as you see, i went ahead, after a few weeks of reading non-balzacian things, and read "madame firmiani" without getting to "the vendetta" first. and initially, i was very excited about the story. it had all the makings of a proustian faubourg saint-germain salon slash-and-burn. unfortunately, this didn't pan out, and i actually checked my copy of the book to see if i hadn't been missing some pages here or there. it began as an interesting tell-all piece and ended happily moralistic and dull.

there is nothing left in my first volume to read except "pierrette", which isn't even part of the "scenes from private life", and i certainly do not wish to jump quite so far ahead as this. none of the four stories i have read thus far have had anything to do with one another nor have they had recurring characters. still, i am trying to keep with the "order", although i am interested in seeing if this order (as prescribed by project gutenberg), can be challenged. through amazon's zshops, and rather out of my price range at the moment, is another idea of how balzac should be read "properly". this is william royce hobart's Balzac As He Should Be Read:The Comedie Humaine Arranged In Logical Order of Reading According To Time Of Action, from 1946.

of course, to invest in that, i'm going to have to get a lot more vested in these works themselves. right now i'm not. this little red scribners volume, here, all read except for "pierrette", will not make it to my shelves, but will go right back to the used book store, i feel certain. it hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been great, and right now, i'm still looking for cheap, necessary volumes, in project gutenberg order, and hoping that things start cooking in the next few months of reading.