se; and for
twenty-five hours the doctor never left him. After this he was better
for a time, and though his eyesight had become so weak that he was
unable to read at night, he could walk, go upstairs, and lie flat in
bed. In October he was seized with what he called Moldavian fever, a
disease which came, he said, from the swamps of the Danube, and
ravaged the Odessa district and the steppes; and again he became
dangerously ill. In January, 1850, the fever was followed by a
terrible cold in his lungs, and he was obliged to remain for ten days
in bed. However, he was cheered by the society of Madame Hanska and
Madame Georges Mniszech, who showed "adorable goodness" in keeping him
company during his imprisonment.

After hearing all this, it is startling to read in a letter from
Madame Honore de Balzac to her daughter written from Frankfort on May
16th, 1850,[*] that it is awkward that she should know nothing of the
regimen to which Balzac has been subjected by Dr. Knothe; because when
they arrive in Paris, his own doctor is certain to ask for
particulars! The most indifferent hostess could not fail, one would
think, to interest herself sufficiently about the welfare of the
solitary and expatriated guest under her roof, to consult with the
doctor about him when he was dangerously ill. More especially would
she feel responsibility, when it was owing to her own action that the
patient was cut off from all other advice, except that of a medical
man who was her peculiar _protege_. He would thus be completely in her
charge; and she would naturally be nervously anxious, for her own
comfort and satisfaction, to acquaint herself with the course of the
malady, and with the treatment used to subdue it. If we add to these
considerations the fact that the sufferer was not a mere acquaintance,
was not even only a great friend; but was the man who loved her, the
man whose wife she had promised to become, Madame Hanska's ignorance
appears totally inexplicable.

[*] Unpublished letter in the possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch
de Lovenjoul.

We must remember, however, that we only have _Balzac's_ account of his
illness, and of his interviews with the doctor; and that the malady
being heart disease, it is possible that Dr. Knothe considered it his
duty to deceive his patient--possible therefore that Madame Hanska
knew before her marriage that Balzac was a dying man, and that the
doctor's prescriptions were useless.

Owing to