Honoré de Balzac: His Life and Writings | Page 8

sides, worn over loose trousers, which were pleated at the waist
and held down with straps. Even in society he took no trouble about his
appearance, and Lamartine describes him as looking, in the salon of
Madame de Girardin, like a schoolboy who has outgrown his clothes.
Only for a short time, which he describes with glee in his letters to
Madame Hanska, did he pose as a man of fashion. Then he wore a
magnificent white waistcoat, and a blue coat with gold buttons; carried
the famous cane, with a knob studded with turquoises, celebrated in
Madame de Girardin's story, "La Canne de Monsieur de Balzac"; and
drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping horse, with a tiny tiger,
whom he christened Anchise, perched on the back seat. This phase was
quickly over, the horses were sold, and Balzac appeared no more in the
box reserved for dandies at the Opera. Of the fashionable outfit, the
only property left was the microscopic groom--an orphan, of whom
Balzac took the greatest care, and whom he visited daily during the
boy's last illness, a year or two after. Thenceforward he reverted to his
usual indifference about appearances, his only vanity being the spotless
cleanliness of his working costume--a loose dressing-gown of white
flannel or cashmere, made like the habit of a Benedictine monk, which
was kept in round the waist by a silk girdle, and was always
scrupulously guarded from ink-stains.
Naive as a child, anxious for sympathy, frankly delighted with his own
masterpieces, yet modest in a fashion peculiar to himself, Balzac gave a
dominant impression of kindliness and bonhomie, which overshadowed
even the idea of intellect. To his friends he is not in the first place the
author of the "Comedie Humaine," designed, as George Sand rather

grandiloquently puts it, to be "an almost universal examination of the
ideas, sentiments, customs, habits, legislation, arts, trades, costumes,
localities--in short, of all that constitutes the lives of his
contemporaries"[*]--that claim to notice recedes into the background,
and what is seen clearly is the /bon camarade/, with his great hearty
laugh, his jollity, his flow of language, and his jokes, often Rabelaisian
in flavour. Of course there was another side to the picture, and there
were times in his hardset and harassing life when even /his/ vivacity
failed him. These moods were, however, never apparent in society; and
even to his intimate men friends, such as Theophile Gautier and Leon
Gozlan, Balzac was always the delightful, whimsical companion, to be
thought of and written of afterwards with an amused, though
affectionate smile. Only to women, his principal confidantes, who
played as important a part in his life as they do in his books, did he
occasionally show the discouragement to which the artistic nature is
prone. Sometimes the state of the weather, which always had a great
effect on him, the difficulty of his work, the fatigue of sitting up all
night, and his monetary embarrassments, brought him to an extreme
state of depression, both physical and mental. He would arrive at the
house of Madame Surville, his sister, who tells the story, hardly able to
drag himself along, in a gloomy, dejected state, with his skin sallow
and jaundiced.
[*] "Autour de la Table," by George Sand.
"Don't console me," he would say in a faint voice, dropping into a chair;
"it is useless--I am a dead man."
The dead man would then begin, in a doleful voice, to tell of his new
troubles; but he soon revived, and the words came forth in the most
ringing tones of his voice. Then, opening his proofs, he would drop
back into his dismal accents and say, by way of conclusion:
"Yes, I am a wrecked man, sister!"
"Nonsense! No man is wrecked with such proofs as those to correct."
Then he would raise his head, his face would unpucker little by little,

the sallow tones of his skin would disappear.
"My God, you are right!" he would say. "Those books will make me
live. Besides, blind Fortune is here, isn't she? Why shouldn't she protect
a Balzac as well as a ninny? And there are always ways of wooing her.
Suppose one of my millionaire friends (and I have some), or a banker,
not knowing what to do with his money, should come to me and say, 'I
know your immense talents, and your anxieties: you want
such-and-such a sum to free yourself; accept it fearlessly: you will pay
me; your pen is worth millions!' That is /all I want/, my dear."[*]
[*] "Balzac, sa Vie et ses Oeuvres, d'apres la Correspondance," by
Mme. L. Surville (nee de Balzac).
Then the "child-man," as his sister calls him, would imagine himself a
member of the Institute; then in the Chamber of Peers, pointing out and