I paid the duties on the little Dresden service. They told me at the custom-house that they had orders to send my cases to Paris, and I asked them to wait till the Wiesbaden cases came so that all might go together. Custom-houses do not respect heart-griefs, and I had to leave my reveries and memories (more and more tender beneath the charm of your smile, and your glance ever present with me) and attend to my cases. As my cold disturbed my stomach I relayed that organ with two little rolls and two large slices of Wiesbaden ham between Frankfort and Forbach. This, I hope, is a sufficient bulletin.
I was alone in the mail, and that was a blessing from heaven. At Metz, no one. At Verdun I encountered Germeau, coming from Paris with his wife, and I thanked him for his intervention at the custom-house. When you come to Forbach in your carriage you will be received with all the respect due to your social position, and your things will not be searched, I promise you that. I flew with the mail to Paris and arrived here at six o'clock in the morning; I went to bed at seven, and got up at eleven to breakfast. In the midst of my frugal repast the editor of the "Constitutionnel" fell from the clouds upon me, and found me half eating, half correcting the proofs of "La Cousine Bette," which he owned to me was having an astounding success. Véron's anxiety was consequently all the greater; but I calmed it by telling him of my journey and assuring him I had come back to finish everything. All this kept me till one o'clock.
I have written to Lirette, and shall send her your collective letter. But I shall soon go and see her and give her all details. Here is the dawn, just breaking; I must leave you, you, who are always there before me, blessing my work, like the soft white dove that you are. You will hear with some pleasure, I am sure, that an immense reaction in my favour has set in. I have conquered at last! Once more has my protecting star watched over me; once more an angel of peace and hope has touched me with her vigilant, guardian wing. At this moment society and the newspapers are turning favourably towards me; more than that, there is something like an acclamation, a general coronation. Those who fought me most fight no longer; those who were most hostile to me, Soulié for instance, are coming back to me. You know that he (Soulié) made me honourable amends in his new drama at the Ambigu. It is a great year for me, dear countess, especially if "Les Paysans" and "Les Petits Bourgeois" are published rapidly one after the other, and if I have the happiness of doing them well, and if your taste and that of the public should agree in thinking them fine—Come, tell me to stop, and bring myself back to "Cousine Bette;" truly, I am talking too much, and with too much pleasure; but it is to me such delicious, irresistible joy to throw myself thus wholly into your fraternal soul.
Ah! I have read your pretty letter which arrived the morning after I had left Paris, as I see by the postmark; had it reached me in time I would have dressed differently and so escaped my cold. Poor dear, you see once more in this that I comprehend you at a distance. I was already at Mayence when your letter reached Passy telling me that as I was ill I must drop the "Constitutionnel" and come and rest near you. You have so spoilt me by kindness that I had already done this without knowing whether you would approve of it.
The time that I have lost on business errands and proposals is really frightful. Furne is making gigantic announcements of La Comédie Humaine. I hasten to tell you this as I don't know whether I shall be able to write to you again for some time. It is now the 20th. This letter can only go to Dresden, Hôtel de Saxe, and it must even wait for a line from you before I send it.
Allons! to the pen, and to work!
[1] Balzac's visit to Wiesbaden, Stuttgard, etc., was paid between the date of the last letter and that of the present one. It has been stated, on what proof I do not know, that during this visit Madame Hanska promised definitively to marry him as soon as permission could be obtained from her government. Before Balzac left Paris he purchased the little house in the Beaujon quarter, since known as the house in the rue Fortunée, now rue Balzac, and began to store it with his treasures of furniture, pictures, and bric-à-brac, many of which, he says in a letter to his sister, belonged to Madame Hanska.—TR.
October 24.
Yesterday I worked like a negro; I wrote the amount of two chapters and corrected thirty columns of proof which I had on my desk. Just now, I can only count on money from the "Constitutionnel," or on that of a treaty by which I should bind myself for another work, but that other work is quite impossible for me to do. In my present labyrinth I must work and work without cessation to end, first of all, "Les Parents pauvres." It is not elegies that will give me money, and I need some; there is none here just now, at this moment, and I am at the mercy of certain payments to make, besides which I am expecting cases from everywhere, Geneva, Wiesbaden, etc. Nevertheless, do not think of my affairs or cloud the purity of your brow by useless anxieties. Publications will give something—but when? Voilà!
I hoped to find a letter from you at the post-office this morning telling me where to address you. I have half a mind to send this letter to Dresden by Bossange; but suppose that by chance you do not go to Dresden? Evidently I ought to wait for your next letter, which cannot be long in coming. I entreat you, do not harass yourself about all this: do not punish me for having believed in the luck of business in default of other happiness, more complete but impossible. I shall work, as I have always worked. It is only a habit to resume, not to begin, which would be more difficult. I feel young, full of energy and of talent before new difficulties. When I am settled in my little house at Beaujon [rue Fortunée], very cosy, well furnished, very quiet, safe from the intrusion of unwelcome persons, I shall write successively "Les Paysans," "Les Petits Bourgeois," "La Dernière Incarnation de Vautrin," "Le Député d'Arcis," "Une Mère de famille;" and the plays will go on as well. It was especially to give myself up to this immense, but necessary production, that I wished to house myself as soon as possible at Beaujon, for it is quite impossible to stay longer at Passy.