Balzac

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

The third of the three principal books of 1841 was the /Diaries of Two
Young Wives/, written, like the /Country Doctor/ and the /Village
Cure/, in a decidedly didactic tone. We have two girl friends, Renee
de Maucombe and Louise de Chaulieu, reared in a convent school, who
marry, each with an ideal of wedlock that differs. The former, a
doctor in stays, as her school companion calls her, seeks in marriage
a calm domestic happiness, the duties and joy of motherhood, and has a
husband worthy but commonplace, to whom she gives herself at first
without much positive attachment on her side. The latter makes of love
a passion, and marries a Spanish exile, plain-looking but virile, whom
she bends to her will. The two wives exchange their impressions during
their early years of matrimony, and we see the happiness of the one
develop while that of the other diminishes. The Spaniard dies and
Louise de Chaulieu takes a second husband, a poor poet, whom she
adores as much as her Spaniard had adored her. Carrying him off to
Ville-d'Avray, she creates there a snug Paradise, where she fondles
him as if he were a toy, until at length her feverish jealousy brings
on her own illness and death.

The novel in its earlier phases was being worked at together with the
/Sister Marie des Anges/, which was promised to Werdet but never
completed, and seems to have had some connection with it. Possibly, in
his primitive plan, the author intended to set in contrast the spouse
and the nun: and certainly, in the original draft, there was only one
bride.

In 1842, at the Odeon Theatre, was performed a dramatic piece from the
novelist's pen, which by some critics has been considered his best
play. There are even critics who hold that Balzac was a born
dramatist, as he was a born novelist, basing their opinion on his
possession of qualities common to dramatist and novelist. His force of
characterization, his handling of plot, his sense of passion were all
sufficient to procure him success on the stage, which explains why
pieces adapted from his novels by other playwrights invariably caught
the public fancy. But, in order to develop character, plot, and
passion in his fiction, he employed interminable detail and slow
action; and his effects were obtained rather by constant pressure
throughout than by sudden impact. The brevity and condensation
required by the drama were foreign to his genius; he could not help
trying to put too much into his stage pieces, and the unity of subject
was compromised.

The /School of Great Men/,[*] as he preferred to call his play at the
Odeon, carries the spectator back to the Spain of Philippe II.
Fontanares, a clever man of science but poor, and without influence,
has discovered the means of navigating by steam. His valet Quinola, a
genius in his way, resolves to aid his master, who, being in love, has
all the greater claim on his pity; and he contrives to present the
King with a petition in favour of Fontanares, and to obtain a ship for
an experiment to be made. But now professional jealousies combine with
love rivalries to thwart the inventor; and when, at last, the ship is
made to move by its own machinery, the honour of the success is
attributed to another. To avenge his wrongs, and the loss of his
betrothed, who is given to his rival and dies, he blows up the steamer
in presence of an assembled multitude, and quits his native land with
a courtezan who has conceived a liking for him and will provide him
with money to recommence his enterprise elsewhere.

[*] More usually called: /The Resources of Quinola/.

Before the first performance, Balzac was just as sanguine about the
result as he had been with /Vautrin/. It followed several pieces,
Felix Pyat's /Cedric the Norwegian/, Dumas' /Lorenzino/, and Scribe's
/Chaine/, which had been coldly received. What if his /Quinola/ should
be the great attraction of the season! And his mind was filled visions
of overflowing houses and showers of gold. Alas! if the
representations went beyond the single one of /Vautrin/, they did not
exceed twenty; and his share of profits was insignificant. The play is
not dull to read, with its flavour of Moliere's comedies, and the
keenness of Balzac's observation. But its colour and poesy do not
compensate for the diffuseness of the plot and the undramatic
conclusion.

Instead of acknowledging the defects of his composition, the unlucky
dramatist was wroth with his public. For a while he caressed the
thought of going to St. Petersburg, taking out letters of
naturalization, and opening a theatre in the Russian capital with a
view to establishing the pre-eminence of French literature--embodied
in his own writings. It must be owned that he was beginning to imagine
himself persecuted. Victor Hugo, he said, had changed towards him and
was creating a conspiracy of silence round about him, so that no one
should speak any more of his works. And he liked better being attacked
than ignored. Later, he asserted that Hugo, after accepting the
dedication of the /Lost Illusions/ to himself, had induced Edouard
Thierry to write an abusive article against him. "He is a great
writer," said the novelist in telling this, "but he is a mean
trickster."

By the death of Count Hanski, the one insuperable obstacle to his
union with Eve had been removed; and now, in his letters to her, there
was a sudden outburst of love protestations. He wanted the widow to
marry him at once, or, at the outside limit, as soon as propriety
would permit. Madame Hanska replied that there was her daughter Anna,
only just in hr teens, who would require her mother's entire attention
and care for some years to come; and there were, besides, matters
concerning the inheritance, which would hardly be settled within any
shorter period. Balzac was dismayed. He could not understand the
delay, the prudence, the hesitation. Not to speak of his affection,
his pride was offended. He overwhelmed his Eve with reproaches. Women,
he informed her, loved fools, as a rule, because fools were ever ready
to sit at their feet. Recurring in subsequent letters to a quieter
manner, he strove to shake her resolution by hints at his exhausted
strength, his difficulty of composition,--this was nothing new--his
lessened alertness of thought and his weaker invention. Cleverly he
juxtaposed with these a description of his study, in the little Passy
house, hung with red velvet, on which black silk cords stood out in
agreeable contrast; on one wall was Eve's portrait, and opposite it
was a painting of the Wierzchownia mansion. Here he toiled
unceasingly, creating, always creating. God only created during six
days, he added, while he--the inference was left to be drawn. Feeling
how requisite it was he should put himself right, in every respect,
with the lady of his choice, he made a fresh confession of his
religious faith. His Catholicism, he told her, was outwardly of the
Bossuet and Bonald type, but was esoterically mystical, Saint-Johnian,
which form alone preserved the real Christian tradition. Somewhat
encouraged by vague inquiries from Madame Hanska as to the income
required by a household for living in Paris, he entered into
particulars with gusto; and, stating that he had eighty thousand
francs worth of furniture, he discussed the best manner of arranging
an existence with eight hundred thousand francs capital. With three
hundred thousand francs, a country residence and small estate might be
bought and the means of inhabiting there provided. Another hundred
thousand would buy a house in Paris to spend each winter; and the
residue of four hundred thousand, if invested in French Rentes, would
purchase an additional income of fifteen thousand francs for town
expenses. These latter he subdivided into three thousand francs for
carriage hire; five thousand for cooking; two thousand five hundred
for dress and amusement; and two thousand five hundred for general
charges; the remaining two thousand would go in sundries. Madame de
Berny, he said, spent only eight hundred francs on her wardrobe, and
kept her household with nine hundred francs. Once launched into
detail, he went far. The Countess learnt that he had still the same
carpets, covering seven rooms, that he had bought for fifteen hundred
francs in the Rue Cassini. They had worn well and were economical. The
red velvet in his study had cost him two francs fifty a yard; but then
he would take it away to another house, instead of giving it to the
landlord. Living was slightly dearer in Passy, he concluded. A mutton
chop cost seven sous there, instead of the five charged in the city.
These last details were thrown in by a habit he had grown into of
defending himself against the strictures passed by Madame Hanska on
his expenditure.

They were frequent--such strictures--because Balzac was always
repeating to her that he was penniless; and she, comparing this talk
with other statements about his gaining large sums yearly, argued that
the penury must be his own fault. True, there was the debt. But the
debt grew instead of diminishing. So, apparently, he was not starving
himself to pay it back. The fact was that Balzac did not tell the
truth either about his assets or his liabilities. He neither earned as
much as he affirmed, nor owed as much. According to some of his early
biographers, his average income was not more than twelve thousand
francs a year. But these figures cannot include lump sums he received
at irregular intervals, nor yet all the royalties due to him on
continued sales of his books. Taking one year with another, he
probably made, throughout the greater portion of his literary career,
between twenty and twenty-five thousand francs annually. What must
have increased his embarrassments, in the later Thirties and early
Forties, was his hobby for buying pictures and articles of vertu;
this, with his knack of dropping money in speculations and imprudent
ventures, rendered it impossible for him to live within his means.

It is curious to notice how his impecuniosity reduced him to regard
every goal of his ambition as having merely a cash value. Speaking of
his election to the Academie Francaise, which he reckoned to be near,
he explained to Eve that it would mean six thousand francs a year to
him, since he would be a member of the Dictionary committee; and then
there was the Perpetual Secretaryship, which, falling to him
naturally, would raise his emoluments to more than double that amount.
Emboldened by these calculations--a trifle previous--he confided to
Eve his desire to start on a trip to Naples, Rome, Constantinople, and
Alexandria, unless she should veto the proposal. In that case, his
desire would be hers. Four thousand francs was what the journey would
cost. Would she authorize him to spend so much? At present she was the
arbitress of his actions. As the trip was abandoned, we are obliged to
suppose that Eve was not favourable to it.

Mention has already been made of the novelist's initiative in the
beginnings of the Men of Letters Society, and of his scheme for a
petition to the King. In its details, what he wished to see adopted
was on the same lines as those followed now by the Nobel Prize
distribution--at any rate as regards literature. His idea was to
secure a small independence for prize-takers in tragedy, comedy,
opera, fiction, Christian philosophy, linguistic or archaeological
research, and epic poetry, by awarding them a capital of a hundred
thousand francs, and even two hundred thousand to poets, and to open
thus an easier way to position and fame. Finding that his programme
was not acceptable to the more influential members of the Society, he
resigned his seat on the committee, and ceased his active connection
with the Society itself, continuing, however, to interest himself in
is prosperity.

Later, his bust by David was placed in the Society's Committee Room,
where it may be seen at present presiding silently over the meetings.
Both the bust and the famous daguerreotype of him belong to the
commencement of the Forties. The sculptor Etex had asked him to sit
for a bust; but David had the preference, being a friend. His profile
of the novelist, sketched in view of a medallion, an engraving of
which appeared in 1843 in the /Loire Illustree/ for August, was deemed
by Madame Surville to be the only real likeness of her brother. Not
until 1889 did the Men of Letters Society decide to honour Balzac by a
statue to be erected amidst the life of the capital which he had so
well described. And even then they allowed certain elements of
prejudice and passion to dominate their counsels, with the result that
a magnificent full-length figure of the novelist executed by the first
sculptor in France was rejected; the committee's plighted word was
violated; and in lieu was accepted and placed in one of the streets of
Paris a sorry likeness hastily modelled by a man who, though a good
sculptor, had one foot in the grave, and who had not, besides, the
conception of what was required.[*]

[*] See my /Life of Rodin/ (Fisher Unwin, 1906) or my later and
smaller edition of the same sculptor's life (Grant Richards,
1907).

Of the novels that appeared in 1842, /Albert Savarus/, the first
published, is worthy of attention chiefly as being a continuation of
its author's personal experiences. The hero is the same ideal
personification already seen in /Louis Lambert/ and /Z. Marcas/. A
barrister, he suddenly settles in a provincial town, bringing with him
a past history that no one can penetrate and every one would like to
know. When interviewed in his private consulting-room, he presents
himself in a black merino dressing-gown girt about with a red cord, in
red slippers, a red flannel waistcoat, a red skull-cap. The likeness
is once again Balzac's own--adorned by fancy: a superb head, black
hair sparsely sprinkled with white, hair like that of Saint Peter and
Saint Paul as shown in our pictures, with thick glossy curls, hair of
bristly stiffness; a white round neck, as that of a woman; a splendid
forehead with the puissant furrow in the middle that great plans and
thoughts and deep meditations engrave on the brow of genius; an olive
complexion streaked with red; a square nose; eyes of fire; gaunt
cheeks with two long wrinkles, full of suffering; a mouth with
sardonic smile, and a small, thin, abnormally short chin; crow's feet
at the temples; sunken eyes (he repeats himself a little) rolling
beneath their beetling arches and resembling two burning globes; but,
despite all these signs of violent passions, a calm, profoundly
resigned mien; a voice of thrilling softness, . . . the true voice of
the orator, now pure and cunning, now insinuating, but thunderous when
required, lending itself to sarcasm and then waxing incisive. Monsieur
Albert Savarus (/alias/ Balzac) is of medium height, neither fat nor
slim; to conclude, he has prelate's hands.

The mystery of Savarus' earlier life, revealed as the story goes on,
is his meeting in Switzerland with Francesca, the wife of a rich
Italian, whom he eventually wins to love him and to promise marriage
when she is free and he has acquired wealth and fame. All the details
of the prologue are those of Balzac's first relations with Madame
Hanska. The development of the novel, in which Philomene de Watteville
falls in love with Savarus, surprises his secret attachment to
Francesca, intercepts his letters to her, and ruins his hopes, is less
cleverly told. Savarus' retirement to a Carthusian monastery and
fate's punishment of Philomene, who is mutilated and disfigured in a
railway accident, form the denouement, which is strained to the
improbable. The background of the story, with its glimpses of the
manners and foibles of provincial society, is the most valuable
portion of the book.

Between this relapse into lyricism and a much stronger work came the
amusing /Beginning in Life/, suggested by his sister Laure's tale, /Un
Voyage en Coucou/, and giving the adventures of the young Oscar
Husson, a sort of Verdant Green, whose pretentious foolishness leads
him into scrapes of every kind, until, having made himself the
laughing-stock of all around him, and compromised many, he enlists and
goes to the wars, whence he returns maimed for life. A comic character
in the sketch is the bohemian artist Leon de Lora, nicknamed
Mistigris, with his puns and proverbs that were the rage in the early
Forties. A character of more serious calibre is Joseph Bridau, the
talented painter. He and his scamp of a brother, Philippe, are the
twin prominent figures in the novel above alluded to: /La
Rabouilleuse/.

Originally called the /Two Brothers/, and subsequently /A Bachelor's
Household/, this slice of intensely realistic fiction exhibits the art
of the author at its highest vigour. Philippe Bridau, the mother's
favourite of the two boys, enters the army, sees Waterloo, and, after,
leads the life of an adventurer, with its ups and downs of fortune.
His widowed mother's indulgence, his own innate selfishness, and the
hardening influence of war combine to render him a villain of the
Richard III type, absolutely heartless and conscienceless. He robs his
own family, fixes himself leech-like on that of an uncle, marries the
latter's widow for her money, when he has killed her lover in a duel,
drives his wife into vice, lets her die on a pallet, and refuses to
pay a visit to the deathbed of his mother, whose grey hairs he had
brought down with sorrow to the grave. Like Shakespeare's ideal
villain, he has the philosophy, the humour of his egotism. "I am an
old camel, familiar with genuflections," he exclaims. "What harm have
I done?" he asks, speaking of his robbery of his relative, the old
Madame Descoings. "I have merely cleaned the old lady's mattress." And
he is equally indifferent to what destiny reserves for him. "I am a
/parvenu/, my dear fellow; I don't intend to let my swaddling-clothes
be seen. My son will be luckier than I; he will be a /grand seigneur/.
The rascal will be glad to see me dead. I quite reckon on it;
otherwise he would not be my son."

Most of the other figures are of equal truth to life, and are
presented so as to increase the effect of the complete picture: Jean-
Jacques Rouget, the stupid infatuated uncle, who espouses the
intriguing Flore Brazier; and Flore herself, whose petty vices are
crushed by those of her second husband; Maxime Gilet, the bully of
Issoudun, whose surface bravado is checked and mated by the cooler
scoundrelism of Philippe; Agathe, the foolish mother, whose eyes are
blind to the devotion of her son Joseph; and Girondeau, the old
dragoon, companion to Philippe who casts him off as soon as prosperity
smiles and he has no further need for him. And the narrow-horizoned,
curiously interlaced existences of the county-town add the mass of
their colour-value, sombre but rich. One could have wished in the book
a little more counterbalancing brightness, and less trivial detail;
but neither the defect of the one nor the excess of the other takes
from the novel the right to be considered a masterpiece.

CHAPTER XI

LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1843, 1844

The great event of the year 1843 was Balzac's visit in the summer to
Saint Petersburg, where Madame Hanska had been staying since the
preceding autumn. He had hoped to go there in the January,
commissioned to exploit an important invention for cheaper
shipbuilding, in which his brother-in-law, Monsieur Surville, was
concerned. Like each of his previous schemes for quickly becoming
rich, this invention turned out to be a soap-bubble, bursting as soon
as trial was made of it. What was left intact, however, was his
determination to go to the banks of the Neva; and, throughout the
spring, successive letters announced preparations for departure. The
real motive of his journey was to try to persuade his lady-love to fix
the date of their marriage. Her period of mourning was over, and no
objection could be made now on the ground of propriety. Such
sentimental arguments as Madame Hanska might still put forward, he
trusted to be able to overcome by his presence.

In order that she might be the more anxious to see him, he talked
again of abandoning literature, and sailing for America. This time the
West Indies were his El Dorado. He did not say how the shy millions
were to be coaxed into his purse there, unless he wished her to
understand he intended to export spices, since he added: "If I had
been a grocer for the last ten years, I should have become a
millionaire." Forsooth, these details were mere bluff. His inmost
thought was that Eve would prevent his going across the Atlantic now,
as Madame de Berny had prevented him--so he said--in 1829. Moreover,
there was Balthazar's prediction that he was to be happy with her for
long years. The fortune-teller's sanctum he attended more frequently
than church. Going one day to the house of a magnetizer, a Monsieur
Dupotet, living in the Rue du Bac, he gave his hand to a hypnotized
woman, who placed it on her stomach and immediately loosed it again
with a scared look: "What is that head?" she cried. "It is a world; it
frightens me." "She had not looked at my heart," commented Balzac
proudly. "She has been dazzled by the head. Yet since I was born, my
life has been dominated by my heart--a secret which I conceal with
care." All this he related quite seriously to Eve. Probably, Madame de
Girardin, who accompanied him on this pilgrimage, could have told
Madame Hanska more.

Writing on his birthday, he inserted the prayer he had offered up to
his patron-saint for the accomplishment of his desires, its burden
indicating how near he believed himself to the longed-for goal: "O
great Saint Honore, thou to whom is dedicated a street in Paris at
once so beautiful and so ugly, ordain that the ship may not blow up;
ordain that I may be no more a bachelor, by decree of the Mayor or the
Counsul of France; for thou knowest that I have been spiritually
married for nigh on eleven years. These last fifteen years, I have
lived a martyr's life. God sent me an angel in 1833. May this angel
never quit me again till death! I have lived by my writing. Let me
live a little by love! Take care of her rather than of me; for I would
fain give her all, even my portion in heaven; and especially let us
soon be happy. Ave, Eva."

The love fervour of this prayer was a dominant note throughout the
twelvemonth; we notice after the visit that the familiar /thou/
prevails over the colder /you/; and the letters, both in number and
length, very largely exceed those he had written up to the end of
1842. Funnily, he expresses admiration of himself for this work of
supererogation, informing Eve, on one occasion, that the sixteen
leaves he had recently sent her were worth sixteen hundred francs,
even two thousand, counting extra leaves enclosed to Mademoiselle
Henriette Borel, the governess, for whom he was negotiating an
entrance into a nunnery. Love-letters estimated at five francs a
page!!!

Let us grant that the epistles at present contained more gossip than
ever, so that the recipient of them had her share of amusement. She
was wonderfully well kept up in Paris happenings in society, including
the stage and art galleries. She learnt that Madame d'Agoult--Daniel
Stern[*]--had become Emile de Girardin's mistress, on losing Liszt,
who had fallen into the toils of the Princess de Belgiojoso, the
latter lady achieving her conquest after luring in succession Lord
Normanby from his wife, Mignet from Madame Aubernon, and Alfred de
Musset from George Sand. Going to see Victor Hugo's /Burgraves/, he
reported that it was nothing to speak of as history, altogether poor
as invention, but nevertheless poetic, with a poetry that carried away
the spectator. It was Titian painting on a mud wall. He chiefly
remarked the absence of feeling, which, in Victor Hugo, was more and
more noticeable. The author of the /Burgraves/ lacked the true. As he
did not publish these opinions, he was able to go on dining with the
poet and to praise the beauty of his fourteen-year-old daughter. On
George Sand's /Consuelo/ he pronounced a severer judgment still,
calling it the emptiest, most improbable, most childish thing
conceivable--boredom in sixteen parts. And yet he had conceived
certain improbable plots himself.

[*] Her literary pseudonym

Like Charles Lamb, who left his office earlier in the afternoon to
make up for arriving late in the morning, he counterbalanced these
heavy-handed slatings of his friends by extolling his own performance
past and present. Being engaged in revising the /Chouans/ for a fresh
edition, he was struck by qualities in it that he had hitherto held
too lightly. It was all Scott and all Fenimore Cooper, he said, with a
fire and wit, into the bargain, that neither of these writers ever
possessed. The passion in it was sublime! Its landscapes and scenes of
war were depicted with a perfection and happiness that surprised him.
As a piece of self-praise there is probably nothing surpassing this in
the annals of literature. In a competition, Balzac's blasts of vanity
would beat the Archangel Michael's last trump for loudness.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21