HONORÉ DE BALZAC (continued 4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paris, February 17—February 23, 1834.

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, 18.

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

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

Wednesday, 19.

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

Thursday, 20, five o'clock.

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

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

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

Friday, 21.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday, 22.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, 23.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paris, March 2, 1834.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paris, March 9, 1834.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paris, March 11, 1834.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paris, March 30—April 3, 1834.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, April 3.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honoré De Balzac.

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

Frapesle, near Issoudun, April 10, 1834.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have not had time to answer Madame Jeroslas ...; she cannot be pleased with me; truly it is not possible for me to write except to you and the persons who are nearest to my heart. One has but three friends in the world, and if one is not exclusive for them, what good is it to love? When I have an instant to myself I am too tired to write; but I think; I carry my thoughts back to Geneva, I utter, mechanically, "tiyeuilles," and I illusion myself. Then a proof arrives, and I return to my sad condition of workman, of manual labour.

Well, adieu. Be happy; see the beautiful scenery, the fine pictures, the masterpieces, the galleries, and say to yourself if some gnat hums, or the fire sparkles, or a flame darts up, it is a friend's thought coming from my heart, from my soul toward you; and that I, too,—I would like my share in those beautiful enjoyments of art, but that I am here in my galley, having nought to offer you except a thought—but a constant thought.

I wrote you on the day I felt recovered; therefore have no fear if you take an interest in my health. I have no more weakness except in the eyes.

Paris, April 28, 1834.

Madame,—I have just received your good letter of the 20th, written in Florence; and you know by this time that it is impossible for me to go there. You must have received my little line from Issoudun, in which I asked you with great cries for Saint Peter's in Rome. For that trip I can answer. At that time all my affairs will be arranged. But Madame Bêchet needs me and my Parts, otherwise she will be compromised.

I hope you have not mingled anything personal in your reflections on: "it was only a poem" [conclusion of the "Duchesse de Langeais"]. You feel, of course, that a Thirteener must have been a man of iron. You would not accuse an author of thinking all he writes?

If painters, poets, artists were sharers in all they represent, they would die at twenty-five. No, my duchess is not my Fornarina. When I have her—but I have a Fornarina—I shall never paint her. Her adorable spirit may animate my soul, her heart may be in my heart, her life in my life, but paint her, show her to the public!—I would sooner die of hunger, for I should die of shame.

I am very glad that you do not yet know me fully; because now you may, perhaps, love me better some day. Mon Dieu! what you tell me of your health and that of Monsieur Hanski made me bound in my chair. Madame, in the name of the sentiment, the sincere affection I bear you, I implore you when you or Monsieur Hanski or your Anna are ill, write to me. Don't laugh at what I am going to say to you. Recent facts at Issoudun proved to me that I possess a great magnetic power, and that either by a somnambulist, or by myself, I can cure those who are dear to me. Therefore, have recourse to me. I will leave everything to go to you. I will devote myself with the pious warmth of true devotion to the care that illness needs, and I can give you undeniable proofs of that singular power. Therefore, put me in the way of knowing how you are. Don't deceive me, and don't laugh at this.

Your romances afflict me. Why have such dark suppositions? Mon Dieu! as for me, when I dream, I dream of happiness only.

Yesterday, some one told me the secret of my journeys was discovered, and that I had been to join Queen Hortense. I laughed much at that.

You make me weep with rage when I read what you say of Florence. Shall I ever meet with all that again? Oh! make me very supplicating to M. Hanski for the eight days I can be in Rome. See! it is possible. Saint Peter's day is the 23rd of June. I can leave Paris on the 12th for Lyon, and reach Marseille the l5th, whence a steamboat takes you in forty-eight hours to Civita Vecchia. I could stay eight or ten days in Rome without doing any harm to my affairs; for all, doctors and somnambulists, are unanimous in beseeching me to balance a month's work by a month's amusement. Now there is nothing that takes me so out of my work as music and travel—in Paris no interest excites my soul; I live in a desert; I am, as it were, in a convent; the heart is moved by nothing. Rome would be a grand and beautiful distraction if I were there alone, but with you for cicerone what would it be! And this is not said from gallantry, à la "charming Frenchman." No, it is said from heart to heart, to the woman of the North, to the barbarian!

I have broken with everybody; I was tired of grimaces. I have but two unalterable friendships here which are true, and to which I at times confide. Then, I have work into which I fling myself daily.

This letter will still reach you in Florence. It will tell you feebly my regrets, which are boundless. This heavy material life, which I so largely escaped in Geneva, oppresses me here. I thirst for my liberty, for freedom, and if you knew what prodigies of will, what creating persistence is needed to secure no more than my twenty-four days in June and July, you would say, like one of my friends who has perceived a little of the intellectual working of my furnace (and you know more than a mere acquaintance), that Napoleon never showed as much will, or as much courage.

What you have written me about Montriveau [in the "Duchesse de Langeais"] worries me, for you are a little epigrammatic, and it would be a great grief to me to be ill judged or misunderstood by you. You are the second person to whom I have shown my mind in its truth. I like to let no one penetrate it, because if they do, what is there to give to those we love? You did not mean to wound me, did you?

I like your judgments on Florence and works of art much; and I would greatly like, if you will be so good to your moujik, that you should study Rome, so that when I come I may not stop to look at bagatelles, but see in my eight days all that there is of really fine, and good, and masterly, which goes to the soul. Do not say "Montriveau" to me again. Remember that I have the life of the heart and the life of the brain; that I live more by sentiments than by the caprices of the mind; that I would rather feel than express ideas; and that neither way does wrong to the other. One needs a little intellect to love.

I write you as it comes, without premeditation; for I must tell you that I am in the midst of "Les Chouans," which I am printing with extreme rapidity, causa metalli, to put an end to some debts. But no matter! my scribbling will surely tell you that a loving thought follows you wherever you go, and that there is at a fireside near the Observatoire a poet who takes interest in your steps, is troubled by your cough, and made uneasy by Monsieur Hanski's illness. I was already uneasy enough at receiving no letters from you. I belong to you like a moujik, and if M. Hanski gives wheat to his, you owe to me, moujik of Paulowska, a few straws of affection, here and there. You might have written to me three times since Turin.

I will tell you nothing of my combats; I am occupied solely by my work and by a life which is also a work for me; not a poem, madame, but all that there is of good and beautiful upon this earth. Thus, everything here, politics, men, and things, seem to me very paltry beside what I feel in heart and brain.

I am every day more grieved to have been forced to abandon "Séraphita;" but in Rome it shall be the work of my choice. It belongs to you and it ought to be done beneath your eyes.

Mon Dieu! if you are better, tell me so quickly. Throw into the post these words only: "I am," or "We are better." It is so good to see the writing, the painting, of a thought escaped from the heart of a friend! You don't know how, in the evening, when I am very weary, my castle in the air, my novel, my own, is Diodati; but a Diodati without the deceptions of your novels; a Diodati without bitterness in its dénouement. Of us two, am I indeed the younger and the one most full of illusions? There are days when I say tiyeuilles, laughing like a child, and those who take me for a grave man would be stupefied. Come, don't knock down my dreams, my castles. Let me believe in a cloudless sky. Since I exist I have lived by unalterable beliefs only, and you are one of those beliefs. Don't cough and look dark; may the troubles of spleen never come either to you or to M. Hanski, to whom my letter is half addressed; take it only as a talk full of affection.

Our Exhibition has nothing regrettable. M. Hanski would not have bought much there; but if I were rich I should like to send you one picture, an Algiers interior, which seems to me excellent. Borget is preparing for his journey; you will see him in Venice perhaps, for he moves slowly.

I beg of you, madame, tell me whether, according to this new arrangement, we can meet in Rome; for I begin to perceive that I am writing to you to know that. You would be very good if you would torment M. Hanski in order to obtain it. In the first place, if you torment him you will amuse him; you will substitute for his blue devils real annoyances; next, you will create a little conjugal drama, in which you will be victorious; and it is so good to triumph, especially over a husband.

Well, once more adieu. To all those who are near you give the remembrances of a poor workman in letters, who subscribes himself your affectionate, your wholly devoted servant and friend,

Honoré De Balzac.

I am reading over your letter to see if I have forgotten anything. No; I have answered all, and only omitted to tell you one thing, because it is too daily: it is that I press, across space, the pretty hand you hold out to me so graciously, and wish a thousand pleasures to your caravan.

À bientôt in Rome; for work, alas! will make me consume the time with terrifying rapidity. Adieu, I cannot quit my pen any better than I could quit your house in Geneva.

You chose to laugh, à la Française, at my "beautiful marquise, whose fine eyes make me die of love." I will play the Frenchman and tell you to turn that speech round, except as to the beauty of the eyes. Fie! it is not nice to be always showing me the rock on which my vanity was wrecked. Come, admit that you have not been frank, or it will be the ground of a quarrel in Rome—if one could quarrel with you on meeting again.

Paris, May 10, 1834.

I have this moment received, madame, your letter of April 30. Alas! I have buried my hopes of the Rome trip. It always costs me horribly to renounce an illusion; all my illusions seem to be one and inseparable.

I have but a moment to answer you, for in order that you may get this letter before you leave Florence, on the 20th, it must be posted to-day, and it is now twelve o'clock. You do not tell me where you are going. Is it to Milan? What will be your address? How long shall you stay? I could see you there if I went with Borget. But at any rate, in September, at Vienna. That is more reasonable.

Mon Dieu! yes, the advice you give is impossible to follow. With the certainty of risk, I risk myself. There are no thanks worthy of the kindness you show in speaking to me so frankly of what I do; and you will not know, except in course of years, how grateful I am for this frankness. Do not be afraid; go on, blaming boldly.

You tell me to go to Gérard's; have I the time? Time melts in my fingers. To bring to an end my crushing liabilities I have undertaken a tragedy, in prose, called, "Don Philippe et Don Carlos." It is the old subject of Don Carlos already treated by Schiller. All must march abreast; the little literature of copper coins, the puerilities, the studies of manners and morals, and the great thoughts that are not understood,—"Louis Lambert," "Séraphita," "César Birotteau," etc.

My life is always the same. I rise to work, I sleep little. Sometimes I let myself go to gentle reveries. Since I last wrote to you, I have had but one recreation; I heard Beethoven's symphony in C minor at the Conservatoire. Ah! how I regretted you. I was alone in a stall—I alone! It was suffering without expression. There exists in me a need of expansion which toil beguiles, but which the first emotion brings to the surface like a gush of tears. Yes, I am alone, deplorably alone. To find happiness I need the evening hour, silence, not work, but solitude and my inmost thoughts.

Write me quickly where I shall send you "Les Chouans," which will appear on the 15th, five days hence. Florence will certainly see me; you have been happy there. I shall go and pick up your thoughts in seeing those beautiful places, those noble works. I am only jealous of the illustrious dead: Beethoven, Michel Angelo, Raffaelle, Poussin, Milton,—all that was ever grand, noble, and solitary stirs me.

All is not said about me yet; I am only at the little details of a great work. When a man has undertaken what I have to do,—ah! madame, permit me to confide this to your heart,—it is impossible to fall into the petty and base intrigues of this world; sentiments ought to be as great as the works desire to be great. My ambition is even stronger on the side of sentiments than it is for a fame which, after all, shines only upon graves! So, I live alone, more alone than ever; nothing drags me from my contemplations: to love and to think, to act and to meditate. To develop all one's strength on two great things,—work and the richest emotions of the soul,—what can one ask more than that? A drop of friendship, a little sunshine; to press a hand by which we can support ourselves.

Your advice upon my writings proves to me that on one point you have crowned my ambition. I would that I could send into your soul by this paper the emotions of pleasure your letter has caused me. But that is difficult.

So I cannot see you again until Vienna! Till then I shall not listen again to the only person who has made me hear a language completely poetical and largely generous. I must stop, for you will take truth for flattery. What a hindrance is writing; how often one look has more meaning than all words. Well, you will divine whatever I think that is good, and all that time prevents me from saying. You wall tell yourself that it is impossible for a solitary man—a man often crushed by work and lost in Paris—not to think, every day, of persons who love him truly; you will know that I am occupied with you, and am gathering for you those autographs.

Mon Dieu! what a number of things to tell you! How the Academy wanted to give the Montyon prize to the "Médecin de campagne," and what I did to avoid being put in the competition,—as many applications and proceedings were needed as the other competitors made to obtain the prize. And about my tragedy, and my other works in hand! But it is very difficult not to forget one's self in thinking of you.

If you go to Milan, if you stay some time, if I can go and say bonjour to you for a few days, tell me; for from the 20th to the 30th of June I should be very glad of an object for a trip, and I know none that would give me such keen happiness. I will inquire about Bartolini; but I see plainly you do not know our sculptors. In the Exhibition there was a statue of Modesty which might crush the antique; in sculpture we have great talents that are real. You like Bartolini, so I will like him, and I will make Gérard like him. But you think no longer of Grosclaude; do you know that your admirations have something which might alarm any other heart than a sincerely friendly one?

You have shown such exquisite feeling for my poor "Chouans" that, to make it less unworthy of you and me, I have delivered myself up to patient toil such as my printer alone has an idea of. You will re-read the book in Milan, no doubt. The third Part of the "Études de Mœurs" will not be ready before the first days of June. I should much like to have Susette take them to you from the author, who would then solicit an audience and recover from the fatigues of the journey through the hope of seeing you.

Alas! I have such business on hand that the devil and his horns could not get away. But I am a three-horned demon, of the race, rather degenerated, of Napoleon.

A thousand gracious thoughts and memories. Find here all that you can wish in a heart full of gratitude and devotion.

What! will you really be in Vienna in July? So soon! These distances placed between us seem to me like farewells. But I shall go to Germany in September. I shall arrive rich with some successes; which please me now only because you take an interest in them; you make them more essential to me for this reason.

Well, here is the hour. I do not know where to write to you, but I shall write all the same, and when your new box comes I will send it to you. There is no lake at Vienna, therefore give me the hope of seeing the Lago Maggiore with you. At Vienna I shall do my reconnoitring on the Danube, in order to paint the battle of Wagram, and the fight at Essling, which are to be my work during the coming winter in the Ukraine, if you will have me. But I must also see the countries through which Prince Eugène marched from Italy across the Tyrol.

Adieu, adieu, you whom one does not like to leave. You know as well as I all that I think, and you must be kind enough to give expression to my sentiments to your travelling companions. Oh! how I wish I could have seen with you the city of flowers!

Paris, June 3rd—June 21, 1834.

I have this moment received, madame, the last letter you did me the honour to write to me from Florence; I hope, therefore, that this one will find you in Milan in time to prevent false hopes, as you are so kind as to interest yourself in my excellent Borget. He is still at Issoudun, and will take Italy by way of the Tyrol, beginning by both banks of the Rhine; therefore he will have no chance of meeting you. I am sorry. His is one of those fine souls one needs to know in order to judge of man and have some ideas of the future.

I myself renounce with sorrow the pleasure I had planned, of bidding you good-day in Milan. You put such grace and urgency into your inquiries as to my situation that I cannot help speaking of it to you after summing it up for myself. I still owe six thousand ducats [sixty to eighty thousand francs]; this will be comprehensible to you if turned into your currency. Between now and the last of October, I must pay off two thousand. The remaining four thousand are owing to my mother. But until the end of October I have five hundred ducats to pay monthly; and since my return from Geneva my pen and my courage have sufficed until now to pay that sum. If by the end of September I am free, I shall have done marvels. But until then neither truce nor rest. My tranquil, joyous winter must be won at this cost. The doctor thinks well of the Baden waters. This is my situation.

For the last two months I have worked night and day at the work you honour with your preference. You have had much influence on my determination relating to that work ["Les Chouans"]. In the desire to make it worthy of your friendship I have re-made it. It is not yet perfect, because, absorbed in the faults of the ensemble, I have let pass faults of detail and several mistakes. But, such as it is, it may now bear my name and you can avow your charitable protection. It has needed a courage no one will give me credit for; but the secret of my perseverance and my love for this work has been in my desire to be agreeable to you, and to deserve one of those approbations which intoxicate me with pleasure, and to hear from your lips, when I have shaken off the enormous weight of my troubles, that the work pleases you. I shall send it to Florence to M. Borri, requesting him to forward it to you in Milan; and I shall also send it to Trieste, so that this poor first flower may be certain to receive your friendly glances. I have been delighted with it, and I have let myself be persuaded that you are right in liking it. I have tried to justify your preference. Marie de Verneuil is much finer, and the work has been well cleaned up; but, as the printer said to me: "It is not forbidden to put butter on spinach,"—a saying worthy of Charlet.

Great news! Pichot is dismissed from the "Revue de Paris;" I return there with several pecuniary advantages, which will help me to get free. "Séraphita" serves me to re-enter with great éclat. The work has surprised Parisians. When the last number appears I shall add a letter of envoi to you, in which you will find the dedication, which I shall try to make worthy of you, simple and grand. It was not put in the beginning because I did not wish to dedicate to you a book not finished.

Here is a whole long month that I have worked to pure loss on my third Part. I am dissatisfied, vexed with what I do. Nevertheless, you will find it at Trieste. I must make a composition in the style of "Eugénie Grandet," to sustain this Part [of the Études de Mœurs].

My affairs are, at this moment, complicated by a transaction I have proposed to M. Gosselin, to annul our contracts, which will require six thousand francs in cash paid to him, for which he will return my agreements. That point obtained, I shall have no engagements except with Madame Bêchet; and by three months of great labour I could, by the end of September, take the road to Germany, poor, but without anxieties, carrying my tragedy to do, and idleness to enjoy near you. If you knew what cares, debates, labours were necessary to reach this result! But what happiness to recover liberty, what pleasure to do what one likes!

Spachmann is no longer Coquebin. By my efforts, and those of my sister, he has just married a young and pretty girl who will have some fortune. She brings him five hundred ducats, which make him rich, and she has four thousand more in expectation. Mademoiselle Borel was quite wrong; here's a happy man made. I thought of you in marrying this poor binder, about whom we laughed and talked at your fireside in Geneva.

The greatest sorrows have overwhelmed Madame de Berny. She is far from me, at Nemours, where she is dying of her troubles. I cannot write you about them; they are things that can only be spoken of ear to ear. But I am all the more alone, deplorably alone,—as much alone, that is, as I can be, for treasures are in my thought during the hours of repose and calmness which I take with delight. All is hope for me, because all is belief.

If you knew how much there is of you in each rewritten phrase of the "Chouans"! You will only know it when I can tell you in the chimney-corner at Vienna, in some hour of calm and silence when the heart has neither secrets nor veils.

The correction of the second edition of "Le Médecin de campagne" draws to a close, and I am half-way on with the third dizain,—so that I now am driving abreast nine volumes. My life is sober, silent, self-contained. Nevertheless, a lady has crossed the straits and written me a beautiful letter in English, to which I have answered that I only understand French, and that I respect ladies too much to give it out for translation. The affair stopped there. I received a letter from Madame Jeroslas ..., delightful in style and quite surprising. I have not yet replied.

Those are all the events of my life since I wrote you last.

"Philippe le Réservé" is put aside. Nevertheless, the literary world is very curious about my play. In reply to what you deign to write me about it, I must tell you that Carlos was so deeply in love with the Queen that there is sufficient proof that the child of which she died pregnant ("treated for dropsy, for God took pity on the throne of Spain, and blinded the doctors," says the sensitive Mariano) was the Infant's. So in my play the Queen is guilty, according to received ideas. Carlos idem; Philippe II. and Carlos are fooled by Don John of Austria. I conform to history and follow it step by step. However, according to all appearance, this work will be done under your eye, for it is the only thing that can be done while travelling, and you shall then judge of the political depths of that awful tragedy. It needs a lead well guarded by ropes to gauge it! Two of my friends are ardently rummaging historical manuscripts that I may miss nothing. I want to obtain even the plans of the palace and the rules of etiquette of the Spanish court under Philippe II.

MM. Berryer and Fitz-James wish to have me nominated for deputy, but they will fail. The matter will be decided within a month, and you will know it, no doubt, at Trieste. If I were nominated I should have myself ordered to Baths, for the portfolio of prime minister would not induce me to renounce the dear use I mean to make of the first moment of liberty I have ever won in my life.

The farther I go on, the higher is the ideal I form of true happiness. For me, a happy day is more than worlds. When I want to give myself a magnificent fête I shut my eyes and lie down on a sofa, and absorb myself in remembering the silly things I said to you with my pa'ole d'ôneû panachée,[1] beside the Lake of Geneva, and I go over again that good day at Diodati, which effaced a thousand pangs I had felt there a year before. You have made me know the difference between a true affection and a simulated affection, and for a heart as childlike as mine there is cause there for eternal gratitude.

Yesterday I went to see my mother and found her much changed, very ill and quite resigned. I have been sad ever since. In settling and clearing up our accounts a fortnight ago she fretted greatly about what would happen to me if she died, and that constant foresight pained me. Yesterday I was far more sad. She is very good to me. She has sent for me, but to-day I cannot go because I am expecting an arbitrator to whom I must explain the Gosselin affair. But to-morrow I shall go quickly. I have now only fifteen days in which to do a volume which is impatiently demanded, and never did I have less warmth of imagination.

June 20.

You are at Milan. I am not there! This letter, begun seventeen days ago, has remained unfinished by force of circumstances. In the first place, the return of my brother from the West Indies with a wife (was it necessary to go five thousand miles to find a wife like that?); then annoyances, vexations without number, besides work. The publisher of "Les Chouans" has not paid me. Here I am, with notes falling due. Then, M. Gosselin demands ten thousand francs, nearly a thousand ducats, to break our contract; I am trying to find them. But the greatest misfortune is this: after much trouble I had succeeded in finding a subject for my third Part; but after doing half a volume I flung it into the box of embryos, and have begun anew with a grand, noble, magnificent subject, which will give you, I hope, both honour and pleasure. According to my ideas, and according to my critics, it is above everything else. But I have had to make up for time lost. Ah! madame, what hours of despair and terrible insomnia between the 3rd and the 20th of June. There must have been sympathy!

Believe in me, I entreat you. Whether you go to Vienna or to Wierzchownia, my winter is destined to you. I want to flee Paris; I want absolutely to dig out in silence my Philippe II. You will see me arrive with the rapidity, the fidelity of a swallow.

I shall go, in July, to Nemours to write, away from Paris, which is intolerable in summer, my fourth and fifth Parts of the "Études de Mœurs." If I can end them in September I shall make untold efforts to get the last printed by the beginning of November. Perhaps you will still be in Vienna the first fifteen days of that month. I would like to know your itinerary, for I shall take, as soon as I can, fifteen days' liberty, and shall go, naturally, to the country you are in.

I send to-day, to Trieste, the "Chouans" for you, and the second edition of the "Médecin de campagne" for Monsieur Hanski, as you have yours. I will send my third Part later, for I am very impatient to have your opinion about this new production. When "Séraphita" is finished I will bring her to you, bound by the husband of the pretty girl of Versailles. You will see he had not the heart to continue Coquebin to do that savage binding of cloth and satin. But if I could know how long you stay at Trieste, I could leave here July 10th and be at Trieste the 16th, see you for three days, and get back again. I have a thousand things to bring you; the cotignac, the perfumes, and tutti quanti.

I shall end this letter by saying: à bientôt. The hope of crossing many countries to find you at the end of the journey gives me courage. I work, now, twenty consecutive hours. Well, I must bid you adieu, saying, as gracefully as I can, that you are less a memory to me than a heart-thought, and that you would be very unkind to fling in my face forever that I am a Frenchman. Remember, madame, that I am a Coquebin who does not marry, or at least only marries with the Muses. I have been alarmed by reading in Hoffmann (article on Vows) a severe judgment on Polish women; still, I had, to tell the truth, a pleasurable evening in thinking that the article was true for you in all that was flattering, and false in all that was cruel.

Our poor Sismondi has been roughly demolished (the word is true) in the "Revue de Paris" of last Sunday. His "Histoire des Français" has been rased, destroyed—from garret to cellar.

Poor Madame de Castries is going away, dying, and so dying that I blame myself for not having been there for a month, for those infamous Parisians have deserted her because she suffers. What a sad sentiment is that of pity. Therefore!—Ah!

Friday, 21.

I have been for several days sad and distressed. I did not tell you this yesterday. The post hour went by, and I kept this letter. Yes, I have failed in hope, I who live only by hope, that noble virtue of the Christian life. "Le Médecin de campagne" reappears to-morrow. What will be its fate?

I have been very happy this morning; you could never, perhaps, guess why. I should have to paint to you the state of a poor solitary who stays in his cell, rue Cassini, and whose only rejoicing is in a tiny winged insect which comes from time to time. The poor little gleam was late in coming, and I was horribly afraid, saying to myself: "Where is she? Is anything amiss with her? She has been eaten up!" At last the pretty little creature came. Once more I saw my bête à bon dieu, iridescent, a little mournful; but I put it on my paper and asked it, as if it were a person: "Have you come from Italy? How are my friends?"

You will take me for a lunatic—no, for I have heart and intellect, and only trespass through excess, not want, of sensibility. That is how a man who wrote the "Treize" can weep with joy on again beholding the scales of his little insect.

Well, adieu. I wish that you might have the same quiverings. That is only saying that one is still young, that the heart beats strong, that life is beautiful, that one feels, one loves, and that all the riches of the earth are less than one hour of sensuous joy such as I had with my little insect. And, also, do you know how much of joy, amber, flowers, grace of the countries it flies through, that little creature can bring back? See all that poesy can invent about a bête à bon dieu, and what lunatics are hermits and dreamers!

Well, adieu; be happy on your journey; see all those fine countries well. As for me, I am furious at being nailed to this little mahogany table, which has been so long the witness of my thoughts, sorrows, miseries, distresses, joys—of all! Thus I will never give it except to ——. But I will not tell you all my secrets to-day.

To-day I am gay. I have been so sad nearly all this month! There are my beautiful blue flowers in the barren fields between the Observatoire and my window drooping their heads. It is hot. Nevertheless, if I want to see you this winter I must mind neither weariness, nor heat, nor weakness.

Would you believe that the second edition of the "Physiologie du Mariage" does not appear, that those men will not pay me, and that I shall have another lawsuit on my hands? Mon Dieu! What have I done to those fellows!

Kiss Anna on the forehead. Oh! how I wish I were her horse again. Offer my regards to M. Hanski. Put all that is most flowery in French courtesy at the feet of your two companions, and keep for yourself, madame, whatever you will of my heart.

Paris, July 1, 1834.

Ah! madame, nature is avenging herself for my disdain of her laws; in spite of my too monastic life my hair is falling out by handfuls, it is whitening to the eye! the absolute inaction of my body is making me fat beyond measure. Sometimes I remain twenty-five hours seated. No, you won't recognize me any more! The moments of despair and melancholy are more frequent. Griefs of all sorts are not lacking to me.

I wrote three half-volumes before finding anything suitable for the third Part of the "Études de Mœurs." It will at last appear on the 20th of this month. (Be satisfied, it is not I who am elected deputy.)

You will tell me, will you not? where I am to send my third Part. Do not deprive me of the happiness of being read by you, which is one of my rewards. I still have three months' arduous labour before me; shall I finish before October? I don't know. I am like the bird flying above the face of the waters and finding no rock on which to rest its feet. I should be unjust if I did not say that the flowery island where I could repose is in sight of my piercing eyes; but it is far, far-off.

I should like to write to you only good news; but, although arranged, my compromise with M. Gosselin is not yet signed. I must find a thousand ducats, and in our book business nothing is so scarce; for books are not francs—and not always français!

I laugh, but I am profoundly sad. "La Recherche de l'Absolu" will certainly extend the limits of my reputation; but these are victories that cost too dear. One more, and I shall be seriously ill. "Séraphita" has cost me many hairs. I must find exaltations that do not come at the cost of life. But that work which belongs to you ought to be my finest.

Tell me to what Baths you are going, for it is possible if—if—if—that I may myself bring you various little things, such as a faultless new edition of the "Médecin de campagne," my third Part, and the manuscript of "Séraphita," which will be finished in August. Yes, stay at some place where I can go till September l5th.

If I compromise with Gosselin, I can free myself only by alienating an edition of the "Études Philosophiques." That will be work added to work. In the total solitude in which I live, sighing after a poesy which is lacking to me and which you know, I plunge into music. I have taken a seat in a box at the Opera, where I go for two hours every other day. Music to me is memories. To hear music is to love those we love, better. It is thinking with joys of the senses of our inward joys; it is living beneath eyes whose fire we love; it is listening to the beloved voice. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from half-past seven to ten o'clock, I love with delight. My thought travels.

Well, I must say au revoir; as soon as my compromise is made I will write to you about it in detail. Never find fault with my devoted friendship; it is independent of time and space. I think of you nearly all day, and is not that natural? The only happy moments I have known for a year, moments when there was neither work nor the worries of material life, were enjoyed near you; I think of you and of your wandering colony as one thinks of happiness, and since I left you I have lived only the burning life of unfortunate artists.

Was M. Hanski gratified by my attention? You shall have, madame, an edition for yourself; an edition which I shall try to make ravishing, and in which there will be a secret coquetry. Ah! if I had had your features I would have pleased myself in having them engraved as La Fosseuse. But though I have memory enough for myself, I should not have enough for a painter.

Day before yesterday, I had a visit from Wolff, the pianist from Geneva. I could have thrown the house out of windows for joy. Was it not he who asked me: "Who is that admirable lady?" So the poor lad found me very cordial, very splendidly hospitable. To see him was to fancy myself back in Pré-l'Évêque, ten steps from your house, and breathing the Genevese air.

I hope to be able to write you more at length a few days hence. I reserve to myself the right to write my tragedy at Wierzchownia. I have amused myself like a boy in naming a Pole M. de Wierzchownia, and bringing him on the scene in the "Recherche de l'Absolu." That was a longing I could not resist, and I beg your pardon and that of M. Hanski for the great liberty. You couldn't believe how that printed name fascinates me.

What a good winter to be far from the annoyances of Paris, absorbed in a tragedy, struggling with a tragedy, laughing every evening with you and making the master laugh, for whom I'll invent "Contes Drolatiques" expressly for him! If I have to get to you through driving snow-storms I shall come! And after that, I'll go to the Emperor Nicholas himself to obtain permission for you to come to Paris and see the fiasco of my play!

Adieu, you who are seeing every day new countries, while I can see but one! I hope Anna is well, and that M. Hanski has none of his black dragons, that Mademoiselle Borel smiles, that Susette sings, that Mademoiselle Séverine still retains her graceful indifference, and you, madame, that vigorous constitution which is a principle of living joys; but also of pains; my desire is that God shall take all sorrow from your cup. Do not forget to tell me where you will stay after Trieste.

I send you a thousand flowers of the soul and of affection.

Paris, July 13, 1834.

It is now a long time, madame, since I beheld your pretty writing, and my solitude seems to me deeper, my toil more heavy. I gaze with a gloomy air at that box in which you sent me jujubes, which now holds my wafers.

Are you in Venice? Are you at Trieste? Are you travelling? Are you resting? You see, I think of you, and I do not want to waste all the reveries into which I plunge, so I send you one. Oh! I am so bored in Paris! Never did its atmosphere so weigh upon me. I breathe in fancy the air you breathe with an enthusiastic jealousy! It is, they say, so light, it would suit my lungs so well. Mon Dieu! work is crushing me, and for all hippogriff I have only that jujube-box and Anna's dog-inkstand, poor little dear!

I am writing at this moment a fine work, the "Recherche de l'Absolu;" I tell you nothing about it; I want you to read it without bias, and with all the freshness of ignorance of its subject. Where will you be then?

My business affairs are cursed. Nothing comes to a conclusion. That ambulating roast-beef, into whom God has thrown all the thoughts that make for silliness, called Gosselin, stops us by petty things. Next Tuesday we may end the matter, perhaps; I will immediately write to you. Put on one side thirty-seven thousand francs to pay, and on the other side twenty-eight francs' worth of paper, a bottle of ink, and a few quill-pens I have just bought, and you will have an idea of my position, assets, and debts. To reach an equilibrium, I need iron health, not talent, but luck in my talent. Six volumes more for the said Bêchet to publish, and twenty-five 12mos for the first edition of the "Études Philosophiques"! After all that is done, I shall have a few crowns left and "liberty on the mountain." When I say on the mountain, I mean plain, for the Ukraine is, you say, a flat country.