The Contributors' Club

AT this moment, when a new translation of some of the more important of Balzac’s novels is projected by a leading American publisher, the readers of Le Père Goriot may be interested in the following slight sketch of the author at the period when, dropping his various literary disguises, he was about to assume his own name in the world of letters. The great Frenchman, who in delineating human passions approaches nearest to the English Shakespeare, was at that time thirty years of age.

Balzac’s father, whom his daughter, Madame Surville, calls “ an original who might have made one of the characters in Hoffmann’s Tales,” discovered in 1796, during the days of the Directory, that his old friend, M. le Baron de Pommereul, recently returned from exile, was in great straits for money. The next morning he called on Madame de Pommereul, and, placing two bags of fivefranc pieces on the table, said gruffly, “ Voilà, madame, people round here are under the impression that you are short of funds. These ten thousand crowns will do you more good than they will me. I have no use for them. You can return them whenever you get back that which has been stolen from you.” So saying, he turned round quickly, and, leaving the bags upon the table, slipped out of the door with the celerity of a thief.

In 1828 young Honoré de Balzac was utterly ruined by the failure of the manufacturing enterprise in which he had embarked as partner in the firm of Laurent, Balzac and Barbier. The consequences of this failure acted both as a spur and as a clog upon his genius for many weary years. Up to that time he had been little known as a man of letters. He had written many books, but published none under his own name. The Baron de Pommereul, son of the gentleman so generously assisted a generation back, was living at Fougères, in Brittany, and received a letter from Balzac asking an asylum for three weeks. “ My muse, her ink-horn, her roll of paper, and myself will put you to little inconvenience,” said the writer. The answer came at once: “Pray come to

us. Your room is ready.” This was fifty-seven years ago, and the Baronne de Pommereul, who is still living, furnished last month to a literary magazine in Paris her reminiscences of her illustrious visitor.

“ He was,” she says, “ a short man, with an immense waist, made more conspicuous by his ill-cut clothes. His hands were most beautiful. He wore a shabby hat, but the moment he took it off one forgot everything about him but his face and head. . . . I could not convey any idea of his brow or of his eyes to those who have never seen them. His forehead was grand; it shone as if illuminated by lamp-light. His eyes were brown with streaks of gold, and expressed the thoughts within him as distinctly as his words. He had a large flat nose, and an immense mouth, always ready to open for a laugh without regard to his bad teeth. He wore a thick mustache, and very long hair thrown back from his forehead. At this time of his life, especially on his first arrival at Fougères, he was very lean, and it seemed to us that he must have been half starved. He fell upon his food and devoured it, poor fellow. But there was something in all his movements, in his manner of speaking, and in his whole bearing that gave one such a feeling of his kindliness, his trustfulness, his sincerity, and his naïveté that nobody could have known him without loving him. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about him was his never-failing good humor; his gayety was so exuberant that it was catching. In spite of the great troubles he had just gone through, he had not been a quarter of an hour in our house — we had not even shown him his own room — before he had the general and myself laughing till we cried.”

He had come to Fougères with the purpose of collecting materials for Les Chouans, the book he was then writing. “ When he had harvested his facts,” continues the old Baronne, “ and made a sufficient provision of notes, he would sit down at a little table placed before his window, and would not stir except at meal times. The evenings, however, he gave up to us. We used to pass them in my sitting-room, though occasionally we visited a few neighbors to whom we had introduced Balzac. He was merry as a child. He could talk all kinds of nonsense, and he delighted in puns and plays on words.”

On first arriving he proposed to pay his board, but his money running short he insisted he must still pay by storytelling. Therefore every evening, when all the family were assembled, he began some recital. “ All these people, this whole world,” he would say, “ live, love, act, suffer, inside my head ; but if God prolongs my life, they shall all be classified, arranged, and ticketed in books, . . . in famous books, as you will see, madame! ” And when Scènes de la Vie Privée were published, the friends to whom he had told stories at Fougères recognized in many of the episodes tales that Balzac had told them during his stay.

“ He had a way,” says the Baronne, “ of describing everything so that you seemed to see it just as it happened. He would, for example, begin a story thus: ‘ General, you must have known at Lille the So-and-So family. . . . Not the branch that lived at Roubaix,— no, — but those that intermarried afterwards with the Bethunes. . . . Well, at one time there happened a drama in that family.’ . . . And then he would go on, holding us spellbound for an hour by the charm of his narration. When he had finished we used to shake ourselves to make sure of our own reality. ‘ Is it all really true, Balzac ? ’ we would ask him. Balzac would look at us a moment with a gleam of cunning in his eyes, and then, with a roar of laughter, — lor his laughter was always an explosion, — he would cry out,

' Not one word of truth in it, from beginning to end ! It was pure Balzac ! Say, general, is it not rather pleasant to be able to make all that up out of your own head ? ’ ”

But the bright days in Brittany were soon over. One morning, about the end of October, 1828, Balzac took leave of his friends, with deep regrets on both sides. He went back to face his troubles in Paris with a brave heart and a new hope for the future. During his retirement at Fougères he had discovered his vocation. He felt assured that God had created him to be a writer. Strong in that conviction, he gave up his various noms de plume. He felt assured of his own power, and was proud with a just pride. He put his own name on the title-page of Les Chouans, that first stone of a gigantic edifice; the first chapter, so to speak, of the great work of his life, La Comédie Humaine.

— It is commonly reported that Time lags in seasons of grief and trouble, and hastens only when he has our pleasures in tow. My experience does not conform to this general idea, but rather testifies that the good and glad days of existence are the longest, the evil days shortest, and the ratio is as between summer and winter solstice. The occasional “ bad quarter of an hour,” which comes to all, I am compelled to recognize, but it is easily merged and forgotten in the three quarters, which are good. In my system of chronology the legend of the antique dial has peculiar force : “ I count the bright hours only; ” the hours which are not bright will not let me count them, for they hurry by, vague and confused, in a sort of veiling obscurity. To me, misery is but the fag-ends of Time’s weaving, while happiness is whole cloth-of-gold in his loom ; and I wonder that it is not insisted upon that happy life is long life, though it were early cut, off, and that miserable life is short life, though prolonged to threescore and ten.

An unoccupied interval of waiting, an anxious night of watching, so generally lengthened to the imagination, convey to my mind the opposite impression of accelerated time : I know not how the interval of waiting, the night-watch, can have passed so quickly. Some explanation of this impression there must be. Do not we mark the passing of time by the number and variety of objects and incidents that meanwhile engage our attention ? When the soul is under stress of some great calamity, or is suffering extreme perplexity, it makes little account of external things. It has no surroundings but thick mists or darkness ; it is uncompanioned save by the sense of misery. “ Here I and Sorrow sit.” The dies that stamp time and give it its various fractional values are lost. It is only when we are in the enjoyment of life that the mint issues this small coinage, and we distinguish the pieces thereof. In other words, it is only a free, joyous, and serene condition that takes note of little passing things, — and it is the little passing things that fill up and round the measure of time. When we spread and sun the wings of fancy; when any object in nature, from a hill, or the cloud floating above it, to a grassblade at our feet, contributes distinct pleasure to our thoughts; when but to draw breath and to exercise the faculty of motion afford keen relish, we then approach nearest to that blessed estate of childhood when so-called trifles gave pleasure, and things since relegated to the regions of commonplace touched the springs of wonder,— and the days were long.

Lately, in reading the book of Job, I came upon certain passages which seemed to humor my theory of time in relation to human misery and happiness. The passages are these : “ My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.” “ Now my days are swifter than a post; they flee away, they see no good.” “ Because thou shall forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away.” The italics. I acknowledge, are mine, and not Job’s. Possibly, the sublime old Arabian did not mean to imply that his days were swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, swifter than a post, because they were spent without hope and saw no good; yet I cling to this interpretation. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and spent without hope. It is hope, then, that gives to time its full value ? And it comes to pass that the years ever quicken their pace, from youth to age, because little by little Hope is always withdrawing her heavenly company. I also ponder whether misery is remembered as waters that pass away, for the reason that its duration is so imperfectly noted in the mind, and so dwindles by comparison with that measure of time which obtains in the ascendency of happier hours.

— A certain not uncommon, but for obvious reasons seldom gathered, flower of the field and wayside possesses for me a singular attraction. It commands my admiration even in its tender infancy, then a little rosette-like emerald patch on the old turf, — a kind of Legion of Honor decoration worn by the veteran field. At this stage of its existence I touch its leaves with something of the feeling I should have if playing with the leopard’s kitten. By and by, it is “ Hands off ! ” or, “ Touch me at your peril! ” free and blunt translation of the legend which the Scottish king stamped upon his coinage (Nemo me impune lacesset). But I love the thistle none the less for its truculent defiance. I am tempted to gather the flower and wear it, as one might snatch a sweetheart across feudal barriers, or run away with the lovely daughter of a savage sachem. The blossom. itself — its purple heart of hearts — is all delicacy and suavity ; a honeysweet aura breathes therefrom. I ask, How long since the bumble bee was here? for I can never decide whether it is the thistle blossom that smells of the bumble bee, or the bumble bee of the thistle blossom, each suggesting the peculiar redolence of the other.

In some respects the thistle prepares a Barmecide’s feast for my eyes. The large bowl-like calyx looks as though it might be ripening a luscious fruit, to correspond with the ambrosial purple of the flower (figs from thistles !) ; also, the involucre being set with spines, I am reminded of the chestnut burr, and am half persuaded to look within for an edible kernel.

The thistle is an idealist among plants. Its dreams would be worth recording. Anon you shall see that it was never content with tenure of the earth alone, but it had also its designs upon the kingdom of the air. When its season of bloom is past, its leaflances rusted and broken ; when, seemingly, its fortunes are at lowest ebb, then look out for the shining fleets of its seeds. Through all the fine weather of autumn, these cruise about, above the fields, over the village streets, even entering the houses through open doors and windows. (Once, indeed, a thistle ball allowed its filmy asterisk for a moment to rest opposite the last sentence of the page I was writing, — a flattery which I was not slow to seize upon and enjoy.) “ Have you seen the thistledown, this morning ? ” I am on the point of asking the neighbors, since, in my observation, nothing is “ going on about town ” to match the solemn, deliberate enterprise of these argent sailing spheres. Each, perhaps, has its guiding spirit, its Uriel, and is steered hither or thither at pleasure. I almost forget that the delicate traveler had its origin from the earth.

The days of the thistle-down fleet are those of the white butterfly also. Wherever you may look, one or the other is always crossing the path of vision. A white butterfly met a thistleball on the airy highway. Expressions of mutual surprise were exchanged.

“ Halloo! I thought you were one of us.” said the butterfly. “ And I,” returned the thistle-ball, “ took you for a white pea-blossom.”

On goes the winged hope of the thistle; flashing-white in the sunshine, but dark at night, when its little globe is seen gliding across the disk of the moon, Peradventure, some of these voyaging seeds never return to earth. What shall I say, but that I suspect the thistle flourishes in heaven ! There, divested of its irritability, etherealized, having in truth become a Blessed Thistle, it grows innocently by all the celestial waysides, is hummed about by the bumble bee and lisped over by the goldfinch, — for these, too, have been translated.

— To be a countless number of printer’s types, ranging from diamond to English, suddenly dashed into mid-air, — ineffably hopeless pi! Moreover, not mere inert, ink-black bits of metal, each faced with some letter of the alphabet, but withal, in the twinkling of an eye, furnished with slender limbs of exceeding length and suppleness, capable of executing the most extraordinary feats, — jigs danced upon the pillows, giddy whirlings along the dangerous edge of the foot-board, — sight to make even Doctor Faustus forget and cross himself! All this gives one (if one be but one, and not a thousand-and-one !) very strange sensations. . . . But now I am become a smooth expanse of some dark-colored liquid, mantling and shimmering, with faint lights and uncertain reflections upon my surface ; being contained in some curious bowl or chalice of an ancient mould and pattern ; unknown, whether draught from Lethe or from Eunoe, cup of Comus, “ mixed with many murmurs,” or goblet of Helen’s cordial, that for a whole day prevents one from shedding tears, though his dearest friend be dead ! Were it not for the antique style of the cup, I might suspect that I am, after all, only some sort of small beer. Why does n’t some one come and taste, and clear up the mystery ? . . . Afallen column, lying here in the hot sands ; belonging to somebody’s temple, — nobody knows whose ; built by whom, or when, nobody can say precisely. Caryatid, ah, yes ! and incurable curvature of the spine. But what a beautiful entablature I supported ! Many a headache it gave me, but pride helped to endure. . . . Softly, softly, breezes blow! Dragon-fly, kiss once, and be off ! Pleasant it is to lie at rest on the shining water, my long stem fast-anchored at the bottom of the stream. This one bud, which I conceal under broad green leaves, — I do dote upon it. The third morning from this it blooms; then, welcome the honey-bee. . . . Trouble! trouble! A small bird, so far out at sea, and the wind so strong against me! I feel my wings slacken. I shall fall and be drowned. Oh, a thousand thanks, Mr. Crane, for your kind offer to carry me the rest of the way upon your back ! If the wren and the ruby-throat and the titmouse and the kinglet will have the politeness to make room —

My name spoken gently, twice or thrice, and the words, “ It ’s time for your aconite,” finally rouse me. But the fresh remembrance of my late exercises in metempsychosis leads me to doubt whether the eater of opium or of hasheesh can outdo in extravagance the airy fictions of him who is eaten by fever.