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

alike at the thought of either fate. Do you believe France will be

any the worse if Mademoiselle d’Este does not give it two or three

sons, and never becomes a Madame Vilquin-something-or-other? As

for me, I shall never be an old maid. I shall make myself a

mother, by taking care of others and by my secret co-operation in

the existence of a great man, to whom also I shall carry all my

thoughts and all my earthly efforts.

I have the deepest horror of commonplaceness. If I am free, if I

am rich (and I know that I am young and pretty), I will never

belong to any ninny just because he is the son of a peer of

France, nor to a merchant who could ruin himself and me in a day,

nor to a handsome creature who would be a sort of woman in the

household, nor to a man of any kind who would make me blush twenty

times a day for being his. Make yourself easy on that point. My

father adores my wishes; he will never oppose them. If I please my

poet, and he pleases me, the glorious structure of our love shall

be built so high as to be inaccessible to any kind of misfortune.

I am an eaglet; and you will see it in my eyes.

I shall not repeat what I have already said, but I will put its

substance in the least possible number of words, and confess to

you that I should be the happiest of women if I were imprisoned by

love as I am now imprisoned by the wish and will of a father. Ah!

my friend, may we bring to a real end the romance that has come to

us through the first exercise of my will: listen to its

argument: —

A young girl with a lively imagination, locked up in a tower, is

weary with longing to run loose in the park where her eyes only

are allowed to rove. She invents a way to loosen her bars; she

jumps from the casement; she scales the park wall; she frolics

along the neighbor’s sward — it is the Everlasting comedy. Well,

that young girl is my soul, the neighbor’s park is your genius. Is

it not all very natural? Was there ever a neighbor that did not

complain that unknown feet broke down his trellises? I leave it to

my poet to answer.

But does the lofty reasoner after the fashion of Moliere want

still better reasons? Well, here they are. My dear Geronte,

marriages are usually made in defiance of common-sense. Parents

make inquiries about a young man. If the Leander — who is supplied

by some friend, or caught in a ball-room — is not a thief, and has

no visible rent in his reputation, if he has the necessary

fortune, if he comes from a college or a law-school and so fulfils

the popular ideas of education, and if he wears his clothes with a

gentlemanly air, he is allowed to meet the young lady, whose

mother has ordered her to guard her tongue, to let no sign of her

heart or soul appear on her face, which must wear the smile of a

danseuse finishing a pirouette. These commands are coupled with

instructions as to the danger of revealing her real character, and

the additional advice of not seeming alarmingly well educated. If

the settlements have all been agreed upon, the parents are

good-natured enough to let the pair see each other for a few

moments; they are allowed to talk or walk together, but always

without the slightest freedom, and knowing that they are bound by

rigid rules. The man is as much dressed up in soul as he is in body,

and so is the young girl. This pitiable comedy, mixed with bouquets,

jewels, and theatre-parties is called “paying your addresses.” It

revolts me: I desire that actual marriage shall be the result of a

previous and long marriage of souls. A young girl, a woman, has

throughout her life only this one moment when reflection, second

sight, and experience are necessary to her. She plays her liberty,

her happiness, and she is not allowed to throw the dice; she risks

her all, and is forced to be a mere spectator. I have the right,

the will, the power to make my own unhappiness, and I use them, as

did my mother, who, won by beauty and led by instinct, married the

most generous, the most liberal, the most loving of men. I know

that you are free, a poet, and noble-looking. Be sure that I

should not have chosen one of your brothers in Apollo who was

already married. If my mother was won by beauty, which is perhaps

the spirit of form, why should I not be attracted by the spirit

and the form united? Shall I not know you better by studying you

in this correspondence than I could through the vulgar experience

of “receiving your addresses”? This is the question, as Hamlet

says.

But my proceedings, dear Chrysale, have at least the merit of not

binding us personally. I know that love has its illusions, and

every illusion its to-morrow. That is why there are so many

partings among lovers vowed to each other for life. The proof of

love lies in two things, — suffering and happiness. When, after

passing through these double trials of life two beings have shown

each other their defects as well as their good qualities, when

they have really observed each other’s character, then they may go

to their grave hand in hand. My dear Argante, who told you that

our little drama thus begun was to have no future? In any case

shall we not have enjoyed the pleasures of our correspondence?

I await your orders, monseigneur, and I am with all my heart,

Your handmaiden,

O. d’Este M.

To Mademoiselle O. d’Este M., — You are a witch, a spirit, and I

love you! Is that what you desire of me, most original of girls?

Perhaps you are only seeking to amuse your provincial leisure with

the follies which are you able to make a poet commit. If so, you

have done a bad deed. Your two letters have enough of the spirit

of mischief in them to force this doubt into the mind of a

Parisian. But I am no longer master of myself; my life, my future

depend on the answer you will make me. Tell me if the certainty of

an unbounded affection, oblivious of all social conventions, will

touch you, — if you will suffer me to seek you. There is anxiety

enough and uncertainty enough in the question as to whether I can

personally please you. If your reply is favorable I change my

life, I bid adieu to all the irksome pleasures which we have the

folly to call happiness. Happiness, my dear and beautiful unknown,

is what you dream it to be, — a fusion of feelings, a perfect

accordance of souls, the imprint of a noble ideal (such as God

does permit us to form in this low world) upon the trivial round

of daily life whose habits we must needs obey, a constancy of

heart more precious far than what we call fidelity. Can we say

that we make sacrifices when the end in view is our eternal good,

the dream of poets, the dream of maidens, the poem which, at the

entrance of life when thought essays its wings, each noble

intellect has pondered and caressed only to see it shivered to

fragments on some stone of stumbling as hard as it is vulgar? — for

to the great majority of men, the foot of reality steps instantly

on that mysterious egg so seldom hatched.

I cannot speak to you any more of myself; not of my past life, nor

of my character, nor of an affection almost maternal on one side,

filial on mine, which you have already seriously changed — an

effect upon my life which must explain my use of the word

“sacrifice.” You have already rendered me forgetful, if not

ungrateful; does that satisfy you? Oh, speak! Say to me one word,