your characters, and you yourself are walking the streets of Paris in
rags, rejoicing in that, rivaling the State Register, you have
authorized the existence of beings styled Adolphe, Corinne or
Clarissa, Rene or Manon; when you shall have spoiled your life and
your digestion to give life to that creation, then you shall see it
slandered, betrayed, sold, swept away into the back waters of oblivion
by journalists, and buried out of sight by your best friends. How can
you afford to wait until the day when your creation shall rise again,
raised from the dead--how? when? and by whom? Take a magnificent book,
the _pianto_ of unbelief; _Obermann_ is a solitary wanderer in the desert
places of booksellers' warehouses, he has been a 'nightingale,'
ironically so called, from the very beginning: when will his Easter
come? Who knows? Try, to begin with, to find somebody bold enough to
print the _Marguerites_; not to pay for them, but simply to print them;
and you will see some queer things."

The fierce tirade, delivered in every tone of the passionate feeling
which it expressed, fell upon Lucien's spirit like an avalanche, and
left a sense of glacial cold. For one moment he stood silent; then, as
he felt the terrible stimulating charm of difficulty beginning to work
upon him, his courage blazed up. He grasped Lousteau's hand.

"I will triumph!" he cried aloud.

"Good!" said the other, "one more Christian given over to the wild
beasts in the arena.--There is a first-night performance at the
Panorama-Dramatique, my dear fellow; it doesn't begin till eight, so
you can change your coat, come properly dressed in fact, and call for
me. I am living on the fourth floor above the Cafe Servel, Rue de la
Harpe. We will go to Dauriat's first of all. You still mean to go on,