He saves his climax, in other words, from the
burden of deliberate expatiation, which at first sight it would seem
bound to incur; he leaves nothing for it to accomplish but just the
necessary touch, the movement that declares and fulfils the intention
of the book.
There is the same power at work upon material even more baffling,
apparently, in La Recherche de l'Absolu. The subject of that perfect
tale is of course the growth of a fixed idea, and Balzac was faced
with the task of showing the slow aggravation of a man's ruin through
a series of outbreaks, differing in no way one from another, save in
their increasing violence. Claes, the excellent and prosperous young
burgher of Douai, pillar of the old civic stateliness of Flanders, is
dragged and dragged into his calamitous experiments by the bare
failure (as he is persuaded) of each one in turn; each time his
researches are on the verge of yielding him the "absolute," the
philosopher's stone, and each time the prospect is more shining than
before; success, wealth enough to restore his deepening losses a
thousand times over, is assured by one more attempt, the money to make
it must be found. And so all other interest in life is forgotten, his
pride and repute are sacrificed, the splendid house is gradually
stripped of its treasures, his family are thrust into poverty; and he
himself dies degraded, insane, with success--surely, surely success,
this time--actually in his grasp.
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