But the most distressing complication was the condition of Balzac’s health, which was growing worse.  He complained of the frightful Asiatic climate, with its excessive heat and cold; he had a perpetual headache, and his heart trouble had increased until he could not mount the stairs.  But he had implicit faith in his physician, and with his usual hopefulness felt that he would soon be cured, congratulating himself on having two such excellent physicians as Dr. Knothe and his son.  His surroundings were ideal, and each of the household had for him an attachment tender, filial and sincere.  It was necessary to his welfare that his life should be without vexation, and he asked his sister to entreat their mother to avoid anything which might cause him pain.

On his part, he tried to spare his mother also from unpleasant news, and desired his sister to assist him in concealing from her the real facts.  He had had another terrible crisis in which he had been ill for more than a month with cephalalgic fever, and he had grown very thin.

Though several of Balzac’s biographers have criticized Madame Hanska most bitterly for holding Balzac in Russia, and some have even gone so far as to censure her for his early death, it will be remembered that his health had long begun to fail, and that no constitution could long endure the severe strain he had given his.  No climate could help his worn-out body to a sufficient degree.  Balzac himself praised the conduct of the entire Hanski family.  The following is only one of his numerous testimonies to their devotion.

“Alas!  I have no good news to send.  In all that regards the affection, the tenderness of all, the desire to root out the evil weeds which encumber the path of my life, mother and children are sublime; but the chief thing of all is still subject to entanglements and delays, which make me doubt whether it is God’s will that your brother should ever be happy, at least in that way; but as regards sincere mutual love, delicacy and goodness, it would be impossible to find another family like this.  We live together as if there were only one heart amongst the four; this is repetition, but it cannot be helped, it is the only definition of the life I lead here.”

The situation of the author of the Comedie humaine was at this time most pitiable.  Broken in health and living in a climate to which his constitution refused to be acclimated,[*] weighed down by a load of debt which he was unable to liquidate in his state of health (his work having amounted to very little during his stay in Russia), consumed with a burning passion for the woman who had become the overpowering figure in the latter half of his literary career, possessing a pride that was making him sacrifice his very life rather than give up his long-sought treasure, the diamond of Poland, his very soul became so imbued with this devouring passion that the pour moujik was scarcely master of himself.