ake it
tell everything; and the simple explanation is that he, more than
anyone else, _knows_ everything. The place exists in his thought; it
is not to him the mere sensation of a place, with cloudy corners,
uncertain recesses, which only grow definite as he touches and probes
them with his phrases. A writer of a different sort, an impressionist
who is aware of the effect of a scene rather than of the scene
itself, proceeds inevitably after another fashion; if he attempted
Balzac's method he would have to feel his way tentatively, adding fact
to fact, and his account would consist of that mechanical sum of
details which makes no image. Balzac is so thoroughly possessed of his
image that he can reproduce it inch by inch, fact by fact, without
losing the effect of it as a whole; he can start from the edge of his
scene, from a street of old houses, from the doorstep of one old
house, and leave a perfectly firm and telling impression behind him as
he proceeds. When his description is finished and the last detail in
its place, the home of the Grandets is securely built for the needs of
the story, possessing all the significance that Balzac demands of it.

It will presently be seen that he demands a great deal. I said that
his drama has always the benefit of a reserve of force, stored up for
it beforehand in the general picture; and though in this picture is
included the fortunes and characters of the men and women, of the
Grandets and their neighbours, a large part of it is the material
scene, the very walls that are to witness the coming events. The
figure of Grandet, the old miser, is indeed called up and accounted
for abundantly, in all the conditions of his past; but the house too,
within and without, is laid under strict contribution, is used to the
full in the story. It is a presence and an influence that counts
throughout--and counts particularly in a matter that is essential to
the book's effect, a matter that could scarcely be provided for in
any other way, as it happens. Of this I shall speak in a moment; but
at once it is noticeable how the Maison Grandet, like the Maison
Vauquer, helps the book on its way. It incarnates all the past of its
old owner, and visibly links it to the action when the story opens.
The elaborate summary of Grandet's early life, the scrupulously exact
account of the building of his prosperity, is brought to an issue in
the image of the "cold, dreary and silent house at the upper end of
th