A Writer’s Life Readings Week 1: Balzac by Stefan Zweig
Curated and narrated by Beena Kamlani
April 23rd, 2020. World Book Day.
Hello. We are all in a state of enforced isolation these days. A virus has held us captive. We burrow uneasily in our homes, wondering when this will all be over, if it will be over. Isolation is a little-known state and to most people, it is terrifying. To a writer, though, it is both refuge and wellspring, for without it, we could not put pen to paper, we could not think, we could not chafe or go down on bended knee in supplication or gratitude. We could survive, perhaps, without it, but I think it’s safe to say that we only truly live when we are within it.
I’ve picked some passages penned by writers on other writers, passages that share with the world what a writer’s life is really like, how dependent we are on solitude for our survival. Every week, on Sunday evenings, I will send out a new offering. This first week’s passage is by Stefan Zweig on Balzac’s working day. It’s been shortened here and there to fit the five-minute time limit I’ve imposed on the reading. Thank you for listening.
•
Eight o’clock in the evening. The citizens of Paris have long since finished their day’s work and left their offices shops or factories. After having dined either with their families, or their friends, or alone, they were beginning to pour out into the streets in search of pleasure….Balzac alone was asleep in his darkened room, dead to the world after sixteen or seventeen hours spent at his desk. Nine o’clock. In the theaters the curtain had already gone up, the ballrooms were crowded with whirling couples, the gambling houses echoed to the chink of gold, in the side streets furtive lovers pressed deeper into the shadows—but Balzac slept on.
Midnight. Paris was silent. Millions of eyes had closed. Most of the lights had gone out. Now that the others were resting it was time for Balzac to work. Now that the others were dreaming, it was time for him to wake. Now that the day was ended for the rest of Paris, his day was about to begin.
The material objects around him faded into the shadows. Only the creatures of his own mind were to speak and act and live. He was creating a world of his own, a world that was to endure.
Balzac sat down at the table where, as he said, “I cast my life into the crucible as the alchemist casts his gold.” It was a small, unpretentious, rectangular table which he loved more than the most valuable of his possessions. It meant more to him than his stick that was studded with turquoises, more than the silver plate that he had purchased piece by piece, more than his sumptuously bound books, more than the celebrity he had already won, for he had carried it with him from one lodging to another, salvaged it from bankruptcies and catastrophes, rescued it like a soldier dragging a helpless comrade from the turmoil of battle. It was the sole confidant of his keenest pleasure and his bitterest grief, the sole silent witness of his real life: “It has seen all my wretchedness, knows all my plans, has overheard my thoughts. My arm almost committed violent assault upon it as my pen raced along the sheets.” No human being knew so much about him, and with no woman did he share so many nights of ardent companionship. It was at this table that Balzac lived—and worked himself to death. …The paper had been carefully chosen and the sheets were of a special size and shape, of a slightly bluish tinge so as not to dazzle or tire the eyes and with a particularly smooth surface over which his quill could skim without resistance. His pens had been prepared with equal care. He would use no other than ravens’ quills. Next to the inkwell—not the expensive one of malachite that had been a gift from some admirers, but the simple one that had accompanied him in his student days—stood a bottle or two of ink in reserve.
Balzac wrote and wrote, without pause and without hesitation. Once the flame of his imagination was kindled it continued to glow. The more he wrote the more he abbreviated the words so as not to have to think more slowly. He could not allow any interruption of his inner vision, and he did not raise his pen from the paper until either an attack of cramp compelled his fingers to loosen their hold or the writing swam before his eyes and he was dizzy with fatigue. The streets were silent and the only sound in the room was the soft swish of the quill as it passed smoothly over the surface of the paper or from time to time the rustle of a sheet as it was added to the written pile. Outside the day was beginning to dawn, but Balzac did not see it. His day was the small circle of light cast by the candles, and he was aware of neither space nor time, but only of the world that he was himself fashioning.
•
Thanks very much for listening. Until next week.
This passage was taken from Balzac by Stefan Zweig, published by The Viking Press in 1946.