Part 17
Balzac had always supposed that Monsieur Hanska was the one impediment that stood in the way of the full, complete and divine mating. Probably Madame thought so, too, until the time arrived, and then she discovered that she had gotten used to having her lover at a distance. She was thus able to manage him. But to live with him all the time--ye gods, was it possible!
The Madame had so long managed her marital craft in storm and stress, holding the bark steadily in the eye of the wind, that now the calm had come she did not know what to do, and Balzac in his gay-painted galley could not even paddle alongside.
She begged for time to settle her affairs. In three months they met in Switzerland. Madame was in deep mourning, and Balzac, not to be outdone, had an absurdly large and very black band on his hat. With Madame was her daughter, a fine young woman of twenty, whom the mother always now kept close to her, for prudential reasons. The daughter must have been pretty good quality, for she called Balzac, "My Fat Papa," and Balzac threatens Madame that he will run away with the daughter if the marriage is not arranged, and quickly too.
But Madame will not wed--not yet--she is afraid that marriage will dissolve her beautiful dream. In the meantime, she advances Balzac a large amount of money, several hundred thousand francs, to show her sincerity, and the money Balzac is to use in furnishing a house in Paris, where they will live as soon as they are married.
Balzac buys a snug little house and furnishes it with costly carved furniture, bronzes, rugs and old masters.
He waits patiently, or not, according to his mood, amid his beautiful treasures. And still Madame would not relinquish the sweet joys of widowhood.
In a year Madame Hanska arrives with her daughter. They are delighted with the house, and remain for a month, when pressing business in Poland calls them hence. Balzac accompanies them a hundred miles, and then goes back home to his "Human Comedy."
The years pass very much as they did when Monsieur Hanska was alive, only they miss that gentleman, having nobody now but the public to bamboozle, and the public having properly sized up the situation has become very apathetic--busy looking for morsels more highly spiced. Who in the world cares about what stout, middle-aged widows do, anyway!
* * * * *
Occasionally, in letters to Madame Hanska, Balzac referred to Madame De Berney. This seems to have caused Madame Hanska once to say, "Why do you so often refer to ancient history and tell me of that motherly body who once acted as your nurse, comparing me with her?"
To this Balzac replies: "I apologize for comparing you with Madame De Berney--she was what she was, and you are what you are. Great souls are always individual--Madame De Berney was a great and lofty spirit, and no one can ever take her place. I apologize for comparing you with her."
Madame De Berney led Balzac; Madame Hanska ruled him. Madame Hanska was one who alternately beckoned and pursued. Without her Balzac could not have gone on. She held him true to his literary course, and without her he must surely have fallen a victim of arrested energy. She demanded a daily accounting from the mill of his mind. She supplied both goad and greens.
And more than that she sapped his life-forces and robbed him of his red corpuscles; so that, before he was fifty, he was old, worn-out, undone, with an excess of lime in his bones.
Literary creation makes a terrific tax on vitality. Ideas do not flow until the pulse goes above eighty, and this means the rapid breaking down of tissue. The man who writes two hours daily, and writes well, can not do much else. He is like the racehorse--do not expect the record-breaker to pull a plow all day, and go fast heats in the evening. Balzac was the most tremendous worker in a literary way the world has ever seen. He doubtless made mistakes in his life's course, but the wonder is, that he did not make more. He was constantly absorbed in what Theophile Gautier has called "the Balzac Universe," looking after the characters he had created, seeing to it that they acted consistently, pulling the wires, supplying them conversation, dialogue, plot and counterplot, and amid all this bustle and confusion bringing out a perfect story. And still sanely to do the work of the workaday world was a miracle indeed! The man had the strength of Hercules, but even physical strength has its penalty--it seduces one to over-exertion. The midnight brain is a bad thing to cultivate, especially when reinforced with much coffee. Balzac was growing stout; physical exercise was difficult. Dark lines were growing under his eyes. In his letters to Madame Hanska he tells how he is taking treatment from the doctor, and that he suffers from asthma and aneurism of the heart.
His eyes are failing him so he can not see to write by lamplight.
Madame Hanska now becomes alarmed. She thinks she can win him back to life. She begs him to come to Poland at once, and they will be married.
Balzac at once begins the journey to the Hanska country home. The excitement and change of scene evidently benefited him. Great plans were being made for the future.
The wedding occurred on March Fourteenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifty.
Balzac was a sick man. The couple arrived back in Paris, with Balzac leaning heavily on his wife's arm. Chaos thundered in his ears; his brain reeled with vertigo; dazzling lights appeared in the darkness; and in the sunshine he saw only confused darkness.
Balzac died August Seventeenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifty, aged fifty-one, and Pere-la-Chaise tells the rest.
Said Victor Hugo:
The candle scarcely illumined the magnificent Pourbus, the magnificent Holbein, on the walls. The bust of marble was like the ghost of the man who was to die. I asked to see Monsieur De Balzac. We crossed a corridor and mounted a staircase crowded with vases, statues and enamels. Another corridor--I saw a door that was open. I heard a sinister noise--a rough and loud breathing. I was in Balzac's bedchamber. The bed was in the middle of the room: Balzac, supported on it, as best he might be, by pillows and cushions taken from the sofa. I saw his profile, which was like that of Napoleon. An old sick-nurse and a servant of the house stood on either side of the bed. I lifted the counterpane and took the hand of Balzac. The nurse said to me, "He will die about dawn."
His death has smitten Paris. Some months ago he came back into France. Feeling that he was dying, he wished to see again his native land--as on the eve of a long journey, one goes to one's mother to kiss her. Sometimes, in the presence of the dead--when the dead are illustrious--one feels, with especial distinctness, the heavenly destiny of that Intelligence which is called Man. It passes over the Earth to suffer and be purified.
FENELON AND MADAME GUYON
Some time before the marriage of my daughter, I had become acquainted with the Abbe Fenelon, and the family into which she had entered being among his friends, I had the opportunity of seeing him there many times. We had conversations on the subject of the inner life, in which he offered many objections to me. I answered him with my usual simplicity. He gave me opportunity to thoroughly explain to him my experiences. The difficulties he offered, only served to make clear to him the root of my sentiments; therefore no one has been better able to understand them than he. This it is which, in the sequel, has served for the foundation of the persecution raised against him, as his answers to the Bishop of Meaux have made known to all persons who have read them without prejudice.
--_Autobiography of Madame Guyon_
[Illustration: FENELON]
I have been reading the "Autobiography of Madame Guyon." All books that live are autobiographies, for the reason that no writer is interesting save as he writes about himself. All literature is a confession; there is only one kind of ink, and it is red. Some say the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the most interesting book written by an American. It surely has one mark of greatness--indiscretion. It tells of things inconsequential, irrelevant and absurd: for instance, the purchase of a penny-loaf by a moon-faced youth with outgrown trousers, who walked up Market Street, in the city of Philadelphia, munching his loaf, and who saw a girl sitting in a doorway, laughing at him.
What has that to do with literature? Everything, for literature is a human document, and the fact that he of the moon-face got even with the girl who laughed at him by going back and marrying her gives us a picture not soon forgotten.
Everybody is entertaining when he writes about himself, because he is discussing a subject in which he is vitally interested--whether he understands the theme is another thing. The fact that Madame Guyon did not understand her theme does not detract from the interest in her book: it rather adds to it--she is so intensely prejudiced. Franklin was the very king of humorists, and in humor Madame Guyon was a pauper.
There is not a smile in the whole big book from cover to cover--not a smile, save those the reader brings to bear.
Madame Guyon lays bare her heart, but she does it by indirection. In this book she keeps her left hand well informed of what her right hand is doing. Her multi-masked ego tells things she must have known, but which she didn't know she knew, otherwise she would not have told us. We get the truth by reading between the lines. The miracle is that this book should have passed for a work of deep religious significance, and served as a textbook for religious novitiates for three centuries.
Madame Guyon was a woman of intellect, damned with a dower of beauty; sensitive, alert, possessing an impetuous nature that endeavored to find its gratification in religion. Born into a rich family, and marrying a rich man, unkind Fate gave her time for introspection, and her mind became morbid through lack of employment for her hands.
Work would have directed her emotions to a point where they would have been useful, but for the lack of which she was feverish, querulous, impulsive--always looking for offense, and of course finding it. Her pride was colossal, and the fact that it found form in humility must have made her a sore trial to her friends.
The confessional seems a natural need of humanity; however, when an introspective hypochondriac acquires the confessional habit, she is a pest to a good priest and likely to be a prey to a bad one.
A woman in this condition of mind confesses sins she never committed, and she may commit sins of which she is unaware.
The highly emotional, unappreciated, misunderstood woman, noisily bearing her cross alone, is a type well known to the pathologist. In modern times when she visits a dentist's office the doctor hastily summons his assistant; like unto the Prince of Pilsen, who, in the presence of the strenuous widow, seizes his friend convulsively and groans: "Don't leave me--don't leave me! I am up against it."
This type of woman is never commonplace--she is the victim of her qualities; and these qualities in the case of Madame Guyon were high ambition, great intellect, impelling passion, self-reliance. Had she been less of a woman she would have been more.
She thinks mostly of herself, and intense selfishness is apparent even in her humility. The tragedy of her life lay in that she had a surplus of time and a plethora of money, and these paved the way for introspection and fatty enlargement of the ego. Let her tell her own story:
My God: Since you wish me to write a life so worthless and extraordinary as mine, and the omissions I made in the former have appeared to you too considerable to leave it in that state, I wish with all my heart, in order to obey you, to do what you desire of me.
I was born, according to some accounts, on Easter Even, Thirteenth of April--although my baptism was not until the Twenty-fourth of May--in the year Sixteen Hundred Forty-eight, of a father and mother who made profession of very great piety, particularly my father, who had inherited it from his ancestors; for one might count, from a very long time, almost as many saints in his family as there were persons who composed it.
I was born, then, not at the full time, for my mother had such a terrible fright that she brought me into the world in the eighth month, when it is said to be almost impossible to live.
I no sooner received life than I was on the point of losing it, and dying without baptism.
My life was only a tissue of ills. At two and a half years, I was placed at the Ursulines, where I remained some time. Afterwards they took me away. My mother, who did not much love girls, neglected me and abandoned me too much to the care of women who neglected me also: yet you, O my God, protected me, for accidents were incessantly happening to me, occasioned by my extreme vivacity; I fell. A number of accidents happened to me which I omit for brevity.
I was then four years old, when Madame the Duchess of Montbason came to the Benedictines. As she had much friendship for my father, she asked him to place me in that House when she would be there, because I was a great diversion to her. I was always with her, for she much loved the exterior God had given me. I do not remember to have committed any considerable faults in that house. I saw there only good examples, and as my natural disposition was toward good, I followed it when I found nobody to turn me aside from it. I loved to hear talk about God, to be at church, and to be dressed as a nun. One day I imagined that the terror they put me into of Hell was only to intimidate me because I was very bright, and I had a little archness to which they gave the name of cleverness.
I wished to go to confession without saying anything to any one, but as I was very small, the mistress of the boarders carried me to confession and remained with me. They listened to me. She was astonished to hear that I first accused myself of having thoughts against the faith, and the confessor beginning to laugh, asked me what they were. I told him that I had up to now been in doubt about Hell: that I had imagined my mistress spoke to me of it only to make me good, but I no longer doubted. After my confession I felt an indescribable fervor, and even one time I experienced a desire to endure martyrdom.
I can not help here noting the fault mothers commit who, under pretext of devotion or occupation, neglect to keep their daughters with them; for it is not credible that my mother, so virtuous as she was, would have thus left me, if she had thought there was any harm in it.
I must also condemn those unjust preferences that they show for one child over another, which produce division and the ruin of families, while equality unites the hearts and entertains charity. Why can not fathers and mothers understand, and all persons who wish to guide youth, the evil they do, when they neglect the guidance of the children, when they lose sight of them for a long time and do not employ them?
* * * * *
You know, O my Love, that the fear of your chastisement has never made much impression either on my intellect or upon my heart. Fear of having offended you caused all my grief, and this was such that it seemed to me, though there should be neither Paradise nor Hell, I should always have had the same fear of displeasing you. You know that even after my faults your caresses were a thousand times more insupportable than your rigors, and I would have a thousand times chosen Hell rather than displease you.
O God, it was then not for you alone I used to behave well, since I ceased to do so because they no longer had any consideration for me.
If I had known how to make use of the crucifying conduct that you maintained over me, I should have made good progress, and, far from going astray, that would have made me return to you.
I was jealous of my brother, for on every occasion I remarked the difference my mother made between him and me. However, he behaved always right, and I always wrong. My mother's servant-maids paid their court by caressing my brother and ill-treating me.
It is true I was bad, for I had fallen back into my former defects of telling lies and getting in a passion; with all these defects I nevertheless willingly gave alms, and I much loved the poor. I assiduously prayed to you, O my God, and I took pleasure in hearing you well spoken of. I do not doubt you will be astonished, Sir, by such resistance, and by so long a course of inconstancy; so many graces, so much ingratitude; but the sequel will astonish you still more, when you shall see this manner of acting grow stronger with my age, and that reason, far from correcting so irrational a procedure, has served only to give more force and more scope to my sins.
It seemed, O my God, that you doubled your graces as my ingratitude increased. There went on in me what goes on in the siege of towns. You were besieging my heart, and I thought only of defending it against your attacks. I put up fortifications to that miserable place, redoubling each day my iniquities to hinder you from taking it.
When it seemed you were about to be victorious over this ungrateful heart, I made a cross-battery; I put up barriers to arrest your bounties and to hinder the course of your graces. It required nothing less than you to break them down, O my divine Love, who by your sacred fire were more powerful than even death, to which my sins have so often reduced me.
My father, seeing that I was grown, placed me for Lent with the Ursulines, in order that I should have my first communion at Easter, when I should complete eleven years of age. He placed me in the hands of his daughter, my very dear sister, who redoubled her cares that I might perform this action with all possible preparation. I thought only, O my God, of giving myself to you once for all.
I often felt the combat between my good inclinations and my evil habits. I even performed some penance. As I was almost always with my sister, and the boarders of the grown class with whom I was, although I was very far from their age, were very reasonable, I became very reasonable with them.
It was surely a murder to bring me up ill, for I had a natural disposition much inclined to good, and I loved good things.
We subsequently came to Paris, where my vanity increased. Nothing was spared to bring me out. I paraded a vain beauty; I thirsted to exhibit myself and to flaunt my pride. I wished to make myself loved without loving anybody. I was sought for by many persons who seemed good matches for me; but you, O my God, who would not consent to my ruin, did not permit things to succeed.
My father discovered difficulties that you yourself made spring up for my salvation. For if I had married those persons, I should have been extremely exposed, and my vanity would have had opportunity for displaying itself. There was a person who sought me in marriage for some years, whom my father for family reasons had always refused.
His manners were a little distasteful to my vanity, yet the fear they had I should leave the country, and the great wealth of this gentleman, led my father, in spite of all his own objections and those of my mother, to accept him for me. It was done without my being told, on the vigil of Saint Francis de Sales, on the Twenty-eighth of January, Sixteen Hundred Sixty-four, and they even made me sign the articles of marriage without telling me what they were.
Although I was well pleased to be married, because I imagined thereby I should have full liberty, and that I should be delivered from the ill-treatment of my mother, which doubtless I brought on myself by want of docility, you, however, O my God, had quite other views, and the state in which I found myself afterwards frustrated my hopes, as I shall hereafter tell. Although I was well pleased to be married, I nevertheless continued all the time of my engagement, and even long after my marriage, in extreme confusion.
I did not see my betrothed till two or three days before the marriage. I caused masses to be said all the time I was engaged, to know your will, O my God, for I desired to do it at least in that. Oh, goodness of my God, to suffer me at that time, and to permit me to pray with as much boldness as if I had been one of your friends!--I who had treated you as if your greatest enemy!
The joy at this marriage was universal in our town, and in this rejoicing I was the only person sad. I could neither laugh like the others, nor even eat, so oppressed was my heart. I know not the cause of my sadness; but, my God, it was as if a presentiment you were giving me of what should befall me.
Hardly was I married when the recollection of my desire to be a nun came to overwhelm me.
All those who came to compliment me the day after my marriage could not help rallying me because I wept bitterly, and I said to them, "Alas! I had once so desired to be a nun; why am I now married; and by what fatality is this happened to me?"
I was no sooner at home with my new husband than I clearly saw that it would be for me a house of sorrow. I was obliged to change my conduct, for their manner of living was very different from that in my father's house. My mother-in-law, who had been long time a widow, thought only of saving, while in my father's house we lived in an exceedingly noble manner. Everything was showy and everything on a liberal scale, and all my husband and mother-in-law called extravagance, and I called respectability, was observed there.
I was very much surprised at this change, and the more so as my vanity would rather have increased than cut down expenditure. I was fifteen years of age--in my sixteenth year--when I was married.