American critic has contrasted her
attitude with his:

Every one knows how utterly and absolutely Balzac devoted to this one
woman all his genius, his aspiration, the thought of his every moment;
how every day, after he had labored like a slave for eighteen hours, he
would take his pen and pour out to her the most intimate details of his
daily life; how at her call he would leave everything and rush across
the continent to Poland or to Italy, being radiantly happy if he could
but see her face and be for a few days by her side. The very thought of
meeting her thrilled him to the very depths of his nature, and made
him, for weeks and even months beforehand, restless, uneasy, and
agitated, with an almost painful happiness.

It is the most startling proof of his immense vitality, both physical
and mental, that so tremendous an emotional strain could be endured by
him for years without exhausting his fecundity or blighting his
creativeness.

With Balzac, however, it was the period of his most brilliant work; and
this was true in spite of the anguish of long separations, and the
complaints excited by what appears to be caprice or boldness or a faint
indifference. Even in Balzac one notices toward the last a certain
sense of strain underlying what he wrote, a certain lack of elasticity
and facility, if of nothing more; yet on the whole it is likely that
without this friendship Balzac would have been less great than he
actually became, as it is certain that had it been broken off he would
have ceased to write or to care for anything whatever in the world.

And yet, when they were free to marry, Mme. Hanska shrank away. Not
until 1846, four years after her husband's death, did she finally give
her promise to the eager Balzac. Then, in the overflow of his
happiness, his creative genius blazed up into a most wonderful flame;
but he soon discovered that the promise was not to be at once
fulfilled. The shock impaired that marvelous vitality which had carried
him through debt, and want, and endless labor.

It was at this moment, by the irony of fate, that his country hailed
him as one of the greatest of its men of genius. A golden stream poured
into his lap. His debts were not all extinguished, but his income was
so large that they burdened him no longer.

But his one long dream was the only thing for which he cared; and
though in an exoteric sense this dream came true, its truth was but a
mockery. Evelina Hanska summoned him