"I am sorry to see that you are reading the mystics: believe me, this sort of reading is fatal to minds like yours; it is a poison; it is an intoxicating narcotic. These books have a bad influence. There are follies of virtue as there are follies of dissipation and vice. If you were not a wife, a mother, a friend, a relation, I would not seek to dissuade you, for then you might go and shut yourself up in a convent at your pleasure without hurting anybody, although you would soon die there. In your situation, and in your isolation in the midst of those deserts, this kind of reading, believe me, is pernicious. The rights of friendship are too feeble to make my voice heard; but let me at least make an earnest and humble request on this subject. Do not, I beg of you, ever read anything more of this kind. I have myself gone through all this, and I speak from experience."
As has been stated, Madame Hanska was of assistance to Balzac in his literary work. He used her ideas frequently, and was gracious in expressing his appreciation of them to her:
"I must tell you that yesterday . . . I copied out your portrait of Mademoiselle Celeste, and I said to two uncompromising judges: 'Here is a sketch I have flung on paper. I wanted to paint a woman under given circumstances, and launch her into life through such and such an event.' What do you think they said?—'Read that portrait again.' After which they said:—'That is your masterpiece. You have never before had that /laisser-aller/ of a writer which shows the hidden strength.' 'Ha, ha!' I answered, striking my head; 'that comes from the forehead of /an analyst/.' I kneel at your feet for this violation; but I left out all that was personal. . . . I thank you for your glimpses of Viennese society. What I have learned about Germans in their relations elsewhere confirms what you say of them. Your story of General H—— comes up periodically. There has been something like it in all countries, but I thank you for having told it to me. The circumstances give it novelty."[*]
[*] This is only one of the numerous allusions Balzac made to the analytical forehead of Madame Hanska.
Though Balzac's letters to Madame Hanska became less effervescent as time went on, each year seemed to add to his admiration and "dog-like fidelity." She, on the other hand, complained of his dissipation, the society he kept, and his short letters.
While Balzac was in Vienna, he was working on /Le Lys dans la Vallee/. Although he said that Madame de Mortsauf was Madame de Berny, M. Adam Rzewuski, a brother of Madame Hanska, always felt that this character represented his sister, and called attention to the same intense maternal feeling of the two women, and the same sickly, morose husband. The Princess Radziwill also believes that this is a portrait of her aunt, which hypothesis is further strengthened by comments of Emile Faguet, who says that to one who has read Balzac's letters in 1834-1835 closely, it is clear that Madame de Mortsauf is Madame Hanska, and that the marvelous M. de Mortsauf is M. de Hanski.
Mr. F. Lawton also thinks that Balzac has shown his relations to Madame Hanska in making Felix de Vandenesse console himself with Lady Dudley while swearing high allegiance to his Henriette, just as Balzac was "inditing oaths of fidelity to his 'earth-angel' in far-away Russia while worshipping at shrines more accessible. Lady Dudley may well have been, for all his denial, the Countess Visconti, of whom Madame Hanska was jealous and on good grounds, or else the Duchesse de Castries, to whom he said that while writing the book he had caught himself shedding tears." Balzac says of this book:
"I have received five /formal complaints/ from persons about me, who say that I have unveiled their private lives. I have very curious letters on this subject. It appears that there are as many Messieurs de Mortsauf as there are angels at Clochegourde, and angels rain down upon me, but /they are not white/."
In the early autumn of 1835, M. de Hanski and his family, having spent several weeks at Ischl, returned to their home at Wierzchownia after an absence of more than two years. It was during this long stay at Vienna that Madame Hanska had Daffinger make the miniature which occupies so much space in Balzac's letters in later years.
It must have been a relief to poor Balzac when his /Chatelaine/ returned to her home, for while traveling she was negligent about giving him her address, so that he was never sure whether she received all his letters, and she did not number hers, as he had asked her to do, so that he was not certain that he received all that she wrote him; neither would she—though leading a life of leisure—write as often as he wished. But if he scolded her for this, she had other matters to worry her. She was ever anxious about the safety of her letters, asked for many explanations of his conduct, for interpretations of various things in his works, and who certain friends were, so much so that his letters are filled with vindications of himself. Even before they had ever met, he wrote her that he could not take a step that was not misinterpreted. She seemed continually to be hearing of something derogatory to his character, and trying to investigate his actions. The reader has had glimpses enough of Balzac's life to understand what a task was hers. Yet she doubtless sometimes accused him unnecessarily, and he in turn became impatient: