Imaginary interview with Honoré de Balzac
by Charactorium · Honoré de Balzac (1799 — 1850) · Literature · 5 min read
It is in the drawing-room of the house on rue Raynouard, in Passy, that I find my Honoré this winter of 1847, as he has barely returned from a long journey to my Ukraine. The pewter coffee pot still steams on the table cluttered with corrected proofs, and the candlelight trembles on his white woolen robe. We have been writing to each other for fourteen years already — since that letter signed l'Étrangère which made him dream — and I come tonight not for the countess, but for the woman who finally wants to understand the man behind the thousands of pages. He smiles at me, lays down his quill, and agrees to be questioned.
—Honoré, here you are again in your white robe at this ungodly hour. How many cups of coffee kept you awake tonight?
You know me too well, Ewelina, to be surprised. I drink fifty a day when work presses, a black, brutal coffee that whips my blood better than any rider whips his mount. I rise at midnight, don this woolen robe like a monk his cowl, and I do not leave my table until noon strikes. Remember what I wrote to you: I am chained to my table like a galley slave to his bench. This white robe is not a whim — it is my armor against the world, against creditors, against sleep. When the quill scratches the paper in the silence of Passy, I am the freest of men, and the most imprisoned.
This white robe is not a whim — it is my armor against the world and against sleep.
—You often write to me that fatigue overwhelms you. Why impose these nights of a galley slave rather than writing by day, like everyone else?
Because the day belongs to the importunate, my dear, and the night belongs only to me. By day, there are publishers, bailiffs, visits — all that comedy I must play to survive. By night, the world sleeps and I reign. My pewter coffee pot and my quill are my only faithful companions. I fill twenty, thirty pages before dawn, and in the morning I begin again on the proofs. It costs me my health, I know; my doctor tells me so. But how do you expect a man to build a cathedral while sleeping? Others write; I consume myself. That is the price.
The day belongs to the importunate; the night belongs only to me.
—You once told me you wanted to gather all your novels into a single work. That Human Comedy, what is it really in your mind?
It is the work of my life, Ewelina, and you were its first confidante. Imagine: more than ninety novels that answer each other, two thousand characters who reappear from one book to another as in real life. Rastignac, whom you meet young and poor in Le Père Goriot, you will find powerful elsewhere. Buffon catalogued animal species; I catalogue social species. As I wrote in my Preface, French Society was to be the historian, and I was to be nothing but its secretary. I write the history that historians have forgotten: the history of manners. That is my ambition — not a book, but an entire world standing upright by my will alone.
Buffon catalogued animal species; I catalogue social species.
—Your sister Laure told me of your enthusiasm the day the idea came to you. What did you feel at that moment?
Ah, Laure! I remember bursting into her house like a madman, convinced I had grasped the principle that would make me the equal of Walter Scott. Linking all my novels through the recurrence of characters — it was an illumination, a thunderbolt. Suddenly my scattered books ceased to be leaves in the wind: they became chapters of a single edifice. I told her I would carry this work as Atlas carries the world, by the sheer force of my will. You know how invincible I thought myself then. And yet, as the edifice grows, I better measure that a man's life will not suffice to finish it. That is my glory and my curse.
My scattered books ceased to be leaves in the wind: they became chapters of a single edifice.
—When I first came here, you showed me that hidden exit. Admit it: was it really to flee your creditors?
You guessed correctly, and I almost blush before you. Yes, I had this secret passage built to escape when the bailiffs knock at the door in Passy. I live under assumed names, I change addresses as others change waistcoats. It all goes back to 1825, to my disaster as a printer: I wanted to be a publisher, a typefounder, and I reaped only mountains of debt that have pursued me for twenty years. So I write to repay, I sell my novels as serials to newspapers, and I sink deeper still by correcting my proofs until my publishers are ruined. Work saves me and damns me at the same time. Only you know what that comedy costs me.
I live under assumed names, I change addresses as others change waistcoats.
—Your publishers complain to me about your proof sheets covered with corrections. Why insist on rewriting everything, at the risk of ruining yourself further?
Because a novel is never finished, Ewelina, it is only abandoned — and I abandon nothing. When the printer sends me back my proofs, I cover them with corrections until I double the text; I add as much as I cut, sentences spring up in the margins like branches. It costs my publishers a fortune, they scream, and I half laugh. But how can I give the public an imperfect work? Every word must bear local color, the true detail that makes one feel one is touching the thing itself. My debts grow from this stubbornness, I know. So much the worse: I prefer a ruinous masterpiece to a mediocre book that would enrich me.
A novel is never finished, it is only abandoned — and I abandon nothing.
—In your novels, money seems to devour everyone. Why this obsession with gold, usury, dowries, and fortunes?
Because money is the blood of our century, my dear, and whoever wants to paint society must paint what makes it run. Look at old Grandet, my miser from Saumur: he sacrifices his own daughter to his greed, and yet he exists in a thousand copies in our provinces. Since the bourgeoisie triumphed in 1830, gold has replaced noble blood as the measure of all things. The dowry makes and unmakes marriages, usury strangles young men, and a starving Rastignac quickly learns that in Paris one succeeds only by bending one's conscience. I do not judge, I observe. I am the secretary who catalogues passions — and the most devouring today is the thirst for money.
Money is the blood of our century; whoever wants to paint society must paint what makes it run.
—You who dream of luxury and brandish your gold-knobbed cane, are you not yourself a little like those ambitious men you describe?
The blow is fair, and from you I accept it smiling. Yes, I love the luxury I cannot afford — my cane, my furniture bought on credit, the Faubourg Saint-Germain where I wish to be received as a great man. There is some Rastignac in me, how can I deny it? But you see, it is precisely because I know this fever from within that I can paint it so true. A moralist who had never coveted would know nothing of covetousness. I have made myself the dandy and the debtor, the dreamer of fortune and the slave of my debts — the whole Human Comedy has passed through my own heart. Only you know that my true luxury, henceforth, is the hope of having you at last near me.
A moralist who had never coveted would know nothing of covetousness.
—It has been fourteen years since we began writing, since my first letter from the Unknown Woman. Do you truly believe we will one day be husband and wife?
I believe it as I believe in the morning light, Ewelina — it is the only hope that keeps me standing during my galley-slave nights. Since 1833, since that letter from afar signed with a mysterious name, you are the horizon toward which I row. I have crossed Europe to join you, I have endured waiting, obstacles, your mourning, conventions. Fourteen years already, and every novel I write, I also write to build the home that will be worthy of you. The fortune and glory I have pursued since my youth, I now want only to lay at your feet. Be patient a little longer, my Eve: this marriage so dreamed of, I feel it approaching at last.
You are the horizon toward which I have been rowing for fourteen years.
—You work until you exhaust yourself, my friend, and your health worries me. What do you fear most, as that day approaches?
I fear, Ewelina, not having enough time. That is my only true terror. I have burned my life at this desk, fifty cups of coffee a night, years without rest, and my body is beginning to demand its due. My heart tires, my legs sometimes fail me. And the thought haunts me that after so much waiting, after building for you this house in Passy furnished with my dreams, fate might snatch happiness from me at the very moment I touch it. The Human Comedy will remain unfinished, so be it — a man cannot do everything. But our union, I want it whole. Stay close to me: your presence is worth more to me than all the coffee in the world to keep me alive.
My only true terror is not having enough time.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Honoré de Balzac's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.