Below, Balzac writes to longtime mistress Ewelina Hańska from his sick bed in Paris. Suffering from a crippling attack of “cerebral neuralgia,” Balzac variously instructs, exalts, and admonishes Hańska for her apparent “indifference” to him. In 1850, after a nearly twenty-year affair, Balzac and Hańska finally married, five months after which Balzac passed away.
October 17, 1844, Passy
All is well; the neuralgic pains have disappeared as if by magic, and if I have not finished my letter it is because I have slept twelve hours running under the quietude of non-suffering.
Adieu, dear beloved sovereign. Examine well that young Count Mniszech; it concerns the whole life of your child. I am glad you have found the first point, that of taste and personal sympathy, so necessary for her happiness and yours, satisfactory. But study him; be as stern in judgment as if you did not like him. The things to be considered above all are principles, character, firmness. But how stupid of me to be giving this advice to the best and most devoted of mothers!
I resume work to-morrow. I cannot give you any news of Lirette, haying been unable to go to her convent while my illness and its prescriptions lasted.
I hunger and thirst for your dear presence, star of my life, far away, but ever present. Perhaps you think thus of me, sometimes. Who knows? But alas! you have written to me vert little of late. I, so occupied by work, so often ill, I write to you nearly every day. Ah! the reason is that I love you. I feel your indifference, I was going to say ingratitude, deeply; so exasperated am I by this interval of a whole long month. You would be frightened if you knew what ideas plough through me. And then, when the letter comes at last, all is forgotten. I am like a mother who has found her child. But I must not let my letter end with reproaches.
Find here all my heart, all my faith, all my thought, and all my life.
FURTHER READING
“Drifting hither and thither”: the original review of Balzac’s novel Séraphîta, a work largely inspired by his relationship with Hanska.
Balzac’s notorious caffeine addiction, which is speculated to have led to his frequent illnesses and eventual death.