been fatal to me. Not even your penetrating
intelligence can comprehend this, as you know nothing of Parisian
economy nor the difficulties in the life of a man who is trying to
live on six thousand francs a year."

Thus was his time wasted; and when he dared express gently and
lovingly the feelings which were overpowering him, his beautiful
_Chatelaine_ was offended, and rebuked him for his impatience.
Desperate and almost frantic, he writes her:

"Dresden and you dizzy me; I do not know what is to be done. There
is nothing more fatal than the indecision in which you have kept
me for three months. If I had departed the first of January to
return February 28, I should be more advanced (in work) and I
would have had two good months at St. Petersburg. Dear sovereign
star, how do you expect me to be able to conceive two ideas, to
write two sentences, with my heart and head agitated as they have
been since last November; it is enough to drive a man mad! I have
drenched myself with coffee to no avail, I have only increased the
nervous trouble of my eyes; . . . I am between two despairs, that
of not seeing you, of not having seen you, and the financial and
literary chagrin, the chagrin of self-respect. Oh! Charles II was
right in saying: 'But She? . . .' in all matters which his
ministers submitted to him."

On receipt of a letter from her April 18, 1845, saying, "I desire much
to see you," he rushed off at once to Dresden, forgetful of all else.
In July, Madame Hanska and her daughter accompanied him home,
traveling incognito as Balzac's sister and his niece, just as he had
planned. Anna is said to have taken the name of Eugenie, perhaps in
remembrance of Balzac's heroine, Eugenie Grandet. After stopping at
various places on the way, they spent a few weeks at Paris. Balzac had
prepared a little house in Passy near him for his friends, and he took
much pleasure in showing them his treasures and Paris. Their identity
was not discovered, and in August he accompanied them as far as
Brussels on their return to Dresden. There they met Count George
Mniszech, the fiance of Anna, who had been with them most of the time.

Balzac could scarcely control his grief at parting, but he was not
separated from his _Predilecta_ long. The following month he spent
several days with her at Baden-Baden, saying of his visit:

"Baden has been for me a bouquet of sweet flowers without a thorn.
We lived there s