Z. Marcas | Page 2

was hung with a vile cheap
paper sprigged with blue. The floor was painted, and knew nothing of
the polish given by the _frotteur's_ brush. By our beds there was only a
scrap of thin carpet. The chimney opened immediately to the roof, and
smoked so abominably that we were obliged to provide a stove at our
own expense. Our beds were mere painted wooden cribs like those in
schools; on the chimney shelf there were but two brass candlesticks,
with or without tallow candles in them, and our two pipes with some
tobacco in a pouch or strewn abroad, also the little piles of cigar-ash
left there by our visitors or ourselves.
A pair of calico curtains hung from the brass window rods, and on each
side of the window was a small bookcase in cherry-wood, such as every
one knows who has stared into the shop windows of the Quartier Latin,
and in which we kept the few books necessary for our studies.
The ink in the inkstand was always in the state of lava congealed in the
crater of a volcano. May not any inkstand nowadays become a
Vesuvius? The pens, all twisted, served to clean the stems of our pipes;
and, in opposition to all the laws of credit, paper was even scarcer than
coin.
How can young men be expected to stay at home in such furnished
lodgings? The students studied in the cafes, the theatre, the
Luxembourg gardens, in _grisettes'_ rooms, even in the law schools
--anywhere rather than in their horrible rooms--horrible for purposes of
study, delightful as soon as they were used for gossiping and smoking
in. Put a cloth on the table, and the impromptu dinner sent in from the

best eating-house in the neighborhood--places for four --two of them in
petticoats--show a lithograph of this "Interior" to the veriest bigot, and
she will be bound to smile.
We thought only of amusing ourselves. The reason for our dissipation
lay in the most serious facts of the politics of the time. Juste and I could
not see any room for us in the two professions our parents wished us to
take up. There are a hundred doctors, a hundred lawyers, for one that is
wanted. The crowd is choking these two paths which are supposed to
lead to fortune, but which are merely two arenas; men kill each other
there, fighting, not indeed with swords or fire-arms, but with intrigue
and calumny, with tremendous toil, campaigns in the sphere of the
intellect as murderous as those in Italy were to the soldiers of the
Republic. In these days, when everything is an intellectual competition,
a man must be able to sit forty-eight hours on end in his chair before a
table, as a General could remain for two days on horseback and in his
saddle.
The throng of aspirants has necessitated a division of the Faculty of
Medicine into categories. There is the physician who writes and the
physician who practises, the political physician, and the physician
militant--four different ways of being a physician, four classes already
filled up. As to the fifth class, that of physicians who sell remedies,
there is such a competition that they fight each other with disgusting
advertisements on the walls of Paris.
In all the law courts there are almost as many lawyers as there are cases.
The pleader is thrown back on journalism, on politics, on literature. In
fact, the State, besieged for the smallest appointments under the law,
has ended by requiring that the applicants should have some little
fortune. The pear-shaped head of the grocer's son is selected in
preference to the square skull of a man of talent who has not a sou.
Work as he will, with all his energy, a young man, starting from zero,
may at the end of ten years find himself below the point he set out from.
In these days, talent must have the good luck which secures success to
the most incapable; nay, more, if it scorns the base compromises which
insure advancement to crawling mediocrity, it will never get on.

If we thoroughly knew our time, we also knew ourselves, and we
preferred the indolence of dreamers to aimless stir, easy-going pleasure
to the useless toil which would have exhausted our courage and worn
out the edge of our intelligence. We had analyzed social life while
smoking, laughing, and loafing. But, though elaborated by such means
as these, our reflections were none the less judicious and profound.
While we were fully conscious of the slavery to which youth is
condemned, we were amazed at the brutal indifference of the
authorities to everything connected with intellect, thought, and poetry.
How often have Juste and I exchanged glances when reading the papers
as we studied political events,