Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com



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.