The Alkahest | Page 3

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Etext prepared by John Bickers, [email protected] and
Dagny, [email protected]

THE ALKAHEST BY HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To Madame Josephine Delannoy nee Doumerc.
Madame, may God grant that this, my book, may live longer than I, for
then the gratitude which I owe to you, and which I hope will equal your
almost maternal kindness to me, would last beyond the limits
prescribed for human affection. This sublime privilege of prolonging
life in our hearts for a time by the life of the work we leave behind us

would be (if we could only be sure of gaining it at last) a reward indeed
for all the labor undertaken by those who aspire to such an immortality.
Yet again I say--May God grant it!
DE BALZAC.

THE ALKAHEST (THE HOUSE OF CLAES)


CHAPTER I
There is a house at Douai in the rue de Paris, whose aspect, interior
arrangements, and details have preserved, to a greater degree than those
of other domiciles, the characteristics of the old Flemish buildings, so
naively adapted to the patriarchal manners and customs of that
excellent land. Before describing this house it may be well, in the
interest of other writers, to explain the necessity for such didactic
preliminaries,--since they have roused a protest from certain ignorant
and voracious readers who want emotions without undergoing the
generating process, the flower without the seed, the child without
gestation. Is Art supposed to have higher powers than Nature?
The events of human existence, whether public or private, are so
closely allied to architecture that the majority of observers can
reconstruct nations and individuals, in their habits and ways of life,
from the remains of public monuments or the relics of a home.
Archaeology is to social nature what comparative anatomy is to
organized nature. A mosaic tells the tale of a society, as the skeleton of
an ichthyosaurus opens up a creative epoch. All things are linked
together, and all are therefore deducible. Causes suggest effects, effects
lead back to causes. Science resuscitates even the warts of the past
ages.
Hence the keen interest inspired by an architectural description,
provided the imagination of the writer does not distort essential facts.
The mind is enabled by rigid deduction to link it with the past; and to
man, the past is singularly like the future; tell him what has been, and

you seldom fail to show him what will be. It is rare indeed that the
picture of a locality where lives are lived does not recall to some their
dawning hopes, to others their wasted faith. The comparison between a
present which disappoints man's secret wishes and a future which may
realize them, is an inexhaustible source of sadness or of placid content.
Thus, it is almost impossible not to feel a certain tender sensibility over
a picture of Flemish life, if the accessories are clearly given. Why so?
Perhaps, among other forms of existence, it offers the best conclusion
to man's uncertainties. It has its social festivities, its family ties, and the
easy affluence which proves the stability of its comfortable well-being;
it does not lack repose amounting almost to beatitude; but, above all, it
expresses the calm monotony of a frankly sensuous happiness, where
enjoyment stifles desire by anticipating it. Whatever value a passionate
soul may attach to the tumultuous life of feeling, it never sees without
emotion the symbols of this Flemish nature, where the throbbings of
the heart are so well regulated that superficial minds deny the heart's
existence. The crowd prefers the abnormal force which overflows to
that which moves with steady persistence. The world has neither time
nor patience to realize the immense power concealed beneath an
appearance of uniformity. Therefore, to impress this multitude carried
away on the current of existence, passion, like a great artist, is
compelled to go beyond the mark, to exaggerate, as did Michael
Angelo, Bianca Capello, Mademoiselle de la Valliere,