After their marriage, the homeward journey was delayed several weeks. The baggage, which was to be conveyed by wagon, only left April 2, and it required about two weeks for it to reach Radziwiloff, owing to the general thaw just set in. Then Balzac had a severe relapse due to lung trouble, and it was twelve days before he recovered sufficiently to travel. He had an attack of ophthalmia at Kieff, and could scarcely see; the Countess Anna fell ill with the measles, and her mother would not leave until the Countess recovered. They started late in April for what proved to be a terrible journey, he suffering from heart trouble, and she from rheumatism. On the way they stopped for a few days at Dresden, where Balzac became very ill again. His eyes were in such a condition that he could no longer see the letters he wrote. The following was written from Dresden, gives a glimpse of their troubles:
"We have taken a whole month to go a distance usually done in six days. Not once, but a hundred times a day, our lives have been in danger. We have often been obliged to have fifteen or sixteen men, with levers, to get us out of the bottomless mudholes into which we have sunk up to the carriage-doors. . . . At last, we are here, alive, but ill and tired. Such a journey ages one ten years, for you can imagine what it is to fear killing each other, or to be killed the one by the other, loving each other as we do. My wife feels grateful for all you say about her, but her hands do not permit her to write. . . ."
Madame de Balzac has been most severely criticized for her lack of affection for Balzac, and their married life has generally been conceded to have been very unhappy. This supposition seems to have been based largely on hearsay. Miss Sandars quotes from a letter written to her daughter on May 16 from Frankfort, in which, speaking of Balzac as "poor dear friend," she seems to be quite ignorant of his condition, and to show more interest in her necklace than in her husband. The present writer has not seen this /unpublished/ letter; but a /published/ letter dated a few days before the other, in which she not only refers to Balzac as her husband but shows both her affection for him and her interest in his condition, runs as follows:
"Hotel de Russie (Dresden). My husband has just returned; he has attended to all his affairs with a remarkable activity, and we are leaving to-day. I did not realize what an adorable being he is; I have known him for seventeen years, and every day, I perceive that there is a new quality in him which I did not know. If he could only enjoy health! Speak to M. Knothe about it, I beg you. You have no idea how he suffered last night! I hope his natal air will help him, but if this hope fails me, I shall be much to be pitied, I assure you. It is such happiness to be loved and protected thus. His eyes are also very bad; I do not know what all that means, and at times, I am very sad. I hope to give you better news to-morrow, when I shall write you."
Comments have been made on the fact that Balzac wrote his sister his wife's hands were too badly swollen from rheumatism to write and yet she wrote to her daughter, but there is a difference between a mother's letter to her only child, and one to a mother-in-law as hostile as she knew hers to be. She probably did not care to write, and Balzac, to smooth matters for her, gave this excuse.
The long awaited but tragic arrival took place late in the night of May 20, 1850. The home in the rue Fortunee was brilliantly lighted, and through the windows could be seen the many beautiful flowers arranged in accordance with his oft repeated request to his poor old mother. But alas! to their numerous tugs at the door-bell no response came, so a locksmith had to be sent for to open the doors. The minutest details of Balzac's orders for their reception had been obeyed, but the unfortunate, faithful Francois Munch, under the excitement and strain of the preparations, had suddenly gone insane.
Was this a sinister omen, or was it an exemplification of the old Turkish proverb, "The house completed, death enters"? Our hero's marriage proved to be the last of his /illusions perdues/, for only three months more were to be granted him. MM. Hanotaux et Vicaire have pertinently remarked that five years before his death, Balzac closed /Les petites Miseres de la Vie conjugal/ with these prophetic words: "Who has not heard an Italian opera of some kind in his life? . . . You must have noticed, then, the musical abuse of the word /felichitta/ lavished by the librettist and the chorus at the time every one is rushing from his box or leaving his stall. Ghastly image of life. One leaves it the moment the /felichitta/ is heard." After so many years of waiting and struggle, he attained the summit of happiness, but was to obey the summons of death and leave this world just as the chorus was singing "/Felichitta/."
Some of Balzac's biographers have criticized Madame Honore de Balzac not only for having been heartless and indifferent towards him, but for having neglected him in his last days on earth. Her nephew, M. Stanislas Rzewuski, defended her, he said, not because she was his aunt but because of the injustice done to the memory of this poor /etrangere/, whose faithful tenderness, admiration and devotion had comforted the earthly exile of a man of genius. Balzac, realizing his hopeless condition, was despondent; his hopes were blighted, and his physical sufferings doubtless made him irritable. On the other hand, Madame de Balzac, however, seductive and charming, however worthy of being adored and being his "star," had a high temper. This was the natural temper of an aristocratic woman. It never passed the limits of decorum, but it was violent and easily provoked.[*] Then too, she had been accustomed to luxury and had never known poverty. She was ill also and probably disappointed in life.
[*] The Princess Radziwill states that there are several inaccuracies in this article by her half-brother. He was very young when their aunt died, and he was influenced by his mother, who never liked Madame de Balzac. She points out that her aunt's temper was most even, that she never heard her raise her voice, and only once saw her angry.
M. Rzewuski has resented, and doubtless justly so, the oft-quoted death scene by Victor Hugo. He says that at such a time the great poet was perhaps a most unwelcome guest and she had left the room to avoid him; that she probably returned before Balzac's last moments came; that Hugo was only there a short while; that if she did not return she could not have known that this was to be Balzac's last night on earth, and that, worn out with watching and waiting, she was justified in retiring to seek a much needed rest.[*]