Nothing can express to you the sweeping onward of such mad work. At any price I must have my freedom of mind, for, another year of this life, and I shall die at my oar. I have done during this month, "Les Martyrs ignorés" "Massimilla Doni," and "Gambara." When I have finished "César Birotteau" I must then do "La Maison Nucingen et Compagnie" and another book, which will bring me to the end of these miseries that give me so much toil and no money. I found time to see about the packing of that portrait, which you will surely have, I think, before this letter reaches you.
The long delay of your number 29 has added to all my troubles the fear of some illness in your home; you cannot think what anxiety that puts into my mind. And I fear so much lest some breath of poisoned slander, some calumny may reach you, lest the sorrows of my life may have wearied you, that the failure of your letters puts me in a fever.
I will not talk to you again of the difficulties of my life, for the affair you know of has rendered them enormous and insurmountable. While I work night and day to free my pen, my new publishers give me nothing until I work for them; so that I must run in debt, and all my money worries will begin again. Werdet's failure has killed me. I imprudently indorsed for him, I was sued, and I was forced to hide and defend myself. The men whose duty it is to arrest debtors discovered me, thanks to treachery, and I had the pain of compromising the persons who had generously given me an asylum. It was necessary, in order not to go to prison, to find the money for the Werdet debt at once, and, consequently, to involve myself again to those who lent it to me.
Such a little episode in the midst of my toil!
I will no longer wring your heart with the details of my struggle. Besides, it would take volumes to tell you all of them and explain them. The truth is, I do not live. Always toil! I cannot support this life for more than three or four months at a time. I have still forty-five days more of it; after that I shall be utterly broken down, and then I will go and revive in the solitude of the Ukraine, if God permits it. I hope to last till the end of "César Birotteau."
"La Femme Supérieure" makes two thick 8vo volumes. It is ended in the newspaper, but not in the book form; I am adding a fourth Part.
I wish I had strength enough to give the end of "Illusions Perdues." But that is very difficult; though very urgent, because my payment of fifteen hundred francs a month does not begin till then.
Not only have I not closed the gulf of sorrows, but I have not closed that of my business affairs. I have hoped so often that I am weary of hope, as I told you. I am a prey to deep disgust, and I shut myself up in complete solitude. Nevertheless, a grand affair is preparing for me in the publication of my works, with vignettes, etc., resting upon an enterprise both inciting and attractive to the public. This is an interest in a tontine, created from a portion of the profit of subscribers, who are divided into classes and ages; one to ten, ten to twenty, twenty to thirty, thirty to forty, forty to fifty, fifty to sixty, sixty to seventy, seventy to eighty. So, the subscriber will obtain a magnificent volume, as to typographic execution, and the chance of thirty thousand francs income for having subscribed. Also the capital of the income will remain to the subscriber's family.
It is very fine; but it needs three thousand subscribers per class to make it practicable. But imagine that, in spite of the ardour of my imagination, I have received so many blows that I shall see this project played with an indifferent eye. An enormous sum is required for advertising; and four hundred thousand francs for the vignettes alone. The work will be in fifty volumes, published in demi-volumes. It will include the "Études de Mœurs" complete, the "Études Philosophiques" complete, and the "Études Analytiques" complete, under the general title of "Études Sociales." In four years the whole will have been published. The vignettes will be in the text itself, and there will be seventy-five in a volume, which will prevent all piracy in foreign countries.