Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1643 page)

Fired by the prodigious future thus disclosed to him, Monsieur Werdet assumed forthwith the character of a French Constable, and opened negotiations with no less than six publishers who held among them the much-desired copyrights. His own enthusiasm did something for him; his excellent previous character in the trade, and his remarkable success at starting, did much more. The houses he dealt with took his bills in all directions, without troubling him for security. After innumerable interviews and immense exercise of diplomacy, he raised himself at last to the pinnacle of his ambition; he became sole proprietor and publisher of the works of Balzac.

The next question — a sordid, but, unhappily, a necessary question also — was how to turn this precious acquisition to the best pecuniary account. Some of the works, such as “La Physiologie du Mariage” and “La Peau de Chagrin,” had produced, and were still producing, large sums. Others, on the contrary, such as the “Contes Philosophiques” (which were a little too profound for the public) and “Louis Lambert” (which was intended to popularize the mysticism of Swedenborg), had not yet succeeded in paying their expenses. Estimating his speculation by what he had in hand, Monsieur Werdet had not much chance of seeing his way speedily to quick returns. Estimating it, however, by what was coming in the future — that is to say, by the promised privilege of issuing all the writer’s contemplated works — he had every reason to look happily and hopefully at his commercial prospects. At this crisis of the narrative, when the publisher’s credit and fortune depended wholly on the pen of one man, the history of that man’s habits of literary composition assumes a special interest and importance. Monsieur Werdet’s description of Balzac at his writing-desk presents by no means the least extraordinary of the many singular revelations which compose the story of the author’s life.

When he had once made up his mind to produce a new book, Balzac’s first proceeding was to think it out thoroughly before he put pen to paper. He was not satisfied with possessing himself of the main idea only; he followed it mentally into its minutest ramifications, devoting to the process just that amount of patient hard labour and self-sacrifice which no inferior writer ever has the common sense or the courage to bestow on his work. With his note-book ready in his hand, Balzac studied his scenes and characters straight from life. General knowledge of what he wanted to describe was not enough for this determined realist. If he found himself in the least at fault, he would not hesitate to take a long journey merely to insure truth to nature in describing the street of a country town, or in painting some minor peculiarity of rustic character, In Paris he was perpetually about the streets, perpetually penetrating into all classes of society, to study the human nature about him in its minutest varieties. Day by day, and week by week, his note-book and his brains were hard at work together, before he thought of sitting down to his desk to begin. When he had finally amassed his materials in this labourious manner, he at last retired to his study; and from that time till his book had gone to press society saw him no more.

His house door was now closed to everybody except the publisher and the printer, and his costume was changed to a loose white robe, of the sort which is worn by the Dominican monks. This singular writing-dress was fastened round the waist by a chain of Venetian gold, to which hung little pliers and scissors of the same precious metal. White Turkish trousers, and red morocco slippers, embroidered with gold, covered his legs and feet. On the day when he sat down to his desk the light of heaven was shut out, and he worked by the light of candles in superb silver sconces. Even letters were not allowed to reach him. They were all thrown, as they came, into a japan vase, and not opened, no matter how important they might be, till his work was all over. He rose to begin writing at two in the morning, continued with extraordinary rapidity, till six; then took his warm bath, and stopped in it, thinking, for an hour or more. At eight o’clock his servant brought him up a cup of coffee. Before nine his publisher was admitted to carry away what he had done. From nine till noon he wrote on again, always at the top or his speed. At noon he breakfasted on eggs, with a glass of water and a second cup of coffee. From one o’clock to six he returned to work. At six he dined lightly, only allowing himself one glass of wine. From seven to eight he received his publisher again: and at eight o’clock he went to bed. This life he led, while he was writing his books, for two months together, without intermission. Its effect on his health was such that, when he appeared once more among his friends, he looked, in the popular phrase, like his own ghost. Chance acquaintances would hardly have known him again.

It must not be supposed that this life of resolute seclusion and fierce hard toil ended with the complexion of the first draught of his manuscript. At the point where, in the instances of most men, the serious part of the work would have come to an end, it had only begun for Balzac.

In spite of all the preliminary studying and thinking, when his pen had scrambled its way straight through to the end of the book, the leaves were all turned back again, and the first manuscript was altered into a second with inconceivable patience and care. Innumerable corrections and interlinings, to begin with, led, in the end, to transpositions and expansions which metamorphosed the entire work. Happy thoughts were picked out of the beginning of the manuscript, and inserted where they might have a better effect at the end. Others at the end would be moved to the beginning, or the middle. In one place, chapters would be expanded to three or four times their original length; in another, abridged to a few paragraphs; in a third, taken out altogether or shifted to new positions. With all this mass of alterations in every page, the manuscript was at last ready for the printer. Even to the experienced eyes in the printing-office, it was now all but illegible. The deciphering it, and setting it up in a moderately correct form, cost an amount of patience and pains which wearied out all the best men in the office, one after another, before the first series of proofs could be submitted to the author’s eye. When these were at last complete, they were sent in on large slips, and the indefatigable Balzac immediately set to work to rewrite the whole book for the third time!

He now covered with fresh corrections, fresh alterations, fresh expansions of this passage, and fresh abridgments of that, not only the margins of the proofs all round, but even the little intervals of white space between the paragraphs. Lines crossing each other in indescribable confusion were supposed to show the bewildered printer the various places at which the multitude of new insertions were to be slipped in. Illegible as Balzac’s original manuscripts were, his corrected proofs were more hopelessly puzzling still. The picked men in the office, to whom, alone they could be intrusted, shuddered at the very name of Balzac, and relieved each other at intervals of an hour, beyond which time no one printer could be got to continue at work on the universally execrated and universally unintelligible proofs. The “revises” — that is to say, the proofs embodying the new alterations — were next pulled to pieces in their turn. Two, three, and sometimes four, separate sets of them were required before the author’s leave could be got to send the perpetually rewritten book to press at last, and so have done with it. He was literally the terror of all printers and editors; and he himself described his process of work as a misfortune, to be the more deplored, because it was, in his case, an intellectual necessity. “I toil sixteen hours out of the twenty-four,” he said, “over the elabouration of my unhappy style; and I am never satisfied myself when all is done.” Looking back to the school-days of Balzac, when his mind suffered under the sudden and mysterious shock which has already been described in its place; remembering that his father’s character was notorious for its eccentricity; observing the prodigious toil, the torture almost of mind which the act of literary production seems to have cost him all through life, it is impossible not to arrive at the conclusion that in his case there must have been a fatal incompleteness somewhere in the mysterious intellectual machine. Magnificently as it was endowed, the balance of faculties in his mind seems to have been even more than ordinarily imperfect. On this theory, his unparalleled difficulties in expressing himself as a writer, and his errors, inconsistencies, and meannesses of character as a man, become, at least, not wholly unintelligible. On any other theory, all explanation both of his personal life and his literary life appears to be simply impossible.

Such was the perilous pen on which Monsieur Werdet’s prospects in life all depended. If Balzac failed to perform his engagements punctually, or if his health broke down under his severe literary exertions, the commercial decease of his unfortunate publisher followed either disaster, purely as a matter of course.

At the outset, however, the posture of affairs looked encouragingly enough. On its completion in the
Revue de Paris,
“Le Lys dans la Vallee” was republished by Monsieur Werdet, who had secured his interest in the work by a timely advance of six thousand francs. Of this novel (the most highly valued in France of all the writer’s fictions) but two hundred copies of the first edition were left unsold within two hours after its publication. This unparalleled success kept Monsieur Werdet’s head above water, and encouraged him to hope great things from the next novel, “Seraphita,” which was also begun periodically in the
Revue de Paris.
Before it was finished, however, Balzac and the editor of the Review quarreled. The long-suffering publisher was obliged to step in and pay the author’s forfeit-money, obtaining the incomplete novel in return, and with it Balzac’s promise to finish the work offhand. Months passed, however, and not a page of manuscript was produced. One morning at eight o’clock, to Monsieur Werdet’s horror and astonishment, Balzac burst in on him in a condition of sublime despair, to announce that he and his genius had to all appearance parted company forever.

“My brain is empty!” cried the great man. “My imagination is dried up! Hundreds of cups of coffee and two warm baths a day have done nothing for me. Werdet, I am a lost man!”

The publisher thought of his empty cash-box, and was petrified. The author proceeded:

“I must travel!” he exclaimed, distractedly. “My genius has run away from me — I must pursue it over mountains and valleys. Werdet! I must catch my genius up!”

Poor Monsieur Werdet faintly suggested a little turn in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris — something equivalent to a nice airy ride to Hampstead on the top of an omnibus. But Balzac’s runaway genius had, in the estimation of its bereaved proprietor, got as far as Vienna already; and he coolly announced his intention of traveling after it to the Austrian capital.

“And who is to finish ‘Seraphita?’“ inquired the unhappy publisher. “My illustrious friend, you are ruining me!”

“On the contrary,” remarked Balzac, persuasively, “I am making your fortune. At Vienna I shall find my genius. At Vienna I shall finish ‘Seraphita,’ and a new book besides. At Vienna I shall meet with an angelic woman who admires me — she permits me to call her ‘Carissima’ — she has written to invite me to Vienna. I ought, I must, I will, accept the invitation.”

Here an ordinary acquaintance would have had an excellent opportunity of saying something smart. But poor Monsieur Werdet was not in a position to be witty; and, moreover, he knew but too well what was coming next. All he ventured to say was:

“But I am afraid you have no money.”

“You can raise some,” replied his illustrious friend. “Borrow — deposit stock in trade — get me two thousand francs. Everything else I can do for myself. Werdet, I will hire a post-chaise — I will dine with my dear sister — I will set off after dinner — I will not be later than eight o’clock — click-clack!” And the great man executed an admirable imitation of the cracking of a postilion’s whip.

There was no resource for Monsieur Werdet but to throw the good money after the bad. He raised the two thousand francs; and away went . Balzac to catch his runaway genius, to bask in the society of a female angel, and to coin money in the form of manuscripts.

Eighteen days afterward a perfumed letter from the author reached the publisher. He had caught his genius at Vienna; he had been magnificently received by the aristocracy; he had finished “Seraphita,” and nearly completed the other book; his angelic friend, Carissima, already loved Werdet from Balzac’s description of him; Balzac himself was Werdet’s friend till death; Werdet was his Archibald Constable; Werdet should see him again in fifteen days; Werdet should ride in his carriage in the Bois de Boulogne, and meet Balzac riding in his carriage, and see the enemies of both parties looking on at the magnificent spectacle and bursting with spite. Finally, Werdet would have the goodness to remark (in a postscript) that Balzac had provided himself with another little advance of fifteen hundred francs, received from Rothschild in Vienna, and had given in exchange a bill at ten days’ sight on his excellent publisher, on his admirable and devoted Archibald Constable.

While Monsieur Werdet was still prostrate under the effect of this audacious postscript, a clerk entered his office with the identical bill. It was drawn at one day’s sight instead of ten; and the money was wanted immediately. The publisher was the most long-suffering of men; but there were limits even to his patient endurance. He took Balzac’s letter with him, and went at once to the office of the Parisian Rothschild. The great financier received him kindly, admitted that there must have been some mistake, granted the ten days’ grace, and dismissed his visitor with this excellent and sententious piece of advice: