Part 15 (1/2)

All the different formalities required by Russian law having been finally complied with, the wedding was celebrated on the 14th of March, in the Church of Saint Barbara at Beriditchef, some few hours distant from Wierzchownia. At once the bridegroom despatched the news to his family and friends. His joy was such that he fancied he had never known happiness before. ”I have had no flowery spring,” said his letter to Madame Carraud. ”But I shall have the most brilliant of summers, the mildest of autumns. . . . I am almost crazy with delight.”

More than a month elapsed ere the newly married couple were able to set out on their journey to the French capital, and, even then, they had to travel along roads studded with quagmires into which their carriage frequently sank up to the axle. Sometimes fifteen or sixteen men and a crick were necessary to extricate them. Though on their honeymoon, they found the repet.i.tion of these incidents monotonous, and were so tired when they reached Dresden that they stayed there to recover themselves. From this town Balzac sent a few lines to his mother and sister mentioning the approximate date of their reaching home; and instructions were given that everything should be in order, flowers on the table, and a meal prepared. He did not want his mother to be at the house to receive them, deeming it more proper that his wife should call on her first, either at Laure's, or at Suresnes where she was living. They got into Paris on the 22nd or 23rd of May.

Monsieur de Lovenjoul relates that the two travellers drove up to the Beaujon mansion a little before midnight. Weary with the journey, they stepped out of the cab and rang the bell, rang more than once, for no one came to open the door. Through the windows they could see the lamps lighted and signs of their being expected. But where was the valet, Francois Munck, who had been left in charge by the novelist's mother? Apparently, he had deserted his post. Balzac kept on ringing, shouting at intervals, and thumping the gate. Still there was silence inside. The one or two people pa.s.sing at this late hour stopped out of curiosity, and began in their turn to call and knock; while the cabman, tired of waiting, put down the luggage on the footpath.

Madame de Balzac grew impatient. It was cold standing in the night-air.

Her husband, nonplussed and exceedingly annoyed, did not know what to say to the bystanders. One of the latter offered to fetch a locksmith, named Grimault, who lived in a street close by. The suggestion was gladly agreed to, since there seemed nothing else to be done. However, until such time as the locksmith should come, they continued battering at the gate and throwing tiny pebbles at the windows; and the master, thus shut out from his own dwelling, hallooed to the invisible valet: ”I am Monsieur de Balzac.” It was useless. The door refused to open.

Around Madame de Balzac, now seated on one of the trunks, other pa.s.sers-by had gathered and listened to the novelist's excited comments on his predicament. The occurrence was certainly extraordinary.

At length, the locksmith was brought and the gate was forced. The whole party, hosts and impromptu guests, hurried through the narrow courtyard, entered the house without further hindrance, and were met by a strange spectacle. The valet had been seized with a sudden fit of madness and had smashed the crockery, scattered the food about, spilt a bottle of wine on the carpet, upset the furniture, and ruined the flowers. Having performed these exploits, he was wandering aimlessly to and fro with demented gestures, and in this state they discovered him. After securing and fastening him up in a small room, the visitors helped to place the luggage in the yard and then retired, with profuse thanks from the novelist, who being thoroughly unnerved by this untoward incident, was obliged to go straight to bed. The next day, Francois was taken to an asylum at his master's expense, as is proved by a receipt still existing in which Balzac is dubbed a Count. Perhaps the t.i.tle was a piece of flattery on the doctor's part, or the novelist may have imagined that his marrying a Countess conferred on him letters of n.o.bility.

Anyway, this a.s.sumed lords.h.i.+p was poor compensation for the immense disappointment of his marriage in every other respect. From the moment he and his wife took possession of their fine Beaujon residence, whatever bonds of friends.h.i.+p and tenderness had previously existed between them were irremediably snapped asunder. Peculiarities of character and temperament in each, which, as long as they were lovers, had been but slightly felt, now came into close contact, clashed, and were proved to be incompatible. Moreover, there were disagreeable revelations on either side. The husband learnt that his wife's available income was very much inferior to what he had supposed or been led to believe, and the wife learnt that her husband's debts, far from being paid, as he had a.s.serted, subsisted and were more numerous and larger than he had ever in sober truth admitted. So, instead of coming to Paris to be the queen of a literary circle, the _Stranger_ saw herself involved in liabilities that threatened to swallow up her own fortune, if she lent her succour.

Reproaches and disputes began in the week following their instalment.

The disillusioned Eve withdrew to her own apartments in anger; and Balzac, whose bronchitis and congestion of the liver had grown worse, remained an invalid in his. They had intended spending only a fortnight or so in Paris, and then travelling south to the Pyrenees and Biarritz; but this programme was perforce abandoned. All through the month of June the patient was under medical treatment, able to go out only in a carriage, and, even so, in disobedience to the doctor's orders. One of these visits was to the door of the Comedie Francaise, where a.r.s.ene Houssaye, the Director, came to speak to him about _Mercadet_, and indulgently promised him, it should be staged soon, the _Resources of Quinola_ also.

On the 20th of June, he wrote, through his wife, to Theophile Gautier, telling him that his bronchitis was better and that the doctor was proceeding to treat him for his heart-hypertrophy, which was now the chief obstacle to his recovery. At the end of the letter he signed his name, adding: ”I can neither read nor write.” They were the last words of his correspondence. From that date his heart-disease undermined him rapidly; and the few friends whom he received augured ill from what they remarked. Not that he lost hope himself. Although suffering acutely at intervals from difficulty in breathing, and from the oedema of his lower limbs, which slowly crept upwards, he spoke with the same confidence as always of his future creations that he meditated. His brain was the one organ unattacked. From Dr. Nacquart he inquired every day how soon he might get to work again.

The month of July and the first half of August pa.s.sed thus, the dropsy gaining still on him in spite of all that Nacquart and other medical men could do to combat it. To every one but the patient himself, it was evident that he was dying. Houssaye, who came to see him on the 16th of August, found Dr. Nacquart in the room. He relates that Balzac, addressing the latter, said: ”Doctor, I want you to tell me the truth. . . . I see I am worse than I believed. . . . I am growing weaker. In vain I force myself to eat. Everything disgusts me. How long do you think I can live?”--The doctor did not reply.--”Come, doctor,” continued the sick man, ”do you take me for a child? I can't die as if I were n.o.body. . . . A man like me owes a will and testament to the public.”--”My dear patient, how much time do you require for what you have to do?” asked Nacquart.--”Six months,” replied Balzac; and he gazed anxiously at his interlocutor.--”Six months, six months,”

repeated the doctor, shaking his head.--”Ah!” cried Balzac dolorously; ”I see you don't allow me six months. . . . You will give me six weeks at least. . . . Six weeks with the fever, is an eternity. Hours are days; and then the nights are not lost.”--The doctor shook his head again. Balzac raised himself, almost indignant.--”What, doctor! Am I, then, a dead man? Thank G.o.d! I still feel strength to fight. But I feel also courage to submit. I am ready for the sacrifice. If your science does not deceive you, don't deceive me. What can I hope for yet? . . . Six days? . . . I can in that time indicate in broad outlines what remains to be done. My friends will see to details. I shall be able to cast a glance at my fifty volumes, tearing out the bad pages, accentuating the best ones. Human will can do miracles. I can give immortal life to the world I have created. I will rest on the seventh day.”--Since beginning to speak, Balzac had aged ten years, and finally his voice failed him.--”My dear patient,” said the doctor, trying to smile, ”who can answer for an hour in this life? There are persons now in good health who will die before you. But you have asked me for the truth; you spoke of your will and testament to the public.”--”Well?”--”Well! this testament must be made to-day. Indeed, you have another testament to make. You mustn't wait till to-morrow.”

--Balzac looked up.--”I have, then, no more than six hours,” he exclaimed with dread.

The details of this narration given to the _Figaro_ many years after the event[*] do not read much like history. A more probable account tells that Balzac, after one of his fits of gasping, asked Nacquart to say whether he would get better or not. The doctor hesitated, then answered: ”You are courageous. I will not hide the truth from you.

There is no hope.” The sick man's face contracted and his fingers clutched the sheet. ”How long have I to live?” he questioned after a pause. ”You will hardly last the night,” replied Nacquart. There was a fresh silence, broken only by the novelist's murmuring as if to himself: ”If only I had Bianchon, he would save me.” Bianchon, one of his fict.i.tious personages, had become for the nonce a living reality.

It was Balzac who had taken the place of his medical hero in the kingdom of shadows. Anxious to soften the effect of his sentence, Nacquart inquired if his patient had a message or recommendation to give. ”No, I have none,” was the answer. However, just before the doctor's departure, he asked for a pencil, and tried to trace a few lines, but was too week; and, letting the pencil drop from his fingers, he fell into a slumber.

[*] 20th of August 1883.

In his _Choses Vues_, Victor Hugo informs us that, on the afternoon of the 18th, his wife had been to the Hotel Beaujon and heard from the servants that the master of the house was dying. After dinner he went himself, and reached the Hotel about nine. Received at first in the drawing-room, lighted dimly by a candle placed on a richly carved oval table that stood in the centre of the room, he saw there an old woman, but not, as he a.s.serts, the brother-in-law, Monsieur Surville. No member of Balzac's own family was present in the house that evening.

Even the wife remained in her apartments. The old woman told Hugo that gangrene had set in, and that tapping now produced no effect on the dropsy. As the visitor ascended the splendid, red-carpeted staircase, c.u.mbered with statues, vases, and paintings, he was incommoded by a pestilential odour that a.s.sailed his nostrils. Death had begun the decomposition of the sick man's body even before it was a corpse. At the door of the chamber Hugo caught the sound of hoa.r.s.e, stertorous breathing. He entered, and saw on the mahogany bed an almost unrecognizable form bolstered up on a ma.s.s of cus.h.i.+ons. Balzac's unshaven face was of blackish-violet hue; his grey hair had been cut short; his open eyes were glazed; the profile resembled that of the first Napoleon. It was useless to speak to him unconscious of any one's presence.

Hugo turned and hastened from the spot thinking sadly of his previous visit a month before, when, in the same room, the invalid had joked with him on his opinions, reproaching him for his demagogy. ”How could you renounce, with such serenity, your t.i.tle as a peer of France?” he had asked. He had spoken also of the Beaujon residence, the gallery over the little chapel in the corner of the street, the key that permitted access to the chapel from the staircase; and, when the poet left him, he had accompanied him to the head of the stairs, calling out to Madame de Balzac to show Hugo his pictures.

Death took him the same evening.[*] During the last hours of his life Giraud had sketched his portrait for a pastel;[+] and, on the morning of the 19th, a man named Marminia was sent to secure a mould of his features. This latter design had to be abandoned. An impression of the hands alone was obtainable. Decomposition had set in so rapidly that the face was distorted beyond recognition. A lead coffin was hastily brought to cover up the ghastly spectacle of nature in a hurry.

[*] De Lovenjoul says that Balzac died on the 17th, not the 18th.

This discrepancy is most curious, the latter date figuring as the official one, as well as being given by Hugo and others.

[+] De Lovenjoul says that the sketch was made after death. But, if the mask was not possible, it is difficult to understand how a pencil likeness could have been drawn.

Two days later, on the 21st of August, the interment took place at Pere Lachaise cemetery. The procession started from the Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, to which the coffin had been transported beforehand. There was no pomp in either service or ceremony. A two-horse hea.r.s.e and four bearers--Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Francis Wey, and Baroche, the Minister for the Interior made up the funeral accessories. But an immense concourse of people followed the body to the grave. The Inst.i.tute, the University, the various learned societies were all represented by eminent men, and a certain number of foreigners, English, German, and Russian, were present also. Baroche attended rather from duty than appreciation. On the way to the cemetery, he hummed and hawed, and remarked to Hugo: ”Monsieur Balzac was a somewhat distinguished man, I believe?” Scandalized, Hugo looked at the politician and answered shortly: ”He was a genius, sir.” It is said that Baroche revenged himself for the rebuff by whispering to an acquaintance near him: ”This Monsieur Hugo is madder still than is supposed.”

Over the coffin, as it was laid under the ground near the ashes of Charles Nodier and Casimir Delavigne, the author of _Les Miserables_ and _Les Feuilles d'Automne_ p.r.o.nounced an oration which was a generous tribute to the talent of his great rival. On such an occasion there was no room for the reservations of criticism. It was the moment to apply the maxim, _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_. ”The name of Balzac,”

he said, ”will mingle with the luminous track projected by our epoch into the future. . . . Monsieur de Balzac was the first among the great, one of the highest among the best. All his volumes form but a single book, wherein our contemporary civilization is seen to move with a certain terrible weirdness and reality--a marvellous book which the maker of it ent.i.tled a comedy and which he might have ent.i.tled a history. It a.s.sumes all forms and all styles; it goes beyond Tacitus and reaches Suetonius; it traverses Beaumarchais and attains even Rabelais; it is both observation and imagination, it lavishes the true, the intimate, the bourgeois, the trivial, the material, and, through every reality suddenly rent asunder, it allows the most sombre, tragic ideal to be seen. Unconsciously, and w.i.l.l.y nilly, the author of this strange work belongs to the race of revolutionary writers. Balzac goes straight to the point. He grapples with modern society; and from everywhere he wrests something--here, illusion; there, hopes; a cry; a mask. He investigates vice, he dissects pa.s.sion, he fathoms man--the soul, the heart, the entrails, the brain, the abyss each has within him. And by right of his free, vigorous nature--a privilege of the intellects of our time, who see the end of humanity better and understand Providence--Balzac smilingly and serenely issues from such studies, which produced melancholy in Moliere and misanthropy in Rousseau. The work he has bequeathed us is built with granite strength. Great men forge their own pedestal; the future charges itself with the statue. . . . His life was short but full, fuller of works than of days. Alas! this puissant, untired labourer, this philosopher, this thinker, this poet, this genius lived among us the life of all great men. To-day, he is at rest. He has entered simultaneously into glory and the tomb. Henceforth, he will s.h.i.+ne above the clouds that surround us, among the stars of the fatherland.”

To the credit of Balzac's widow it should be said that, although not legally obliged, she accepted her late husband's succession, heavy as it was with liabilities, the full extent of which was communicated to her only after the funeral. The novelist's mother, having renounced her claim on the capital lent by her at various times to her son, received an annuity of three thousand francs, which was punctually paid until the old lady's demise in 1854. Buisson the tailor, Dablin, Madame Delannoy, and the rest of the creditors, one after the other, were reimbursed the sums they had also advanced, the profits on unexhausted copyright aiding largely in the liberation of the estate.

Before Eve's own death, every centime of debt was cleared off.