He seems to look for it most readily, not in the nature
of the men and women whose action makes the story, or not there to
begin with, but in their streets and houses and rooms. He cannot think
of his people without the homes they inhabit; with Balzac to imagine a
human being is to imagine a province, a city, a corner of the city, a
building at a turn of the street, certain furnished rooms, and finally
the man or woman who lives in them. He cannot be satisfied that the
tenor of this creature's existence is at all understood without a
minute knowledge of the things and objects that surround it. So strong
is his conviction upon this point that it gives a special savour to
the many pages in which he describes how the doorway is approached,
how the passage leads to the staircase, how the parlour-chairs are
placed, in the house which is to be the scene of his drama. These
descriptions are clear and business-like; they are offered as an
essential preliminary to the story, a matter that must obviously be
dealt with, once for all, before the story can proceed. And he
communicates his certainty to the reader, he imposes his belief in
the need for precision and fullness; Balzac is so sure that every
detail _must_ be known, down to the vases on the mantelpiece or the
pots and pans in the cupboard, that his reader cannot begin to
question it. Everything is made to appear as important as the author
feels it to be.
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