“Aha!” cried Lucien, the glow of the intoxication of revenge throbbing full-pulsed through every vein. “Aha! so my foot is on their necks! You make me adore my pen, worship my friends, bow down to the fate-dispensing power of the press. I have not written a single sentence as yet upon the Heron and the Cuttlefish-bone.—I will go with you, my boy,” he cried, catching Blondet by the waist; “yes, I will go; but first, the couple shall feel the weight of this, for so light as it is.” He flourished the pen which had written the article upon Nathan.
“Tomorrow,” he cried, “I will hurl a couple of columns at their heads. Then, we shall see. Don’t be frightened, Coralie, it is not love but revenge; revenge! And I will have it to the full!”
“What a man it is!” said Blondet. “If you but knew, Lucien, how rare such explosions are in this jaded Paris, you might appreciate yourself. You will be a precious scamp” (the actual expression was a trifle stronger); “you are in a fair way to be a power in the land.”
“He will get on,” said Coralie.
“Well, he has come a good way already in six weeks.”
“And if he should climb so high that he can reach a sceptre by treading over a corpse, he shall have Coralie’s body for a stepping-stone,” said the girl.
“You are a pair of lovers of the Golden Age,” said Blondet.—“I congratulate you on your big article,” he added, turning to Lucien. “There were a lot of new things in it. You are past master!”
Lousteau called with Hector Merlin and Vernou. Lucien was immensely flattered by this attention. Félicien Vernou brought a hundred francs for Lucien’s article; it was felt that such a contributor must be well paid to attach him to the paper.
Coralie, looking round at the chapter of journalists, ordered in a breakfast from the Cadran bleu, the nearest restaurant, and asked her visitors to adjourn to her handsomely furnished dining-room when Bérénice announced that the meal was ready. In the middle of the repast, when the champagne had gone to all heads, the motive of the visit came out.
“You do not mean to make an enemy of Nathan, do you?” asked Lousteau. “Nathan is a journalist, and he has friends; he might play you an ugly trick with your first book. You have your Archer of Charles IX to sell, have you not? We went round to Nathan this morning; he is in a terrible way. But you will set about another article, and puff praise in his face.”
“What! After my article against his book, would you have me say—” began Lucien.
The whole party cut him short with a shout of laughter.
“Did you ask him to supper here the day after tomorrow?” asked Blondet.
“You article was not signed,” added Lousteau. “Félicien, not being quite such a new hand as you are, was careful to put an initial C at the bottom. You can do that now with all your articles in his paper, which is pure unadulterated Left. We are all of us in the Opposition. Félicien was tactful enough not to compromise your future opinions. Hector’s shop is Right Centre; you might sign your work on it with an L. If you cut a man up, you do it anonymously; if you praise him, it is just as well to put your name to your article.”
“It is not the signatures that trouble me,” returned Lucien, “but I cannot see anything to be said in favor of the book.”
“Then did you really think as you wrote?” asked Hector.
“Yes.”
“Oh! I thought you were cleverer than that, youngster,” said Blondet. “No. Upon my word, as I looked at that forehead of yours, I credited you with the omnipotence of the great mind—the power of seeing both sides of everything. In literature, my boy, every idea is reversible, and no man can take upon himself to decide which is the right or wrong side. Everything is bilateral in the domain of thought. Ideas are binary. Janus is a fable signifying criticism and the symbol of Genius. The Almighty alone is triform. What raises Molière and Corneille above the rest of us but the faculty of saying one thing with an Alceste or an Octave, and another with a Philinte or a Cinna? Rousseau wrote a letter against dueling in the Nouvelle Héloïse, and another in favor of it. Which of the two represented his own opinion? will you venture to take it upon yourself to decide? Which of us could give judgement for Clarissa or Lovelace, Hector or Achilles? Who was Homer’s hero? What did Richardson himself think? It is the function of criticism to look at a man’s work in all its aspects. We draw up our case, in short.”
“Do you really stick to your written opinions?” asked Vernou, with a satirical expression. “Why, we are retailers of phrases; that is how we make a livelihood. When you try to do a good piece of work—to write a book, in short—you can put your thoughts, yourself into it, and cling to it, and fight for it; but as for newspaper articles, read today and forgotten tomorrow, they are worth nothing in my eyes but the money that is paid for them. If you attach any importance to such drivel, you might as well make the sign of the Cross and invoke heaven when you sit down to write a tradesman’s circular.”
Everyone apparently was astonished at Lucien’s scruples. The last rags of the boyish conscience were torn away, and he was invested with the toga virilis of journalism.
“Do you know what Nathan said by way of comforting himself after your criticism?” asked Lousteau.
“How should I know?”
“Nathan exclaimed, ‘Paragraphs pass away; but a great
