ouse:
there is a confectioner, a tailor, and a shoemaker."[*] He was
established in a delicious suite of rooms, consisting of a
drawing-room, a study, and a bedroom. The study was in pink stucco,
with a fireplace in which straw was apparently burnt, magnificent
hangings, large windows, and convenient furniture. In this Louvre of a
Wierzchownia there were, as Balzac remarks with pleasure, five or six
similar suites for guests. Everything was patriarchal. Nobody was
bored in this wonderful new life. It was fairy-like, the fulfilment of
Balzac's dreams of splendour, an approach of reality to the grandiose
blurred visions of his hours of creation. He who rejoiced in what was
huge, delighted in the fact that the Count Georges Mniszech had gone
to inspect an estate as big as the department of Seine-et-Marne, with
the object of dismissing a prevaricating bailiff. It gave him intense
satisfaction to record the wonders of this strange new life: to tell
those at home of the biting cold, which rendered his pelisse of
Siberian fox of no more protection than a sheet of blotting-paper; or
to mention casually that all the letters were carried by a Cossack
across sixty "verstes" of steppes.

[*] "Correspondance," vol. ii. p. 324.

The Russians were eager to show their admiration of the celebrated
French novelist, and Balzac experienced the truth of the adage, that a
prophet is not without honour save in his own country. On the journey
out the officials were charmingly polite to him, and when he went to
Kiev to pay his respects to the Governor-General, and to obtain
permission for a lengthy sojourn in Russia, he was overwhelmed with
attentions. A rich moujik had read all his books, burnt a candle for
him every week to St. Nicholas, and had promised a sum of money to the
servants of Madame Hanska's sister, if they could manage that he might
see the great man. This atmosphere of adoration was very pleasant to
one whose reward in France for the production of masterpieces, seemed
sometimes to consist solely in condemnation and obloquy. Balzac
enjoyed himself for the time, and rested from his literary labours,
except for working at the second part of "L'Envers de l'Histoire
Contemporaine," which is called "L'Initie," and writing the play which
he had promised Hostein as a substitute for "Pierre et Catherine."

His ever-active brain had now evolved a plan for transporting sixty
thousand oaks to France, from a territory on the Russian front