After spending the summer and autumn at her home, Madame Hanska went to Dresden for the winter.  As early as August, Balzac sought permission to visit her there, making his request in time to arrange his work in advance and secure the money for the journey, in case she consented.  While in St. Petersburg, she had given him money to buy some gift for Anna, so he planned to take both of them many beautiful things, and une cave de parfums as a gift de nez a nez.  If she would not consent to his coming to Dresden, he would come to Berlin, Leipsic, Frankfort, Aix-la-Chapelle, or anywhere else.  He became impatient to know his fate, and her letters were so irregular that he exclaimed:  “In heaven’s name, write me regularly three times a month!”

Poor Balzac’s dream was to be on the way to Dresden, but this was not to be realized.  It will be remembered, that Madame Hanska’s family did not approve of Balzac nor did they appreciate his literary worth, they felt that the marriage would be a decided mesalliance, and exerted their influence against him.  Discouraged by them and her friends, she forbade his coming.  While her family called him a scribe exotique, Balzac indirectly told her of the appreciation of other women, saying that Madame de Girardin considered him to be one of the most charming conversationalists of the day.

This uncertainty as to his going to visit his “Polar Star” affected him to such a degree that he could not concentrate his mind on his work, and he became impatient to the point of scolding her: 

“But, dear Countess, you have made me lose all the month of January and the first fifteen days of February by saying to me:  ’I start —­to-morrow—­next week,’ and by making me wait for letters; in short, by throwing me into rages which I alone know!  This has brought a frightful disorder into my affairs, for instead of getting my liberty February 15, I have before me a month of herculean labor, and on my brain I must inscribe this which will be contradicted by my heart:  ’Think no longer of your star, nor of Dresden, nor of travel; stay at your chain and work miserably! . . .  Dear Countess, I decidedly advise you to leave Dresden at once.  There are princesses in that town who infect and poison your heart, and were it not for Les Paysans, I should have started at once to prove to that venerable invalid of Cythera how men of my stamp love; men who have not received, like her prince, a Russian pumpkin in place of a French heart from the hands of hyperborean nature. . . .  Tell your dear Princess that I have known you since 1833, and that in 1845 I am ready to go from Paris to Dresden to see you for a day; and it is not impossible for me to make this trip; . . .”

In the meantime she had not only forbidden his coming to visit her, but had even asked him not to write to her again at Dresden, to which he replies: