only wife. Now I shall rush there more amorously than the two preceding times. You know why, my dear, naïve wife? Because I know you better, because I know all there is of divine and girlish in your dear, celestial character, because—. No, I never dreamed so ambitiously the perfections that are agreeable to me because I know that I can love ever. Going to Neufchâtel I wanted to love you; returning from Geneva it is impossible not to love you!
Who will ever know what the road to Ferney is at the spot where, having to leave on the morrow, I stood still at the sight of your dear, saddened face. Mon Dieu! if I tried to tell you all the thoughts there are in my soul, the voluptuous pleasures which my heart contains and desires, I should never cease writing, and, unfortunately, the word "Vienna" is there. I am cruel to both of us in the name of a continued happiness; yes, one year passed together will prove to you that you can be better loved each day, and I aspire to September …
My dearest, I have many griefs; this flaming happiness is surrounded by briars, thorns, stones. I cannot speak to you of family troubles; they are endless. You will know them from one word, you who feel through a sister what, in another order of things, I feel through my mother. My mother has committed, with good intentions, follies that bring a person into disrepute. Here am I, I, so busy, forced to undertake the education of my mother, hold her in check, make a child of her.[2] Dear angel, what a sad thing to think that if the world has accumulated obstacles in my life, my family have done worse in being of no use to me, and secretly hampering me. One day or other the world counts us as a victor to have beaten it. But family griefs are between us and God.
I told Borget that September would see me in Vienna, and a whole year in the Ukraine and the Crimea, and you know I wrote him that he could meet you in Italy. I send you a scrap of a letter from that excellent friend; it will please you; you will see in it that nobility of soul, that beauty of sentiment, that make us love him. What rush of love he has to those who love his friend! But do not go and love him too much, Madame. He will take to you your chain, the sketches of my apartment, and your seal, if it is done, without knowing what he hands to you. So tell me the day you will be in Venice; he will go there. He is my Thaddeus, you see. What he does for me, I should do for him. One is never jealous of fine sentiments. As much as death entered cold into your husband's heart when you spoke of a coquetry to Séverine, so much should I go joyously to accomplish in your name a service to your Thaddeus.
From to-day, Sunday, I shall write to you every day a word, on a little diary. Yes, the Würtemberg Coquebin shall alone touch the manuscript of "Séraphita," which will be coarsely bound in the gray cloth which slipped so easily on the floors. Am I not a little of a woman, hey, minette? Have I not found a pretty use for what you wanted destroyed, and a souvenir? Nothing can be more precious, or simpler. Book of celestial love, clothed in love and in joys terrestrial as complete as it is possible to have here below. Yes, angel, complete, full! Yes, my ambitious one, you fill all my life! Yes, we can be happy every day, feeling every day new joys.
Mon Dieu! Friday at dinner I saw in my sister's home one of those scenes which prove that inspired love, that jealous love, that nothing in Paris can resist continued poverty. Oh! dear angel, what a terrible reaction in my heart, thinking of the little home in the rue Cassini. How I swore to myself then, with that iron will, never to expose the flowers of my life to be in the brown pot in which were the pinks of Ida's mother—you know, in "Ferragus." No, no, I never could have that experience, for never shall I forget the 14th of February, 1834, any more than the 26th of January; there is a lesson in it for me. Yes, I want too much; there exists in my being an invincible need to love you always better, that I may never expose my love to any misunderstanding. Oh, my heart, my soul, my life, with what joy I recognize at every step that I love you as you dream of being loved. The most indifferent things enter into this circumference.
No, your young girl's chain shall remain pure. I would like to employ it. It is too pretty for a man. That is why I wanted your head by Grosclaude. What a delicious border I could have made of it, and what a delicious thought to surround you, you, my dear wife, with all the superstitions of your childhood which I adore. Your childhood was mine. We are brothers and sisters through the sorrows of childhood.
There is one of your smiles of happiness, a ravishing little contraction, a paleness that takes you at the moment of joy, which returns to stab me with intoxicating memories. Oh! you do not know with what depth you correspond to the caprices, the loves, the pleasures, the poesies, the sentiments of my nature!
Come, adieu. Think, my beloved, that at every instant of the day a thought of love surrounds you; that a light more brilliant and secret gilds your atmosphere; that my thought is all about you; that my interior eyes see you; that a constant desire caresses you; that I work in your name and for you. Take good care of yourself; and remember that the only serious order that is given to you by him who loves you and whom you have told me you wished to obey is to walk a great deal whatever the weather may be. You must. Ah! the doctor laughed at my fears. Nevertheless, there are baths to be taken, and some precautions, "fruits of my excessive labour," he said. "So long as you lead your chaste, monkish life and work your twelve hours a day, take every morning an infusion of wild pansy." Isn't his prescription droll?
You know all the caressing desires that I send you. Well, I hope that every Wednesday you will know how to draw my letter from the claws of the post. From now till the end of the month I shall work only my twelve hours, sleep seven, and spread out the five others in rest, reading, baths, and the bustle of life. Your Bengali is wise. Well, a thousand flowers of the soul. All reflection made, I shall send your ostensible letter by Borget.
[1] This ridiculous stuff is carefully translated word for word. The reader must make what he can of it. It is ludicrous to suppose that Balzac ever wrote those vapourings of a shop-boy to his female kind.—TR.
[2] His whole correspondence, and all that we know and can gather of his life go to prove that he never could have written this. His family then consisted of his mother and Mme. Surville. His affection for M. and Mme. Surville appears in every part of his life. His mother seems to have been at times irritating, and very injudicious with him, but not in the way suggested. At one period he intrusted her with all his affairs, and she was his business agent. He shows in his life and writings a strong respect for the Family bond, and his last letter to his mother is signed "Ton fils soumis"—"Your submissive son."—TR.
Paris, February 17—February 23, 1834.
No letter to-day, my dearest Eve. Mon Dieu! are you ill? What tortures one has at such a distance! If you are ill, and they have taken your letters! A thousand thoughts enter my brain and make me desperate.
To-day I work much, but get on little. To-morrow I am forced to go and dine with M. de Margonne, the lord of Saché. Nevertheless, I get up at half-past one in the morning and go to bed at half-past six. My habits of work are resumed and the fatigues of toil; but I bear them well. I find unheard-of difficulties in doing well what I have to do at this moment. At every instant of the day my thought flies to you. I have mortal fears of being less loved. I adore you with such complete abandonment! I have such need of knowing myself loved! I can be happy only when I receive a letter from you, not every day, but every two days. Your letters refresh my soul; they cast into it celestial balm.
You cannot doubt me; I work night and day, and every line brings me nearer to you. But you, my beloved angel, what are you doing? You are idle; you still see a little company. Mon Dieu! what ties are between us! They will not break, say! You do not know how much I am attached to you by all the things that you thought would detach me. There is not only ungovernable love, passions, happiness, pleasures, there is also, from me to you, I know not what profound esteem of moral qualities. Your mind will always please me; your soul is strong; you are fully
