Madame Firmiani | Page 6

having married the invisible Firmiani (then a highly
respectable individual in the forties) in 1813, at the age of sixteen, she
must be at least twenty-eight in 1825. However the same persons also
asserted that at no period of her life had she ever been so desirable or so
completely a woman. She was now at an age when women are most
prone to conceive a passion, and to desire it, perhaps, in their pensive
hours. She possessed all that earth sells, all that it lends, all that it gives.
The Attaches declared there was nothing of which she was ignorant; the
Contradictors asserted that there was much she ought to learn; the
Observers remarked that her hands were white, her feet small, her
movements a trifle too undulating. But, nevertheless, individuals of all
species envied or disputed Octave's happiness, agreeing, for once in a
way, that Madame Firmiani was the most aristocratically beautiful
woman in Paris.
Still young, rich, a perfect musician, intelligent, witty, refined, and
received (as a Cadignan) by the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, that
oracle of the noble faubourg, loved by her rivals the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse her cousin, the Marquise d'Espard, and Madame de
Macumer, --Madame Firmiani gratified all the vanities which feed or
excite love. She was therefore sought by too many men not to fall a
victim to Parisian malice and its charming calumnies, whispered behind
a fan or in a safe aside. It was necessary to quote the remarks given at
the beginning of this history to bring out the true Firmiani in
contradistinction to the Firmiani of society. If some women forgave her
happiness, others did not forgive her propriety. Now nothing is so

dangerous in Paris as unfounded suspicions,--for the reason that it is
impossible to destroy them.
This sketch of a woman who was admirably natural gives only a faint
idea of her. It would need the pencil of an Ingres to render the pride of
that brow, with its wealth of hair, the dignity of that glance, and the
thoughts betrayed by the changing colors of her cheeks. In her were all
things; poets could have found an Agnes Sorel and a Joan of Arc, also
the woman unknown, the Soul within that form, the soul of Eve, the
knowledge of the treasures of good and the riches of evil, error and
resignation, crime and devotion, the Donna Julia and the Haidee of
Lord Byron.
The former guardsman stayed, with apparent impertinence, after the
other guests had left the salons; and Madame Firmiani found him
sitting quietly before her in an armchair, evidently determined to
remain, with the pertinacity of a fly which we are forced to kill to get
rid of it. The hands of the clock marked two in the morning.
"Madame," said the old gentlemen, as Madame Firmiani rose, hoping
to make him understand that it was her good pleasure he should go,
"Madame, I am the uncle of Monsieur Octave de Camps."
Madame Firmiani immediately sat down again, and showed her
emotion. In spite of his sagacity the old Planter was unable to decide
whether she turned pale from shame or pleasure. There are pleasures,
delicious emotions the chaste heart seeks to veil, which cannot escape
the shock of startled modesty. The more delicacy a woman has, the
more she seeks to hide the joys that are in her soul. Many women,
incomprehensible in their tender caprices, long to hear a name
pronounced which at other times they desire to bury in their hearts.
Monsieur de Bourbonne did not interpret Madame Firmiani's agitation
exactly in this way: pray forgive him, all provincials are distrustful.
"Well, monsieur?" said Madame Firmiani, giving him one of those
clear, lucid glances in which we men can never see anything because
they question us too much.
"Well, madame," returned the old man, "do you know what some one
came to tell me in the depths of my province? That my nephew had
ruined himself for you, and that the poor fellow was living in a garret
while you were in silk and gold. Forgive my rustic sincerity; it may be
useful for you to know of these calumnies."

"Stop, monsieur," said Madame Firmiani, with an imperative gesture;
"I know all that. You are too polite to continue this subject if I request
you to leave it, and too gallant--in the old-fashioned sense of the word,"
she added with a slight tone of irony--"not to agree that you have no
right to question me. It would be ridiculous in me to defend myself. I
trust that you will have a sufficiently good opinion of my character to
believe in the profound contempt which, I assure you, I feel for
money,--although I was married, without any fortune, to a man of
immense wealth. It