Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac

Author:Honore de Balzac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
Published: 2009-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

16.

RE DAURIAT

LUCIEN left Coralie and Camusot to go to the Galeries de Bois. What a change his initiation into the mysteries of journalism had produced in his mind! He now mingled without timidity among the crowd that was flowing through the galleries; he assumed a look of insolence because he had a mistress, and he entered Dauriat’s shop with a free and easy air because he was a journalist. There he found a distinguished company. He offered his hand to Blondet, Nathan, Finot, in fact to all the men of literature with whom he had fraternized for the last week; he thought himself a personage, and hugged the belief that he was able to surpass his comrades ; the slight exhilaration of the wine he had taken helped him wonderfully; he was witty and brilliant, and showed that he could swim with the current.

Nevertheless, Lucien did not gather in all the spoken or unspoken approbation on which he counted. He observed signs of jealousy among these men, — less uneasy, perhaps, than curious to know what exact place this newly imported talent would hold, and how large a share of the profits of the press it would swallow up. Finot, who thought Lucien a mine to work, and Lousteau, who considered he had rights over him, were the only ones who cordially smiled upon the poet.

Lousteau, having already assumed the bearing of an editor-in-chief, rapped sharply on the glass partition between the wareroom and the office.

“In a moment, my friend,” answered the publisher, putting his head over the green curtains and recognizing the new editor.

The moment lasted an hour, after which Lucien and his friend were admitted to the sanctuary.

“Well, have you thought about our friend’s poems?” said Lousteau.

“Of course I have,” replied Dauriat, leaning majestically back in his armchair. “I have looked them over, and I made a man of great taste, a good judge, read them, for I myself do not pretend to understand poetry. My good friend, I buy fame ready-made, as the Englishman buys love. You are as great a poet as you are handsome. On the word of an honest man, — remark, I don’t say on the word of a publisher, — your sonnets are magnificent; they are not labored, which is rare when a writer has imagination and fancy both. Moreover, you know how to rhyme, one of the gifts of the new school. Your ‘Daisies,’ are a fine collection; but the matter would be a small one for me; I have time for none but great enterprises. My conscience won’t let me publish your sonnets, for I could not do them justice; there is not money enough in them to pay the costs of a great success. Besides, you won’t keep to poetry; the book, in any case, would be an isolated one. You are young, young man! You have brought me the everlasting collection of first verses such as all men of letters write when they leave college; they all think an immense deal of their poems then, and laugh at them afterwards.

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