Again,
in the _Lost Illusions_, Esther Gobseck has blond hair in one
description of her, and black in another. We are reduced to supposing
she had dyed it. Mistakes of the kind have been made by others writers
of fiction who have worked quickly. In the _Comedy_, the number of
_dramatis personae_ is exceedingly large. Balzac laughingly remarked
one day that they needed a biographical dictionary to render their
identity clear; and he added that perhaps somebody would be tempted to
do the work at a later date. He guessed rightly. In 1893, Messrs.
Cerfbeer and Cristophe undertook the task and carried it through in a
book that they call the _Repertory of the Comedie Humaine_.[*] All the
fictitious personages or petty folk that live in the novelist's pages
are duly docketed, and their births, marriages, deaths, and stage
appearances recorded in this _Who's Who_, a big volume of five hundred
and sixty-three pages, constituting a veritable curiosity of
literature.
[*] This work has been made available at Project Gutenberg by Team
Balzac. It is in two volumes.--Preparer's Note.
Much has been said in the preceding chapters of the large use Balzac
made of his own life, his adventures, his experiences, in composing
the integral portions of his _Comedy_, so that its contents, for any
one who can interpret, becomes a valuable autobiography.
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