“So this is how a newspaper is written?” said Lucien.
“It is always like this,” answered Lousteau. “These ten months that I have been a journalist, they have always run short of copy at eight o’clock in the evening.”
Manuscript sent to the printer is spoken of as “copy,” doubtless because the writers are supposed to send in a fair copy of their work; or possibly the word is ironically derived from the Latin word copia, for copy is invariably scarce.
“We always mean to have a few numbers ready in advance, a grand idea that will never be realized,” continued Lousteau. “It is ten o’clock, you see, and not a line has been written. I shall ask Vernou and Nathan for a score of epigrams on deputies, or on ‘Chancellor Cruzoé,’ or on the Ministry, or on friends of ours if it needs must be. A man in this pass would slaughter his parent, just as a privateer will load his guns with silver pieces taken out of the booty sooner than perish. Write a brilliant article, and you will make brilliant progress in Finot’s estimation; for Finot has a lively sense of benefits to come, and that sort of gratitude is better than any kind of pledge, pawntickets always excepted, for they invariably represent something solid.”
“What kind of men can journalists be? Are you to sit down at a table and be witty to order?”
“Just exactly as a lamp begins to burn when you apply a match—so long as there is any oil in it.”
Lousteau’s hand was on the lock when du Bruel came in with the manager.
“Permit me, monsieur, to take a message to Coralie; allow me to tell her that you will go home with her after supper, or my play will be ruined. The wretched girl does not know what she is doing or saying; she will cry when she ought to laugh and laugh when she ought to cry. She has been hissed once already. You can still save the piece, and, after all, pleasure is not a misfortune.”
“I am not accustomed to rivals, sir,” Lucien answered.
“Pray don’t tell her that!” cried the manager. “Coralie is just the girl to fling Camusot overboard and ruin herself in good earnest. The proprietor of the Golden Cocoon, worthy man, allows her two thousand francs a month, and pays for all her dresses and claqueurs.”
“As your promise pledges me to nothing, save your play,” said Lucien, with a sultan’s airs.
“But don’t look as if you meant to snub that charming creature,” pleaded du Bruel.
“Dear me! am I to write the notice of your play and smile on your heroine as well?” exclaimed the poet.
The author vanished with a signal to Coralie, who began to act forthwith in a marvelous way. Vignol, who played the part of the alcalde, and revealed for the first time his genius as an actor of old men, came forward amid a storm of applause to make an announcement to the house.
“The piece which we have the honor of playing for you this evening, gentlemen, is the work of MM. Raoul and de Cursy.”
“Why, Nathan is partly responsible,” said Lousteau. “I don’t wonder that he looked in.”
“Coralie! Coralie!” shouted the enraptured house. “Florine, too!” roared a voice of thunder from the opposite box, and other voices took up the cry, “Florine and Coralie!”
The curtain rose, Vignol reappeared between the two actresses; Matifat and Camusot flung wreaths on the stage, and Coralie stooped for her flowers and held them out to Lucien.
For him those two hours spent in the theatre seemed to be a dream. The spell that held him had begun to work when he went behind the scenes; and, in spite of its horrors, the atmosphere of the place, its sensuality and dissolute morals had affected the poet’s still untainted nature. A sort of malaria that infects the soul seems to lurk among those dark, filthy passages filled with machinery, and lit with smoky, greasy lamps. The solemnity and reality of life disappear, the most sacred things are matter for a jest, the most impossible things seem to be true. Lucien felt as if he had taken some narcotic, and Coralie had completed the work. He plunged into this joyous intoxication.
The lights in the great chandelier were extinguished; there was no one left in the house except the boxkeepers, busy taking away footstools and shutting doors, the noises echoing strangely through the empty theatre. The footlights, blown out as one candle, sent up a fetid reek of smoke. The curtain rose again, a lantern was lowered from the ceiling, and firemen and stage carpenters departed on their rounds. The fairy scenes of the stage, the rows of fair faces in the boxes, the dazzling lights, the magical illusion of new scenery and costume had all disappeared, and dismal darkness, emptiness, and cold reigned in their stead. It was hideous. Lucien sat on in bewilderment.
“Well! are you coming, my boy?” Lousteau’s voice called from the stage. “Jump down.”
Lucien sprang over. He scarcely recognized Florine and Coralie in their ordinary quilted paletots and cloaks, with their faces hidden by hats and thick black veils. Two butterflies returned to the chrysalis stage could not be more completely transformed.
“Will you honor me by giving me your arm?” Coralie asked tremulously.
“With pleasure,” said Lucien. He could feel the beating of her heart throbbing against his like some snared bird as she nestled closely to his side, with something
