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Updated: June 10, 2025
It was necessary that he should always be bright, good-natured, and agreeable to the party at Wierzchownia, and his letters to his family were therefore the only safety-valve for the impatience and despair, which, though he never utters a word of reproach against Madame Hanska, must sometimes have taken possession of him. His was a terrible dilemma.
Balzac was very happy at Wierzchownia, though the fulfilment of the great desire of his life seemed still distant. Madame Hanska's hesitation continued: she considered herself indispensable to her children; besides, owing to the unfortunate state of the Chemin de Fer du Nord, Balzac's pecuniary affairs would certainly be in an embarrassed condition for the next two years.
Description of interior of house in the Rue Fortunee "La Maratre" Projected plays "Le Faiseur" Balzac seeks admission for the last time to the Academie Francaise He returns to Wierzchownia Failing health Letters to his family Family relations are strained.
Balzac's health all through the winter was deplorable, and under the direction of the doctor at Wierzchownia, he went through a course of treatment for his heart and lungs.
Hanska visited Paris a second time, in 1847, and approved of all his arrangements. Balzac in return went to Wierzchownia that same year, and he was dazzled by the vastness of her estates, which were equal in extent to a whole department of France, and by the possibilities of neglected and undeveloped resources which might be made to yield millions.
When the Wierzchownia party at last arrived at Kiev, Madame Georges Mniszech found plenty of gaiety awaiting her, and enjoyed herself immensely, going out to balls in costumes of regal magnificence.
Boulanger's picture gave Balzac a great deal of trouble, as well as delighted yet anxious speculation about Madame Hanska's opinion of it, when it arrived in Wierzchownia.
Their letters were always read aloud at the lunch table at Wierzchownia, and often, alas! their perusal served to prove anew to Madame Hanska, the mistake she had made in contemplating an alliance with a member of a family so peculiarly unlucky and undesirable. At last the smouldering indignation between Balzac and his relations burst into a flame.
But his one long dream was the only thing for which he cared; and though in an exoteric sense this dream came true, its truth was but a mockery. Evelina Hanska summoned him to Poland, and Balzac went to her at once. There was another long delay, and for more than a year he lived as a guest in the countess's mansion at Wierzchownia; but finally, in March, 1850, the two were married.
However, the rigours of the Russian climate, aided no doubt by the privations and anxieties Balzac suffered in Paris after the Revolution of 1848, and by the barbarous treatment which he underwent at the hands of the doctor at Wierzchownia, rendered his case hopeless; and at this time only one more stone was destined to be laid on the unfinished edifice of the "Comedie Humaine."
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