ssion that the pour _moujik_ was scarcely
master of himself.

[*] Concerning the climate of Kieff, the Princess Radziwill says: "The
story that the climate of Kieff was harmful to Balzac is also a
legend. In that part of Russia, the climate is almost as mild as
is the Isle of Wight, and Balzac, when he was staying with Madame
Hanska, was nursed as he would never have been anywhere else,
because not only did she love him with her whole heart, but her
daughter and the latter's husband were also devoted to him."

His family were suffering various misfortunes, and these, together
with his deplorable condition, caused Madame Hanska to contemplate
giving up an alliance with a man whose family was so unfortunate and
whose social standing was so far beneath hers. She preferred to remain
in Russia where she was rich, and moved in a high aristocratic circle,
rather than to give up her property and assume the life of anxiety and
trials which awaited her as Madame Honore de Balzac.

At times he became most despondent; the long waiting was affecting him
seriously, and he hesitated urging a life so shattered as was his upon
the friend who, like a benignant star, had shone upon his path during
the past sixteen years.

"If I lose all I have hoped to gain here, I should no longer live;
a garret in the rue Lesdiguieres and a hundred francs a month
would suffice for all I want. My heart, my soul, my ambition, all
that is within me, desires nothing, except the one object I have
had in view for sixteen years. If this immense happiness escapes
me, I shall need nothing. I will have nothing. I care nothing for
la rue Fortunee for its own sake; la rue Fortunee has only been
created _for her_ and _by her_."

The novelist was cautious in his letters lest there should be gossip
about his secret engagement, and his possible approaching marriage.
Apropos of his marriage, he would say that it was postponed for
reasons which he could not give his family; Madame Hanska had met with
financial losses again through fires and crop failures. With his
continued illness, he had many things to trouble him.

But with all his trials, Balzac remained in many ways a child. After
the terrible Moldavian fever which had endangered his life, in the
fall of 1849 he took great pleasure in a dressing-gown of _termolana_
cloth. He had wanted one of these gowns since he first saw this cloth
at Geneva in 1834. Again he was ill,