第107章

Lousteau was terribly overcome.He wept (towards the close of a dinner given by his friends to console him in his affliction).In the course of that banquet it was decided that Nathan had not acted unfairly;several writers present--Finot and Vernou,for instance,--knew of Florine's fervid admiration for dramatic literature;but they all agreed that Lucien had behaved very ill when he arranged that business at the Gymnase;he had indeed broken the most sacred laws of friendship.Party-spirit and zeal to serve his new friends had led the Royalist poet on to sin beyond forgiveness.

"Nathan was carried away by passion,"pronounced Bixiou,"while this 'distinguished provincial,'as Blondet calls him,is simply scheming for his own selfish ends."And so it came to pass that deep plots were laid by all parties alike to rid themselves of this little upstart intruder of a poet who wanted to eat everybody up.Vernou bore Lucien a personal grudge,and undertook to keep a tight hand on him;and Finot declared that Lucien had betrayed the secret of the combination against Matifat,and thereby swindled him (Finot)out of fifty thousand francs.Nathan,acting on Florine's advice,gained Finot's support by selling him the sixth share for fifteen thousand francs,and Lousteau consequently lost his commission.His thousand crowns had vanished away;he could not forgive Lucien for this treacherous blow (as he supposed it)dealt to his interests.The wounds of vanity refuse to heal if oxide of silver gets into them.

No words,no amount of deion,can depict the wrath of an author in a paroxysm of mortified vanity,nor the energy which he discovers when stung by the poisoned darts of sarcasm;but,on the other hand,the man that is roused to fighting-fury by a personal attack usually subsides very promptly.The more phlegmatic race,who take these things quietly,lay their account with the oblivion which speedily overtakes the spiteful article.These are the truly courageous men of letters;and if the weaklings seem at first to be the strong men,they cannot hold out for any length of time.

During that first fortnight,while the fury was upon him,Lucien poured a perfect hailstorm of articles into the Royalist papers,in which he shared the responsibilities of criticism with Hector Merlin.

He was always in the breach,pounding away with all his might in the Reveil,backed up by Martainville,the only one among his associates who stood by him without an afterthought.Martainville was not in the secret of certain understandings made and ratified amid after-dinner jokes,or at Dauriat's in the Wooden Galleries,or behind the scenes at the Vaudeville,when journalists of either side met on neutral ground.

When Lucien went to the greenroom of the Vaudeville,he met with no welcome;the men of his own party held out a hand to shake,the others cut him;and all the while Hector Merlin and Theodore Gaillard fraternized unblushingly with Finot,Lousteau,and Vernou,and the rest of the journalists who were known for "good fellows."The greenroom of the Vaudeville in those days was a hotbed of gossip,as well as a neutral ground where men of every shade of opinion could meet;so much so that the President of a court of law,after reproving a learned brother in a certain council chamber for "sweeping the greenroom with his gown,"met the subject of his strictures,gown to gown,in the greenroom of the Vaudeville.Lousteau,in time,shook hands again with Nathan;Finot came thither almost every evening;and Lucien,whenever he could spare the time,went to the Vaudeville to watch the enemies,who showed no sign of relenting towards the unfortunate boy.

In the time of the Restoration party hatred was far more bitter than in our day.Intensity of feeling is diminished in our high-pressure age.The critic cuts a book to pieces and shakes hands with the author afterwards,and the victim must keep on good terms with his slaughterer,or run the gantlet of innumerable jokes at his expense.

If he refuses,he is unsociable,eaten up with self-love,he is sulky and rancorous,he bears malice,he is a bad bed-fellow.To-day let an author receive a treacherous stab in the back,let him avoid the snares set for him with base hypocrisy,and endure the most unhandsome treatment,he must still exchange greetings with his assassin,who,for that matter,claims the esteem and friendship of his victim.

Everything can be excused and justified in an age which has transformed vice into virtue and virtue into vice.Good-fellowship has come to be the most sacred of our liberties;the representatives of the most opposite opinions courteously blunt the edge of their words,and fence with buttoned foils.But in those almost forgotten days the same theatre could scarcely hold certain Royalist and Liberal journalists;the most malignant provocation was offered,glances were like pistol-shots,the least spark produced an explosion of quarrel.

Who has not heard his neighbor's half-smothered oath on the entrance of some man in the forefront of the battle on the opposing side?There were but two parties--Royalists and Liberals,Classics and Romantics.

You found the same hatred masquerading in either form,and no longer wondered at the scaffolds of the Convention.

Lucien had been a Liberal and a hot Voltairean;now he was a rabid Royalist and a Romantic.Martainville,the only one among his colleagues who really liked him and stood by him loyally,was more hated by the Liberals than any man on the Royalist side,and this fact drew down all the hate of the Liberals on Lucien's head.