Carraud, but with no better success.
The Country Doctor proved a source of nothing but disappointments to
Balzac, who received an adverse decision from the courts, in the
lawsuit bought by Mame, because he had failed to furnish copy at the
stipulated dates, and found himself facing a judgment of three thousand
francs damages, besides another thousand francs for corrections made at
his expense. The cost of the latter was, for that matter, always
charged to him by his publishers in all his contracts, because his
method of work raised this item to an unreasonable sum. For one of his
short stories, Pierette, Balzac demanded no less than seventeen
successive revised proofs. And his corrections, his additions and his
suppressions formed such an inextricable tangle that the typesetters
refused to work more than an hour at a time over his copy.
The failure of the work on which he had counted so much and the loss of
his lawsuit did not discourage him. To borrow his own phrase, he
"buried himself in the most frightful labours.
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