I seemed
to understand and to admire it all till I came to the line that
"_les peuplades de cent cathedrales gothiques_" (which might be
rendered as the figured company of a hundred Gothic cathedrals),
"_tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur forme pour venir a
vous, artistes comprehensifs, toutes ces angeliques filles
incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y
pleurerent!_" What puzzles me is why statues should break their
forms (_form_ I suppose should be translated by _mould_)--break
their moulds--the expression seems very inadequate--break their
moulds "in order to go to you, great imaginative artists." How
could they break their moulds or their forms to go to the
imaginative artists, the mould or the form being the gift of
the imaginative artists? I should have understood Balzac better if
he had said that the statues escape from their niches and the madonnas
and the angels from their frames to gather round the bed of
_Massimilla_ to weep. Balzac's idea seems to have got a little
tangled, or maybe I am stupid to-day. However, here is the passage:
"Les peris, les ondines, les fees, les sylphides du vieux temps, les
muses de la Grece, les vierges de marbre de la Certosa di Pavia, le
Jour et la Nuit de Michel Ange, les petits anges que Bellini le
premier mit au bas des tableaux d'eglise, et que Raphael a faits si
divinement au bas de la vierge au donataire, et de la madone qui gele
a Dresde, les delicieuses filles d'Orcagna, dans l'eglise de
San-Michele a Florence, les choeurs celestes du tombeau de Saint Sebald
a Nuremberg, quelques vierges du Duomo de Milan, les peuplades de cent
cathedrales gothiques, tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur
forme pour venir a vous, artistes comprehensifs, toutes ces angeliques
filles incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y
pleurerent.
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