"Alas! Madame de Berny is no better. The malady makes frightful
progress, and I cannot express to you how grand, noble and
touching this soul of my life has been in these days measured by
illness, and with what fervor she desires that another be to me
what she has been. She knows the inward spring and nobility that
the habit of carrying all things to an idol gives me. My God is on
earth."

Contrary to his family, Madame Carraud sympathized with Balzac in his
devotion to Madame de Berny, and invited them to be her guests. In
accepting he writes:

"Her life is so much bound up in mine! Ah, no one can form any true
idea of this deep attachment which sustains me in all my work, and
consoles me every moment in all I suffer. You can understand
something of this, you who know so well what friendship is, you
who are so affectionate, so good. . . . I thank you beforehand for
your offer of Frapesle to her. There, amid your flowers, and in
your gentle companionship, and the country life, if convalescence
is possible, and I venture to hope for it, she will regain life
and health."

He apparently did not receive such sympathy from Madame Hanska in
their early correspondence:

"Why be displeased about a woman fifty-eight years old, who is a
mother to me, who folds me in her heart and protects me from
stings? Do not be jealous of her; she would be so glad of our
happiness. She is an angel, sublime. There are angels of earth and