LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY Mr - H. H. Kfl iani H. DE BALZAC THE COMEDIE HUMAINE THE FAIR MILLINER AND THE RETIRED MILITARY MAN WERE SOON IN DEEP CONVERSE (P. 94.) H. DE BALZAC A DISTINGUISHED PROVINCIAL AT PARIS (UN GRAND HOMIWE DE PROVINCE A PARIS) AND Z. MARCAS TRANSLATED BY ELLEN MARRIAGE WITH A PREFACE BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY PHILADELPHIA THE GEBBIE PUBLISHING Co., Ltd. 1898 CONTENTS PACK PREFACE ix A DISTINGUISHED PROVINCIAL AT PARIS PART I I PART II. 122 Z. MARCAS 360 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE FAIR MILLINER AND THE RETIRED MILITARY MAN WERE SOON IN DEEP CONVERSE (p. 94) .... Frontispiece PACK " M. DE RUBEMPRE," SAID THE MARQUISE " TAKE THIS SEAT" 21 "OUGHT I TO MAKE A SCENE AND LEAVE CORALIE?" . . 1 90 " ONE HUNDRED FRANCS, CORALIE ! " CRIED HE . . . . 2$2 "OH! NEVER MIND THOSE NINNIES," CRIED CORALIE . . 317 Drawn by W. Boucher. PREFACE. THE central part of " Illusiones Perdues," which in reason stands by itself, and may do so ostensibly with considerably less than the introduction explanatory which Balzac often gives to his own books, is one of the most carefully worked out and diversely important of his novels. It should, of course, be read before " Splendeurs et Miseres des Courte- sanes," which is avowedly its second part, a small piece of " Eve et David " serving as the link between them. But it is almost sufficient by and to itself. " Lucien de Rubempre ou le Journalisme" would be the most straightforward and de- scriptive title for it, and one which Balzac, in some of his moods, would have been content enough to use. The story of it is too continuous and interesting to need elab- orate argument, for nobody is likely to miss any important link in it. But Balzac has nowhere excelled in finesse and success of analysis the double disillusion which introduces itself at once between Madame de Bargeton and Lucien, and which makes any rcdinte-gratio amoris of a valid kind impossible, because each cannot but be aware that the other has antici- pated the rupture. It will not, perhaps, be matter of such general agreement whether he has or has not exceeded the fair license of the novelist in attributing to Lucien those charms of body and gifts of mind which make him, till his moral weakness and worthlessness are exposed, irresistible, and enable him for a time to repair his faults by a sort of fairy good-luck. The sonnets of "Les Marguerites," which were given to the author by poetical friends Gautier, it is said, supplied the " Tulip " are undoubtedly good and sufficient. But Lucien's first article, which is (according to a practice the rashness of which cannot be too much deprecated) given like- (ix) x PREFACE. wise, is certainly not very wonderful ; and the Paris press must have been rather at a low ebb if it made any sensation. As we are not favored with any actual portrait of Lucien, de- tection is less possible here, but the novelist has perhaps a very little abused the privilege of making a hero, " Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave," or, rather, " Like Paris handsome, and like Phcebus clever." There is no doubt, however, that the interest of the book lies partly in the vivid and severe picture of journalism given in it, and partly in the way in which the character of Lucien is adjusted to show up that of the abstract journalist still farther. How far is this picture true ? It must be said, in fairness to Balzac, that a good many persons of some competence in France have pronounced for its truth there ; and if that be so, all one can say is, " So much the worse for French journalists." It is also certain that a lesser, but still not inconsiderable number of persons in England generally persons who, not perhaps with Balzac's genius, have like Balzac published books, and are not satisfied with their reception by the press agree more or less as to England. For myself, I can only say that I do not believe things have ever been quite so bad in England, and that I am quite sure there never has been any need for them to be. There are, no doubt, spiteful, unprin- cipled, incompetent practitioners of journalism as of everything else ; and it is of course obvious that while advertisements, the favor of the chiefs of parties, and so forth, are temptations to newspaper managers not to hold up a very high standard of honor, anonymity affords to newspaper writers a dangerously easy shield to cover malice or dishonesty. But I can only say that during long practice in every kind of political and literary journalism, I never was seriously asked to write anything I did not think, and never had the slightest difficulty in con- fining myself to what I did think. In fact Balzac, like a good many other men of letters who abuse journalism, put himself very much out of court by con- PREFACE. xi tinually practicing it, not merely during his struggling period, but long after he had made his name, indeed almost to the very last. And it is very hard to resist the conclusion that when he charged journalism generally not merely with envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, but with hopeless and pervading dishonesty, he had little more ground for it than an inability to conceive how ' any one, except from vile reasons of this kind, could fail to praise Honore de Balzac. At any rate, either his art by itself, or his art assisted and strengthened by that personal feeling which, as we have seen, counted for much with him, has here produced a wonderfully vivid piece of fiction one, I think, inferior in success to hardly anything he has done. Whether, as at a late period a very well-informed, well-affected, and well-equipped critic hinted, his picture of the Luciens and the Lousteaus did not a little to propagate both is another matter. The seriousness with which Balzac took the accusation perhaps shows a little sense of galling. But, putting this aside, " Un Grand Homme de Province a Paris" must be ranked, both for comedy and tragedy, both for scheme and execution, in the first rank of his work. (For bibliography, see Preface to "The Two Poets.") " Z. Marcas." Numerous and often good as are the stories by all manner of hands, eminent and other, of the strange neighbors and acquaintance which the French habit of living in apartments brings about, this may vie with almost the best of them for individuality and force. Of course, it may be said that its brevity demanded no very great effort ; and also, a more noteworthy criticism, that Balzac has not made it so very clear, after all, why the political ingratitude of those for whom Marcas labored made it impossible for him to gain a living more amply and comfortably than by copying. The former carp needs no answer ; the sonnet is the equal of the long poem if it is a perfect sonnet. The latter, more re- xii PREFACE. spectable, is also more damaging. But it is a fair, if not quite full, defense to say that Balzac is here once more exemplifying his favorite notion of the maniaque in the French sense of the man with one idea, who is incapable not only of making a dishonorable surrender of that idea, but of entering into even the most honorable armistice in his fight for it. Not only will such a man not bow in the House of Rimmon, but the fullest liberty to stay outside will not content him he must force himself in and be at the idol. The external as well as the internal portraiture of " Z. Marcas " is also as good as it can be : and it cannot but add legitimate interest to the sketch to remember, first, that Balzac attributes to Marcas his own favorite habits and times of work ; and, secondly, that, like some other men of letters, he himself was an untiring, and would fain have been an influential, politician. " Z. Marcas," written in 1840, appeared in the "Revue Parisienne " for July of that year, made its first book appear- ance in a miscellany by different hands called " Le Fruit DeTendu " (1841), and five years later took rank in the "ComSdie." G. S. A DISTINGUISHED PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. PART I. MME. DE BARGETON and Lucien de Rubempr6 had left Angoulgme behind, and were traveling together upon the road to Paris. Not one of the party who made that journey alluded to it afterward ; but it may be believed that an in- fatuated youth who had looked forward to the delights of an elopement must have found the continual presence of Gentil, the manservant, and Albertine, the maid, not a little irksome on the way. Lucien, traveling post for the first time in his life, was horrified to see pretty nearly the whole sum on which he meant to live in Paris for a twelvemonth dropped along the road. Like other men who combine great intellectual powers with the charming simplicity of childhood, he openly expressed his surprise at the new and wonderful things which he saw, and thereby made a mistake. A man should study a woman very carefully before he allows her to see his thoughts and emotions as they arise in him. A woman, whose nature is large as her heart is tender, can smile upon childishness and make allowances ; but let her have ever so small a spice of vanity herself, and she cannot forgive childishness, or littleness, or vanity in her lover. Many a woman is so ex- travagant a worshiper that she must always see the god in her idol ; but there are yet others who love a man for his sake and not for their own, and adore his failings with his greater qualities. Lucien had not guessed as yet that Mme. de Bargeton's love was grafted on pride. He made another mistake when he failed to discern the meaning of certain smiles which (1) 2 A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. flitted over Louise's lips from time to time ; and instead of keeping himself to himself, he indulged in the playfulness of the young rat emerging from his hole for the first time. The travelers were set down before daybreak at the sign of the Gaillard-Bois in the Rue de 1'Echelle, both so tired out with the journey that Louise went straight to bed and slept, first bidding Lucien to engage the room immediately over- head. Lucien slept on until four o'clock in the afternoon, when he was awakened by Mme. de Bargeton's servant, and, learning the hour, made a hasty toilet and hurried downstairs. Louise was sitting in the shabby inn sitting-room. Hotel accommodation is a blot on the civilization of Paris ; for with all its pretensions to elegance, the city as yet does not boast a single inn where a well-to-do traveler can find the surround- ings to which he is accustomed at home. To Lucien' s just- awakened, sleep-dimmed eyes, Louise was hardly recognizable in this cheerless, sunless room, with the shabby window-cur- tains, the comfortless polished floor, the hideous furniture bought second-hand, or much the worse for wear. Some people no longer look the same when detached from the .background of faces, objects, and surroundings which serve as a setting, without which, indeed, they seem to lose something of their intrinsic worth. Personality demands its appropriate atmosphere to bring out its values, just as the figures in Flemish interiors need the arrangement of light and shade in which they are placed by the painter's genius if they are to live for us. This is especially true of provincials. Mme. de Bargeton, moreover, looked more thoughtful and dignified than was necessary now, when no barriers stood between her and happiness. Gentil and Albertine waited upon them, and while they were present Lucien could not complain. The dinner, sent in from a neighboring restaurant, fell far below the provincial average, both in quantity and quality; the essential goodness of country fare was wanting, and in point of quantity the A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. 3 portions were cut with so strict an eye to business that they savored of short commons. In such small matters Paris does not show its best side' to travelers of moderate fortune. Lu- cien waited till the meal was over. Some change had come over Louise, he thought, but he could not explain it. And a change had, in fact, taken place. Events had oc- curred while he slept ; for reflection is an event in our inner history, and Mme. de Bargeton had been reflecting. About two o'clock that afternoon, Sixte du Chatelet made his appearance in the Rue de 1'Echelle and asked for Al- bertine. The sleeping damsel was aroused, and to her he expressed his wish to speak with her mistress. Mme. de Bargeton had scarcely time to dress before he came back again. The unaccountable apparition of M. du Chatelet roused the lady's curiosity, for she had kept her journey a profound secret, as she thought. At three o'clock the visitor was admitted. " I have risked a reprimand from headquarters to follow you," he said, as he greeted her; " I foresaw coming events. But if I lose my post for it, you, at any rate, shall not be lost." "What do you mean? " exclaimed Mme. de Bargeton. "I can see plainly that you love Lucien," he continued, with an air of tender resignation. "You must love indeed if you can act thus recklessly and disregard the conventions which you know so well. Dear adored Nais, can you really imagine that Madame d'Espard's salon, or any other salon in Paris, will not be closed to you as soon as it is known that you have fled from AngoulSme, as it were, with a young man, especially after the duel between de Bargeton and de Chandour? The fact that your husband has gone to the Es- carbas looks like a separation. Under such circumstances a gentleman fights first and afterward leaves his wife at lib- erty. Give Monsieur de Rubempr6 your love and your coun- tenance ; do just as you please ; but you must not live in the 4 A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. same house. If anybody here in Paris knew that you had traveled together, the whole world that you have a mind to see would point the finger at you. "And, Nals, do not make these sacrifices for a young man whom you have as yet compared with no one else ; he, on his side, has been put to no proof ; he may forsake you for some Parisienne, better able, as he may fancy, to further his ambi- tions. I mean no harm to the man you love, but you will permit me to put your own interests before his, and to beg you to study him, to be fully aware of the serious nature of this step that you are taking. And, then, if you find all doors closed against you, and that none of the women call upon you, make sure at least that you will feel no regret for all that you have renounced for him. Be very certain first that he for whom you will have given up so much will always be worthy of your sacrifices and appreciate them. " Just now," continued Chatelet, " Madame d'Espard is the more prudish and particular because she herself is separated from her husband, nobody knows why. The Navarreins, the Lenoncourts, the Blamont-Chauvrys, and the rest of the rela- tions have all rallied round her ; the most strait-laced women are seen at her house, and receive her with respect, and the Marquis d'Espard has been put in the wrong. The first call that you pay will make it clear to you that I am right; indeed, knowing Paris as I do, I can tell you beforehand that you will no sooner enter the Marquise's salon than you will be in despair lest she should find out that you are staying at the Gaillard-Bois with an apothecary's son, though he may wish to be called Monsieur de Rubempre. "You will have rivals here, women far more astute and shrewd than Amelie ; they will not fail to discover whom you are, where you are, where you come from, and all that you are doing. You have counted upon your incognito, I see, but you are one of those women for whom an incognito is out of the question. You will meet Angouleme at every turn. A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. 5 There are the deputies from the Charente coming up for the opening of the session ; there is the commandant in Paris on leave. Why, the first man or woman from Angoul&me who happens to see you would cut your career short in a strange fashion. You would simply be Lucien's mistress. " If you need me at any time, I am staying with the re- ceiver-general in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, two steps away from Madame d'Espard's. I am sufficiently ac- quainted with the Marechale de Carigliano, Madame de Serizy, and the president of the council to introduce you to them ; but you will meet so many people at Madame d'Espard's that you are not likely to require me. So far from wishing to gain admittance to this set or that, every one will be longing to make your acquaintance." Chatelet talked on ; Mme. de Bargeton made no inter- ruption. She was struck with his perspicacity. The queen of Angoul&me had, in fact, counted upon preserving her in- cognito. "You are right, my dear friend," she said at length; "but what am I to do? " "Allow me to find suitable furnished lodgings for you," suggested Chatelet ; " that way of living is less expensive than an inn. You will have a home of your own ; and, if you will take my advice, you will sleep in your new rooms this very night." " But how did you know my address? " queried she. " Your traveling carriage is easily recognized ; and, beside, I was following you. At Sevres your postillion told mine that he had brought you here. Will you permit me to act as your harbinger ? I will write as soon as I have found lodg- ings." " Very well, do so," said she. And in those seemingly insignificant words, all was said. The Baron du Chatelet had spoken the language of worldly wisdom to a woman of the world. He had made his appearance before her in faultless 6 A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. dress, a neat cab was waiting for him at the door ; and Mrae. de Bargeton, standing by the window thinking over the posi- tion, chanced to see the elderly dandy drive away. A few moments later Lucien appeared, half-awake and hastily dressed. He was handsome, it is true ; but his clothes, his last year's nankeen trousers, and his shabby tight jacket were ridiculous. Put Antinous or the Apollo Belvedere him- self into a water-carrier's blouse, and how shall you recognize the godlike creature of the Greek or Roman chisel ? The eyes note and compare before the heart has time to revise the swift involuntary judgment ; and the contrast between Lucien and Chatelet was so abrupt that it could not fail to strike Louise. Toward six o'clock that evening, when dinner was over, Mme. de Bargeton beckoned Lucien to sit beside her on the shabby sofa, covered with a flowered chintz a yellow pattern on a red ground. " Lucien mine," she said, " don't you think that if we have both of us done a foolish thing, suicidal for both our interests, that it would only be commonsense to set matters right ? We ought not to live together in Paris, dear boy, and we must not allow any one to suspect that we traveled together. Your career depends so much upon my position that I ought to do nothing to spoil it. So, to-night, I am going to remove into lodgings near by. But you will stay on here, we can see each other every day, and nobody can say a word against us." And Louise explained conventions to Lucien, who opened wide eyes. He had still to learn that when a woman thinks better of her folly, she thinks better of her love ; but one thing he understood he saw that he was no longer the Lucien of AngoulSme. Louise talked of herself, of her interests, her reputation, and of the world ; and, to veil her egoism, she tried to make him believe that this was all on his account. He had no claim upon Louise thus suddenly transformed into Mme. de Bargeton, and, more serious still, he had no power A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. 7 over her. He could not keep back the tears that filled his eyes. " If I am your glory," cried the poet, " you are yet more to me you are my one hope, my whole future rests with you. I thought that if you meant to make my successes yours, you would surely make my adversity yours also, and here we are going to part already." "You are judging my conduct," said she; "you do not love me." Lucien looked at her with such a dolorous expression that, in spite of herself, she said " Darling, I will stay if you like. We shall both be ruined ; we shall have no one to come to our aid. But when we are both equally wretched, and every one shuts their door upon us both ; when failure (for we must look all possibilities in the face), when failure drives us back to the Escarbas, then remember, love, that I foresaw the end, and that at the first I proposed that we should make your way by conforming to established rules." "Louise," he cried, with his arms round her, "you are wise ; you frighten me ! Remember that I am a child, that I have given myself up entirely to your dear will. I myself should have preferred to overcome obstacles and win my way among men by the power that is in me ; but if I can reach the goal sooner through your aid, I shall be very glad to owe all my success to you. Forgive me ! You mean so much to me that I cannot help fearing all kinds of things ; and, for me, parting means that desertion is at hand, and desertion is death." " But, my dear boy, the world's demands are soon sat- isfied," she returned. "You must sleep here; that is all. All day long you will be with me, and no one can say a word." A few kisses set Lucien's mind completely at rest. An hour later Gentil brought in a note from Chitelet. He told Mme. de Bargeton that he had found lodgings for her in the 8 A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg. Mme. de Bargeton informed herself of the exact place, and found that it was not very far from the Rue de 1'Echelle. "We shall be neighbors," she told Lucien. Two hours afterward Louise stepped into the hired carriage sent by Ch^telet for the removal to the new rooms. The apartments were of the class that upholsterers furnish and let to wealthy deputies and persons of consideration on a short visit to Paris showy and uncomfortable. It was eleven o'clock when Lucien returned to his inn, having seen nothing as yet of Paris except the part of the Rue Saint-Honore which lies between the Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg and the Rue de 1'Echelle. He lay down in his miserable little room, and could not help comparing it in his own mind with Louise's sumptuous apartments. Just as he came away the Baron du Chitelet came in, gor- geously arrayed in evening dress, fresh from the minister for foreign affairs, to inquire whether Mme. de Bargeton was satisfied with all that he had done on her behalf. NaTs was uneasy. The splendor was alarming to her mind. Provincial life had reacted upon her; she was painfully conscientious over her accounts and economical to a degree that is looked upon as miserly in Paris. She had brought with her twenty thousand francs in the shape of a draft on the receiver-general, considering that the sum would more than cover the expenses of four years in Paris ; she was afraid already lest she should not have enough and should run into debt ; and now Chate- let told her that her rooms would only cost six hundred francs per month. " A mere trifle," added he, seeing that NaYs was startled. " For five hundred francs a month you can have a carriage from a livery stable ; fifty louis in all. You need only think of your dress. A woman moving in good society could not well do less; and if you mean to obtain a receiver-general's appointment for de Bargeton, or a post in the household, A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. 9 you ought not to look poverty-stricken. Here, in Paris, they only give to the rich. It is most fortunate that you brought Gentil to go out with you, and Albertine for your own woman, for servants are enough to ruin you here. But with your introductions you will seldom be at home to a meal." Mme. de Bargeton and the Baron du Chatelet chatted about Paris. Chatelet gave her all the news of the day, the myriad nothings that you are bound to know, under penalty of being a nobody. Before very long the Baron also gave advice as to shopping, recommending Herbault for toques and Juliette for hats and bonnets ; he added the address of a fashionable dressmaker to supersede Victorine. In short, he made the lady see ^he necessity of rubbing off Angoulgme. Then he took his leave after a final flash of happy inspiration. " I expect I shall have a box at one of the theatres to- morrow," he remarked carelessly; "I will call for you and Monsieur de Rubempre, for you must allow me to do the hon- ors of Paris." " There is more generosity in his character than I thought," said Mme. de Bargeton to herself when Lucien was included in the invitation. In the month of June ministers are often puzzled to know what to do with boxes at the theatre ; ministerialist deputies and their constituents are busy in their vineyards or harvest- fields, and their more exacting acquaintances are in the country or traveling about ; so it comes to pass that the best seats are filled at this season with heterogeneous theatre-goers, never seen at any other time of year, and the house is apt to look as if it were tapestried with very shabby material. Chatelet had thought already that this was his opportunity of giving NaTs the amusements which provincials crave most eagerly, and that with very little expense. The next morning, the very first morning in Paris, Lucien went to the Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg and found that Louise had gone out. She had gone to make some indispensable 10 A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. purchases, to take counsel of the mighty and illustrious authorities in the matter of the feminine toilet, pointed out to her by Chatelet, for she had written to tell the Marquise d'Espard of her arrival. Mme. de Bargeton possessed the self-confidence born of a long habit of rule, but she was ex- ceedingly afraid of appearing to be provincial. She had tact enough to know how greatly the relations of women among themselves depend upon first impressions; and though she felt that she was equal to taking her place at once in such a distinguished set as Mme. d'Espard's, she felt also that she stood in need of good-will at her first entrance into society, and was resolved, in the first place, that she would leave nothing undone to secure success. So she felt boundlessly thankful to Chatelet for pointing out these ways of putting herself in harmony with the fashionable world. A singular chance so ordered it that the Marquise was de- lighted to find an opportunity of being useful to a connection of her husband's family. The Marquis d'Espard had just withdrawn himself without apparent reason from society, and ceased to take any active interest in affairs, political or do- mestic. His wife, thus left mistress of her actions, felt the need of the support of public opinion, and was glad to take the Marquis' place and give her countenance to one of her husband's relations. She meant to be ostentatiously gracious, so as to put her husband more evidently in the wrong ; and that very day she wrote " Mme. de Bargeton nee Negrepelisse " a charming billet, one of the prettily worded compositions of which time alone can discover the emptiness. " She was delighted that circumstances had brought a rela- tive, of whom she had heard, whose acquaintance she had desired to make, into closer connection with her family. Friendships in Paris were not so solid but that she longed to find one more to love on earth ; and if this might not be, there would only be one more illusion to bury with the rest. She A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. 11 put herself entirely at her cousin's disposal. She would have called upon her if indisposition had not kept her to the house, and she felt that she lay already under obligations to the cousin who had thought of her." Lucien, meanwhile, taking his first ramble along the Rue de la Paix and through the boulevards, like all new-comers, was much more interested in the things that he saw than in the people he met. The general effect of Paris is wholly engross- ing at first. The wealth in the shop windows, the high houses, the streams of traffic, the contrast everywhere between the last extremes of luxury and want struck him more than any- thing else. In his astonishment at the crowds of strange faces, the man of imaginative temper felt as if he himself had shrank, as it were, immensely. A man of any consequence in his native place, where he cannot go out but he meets with some recognition of his importance at every step, does not readily accustom himself to the sudden and total extinction of his consequence. You are somebody in your own country in Paris you are nobody. The transition between the first state and the last should be made gradually, for the too abrupt fall is something like annihilation. Paris could not fail to be an appalling wilderness for a young poet, who looked for an echo for all his sentiments, a confident for all his thoughts, a soul to share his least sensations. Lucien had not gone in search of his luggage and his best blue coat ; and painfully conscious of the shabbiness, to say no worse of his clothes, he went to Mme. de Bargeton, feel- ing sure that she must have returned. He found the Baron du Chatelet, who carried them both off to dinner at the Rocher deCancale. Lucien's head was dizzy with the whirl of Paris, the Baron was in the carriage, he could say nothing to Louise, but he squeezed her hand, and she gave a warm response to the mute confidence. After dinner Chatelet took his guests to the Vaudeville. 12 A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. Lucien, in his heart, was not over well pleased to see Chatelet again, and cursed the chance that had brought the Baron to Paris. The Baron said that ambition had brought him to town ; he had hopes of an appointment as secretary-general to a government department, and meant to take a seat in the council of state as master of requests. He had come to Paris to ask for fulfillment of the promises that had been given him, for a man of his stamp could not be expected to remain a comptroller all his life; he would rather be nothing at all, and offer himself for election as deputy, or re-enter diplomacy. Chatelet grew visibly taller ; Lucien dimly began to recognize in this elderly beau the superiority of the man of the world who knows Paris ; and, most of all, he felt ashamed to owe his evening's amusement to his rival. And while the poet looked ill at ease and awkward, her royal highness' ex-secre- tary was quite in his element. He smiled at his rival's hesita- tions, at his astonishment, at the questions he put, at the little mistakes which the latter ignorantly made, much as an old salt laughs at an apprentice who has not found his sea legs ; but Lucien's pleasure at seeing a play for the first time in Paris outweighed the annoyance of these small humiliations. That evening marked an epoch in Lucien's career ; he put away a good many of his ideas as to provincial life in the course of it. His horizon widened ; society assumed different proportions. There were fair Parisiennes in fresh and elegant toilets all about him ; Mme. de Bargeton's costume, tolerably ambitious though it was, looked dowdy by comparison ; the material, like the fashion and the color, was out of date. That way of arranging her hair, so bewitching in AngoulSme, looked frightfully ugly here among the daintily devised coif- fures which he saw in every direction. "Will she always look like that?" he said to himself, ignorant that the morning had been spent in preparing a transformation. In the provinces comparison and choice are out of the question ; when a face has grown familiar it comes to possess a A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. 13 certain beauty that is taken for granted. But transport the pretty woman of the provinces to Paris and no one takes the slightest notice of Her; her prettiness is of the comparative degree illustrated by the saying that among the blind the one- eyed are kings. Lucien's eyes were now busy comparing Mme. de Bargeton with other women, just as she herself had contrasted him with Chatelet on the previous day. And Mme. de Bargeton, on her part, permitted herself some strange reflections upon her lover. The poet cut a poor fig- ure notwithstanding his singular beauty. The sleeves of his jacket were too short ; with his ill-cut country gloves and a waistcoat too scanty for him, he looked prodigiously ridicu- lous, compared with the young men in the balcony "posi- tively pitiable," thought Mme. de Bargeton. Chatelet, in- terested in her without presumption, taking care of her in a manner that revealed a profound passion ; Chatelet, elegant, and as much at home as an actor treading the familiar boards of his theatre, in two days had recovered all the ground lost in the past six months. Ordinary people will not admit that our sentiments toward each other can totally change in a moment, and yet certain it is that two lovers not seldom fly apart even more quickly than they drew together. In Mme. de Bargeton and in Lucien a process of disenchantment was at work ; Paris was the cause. Life had widened out before the poet's eyes, as society came to wear a new aspect for Louise. Nothing but an accident now was needed to sever finally the bond that united them ; nor was that blow, so terrible for Lucien, very long delayed. Mme. de Bargeton set Lucien down at his inn, and drove home with Chatelet, to the intense vexation of the luckless lover. "What will they say about me?" he wondered, as he climbed the stairs to his dismal room. "That poor fellow is uncommonly dull," said Chatelet, with a smile, when the door was closed. 14 A PROVINCIAL AT PARIS. " That is the way with those who have a world of thoughts in their heart and brain. Men who have so much in them to give out in great works long dreamed of profess a certain contempt for conversation, a commerce in which the intellect spends itself in small change," returned the haughty Negre- pelisse. She still had courage to defend Lucien, but less for Lucien's sake than for her own. " I grant it you willingly," replied the Baron, " but we live with human beings and not with books. There, dear NaYs, I see how it is, there is nothing between you yet, and I am delighted that it is so. If you decide to bring an in- terest of a kind hitherto lacking into your life, let it not be this so-called genius, I implore you. How if you have made a mistake? Suppose that in a few days' time, when you have compared him with men whom you will meet, men of real ability, men who have distinguished themselves in good earn- est ; suppose that you should discover, dear and fair siren, that it is no lyre-bearer that you have borne into port on your dazzling shoulders, but a little ape, with no manners and no capacity; a presumptuous fool who may be a wit in L'Hou- meau, but turns out a very ordinary specimen of a young man in Paris ? And, after all, volumes of verse come out every week here, the worst of them better than all this Chardon's poetry put together. For pity's sake, wait and compare ! To-morrow, Friday, is opera night," he continued, as the carriage turned into the Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg ; " Mme. d'Espard has the box of the first gentlemen of the chamber, and will take you, no doubt. I shall go to Mme. de Serizy's box to behold you in your glory. They are giving