At St. Petersburg, possibly during one of their walks on the quay, or on a cozy evening when the samovar was brought up at nine o'clock, and placed on the white table with yellowish lines--she had promised Balzac that he might meet her next year at Dresden. However, when she arrived there, and found herself in a circle of her own relations, who according to Balzac poisoned her mind against him, she not only objected to his presence, but, in her sudden fear of gossip, she forbade him to write to her again during her stay at Dresden. She sent off another letter almost at once, contradicting her last command; but she would not make up her mind whether Balzac might come to her at Dresden, whether she would consent to meet him at Frankfort, or whether he should prepare a house for her and Anna in Paris. Balzac could settle to nothing. In order to work as he understood the word, it was necessary that he should exclude all outside disturbing influence, and hear only the voices of the world where Le Pere Goriot, old Grandet, La Cousine Bette, and their fellows, toiled, manoeuvred, and suffered. How could he do this, how could he even arrange his business affairs, when a letter might come by any post, telling him to start at once and meet his beloved one? Precious time was wasted, never to be recalled; and when Balzac, raging with impatience and irritation, dared very gently, and with words of affection, to express the feelings which devoured him, the divinity was offended, and he received a rebuke for his impatience and tone of authority. In April, 1845, he writes: "Shall I manage to write two numbers of the 'Paysans' in twelve days? That is the problem, for I have not a single line written. Dresden and you, between you, turn my head; I do not know what will become of me. There is nothing more fatal than the state of indecision in which you have kept me for three months. If I had started on January 1st, and had returned on February 28th, I should have been more advanced in my work, and I should have had two good months, like the ones at St. Petersburg. Dear sovereign star, how do you expect me to conceive an idea or write a single phrase, with my heart and head agitated as they have been since last November? It has been enough to make a man mad! In vain I have stuffed myself with coffee: I have only succeeded in increasing the nervous trembling of my eyes, and I have written nothing; this is my situation to-day, April 10th; and I have _La Presse_ behind me, sending to me every day, and the 'Paysans,' which is my first long work. I am between two despairs, that of not seeing you, of not having seen you, and the literary and financial trouble, the trouble of self-respect. Oh, Charles II. was quite right to say: 'But she?' in all the affairs submitted to him by his ministers.