the skeleton of these individuals and of these families that is laid
bare for your contemplation in these notes of Messieurs Cerfberr and
Christophe. But this structure of facts, dependent one upon another by
a logic equal to that of life itself, is the smallest effort of
Balzac's genius. Does a birth-certificate, a marriage-contract or an
inventory of wealth represent a person? Certainly not. There is still
lacking, for a bone covering, the flesh, the blood, the muscles and
the nerves. A glance from Balzac, and all these tabulated facts become
imbued with life; to this circumstantial view of the conditions of
existence with certain beings is added as full a view of the beings
themselves.

And first of all he knows them physiologically. The inner workings of
their corporeal mechanism is no mystery for him. Whether it is
Birotteau's gout, or Mortsauf's nervousness, or Fraisier's skin
trouble, or the secret reason for Rouget's subjugation by Flore, or
Louis Lambert's catalepsy, he is as conversant with the case as though
he were a physician; and he is as well informed, also, as a confessor
concerning the spiritual mechanism which this animal machine supports.
The slightest frailties of conscience are perceptible to him. From the
portress Cibot to the Marquise d'Espard, not one of his women has an
evil thought that he does not fathom. With what art, comparable to
that of Stendhal, or Laclos, or the most subtle analysts, does he note
--in _The Secrets of a Princess_--the transition from comedy to
sincerity! He knows when a sentiment is simple and when it is complex,
when the heart is a dupe of the mind and when of the senses. And
through it all he hears his characters speak, he distinguishes their
voices, and we ourselves distinguish them in the dialogue. The
growling of Vautrin, the hissing of La Gamard, the melodious tones of
Madame de Mortsauf still linger in our ears. For such intensity of