Even his mother
he accused of causing his indebtedness--his mother who had ruined
herself for him, and from whose remaining pittance he took in this
self-same year the wherewithal to go to Sardinia, although earning
many thousands of francs annually. The truth is that Balzac exploited
all the women that loved him, himself incapable of loving any one of
them with that entire devotion which, if roused, is unique in a man's
life; and, as he was ignorant of it, so he has never described it
adequately, faithfully. In one or two instances, he obtains a glimpse
of it--as Moses obtained a vision of the promised land--from afar;
when he tries to get nearer, he presents us with mere sensualism.
What Madame Hanska probably enjoyed most in his letters were the
_obiter dicta_ which he was never tired of pronouncing on his
contemporaries. Scribe, whose _Camaraderie_ he had been to see, he
summed up as a man who was conversant in his trade but had no
veritable art, who possessed talent but not the higher dramatic
genius, and who, moreover, was altogether lacking in style. Victor
Hugo's _Ruy Blas_ was to him an infamy in verse, and the rest of this
author's pieces miserable melodramas.
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