with the gesture of a spoiled dandy.

"It is a fine thing," said the lawyer, "to have the power to attract
such feelings; to force a poor woman to step out of the habits which
nature, education, and the world dictate to her, to break through
conventions. What privileges genius wins! A letter such as this, written
by a young girl--a genuine young girl--without hidden meanings, with
real enthusiasm--"

"Well, what?" said Canalis.

"Why, a man might suffer as much as Tasso and yet feel recompensed,"
cried La Briere.

"So he might, my dear fellow, by a first letter of that kind, and even a
second; but how about the thirtieth? And suppose you find out that these
young enthusiasts are little jades? Or imagine a poet rushing along the
brilliant path in search of her, and finding at the end of it an old
Englishwoman sitting on a mile-stone and offering you her hand! Or
suppose this post-office angel should really be a rather ugly girl in
quest of a husband? Ah, my boy! the effervescence then goes down."

"I begin to perceive," said La Briere, smiling, "that there is something
poisonous in glory, as there is in certain dazzling flowers."

"And then," resumed Canalis, "all these women, even when they are
simple-minded, have ideals, and you can't satisfy them. They never say
to themselves that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being; they
can't conceive what it is for an author to be at the mercy of a feverish
excitement, which makes him disagreeable and capricious; they want him
always grand, noble; it never occurs to them that genius is a disease,
or that Nathan lives with Florine; that D'Arthez is too fat, and Joseph
Bridau is too thin; that Beranger limps, and that their own particular
deity may have the snuffles! A Lucien de Rubempre, poet and cupid, is a
phoenix. And why should I go in search of compliments only to pull the
string of a shower-bath of horrid looks from some disillusioned female?"

"Then the true poet," said La Briere, "ought to remain hidden, like God,
in the centre of his worlds, and be only seen in his own creations."

"Glory would cost too dear in that case," answered Canalis. "There is
some good in life. As for that letter," he added, taking a cup of tea,
"I assure you that when a noble and beautiful woman loves a poet she
does not hide in the corner boxes, like a duchess in love with an actor;
she feels that her beauty, her fortune, her name are protection enough,
and she dares to say open