self-confidence, certain of his future, and seeming to hold in his hands
all the trumps with which to win the game on the green table of Parisian
life, while she had been pretty, sought after, fast, and in a fair way
to have horses and carriages, and to win the first prize on the turf of
gallantry, among the favorites of fortune.

At times, in his dark moments, he remembered the time when he had come
to Paris from the country, with a volume of poetry and plays in his
portmanteau, feeling a supreme contempt for all the writers who were
then in vogue, and sure of supplanting them. She often, when she awoke
in the morning to another day's unhappiness, remembered that happy time
when she had been launched onto the world, when she already saw that she
was more sought after than Marie G. or Sophie N. or any other woman of
that class, who had been her companions in vice, and whose lovers she
had stolen from them.

He had had a splendid start. Not, indeed, as a poet and dramatist, as he
had hoped at first, but thanks to a series of scandalous stories which
had made a sensation on the boulevards, so that after an action for
damages and several duels, he had become _our witty and brilliant
colleague who, etc., etc._

She had had her moments of extraordinary good luck, though she certainly
did not eclipse Marie P. or Camille L., whom men compared to Zenobia or
Ninon de l'Enclos, but still enough to cause her to be talked about in
the newspapers, and to cause a resolution at certain _tables-d'hotes_ at
Montmarte. But one fine day, the newspaper in which _our brilliant and
witty colleague who_ ... used to write, became defunct, having been
killed by a much more cynical rival, thanks to the much more venomous
pen of a much more brilliant and witty colleague who .... Then, the
insults of the latter having become pure and simple mud-pelting, his
style soon became worn out, to the disgust of the public, and the
celebrated _Mr. What's his name_ had great difficulty in getting onto
some obscure paper, where he was transformed into the obscure
penny-a-liner _Machin_.

Now, one evening the quasi-rival of Marie X. and Camille L. had fallen
ill, and consequently into pecuniary difficulties, and the prostitute
_No-matter-who_ was now on the lookout for a dinner, and would have been
only too happy to get it at some _table-d'hote_ at Montmarte. Machin had
had a return of ambition with regard to his poetry and his dramas, but
then, his vers