and art, politics and finance were carried on; there, desire reigned a
sovereign; there, caprice and fancy were as sacred as honor and virtue
to a bourgeoise; thither came Blondet, Finot, Etienne Lousteau, Vernou
the feuilletonist, Couture, Bixiou, Rastignac in his earlier days,
Claude Vignon the critic, Nucingen the banker, du Tillet, Conti the
composer,--in short, that whole devil-may-care legion of selfish
materialists of all kinds; friends of Florine and of the singers,
actresses and "danseuses" collected about her. They all hated or liked
one another according to circumstances.

This Bohemian resort, to which celebrity was the only ticket of
admission, was a Hades of the mind, the galleys of the intellect. No
one could enter there without having legally conquered fortune, done
ten years of misery, strangled two or three passions, acquired some
celebrity, either by books or waistcoats, by dramas or fine equipages;
plots were hatched there, means of making fortune scrutinized, all
things were discussed and weighed. But every man, on leaving it,
resumed the livery of his own opinions; there he could, without
compromising himself, criticise his own party, admit the knowledge and
good play of his adversaries, formulate thoughts that no one admits
thinking,--in short, say all, as if ready to do all. Paris is the only
place in the world where such eclectic houses exist; where all tastes,
all vices, all opinions are received under decent guise. Therefore it
is not yet certain that Florine will remain to the end of her career a
second-class actress.

Florine's life was by no means an idle one, or a life to be envied.
Many persons, misled by the magnificent pedestal that the stage gives
to a woman, suppose her in the midst of a perpetual carnival. In the
dark recesses of a porter's lodge, beneath the tiles of an attic roof,