ible, to estimate exactly Madame Hanska's role, unless, by some
miracle, her own letters to the novelist could arise phoenix-like from
their ashes. The liaison that she is said to have formed soon after
her husband's death with Jean Gigoux, the artist, who painted her
portrait in 1852, may be regarded either as a retaliation for Honore's
infidelities, which she was undoubtedly cognizant of, or else as the
rebound of a sensual nature after the years spent in the too
idealistic realm of sentiment. And, whichever of these explanations is
correct, the irony of the conclusion is the same.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMEDIE HUMAINE

The idea of joining his separate books together and forming them into
a coherent whole was one that matured slowly in Balzac's mind. Its
genesis is to be found in his first collection of short novels
published in 1830 under the titles: _Scenes of Private Life_, and
containing _The Vendetta_, _Gobseck_, _The Sceaux Ball_, _The House of
the Tennis-playing Cat_, _A Double Family_, and _Peace in the
Household_. Between these stories there was no real connexion except
that certain characters in one casually reappeared or were alluded to
in another. By 1832, the _Scenes of Private Life_ had been augmented,
and, in a second edition, filled four volumes. The additions comprised
_The Message_, _The Bourse_, _The Adieu_, _The Cure of Tours_, and
several chapters of _The Woman of Thirty Years Old_, some of which had
previously come out as serials in the _Revue de Paris_ or the _Mode_.

It has already been related how the novelist all at once realized what
a gain his literary production might have in adopting a plan and
building up a social history of his epoch. And, in fact, this
conception did stimulate his activity for some time, serving too, as
long as it was uncrystallized, to concentrate his visions upon
objective realities.

Needing, between 1834 and 1837, a more comprehensive title for the
rapidly increasing list of his works, he called them _Studies of
Manners and Morals in the Nineteenth Century_, subdividing them into
_Scenes of Private Life_, _Scenes of Parisian Life_, and _Scenes of
Provincial Life_. However, some things he had written were classible
conveniently neither under the specific names nor under the generic
one. These outsiders he called _Tales and Philosophic Novels_,
subsequently shortening the title, between 1835 and 1840, to
_Phil