“Forgotten! You are going to have Blondet of the Débats,” said Étienne, “the genuine Blondet, the very Blondet—Blondet himself, in short.”
“Oh! Lousteau, you dear boy! stop, I must give you a kiss,” and she flung her arms about the journalist’s neck. Matifat, the stout person in the corner, looked serious at this.
Florine was thin; her beauty, like a bud, gave promise of the flower to come; the girl of sixteen could only delight the eyes of artists who prefer the sketch to the picture. All the quick subtlety of her character was visible in the features of the charming actress, who at that time might have sat for Goethe’s Mignon. Matifat, a wealthy druggist of the Rue des Lombards, had imagined that a little Boulevard actress would have no very expensive tastes, but in eleven months Florine had cost him sixty thousand francs. Nothing seemed more extraordinary to Lucien than the sight of an honest and worthy merchant standing like a statue of the god Terminus in the actress’ narrow dressing-room, a tiny place some ten feet square, hung with a pretty wallpaper, and adorned with a full-length mirror, a sofa, and two chairs. There was a fireplace in the dressing-closet, a carpet on the floor, and cupboards all round the room. A dresser was putting the finishing touches to a Spanish costume; for Florine was to take the part of a countess in an imbroglio.
“That girl will be the handsomest actress in Paris in five years’ time,” said Nathan, turning to Félicien Vernou.
“By the by, darlings, you will take care of me tomorrow, won’t you?” said Florine, turning to the three journalists. “I have engaged cabs for tonight, for I am going to send you home as tipsy as Shrove Tuesday. Matifat has sent in wines—oh! wines worthy of Louis XVIII, and engaged the Prussian ambassador’s cook.”
“We expect something enormous from the look of the gentleman,” remarked Nathan.
“And he is quite aware that he is treating the most dangerous men in Paris,” added Florine.
Matifat was looking uneasily at Lucien; he felt jealous of the young man’s good looks.
“But here is someone that I do not know,” Florine continued, confronting Lucien. “Which of you has imported the Apollo Belvedere from Florence? He is as charming as one of Girodet’s figures.”
“He is a poet, mademoiselle, from the provinces. I forgot to present him to you; you are so beautiful tonight that you put the Complete Guide to Etiquette out of a man’s head—”
“Is he so rich that he can afford to write poetry?” asked Florine.
“Poor as Job,” said Lucien.
“It is a great temptation for some of us,” said the actress.
Just then the author of the play suddenly entered, and Lucien beheld M. du Bruel, a short, attenuated young man in an overcoat, a composite human blend of the jack-in-office, the owner of house-property, and the stockbroker.
“Florine, child,” said this personage, “are you sure of your part, eh? No slips of memory, you know. And mind that scene in the second act, make the irony tell, bring out that subtle touch; say, ‘I do not love you,’ just as we agreed.”
“Why do you take parts in which you have to say such things?” asked Matifat.
The druggist’s remark was received with a general shout of laughter.
“What does it matter to you,” said Florine, “so long as I don’t say such things to you, great stupid?—Oh! his stupidity is the pleasure of my life,” she continued, glancing at the journalist. “Upon my word, I would pay him so much for every blunder, if it would not be the ruin of me.”
“Yes, but you will look at me when you say it, as you do when you are rehearsing, and it gives me a turn,” remonstrated the druggist.
“Very well, then, I will look at my friend Lousteau here.”
A bell rang outside in the passage.
“Go out, all of you!” cried Florine; “let me read my part over again and try to understand it.”
Lucien and Lousteau were the last to go. Lousteau set a kiss on Florine’s shoulder, and Lucien heard her say, “Not tonight. Impossible. That stupid old animal told his wife that he was going out into the country.”
“Isn’t she charming?” said Étienne, as they came away.
“But—but that Matifat, my dear fellow—”
“Oh! you know nothing of Parisian life, my boy. Some things cannot be helped. Suppose that you fell in love with a married woman, it comes to the same thing. It all depends on the way that you look at it.”
Étienne and Lucien entered the stage-box, and found the manager there with Finot. Matifat was in the ground-floor box exactly opposite with a friend of his, a silk-mercer named Camusot (Coralie’s protector), and a worthy little old soul, his father-in-law. All three of these city men were polishing their opera-glasses, and anxiously scanning the house; certain symptoms in the pit appeared to disturb them. The usual heterogeneous first-night elements filled the boxes—journalists and their mistresses, lorettes and their lovers, a sprinkling of the determined playgoers who never miss a first night if they can help it, and a very few people of fashion who care for this sort of sensation. The first box was occupied by the head of a department, to whom du Bruel, maker of vaudevilles, owed a snug little sinecure in the Treasury.
Lucien had gone from surprise to surprise since the dinner at Flicoteaux’s. For two months Literature had meant a life of poverty and want; in Lousteau’s room he had seen it at its cynical worst; in the Wooden Galleries he had met Literature abject and Literature insolent. The sharp contrasts of heights and depths; of compromise with conscience; of supreme power and want of principle; of
