already within reach of his hand. Then he would shut himself into his
room, breaking off all ties with the social world, or else would flee
into the provinces, far from the dizzy whirl of Paris.

Thus it happened that he made several sojourns at Sache in 1831, and
that he set out for it once again in 1832, determined upon a lengthy
absence. Mme. de Castries had left Paris and had asked him to join her
at the waters of Aix in September; but, before he could permit himself
to take this trip, he must needs have the sort of asylum for work that
awaited him in Touraine.

M. de Margonne, his host, welcomed him like a son each time that he
arrived. He had entire liberty to live at the chateau precisely as he
chose. He was not required to be present at meals, nor to conform to
any of the social conventions which might have interfered with the most
profitable employment of his time. If, in the absorption of working out
the scheme of the task which he had in progress, he was sometimes
irritable and sullen, no one took offence at his attitude. When he had
not yet reached the stage of the actual writing, and was merely
composing his drama within his powerful imagination, he arose early in
the morning and set off upon long walks across country, sometimes
solitary and silent, sometimes getting into conversation with the
people he met and asking them all sorts of questions. He had no other
source of amusement, for he did not care for hunting, and, as to
fishing, he made no success of it, for he forgot to pull in the fish
after they had taken the hook!

"The only games that interested him were those that demanded
brain-work," writes a relative to M. de Margonne, M. Salmon de
Maison-Rouge, in a vivid account of Balzac's visits to Sache. "My