Balzac Liked His Coffee
Oct. 24th, 2024 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo It's recorded of Balzac that he drank 60 cups of coffee a day.
What they don't say is how big the cups were
Or how strong the coffee was.
I don't suppose he was drinking double espresso out of half pint mugs.
But, even so....
My normal limit is a single cup a day. I could manage a little more but I hold back because I don't like the way it makes my nerves spark like severed electric wires.
There are wiseacres who say the coffee killed him.
(Gallic shrug)
How do they know?
Are they doctors? No, they're literary types.
Talking about death and doctors, it seems that on his deathbed, probably knowing he was finished, Balzac told those in attendance to "Send for Bianchon"- Bianchon being the noble, wise, entirely admirable and entirely fictitious doctor of La Comedie Humaine.
Choosing thereby to go out on a joke.....
What they don't say is how big the cups were
Or how strong the coffee was.
I don't suppose he was drinking double espresso out of half pint mugs.
But, even so....
My normal limit is a single cup a day. I could manage a little more but I hold back because I don't like the way it makes my nerves spark like severed electric wires.
There are wiseacres who say the coffee killed him.
(Gallic shrug)
How do they know?
Are they doctors? No, they're literary types.
Talking about death and doctors, it seems that on his deathbed, probably knowing he was finished, Balzac told those in attendance to "Send for Bianchon"- Bianchon being the noble, wise, entirely admirable and entirely fictitious doctor of La Comedie Humaine.
Choosing thereby to go out on a joke.....
