Part 24 (1/2)

”He will turn journalist,” Leon Giraud said gravely. ”Oh, Lucien, if you would only stay and work with us! We are about to bring out a periodical in which justice and truth shall never be violated; we will spread doctrines that, perhaps, will be of real service to mankind----”

”You will not have a single subscriber,” Lucien broke in with Machiavellian wisdom.

”There will be five hundred of them,” a.s.serted Michel Chrestien, ”but they will be worth five hundred thousand.”

”You will need a lot of capital,” continued Lucien.

”No, only devotion,” said d'Arthez.

”Anybody might take him for a perfumer's a.s.sistant,” burst out Michel Chrestien, looking at Lucien's head, and sniffing comically. ”You were seen driving about in a very smart turnout with a pair of thoroughbreds, and a mistress for a prince, Coralie herself.”

”Well, and is there any harm in it?”

”You would not say that if you thought that there was no harm in it,”

said Bianchon.

”I could have wished Lucien a Beatrice,” said d'Arthez, ”a n.o.ble woman, who would have been a help to him in life----”

”But, Daniel,” asked Lucien, ”love is love wherever you find it, is it not?”

”Ah!” said the republican member, ”on that one point I am an aristocrat.

I could not bring myself to love a woman who must rub shoulders with all sorts of people in the green-room; whom an actor kisses on stage; she must lower herself before the public, smile on every one, lift her skirts as she dances, and dress like a man, that all the world may see what none should see save I alone. Or if I loved such a woman, she should leave the stage, and my love should cleanse her from the stain of it.”

”And if she would not leave the stage?”

”I should die of mortification, jealousy, and all sorts of pain. You cannot pluck love out of your heart as you draw a tooth.”

Lucien's face grew dark and thoughtful.

”When they find out that I am tolerating Camusot, how they will despise me,” he thought.

”Look here,” said the fierce republican, with humorous fierceness, ”you can be a great writer, but a little play-actor you shall never be,” and he took up his hat and went out.

”He is hard, is Michel Chrestien,” commented Lucien.

”Hard and salutary, like the dentist's pincers,” said Bianchon. ”Michel foresees your future; perhaps in the street, at this moment, he is thinking of you with tears in his eyes.”

D'Arthez was kind, and talked comfortingly, and tried to cheer Lucien. The poet spent an hour with his friends, then he went, but his conscience treated him hardly, crying to him, ”You will be a journalist--a journalist!” as the witch cried to Macbeth that he should be king hereafter!

Out in the street, he looked up at d'Arthez's windows, and saw a faint light s.h.i.+ning in them, and his heart sank. A dim foreboding told him that he had bidden his friends good-bye for the last time.

As he turned out of the Place de la Sorbonne into the Rue de Cluny, he saw a carriage at the door of his lodging. Coralie had driven all the way from the Boulevard du Temple for the sake of a moment with her lover and a ”good-night.” Lucien found her sobbing in his garret. She would be as wretchedly poor as her poet, she wept, as she arranged his s.h.i.+rts and gloves and handkerchiefs in the crazy chest of drawers. Her distress was so real and so great, that Lucien, but even now chidden for his connection with an actress, saw Coralie as a saint ready to a.s.sume the hair-s.h.i.+rt of poverty. The adorable girl's excuse for her visit was an announcement that the firm of Camusot, Coralie, and Lucien meant to invite Matifat, Florine, and Lousteau (the second trio) to supper; had Lucien any invitations to issue to people who might be useful to him?

Lucien said that he would take counsel of Lousteau.

A few moments were spent together, and Coralie hurried away. She spared Lucien the knowledge that Camusot was waiting for her below.

Next morning, at eight o'clock, Lucien went to Etienne Lousteau's room, found it empty, and hurried away to Florine. Lousteau and Florine, settled into possession of their new quarters like a married couple, received their friend in the pretty bedroom, and all three breakfasted sumptuously together.

”Why, I should advise you, my boy, to come with me to see Felicien Vernou,” said Lousteau, when they sat at table, and Lucien had mentioned Coralie's projected supper; ”ask him to be of the party, and keep well with him, if you can keep well with such a rascal. Felicien Vernou does a _feuilleton_ for a political paper; he might perhaps introduce you, and you could blossom out into leaders in it at your ease. It is a Liberal paper, like ours; you will be a Liberal, that is the popular party; and besides, if you mean to go over to the Ministerialists, you would do better for yourself if they had reason to be afraid of you.