It is curious to notice that Balzac's thoughts now turned to those faithful friends of his youth, who had in late years passed rather into the background of his life. He wrote a long letter to Madame Delannoy, who had been a mother to him in the struggling days of his half-starved youth. He had paid off the debt he owed her, but he said he would never be able to thank her adequately for her tenderness and goodness to him. He thought also of Dablin, his early benefactor; and he remembered the old days at Frapesle, and wrote Madame Carraud a most affectionate letter, sending messages of remembrance to Borget and to the Commandant Carraud, and inquiring about his old acquaintance Periollas. The Carrauds, like others in those revolutionary days, had lost money; and Balzac explained that though owing to his illness he had been forbidden to write, he felt obliged to disobey his doctor's commands, that Madame Carraud should not believe that true friends can ever fail each other in trouble. He says: "I have never ceased thinking about you, loving you, talking of you, even here, where they have known Borget since 1833. . . . How different life is from the height of fifty years, and how far we are often from our hopes! . . . How many objects, how many illusions have been thrown overboard! and except for the affection which continues to grow, I have advanced in nothing!"[*] [*] "Correspondance," vol. ii. p. 422. The annals of this last year of Balzac's life, are a record of constantly disappointed hope and of physical suffering. One after another he was forced to give up his many plans, and to remain in suffering inaction. He had intended to go to Kiev to present himself to the Governor-General, but this expedition was put off from month to month owing to his ill health. A visit to Moscow on his way back to Paris, was another project which had to be abandoned, as he was never well enough to make his proposed visit to France till he took his last painful and difficult journey in April, 1850, and sight-seeing was then impossible. His hopefulness, however, never left him, and his projected enterprises, whether they took the shape of writings or of travels, were in his eyes only deferred, never definitely relinquished. The wearing uncertainty about Madame Hanska's intentions was the one condition of his life which continued always, if continuance can be considered applicable to anything so variable as that lady's moods. In April, 1849, Balzac wrote to his sister: "No one knows what the year 1847, and February, 1848, and above all the doubt as to what my fate will be, have cost me!"[*] [*] "Correspondance," vol. ii. p. 392.