“No matter,” he said; “he merited a better fate. If I seem annoyed, it is not that I am lacking in respect for tailors in general, but because his calling reminds me of certain debts and a few protested notes.”
A day or two later the “Revue Parisienne” appeared, and with it the story of Z. Marcas, now forming part of the “Scènes de la Vie Politique” and containing the following monograph:—
“A certain harmony existed between the man and the name. This Z. with which Marcas was preceded, which was to be seen on the address of his letters, and with which he always completed his signature,—this last letter of the alphabet presented to the imagination a something which was indescribably fatal.
“Marcas! Repeat over to yourself this name, composed of two syllables: does it not seem to contain a sinister significance? does it not seem as though its owner were born to be martyred.
“Though weird and wild, this name has nevertheless the right to descend to posterity: it is well composed, it is easily pronounced, and possesses the brevity required of famous names. Is it not as soft as it is bizarre? but does it not also seem unfinished?
“I would not dare to affirm that destiny is uninfluenced by a name, for between the deeds of men and their names there are inexplicable affinities and visible discords which at once astonish and surprise. But this subject will some day assuredly form part of the occult sciences.
“Does not the Z. present a thwarted and contradicted appearance? does it not represent the contingent and fantastic zigzags of a tormented life? What ill wind can have blown on this letter that in every language to which it is admitted commands barely fifty words! Marcas’ Christian name was Zépherin. Saint Zépherin is highly venerated in Brittany. Marcas was a Breton.
“Examine the name again. Z. Marcas! The entire existence of the man is contained in the fantastic assemblage of these seven letters. Seven!—the most significant of the cabalistic numbers. Marcas died at the age of thirty-five; his life therefore was composed of but seven lustres. Marcas! Does not the sound bring to you the idea of something precious, broken in a noiseless fall?”
The fatality which Balzac conceived as attaching to Marcas was by no means limited to this imaginary creation. It followed him into real life, and was at one time a source of such serious preoccupation that he stood one evening for two hours in the square of the Château d’Eau confidently awaiting some fortunate occurrence, and like Gautier in “Mademoiselle de Maupin” he awoke on certain days in a state of great agitation, trembling at every noise, and convinced that the happiness of his life was somehow at stake.
These extraordinary sensations naturally led to a belief in the supernatural; and as his mother, who was also interested in the abnormal, was acquainted with all the celebrated mesmerists and mediums of the day, he was readily furnished with opportunities of experimenting in magnetism and clairvoyance. His charming story of “Ursule Mirouët” unquestionably proves that he subsequently became a firm believer in that occult electricity which is variously known as the Theopœa of the ancients, the Akâsa of the modern Hindu, and the psychic force of Sergeant Cox; while his account of the soul-projection of “Séraphita” is vivid enough to satisfy the most exacting hierophant, and would have passed him, initiate, into the brotherhood of the Theosophists.