trocious
Lecou and Delloye seventy thousand francs in a year. The Peytel
affair cost me ten thousand francs, and people said I was paid
fifty thousand! That affair and my fall, which kept me as you
know, forty days in bed, retarded my business by more than thirty
thousand francs. Oh! I do not like your want of confidence! You
think that I have a great mind, but you will not admit that I have
a great heart! After nearly eight years, you do not know me! My
God, forgive her, for she knows not what she does!"

The novelist wrote his _Predilecta_ of his ideas of marriage, and how
he longed to marry, but he became despondent about this as well as
about his debts; he felt that he was growing old, and would not live
long. His comfort while working was a picture of Wierzchownia which
she had sent him, but in addition to all of his other troubles he was
annoyed because some of her relatives who were in Paris carried false
information to her concerning him.

Not having heard from her for six months, he resorted to his frequent
method of allaying his anxiety by consulting a clairvoyant to learn if
she were ill. He was told that within six weeks he would receive a
letter that would change his entire life. Almost four more months
passed, however, without his hearing from her and he feared that she
was not receiving his letters, or that hers had gone astray, as he no
longer had a home.

For once, the sorcerer had predicted somewhat correctly! Not within
six weeks, to be sure, but within six months, the letter came that was
to change Balzac's entire life. On January 5, 1842, a letter arrived
from Madame Hanska, telling of the death of M. de Hanski which had
occurred on November 10, 1841.

His reply is one of the most beautiful of his letters to her:

"I have this instant received, dear angel, your letter sealed with
black, and, after having read it, I could not perhaps have wished
to receive any other from you, in spite of the sad things you tell
me about yourself and your health. As for me, dear, adored one,
although this event enables me to attain to that which I have
ardently desired for nearly ten years, I can, before you and God,
do myself this justice, that I have never had in my heart anything
but complete submission, and that I have not, in my most cruel
moments, stained my soul with evil wishes. No one can prevent
involuntary transports. Often I have said to myself, 'How light my
lif