man who has dabbled, or still dabbles, in journalism is under the painful necessity of bowing to men he despises, of smiling at his dearest foe, of compounding the foulest meanness, of soiling his fingers to pay his aggressors in their own coin. He becomes used to seeing evil done, and passing it over; he begins by condoning it, and ends by committing it. In the long run the soul, constantly strained by shameful and perpetual compromise, sinks lower, the spring of noble thoughts grows rusty, the hinges of familiarity wear easy, and turn of their own accord. Alceste becomes Philinte, natures lose their firmness, talents are perverted, faith in great deeds evaporates. The man who yearned to be proud of his work wastes himself in rubbishy articles which his conscience regards, sooner or later, as so many evil actions. He started, like Lousteau or Vernou, to be a great writer; he finds himself a feeble scrivener. Hence it is impossible to honor too highly men whose character stands as high as their talent – men like d’Arthez, who know how to walk surefooted across the reefs of literary life.
Lucien could make no reply to Blondet’s flattery; his wit had an irresistible charm for him, and he maintained the hold of the corrupter over his pupil; besides, he held a position in the world through his connection with the Comtesse de Montcornet.
“Has an uncle left you a fortune?” said Finot, laughing at him.
“Like you, I have marked some fools for cutting down,” replied Lucien in the same tone.
“Then Monsieur has a review – a newspaper of his own?” Andoche Finot retorted, with the impertinent presumption of a chief to a subordinate.
“I have something better,” replied Lucien, whose vanity, nettled by the assumed superiority of his editor, restored him to the sense of his new position.
“What is that, my dear boy?”
“I have a party.”
“There is a Lucien party?” said Vernou, smiling
“Finot, the boy has left you in the lurch; I told you he would. Lucien is a clever fellow, and you never were respectful to him. You used him as a hack. Repent, blockhead!” said Blondet.
Blondet, as sharp as a needle, could detect more than one secret in Lucien’s air and manner; while stroking him down, he contrived to tighten the curb. He meant to know the reasons of Lucien’s return to Paris, his projects, and his means of living.
“On your knees to a superiority you can never attain to, albeit you are Finot!” he went on. “Admit this gentleman forthwith to be one of the great men to whom the future belongs; he is one of us! So witty and so handsome, can he fail to succeed by your quibuscumque viis? Here he stands, in his good Milan armor, his strong sword half unsheathed, and his pennon flying! – Bless me, Lucien, where did you steal that smart waistcoat? Love alone can find such stuff as that. Have you an address? At this moment I am anxious to know where my friends are domiciled; I don’t know where to sleep. Finot has turned me out of doors for the night, under the vulgar pretext of ‘a lady in the case.’”
“My boy,” said Lucien, “I put into practice a motto by which you may secure a quiet life: Fuge, late, tace. I am off.”
“But I am not off till you pay me a sacred debt – that little supper, you know, heh?” said Blondet, who was rather too much given to good cheer, and got himself treated when he was out of funds.
“What supper?” asked Lucien with a little stamp of impatience.
“You don’t remember? In that I recognize my prosperous friend; he has lost his memory.”
“He knows what he owes us; I will go bail for his good heart,” said Finot, taking up Blondet’s joke.
“Rastignac,” said Blondet, taking the young dandy by the arm as he came up the room to the column where the so-called friends were standing. “There is a supper in the wind; you will join us – unless,” he added gravely, turning to Lucien, “Monsieur persists in ignoring a debt of honor. He can.”
“Monsieur de Rubempre is incapable of such a thing; I will answer for him,” said Rastignac, who never dreamed of a practical joke.
“And there is Bixiou, he will come too,” cried Blondet; “there is no fun without him. Without him champagne cloys my tongue, and I find everything insipid, even the pepper of satire.”
“My friends,” said Bixiou, “I see you have gathered round the wonder of the day. Our dear Lucien has revived the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Just as the gods used to turn into strange vegetables and other things to seduce the ladies, he has turned the Chardon (the Thistle) into a gentleman to bewitch – whom? Charles X.! – My dear boy,” he went on, holding Lucien by his coat button, “a journalist who apes the fine gentleman deserves rough music. In their place,” said the merciless jester, as he pointed to Finot and Vernou, “I should take you up in my society paper; you would bring in a hundred francs for ten columns of fun.”
“Bixiou,” said Blondet, “an Amphitryon is sacred for twenty-four hours before a feast and twelve hours after. Our illustrious friend is giving us a supper.”
“What then!” cried Bixiou; “what is more imperative than the duty of saving a great name from oblivion, of endowing the indigent aristocracy with a man of talent? Lucien, you enjoy the esteem of the press of which you were a distinguished ornament, and we will give you our support. – Finot, a paragraph in the ‘latest items’! – Blondet, a little butter on the fourth page of your paper! – We must advertise the appearance of one of the finest books of the age, l’Archer de Charles IX.! We will appeal to Dauriat to bring out as soon as possible les Marguerites, those divine sonnets by the French Petrarch! We must carry our friend through on the shield of stamped paper by which reputations are made and unmade.”
“If you want a supper,” said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid himself of this mob, which threatened to increase, “it seems to me that you need not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old friend as if he were a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier’s – ” he cried, seeing a woman come by, whom he rushed to meet.
“Oh! oh! oh!” said Bixiou on three notes, with a mocking glance, and seeming to recognize the mask to whom Lucien addressed himself. “This needs confirmation.”
He followed the handsome pair, got past them, examined them keenly, and came back, to the great satisfaction of all the envious crowd, who were eager to learn the source of Lucien’s change of fortune.
“Friends,” said Bixiou, “you have long known the goddess of the Sire de Rubempre’s fortune: She is des Lupeaulx’s former ‘rat.’”
A form of dissipation, now forgotten, but still customary at the beginning of this century, was the keeping of “rats.” The “rat” – a slang word that has become old-fashioned – was a girl of ten or twelve in the chorus of some theatre, more particularly at the opera, who was trained by young roues to vice and infamy. A “rat” was a sort of demon page, a tomboy who was forgiven a trick if it were but funny. The “rat” might take what she pleased; she was to be watched like a dangerous animal, and she brought an element of liveliness into life, like Scapin, Sganarelle, and Frontin in old-fashioned comedy. But a “rat” was too expensive; it made no return in honor, profit, or pleasure; the fashion of rats so completely went out, that in these days few people knew anything of this detail of fashionable life before the Restoration till certain writers took up the “rat” as a new subject.
“What! after having seen Coralie killed under him, Lucien means to rob us of La Torpille?” (the torpedo fish) said Blondet.
As he heard
