You arm yourself with the phrase in which I sacrifice (the word meant nothing, there is no sacrifice) to you all!

Why have you flung suffering into what was so sweet? You have made me give to grief the time that belonged to the toil which facilitates my means of going to you sooner.

I await, with an impatience beyond words, a letter, a line; you have completely upset me. No, you do not know the childlike heart, the poet's heart, that you have bruised. I am a man to suffer, then!

Adieu. Did I tell you the story of that man who wrote drinking-songs in order to bury an adored mistress? To work with a heart in mourning is my fate till your next letter comes. You owe me your life for this fatal week. Oh! my angel, mine belongs to you. Break, strike, but love me still. I adore you as ever; but have mercy on the innocent. I do not know if you have formed an idea of what I have to do. I must finish with the printing of four volumes before I can start, I must compound with five difficulties, pay eight thousand francs; and the four volumes make one hundred feuilles, or one hundred times sixteen pages, to be revised each three or four times, without counting the manuscripts.

Well, I will lose sleep, I will risk all, but you will see me near you on the 20th at latest.

To-morrow I shall write openly to Madame Hanska to announce my parcel.

May I put here a kiss full of tears? Will it be taken with love? Make no more storms without cause in what is so pure.

It is midday. That you may get this in time, I send it to the general post-office.

Paris, Thursday, November 12, 1833.

It is six o'clock; I am going to bed, much fatigued by certain errands [courses] made for pressing affairs; for I have hope, at the cost of three thousand francs in money, of compromising on the litigious affair which causes me the most anxiety. On returning home I found your letter sent Friday, with that kind page which effaces all my pain.

O my adored angel, as long as you do not fully know the bloom of sensitiveness which constant toil and almost perpetual seclusion have left in my heart, you will not understand the ravages that a word, a doubt, a suspicion can cause. In walking this morning through Paris I said to myself that commercially the most simple contract could not be broken without attainting probity; but have you not broken, without hearing me, a promise that bound us forever?

This is the last time that I shall speak to you of that letter except when, in Geneva, I shall explain to you what gave rise to it. Fear nothing; I have finished all my visits, and shall not go again to Gérard's. I refuse all invitations, I hibernate completely, and the woman most ambitious of love could find nothing to blame in me.

But alas! all that I have been able to do has been to take one more hour from sleep. I must sleep five hours. My doctor, whom I saw this morning, and who knows me since I was ten years old (a friend of the house), is always fearful on seeing how I work. He threatens me with an inflammation of the integuments of my cerebral nerves:—

"Yes, doctor," I told him, "if I committed excess upon excess; but for three years I have been as chaste as a young girl, I never drink either wine or liquors, my food is weighed, and the return of my neuralgia comes less from work than from grief."

He shrugged his shoulders and said, looking at me:—

"Your talent costs dear! It is true; a man doesn't have a flaming look like yours if he addicts himself to women."

There, my love, is a very authentic certificate of my sobriety. The doctor is alarmed at my work. "Eugénie Grandet" makes a thick volume. I keep the manuscript for you. There are pages written, in the midst of anguish. They belong to you, as all of me does.

My dear love, listen; you must content yourself with having only a few sentences, a line perhaps, per day, if you wish to see me in November at Geneva. Apropos, write me openly in reply to my open letter, to come to the inn on the Pré-l'Évêque, and give me its name. I shall come for a month, and write "Privilège" there. I shall have to bring a whole library.

My love, à bientôt. Nevertheless, I have a thousand obstructions. The printers, and there are three printing-offices busy with these four volumes, well, they do not get on. I, from midnight to midday, I compose; that is to say, I am twelve hours in my arm-chair writing, improvising, in the full meaning of that term. Then, from midday to four o'clock I correct my proofs. At five I dine, at half-past five I am in bed, and am wakened at midnight.

Thank you for your kind page; you have removed my suffering; oh! my good, my treasure, never doubt me. Never a thought or a word in contradiction of what I have said to you with intoxication can trouble the words and thoughts that are for you. Oh! make humble reparations to Madame P... Bulwer, the novelist, is not in Parliament; he has a brother who is in Parliament, and the name has led even our journalists into error. I made the same mistake that you did, but I have verified the matter carefully. Bulwer is now in Paris,—the novelist, I mean. He came yesterday to the Observatoire, but I have not seen him yet.

You make me like Grosclaude [an artist]. What I want is the picture he makes for you, and a copy equal to the original. I shall put it before me in my study, and when I am in search of words, corrections, I shall see what you are looking at.

There is a sublime scene (to my mind, and I am rewarded for having it) in "Eugénie Grandet," who offers her fortune to her cousin. The cousin makes an answer; what I said to you on that subject was more graceful. But to mingle a single word that I have said to my Eve in what others will read!—ah! I would rather fling "Eugénie Grandet," into the fire. Oh, my love! I cannot find veils enough to veil it from everyone. Oh! you will only know in ten years that I love you, and how well I love you.

My dear gentille, when I take this paper and speak to you I let myself flow into pleasure; I could write to you all night. I am obliged to mark a certain hour at my waking; when it rings I ought to stop, and it rang long ago.

Till to-morrow.

Wednesday.

After the 22nd, including the 22nd, do not post any more letters; I shall not receive them. Oh! I would like to intoxicate myself so as not to think during the journey. Three days to be saying to myself, "I am going to see her!" Ah! you know what that is, don't you? It is dying of impatience, of pleasure! I have just sent you the licensed letter, and I am now going to do up the parcel and arrange the box. I have returned the remainder of the pebbles; I had not the right to lose what Anna picked up; and I would not compromise Mademoiselle Hanska by keeping them.

Oh! let me laugh after weeping. I shall soon see you. I bring you the most sublime masterpiece of poesy, an epistle of Madame Desbordes-Valmore, the original of which I have; I reserve it for you. To-morrow, Thursday, I hope to be delivered of "Eugénie Grandet." The manuscript will be finished. I must immediately finish "Ne touchez pas à la hache."

I do not know how it is that you can go and put yourself so often into the midst of that atmosphere of Genevese pedantry. But also I know there is nothing so agreeable as to be in the midst of society with a great thought, oh! my beautiful angel, my Eva, my treasures, of which the world is ignorant.

Nothing could be more false than what that traveller told you about Madame C... You understand, my love, that the ambitious manner in which I now present myself in society must engender a thousand calumnies, a thousand absurd versions. To give you an example: I have a glass I value, a saucer, out of which my aunt, an angel of grace and goodness who died in the flower of her age, drank for the last time; and my grandmother, who loved me, kept it on her fireplace for ten years. Well, my lawyer heard some man in a literary reading-room say that my life was attached to a talisman, a glass, a saucer; and my talent also. There are things of love and pride and nobleness in certain lives which others would rather calumniate than comprehend.

Latouche has said a frightful thing of hatred to one of my friends. He met him on the quay; they spoke of me,—Latouche with immense praises (in spite of our separation). "What pleases me about him," he said, "is that I begin to believe he will bury them all."

Mon Dieu! how I love your dear letters; not those in which you scold, but those in which you tell me minutely what happens to you. Oh! tell me all; let me read in your soul as I would like to make you read in mine. Tell me the praises that your adorable beauty receives, and if any one looks at your hair, your pretty throat, your little hands, tell me his name. You are my most precious fame. We have, they say, stars in heaven; you, you are my star come down,—the light in which I live, the light toward which I go.

How is it that you speak to me of what I write. It is what I think and do not say that is beautiful, it is my love for you, its cortège of ideas, it is all that I fain would say to you, in your ear, with no more atmosphere between us.

I do not like "Marie Tudor;" from the analyses in the newspapers, it seems to me nasty. I have no time to go and see the play. I have no time to live. I shall live only in Geneva. And what work I must do even there! There, as here, I shall have to go to bed at six o'clock and get up at midnight. But from midday to five o'clock, O love! what strength I shall get from your glances. What pleasure to read to you, chapter by chapter, the "Privilège" or other tales, my cherished love!

Do not think that there is the least pride, the least false delicacy in my refusal of what you know of, the golden drop you have put angelically aside. Who knows if some day it might not stanch the blood of a wound? and from you alone in the world I could accept it. I know you would receive all from me. But no; reserve all for things that I might perhaps accept from you, in order to surround myself with you, and think of you in all things. My love is greater than my thought.

Find here a thousand kisses and caresses of flame. I would like to clasp you in my soul.

Paris, Wednesday, November 13, 1833.

Madame,—I think that the house of Hanski will not refuse the slight souvenirs which the house of Balzac preserves of a gracious and most joyous hospitality. I have the honour to address you, bureau restant at Geneva, a little case forwarded by the Messageries of the rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. You have no doubt been accusing the frivolity and carelessness of the "Frenchman" (forgetting that I am a Gaul, nothing but a Gaul), and have never thought of all the difficulties of Parisian life, which have, however, procured me the pleasure of busying myself long for you and Anna. The delay comes from the fact that I wanted to keep all my promises. Permit me to have some vanity in my persistence.

Before the sublime Fossin deigned to leave the diadems and crowns of princes to set the pebbles picked up by your daughter, I had to entreat him, and be very humble, and often leave my retreat, where I am busy in setting poor phrases. Before I could get the best cotignac [quince marmalade] from Orléans, inasmuch as you want to be a child again and taste it, there was need of correspondence. And foreseeing that you would find the marmalade below its reputation, I wanted to add some of the clingstone peaches of Touraine, that you might feel, gastronomically, the air of my native region. Forgive me that Tourainean vanity. And finally, in order to send you a "La Caricature" complete, I had to wait till its year was ended and then submit to the delays of the binder,—that high power that oppresses my library.

For your beautiful hair nothing was more easy, and you will find what you deigned to ask me for. I shall have the honour to bring you myself the recipe for the wonderful preservative pomade, which you can make yourself in the depths of the Ukraine, and so not lose one of your beauteous black hairs.

Rossini has lately written me a note; I send it to you as an offering to Monsieur Hanski, his passionate admirer. You see, madame, that I have not forgotten you, and that if my work allows I shall soon be in Geneva to tell you myself what sweet memories I preserve of our happy meeting.

You admire Chénier; there is a new edition just published, more complete than the preceding ones. Do not buy it; arrange that I may read to you, myself, these various poems, and perhaps you will then attach more value to the volumes I shall select for you here. That sentence is not vain or impertinent; it is the expression of a hope with wholly youthful frankness.

I hope to be in Geneva on the 25th; but, alas! for that I have to finish four volumes, and though I work eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and have given up the music of the opera and all the joys of Paris to stay in my cell, I am afraid that the coalition of workmen of which we are now victims will make my efforts come to nought. I wish, as I have to make this journey, that I might find a little tranquillity in it, and remain away from that furnace called Paris for a fortnight, to be employed in some far niente. But I shall probably have to work more than I wish to.

Give the most gracious expression of my sentiments and remembrances to Monsieur Hanski, kiss Mademoiselle Anna in my name, and accept for yourself my respectful homage. Will you believe me, and not laugh at me if I tell you that, often, I see again your beautiful head in that landscape of the Île Sainte-Pierre, when, in the middle of my nights, weary with toil, I gaze into my fire without seeing it, and turn my mind to the most agreeable memories of my life? There are so few pure moments, free of all arrière-pensées, naïve as our own childhood, in this life. Here, I see nothing but enmities about me. Who could doubt that I revert to scenes where nothing but good-will surrounded me? I do not forget either Mademoiselle Séverine or Mademoiselle Borel.

Adieu, madame; I place all my obeisances at your feet.

Paris, Sunday, November 17, 1833.

Thursday, Friday, and yesterday it was impossible for me to write to you. The case does not start till to-morrow, Monday, so that you will hardly get it before Thursday or Friday. Tell me what you think of Anna's cross. We have been governed by the pebbles, which prevent anything pretty being made of them. The cotignac made everybody send me to the deuce. They wrote me from Orléans that I must wait till the fresh was made, which was better than the old, and that I should have it in four or five days. So, not wishing it to fail you as announced, I rushed to all the dealers in eatables, who one and all told me they never sold two boxes of that marmalade a year, and so had given up keeping it. But at Corcelet's I found a last box; he told me there was no one but him in Paris who kept that article, and that he would have some fresh cotignac soon. I took the box; and you will not have the fresh till my arrival, cara.

As for Rossini, I want him to write me a nice letter, and he has just invited me to dine with his mistress, who happens to be that beautiful Judith, the former mistress of Horace Vernet and of Eugène Sue, you know. He has promised me a note about music, etc. He is very obliging; we have chased each other for two days. No one has an idea with what tenacity one must will a thing in Paris to have it. The smaller a thing is, the less one obtains it.

I have now obtained an excellent concession from Gosselin. I shall not do the "Privilège" at Geneva. I shall do two volumes of the "Contes Philosophiques" there, which will not oblige me to make researches; and this leaves me free to go and come without the dreadful paraphernalia of a library. I am afraid I cannot leave here before the 20th, my poor angel. Money is a terrible thing! I must pay four thousand francs indemnities to get peace; and here I am forced to begin all over again to raise money on publishers' notes, and I have ten thousand francs to pay the last of December, besides three thousand to my mother. It is enough to make one lose one's head. And when I think that to compose, to work, one needs great calmness, to forget all!

If I have started on the 25th I shall be lucky. Of one hundred feuilles wanted to-day, Sunday, I have only eight of one volume and four of another printed, eleven set up of one and five of the other. I am expecting the fabricators this morning to inform them of my ultimatum. Why! in sixteen hours of work—and what work?—I do in one hour what the cleverest workmen in a printing-office cannot do in a day. I shall never succeed!

In the judgment of all men of good sense, "Marie Tudor" is an infamy, and the worst thing there is as a play.

Mon Dieu! I re-read your letters with incredible pleasure. Aside from love, for which there is no expression, we are, in them, heart to heart; you have the most refined of minds, the most original, and, dearest, how you speak to all my natures! Soon I can tell you more in a look than in all my letters, which tell nothing.

I put in a leaf of sweet-scented camellia; it is a rarity; I have cast many a look at it. For a week past, as I work I look at it; I seek the words I want, I think of you, who have the whiteness of that flower.

O my love, I would I could hold you in my arms, at this moment when love gushes up in my heart, when I have a thousand desires, a thousand fancies, when I see you with the eyes of the soul only, but in which you are truly mine. This warmth of soul, of heart, of thought, will it wrap you round as you read these lines? I think of you when I hear music. Adoremus in æternum, my Eva,—that is our motto, is it not?

Adieu; à bientôt. What pleasure I shall have in explaining to you the caricatures you cannot understand.

Do you want anything from Paris? Tell me. You can still write the day after you receive this letter. The camellia-leaf bears you my soul; I have held it between my lips in writing this page, that I might fill it with tenderness.

Paris, November 20, 1833, five in the morning.

My dear wife of love, fatigue has come at last; I have gathered the fruit of these constant night-watches and my continual anxieties. I have many griefs. In re-reading "Les Célibataires" which I had re-corrected again and again, I find deplorable faults after printing. Then, my lawsuits have not ended. I await to-day the result of a transaction which will end everything between Mame and me. I send him four thousand francs, my last resources. Here I am, once more as poor as Job, and yet this week I must find twelve hundred francs to settle another litigious affair. Oh! how dearly is fame bought! how difficult men make it to acquire her! No, there is no such thing as a cheap great man.

I could not write to you yesterday, or Monday; I was hurrying about. Hardly could I re-read my proofs attentively. In the midst of all this worry I made the words of a song for Rossini.

I was Sunday with Bra, the sculptor; there I saw the most beautiful masterpiece that exists; and I do not except either the Olympian Jupiter, or the Moses, or the Venus, or the Apollo. It is Mary, holding the infant Christ, adored by two angels. If I were rich I would have that executed in marble.

There I conceived a most noble book; a little volume to which "Louis Lambert" should be the preface; a work entitled "Séraphita." Séraphita will be two natures in one single being—like "Fragoletta," with this difference, that I suppose this creature an angel arrived at the last transformation, and breaking through the enveloping bonds to rise to heaven. This angel is loved by a man and by a woman, to whom he says, as he goes upward through the skies, that they have each loved the love that linked them, seeing it in him, an angel all purity; and he reveals to them their passion, he leaves them love, as he escapes our terrestrial miseries. If I can, I will write this noble work at Geneva, near to you.

But the conception of this multi-toned Séraphita has wearied me; it has lashed me for two days.

Yesterday I sent Rossini's autograph, extremely rare, to Monsieur Hanski, but the song for you. I am afraid I cannot leave here before 27th; seventeen hours of toil do not suffice. In a few hours you will receive my last letter, which will calm your fears and your sweet repentance. I would now like to be tortured—if it did not make me suffer so much. Oh! your adorable letters! And you believe that I will not burn those sacred effusions of your heart! Oh! never speak of that again.

To-day, 20th, I have still one hundred pages of "Eugénie Grandet" to write, "Ne touchez pas à la hache" to finish, and "La Femme aux yeux rouges" to do, and I need at least ten days for all that. I shall arrive dead. But I can stay in Geneva as long as you do. This is how: if I am rich enough I will lose five hundred francs on each volume to have it put in type and corrected in Geneva; and I will send to Paris a single corrected proof, and they will reprint it under the eyes of a friend who will read the sheets. It is such a piece of folly that I shall do it. What do you say to it?

Yesterday my arm-chair, the companion of my vigils, broke. It is the second I have had killed under me since the beginning of the battle that I fight.

When people ask me where I am going, and why I leave Paris, I tell them I am going to Rome.

Coffee has no longer any effect upon me. I must leave it off for some time that it may recover its virtues.

My dearest Eva, I should like to find in that inn you speak of, a very quiet room where no noise could penetrate, for I have truly much work to do. I shall work only my twelve hours, from midnight to midday, but those I must have.

I cannot tell you how these delays of the printer annoy me; I am ill of them. All the day of Monday was occupied by an old man of sixty-five, a man belonging to the first families of Franche-Comté, fallen into poverty, for whom I was entreated by the lady in Angoulême to find a situation. My heart is still wrung at the sight of him. I took him to Émile de Girardin, who gave him a place at a hundred francs a month. A man with white hair who lives on bread only, he and his family, while I, I live luxuriously, my God! I did what I could. People call these good actions; God thinks of those who compassionate the miseries of others. Just now God is crushing me a good deal. But it is true that you love me, and I worship you, and that enables me to bear all. I had to dine with Émile and his wife, and lose a day and a night; what a sacrifice! Ten years hence to give away a hundred thousand francs would be less.

Adieu for to-day. I have rested myself for a moment on your heart, oh, my dear joy, my gentle haven, my sole thought, my flower of heaven! Adieu, then.

Saturday, 23rd.

From Thursday until to-day I have often thought of you, but to write has been impossible. I have a weight of a hundred thousand pounds on my shoulders. Yes, my angel, I am quit of that publisher at the cost of four thousand francs. My lawyer, my notary, and a procureur du Roi have examined the receipt. All is ended between us; agreements destroyed; I owe him neither sou nor line. I have deposited the document, precious to me, with my notary.

The next day I completed, also at a cost of three thousand francs (making seven thousand in a week), my other transaction. But as I had not enough money I drew a note for five days, and by Wednesday, 27th, I must have twelve hundred francs! I have, besides, a little procillon to compound for, but that is only for money not yet due. I have still two other matters concerning my literary property to bring to an end before I can start. I am absolutely without a sou; but, at least, I am tranquil in mind. I shall always have to work immensely.

Now in relation to the Mind manufactory, this is where I am: I have still twenty-five feuilles to do to finish "Eugénie Grandet;" I have the proofs to revise. Then "Ne touchez pas à la hache" to finish, with the "Femme aux yeux rouges" to do; also the proofs of two volumes to read. It is impossible for me to start till all that is done. I calculate ten days; this is now the 24th, for it is two o'clock in the morning. I cannot get off till the 4th, arrive the 7th, and stay till January 7th. Moreover, in order that I may stay, the "Médecin de campagne" must be sold, I must write a "Scène de la Vie de campagne" at Geneva, and the other "Scènes de la Vie de campagne" must be published, during my absence, in Paris. However, I want to start on the 4th at latest. Therefore, you can write to me till the 30th. After the 30th of this month do not write again.

Mon Dieu! What time such business consumes!—when I think of what I do, my manuscripts, my proofs, my corrections, my business affairs! I sleep tranquil, thinking that I have to pay two thousand four hundred francs of acceptances for six days, for which I have not a sou! I have lived like this for thirty-four years, and never has Providence forgotten me. And so, I have an incredible confidence. What has to be done is always done; and you can well believe that to pay seven thousand francs with 0 obliges one to sign notes.

There's my situation, financial, scriptural, moral, of author, of corrections, of all in short that is not love, on Sunday, the 24th, at half-past one o'clock in the morning. I write you this just as I get to the eleventh feuillet of the fifth chapter of "Eugénie Grandet," entitled, "Family Griefs;" and between a proof of the eleventh sheet of the book, that is to say, at its 176th page. When you have the manuscript of "Eugénie Grandet," you will know its history better than any one.

For the last two days I have had some return of my cerebral neuralgia; but it was not much, and considering my toil and my worries, I ought to think myself lucky to have only that.

Now, do not let us talk any more of the material things of life, which, nevertheless, weigh so heavily upon us. How you make me again desire riches!

My cherished love, have you tasted your marmalade? do you like the peaches? has Anna her cross? have you laughed at the caricatures? I have received your open letter, and it has all the effect upon me of seeing you in full dress, in a grand salon, among five hundred persons.

Oh! my pretty Eve! Mon Dieu! how I love you! À bientôt. More than ten days, and I shall have done all I ought to do. I shall have printed four volumes 8vo in a month. Oh! it is only love that can do such things. My love, oh, suffer from the delay, but do not scold me. How could I know, when I promised you to return, that I should sell the "Études de Mœurs" for thirty-six thousand francs, and that I should have to negotiate payments for nine thousand francs of suits? I put myself at your darling knees, I kiss them, I caress them; oh, I do in thought all the follies of earth; I kiss you with intoxication, I hold you, I clasp you, I am happy as the angels in the bosom of God.

How nature made me for love! Is it for that that I am condemned to toil? There are times when you are here for me, when I caress you and strew upon your dear person all the poesy of caresses. Oh! there is nobody but me, I believe, who finds at the tips of my fingers and on my lips such voluptuousness.

My beloved, my dear love, my pearl, when shall I have you wholly mine without fear? If that trip to Fribourg of which you speak to me had taken place,—oh! say,—I think I should have drowned myself on the return.

How careful I am of your Chénier; for, this time, I will read you Chénier. You shall know what love is in voice, in looks, in verses, in pages, in ideas. Oh! he is the man for lovers, women, angels. Write "Séraphita" beside you; you wish it. You will annihilate her after having read it.

I am very tired; my pen will hardly hold in my fingers; but as soon as it concerns you and our love I find strength.

I have satisfied a little fancy this week; I gave myself, for my bedroom, the prettiest little chimney-piece sconces that I ever saw; and for my banquets, two candelabra. Mon Dieu! a folly is sweet to do! But I meditate a greater, which will, at any rate, be useful. It is too long to write about.

Angel of love, do you perfume your hair? Oh, my beauty, my darling, my adored one, my dear, dear Eve, I am as impatient as a goat tethered to her stake—though you don't like that phrase. I would I were near you; you have become tyrannical, you are the idea of every moment. I think that every line written brings me nearer to you, like the turn of a wheel, and from that hope I gather infernal courage.... So the 10th, at latest, I shall see you. The 10th! I know that the immense amount of work I have to do will shorten the time a little.

Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, God in whom I believe, he owes me some soft emotions at the sight of Geneva, for I left it disconsolate, cursing everything, abhorring womankind. With what joy I shall return to it, my celestial love, my Eva! Take me with you to your Ukraine; let us go first to Italy. All that will be possible, when the "Études de Mœurs" are once published.

Sunday, 23rd, midday.

So, then, at l'Auberge de l'Arc! I shall be there December 7th or 8th without fail. You see I have received your little note.

After writing to you last night I was obliged to go to bed without working. I was ill. It is five days now since I have been out of my apartments; I am not very well just now, but I think it is only a nervous movement caused by overwork.

From our windows we shall see each other!—that is very dangerous.

Well, à bientôt. I put in for you a kissed rose-leaf; it carries my soul and the most celestial hope a man can have here below. Oh! my love, you do not know yourself how wholly you are mine. I am very greedy.

Adieu, my beautiful life; there are only a few days more. I imagine we can travel to Italy and stay three or six months together.

Adieu, angel, whom I shall soon see face to face.

Paris, December 4th, four in the morning.

My adored angel, during these eight days I have made the efforts of a lion; but, in spite of sitting up all night, I do not see that my two volumes can be finished before the 5th, and the two others I must leave to appear during my absence. But on the 10th I get into a carriage, for, finished or not, neither my body nor my head, however powerful my monk's life makes them, can sustain this steam-engine labour.

So, the 13th, I think, I shall be in Geneva. Nothing can now change that date. I shall have the manuscript of "Eugénie Grandet" bound, and send it ostensibly to you.

I have great need of rest, to be near you,—you, the angel; you, the thought of whom never fatigues; you, who are the repose, the happiness, the beautiful secret life of my life! It is now forty-eight hours that I have not been in bed. I have at this moment the keenest anxieties about money. I stripped myself of everything to win tranquillity, of which I have such need, and to be near you for a little while. But, relying on my publisher, yesterday, for my payments at the month's end, he betrays me in the midst of my torrent of work.

Oh! decidedly, I will make myself a resource, I will have a sum in silver-ware which my poetic fancies will never touch, but which I can proudly carry to the pawn-shop in case of misfortune. In that way one can live tranquil, and not have to endure the cold, pale look of one's childhood's friends, who arm themselves with their friendship to refuse us. On the 10th I start; I do not know at what hour one arrives, but, whatever be my fatigue, I shall go to see you immediately.

I have worked steadily eighteen hours a day this week, and I could only sustain myself by baths, which relaxed the general irritation.

What vexations, what goings to and fro! I had to give a great dinner this week, Friday, 29th. I discovered I had neither knives nor glasses. I don't like to have inelegant things about me. So I had to run in debt a little more; I tried to do a stroke of business with my silversmith. No. However, I will economize in Geneva by working and keeping quiet.

How I paw, like a poor, impatient horse! The desire to see you makes me find things that, ordinarily, would not occur to me. I correct quicker. You not only give me courage to support the difficulties of life, but you give me talent, or at least, facility. One must love, my Eve, my dear one, to write the love of "Eugénie Grandet," a pure, immense, proud love. Oh! dear, dearest, my good, my divine Eve, what grief not to have been able to write you every evening what I have done, said, and thought!

Soon, soon, in ten minutes, I can tell you more than in a thousand pages, in one look more than in a hundred years, because I shall give you all my heart in that first look, O my delicate, beauteous forehead! I looked at that of Madame de Mirbel, the other day; it is something like yours. She is a Pole, I think.

Paris, Sunday, December 1, 1833, eleven o'clock.

My angel, I have just read your letter. Oh! I long to fall at your knees, my Eve, my dear wife! Never have a second of melancholy thought. Oh! you do not know me! As long as I live I will be your darling, I will respect in myself the heart you have chosen; I no longer belong to myself. There are no follies, no sacrifices; no, no, never! Oh! do not be thus, never talk to me of laudanum. I flung aside the proofs of "Eugénie Grandet" and sprang up as if to go to you. The end of your letter has made me pass over the pain of its beginning.

My love, my dear love, I shall be near you in a few days; when you hold this paper full of love for you, to which I would like to communicate the beatings of my heart, there will be but a few days; I shall redouble my cares, my work, I shall rest down there.

Besides, I shall arrange to stay a long time. O my love! make your skies serene, for there is nothing in my being but affection, love, tenderness, and caresses for you.

You ought to curse that Gaudissart. The printer took a type which compressed the matter, and to make out the volume I had to improvise all that in one night, darling, and make eighty pages of it, if you please.

My pretty love, you will receive a fine letter, very polite, submissive, respectful, with the manuscript of "Eugénie Grandet," and you will find in pencil on the back of the first page of manuscript the precise day for which I have engaged my place in the diligence.

Yes, I live in you, as you live in me. Never will God separate what he has put together so strongly. My life is your life. Do not frighten me thus again. Your sadness saddens me, your joy makes me joyous. I am in your heart; I listen to your voice at times. In short, I have the eternal, imperishable, angelic love that I desired. You are the beginning and the end, my Eve,—do you understand?—the Eve! I am as exclusive as you can be. In short, Adoremus in æternum is my motto; do you hear me, darling?

Well, it is getting late. I must send this to the general post-office, that you may get it Wednesday.

My love, why make for yourself useless bitterness? What I said to you, I will repeat: "It would be too odd if that were she," was my thought when I saw you first on leaving the Hôtel du Faucon [at Neufchâtel].

Adieu; I have no flowers this time; but I send you an end of a cedar match I have been chewing while I write; I have given it a thousand kisses.

Mon Dieu! I don't know how I shall get over the time on the journey, in view of the palpitations of my heart in writing to you. You will receive only one more letter, that of Sunday next; after that I shall be on the way. O my darling, to be near you, without anxieties; to have my time to myself, to be free to work well and read to you by day what I do at night! My angel, to have my kiss,—the greatest reward for me under heaven! Your kiss!

No, you will only know how I love you ten years from now, when you fully know my heart, that heart so great, that you fill. I can only say now, à bientôt.

Well, adieu, dear. Thanks for the talisman. I like it. I like to have a seal you have used. My love, do not laugh at my fancies. Ah? if you could see Bra's "Two Angels," and "Mary with the child Jesus." I have in my heart for you all the adoration he found in his sublime genius to express angels. You are God to me, my dear idol. Adieu!

Paris, Sunday, December 8.

My dearest, no, not a line for you in eight days! But tears, effusions of the soul sent with fury across the hundred and fifty leagues that part us.

If I get off Thursday next, 12th, I shall regard myself as a giant. No, I will not soil this paper full of love which you will hold, by pouring money troubles on it, however nobly confided they be. The printers would not work; I am their slave. The calculations of the publisher, of the master-printers, and my own have been so cruelly frustrated by the workmen that my books announced as published yesterday will not appear till Thursday next. I am in a state of curious destitution, without friends from whom I can ask an obole, yet I must borrow the money for my journey on Tuesday or Wednesday, but I do not know where. I will tell you all about it.

I have no time to write. I have been forty-eight hours this week without sleeping. Old Dubois told me yesterday I was marching to old age and death. But how can I help it? I have considered nothing but my pleasure, our pleasure, and I have sacrificed all—even you and myself—to that object.

Alas, my dearest, I have not the time to finish this letter. The publisher of "Séraphita" is here. He wants it by new year's day. Nevertheless, I shall be on Sunday near you.

Adieu, my love; à bientôt, but that bientôt will not be till Sunday, 15th, for I have inquired, and the diligence starts only every other day, and takes three days and a half to get there. I have a world of things to tell you, but I can only send you my love, the sweetest and most violent of loves, the most constant, the most persistent, across space. O my beloved angel, do you speak to me again of our promise? Say nothing more to me about it. It is saintly and sacred like our mutual life.

Adieu, my angel. I cannot say to you "Calm yourself,"—I, who am so unhappy at these delays. You must suffer, for I suffer.

Geneva, December 25th, 1833.

I shall tell you all in a moment, my beloved, my idolatry. I fell in getting into the carriage, and then my valet fell ill. But we will not talk of that. In an instant I shall tell you more in a look than in a thousand pages. Do I love you! Why, I am near you! I would it had been a thousand times more difficult and that I should have suffered more. But here is one good month, perhaps two, won.

Not one, but millions of caresses. I am so happy I can write no more. À bientôt.

Yes, my room is very good, and the ring is like you, my love, delicious and exquisite.[1]

II.

LETTERS DURING 1834.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Madame,—I do not know if I had the honour to tell you yesterday that I might, perhaps, not have the pleasure of dining with you to-day. I should be in despair if you could think I did not attach an extreme value to that favour by making you wait for me in vain. Your cousin has engaged me for Thursday next; I have accepted so as not to seem absurd in my seclusion. I hope you will see nothing "French" in this sentiment.

I hope this continual rain has not made you sad, and I beg you to present my most distinguished sentiments to M. Hanski, and accept my most affectionate homage and obedience.

De Balzac.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Madame,—Here is the first part of your cotignacian poems. But you will presently see a man in despair. I do not like to bring you the Chénier, and yet I hesitate to send it back. Of all that I ordered, nothing has been done. Binding execrably ugly, covering silly. One should be there one's self to have things done. If you accept it you must remember only the good intentions with which I took charge of your book; that is the only way to give it value.

I have been into town; I made myself joyous; I thought I had found something that would give you pleasure. I have deranged myself. If you permit it, I will compensate my annoyance by coming to see you earlier.

A thousand graceful homages.

Honoré

I considered the cotignac so precious I would not delay your gastronomic joys.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Madame,—Will you exchange colonial products? Here is a little of my coffee. My sister writes that I shall have more to-morrow; therefore, take this. You shall have your coffee-pot to-morrow. Will you give me a little tea for my breakfast? I want strictly a little.

Have you passed a good night? Are you well? Have you had good dreams? I hope your health is good, so that we can go and take a walk [nous promener, bromener]. The treasury? ... Furth!

To Her Majesty Rzewuskienne, Mme. Hanska.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Very dear sovereign, sacred Majesty, sublime queen of Paulowska and circumjacent regions, autocrat of hearts, rose of Occident, star of the North, etc., etc., etc., fairy of tiyeuilles.[1]

Your Grace wished for my coffee-pot, and I entreat your Serene Highness to do me the honour to accept one that is prettier and more complete; and then to tell me, to fling me from your eminent throne a word full of happiness, amber, and flowers, to let me know if I am to be at Your sublime door in an hour, with a carriage, to go to Coppet.

I lay my homage at the feet of your Majesty, and entreat you to believe in the honesty of your humble moujik, Honoreski.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Never did an invalid less merit that name. He is ready to go to walk, to fetch his proofs, and when his business is finished, which will be in about a quarter of an hour, he will go and propose to Madame la doctrice to profit by this beautiful day to take an air-bath on the Crêt of Geneva, along the iron railings; unless the laziness of the Hanski household concurs with that of the poor literary moujik who lays at your feet, madame, his strings of imaginary pearls, the treasure of his heroes, his fanciful Alhambra, where he has carved, everywhere, not the sacred name of God, but a human name that is sacred in other ways. But all this immense property may not be worth, in reality, the four games won yesterday.

Geneva, January, 1834.

I have slept like a dormouse, I feel like a charm, I love you like a madcap, I hope that you are well, and I send you a thousand tendernesses.

Geneva, January, 1834.

If I must come this evening, and dress myself because you have your charaders, permit me to come a little earlier. There is a dinner here; they are singing and making such a noise while I write that it is enough to drive the devil away. Ecco. I can calculate. Wednesday I shall be encandollé [dinner with M. de Candolle]. Thursday is taken. To-morrow I work without intermission, for I shall have proofs. So, out of five days, when one has but one in prospect, it is no flattery to add a few hours. Yes? Very good.

Allow me to return your "Marquis" by a good "Maréchale."

Geneva, January, 1834.

Willingly, but you will bring me back to your house, will you not?—for I can't get accustomed to be two steps away from you, doing nothing, without better employing my time.

If you go into the town I will ask you to be so kind—No, I will go myself.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Madame,—To a man who considers happy moments as the most profitable moments of existence, it is permitted to wish not to lose any part of the sums he amasses. It is only in the matter of joy that I wish to be Grandet.

If I take this morning the time that you would give me, from three to ten o'clock, would you refuse me? No? Good. If you love me?—yes—you will be visible at twelve or one o'clock.

Forgive my avarice; I possess as yet nothing but the happiness which heaven bestows. Of that I may be avaricious, since I have nothing else. To you, a thousand affectionate respects, and my obeisances to the honourable Maréchal of the Ukraine and noble circumjacent regions.

Geneva, January, 1834.

I cannot come because I am more unwell than I expected to be, and going out might do me harm. If you would have the kindness to send me back a little orgeat you would do me a real service, for I don't know what to drink, and I have a consuming thirst.

I have spent my day very sadly, trying to work, and finding myself incapable of it. So, I think I shall go to bed in a few hours.

A thousand thanks, and present my respects to the Grand Maréchal.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Madame,—If it were not that I get impatient and suffer at losing so much time, both for that which gives me pleasure and also for my work, I should be this morning well, and like a man who has had a fever. I don't know whether I had better go out or keep my room; but I frankly own that here, alone, I worry horribly.

A thousand thanks for your good care, and forgive me that, yesterday, I was more surprised than grateful at your visit, which touched me deeply after you had left. I don't know if you know that there are things that get stronger as they get older.

A thousand thanks and grateful regards to M. Hanski. How stupid I am to have made you anxious for so slight a matter; but how happy I am to know that you have as much friendship for me as I for you.

Geneva, January, 1834.

My love, this morning I am perfectly well. I was embarrassed yesterday because there were for you, under the things you moved about, two letters I send with this.

Mon Dieu! my love, I am afraid that step of yours (your visit to my room) may be ill taken, and that you exposed the two letters. For other reasons, Mon Dieu! certainly, I wanted to see you here! I have such need to cure my cold that if I go out it cannot be till this evening.

I am up; I could not stay in bed longer, I am too uncomfortable. I must talk or have something to do. Inaction kills me. Yesterday, I spent a horrible evening thinking of what I had to do. I am this morning like a man who has had a fever.

A thousand tender caresses. Mon Dieu! how I suffer when I don't see you. I have a thousand things to tell you.

Geneva, January, 1834.

What have I done that last evening should end thus, my dear, beloved Eve? Do you forget that you are my last hope in life? I don't speak of love, or human sentiments, you are more than all that to me. Why do you trample under your feet all the hopes of our life in a word? You doubt one who loves you freely with delights; to whom to feel you is delirious happiness, who loves you in æternum, and you do not doubt...!

O my love! you play very lightly with a life you chose to have, and which, moreover, has been given to you with an entire devotion which I should have given you if you had not demanded it. I like better that you did wish for it.

I love you with too much constancy that such disputes should not be mortal to me. Mon Dieu! I have told you the secrets of my life, and you ought, in return for such unlimited confidence, to spare him who lives in you the torture of such doubts. You hold me by the hand, and the day you withdraw that adored hand you alone will know the reason of what becomes of me.

My beloved Eve, I commit extravagance on extravagance. It is impossible to think of anything but you. It is not a desire, though I have fully the right to desire pleasure more keenly than other men, and this desire renders me stupefied at times; no, it is a need to breathe your air, to see you, and yesterday you gave me eternal memories of beauty.

If I had no sacred pecuniary obligations (and I commit the folly of forgetting them sometimes), we would not think of the rue Cassini. No. Yesterday at Diodati I said to myself: "Why should I quit my Eve; why not follow her everywhere?" I wish it, myself. I accept all sufferings when I see you; and you, you wounded me yesterday.

But you do not love as I do; you do not know what love is; I, for my sorrow, have known its delights, and I see that from Neufchâtel to my death I can reach the end desired through my whole youth, and concentrate my life and my affections on a single heart!

Dearest, dearest, I am too unhappy from the things of life not to make it a cruelty in her I love and idolize to cause me a shadow of grief. I would like better the most horrible of agonies to causing you pain.

Must I come and seek a kiss?

Geneva, January, 1834.

Your doubts do me harm. You are more powerful than all. Angel of my life, why should I not follow you everywhere? Because of poverty. Mon Dieu, you have nothing to fear. From the day on which I told you that I loved you, nothing has altered this delicious life; it is my only life. Do not dishonour it by suspicions; do not trouble our pleasures. There was no one before you in my heart; you will fill it forever. Why do you arm yourself with thoughts of my former life? Do not punish me for my beautiful confidence. I wish you to know all my past, because all my future is yours. Break your heart! Sacrifice you to anything whatever! Why, you don't know me! I am ashamed to bring you sufferings. I am ashamed not to be able to give you a life in harmony with the life of the heart. I suffer unheard-of woes, which you efface by your presence.

Pardon, my love, for what you call my coquetries. Pardon a Parisian for a simple Parisian talk; but what you will shall be done. I will go to see no one. Two visits of a quarter of an hour will end all. Perish a thousand times the society of Geneva rather than see you sad for a quarter of an hour's conversation. It would be ridiculous (for others) that I should occupy myself with you only. I was bound to respect you, and in order to talk to you so much it was necessary that I should talk with Madame P... Besides, what trifles! Before the Ocean of which you talk, are you going to concern yourself about a miserable spider? Mon Dieu! you don't know what it is to love infinitely.

What I wrote you this morning is of a nature to show you how false are your fears. I never ceased to look at you while talking to Madame P...

Ah! dearest, my dear wife, my Eva, I would willingly sell my talent for two thousand ducats! I would follow you like a shadow. Do you wish to go back to Wierzchownia? I will follow you and stay there all my life. But we must have pretexts, and, unfortunate that I am, I cannot leave Paris without satisfying editors and creditors.

I have received two letters; one from that good Borget, the other from my sister. Troubles upon troubles. To have at all moments the sight of paradise and the sufferings of hell,—is that living?

Geneva, January, 1834.

My love, my only life, my only thought, oh! your letter! it is written forever on my heart.

Listen, celestial angel, for you are not of this earth. I will reply to you on these things once for all. Fame, vanity, self-love, literature, they are scarcely clouds upon our sky. You trample all that twenty times a day beneath your feet, which I kiss twenty times.

Oh, my angel, see me at your knees as I tell you this: if I have had the most fugitive of reputations it has come when I did not want it. I was drunk for it till I was twenty-two. I wanted it as a pharos to attract to me an angel. I had nothing with which to please; I blamed myself. An angel came; I let myself suffer in her bosom, hiding from her my desires for a young and beautiful woman. She saw those desires and said to me: "When she comes I will be your mother, I will have the love of a mother, the devotion of a mother."[1]

Then one day the misery of my life grew greater. The toils of night and day began. She who had offered me, on her knees, her fortune, which I had taken, which I was returning at the peril of my life, she watched, she corrected, she refined, as I refined, corrected, watched. Then all my desires were extinguished in work. It was no longer a question of fame, but of money. I owed, and I had nothing.

Three years I worked without relaxation, having drawn a brass circle around me from 1828 to 1831. I abhor Madame de C[astries], for she broke that life without giving me another,—I do not say a comparable one, but without giving me what she promised. There is not the shadow of wounded vanity, oh! but disgust and contempt.

You alone have made me know the vanities of fame. When I saw you at Neufchâtel I wanted to be something. In you then begins, more splendid than I dreamed it, that dreamed life.

Oh! my Eve, you alone in my life to come!—Alas! like Louis Lambert I wish that I could give you my past. Thus, nothing that is success, fame, Parisian distractions, moves me. There is but one power that makes me accept my present life: Toil. It calms the exactions of my fiery temperament. It is because I fear myself that I am chaste.

As for this seclusion that you want, hey! I want it as much as you. It is not being a fop to tell you that since Neufchâtel three ravishing women have come to the rue Cassini, and that I did not even cast a man's glance on seeing them.

My Eve, I love you better than you love me, for I am alone in the secret of what I lose, and you know nothing of love but the sentiments of love. Besides, I love you better, for I have more reasons to love you. If I were free I would live near you, happy to be the steward of your fortune and the artisan of your wealth, as Madame Carraud's brother is for Madame d'Argout. I have a security of love, a plenitude of devotion, which you will only know with time. It needs time to fathom the infinite. To suffer the whole of life with you, taking a few rare moments of happiness, yes! To have a lifetime in two years, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years, and die, yes! Never to speak to a woman, to refuse myself to all, to live in you, oh, angel! but that is my thought at all hours. The ... which I told you about Madame P... was because she had vexed you, and before your suffering I became besotted, as you before mine.

Mon Dieu! if we lived together, if I had twenty ducats a month, to you should belong my poems. I would write books, and read them to you, and we would burn them in our fire. My adored minette, I weep sometimes in thinking that I sell my ideas, that people read me! Ah! you do not know what I could be if, free for one evening, I could speak to you, see you, caress you by my thoughts and by myself. Oh! you would then know that your thoughts of purity, of exclusive tenderness are mine. Angel of my life, I live in you, for you, by you. Only, if I am mistaken, tell me so without anger. There is never any false or bad intention in me. I obey my heart in all that is sentiment. I have never known what a calculation is. If I mistake, it is in good faith.

My love, let us never separate. In six months I shall be free. Well, then, no power on earth can disunite us. La dilecta was forty-six when I was twenty-two. Why talk about your forty years? We have thirty years before us. Do you think that at sixty-four a man betrays thirty years' affection?

What! you think that the opera, the salons, fame can distract me from you? Then you don't know how I love you. I shall be more angry at that than you at Madame P... No, believe me, I love you as a woman loves and as a man loves. In my life to come there is nothing but you and work. My dear gift, my dear star, my sweet spirit, let yourself be caressed by hope, and say to yourself that I am not amorous or passionate; all that passes. I love you, I adore you in æternum. I believe in you as I do in myself. Mon Dieu! I would like to know words which could infuse into you my soul and my thought, which could tell you that you are in my heart, in my blood, in my brain, in my thought,—in short, the life of my life; that each beating of my heart gives birth to a desire full of thee. Oh! you do not know what are three years of chastity, which spring at every moment to the heart and make it bound, to the head and make it palpitate. If I were not sober and did not work, this purity would drive me mad. I alone am in the secret of the terrible emotions which the emanations from your dear person give me. It is an unspeakable delirium which, by turns, freezes my nature by the omnipotence of desire, and makes me burn. I resist follies like those of the young seigneur cut down by the Elector.

We have, both of us, our sufferings; do not let us dispute that. Let us love each other, and do not refuse me that which makes all accepted. In other respects, in all things, angel, I am submissive to you as to God. Take my life, ask me to die, order me all things, except not to love you, not to desire you, not to possess you. Outside of that all is possible to me in your name.

Geneva, January, 1834.

If you only knew the superstitions you give me! When I work I put the talisman on my finger; I put it on the first finger of the left hand, with which I hold my paper, so that your thought clasps me. You are there, with me. Now, in seeking from the air for words and ideas, I ask them of that delicious ring; in it I have found the whole of "Séraphita."

Love celestial, what things I have to say to you, for which one needs the sacred hours during which the heart feels the need of baring itself. The adorable pleasures of love are the only means of arriving at that union, that fusion of souls. Dear, with what joy I see the fortunes of my heart and the fate of my soul secured to me. Yes, I will love you alone and solely through my life. You have all that pleases me. You exhale, for me, the most intoxicating perfume a woman can have; that alone is a treasure of love.

I love you with a fanaticism that does not exclude the quietude of a love without possible storms. Yes, say to yourself well that I breathe by the air you breathe, that I can never have any other thought than you. You are the end of all for me. You shall be the young dilecta—already I call you the pre dilecta.

Do not murmur at this alliance of the two sentiments. I should like to think I loved you in her, and that the noble qualities which touched me and made me better than I was were all in you.

I love you, my angel of earth, as they loved in the middle ages, with the most complete fidelity, and my love will always be grand, without stain; I am proud of my love. It is the principle of a new life. Hence, the new courage that I feel under my last adversities. I would be greater, be something glorious, so that the crown to place upon your head should be the most leafy, the most flowery of all those that great men have nobly won!

Never, therefore, have fear or distrust; there are no abysses in heaven! A thousand kisses full of caresses; a thousand caresses full of kisses! Mon Dieu! shall I never be able to make you see how I love you, you, my Eve!

À bientôt; a thousand kisses will be in my first look.

Geneva, January, 1834.

My loved love, with a single caress you have returned me to life. Oh! my dearest, I have not been able to either sleep or work. Lost in the remembrance of that evening, I have said to you a world of tendernesses. Oh! you have that divine soul to which one remains attached during a lifetime. My soul, you have, through love, the delicious language of love which makes all griefs and annoyances fly away on wings. Loved angel, do not obscure with any doubt the inspirations of love of which your dear caress is but the interpreter. Do not think you can ever enter into comparison with any one, no matter who. But, my loved darling, my flower of heaven, do you not understand, you, all charm and all truth, that a poor poet can be struck at finding the same heart, at being loved beyond his hopes? My adored wife, yes, it was for you that the heart of the most delicate and sweetest woman that ever was brought me up. I shall be permitted to say to her: "You wished to be twenty years old to love me better and give me even the pleasures of vanity. Well, I have met with what you wished me." She will be joyous for us. Dear eternal idol, my beautiful and holy religion, I know how the memories of another love must wound a proud and delicate love. But not to speak of it to you would be to deprive you of nameless fêtes of the soul, and joys of love. There are such identities of tenderness and soul that I am proud for you, and I know not if it is you I loved in her. Then, an ungovernable jealousy has so habituated me to think with open heart, and say all to her in whom I live, that I could never hide from you a thought. No, you are my own heart.

Yes, to you all is permitted. I shall tell you naïvely all that I think that is fine, and all that I think that is bad. You are an I, handsomer, prettier.

My love has neither exaltation, nor more, nor less, nor anything that is terrestrial. Oh! my dear Eve, it is the love of the angel always at the same degree of force, of exaltation. To feel, to touch your hand of love, that hand of soft, proud sentiments,—do you understand me, my angel, tender, kind, passionate,—that hand, polished and relaxed of love, that is a happiness as great as your caress of honey and of fire.

This is what I wished to say to my timid angel, who thought that all caresses were not solidaire. One, the lightest as the most passionate, comprises all. In that you see to the bottom of my soul. A kiss on your cherished lips,—those virgin lips that have no souvenirs yet (which makes you in my eyes as pure as the purest young girl),—a kiss will be a talisman for the desires of love, when it contains all the caresses of love. Our poor kiss, still disinherited of all our joys, only goes to your heart, and I would that it enwrapped all your person. You would see that possession augments, enlarges love. You would know your Honoré, your husband; and you would know that he loves you more daily.

My dearest Eva, never doubt me, but doubt yourself less. I have told you that there is in you, in your letters, in your love, in its expression, a something I know not what that is more than in other letters and expressions that I thought inimitable. But you are twenty-eight years old,—that is the grand secret. But, dear treasure, you have the most celestial soul that I know, and you have intoxicating beauties. Mon Dieu! how shall I tell you that I am drunk at the faintest scent of you, and that had I possessed you a thousand times you would see me more intoxicated still, because there would be hope and memory where now there is only hope.

Do you remember the bird that has but one flower? That is the history of my heart and my love. Oh! dear celestial flower, dear embalming perfumes, dear fresh colours, my beautiful stalk, do not bend, guard me always. At each advance of a love which goes and ever will go on increasing, I feel in my heart foyers of tenderness and adoration. Oh! I want to be sure of you as I am of myself. I feel at each respiration that I have in my heart a constancy that nothing can alter.

I wept on the road to Diodati, when, after having promised me all the caresses that you have granted me, a woman was able, with a single word, to cut the woof she seemed to have taken such pleasure in weaving. Judge if I adore you, you who perceive nothing of these odious manœuvres, who deliver yourself up with candour and happiness to love, and who speaks thus to all my natures.

There is my confession made. I think that you have all the noblenesses of the heart, for, adored angel, one should respect the weakness and even the crimes of a woman, and if I hide nothing from your heart, it is that it ought always to be mine. So I send you my sister's chatter and the letter of Madame de C[astries] on condition that you burn all, my angel. I know you so true, so great; ah! I would not hesitate to read you the letter of the dilecta if you wish it, for you are really myself. I would not hide from you the shadow of a thought, and you ought, at all hours, to enter my heart, as into the palace you have chosen to spread your treasures in, to adorn it, and find pleasure in it. All should there be yours.

If Madame C...'s letter displeases you, say so frankly, my love. I will write to her that my affections are placed in a heart too jealous for me to be permitted to correspond with a woman who has her reputation for beauty, for charm, and that I act frankly in telling her so. I wish to write this letter from myself. I would like well that you should tell it to me.

As for my money troubles, do not be uneasy about them. It is the basis of my life, till the end of July, love, which makes everything easy to me to bear.

Pardon me for having made known to you yesterday's trouble. Oh, dear, always beautiful flower, I am ashamed to have made you know the extent of your mission, but you are an inexhaustible treasury of affection, of love, of tenderness, and I shall always find in you more consolations than I have troubles. You have put into my thoughts and all my hours a light, a gleam, which makes me endure all.

I wake up happy to love you; I go to bed happy to be loved. It is the life of angels; and my despair comes from feeling in it the discord which my want of fortune and of liberty puts between the desires of my heart, the impulses of my nature, and the works which keep me in an ignoble cabin like the moujiks of Paulowska. If I were only at Paulowska! I would that you were I for a moment to know how you are loved. Then I would be sure that seeing so much love, so much devotion, such great security of sentiment, you would never have a doubt, and you would love in æternum a heart that loves you thus.

A thousand kisses, and may each have in itself a thousand caresses to you like that of yesterday to me.

Geneva, January, 1834.

Dear soul of my soul, I entreat you, attach yourself solely—your cares, your thoughts, your memory—to what will be in my life a constant thought. Let the piece of malachite become by you alone an inkstand. I will explain the shape. It should be cut six-sided; the sides should be about the dimensions of the sides of your card-basket, except that they ought to end, at the top, squarely, as at the base; they should go up, enlarging from the base to the top, and, to decide, logically, the conditions of the stand, the pot for the ink (hollowed out in the malachite) must have at its surface a diameter equal to this line [drawn]. The cover, shaped like a marchepain, must be round, and sunk in the pot; it should be simple, and end in a silver-gilt knob. Let the stand have a handle, fastened on by simple buttons, and this handle, of bronzed silver-gilt, should be like that of your card-basket. Have engraved upon it our motto: Adoremus in æternum, between the date of your first letter and that of Neufchâtel.

The inkstand should be mounted on a pedestal, also of six sides, suitably projecting; and on each side, at the junction of the pedestal and the stand, there should be, in art-term, a moulding of silver-gilt, which is simply a round cordon, which must harmonize with the proportions of the inkstand. Then I think that at the top of the sides this moulding should be repeated. In the middle of each side of the pedestal put a star; then, in small letters, in the middle of each large side, these words: Exaudit,—Vox,—Angeli, separated by stars (which makes "Eva").

If you want to be magnificent you will add a paper-knife of a single piece of malachite and a powder-pot, the shape of which I will explain to you.

Not to displease that person I will give him Décamp's drawing which you can get back, and I will ask him, in exchange, for a piece of malachite for my alarm-clock.

Here is Susette. I can only say that this will make me renounce the pleasure of making you pick up on the shores of the lake the pebbles I intended to have made into an alarm-clock. I went, yesterday, to see if we could walk along the shore. I wanted to connect you with these souvenirs, to make you see that one can thus enlarge life and the world, and have the right to surround you with my thought through a thousand things, as I would like to surround myself with yours. Thus sentiment moulds material objects and gives them a soul and a voice.

What! bébête, did you not guess that the dedication was a surprise which I wished to give you? You are, for longer than you think, the thought of my thought.

Yes, I shall try to come to-night at nine.

Geneva, January 19, 1834.

My loved angel, I am almost mad for you, as one is mad. I cannot put two ideas together that you do not come between them. I can think of nothing but you. In spite of myself my imagination brings me back to you. I hold you, I press you, I kiss you, I caress you; and a thousand caresses, the most amorous, lay hold upon me.

As to my heart, you will always be there, willingly; I feel you there deliciously. But, mon Dieu! what will become of me if you have taken away my mind. Oh! it is a monomania that frightens me. I rise every moment, saying to myself, "Come, I'll go there!" Then I sit down again, recalled by a sense of my obligations. It is a dreadful struggle. It is not life. I have never been like this. You have consumed the whole of me. I feel stupefied and happy when I let myself go to thinking of you. I roll in a delicious revery, where I live a thousand years in a moment.

What a horrible situation. Crowned with love, feeling love in all my pores, living only for love, and to find oneself consumed by grief and caught in a thousand spider's-webs.

Oh! my dearest Eva, you don't know. I have picked up your card; it is there, before me, and I speak to it as if you were there. I saw you yesterday, beautiful, so admirably beautiful. Yesterday, all the evening, I said to myself, "She is mine!" Oh! the angels are not as happy in Paradise as I was yesterday.

Geneva, February, 1834.

Madame,—Bautte [chief clock-maker in Geneva] is a great seigneur who is bored by small matters; and as you deign to attach some importance to the chain of your slave, I send you the worthy Liodet, who will understand better what is wanted, and will put more good-will into doing it. I have told him to put a link to join the two little chains.

Accept a thousand compliments, and the respectful homage of your moujik,

Honoré.

Geneva, February, 1834.

The Sire de Balzac is very well indeed, madame, and will be, in a few moments, at your fireside for a chat; he is too avaricious of the few moments that remain to him to spend in Geneva, and if he had not had some letters to answer, he would have gone there already this morning. A thousand affectionate compliments to M. Hanski, and to you a thousand homages full of friendship.

Paris, Wednesday, February 12, 1834.

I prefer saying nothing more than that. I love you with increasing intoxication, with a devotion that difficulties increase, to telling you imperfectly my history for the last three days. Sunday I will post a complete journal. I have not a minute to myself. Everything hurries me at once, and time presses. But, adored angel, you will divine me.

The dilecta [Madame de Berny] is better, but the future seems bad to me. I wait still before despairing.

Mon Dieu! may my thoughts of love echo in your ears and cradle you.

Paris, Thursday, February 13, 1834.

Madame,—I arrived much fatigued, but I found troubles at home, of which you can conceive the keenness. Madame de Berny is ill, and seriously ill,—more ill than she is aware of. I see in her face a fatal change. I hide my anxiety from her; it is boundless. Until my own doctor or a somnambulist reassure me, I shall not feel easy about that life which you know to be so precious.

I have delayed a day in writing to you, because on Wednesday morning I had to rush to the rue d'Enfer, and when I could write to you there was no longer time; the public offices closed earlier on account of Ash-Wednesday.

The sight of that face so gracious, aged in a month by twenty years, and horribly contracted, has greatly increased the grief I felt. Even if the health is restored, and I hope it, it will be always painful to me to see the sad change to old age. I can say this only to you. It seems as if nature had avenged herself suddenly, in a moment, for the long protestation made against her and time. I hope most ardently that the life may be saved; but I recognized symptoms that I saw with horror in my father before the irreparable loss. So, I have sorrow upon sorrow.[1] Now, after confiding to you these distresses, I can, madame, give you some consoling news. The publisher has understood my delay, and is not angry with me. I have, certainly, to work enormously, but, at least, I shall not have the annoyance of being blamed. As for M. Gosselin, that is only a loss of money. So, you who felt such affectionate fears lest the prolongation of my stay would prove a burden may be reassured. I shall have had complete joy, and no remorse; and now that there is no remorse, I should like a little. It is so sweet to bear something for those whose friendship is precious to us. I can tell you from afar, with less trembling in my voice and redness in my eyes, that the forty-four days I spent in Geneva have been one of the sweetest halts that I have made in my life of a literary foot-soldier. That rest was necessary for me, and you have made it into a joy. It was a sleep with the sweetest dreams,—dreams which will be realities. True friendship, sweet, kind, noble and good sentiments are so rare in life that there must mingle a little gratitude in the return we owe, and I feel as much gratitude as friendship.

I shall forget nothing of our affectionate little agreements: neither the album, nor the coffee, nor anything. To-day I can only tell you that I arrived without any hindrance, except great fatigue. The cold was keen. Saturday morning I crossed the Jura on foot through the snow, and on reaching the stone where two years ago I sat down to look at the wonderful spectacle of France and Switzerland separated by a brook, which is the Lake of Geneva, and a ditch, which is the valley between the Mont Blanc and the Jura, I had a moment of joy mingled with sadness. Two years ago I wept over lost illusions [refers to his rupture with Mme. de Castries], and to-day I had to regret the sweetest things that have ever come to me, outside of family feelings,—hours of friendship, the value of which a poor writer from necessity must feel more keenly than others, because there is in him a great poet for all that is emotion of the heart.

Yes, I am proud of my personal feelings, but it is a great grief to know the joys of friendship to their full extent, and lose them, even momentarily.

To-day I replunge into work, and it is crushing. I have promised that the second Part of the "Études de Mœurs" shall appear February 25th. That is only ten days for completing you know how much. My punctuality must excuse the delays. You see that in writing I am as indiscreet as when I went to see you.

Well, adieu, madame; believe that I am not "French" in the matter of memory, and that I know all that I leave of good and true beyond the Jura. In the hours when I am worn-out I shall think of our evenings; and the word patience, written in the depths of my life, will make me think of our games. You know all that I would say to the Grand Maréchal of the Ukraine, and I am certain that my words will be more graceful from your lips than from my pen. Tell Anna that her horse sends her his remembrances and kisses her forehead. A thousand affectionate compliments to Mademoiselle Séverine; inform Mademoiselle Borel that I have not broken my neck, and keep, I entreat you, madame, at your feet, my most sincere and most affectionate homage; your noble beauty assures you of sincerity, and as to the affection, I wish I could prove it to you in some way that would not involve misfortune.

"Do not forget to-morrow," was one of your recommendations when I told you that I did not believe in morrows; but now I do believe in them, for, by chance, I have a future, and my publisher has proved it to me. He is jubilant at the sale of "Eugénie Grandet," and said to me solemnly, "It sells like bread." I tell this to you who think you see cakes in it, while most people expect to see me faire brioches of it [fiasco]. Excuse this studio jest, you who like artists.

Devotion and friendship.

Paris, February 15, 1834, eleven o'clock.

My darling Eva, to you belongs this part of my night. Since Wednesday morning of this week I have been like a balloon; but as I went and came, and bustled through this Paris, I walked along, exciting myself with one fixed idea,—the idea of being forever near to you.

My dear idol, I have never had so much courage in my life; or rather, I have a new life. I read your name in me, I see you; everything seems easy to me to attain to seeing you again. I am afraid of nothing. My tears, my regrets, my sadness of love,—all that falls upon my heart at the moment when I get into bed. Then, alone with myself, I am all grief not to be at the "Arc," not to have seen my darling, and I go over in memory the smallest details of those days when, for all grief, I had that of being waked three hours too soon, hours that separated my rising from the moment when I set out to go to you.

The next day I work with an ardour of enthusiasm. What shall I tell you of these four days? I had to see two editors (they came) and the printer, to finish my proofs, to nurse Mme. de Berny, who is better,—but what a change! she is still a little feeble, incapable of correcting my proofs. Everything will suffer for that, but what does it matter? I want to see that life out of danger.

I felt there how I loved you. A horrible sensation told me that I could not bear any danger to you. All that recalled my terror at the time of your nervous attack. Oh, mon Dieu! to see you seriously ill, you, who sum up and hold all my affections in your heart, my life in your life,—why! I should die, not of your death, but of your sufferings. No, you do not know what you are to me. Near you, I feel too much to tell you egotistical thoughts; here I talk to you all day long. You are woven into my thought. I find no word but that to express my situation. As soon as I found myself in Paris I thought of the means of going to see you for a single day in Geneva.

Here I find violent family troubles. To-day I have had my brother-in-law and my mother to dinner. That tells you that from five o'clock to half-past ten I have been given up to them. Yesterday I had to dine with my sister, my mother, and my brother-in-law; then I was forced to give them from four to eleven o'clock. Those poor heads are distracted. I must have courage, ideas, energy, economy for all of them.

The morning of this Friday I set myself to learn all that has happened here. I had to go out early, to see the doctor, negotiate a payment for to-day, 15th, and consult him. So you see the employment of to-day and yesterday. Thursday was taken up by the publishers, a little sleep and a bath, also by Madame de Berny, to whom I wished at any rate to read "Ne touchez pas à la hache." Wednesday, the day after my arrival, I wrote you in the evening, I ran about all the morning, set my affairs in order, attended to a thousand little things,—which I don't particularize, as they are all mere necessary nothings,—made up my accounts, wrote, etc. After this avalanche of small things here I am, not much rested, rather less anxious about the dilecta, before a pile of proofs and enormous debts for the end of the month. Madame D... has urgent need of half her money by the end of February. It is now the 15th, the month is a short one, I must finish my two volumes; I must finish "Ne touchez pas" and write "La Femme aux yeux rouges."

My adored, my darling minette, I tell you things that are terrifying, but do not be alarmed. Vienna is traced out before me; all will be well. Your desire to see me, your love, all you hovers above me. I believe in you only; I want new successes, new fame, new courage; I will in short, that you shall be a thousand times prouder of your husband of love than of your lover. Yes, dear celestial Eva, I am melancholy because I am here and you are down there, but I have no more discouragements, no more depressions. When I raise my eyes I see something better than God, I see a sure happiness, a tried happiness. Oh! you do not know, my treasure, my dear life, what such sweet certainty is to my soul. You don't know what you did with your infernal jesting, you remember? You tried upon a most loving heart a weapon you did not know was loaded. A moment more, and I was lost. My eternal love could be placed on you alone; I see it, I know it now, for now I desire you more than ever. My dearest soul, I have for myself all the efforts that I make to meet you again; I materialize my hope. But, my beautiful myself, you, what are you doing? Ah! my beautiful, saintly creature, I know it is not on him of Paris that the burden is heaviest; it is our Geneva love, it is you who, bearing all our happiness, feel most our pains, our sorrows. Neither do I ever look at us two without a smile full of hope, but also slightly tainted with sadness. Oh! my idolized angel, you in whom all my future resides, all my happiness, and for whom I desire all the fine glories that make a happy woman, you whom I love with all the ardour of a young sentiment, of a first and a last love in one, yes, know it well, no sufferings, ideas, joys, which can agitate your soul fail to come and agitate mine.[1]

At this moment when I write to you, having left all to plunge into your heart, to come nearer to you, no, I feel space no longer; we are near one to the other; I see you, and one of my senses is intoxicated by the memory of one of those little voluptuous moments which made me so happy! I am very proud of you. I cry out to myself that I love you! You see, a poet's love has a little madness in it. None but artists are worthy of women, because they are somewhat women too. Oh! what need I have always to hear myself told that I am loved, to hear you repeat it! You, you are all. You will know only when you hear my voice how ardently I tell you that you are the only well-beloved, the only wife. Now I shall rush there more amorously than the two preceding times. You know why, my dear, naïve wife? Because I know you better, because I know all there is of divine and girlish in your dear, celestial character, because—. No, I never dreamed so ambitiously the perfections that are agreeable to me because I know that I can love ever. Going to Neufchâtel I wanted to love you; returning from Geneva it is impossible not to love you!

Who will ever know what the road to Ferney is at the spot where, having to leave on the morrow, I stood still at the sight of your dear, saddened face. Mon Dieu! if I tried to tell you all the thoughts there are in my soul, the voluptuous pleasures which my heart contains and desires, I should never cease writing, and, unfortunately, the word "Vienna" is there. I am cruel to both of us in the name of a continued happiness; yes, one year passed together will prove to you that you can be better loved each day, and I aspire to September...

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.