And more than that she sapped his life-forces and robbed him of his red corpuscles; so that, before he was fifty, he was old, worn-out, undone, with an excess of lime in his bones.
Literary creation makes a terrific tax on vitality. Ideas do not flow until the pulse goes above eighty, and this means the rapid breaking down of tissue. The man who writes two hours daily, and writes well, can not do much else. He is like the racehorse—do not expect the record-breaker to pull a plow all day, and go fast heats in the evening. Balzac was the most tremendous worker in a literary way the world has ever seen. He doubtless made mistakes in his life's course, but the wonder is, that he did not make more. He was constantly absorbed in what Theophile Gautier has called "the Balzac Universe," looking after the characters he had created, seeing to it that they acted consistently, pulling the wires, supplying them conversation, dialogue, plot and counterplot, and amid all this bustle and confusion bringing out a perfect story. And still sanely to do the work of the workaday world was a miracle indeed! The man had the strength of Hercules, but even physical strength has its penalty—it seduces one to over-exertion. The midnight brain is a bad thing to cultivate, especially when reinforced with much coffee. Balzac was growing stout; physical exercise was difficult. Dark lines were growing under his eyes. In his letters to Madame Hanska he tells how he is taking treatment from the doctor, and that he suffers from asthma and aneurism of the heart.
His eyes are failing him so he can not see to write by lamplight.
Madame Hanska now becomes alarmed. She thinks she can win him back to life. She begs him to come to Poland at once, and they will be married.
Balzac at once begins the journey to the Hanska country home. The excitement and change of scene evidently benefited him. Great plans were being made for the future.
The wedding occurred on March Fourteenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifty.
Balzac was a sick man. The couple arrived back in Paris, with Balzac leaning heavily on his wife's arm. Chaos thundered in his ears; his brain reeled with vertigo; dazzling lights appeared in the darkness; and in the sunshine he saw only confused darkness.
Balzac died August Seventeenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifty, aged fifty-one, and Pere-la-Chaise tells the rest.
Said Victor Hugo:
The candle scarcely illumined the magnificent Pourbus, the magnificent Holbein, on the walls. The bust of marble was like the ghost of the man who was to die. I asked to see Monsieur De Balzac. We crossed a corridor and mounted a staircase crowded with vases, statues and enamels. Another corridor—I saw a door that was open. I heard a sinister noise—a rough and loud breathing. I was in Balzac's bedchamber. The bed was in the middle of the room: Balzac, supported on it, as best he might be, by pillows and cushions taken from the sofa. I saw his profile, which was like that of Napoleon. An old sick-nurse and a servant of the house stood on either side of the bed. I lifted the counterpane and took the hand of Balzac. The nurse said to me, "He will die about dawn."