Part 15 (1/2)

”Gabusson, my friend,” he said, ”from this day forward, when anybody begins to talk of works in ma.n.u.script here--Do you hear that, all of you?” he broke in upon himself; and three a.s.sistants at once emerged from among the piles of books at the sound of their employer's wrathful voice. ”If anybody comes here with ma.n.u.scripts,” he continued, looking at the finger-nails of a well-kept hand, ”ask him whether it is poetry or prose; and if he says poetry, show him the door at once. Verses mean reverses in the booktrade.”

”Bravo! well put, Dauriat,” cried the chorus of journalists.

”It is true!” cried the bookseller, striding about his shop with Lucien's ma.n.u.script in his hand. ”You have no idea, gentlemen, of the amount of harm that Byron, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Casimir Delavigne, Ca.n.a.lis, and Beranger have done by their success. The fame of them has brought down an invasion of barbarians upon us. I know _this_: there are a thousand volumes of ma.n.u.script poetry going the round of the publishers at this moment, things that n.o.body can make head nor tail of, stories in verse that begin in the middle, like _The Corsair_ and _Lara_. They set up to be original, forsooth, and indulge in stanzas that n.o.body can understand, and descriptive poetry after the pattern of the younger men who discovered Delille, and imagine that they are doing something new. Poets have been swarming like c.o.c.kchafers for two years past. I have lost twenty thousand francs through poetry in the last twelvemonth. You ask Gabusson! There may be immortal poets somewhere in the world; I know of some that are blooming and rosy, and have no beards on their chins as yet,” he continued, looking at Lucien; ”but in the trade, young man, there are only four poets--Beranger, Casimir Delavigne, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo; as for Ca.n.a.lis--he is a poet made by sheer force of writing him up.”

Lucien felt that he lacked the courage to hold up his head and show his spirit before all these influential persons, who were laughing with all their might. He knew very well that he should look hopelessly ridiculous, and yet he felt consumed by a fierce desire to catch the bookseller by the throat, to ruffle the insolent composure of his cravat, to break the gold chain that glittered on the man's chest, trample his watch under his feet, and tear him in pieces. Mortified vanity opened the door to thoughts of vengeance, and inwardly he swore eternal enmity to that bookseller. But he smiled amiably.

”Poetry is like the sun,” said Blondet, ”giving life alike to primeval forests and to ants and gnats and mosquitoes. There is no virtue but has a vice to match, and literature breeds the publisher.”

”And the journalist,” said Lousteau.

Dauriat burst out laughing.

”What is this after all?” he asked, holding up the ma.n.u.script.

”A volume of sonnets that will put Petrarch to the blush,” said Lousteau.

”What do you mean?”

”Just what I say,” answered Lousteau, seeing the knowing smile that went round the group. Lucien could not take offence but he chafed inwardly.

”Very well, I will read them,” said Dauriat, with a regal gesture that marked the full extent of the concession. ”If these sonnets of yours are up to the level of the nineteenth century, I will make a great poet of you, my boy.”

”If he has brains to equal his good looks, you will run no great risks,”

remarked one of the greatest public speakers of the day, a deputy who was chatting with the editor of the _Minerve_, and a writer for the _Const.i.tutionnel_.

”Fame means twelve thousand francs in reviews, and a thousand more for dinners, General,” said Dauriat. ”If M. Benjamin de Constant means to write a paper on this young poet, it will not be long before I make a bargain with him.”

At the t.i.tle of General, and the distinguished name of Benjamin Constant, the bookseller's shop took the proportions of Olympus for the provincial great man.

”Lousteau, I want a word with you,” said Finot; ”but I shall see you again later, at the theatre.--Dauriat, I will take your offer, but on conditions. Let us step into your office.”

”Come in, my boy,” answered Dauriat, allowing Finot to pa.s.s before him.

Then, intimating to some ten persons still waiting for him that he was engaged, he likewise was about to disappear when Lucien impatiently stopped him.

”You are keeping my ma.n.u.script. When shall I have an answer?”

”Oh, come back in three or four days, my little poet, and we will see.”

Lousteau hurried Lucien away; he had not time to take leave of Vernou and Blondet and Raoul Nathan, nor to salute General Foy nor Benjamin Constant, whose book on the Hundred Days was just about to appear.

Lucien scarcely caught a glimpse of fair hair, a refined oval-shaped face, keen eyes, and the pleasant-looking mouth belonging to the man who had played the part of a Potemkin to Mme. de Stael for twenty years, and now was at war with the Bourbons, as he had been at war with Napoleon.

He was destined to win his cause and to die stricken to earth by his victory.

”What a shop!” exclaimed Lucien, as he took his place in the cab beside Lousteau.

”To the Panorama-Dramatique; look sharp, and you shall have thirty sous,” Etienne Lousteau called to the cabman.--”Dauriat is a rascal who sells books to the amount of fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand francs every year. He is a kind of Minister of Literature,” Lousteau continued.

His self-conceit had been pleasantly tickled, and he was showing off before Lucien. ”Dauriat is just as grasping as Barbet, but it is on a wholesale scale. Dauriat can be civil, and he is generous, but he has a great opinion of himself; as for his wit, it consists in a faculty for picking up all that he hears, and his shop is a capital place to frequent. You meet all the best men at Dauriat's. A young fellow learns more there in an hour than by poring over books for half-a-score of years. People talk about articles and concoct subjects; you make the acquaintance of great or influential people who may be useful to you.

You must know people if you mean to get on nowadays.--It is all luck, you see. And as for sitting by yourself in a corner alone with your intellect, it is the most dangerous thing of all.”