Since the year 1830 Balzac had lodged in the Rue Cassini, a little, unfrequented street near the Observatory, with a wall running along one side, on which was written "L'Absolu, marchand de briques," a name which Theophile Gautier fancies may have suggested to him the title of his novel "La Recherche de l'Absolu." Borget, Balzac's great friend and confidant, had rooms in the same house; and later on, when Borget was on one of his frequent journeys, these rooms were occupied by Jules Sandeau, after his parting with George Sand. In despair at her desertion, he tried to commit suicide; and Balzac, touched with pity at his forlorn condition, proposed that he should come to Borget's rooms, and took complete and kindly charge of him--a generosity which Sandeau, after having lived at Balzac's expense for two years, repaid in 1836, by deserting his benefactor when he was in difficulties. Balzac was now in the full swing of work. He writes to the Duchesse d'Abrantes in 1831:[*] "Write, I cannot! The fatigue is too great. You do not know that I owed in 1828, above what I possessed. I had only my pen with which to earn my living, and to pay a hundred and twenty thousand francs. In several months I shall have paid everything, and I shall have arranged my poor little household; but for six months I have all the troubles of poverty, I enjoy my last miseries. I have begged from nobody, I have not held out my hand for a penny; I have hidden my sorrows, and my wounds." [*] "Correspondance," vol. i. p. 131. Poor Balzac! over and over again we hear the same story about the beautiful time in the future, which he saw coming nearer and nearer, but which always evaded his grasp at the last. Very often, when he appears grasping and dictatorial in his business dealings, we may trace his want of urbanity to some pressing pecuniary anxiety, which he was too proud to reveal. No doubt these difficulties often sprang from his extraordinary want of reflection and prudence, as his desire to make a dashing appearance before the world led him frequently into the most senseless extravagance. For instance, when he went out of Paris in June, 1832, intending to travel for several months, he left behind him two horses with nothing to do, but naturally requiring a groom, food, and stabling; and it was not till the end of July that, on his mother's recommendation, he sent orders that they were to be sold. His money affairs are so complicated, and his own accounts of them so conflicting, that it is impossible to understand them thoroughly. Apparently, however, from 1827 to 1836 he could not support himself and satisfy his creditors without drawing bills. These he often could not meet, and had to renew; and the accumulated interest on these obligations formed a floating debt, which was from time to time increased by some new extravagance.