to the same thing. It all depends on the way that you look at it."

Etienne and Lucien entered the stage-box, and found the manager there
with Finot. Matifat was in the ground-floor box exactly opposite with
a friend of his, a silk-mercer named Camusot (Coralie's protector),
and a worthy little old soul, his father-in-law. All three of these
city men were polishing their opera-glasses, and anxiously scanning
the house; certain symptoms in the pit appeared to disturb them. The
usual heterogeneous first-night elements filled the boxes--journalists
and their mistresses, _lorettes_ and their lovers, a sprinkling of the
determined playgoers who never miss a first night if they can help it,
and a very few people of fashion who care for this sort of sensation.
The first box was occupied by the head of a department, to whom du
Bruel, maker of vaudevilles, owed a snug little sinecure in the
Treasury.

Lucien had gone from surprise to surprise since the dinner at
Flicoteaux's. For two months Literature had meant a life of poverty
and want; in Lousteau's room he had seen it at its cynical worst; in
the Wooden Galleries he had met Literature abject and Literature
insolent. The sharp contrasts of heights and depths; of compromise
with conscience; of supreme power and want of principle; of treachery
and pleasure; of mental elevation and bondage--all this made his head
swim, he seemed to be watching some strange unheard-of drama.

Finot was talking with the manager. "Do you think du Bruel's piece
will pay?" he asked.

"Du Bruel has tried to do something in Beaumarchais' style. Boulevard
audiences don't care for that kind of thing; they like harrowing