Madame Firmiani | Page 3

neither virtue, nor
wealth, nor youth, but she would still be a Cadignan; it is like a
prejudice, always alive and working.
An Original: "My dear fellow, I've seen no galoshes in her antechamber;
consequently you can visit her without compromising yourself, and
play cards there without fear; if there are any scoundrels in her salons,
they are people of quality and come in their carriages; such persons
never quarrel."
Old man belonging to the genus Observer: "If you call on Madame
Firmiani, my good friend, you will find a beautiful woman sitting at her
ease by the corner of her fireplace. She will scarcely rise to receive
you,--she only does that for women, ambassadors, dukes, and persons
of great distinction. She is very gracious, she possesses charm; she
converses well, and likes to talk on many topics. There are many

indications of a passionate nature about her; but she has, evidently, so
many adorers that she cannot have a favorite. If suspicion rested on two
or three of her intimates, we might say that one or other of them was
the "cavaliere servente"; but it does not. The lady is a mystery. She is
married, though none of us have seen her husband. Monsieur Firmiani
is altogether mythical; he is like that third post-horse for which we pay
though we never behold it. Madame has the finest contralto voice in
Europe, so say judges; but she has never been heard to sing more than
two or three times since she came to Paris. She receives much company,
but goes nowhere."
The Observer speaks, you will notice, as an Oracle. His words,
anecdotes, and quotations must be accepted as truths, under pain of
being thought without social education or intelligence, and of causing
him to slander you with much zest in twenty salons where he is
considered indispensable. The Observer is forty years of age, never
dines at home, declares himself no longer dangerous to women, wears a
maroon coat, and has a place reserved for him in several boxes at the
"Bouffons." He is sometimes confounded with the Parasite; but he has
filled too many real functions to be thought a sponger; moreover he
possesses a small estate in a certain department, the name of which he
has never been known to utter.
"Madame Firmiani? why, my dear fellow, she was Murat's former
mistress." This man belongs to the Contradictors,--persons who note
errata in memoirs, rectify dates, correct facts, bet a hundred to one, and
are certain about everything. You can easily detect them in some gross
blunder in the course of a single evening. They will tell you they were
in Paris at the time of Mallet's conspiracy, forgetting that half an hour
earlier they had described how they had crossed the Beresina. Nearly
all Contradictors are "chevaliers" of the Legion of honor; they talk
loudly, have retreating foreheads, and play high.
"Madame Firmiani a hundred thousand francs a year? nonsense, you
are crazy! Some people will persist in giving millions with the
liberality of authors, to whom it doesn't cost a penny to dower their
heroines. Madame Firmiani is simply a coquette, who has lately ruined
a young man, and now prevents him from making a fine marriage. If
she were not so handsome she wouldn't have a penny."
Ah, _that one_--of course you recognize him--belongs to the species

Envious. There is no need to sketch him; the species is as well known
as that of the felis domestica. But how explain the perennial vigor of
envy?--a vice that brings nothing in!
Persons in society, literary men, honest folk,--in short, individuals of all
species,--were promulgating in the month of January, 1824, so many
different opinions about Madame Firmiani that it would be tedious to
write them down. We have merely sought to show that a man seeking
to understand her, yet unwilling or unable to go to her house, would
(from the answers to his inquiries) have had equal reason to suppose
her a widow or wife, silly or wise, virtuous or the reverse, rich or pour,
soulless or full of feeling, handsome or plain,--in short, there were as
many Madame Firmianis as there are species in society, or sects in
Catholicism. Frightful reflection! we are all like lithographic blocks,
from which an indefinite number of copies can be drawn by
criticism,--the proofs being more or less like us according to a
distribution of shading which is so nearly imperceptible that our
reputation depends (barring the calumnies of friends and the witticisms
of newspapers) on the balance struck by our criticisers between Truth
that limps and Falsehood to which Parisian wit gives wings.
Madame Firmiani, like other noble and dignified women who make
their hearts a sanctuary and disdain the world, was liable, therefore, to
be totally misjudged by