第36章

"I tried lots of things;I wrote a novel,anonymously;old Doguereau gave me two hundred francs for it,and he did not make very much out of it himself.Then it grew plain to me that journalism alone could give me a living.The next thing was to find my way into those shops.

I will not tell you all the advances I made,nor how often I begged in vain.I will say nothing of the six months I spent as extra hand on a paper,and was told that I scared subscribers away,when as a fact Iattracted them.Pass over the insults I put up with.At this moment Iam doing the plays at the Boulevard theatres,almost gratis,for a paper belonging to Finot,that stout young fellow who breakfasts two or three times a month,even now,at the Cafe Voltaire (but you don't go there).I live by selling tickets that managers give me to bribe a good word in the paper,and reviewers'copies of books.In short,Finot once satisfied,I am allowed to write for and against various commercial articles,and I traffic in tribute paid in kind by various tradesmen.A facetious notice of a Carminative Toilet Lotion,Pate des Sultanes,Cephalic Oil,or Brazilian Mixture brings me in twenty or thirty francs.

"I am obliged to dun the publishers when they don't send in a sufficient number of reviewers'copies;Finot,as editor,appropriates two and sells them,and I must have two to sell.If a book of capital importance comes out,and the publisher is stingy with copies,his life is made a burden to him.The craft is vile,but I live by it,and so do scores of others.Do not imagine that things are any better in public life.There is corruption everywhere in both regions;every man is corrupt or corrupts others.If there is any publishing enterprise somewhat larger than usual afoot,the trade will pay me something to buy neutrality.The amount of my income varies,therefore,directly with the prospectuses.When prospectuses break out like a rash,money pours into my pockets;I stand treat all round.When trade is dull,Idine at Flicoteaux's.

"Actresses will pay you likewise for praise,but the wiser among them pay for criticism.To be passed over in silence is what they dread the most;and the very best thing of all,from their point of view,is criticism which draws down a reply;it is far more effectual than bald praise,forgotten as soon as read,and it costs more in consequence.

Celebrity,my dear fellow,is based upon controversy.I am a hired bravo;I ply my trade among ideas and reputations,commercial,literary,and dramatic;I make some fifty crowns a month;I can sell a novel for five hundred francs;and I am beginning to be looked upon as a man to be feared.Some day,instead of living with Florine at the expense of a druggist who gives himself the airs of a lord,I shall be in a house of my own;I shall be on the staff of a leading newspaper,I shall have a feuilleton;and on that day,my dear fellow,Florine will become a great actress.As for me,I am not sure what I shall be when that time comes,a minister or an honest man--all things are still possible."He raised his humiliated head,and looked out at the green leaves,with an expression of despairing self-condemnation dreadful to see.

"And I had a great tragedy accepted!"he went on."And among my papers there is a poem,which will die.And I was a good fellow,and my heart was clean!I used to dream lofty dreams of love for great ladies,queens in the great world;and--my mistress is an actress at the Panorama-Dramatique.And lastly,if a bookseller declines to send a copy of a book to my paper,I will run down work which is good,as Iknow."

Lucien was moved to tears,and he grasped Etienne's hand in his.The journalist rose to his feet,and the pair went up and down the broad Avenue de l'Observatoire,as if their lungs craved ampler breathing space.

"Outside the world of letters,"Etienne Lousteau continued,"not a single creature suspects that every one who succeeds in that world--who has a certain vogue,that is to say,or comes into fashion,or gains reputation,or renown,or fame,or favor with the public (for by these names we know the rungs of the ladder by which we climb to the higher heights above and beyond them),--every one who comes even thus far is the hero of a dreadful Odyssey.Brilliant portents rise above the mental horizon through a combination of a thousand accidents;conditions change so swiftly that no two men have been known to reach success by the same road.Canalis and Nathan are two dissimilar cases;things never fall out in the same way twice.There is d'Arthez,who knocks himself to pieces with work--he will make a famous name by some other chance.

"This so much desired reputation is nearly always crowned prostitution.Yes;the poorest kind of literature is the hapless creature freezing at the street corner;second-rate literature is the kept-mistress picked out of the brothels of journalism,and I am her bully;lastly,there is lucky literature,the flaunting,insolent courtesan who has a house of her own and pays taxes,who receives great lords,treating or ill-treating them as she pleases,who has liveried servants and a carriage,and can afford to keep greedy creditors waiting.Ah!and for yet others,for me not so very long ago,for you to-day--she is a white-robed angel with many-colored wings,bearing a green palm branch in the one hand,and in the other a flaming sword.An angel,something akin to the mythological abstraction which lives at the bottom of a well,and to the poor and honest girl who lives a life of exile in the outskirts of the great city,earning every penny with a noble fortitude and in the full light of virtue,returning to heaven inviolate of body and soul;unless,indeed,she comes to lie at the last,soiled,despoiled,polluted,and forgotten,on a pauper's bier.As for the men whose brains are encompassed with bronze,whose hearts are still warm under the snows of experience,they are found but seldom in the country that lies at our feet,"he added,pointing to the great city seething in the late afternoon light.