第55章

Coralie is eighteen years old,and in a few days'time she may be making sixty thousand francs a year by her beauty.She is an honest girl still.Since her mother sold her three years ago for sixty thousand francs,she has tried to find happiness,and found nothing but annoyance.She took to the stage in a desperate mood;she has a horror of her first purchaser,de Marsay;and when she came out of the galleys,for the king of dandies soon dropped her,she picked up old Camusot.She does not care much about him,but he is like a father to her,and she endures him and his love.Several times already she has refused the handsomest proposals;she is faithful to Camusot,who lets her live in peace.So you are her first love.The first sight of you went to her heart like a pistol-shot,Florine has gone to her dressing-room to bring the girl to reason.She is crying over your cruelty;she has forgotten her part,the play will go to pieces,and good-day to the engagement at the Gymnase which Camusot had planned for her.""Pooh!...Poor thing!"said Lucien.Every instinct of vanity was tickled by the words;he felt his heart swell high with self-conceit.

"More adventures have befallen me in this one evening,my dear fellow,than in all the first eighteen years of my life."And Lucien related the history of his love affairs with Mme.de Bargeton,and of the cordial hatred he bore the Baron du Chatelet.

"Stay though!the newspaper wants a bete noire;we will take him up.

The Baron is a buck of the Empire and a Ministerialist;he is the man for us;I have seen him many a time at the Opera.I can see your great lady as I sit here;she is often in the Marquise d'Espard's box.The Baron is paying court to your lady love,a cuttlefish bone that she is.Wait!Finot has just sent a special messenger round to say that they are short of copy at the office.Young Hector Merlin has left them in the lurch because they did not pay for white lines.Finot,in despair,is knocking off an article against the Opera.Well now,my dear fellow,you can do this play;listen to it and think it over,and I will go to the manager's office and think out three columns about your man and your disdainful fair one.They will be in no pleasant predicament to-morrow.""So this is how a newspaper is written?"said Lucien.

"It is always like this,"answered Lousteau."These ten months that Ihave been a journalist,they have always run short of copy at eight o'clock in the evening."Manu sent to the printer is spoken of as "copy,"doubtless because the writers are supposed to send in a fair copy of their work;or possibly the word is ironically derived from the Latin word copia,for copy is invariably scarce.

"We always mean to have a few numbers ready in advance,a grand idea that will never be realized,"continued Lousteau."It is ten o'clock,you see,and not a line has been written.I shall ask Vernou and Nathan for a score of epigrams on deputies,or on 'Chancellor Cruzoe,'or on the Ministry,or on friends of ours if it needs must be.A man in this pass would slaughter his parent,just as a privateer will load his guns with silver pieces taken out of the booty sooner than perish.

Write a brilliant article,and you will make brilliant progress in Finot's estimation;for Finot has a lively sense of benefits to come,and that sort of gratitude is better than any kind of pledge,pawntickets always excepted,for they invariably represent something solid.""What kind of men can journalists be?Are you to sit down at a table and be witty to order?""Just exactly as a lamp begins to burn when you apply a match--so long as there is any oil in it."Lousteau's hand was on the lock when du Bruel came in with the manager.

"Permit me,monsieur,to take a message to Coralie;allow me to tell her that you will go home with her after supper,or my play will be ruined.The wretched girl does not know what she is doing or saying;she will cry when she ought to laugh and laugh when she ought to cry.

She has been hissed once already.You can still save the piece,and,after all,pleasure is not a misfortune.""I am not accustomed to rivals,sir,"Lucien answered.

"Pray don't tell her that!"cried the manager."Coralie is just the girl to fling Camusot overboard and ruin herself in good earnest.The proprietor of the Golden Cocoon,worthy man,allows her two thousand francs a month,and pays for all her dresses and claqueurs.""As your promise pledges me to nothing,save your play,"said Lucien,with a sultan's airs.

"But don't look as if you meant to snub that charming creature,"pleaded du Bruel.

"Dear me!am I to write the notice of your play and smile on your heroine as well?"exclaimed the poet.

The author vanished with a signal to Coralie,who began to act forthwith in a marvelous way.Vignol,who played the part of the alcalde,and revealed for the first time his genius as an actor of old men,came forward amid a storm of applause to make an announcement to the house.

"The piece which we have the honor of playing for you this evening,gentlemen,is the work of MM.Raoul and de Cursy.""Why,Nathan is partly responsible,"said Lousteau."I don't wonder that he looked in.""CORALIE!CORALIE!"shouted the enraptured house."Florine,too!"roared a voice of thunder from the opposite box,and other voices took up the cry,"Florine and Coralie!"The curtain rose,Vignol reappeared between the two actresses;Matifat and Camusot flung wreaths on the stage,and Coralie stooped for her flowers and held them out to Lucien.