Part 34 (2/2)
”How could that article have been written unless the attack had preceded it?” asked Lousteau.
Dauriat drew the proof of the third article from his pocket and read it over, Finot listening closely; for it was to appear in the second number of his own review, and as editor he exaggerated his enthusiasm.
”Gentlemen,” said he, ”so and not otherwise would Bossuet have written if he had lived in our day.”
”I am sure of it,” said Merlin. ”Bossuet would have been a journalist to-day.”
”To Bossuet the Second!” cried Claude Vignon, raising his gla.s.s with an ironical bow.
”To my Christopher Columbus!” returned Lucien, drinking a health to Dauriat.
”Bravo!” cried Nathan.
”Is it a nickname?” Merlin inquired, looking maliciously from Finot to Lucien.
”If you go on at this pace, you will be quite beyond us,” said Dauriat; ”these gentlemen” (indicating Camusot and Matifat) ”cannot follow you as it is. A joke is like a bit of thread; if it is spun too fine, it breaks, as Bonaparte said.”
”Gentlemen,” said Lousteau, ”we have been eye-witnesses of a strange, portentous, unheard-of, and truly surprising phenomenon. Admire the rapidity with which our friend here has been transformed from a provincial into a journalist!”
”He is a born journalist,” said Dauriat.
”Children!” called Finot, rising to his feet, ”all of us here present have encouraged and protected our amphitryon in his entrance upon a career in which he has already surpa.s.sed our hopes. In two months he has shown us what he can do in a series of excellent articles known to us all. I propose to baptize him in form as a journalist.”
”A crown of roses! to signalize a double conquest,” cried Bixiou, glancing at Coralie.
Coralie made a sign to Berenice. That portly handmaid went to Coralie's dressing-room and brought back a box of tumbled artificial flowers.
The more incapable members of the party were grotesquely tricked out in these blossoms, and a crown of roses was soon woven. Finot, as high priest, sprinkled a few drops of champagne on Lucien's golden curls, p.r.o.nouncing with delicious gravity the words--”In the name of the Government Stamp, the Caution-money, and the Fine, I baptize thee, Journalist. May thy articles sit lightly on thee!”
”And may they be paid for, including white lines!” cried Merlin.
Just at that moment Lucien caught sight of three melancholy faces.
Michel Chrestien, Joseph Bridau, and Fulgence Ridal took up their hats and went out amid a storm of invective.
”Queer customers!” said Merlin.
”Fulgence used to be a good fellow,” added Lousteau, ”before they perverted his morals.”
”Who are 'they'?” asked Claude Vignon.
”Some very serious young men,” said Blondet, ”who meet at a philosophico-religious symposium in the Rue des Quatre-Vents, and worry themselves about the meaning of human life----”
”Oh! oh!”
”They are trying to find out whether it goes round in a circle, or makes some progress,” continued Blondet. ”They were very hard put to it between the straight line and the curve; the triangle, warranted by Scripture, seemed to them to be nonsense, when, lo! there arose among them some prophet or other who declared for the spiral.”
”Men might meet to invent more dangerous nonsense than that!” exclaimed Lucien, making a faint attempt to champion the brotherhood.
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