e would be with _her_!' No one can keep his faith, his heart,
his inner being without hope. . . . But I understand the regrets
which you express to me; they seem to me natural and true,
especially after the protection which has never failed you since
that letter at Vienna. I am, however, joyful to know that I can
write to you with open heart to tell you all those things on which
I have kept silence, and disperse the melancholy complaints you
have founded on misconceptions, so difficult to explain at a
distance. I know you too well, or I think I know you too well, to
doubt you for one moment; and I have often suffered, very cruelly
suffered, that you have doubted me, because, since Neufchatel, you
are my life. Let me say this to you plainly, after having so often
proved it to you. The miseries of my struggle and of my terrible
work would have tired out the greatest and strongest men; and
often my sister has desired to put an end to them, God knows how;
I always thought the remedy worse than the disease! It is you
alone who have supported me till now, . . . You said to me, 'Be
patient, you are loved as much as you love. Do not change, for
others change not.' We have both been courageous; why, therefore,
should you not be happy to-day? Do you think it was for myself
that I have been so persistent in magnifying my name? Oh! I am
perhaps very unjust, but this injustice comes from the violence of
my heart! I would have liked two words for myself in your letter,
but I sought them in vain; two words for him who, since the
landscape in which you live has been before his eyes, has not
passed, while working, ten minutes without looking at it; I have
there sought all, ever since it came to me, that we have asked in
the silence of our spirits."

He was concerned about her health and wished to depart at once, but
feared to go without her permission. She was anxious about her
letters, but he assured her that they were safe, and begged her to
inform him when he could visit her; for six years he had been longing
to see her. "Adieu, my dear and beautiful life that I love so well,
and to whom I can now say it. _Sempre medisimo_."

The role played by M. de Hanski[*] in this friendship was a peculiar
one. The correspondence, as has been seen, began in secrecy, but
Balzac met him when he went to Neufchatel to see Madame Hanska. Their
relations were apparently cordial, for on his return