Honoré de Balzac

by Théophile Gautier

At this time (1836), Balzac had conceived the plan for his Comédie Humaine and possessed the full awareness of his genius. He adroitly connected the works that had already been published to his general concept and found them a place in the categories that had been philosophically outlined. Some novels of pure fantasy did not fit in very well, despite the connections that were added afterwards; but these are details that are lost in the immensity of the ensemble, like ornaments in a differing style on a grand edifice.

I have said that Balzac worked laboriously, and, being an obstinate smelter, rejected ten or twelve times from the crucible the metal that had not perfectly filled the mold; like Bernard Palissy, he would have burned the furniture, the flooring and up through the beams of his house without regret to maintain the fire in his furnace; the most challenging necessities would never make him deliver a work on which he had not put the utmost effort, and he gave admirable examples of literary conscientiousness. His corrections, so numerous that they were almost equivalent to different editions on the same idea, were charged to his account by the editors who were responsible for earnings, and his compensation, often modest for the value of the work and the pain it had cost him, were diminished in proportion. The promised sums did not always arrive on time, and to sustain what he laughingly called his floating debt, Balzac displayed prodigious resources of mind and a level of activity that would have completely absorbed the life of an ordinary man. But, when seated before his table in his friar's frock, in the midst of the nocturnal silence, he found himself confronted with blank sheets illuminated by the glow of seven candles, concentrated by a green shade, in taking pen in hand he forgot everything, and thus commenced a struggle more terrible than the conflict of Jacob with the angel, that of form and idea. In these nightly battles, from which in the morning he would issue broken but victorious, when the extinguished hearth chilled the atmosphere of his room once again, his head steamed and his body exhaled a visible fog like the body of a horse in wintertime. Sometimes only a single phrase occupied an entire evening; it was considered, reconsidered, twisted, kneaded, pounded, stretched, shortened, written in one hundred different ways, and, bizarrely, the necessary, complete, form, would not present itself until after the exhaustion of the approximate forms; without doubt the metal often flowed from a fuller and thicker hose, but there are very few pages in Balzac that stayed identical to the first draft. His manner of proceeding was this: when he had for a long time borne and lived a subject, with writing that was rapid, jumbled, blotted, nearly hieroglyphic, he would outline a sort of scenario in a few pages, which he would send to the printer and which was returned on placards, that is to say as isolated columns in the middle of large sheets. He read these placards carefully, which already gave to his embryo of work that impersonal character that the manuscript does not have, and he applied to this rough sketch the high critical faculty that he possessed, acting as if he were another person. He worked on something; approving or disapproving, he kept or corrected, but mostly added. Lines issuing from the beginning, the middle or the end of phrases, were directed toward the margins, to the right, to the left, to the top, to the bottom, leading to some developments, to insertions, to interpolations, to epithets, to adverbs. At the end of some hours of work, one would have called his sheet a bouquet of fireworks drawn by a child. From the primitive text shot forth rockets of style which exploded on all sides. Then there were simple crosses, crosses recrossed like a coat of arms, stars, suns, Arab or Roman numerals, Greek or French letters, every imaginable sign of reference to mix with the scratchings. Some strips of paper, fastened with sealing wafers, stuck on with pins, added to the insufficient margins, striped with lines of fine characters to conserve space, themselves full of crossings out, because the correction that had barely been made had itself already been corrected. The printed placard nearly disappeared in what appeared to be a cabalistic book of spells, which the typographers passed from hand to hand, each not wanting to work for more than an hour on Balzac.

The following day, they sent back the placards with the corrections made, and already expanded by half.

Balzac resumed work, always amplifying, adding a trait, a detail, a description, an observation on manners, a characteristic word, a phrase for effect, bringing the form closer to the idea, always moving closer to his internal outline, choosing like a painter among three or four contours the definitive line. Often this terrible work ended with that intensity of attention of which he alone was capable, as he recognized that a thought had been poorly expressed, that one incident predominated, that a figure that he wished to be secondary for general effect deviated from his plan, and with one stroke of the pen he would courageously destroy the result of four or five nights of labor. He was heroic in these circumstances.

Six, seven, and sometimes ten proofs were returned with crossings out, rewritten, without satisfying the author's desire for perfection. I have seen at Les Jardies, on the shelves of a library composed of only his works, each different proof of the same work bound in a separate volume from the first sketch to the definitive book; the comparison of Balzac's thought at these diverse stages offers a very curious study and contains profitable literary lessons. Near these volumes a sinister looking book, bound in black morocco leather, with neither clasps nor gilding, drew my attention: "Take it," Balzac said to me, "it is an unpublished work which may have some value." Its title was Comptes Mélancoliques; it contained lists of debts, due dates of bills to be paid, notices of purveyors and all that menacing paperwork that is legalized by a stamp. This volume, with a kind of mocking contrast, was placed beside the Contes Drolatiques, "of which it is not a continuation," added the author of La Comédie Humaine with a laugh.

Despite this laborious method of execution, Balzac produced a great deal, thanks to his superhuman will supplemented by the temperament of an athlete and the seclusion of a monk. For two or three months in succession, when he had some important work in progress, he labored sixteen or eighteen hours out of twenty‑four; he granted to his animal being only six hours of a heavy, feverish, convulsive sleep, encouraged by the torpor of digestion after a hastily taken meal. He would disappear so completely, his best friends would lose all trace; but he would soon return from underground, waving a major work above his head, laughing his hearty laugh, applauding himself with a perfect innocence and according himself the praise that he demanded from no one else. No author was more unconcerned than him regarding reviews and advertising upon the release of his books; he allowed his reputation to grow by itself, without putting his hand to it, and he never courted journalists. Indeed other things consumed his time: he delivered his copy, took his money and fled to distribute it to his creditors who often waited in the journal's courtyard, like, for example, the masons of Les Jardies.

Sometimes, in the morning, he would meet me breathless, exhausted, giddy from the fresh air, like Vulcan escaping from his forge, and he would fall upon a couch; his long vigil had left him starving and he would blend sardines with butter and make a sort of paste which reminded him of the rillettes of Tours, and which he would spread on bread. This was his favorite dish; he had no sooner eaten than he fell asleep, begging me to awaken him after one hour. Without regard for his admonition, I would respect this well‑earned sleep, and I silenced all of the whispers in the house. When Balzac awoke of his own accord, and he saw that the evening's twilight was diffusing its gray tints across the sky, he would leap up from his couch and heap me with abuse, calling me traitor, thief, assassin: I made him lose ten thousand francs, because awake he could have had the idea for a novel that would have earned this sum (without the reprints). I was the cause of the gravest catastrophes and unimaginable disorders. I had made him miss meetings with bankers, editors, duchesses; he would not be able to repay his debts on time; this fatal sleep would cost millions. But I was already used to these prodigious betting systems that Balzac, starting from the lowest figure, would push excessively to the most monstrous sums, and I easily consoled myself by seeing the beautiful colors characteristic in Tours reappear on his rested cheeks.

Balzac lived then at Chaillot, rue des Batailles, a house from which one found an admirable view of the course of the Seine, the Champ de Mars, the École Militaire, the dome of the Invalides, a large proportion of Paris and further away the hills of Meudon. He had arranged there an interior that was luxurious enough, because he knew that in Paris nobody believed in an impoverished talent, and that perception often leads to reality. It was during this period that one hears of his tendencies toward elegance and dandyism, the famous blue coat with solid gold buttons, the walking stick with a turquoise head, the appearances at the Bouffes and at the Opera, and the more frequent visits into society where his sparkling flair made him much sought after, visits that were useful for more than one reason, for he met there more than one model. It was not easy to penetrate into his home, which was better guarded than the garden of the Hespérides. Two or three passwords were required. Balzac, for fear they might be divulged, changed them often. I remember these ones: to the porter one said: "Prune season has arrived," and he would let you cross the threshold; to the servant who ran to the stairs at the sound of the bell, it was necessary to whisper: "I bring lace from Belgium," and if you could assure the bedroom valet that "Madame Bertrand was in good health," you were finally introduced.

This childish behavior very much amused Balzac; it was necessary to ward off unwanted people and those who were even more disagreeable.

In La Fille aux Yeux d'Or is found a description of the salon in the rue des Batailles. It is of the most scrupulous fidelity, and one will not be displeased to see the lion's den painted by himself. There is not a detail to add or to subtract.