illness and the
uncertainty of his marriage, and to entreat her to avoid anything in
her letters which might cause him pain. Feeling that she would never
have allowed such a thing had she known of it, he informed her in
detail concerning their mother's letter which had caused him endless
trouble.

While Madame Surville was a great stimulus to Balzac early in his
literary career, she in turn received the deepest sympathy from him in
her financial struggle, and, while he was so happy and was living in
such luxury in Russia, he only regretted that he could not assist her,
for he had enjoyed hospitality in her home.

Madame Surville had at least one of her mother's traits--that of
continually harassing Balzac by trying to marry him to some rich
woman; once she had even chosen for him the goddaughter of
Louis-Philippe. But the most serious breach of relations between the
two resulted from her failure to approve of Balzac's adoration of
Madame Hanska. While admitting the extreme beauty of the celebrated
Daffinger portrait, she was jealous of his _Predilecta_. When she saw
the bound proofs of _La Femme superieure_ which he had intended for
Madame Hanska, she felt that she was being neglected. In the end, he
robbed his _Chatelaine_ to the profit of his _cara sorella_. But when
she became impatient at Balzac's prolonged stay at Wierzchownia, he
resented it, explaining that marriage is like cream--a change of
atmosphere would spoil it,--that bad marriages could be made with the
utmost ease, but good ones required infinite precautions and
scrupulous attention. He tried to make her see the advantage of this
marriage, writing her:

"Consider, dear Laura, none of us are as yet, so to speak,
_arrived_; if, instead of being obliged to work in order to live,
I had become the husband of one of the cleverest, the best-born,
and best-connected of women, who is also possessed of a solid
though circumscribed fortune, in spite of the wish of the lady to
live retired, to have no intercourse even with the family, I
should still be in a position to be much better able to be of use
to you all. I have the certainty of the warm kindness and lively
interest which Madame Hanska takes in the dear children. Thus it
is more than a duty in my mother, and all belonging to me, to do
nothing to hinder me from the happy accomplishment of a union
which _before all is my happiness_. Again, it must not be
forgotten that this lady i