“Very curious, very original; but the rest of it?”
“That you shall have in a little while; in the mean time, I am planning an entirely novel mise-en-scène. Russia is for our theatres, and especially for yours, an unexplored and fecund mine. We will be the first to introduce it.”
Balzac left me in a state of great enthusiasm, and I built mountains of hopes on the inevitable success of “Pierre et Catharine.”
When I saw him again, however, everything had changed. He had given up the Russian drama for the moment, but promised to complete it later on. He had, he said, thought it over. It was a colossal undertaking, in which nothing should be neglected; and as the details concerning certain ceremonies were wanting, he proposed to take a trip to Moscow during the winter, and study the subject on the ground itself. He begged me, therefore, not to insist upon its immediate production, and offered another play in the place of the one thus postponed.
In spite of my disappointment, I could, of course, do nothing but submit, and in sheer despair I asked him to tell me something of his new piece.
“It will be horrible,” Balzac contentedly replied.
“How, horrible?”
“Understand me: it is not a question of a heavy melodrama, in which the villain burns the house down, and runs the inmates through and through,—not at all. My play is to be a simple comedy, in which everything is calm, tranquil, and pleasing. The men play placidly at whist, the women laugh and chat over their worsted work, everything announces harmony and order; but beneath this calm surface passions are at work, and the drama ferments, till at last it bursts forth like the flame of a conflagration.”
“You are in your element, sir. Then your plot is found?”
“Completely. It was chance, our habitual collaborateur, that furnished me with it. I know a family,—whom I will not name,—composed of a husband, a daughter by a first marriage, and a stepmother, still young and childless. The two women adore each other. The little attentions of the one and the caressing tenderness of the other are admired by all who know them. I, too, thought it charming, at first; then I became surprised, not that a stepdaughter and stepmother should love each other,—for there is nothing unnatural in such an affection,—but that they should love each other so dearly. Excess spoils all things. I began, therefore, to observe them more closely, and a few trivial incidents served to confirm my impression that all was not as it appeared. Finally, a few evenings ago, all doubt on the subject was removed. When I entered the drawing-room, it was almost deserted, and I saw the daughter leaving the room without having seen me; in so doing, she glanced at her stepmother, and what a look she gave her! It was like the thrust of a dagger. The stepmother was engaged in putting out the candles on the whist-table. She turned to the girl; their eyes met, and the most gracious of smiles played on their lips. The door closed on the girl, and the expression on the stepmother’s face changed suddenly to one of bitter contraction. All this, you will readily understand, passed like a flash of lightning; but I had seen quite enough, and I said to myself, Here are two creatures who loathe each other. What had happened? I do not know, and I never want to; but from that moment the entire drama unrolled before me.”