Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833-1846

by Honoré de Balzac

My loved love, with a single caress you have returned me to life. Oh! my dearest, I have not been able to either sleep or work. Lost in the remembrance of that evening, I have said to you a world of tendernesses. Oh! you have that divine soul to which one remains attached during a lifetime. My soul, you have, through love, the delicious language of love which makes all griefs and annoyances fly away on wings. Loved angel, do not obscure with any doubt the inspirations of love of which your dear caress is but the interpreter. Do not think you can ever enter into comparison with any one, no matter who. But, my loved darling, my flower of heaven, do you not understand, you, all charm and all truth, that a poor poet can be struck at finding the same heart, at being loved beyond his hopes? My adored wife, yes, it was for you that the heart of the most delicate and sweetest woman that ever was brought me up. I shall be permitted to say to her: "You wished to be twenty years old to love me better and give me even the pleasures of vanity. Well, I have met with what you wished me." She will be joyous for us. Dear eternal idol, my beautiful and holy religion, I know how the memories of another love must wound a proud and delicate love. But not to speak of it to you would be to deprive you of nameless fêtes of the soul, and joys of love. There are such identities of tenderness and soul that I am proud for you, and I know not if it is you I loved in her. Then, an ungovernable jealousy has so habituated me to think with open heart, and say all to her in whom I live, that I could never hide from you a thought. No, you are my own heart.

Yes, to you all is permitted. I shall tell you naïvely all that I think that is fine, and all that I think that is bad. You are an I, handsomer, prettier.

My love has neither exaltation, nor more, nor less, nor anything that is terrestrial. Oh! my dear Eve, it is the love of the angel always at the same degree of force, of exaltation. To feel, to touch your hand of love, that hand of soft, proud sentiments,—do you understand me, my angel, tender, kind, passionate,—that hand, polished and relaxed of love, that is a happiness as great as your caress of honey and of fire.

This is what I wished to say to my timid angel, who thought that all caresses were not solidaire. One, the lightest as the most passionate, comprises all. In that you see to the bottom of my soul. A kiss on your cherished lips,—those virgin lips that have no souvenirs yet (which makes you in my eyes as pure as the purest young girl),—a kiss will be a talisman for the desires of love, when it contains all the caresses of love. Our poor kiss, still disinherited of all our joys, only goes to your heart, and I would that it enwrapped all your person. You would see that possession augments, enlarges love. You would know your Honoré, your husband; and you would know that he loves you more daily.

My dearest Eva, never doubt me, but doubt yourself less. I have told you that there is in you, in your letters, in your love, in its expression, a something I know not what that is more than in other letters and expressions that I thought inimitable. But you are twenty-eight years old,—that is the grand secret. But, dear treasure, you have the most celestial soul that I know, and you have intoxicating beauties. Mon Dieu! how shall I tell you that I am drunk at the faintest scent of you, and that had I possessed you a thousand times you would see me more intoxicated still, because there would be hope and memory where now there is only hope.

Do you remember the bird that has but one flower? That is the history of my heart and my love. Oh! dear celestial flower, dear embalming perfumes, dear fresh colours, my beautiful stalk, do not bend, guard me always. At each advance of a love which goes and ever will go on increasing, I feel in my heart foyers of tenderness and adoration. Oh! I want to be sure of you as I am of myself. I feel at each respiration that I have in my heart a constancy that nothing can alter.

I wept on the road to Diodati, when, after having promised me all the caresses that you have granted me, a woman was able, with a single word, to cut the woof she seemed to have taken such pleasure in weaving. Judge if I adore you, you who perceive nothing of these odious manœuvres, who deliver yourself up with candour and happiness to love, and who speaks thus to all my natures.

There is my confession made. I think that you have all the noblenesses of the heart, for, adored angel, one should respect the weakness and even the crimes of a woman, and if I hide nothing from your heart, it is that it ought always to be mine. So I send you my sister's chatter and the letter of Madame de C[astries] on condition that you burn all, my angel. I know you so true, so great; ah! I would not hesitate to read you the letter of the dilecta if you wish it, for you are really myself. I would not hide from you the shadow of a thought, and you ought, at all hours, to enter my heart, as into the palace you have chosen to spread your treasures in, to adorn it, and find pleasure in it. All should there be yours.

If Madame C...'s letter displeases you, say so frankly, my love. I will write to her that my affections are placed in a heart too jealous for me to be permitted to correspond with a woman who has her reputation for beauty, for charm, and that I act frankly in telling her so. I wish to write this letter from myself. I would like well that you should tell it to me.

As for my money troubles, do not be uneasy about them. It is the basis of my life, till the end of July, love, which makes everything easy to me to bear.