‘Whom or what are we talking about?’

‘The Sieur de Rubempré, whom Rastignac is trying to present to me as a figure of importance,’ the deputy replied to the Secretary General.

‘My dear count,’ said des Lupeaulx with a solemn air, ‘Monsieur de Rubempré is a young man of the greatest merit, and so well backed that I should be exceptionally glad to renew acquaintance with him.’

‘There’s a hornets’ nest to bring about your ears, the profligates of the age,’ Rastignac preferred.

The three of them turned towards a corner in which stood a group of known wits, men of more or less repute and some of fashion. These gentlemen were pooling observations, epigrams and items of gossip, amusing each other or waiting for amusement. Among this oddly composed troop were some with whom Lucien had once had relations superficially amiable but not without a background of harm done, sly tricks played.

‘Well, Lucien, my child, my darling, here we are, patched up, re-upholstered! Where have we come from? We’ve climbed back on the old horse, have we, with the help of little gifts from Florine’s dressing-room? Well done, old boy,’ said Blondet, letting go Finot’s arm to take Lucien by the waist and press him with unabashed familiarity to his bosom.

Andoche Finot was the proprietor of a review for which Lucien had worked almost without payment, and which benefited from Blondet’s contributions, the sagacity of his counsels and the profundity of his views. Finot and Blondet might have been the Bertrand and Raton of La Fontaine’s fable, except that the cat finally saw through the deception, while Blondet, though he knew he was being tricked, went on serving Finot. This brilliant condottiere of the pen would, indeed, long remain in a condition of slavery. Beneath his dull exterior, behind the bulwarks of stupidity and malice, brushed with wit as a labourer’s crust is brushed with garlic, Finot concealed a ruthless will. Gleaning in the fields where men of letters and political schemers scatter ideas and small change, he stocked his barns. His powers put in the pay of his idleness and his vices, Blondet guaranteed his own misfortune. Always surprised by need, he belonged to the wretched clan of outstanding people who so lavishly serve anybody’s purpose but their own, Aladdins who lend out their lamps. Their advice is invaluable, so long as their own interest is not at stake. With them, the head acts, the arm hangs limp. Whence their disordered lives, whence the poor regard in which they are held by inferior minds. Blondet shared his purse with the comrade he had injured yesterday; he dined, drank, slept with the one whose throat he would cut tomorrow. His amusing paradoxes justified all. Taking the whole world as a joke, he refused to be taken seriously himself. Young, much-loved, almost famous, of happy disposition, he was quite unconcerned to lay up, like Finot, what he might need in old age. The most difficult form of courage is perhaps that which Lucien needed at the moment, the ability to ‘cut’ Blondet as he had just cut Madame d’Espard and Châtelet. With him, unfortunately, the pleasures of vanity hindered the operations of pride, greatness’s mainspring. His vanity had triumphed in the recent encounter: two people who had disdained him when he was poor and miserable had been confronted with his disdain, his wealth and happiness; but could a poet, like an elderly diplomat, quarrel openly with two supposed friends who had welcomed him when he was poor, who had given him a bed when he was penniless? Finot, Blondet and he had debased themselves in each other’s company, had wallowed in orgies where not alone their creditors’ money vanished. Like a soldier who cannot see where his courage is best bestowed, Lucien did what countless people do in Paris, he once more compromised his character by accepting a shake of the hand from Finot, by not drawing back from Blondet’s endearment. Anybody who was once caught up in journalism, or is caught up in it still, is under the cruel necessity of greeting men he despises, smiling at his worst enemy, condoning actions of the most unspeakable vileness, soiling his hands to pay his aggressors out in their own coin. You grow used to seeing evil done, to letting it go; you begin by not minding, you end by doing it yourself. In the end, your soul, spotted daily by shameful transactions always going on, shrinks, the spring of noble thoughts rusts, the hinges of small talk wear loose and swing unaided. The Alcestes become Philintes, character loses its temper, talent degenerates, the belief in works of beauty evaporates. A man who wanted to take pride in his pages spends himself in wretched articles which sooner or later his conscience will tell him were base actions. You came on the scene, like Lousteau, like Vernou, intending to be a great writer, you find you have become an impotent hack. And so no honour is too high to be paid to those, like d’Arthez, whose character is equal to their talent, who steer an even keel between the reefs of the literary life. Lucien was incapable of a reply to Blondet’s patter, the man’s mind still exerted upon him an irresistible charm, retained the ascendancy of a corruptor over his pupil, he was, moreover, well placed in the world by reason of his connection with Countess Montcornet.

‘Has an uncle left you something?’ asked Finot banteringly.

‘Like you,’ said Lucien in the same tone, ‘I take my cut off fools from time to time.’

‘Has the gentleman acquired a review or a newspaper?’ continued Andoche Finot with the offensive self-complacency of an operator towards one whom he exploits.

‘I’ve done better than that,’ replied Lucien, to whom vanity, wounded by the superiority the editor affected, had restored the sense of his new position.

‘What have you got, then, dear boy?…’

‘I have my Party.’

‘There’s a Lucien party?’ said Vernou with a smile.

‘Finot, you’ve been outstripped by the boy, as I predicted’, said Blondet. ‘Lucien has talent, and you didn’t foster it, you wore him down. Old bull-of-the-bog, I hope you rue it.’

Blondet’s sensitive nose had caught a whiff of important secrets in Lucien’s accent, his bearing, his gestures; easing the rein, he yet, with his words, took a firm hold on the bit.