some illusions left to us, whilst now.... Have you ever been at the
second representation of a piece when the first was a failure? The first
day there was a cram, the second day only the claque remained. People
had found oat the worth of the piece, you see. Nevertheless, though the
place is peopled only with silence and solitude, the claque continues to
do its duty, for it receives its pay. For the same reason one sees a few
battalions marching to the poll, all together, in step, just as they
would march to the fighting at the Porte Maillot; and as they return
they cry, "Oh! citizens, how the people are voting! Never was such
enthusiasm seen!" But behind the scenes,--I mean in the Hotel de
Ville,--authors and actors whisper to each other: "There is no doubt
about it, it is a failure!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 59:

On leaving the gulf of Otranto
There were thirty of us there,
But on arriving at Cadiz
There were no more than ten.

]

LIV.

And what has become of the Bourse? What are the brokers and jobbers
saying and doing now? I ask myself this question for the first time, as
in ordinary circumstances, the Bourse is of all sublunary things that
which occupies me the least. I am one of those excessively stupid
people, who have never yet been able to understand how all those
black-coated individuals can occupy three mortal hours of every day, in
coming and going beneath the colonnade of the "temple of Plutus." I know
perfectly well that stockbrokers and jobbers exist; but if I were asked
what these stockbrokers and jobbers do, I should be incapable of
answering a single word. We have all our special ignorances. I have
heard, it is true, of the _Corbeille_,[60] but I ingeniously imagined,
in my simple ignorance, that this famous basket was made in wicker work,
and crammed with sweet-scented leaves and flowers, which the gentlemen
of the Bourse, with the true gallantry of their nation, made up into
emblematical bouquets to offer to their lady friends. I was shown,
however, how much I was deceived by a friend who enlightened me, more or
less, as to what is really done in the Bourse in usual times, and what
they are doing there now.

I must begin by acknowledging that in using the worn metaphor of the
"temple of Plutus" just now, I knew little of what I was talking about.

The Bourse is not a temple; if it were it would necessarily be a church
or something like one, and co