s audience, or swift and subtle
communication of the poet's thought and feeling becomes impossible.
Here this close sympathy was lacking, and Lucien in consequence was in
the position of an angel who should endeavor to sing of heaven amid
the chucklings of hell. An intelligent man in the sphere most
stimulating to his faculties can see in every direction, like a snail;
he has the keen scent of a dog, the ears of a mole; he can hear, and
feel, and see all that is going on around him. A musician or a poet
knows at once whether his audience is listening in admiration or fails
to follow him, and feels it as the plant that revives or droops under
favorable or unfavorable conditions. The men who had come with their
wives had fallen to discussing their own affairs; by the acoustic law
before mentioned, every murmur rang in Lucien's ear; he saw all the
gaps caused by the spasmodic workings of jaws sympathetically
affected, the teeth that seemed to grin defiance at him.

When, like the dove in the deluge, he looked round for any spot on
which his eyes might rest, he saw nothing but rows of impatient faces.
Their owners clearly were waiting for him to make an end; they had
come together to discuss questions of practical interest. With the
exceptions of Laure de Rastignac, the Bishop, and two or three of the
young men, they one and all looked bored. As a matter of fact, those
who understand poetry strive to develop the germs of another poetry,
quickened within them by the poet's poetry; but this glacial audience,
so far from attaining to the spirit of the poet, did not even listen
to the letter.

Lucien felt profoundly discouraged; he was damp with chilly
perspiration; a glowing glance from Louise, to whom he turned, gave
him courage to persevere to the end, but this poet's heart was
bleeding from countless wounds.

"Do you find this very amusing, Fifine?" inquired the wizened Lili,
who perhaps had expected some kind of gymnastics.

"Don't ask me what I think, dear; I cannot keep my eyes open when any
one begins to read aloud."

"I hope that Nais will not give us poetry often in the evenings," said
Francis. "If I am obliged to attend while somebody reads aloud after
dinner, it upsets my digestion."

"Poor dearie," whispered Zephirine, "take a glass of eau _sucree_."

"It was very well declaimed," said Alexandre, "but I like whist better
myself."

After this dictum, which passed muster as a joke from the play on the
word