"Here are two or three bills,monsieur,"he said,standing beside the merchant,who did not rise from his desk."If you will take them of me,you will oblige me extremely.""You have taken something of ME,monsieur,"said Camusot;"I do not forget it."On this,Lucien explained Coralie's predicament.He spoke in a low voice,bending to murmur his explanation,so that Camusot could hear the heavy throbbing of the humiliated poet's heart.It was no part of Camusot's plans that Coralie should suffer a check.He listened,smiling to himself over the signatures on the bills (for,as a judge at the Tribunal of Commerce,he knew how the booksellers stood),but in the end he gave Lucien four thousand five hundred francs for them,stipulating that he should add the formula "For value received in silks."Lucien went straight to Braulard,and made arrangements for a good reception.Braulard promised to come to the dress-rehearsal,to determine on the points where his "Romans"should work their fleshy clappers to bring down the house in applause.Lucien gave the rest of the money to Coralie (he did not tell her how he had come by it),and allayed her anxieties and the fears of Berenice,who was sorely troubled over their daily expenses.
Martainville came several times to hear Coralie rehearse,and he knew more of the stage than most men of his time;several Royalist writers had promised favorable articles;Lucien had not a suspicion of the impending disaster.
A fatal event occurred on the evening before Coralie's debut.
D'Arthez's book had appeared;and the editor of Merlin's paper,considering Lucien to be the best qualified man on the staff,gave him the book to review.He owed his unlucky reputation to those articles on Nathan's work.There were several men in the office at the time,for all the staff had been summoned;Martainville was explaining that the party warfare with the Liberals must be waged on certain lines.
Nathan,Merlin,all the contributors,in fact,were talking of Leon Giraud's paper,and remarking that its influence was the more pernicious because the language was guarded,cool,moderate.People were beginning to speak of the circle in the Rue des Quatre-Vents as a second Convention.It had been decided that the Royalist papers were to wage a systematic war of extermination against these dangerous opponents,who,indeed,at a later day,were destined to sow the doctrines that drove the Bourbons into exile;but that was only after the most brilliant of Royalist writers had joined them for the sake of a mean revenge.
D'Arthez's absolutist opinions were not known;it was taken for granted that he shared the views of his clique,he fell under the same anathema,and he was to be the first victim.His book was to be honored with "a slashing article,"to use the consecrated formula.
Lucien refused to write the article.Great was the commotion among the leading Royalist writers thus met in conclave.Lucien was told plainly that a renegade could not do as he pleased;if it did not suit his views to take the side of the Monarchy and Religion,he could go back to the other camp.Merlin and Martainville took him aside and begged him,as his friends,to remember that he would simply hand Coralie over to the tender mercies of the Liberal papers,for she would find no champions on the Royalist and Ministerial side.Her acting was certain to provoke a hot battle,and the kind of discussion which every actress longs to arouse.
"You don't understand it in the least,"said Martainville;"if she plays for three months amid a cross-fire of criticism,she will make thirty thousand francs when she goes on tour in the provinces at the end of the season;and here are you about to sacrifice Coralie and your own future,and to quarrel with your own bread and butter,all for a scruple that will always stand in your way,and ought to be got rid of at once."Lucien was forced to choose between d'Arthez and Coralie.His mistress would be ruined unless he dealt his friend a death-blow in the Reveil and the great newspaper.Poor poet!He went home with death in his soul;and by the fireside he sat and read that finest production of modern literature.Tears fell fast over it as the pages turned.For a long while he hesitated,but at last he took up the pen and wrote a sarcastic article of the kind that he understood so well,taking the book as children might take some bright bird to strip it of its plumage and torture it.His sardonic jests were sure to tell.Again he turned to the book,and as he read it over a second time,his better self awoke.In the dead of night he hurried across Paris,and stood outside d'Arthez's house.He looked up at the windows and saw the faint pure gleam of light in the panes,as he had so often seen it,with a feeling of admiration for the noble steadfastness of that truly great nature.For some moments he stood irresolute on the curbstone;he had not courage to go further;but his good angel urged him on.He tapped at the door and opened,and found d'Arthez sitting reading in a fireless room.
"What has happened?"asked d'Arthez,for news of some dreadful kind was visible in Lucien's ghastly face.
"Your book is sublime,d'Arthez,"said Lucien,with tears in his eyes,"and they have ordered me to write an attack upon it.""Poor boy!the bread that they give you is hard indeed!"said d'Arthez "I only ask for one favor,keep my visit a secret and leave me to my hell,to the occupations of the damned.Perhaps it is impossible to attain to success until the heart is seared and callous in every most sensitive spot.""The same as ever!"cried d'Arthez.
"Do you think me a base poltroon?No,d'Arthez;no,I am a boy half crazed with love,"and he told his story.
"Let us look at the article,"said d'Arthez,touched by all that Lucien said of Coralie.
Lucien held out the manu;d'Arthez read,and could not help smiling.
"Oh,what a fatal waste of intellect!"he began.But at the sight of Lucien overcome with grief in the opposite armchair,he checked himself.
