The room, in short, was a journalist’s bivouac, filled with odds and ends of no value, and the most curiously bare apartment imaginable. A scarlet tinderbox glowed among a pile of books on the nightstand. A brace of pistols, a box of cigars, and a stray razor lay upon the mantelshelf; a pair of foils, crossed under a wire mask, hung against a panel. Three chairs and a couple of armchairs, scarcely fit for the shabbiest lodging-house in the street, completed the inventory.
The dirty, cheerless room told a tale of a restless life and a want of self-respect; someone came hither to sleep and work at high pressure, staying no longer than he could help, longing, while he remained, to be out and away. What a difference between this cynical disorder and d’Arthez’s neat and self-respecting poverty! A warning came with the thought of d’Arthez; but Lucien would not heed it, for Étienne made a joking remark to cover the nakedness of a reckless life.
“This is my kennel; I appear in state in the Rue de Bondy, in the new apartments which our druggist has taken for Florine; we hold the housewarming this evening.”
Étienne Lousteau wore black trousers and beautifully-varnished boots; his coat was buttoned up to his chin; he probably meant to change his linen at Florine’s house, for his shirt collar was hidden by a velvet stock. He was trying to renovate his hat by an application of the brush.
“Let us go,” said Lucien.
“Not yet. I am waiting for a bookseller to bring me some money; I have not a farthing; there will be play, perhaps, and in any case I must have gloves.”
As he spoke, the two new friends heard a man’s step in the passage outside.
“There he is,” said Lousteau. “Now you will see, my dear fellow, the shape that Providence takes when he manifests himself to poets. You are going to behold Dauriat, the fashionable bookseller, in all his glory, but first you shall see the bookseller of the Quai des Augustins, the pawnbroker, the marine store dealer of the trade, the Norman ex-greengrocer.—Come along, old Tartar!” shouted Lousteau.
“Here am I,” said a voice like a cracked bell.
“Brought the money with you?”
“Money? There is no money now in the trade,” retorted the other, a young man who eyed Lucien curiously.
“Imprimis, you owe me fifty francs,” Lousteau continued.
“There are two copies of Travels in Egypt here, a marvel, so they say, swarming with woodcuts, sure to sell. Finot has been paid for two reviews that I am to write for him. Item two works, just out, by Victor Ducange, a novelist highly thought of in the Marais. Item a couple of copies of a second work by Paul de Kock, a beginner in the same style. Item two copies of Yseult of Dôle, a charming provincial work. Total, one hundred francs, my little Barbet.”
Barbet made a close survey of edges and binding.
“Oh! they are in perfect condition,” cried Lousteau. “The Travels are uncut, so is the Paul de Kock, so is the Ducange, so is that other thing on the chimneypiece, Considerations on Symbolism. I will throw that in; myths weary me to that degree that I will let you have the thing to spare myself the sight of the swarms of mites coming out of it.”
“But,” asked Lucien, “how are you going to write your reviews?”
Barbet, in profound astonishment, stared at Lucien; then he looked at Étienne and chuckled.
“One can see that the gentleman has not the misfortune to be a literary man,” said he.
“No, Barbet—no. He is a poet, a great poet; he is going to cut out Canalis, and Béranger, and Delavigne. He will go a long way if he does not throw himself into the river, and even so he will get as far as the dragnets at Saint-Cloud.”
“If I had any advice to give the gentleman,” remarked Barbet, “it would be to give up poetry and take to prose. Poetry is not wanted on the Quais just now.”
Barbet’s shabby overcoat was fastened by a single button; his collar was greasy; he kept his hat on his head as he spoke; he wore low shoes, an open waistcoat gave glimpses of a homely shirt of coarse linen. Good-nature was not wanting in the round countenance, with its two slits of covetous eyes; but there was likewise the vague uneasiness habitual to those who have money to spend and hear constant applications for it. Yet, to all appearance, he was plain-dealing and easy-natured, his business shrewdness was so well wadded round with fat. He had been an assistant until he took a wretched little shop on the Quai des Augustins two years since, and issued thence on his rounds among journalists, authors, and printers, buying up free copies cheaply, making in such ways some ten or twenty francs daily. Now, he had money saved; he knew instinctively where every man was pressed; he had a keen eye for business. If an author was in difficulties, he would discount a bill given by a publisher at fifteen or twenty percent; then the next day he would go to the publisher, haggle over the price of some work in demand, and pay him with his own bills instead of cash. Barbet was something of a scholar; he had had just enough education to make him careful to steer clear of modern poetry and modern romances. He had a liking for small speculations,
