"My dear fellow,you are a simpleton,"Lousteau remarked drily."Three years ago Finot was walking on the uppers of his boots,dining for eighteen sous at Tabar's,and knocking off a tradesman's prospectus (when he could get it)for ten francs.His clothes hung together by some miracle as mysterious as the Immaculate Conception.NOW,Finot has a paper of his own,worth about a hundred thousand francs.What with subscribers who pay and take no copies,genuine subions,and indirect taxes levied by his uncle,he is making twenty thousand francs a year.He dines most sumptuously every day;he has set up a cabriolet within the last month;and now,at last,behold him the editor of a weekly review with a sixth share,for which he will not pay a penny,a salary of five hundred francs per month,and another thousand francs for supplying matter which costs him nothing,and for which the firm pays.You yourself,to begin with,if Finot consents to pay you fifty francs per sheet,will be only too glad to let him have two or three articles for nothing.When you are in his position,you can judge Finot;a man can only be tried by his peers.And for you,is there not an immense future opening out before you,if you will blindly minister to his enmity,attack at Finot's bidding,and praise when he gives the word?Suppose that you yourself wish to be revenged upon somebody,you can break a foe or friend on the wheel.You have only to say to me,'Lousteau,let us put an end to So-and-so,'and we will kill him by a phrase put in the paper morning by morning;and afterwards you can slay the slain with a solemn article in Finot's weekly.Indeed,if it is a matter of capital importance to you,Finot would allow you to bludgeon your man in a big paper with ten or twelve thousand subscribers,IF you make yourself indispensable to Finot.""Then are you sure that Florine can bring her druggist to make the bargain?"asked Lucien,dazzled by these prospects.
"Quite sure.Now comes the interval,I will go and tell her everything at once in a word or two;it will be settled to-night.If Florine once has her lesson by heart,she will have all my wit and her own besides.""And there sits that honest tradesman,gaping with open-mouthed admiration at Florine,little suspecting that you are about to get thirty thousand francs out of him!----""More twaddle!Anybody might think that the man was going to be robbed!"cried Lousteau."Why,my dear boy,if the minister buys the newspaper,the druggist may make twenty thousand francs in six months on an investment of thirty thousand.Matifat is not looking at the newspaper,but at Florine's prospects.As soon as it is known that Matifat and Camusot--(for they will go shares)--that Matifat and Camusot are proprietors of a review,the newspapers will be full of friendly notices of Florine and Coralie.Florine's name will be made;she will perhaps obtain an engagement in another theatre with a salary of twelve thousand francs.In fact,Matifat will save a thousand francs every month in dinners and presents to journalists.You know nothing of men,nor of the way things are managed.""Poor man!"said Lucien,"he is looking forward to an evening's pleasure.""And he will be sawn in two with arguments until Florine sees Finot's receipt for a sixth share of the paper.And to-morrow I shall be editor of Finot's paper,and making a thousand francs a month.The end of my troubles is in sight!"cried Florine's lover.
Lousteau went out,and Lucien sat like one bewildered,lost in the infinite of thought,soaring above this everyday world.In the Wooden Galleries he had seen the wires by which the trade in books is moved;he has seen something of the kitchen where great reputations are made;he had been behind the scenes;he had seen the seamy side of life,the consciences of men involved in the machinery of Paris,the mechanism of it all.As he watched Florine on the stage he almost envied Lousteau his good fortune;already,for a few moments he had forgotten Matifat in the background.He was not left alone for long,perhaps for not more than five minutes,but those minutes seemed an eternity.
Thoughts rose within him that set his soul on fire,as the spectacle on the stage had heated his senses.He looked at the women with their wanton eyes,all the brighter for the red paint on their cheeks,at the gleaming bare necks,the luxuriant forms outlined by the lascivious folds of the basquina,the very short skirts,that displayed as much as possible of limbs encased in scarlet stockings with green clocks to them--a disquieting vision for the pit.
A double process of corruption was working within him in parallel lines,like two channels that will spread sooner or later in flood time and make one.That corruption was eating into Lucien's soul,as he leaned back in his corner,staring vacantly at the curtain,one arm resting on the crimson velvet cushion,and his hand drooping over the edge.He felt the fascination of the life that was offered to him,of the gleams of light among its clouds;and this so much the more keenly because it shone out like a blaze of fireworks against the blank darkness of his own obscure,monotonous days of toil.
Suddenly his listless eyes became aware of a burning glance that reached him through a rent in the curtain,and roused him from his lethargy.Those were Coralie's eyes that glowed upon him.He lowered his head and looked across at Camusot,who just then entered the opposite box.
