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And then she began to laugh with an ironical laugh, and told me that I was wasting my time running after great ladies, only to fail with them. Hein! The reader of Balzac's life is forced to the sad conclusion that Parisian gossip had on this occasion sketched the situation tolerably correctly; though the truth of the picture was no doubt denied with much indignation by Madame Hanska.
His deliberate approach to the action, through the picture of the house and its inmates, has achieved its purpose; it has given him the effect which the action most demands and could least acquire by itself, the effect of time. And there is no doubt that the story immensely gains by being treated in Balzac's way, rather than as the life of a disappointed girl, studied from within.
It is strikingly characteristic of Balzac's disinterestedness, that though he knew that the young Countess's marriage would remove the principal obstacle between him and Madame Hanska, he was most insistent in recommending caution till the young man had been for some time on probation.
The friendship between the brother and sister was deep, devoted, and faithful, as Balzac's friendships generally were he did not care, as he said in one of his letters, for amities d'epiderme and the restriction put on his intercourse with his sister by the jealousy of M. Surville was one of the many troubles which darkened his later years.
Knothe's treatment had been followed. The younger doctor, however, soon gave up Balzac's case as hopeless; but the father, who was very intimate with the Wierzchownia family, always expressed himself confidently about his patient's ultimate recovery; and Balzac wrote: "What gratitude I owe to this doctor! Dr. Knothe's principal prescription was pure lemon juice.
The three great divisions of the Comedie Humaine are "Etudes de Moeurs," "Etudes Philosophiques," and "Etudes Analytiques"; and the "Etudes de Moeurs" comprise many subdivisions, each of which, in Balzac's mind, is connected with some special period of life.
Two of Balzac's characters, it will be remembered, practised this form of humour. The desire to astonish and dazzle, the love of the uncommon for its own sake, was so evident that I shrugged my shoulders and avoided him. One evening, however, at Mrs. Jeune's, I got to know him better. At the very door Mrs. Jeune came up to me: "Have you ever met Mr. Oscar Wilde?
Balzac's debts are another labyrinth in which we do not profess to hold a clue. There is scarcely a page of these volumes in which they are not alluded to, but the reader never quite understands why they should bloom so perennially.
The same account adds that the lady, remarking the little, stout man staring at her, prayed he might not be the one she was expecting. But no written confession of the Countess's exists to prove that such a thought damped her enthusiasm. Balzac's impression was recorded in a letter to his sister. "I am happy, very happy," he wrote.
Another volume was an even greater surprise Balzac's Une Passion dans la Desert, a well-dirtied copy from the public library. They were fierce condiments for a lonely mind! His examination over, he noiselessly stepped into the hall and went upstairs. After some fumbling he unbolted the door and tiptoed into the room, where Preston lay like a log. The fortnight had changed him markedly.
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