Lost Illusions

by Honoré de Balzac

  ‘We now have,’ she said, ‘a dinner booked for every evening this week and can afford a little treat. You’ve done enough work.’

  Then Coralie, as a woman who wanted to enjoy the beauty of a man whom all other women would envy her, took Lucien back to Staub’s shop, for she had decided he was not sufficiently well-dressed. From there the two lovers went to the Bois de Boulogne and returned to dine with Madame du Val-Noble. There Lucien found Rastignac, Bixiou, Des Lupeaulx, Finot, Blondet, Vignon, the Baron de Nucingen, Beaudenord, Philippe Bridau, Conti the great musician, a whole world of artists and financiers – such people as look for strong emotions to compensate for great labour. They all gave Lucien a wonderful welcome, Sure of himself, Lucien gave as free play to his wit as if it had not been a saleable commodity, and was proclaimed un homme fort, an eulogy then in fashion among these specious friendly persons.

  ‘Ah well, we shall have to see what stuff he has in him,’ said Theodore Gaillard to a poet enjoying Court patronage who then was thinking of founding a royalist ‘little paper’ later to be dubbed Le Réveil

  After dinner the two journalists accompanied their mistresses to the Opera, where Merlin had a box in which the whole company installed themselves. Thus Lucien reappeared in triumph in the place where, some months before, he had had so heavy a fall. He showed himself in the foyer arm in arm with Merlin and Blondet, outfacing the dandies who formerly had made a fool of him. He now had Châtelet at his mercy! De Marsay, Vandenesse, Manerville, the lions of the day, exchanged a few insolent stares with him. Undoubtedly the handsome and elegant Lucien had been the subject of conversation in Madame d’Espard’s box, to which Rastignac paid a long visit, for the Marquise and Madame de Bargeton were eyeing Coralie through their opera-glasses. Was Lucien arousing some regret in Madame de Bargeton’s heart? His mind was preoccupied with this thought: at the sight of the Corinna of Angoulême a desire for vengeance stirred his heart as on the day when, in the Champs-Elysées, she and her cousin had treated him with contempt.

  27. A study in the art of recantation

  ‘DID you come from your province with a lucky charm?’ Blondet asked Lucien several days later when he called on him at eleven and found him still in bed. ‘His good looks,’ he said to Coralie, kissing her on the forehead and pointing to Lucien, ‘are causing havoc from cellar to garret, high and low.’

  ‘I have come to requisition you, dear friend,’ he said as he shook hands with the poet. ‘Yesterday, at the Theatre des Italiens, Madame la Comtesse de Montcornet desired that I should take you to see her. You’ll not refuse this to a young and charming woman at whose house you’ll meet the élite of fashionable society?’

  ‘If Lucien’s a nice boy,’ said Coralie, ‘he won’t go to see your countess. What need has he to go trailing his cloak in society? He’d be bored.’

  ‘Do you want to keep him in close confinement?’ asked Blondet. ‘Are you jealous of fashionable women?’

  ‘Yes,’ cried Coralie. ‘They’re worse than we are.’

  ‘How do you know that, my little puss?’ said Blondet.

  ‘By their husbands,’ she replied. ‘You forget that I had ue Marsay for six months.’

  ‘Do you imagine, my child,’ rejoindered Blondet, ‘that I am very keen on introducing so handsome a man as yours into Madame de Montcornet’s salon? If you’re against it, take it that I’ve said nothing. But it’s less a question, I think, of feminine concerns than of obtaining peace and mercy from Lucien for the poor devil who’s become a butt for his newspaper. Baron Châtelet is stupid enough to take articles seriously. The Marquise d’Espard, Madame de Bargeton and the Comtesse de Montcornet take an interest in the Heron, and I have promised to reconcile Laura and Petrarch, that is to say Madame de Bargeton and Lucien.’

  ‘Ah!’ cried Lucien, who felt new blood coursing through all his veins and experienced the heady joy of satisfied vengeance. ‘So I have them at my feet! You give me cause for venerating my pen, my friends and the inexorable power of the Press. I haven’t yet written an article on the Cuttle-Fish and the Heron. I’ll go there, my friend,’ he said, taking Blondet by the waist. ‘Yes, I’ll go, but only when the pair of them have felt the weight of this very light object!’ – He took up and brandished the pen with which he had written the Nathan review. ‘Tomorrow I’ll fling two little columns at their heads. After that we’ll see. Don’t worry, Coralie. It’s a question, not of love, but of revenge, and I intend it to be complete.’

  ‘Spoken like a man!’ said Blondet. ‘If you knew, Lucien, how rare it is to meet with such fire and fury in the blase society of Paris, you’d realize your own value. – You’ll be a devil of a fellow,’ he added, expressing himself in rather more vigorous terms. ‘You’re on the road to power.’

  ‘He’ll reach it,’ said Coralie.

  ‘Well, he’s already gone a long way in six weeks.’

  ‘And when nothing but the width of a corpse separates him from the sceptre within his grasp, he can use Coralie’s body to step over.’

  ‘The love of you two reminds me of people in the Golden Age,’ said Blondet. ‘I congratulate you on your great article,’ he continued, looking at Lucien. ‘It’s full of originality. You’re already out of your apprenticeship.’

  Lousteau came along with Hector Merlin and Vernou to see Lucien, who was prodigiously flattered to be the object of their attentions. Félicien was bringing a hundred francs to Lucien in payment for his article. The newspaper had felt it necessary to remunerate so well-written a work in order to get a hold on the author of it. In view of this conclave of journalists, Coralie had ordered lunch from the Cadran-Bleu, the nearest restaurant; when Berenice came to tell her the meal was ready she ushered them all into her beautiful dining-room. Half-way through, when the champagne had gone to everyone’s head, the reason for the visit of Lucien’s colleagues became clear.

  ‘You don’t want to make an enemy of Nathan, do you?’ said Lousteau. ‘Nathan’s a journalist, he has friends, he could play a nasty trick on you at your first publication. Haven’t you The Archer of Charles the Ninth to sell? We saw Nathan this morning. He’s in despair; but you’ll write an article in which you’ll squirt showers of praise in his face.’

  ‘What! After my article attacking his book, you want me to…’ asked Lucien.

  Emile Blondet, Hector Merlin, Etienne Lousteau and Félicien Vernou all cut him short with a burst of laughter.

  ‘Haven’t you invited him to supper here the day after tomorrow?’ said Blondet.

  ‘Your article,’ said Lousteau, ‘wasn’t signed. Félicien, who’s not such a greenhorn as you, didn’t fail to put a C at the foot of it: you can use it henceforth to sign your articles in his paper, which is entirely left-wing. We all belong to the Opposition. Félicien has been tactful enough not to commit you to any line of opinion. In Hector’s rag, which is right-centre, you can sign with an L. Attacks are anonymous, but it’s all right to sign when you’re handing out praise.’

  ‘Signing doesn’t worry me,’ said Lucien, ‘but I can see nothing to say in favour of the book.’

  ‘So you wrote what you thought?’ Hector asked Lucien.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Ah, my boy,’ said Blondet. ‘I imagined you had more in you. Really, upon my word, looking at your forehead, I credited you with the omnipotence of a great mind, of those who have mettle enough to see everything from two points of view. My dear boy, in literature, every idea has its front and reverse side, and no one can presume to state which side is which. Everything is bilateral in the domain of thought. Ideas are two-sided. Janus is the tutelary deity of criticism and the symbol of genius. Only God is triangular! What puts Molière and Corneille in a category apart is their ability to make Alceste say yes and Philinte say no, and likewise with Corneille’s Octave and Cinna. In La Nouvelle Héloïse Rousseau wrote one letter for and another against duelling: would you dare to take it upon yourself to declare his true opinion? Which of us could decide between Clarissa and Lov
elace or between Hector and Achilles? Who was Homer’s true hero? What did Richardson really mean? Criticism must examine every work in all its various aspects. In short we are great relativists.’

  ‘So you stand by what you have written?’ said Vernou in a bantering tone. ‘But we are vendors of phrases and we live by our trade. When you decide to write a great and fine work, a book in short, you can put your ideas and your whole soul into it, stand up for it, defend it; but articles written today and forgotten tomorrow are only, in my view, worth what we get paid for them. If you attach any importance to such stupid trifles, you’ll be making the sign of the cross and invoking the Holy Spirit whenever you write a prospectus.’

  All of them seemed astonished at Lucien’s scruples and proceeded to demolish his garb of pretence and put him into the more manly toga of the journalist.

  ‘Have you heard the epigram Nathan consoled himself with after reading your article?’ asked Lousteau.

  ‘How could I?’

  ‘He exclaimed: Art is long but articles are fleeting! The man will be coming to supper here two days hence. He’ll have to grovel before you, fawn on you and tell you what a great man you are!’

  ‘It certainly would be comical,’ said Lucien.

  ‘Comical?’ retorted Blondet. ‘It’s necessary!’

  ‘I am willing, my friends,’ said Lucien, slightly tipsy. ‘But how do I do it?’

  ‘Well,’ said Lousteau. ‘Write three fine columns for Merlin’s paper refuting what you said before. We enjoyed Nathan’s fury, but we’ve just told him that he ought rather to thank us for the close piece of polemics by means of which we were intending to get his book sold out in a week. At the moment he looks on you as a traitor in the camp, the scum of the earth, a scoundrel: the day after tomorrow you’ll be a great, levelheaded man, a nineteenth century Plutarch! He’ll clasp you to his bosom. Dauriat came to you and gave you three thousand francs: the trick had worked. Now you must get Nathan’s esteem and friendship. The publisher’s the only man to be taken in. Only our enemies must be sacrificed and harried. In the case of someone who had made his name without our help, whose talent incommoded us, who had to be wiped out, we shouldn’t stage such a come-back; but Nathan’s one of our friends. Blondet had had the first edition of his book attacked in the Mercure for the pleasure of retorting in the Journal des Débats. So it sold like hot cakes!’

  ‘Honestly, my friend, I’m incapable of writing two words of praise about this book.’

  ‘You’ll get another hundred francs,’ said Merlin. ‘Nathan will already have brought you in two hundred francs, without counting the article you can write for Finot’s Review: Dauriat will pay you a hundred francs for it and so will the Review. Total: four hundred francs.’

  ‘But what can I say?’ asked Lucien.

  ‘This is how you can manage it, my boy,’ replied Blondet, collecting his thoughts. ‘Envy, you will say, which fastens on to all fine works like a maggot to fruit, has tried to bore its way into this book. In order to find defects in it, a critic was forced to invent theories and distinguish between two kinds of literature: that which devotes itself to ideas and that which takes refuge in imagery. At this point, my boy, you’ll say that the ultimate achievement of the literary art is to impress the idea on the image. By attempting to prove that poetry consists wholly of imagery, you’ll complain that our tongue gives little scope for poetry, you’ll talk of the reproaches foreigners make to us about the positivism of our style, and you’ll praise Monsieur de Canalis and Nathan for the service they are rendering to France by relieving the language of its prosiness. Demolish your previous argument by showing that we’re in advance on the eighteenth century. Invent Progress – a delightful hoax to play on the bourgeois! The new literature goes in for tableaux in which all the genres are concentrated, comedy as well as drama, description, character-drawing and dialogue for which the brilliant complexities of an interesting plot provide a setting. The novel, which requires feeling, style and imagery, is the most tremendous creation of modern times. It’s taking the place of comedy which, with its antiquated rules, is no longer possible in modern conditions of life. The novel includes both facts and ideas in its inventions, which call for the wit and incisive moral insight of La Bruyère, character-drawing as Molière understood it, the grandiose stage effects of Shakespeare and the depiction of the most delicate shades of passion, which is the sole treasure our forerunners have bequeathed to us. And so the novel is far and away superior to the cold mathematical discussion and the arid analysis of the eighteenth century.’

  ‘The novel, you will say sententiously, is an amusing form of epic. Quote from Corinne, lean on Madame de Staël. The eighteenth century brought everything into question, the task of the nineteenth century is to give the answers. This it will do by recourse to reality, but a reality which lives and moves; in fine, it is bringing passion into play, an element unknown to Voltaire. Work in a tirade against Voltaire. As for Rousseau, all he did was to put clothes on arguments and systems. Julie and Claire are abstractions, not creatures of flesh and blood. You can then make a switch and state that we are indebted to the peaceful Bourbon regime for a fresh and original literature: remember you’re writing in a right-centre journal. Mock away at system-makers. Finally, in a burst of eloquence, you can exclaim: those then are the many errors, the many falsehoods perpetrated by our colleague! And why? In order to disparage a fine work, deceive the public and establish this conclusion: a book which is selling isn’t selling. Prob pudor! (let fly with a Prob pudor! – this honest expletive will stir the reader). Lastly, proclaim the decadence of criticism! By way of conclusion: there’s only one kind of literature, the kind which diverts. Nathan is exploring a new path, he has understood the times and is responding to its needs. Drama is what is needed today. A century in which politics are a non-stop dumb-show performance cries out for drama. Have we not seen in the course of twenty years, you will ask, the four dramas of the Revolution, the Directory, the Empire and the Restoration? From then you reel out a dithyramb of eulogy and the second edition will be sold out…’

  ‘And this is how you’ll work it: next Saturday, you’ll write a page in the Mercure, and you’ll openly sign it DE RUBEMPRÈ. In this third article you’ll say: “The property of fine works is to arouse ample discussion. This week such and such a newspaper said such and such a thing about Nathan’s book, such and such another has given an energetic reply.” You criticize the two critics C and L, you pay me a passing compliment on the first article I wrote in the Débats, and you end up by insisting that Nathan’s work is the finest the period has produced. That’s as good as saying nothing at all – they say it about every book. Your week will have earned you four hundred francs as well as the pleasure of having told the truth somewhere or other. People of sense will agree with C or L or Rubempré, perhaps with all three! Mythology, certainly one of the greatest human inventions, placed Truth at the bottom of a well: doesn’t one need a bucket to pull it out? You’ll have given the public three buckets instead of one. There you are, my child. Get on with it!’

  Lucien was in a daze. Blondet kissed him on both cheeks and said: ‘I’m off to my shop.’

  Everyone went off to his ‘shop’. For these hardy types, the newspaper was just a ‘shop’. They were all to meet that evening in the Wooden Galleries, where Lucien was to sign his contract with Dauriat. Florine and Lousteau, Lucien and Coralie, Blondet and Finot were dining at the Palais-Royal, where Du Bruel was giving dinner to the manager of the Panorama-Dramatique.

  ‘They are right!’ exclaimed Lucien, once he was alone with Coralie. ‘Men must serve as tools in the hands of competent people. Four hundred francs for three articles! Doguereau scarcely offered as much for a book which cost me two years’ labour.’

  ‘Write reviews,’ said Coralie. ‘Get some fun out of it! Shall I not myself be posing this evening as an Andalusian, wearing gypsy costume tomorrow and trousers another day? Do as I do: make faces at them for their money, and l
et’s live happily.’

  Lucien, taken with this paradox, put his wit astride the skittish mule which is the offspring of Pegasus and Balaam’s she-ass. He began to gallop through the fields of thought during his ride in the Bois de Boulogne; he discovered original and attractive features in Blondet’s thesis. He dined as happy men dine, went to Dauriat’s office and signed the contract ceding all rights in the manuscript – without seeing the drawbacks of this – then he made a trip to the newspaper office, where he threw two columns together, and went back to the rue de Vendôme. Next morning, it turned out that the previous day’s ideas had germinated, as happens with all minds which are bursting with sap and whose faculties have as yet had little exercise. Lucien derived pleasure from thinking out this new article and set about it with enthusiasm. From his pen flowed all the fine sallies born of paradox. He was witty and mocking, he even rose to new reflexions on feeling, ideas and imagery in literature. With subtle ingenuity, in order to praise Nathan, he recaptured the first impressions about the book he had had at the reading-room in the Cour du Commerce. After being a harsh and scathing, a bantering and humorous critic, he became quite poetic in a few final periods whose majestic balance was like that of a perfume-laden censer swinging before an altar.

  ‘There’s a hundred francs, Coralie!’ he cried, holding up the eight sheets which he had written while she was dressing.

  In this state of verve, he dashed off the terrible article against Châtelet and Madame de Bargeton which he had promised Blondet. That whole morning he enjoyed in secret one of the liveliest pleasures known to journalists, that of whetting the epigram, polishing the cold blade which finds a sheath in the victim’s heart and carving the handle of it for the readers’ delectation. The public admires the intellectual craftsmanship which has gone to the making of this dagger-hilt and sees no harm in it, not knowing that the steel of a vengeful witticism artfully probes and burrows into someone’s self-esteem and inflicts innumerable wounds. This horrible pleasure, sombre and solitary, savoured in secrecy, is like a duel fought with an absent person who is killed from a distance with the shaft of a pen, as if the journalist had the fantastic power of wish-fulfilment accorded to the possessors of talismans in Arabian tales. An epigram is wit prompted by hatred, and hatred springs from man’s evil passions just as all his good qualities are distilled from love. And so there is no man who fails to be witty when avenging himself for the same reason that there is no man who fails to obtain enjoyment from love. Despite the facility and vulgarity of this kind of wit in France, it is always well received. Lucien’s article was destined to put, and it did put, the finishing touch to the reputation for malice and spitefulness which his newspaper acquired: it struck through to the heart of two people, grievously wounding Madame de Bargeton, his erstwhile Laura, and Baron Châtelet, his rival.