monsieur; its philosophical concepts appear to be the fruit of long study matured by time; yet I am told you are still young. I would like to know you, but feel I have no need to do so. I know you through my own spiritual instinct; I picture you in my own way, and feel that if I were to actually set eyes upon you, I should instantly exclaim, 'That is he!'" Eventually she revealed herself to him, and they began a correspondence that lasted for fifteen years. Although she remained faithful to her husband Wacław, Mme. Hańska and Balzac enjoyed an emotional intimacy through their letters. When the baron died in 1841, the French author began to pursue the relationship outside the written page. They wed in the town of Berdychiv on 14 March 1850, five months before he died. Recurring characters Because it was among the first novels he released under his own name, Balzac did not use characters in La Peau de chagrin from previous works. He did, however, introduce several individuals who resurfaced in later stories. Most significant of these is Eugène de Rastignac, the older gentleman who tutors Valentin in the vicious ways of high society. Thirty pages into the writing of his 1834 novel Le Père Goriot, Balzac suddenly crossed out the name he had been using for a character – Massiac – and used Rastignac instead. The relationship between teacher and student in La Peau de chagrin is mirrored in Le Père Goriot, when the young Rastignac is guided in the ways of social realpolitik by the incognito criminal Vautrin. Balzac used the character Foedora in three other stories, but eventually wrote her out of them after deciding on other models for social femininity. In later editions of La Peau de chagrin, he changed the text to name one of the bankers "Taillefer", whom he had introduced in L'Auberge rouge (1831). He also used the name Horace Bianchon for one of the doctors, thus connecting the book to the famous physician who appears in thirty-one stories in La Comédie humaine. So vividly had the doctor been rendered that Balzac himself called out for Bianchon while lying on his deathbed. The use of recurring characters lends Balzac's work a cohesion and atmosphere unlike any other series of novels. It enables a depth of characterization that goes beyond simple narration or dialogue. "When the characters