Scenes from a Courtesans Life | Page 4

setting up as a
person of consequence," said du Chatelet to the Secretary-General.
"My dear Count," replied des Lupeaulx very seriously, "Monsieur de
Rubempre is a young man of the highest merit, and has such good
interest at his back that I should be delighted to renew my acquaintance
with him."
"There he is, rushing into the wasps' nest of the rakes of the day," said
Rastignac.

The three speakers looked towards a corner where a group of
recognized wits had gathered, men of more or less celebrity, and
several men of fashion. These gentlemen made common stock of their
jests, their remarks, and their scandal, trying to amuse themselves till
something should amuse them. Among this strangely mingled party
were some men with whom Lucien had had transactions, combining
ostensibly kind offices with covert false dealing.
"Hallo! Lucien, my boy, why here we are patched up again--new
stuffing and a new cover. Where have we come from? Have we
mounted the high horse once more with little offerings from Florine's
boudoir? Bravo, old chap!" and Blondet released Finot to put his arm
affectionately around Lucien and press him to his heart.
Andoche Finot was the proprietor of a review on which Lucien had
worked for almost nothing, and to which Blondet gave the benefit of
his collaboration, of the wisdom of his suggestions and the depth of his
views. Finot and Blondet embodied Bertrand and Raton, with this
difference--that la Fontaine's cat at last showed that he knew himself to
be duped, while Blondet, though he knew that he was being fleeced,
still did all he could for Finot. This brilliant condottiere of the pen was,
in fact, long to remain a slave. Finot hid a brutal strength of will under
a heavy exterior, under polish of wit, as a laborer rubs his bread with
garlic. He knew how to garner what he gleaned, ideas and crown-pieces
alike, in the fields of the dissolute life led by men engaged in letters or

in politics.
Blondet, for his sins, had placed his powers at the service of Finot's
vices and idleness. Always at war with necessity, he was one of the
race of poverty-stricken and superior men who can do everything for
the fortune of others and nothing for their own, Aladdins who let other
men borrow their lamp. These excellent advisers have a clear and
penetrating judgment so long as it is not distracted by personal interest.
In them it is the head and not the arm that acts. Hence the looseness of
their morality, and hence the reproach heaped upon them by inferior
minds. Blondet would share his purse with a comrade he had affronted
the day before; he would dine, drink, and sleep with one whom he
would demolish on the morrow. His amusing paradoxes excused
everything. Accepting the whole world as a jest, he did not want to be
taken seriously; young, beloved, almost famous and contented, he did
not devote himself, like Finot, to acquiring the fortune an old man
needs.
The most difficult form of courage, perhaps, is that which Lucien
needed at this moment to get rid of Blondet as he had just got rid of
Madame d'Espard and Chatelet. In him, unfortunately, the joys of
vanity hindered the exercise of pride--the basis, beyond doubt, of many
great things. His vanity had triumphed in the previous encounter; he
had shown himself as a rich man, happy and scornful, to two persons
who had scorned him when he was poor and wretched. But how could a
poet, like an old diplomate, run the gauntlet with two self-styled friends,
who had welcomed him in misery, under whose roof he had slept in the
worst of his troubles? Finot, Blondet, and he had groveled together;
they had wallowed in such orgies as consume something more than
money. Like soldiers who find no market for their courage, Lucien had
just done what many men do in Paris: he had still further compromised
his character by shaking Finot's hand, and not rejecting Blondet's
affection.
Every 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