Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

But after the arrival of Modeste’s letter Ernest deceived himself no longer as to Canalis. The pair had just finished breakfast and were talking together in the poet’s study, which was on the ground-floor of a house standing back in a court-yard, and looked into a garden.

“There!” exclaimed Canalis, “I was telling Madame de Chaulieu the other day that I ought to bring out another poem; I knew admiration was running short, for I have had no anonymous letters for a long time.”

“Is it from an unknown woman?”

“Unknown? yes! — a D’Este, in Havre; evidently a feigned name.”

Canalis passed the letter to La Briere. The little poem, with all its hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor Modeste’s heart, was disdainfully handed over, with the gesture of a spoiled dandy.

“It is a fine thing,” said the lawyer, “to have the power to attract such feelings; to force a poor woman to step out of the habits which nature, education, and the world dictate to her, to break through conventions. What privileges genius wins! A letter such as this, written by a young girl — a genuine young girl — without hidden meanings, with real enthusiasm — ”

“Well, what?” said Canalis.

“Why, a man might suffer as much as Tasso and yet feel recompensed,” cried La Briere.

“So he might, my dear fellow, by a first letter of that kind, and even a second; but how about the thirtieth? And suppose you find out that these young enthusiasts are little jades? Or imagine a poet rushing along the brilliant path in search of her, and finding at the end of it an old Englishwoman sitting on a mile-stone and offering you her hand! Or suppose this post-office angel should really be a rather ugly girl in quest of a husband? Ah, my boy! the effervescence then goes down.”

“I begin to perceive,” said La Briere, smiling, “that there is something poisonous in glory, as there is in certain dazzling flowers.”

“And then,” resumed Canalis, “all these women, even when they are simple-minded, have ideals, and you can’t satisfy them. They never say to themselves that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being; they can’t conceive what it is for an author to be at the mercy of a feverish excitement, which makes him disagreeable and capricious; they want him always grand, noble; it never occurs to them that genius is a disease, or that Nathan lives with Florine; that D’Arthez is too fat, and Joseph Bridau is too thin; that Beranger limps, and that their own particular deity may have the snuffles! A Lucien de Rubempre, poet and cupid, is a phoenix. And why should I go in search of compliments only to pull the string of a shower-bath of horrid looks from some disillusioned female?”

“Then the true poet,” said La Briere, “ought to remain hidden, like God, in the centre of his worlds, and be only seen in his own creations.”

“Glory would cost too dear in that case,” answered Canalis. “There is some good in life. As for that letter,” he added, taking a cup of tea, “I assure you that when a noble and beautiful woman loves a poet she does not hide in the corner boxes, like a duchess in love with an actor; she feels that her beauty, her fortune, her name are protection enough, and she dares to say openly, like an epic poem: ‘I am the nymph Calypso, enamored of Telemachus.’ Mystery and feigned names are the resources of little minds. For my part I no longer answer masks — ”

“I should love a woman who came to seek me,” cried La Briere. “To all you say I reply, my dear Canalis, that it cannot be an ordinary girl who aspires to a distinguished man; such a girl has too little trust, too much vanity; she is too faint-hearted. Only a star, a — ”

“ — princess!” cried Canalis, bursting into a shout of laughter; “only a princess can descend to him. My dear fellow, that doesn’t happen once in a hundred years. Such a love is like that flower that blossoms every century. Princesses, let me tell you, if they are young, rich, and beautiful, have something else to think of; they are surrounded like rare plants by a hedge of fools, well-bred idiots as hollow as elder-bushes! My dream, alas! the crystal of my dream, garlanded from hence to the Correze with roses — ah! I cannot speak of it — it is in fragments at my feet, and has long been so. No, no, all anonymous letters are begging letters; and what sort of begging? Write yourself to that young woman, if you suppose her young and pretty, and you’ll find out. There is nothing like experience. As for me, I can’t reasonably be expected to love every woman; Apollo, at any rate he of Belvedere, is a delicate consumptive who must take care of his health.”

“But when a woman writes to you in this way her excuse must certainly be in her consciousness that she is able to eclipse in tenderness and beauty every other woman,” said Ernest, “and I should think you might feel some curiosity — ”

“Ah,” said Canalis, “permit me, my juvenile friend, to abide by the beautiful duchess who is all my joy.”

“You are right, you are right!” cried Ernest. However, the young secretary read and re-read Modeste’s letter, striving to guess the mind of its hidden writer.

“There is not the least fine-writing here,” he said, “she does not even talk of your genius; she speaks to your heart. In your place I should feel tempted by this fragrance of modesty, — this proposed agreement — ”

“Then, sign it!” cried Canalis, laughing; “answer the letter and go to the end of the adventure yourself. You shall tell me the results three months hence — if the affair lasts so long.”

Four days later Modeste received the following letter, written on extremely fine paper, protected by two envelopes, and sealed with the arms of Canalis.

Mademoiselle, — The admiration for fine works (allowing that my

books are such) implies something so lofty and sincere as to

protect you from all light jesting, and to justify before the

sternest judge the step you have taken in writing to me.

But first I must thank you for the pleasure which such proofs of

sympathy afford, even though we may not merit them, — for the maker

of verses and the true poet are equally certain of the intrinsic

worth of their writings, — so readily does self-esteem lend itself

to praise. The best proof of friendship that I can give to an

unknown lady in exchange for a faith which allays the sting of

criticism, is to share with her the harvest of my own experience,

even at the risk of dispelling her most vivid illusions.

Mademoiselle, the noblest adornment of a young girl is the flower

of a pure and saintly and irreproachable life. Are you alone in

the world? If you are, there is no need to say more. But if you

have a family, a father or a mother, think of all the sorrow that

might come to them from such a letter as yours addressed to a poet

of whom you know nothing personally. All writers are not angels;

they have many defects. Some are frivolous, heedless, foppish,

ambitious, dissipated; and, believe me, no matter how imposing

innocence may be, how chivalrous a poet is, you will meet with

many a degenerate troubadour in Paris ready to cultivate your

affection only to betray it. By such a man your letter would be

interpreted otherwise than it is by me. He would see a thought

that is not in it, which you, in your innocence, have not

suspected. There are as many natures as there are writers. I am

deeply flattered that you have judged me capable of understanding

you; but had you, perchance, fallen upon a hypocrite, a scoffer,

one whose books may be melancholy but whose life is a perpetual

carnival, you would have found as the result of your generous