An hour later, Blondet, Lousteau, and Lucien came back to the drawing-room, where the other guests were chatting. The Duke was there and the Minister, the four women, the three merchants, the manager, and Finot. A printer’s devil, with a paper cap on his head, was waiting even then for copy.
“The men are just going off, if I have nothing to take them,” he said.
“Stay a bit, here are ten francs, and tell them to wait,” said Finot.
“If I give them the money, sir, they would take to tippleography, and good night to the newspaper.”
“That boy’s common sense is appalling to me,” remarked Finot; and the Minister was in the middle of a prediction of a brilliant future for the urchin, when the three came in. Blondet read aloud an extremely clever article against the Romantics; Lousteau’s paragraph drew laughter, and by the Duc de Rhétoré’s advice an indirect eulogium of Mme. d’Espard was slipped in, lest the whole Faubourg Saint-Germain should take offence.
“What have you written?” asked Finot, turning to Lucien.
And Lucien read, quaking for fear, but the room rang with applause when he finished; the actresses embraced the neophyte; and the two merchants, following suit, half choked the breath out of him. There were tears in du Bruel’s eyes as he grasped his critic’s hand, and the manager invited him to dinner.
“There are no children nowadays,” said Blondet. “Since M. de Chateaubriand called Victor Hugo a ‘sublime child,’ I can only tell you quite simply that you have spirit and taste, and write like a gentleman.”
“He is on the newspaper,” said Finot, as he thanked Étienne, and gave him a shrewd glance.
“What jokes have you made?” inquired Lousteau, turning to Blondet and du Bruel.
“Here are du Bruel’s,” said Nathan.
*** “Now, that M. le Vicomte d’A⸺ is attracting so much attention, they will perhaps let me alone,” M. le Vicomte Demosthenes was heard to say yesterday.
*** An Ultra, condemning M. Pasquier’s speech, said his programme was only a continuation of Decaze’s policy. “Yes,” said a lady, “but he stands on a Monarchical basis, he has just the kind of leg for a Court suit.”
“With such a beginning, I don’t ask more of you,” said Finot; “it will be all right.—Run round with this,” he added, turning to the boy; “the paper is not exactly a genuine article, but it is our best number yet,” and he turned to the group of writers. Already Lucien’s colleagues were privately taking his measure.
“That fellow has brains,” said Blondet.
“His article is well written,” said Claude Vignon.
“Supper!” cried Matifat.
The Duke gave his arm to Florine, Coralie went across to Lucien, and Tullia went in to supper between Émile Blondet and the German Minister.
“I cannot understand why you are making an onslaught on Mme. de Bargeton and the Baron du Châtelet; they say that he is prefect-designate of the Charente, and will be Master of Requests some day.”
“Mme. de Bargeton showed Lucien the door as if he had been an imposter,” said Lousteau.
“Such a fine young fellow!” exclaimed the Minister.
Supper, served with new plate, Sèvres porcelain, and white damask, was redolent of opulence. The dishes were from Chevet, the wines from a celebrated merchant on the Quai Saint-Bernard, a personal friend of Matifat’s. For the first time Lucien beheld the luxury of Paris displayed; he went from surprise to surprise, but he kept his astonishment to himself, like a man who had spirit and taste and wrote like a gentleman, as Blondet had said.
As they crossed the drawing-room, Coralie bent to Florine, “Make Camusot so drunk that he will be compelled to stop here all night,” she whispered.
“So you have hooked your journalist, have you?” returned Florine, using the idiom of women of her class.
“No, dear; I love him,” said Coralie, with an adorable little shrug of the shoulders.
Those words rang in Lucien’s ears, borne to them by the fifth deadly sin. Coralie was perfectly dressed. Every woman possesses some personal charm in perfection, and Coralie’s toilette brought her characteristic beauty into prominence. Her dress, moreover, like Florine’s, was of some exquisite stuff, unknown as yet to the public, a mousseline de soie, with which Camusot had been supplied a few days before the rest of the world; for, as owner of the Golden Cocoon, he was a kind of Providence in Paris to the Lyons silkweavers.
Love and toilet are like color and perfume for a woman, and Coralie in her happiness looked lovelier than ever. A looked-for delight which cannot elude the grasp possesses an immense charm for youth; perhaps in their eyes the secret of the attraction of a house of pleasure lies in the certainty of gratification; perhaps many a long fidelity is attributable to the same cause. Love for love’s sake, first love indeed, had blent with one of the strange violent fancies which sometimes possess these poor creatures; and love and admiration of Lucien’s great beauty taught Coralie to express the thoughts in her heart.
“I should love you if you were ill and ugly,” she whispered as they sat down.
What a saying for a poet! Camusot utterly vanished, Lucien had forgotten his existence, he saw Coralie, and had eyes for nothing else. How should he draw back—this creature, all sensation, all enjoyment of life, tired of the monotony of existence in a country town, weary of poverty, harassed by enforced continence, impatient of the claustral life of the Rue de Cluny, of toiling without reward? The fascination of the under world of Paris was upon him; how should he rise and leave this brilliant gathering? Lucien stood with one foot in Coralie’s chamber and the other in the quicksands of Journalism. After so much vain search, and climbing of so
