Vaguely he felt, and vaguely he confessed to his sister,
what he had seen and confessed thirteen years earlier, that the drama
was not his forte. But, anchored in the conviction that he ought
finally to succeed in everything he undertook, he returned to the
attempt with magnificent pluck and perseverance.
His colleague for the nonce, Sandeau, he considered to be a protege of
his; and used him a while as a kind of secretary. In this year
especially he showed much solicitude about him. There was nothing to
excite his jealousy in the author of _Sacs et Parchemins_, who was not
elected to the Academy until nearly the end of the decade in which
Balzac died. On the contrary, his pity was aroused by Sandeau's
precarious position and by the recent separation between Madame
Dudevant and this first of her lovers, who did his best to commit
suicide by swallowing a dose of acetate of morphia. Luckily the dose
was so large that Sandeau's stomach refused to digest it. George Sand
herself Balzac admired but did not care for at this time. He would
talk to her amiably when he met her at the Opera; but, if she invited
him to dinner, he invented an excuse, if possible, for not going.
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