Yet these purely mechanical occupations are nothing in comparison with the mental worries, arising from intrigues to be conducted, annoyances to vanity, preferences shown by authors, competition for parts, with its triumphs and disappointments, unreasonable actors, ill-natured rivals, and the importunities of managers and critics, all of which demand another twenty-four hours in the day.
And, lastly, there is the art itself and all the difficulties it involves—the interpretation of passion, details of mimicry, and stage effects, with thousands of opera-glasses ready to pounce on the slightest flaw in the most brilliant presentment. These are the things which wore away the life and energy of Talma, Lekain, Baron, Contat, Clairon, Champmeslé. In the pandemonium of the greenroom self-love is sexless; the successful artist, man or woman, has all other men and women for enemies.
As to profits, however handsome Florine’s salaries may be, they do not cover the cost of the stage finery, which—not to speak of costumes—demands an enormous expenditure in long gloves and shoes, and does not do away with the necessity for evening and visiting dresses. One-third of such a life is spent in begging favors, another in making sure the ground already won, and the remainder in repelling attacks; but all alike is work. If it contains also moments of intense happiness, that is because happiness here is rare and stolen, long waited for, a chance godsend amid the hateful grind of forced pleasure and stage smiles.
To Florine, Raoul’s power was a sovereign protection. He saved her many a vexation and worry, in the fashion of a great noble of former days defending his mistress; or, to take a modern instance, like the old men who go on their knees to the editor when their idol has been scarified by some halfpenny print. He was more than a lover to her; he was a staff to lean on. She tended him like a father, and deceived him like a husband; but there was nothing in the world she would not have sacrificed for him. Raoul was indispensable to her artistic vanity, to the tranquillity of her self-esteem, and to her dramatic future. Without the intervention of some great writer, no great actress can be produced; we owe la Champmeslé to Racine, as we owe Mars to Monvel and Andrieux. Florine, on her side, could do nothing for Raoul, much as she would have liked to be useful or necessary to him. She counted on the seductions of habit, and was always ready to open her rooms and offer the profusion of her table to help his plans or his friends. In fact, she aspired to be for him what Madame de Pompadour was for Louis XV; and there were actresses who envied her position, just as there were journalists who would have changed places with Raoul.
Now, those who know the bent of the human mind to opposition and contrast will easily understand that Raoul, after ten years of this rakish Bohemian life, should weary of its ups and downs, its revelry and its writs, its orgies and its fasts, and should feel drawn to a pure and innocent love, as well as to the gentle harmony of a great lady’s existence. In the same way, the Comtesse Félix longed to introduce the torments of passion into a life the bliss of which had cloyed through its sameness. This law of life is the law of all art, which exists only through contrast. A work produced independently of such aid is the highest expression of genius, as the cloister is the highest effort of Christianity.
Raoul, on returning home, found a note from Florine, which her maid had brought, but was too sleepy to read it. He went to bed in the restful satisfaction of a tender love, which had so far been lacking to his life. A few hours later, he found important news in this letter, news of which neither Rastignac nor de Marsay had dropped a hint. Florine had learned from some indiscreet friend that the Chamber was to be dissolved at the close of the session. Raoul at once went to Florine’s, and sent for Blondet to meet him there.
In Florine’s boudoir, their feet upon the firedogs, Émile and Raoul dissected the political situation of France in 1834. On what side lay the best chance for a man who wanted to get on? Every shade of opinion was passed in review—Republicans pure and simple, Republicans with a President, Republicans without a republic, Dynastic Constitutionalists and Constitutionalists without a dynasty, Conservative Ministerialists and Absolutist Ministerialists; lastly, the compromising right, the aristocratic right, the Legitimist right, the Henri-quinquist right, and the Carlist right. As between the party of obstruction and the party of progress there could be no question; as well might one hesitate between life and death.
The vast number of newspapers at this time in circulation, representing different shades of party, was significant of the chaotic confusion—the slush, as it might vulgarly be called—to which politics were reduced. Blondet, the man of his day with most judgment, although, like a barrister unable to plead his own cause, he could use it only on behalf of others, was magnificent in these friendly discussions. His advice to Nathan was not to desert abruptly.
“It was Napoleon who said that young republics cannot be made out of old monarchies. Therefore, do you, my friend, become the hero, the pillar, the creator of a left centre in the next Chamber, and a political future is before you. Once past the barrier, once in the Ministry, a man can do what he pleases, he can wear the winning colors.”
Nathan decided to start a political daily paper, of which he should have
