Madame Firmiani

Madame Firmiani

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Firmiani, by Honore de
Balzac This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: Madame Firmiani
Author: Honore de Balzac
Release Date: February 7, 2005 [EBook #1357]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADAME
FIRMIANI ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

MADAME FIRMIANI
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated By
Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To my dear Alexandre de Berny. His old friend,
De Balzac.

MADAME FIRMIANI
Many tales, either rich in situations or made dramatic by some of the
innumerable tricks of chance, carry with them their own particular
setting, which can be rendered artistically or simply by those who
narrate them, without their subjects losing any, even the least of their
charms. But there are some incidents in human experience to which the
heart alone is able to give life; there are certain details --shall we call
them anatomical?--the delicate touches of which cannot be made to
reappear unless by an equally delicate rendering of thought; there are
portraits which require the infusion of a soul, and mean nothing unless
the subtlest expression of the speaking countenance is given;
furthermore, there are things which we know not how to say or do
without the aid of secret harmonies which a day, an hour, a fortunate
conjunction of celestial signs, or an inward moral tendency may
produce.
Such mysterious revelations are imperatively needed in order to tell this
simple history, in which we seek to interest those souls that are
naturally grave and reflective and find their sustenance in tender
emotions. If the writer, like the surgeon beside his dying friend, is filled
with a species of reverence for the subject he is handling, should not
the reader share in that inexplicable feeling? Is it so difficult to put
ourselves in unison with the vague and nervous sadness which casts its
gray tints all about us, and is, in fact, a semi-illness, the gentle
sufferings of which are often pleasing? If the reader is of those who
sometimes think upon the dear ones they have lost, if he is alone, if the
day is waning or the night has come, let him read on; otherwise, he
should lay aside this book at once. If he has never buried a good old
relative, infirm and poor, he will not understand these pages, which to
some will seem redolent of musk, to others as colorless and virtuous as
those of Florian. In short, the reader must have known the luxury of
tears, must have felt the silent pangs of a passing memory, the vision of
a dear yet far-off Shade, --memories which bring regret for all that
earth has swallowed up, with smiles for vanished joys.
And now, believe that the writer would not, for the wealth of England,
steal from poesy a single lie with which to embellish this narrative. The
following is a true history, on which you may safely spend the treasures

of your sensibility--if you have any.
In these days the French language has as many idioms and represents as
many idiosyncracies as there are varieties of men in the great family of
France. It is extremely curious and amusing to listen to the different
interpretations or versions of the same thing or the same event by the
various species which compose the genus Parisian, --"Parisian" is here
used merely to generalize our remark.
Therefore, if you should say to an individual of the species Practical,
"Do you know Madame Firmiani?" he would present that lady to your
mind by the following inventory: "Fine house in the rue du Bac, salons
handsomely furnished, good pictures, one hundred thousand francs a
year, husband formerly receiver-general of the department of
Montenotte." So saying, the Practical man, rotund and fat and usually
dressed in black, will project his lower lip and wrap it over the upper,
nodding his head as if to add: "Solid people, those; nothing to be said
against them." Ask no further; Practical men settle everybody's status
by figures, incomes, or solid acres,--a phrase of their lexicon.
Turn to the right, and put the same question to that other man, who
belongs to the species Lounger. "Madame Firmiani?" he says; "yes, yes,
I know her well; I go to her parties; receives Wednesdays; highly
creditable house."--Madame Firmiani is metamorphosed into a house!
but the house is not a pile of stones architecturally superposed, of
course not, the word presents in Lounger's language an indescribable
idiom.--Here the Lounger, a spare man with an agreeable smile,