ess epigrams on
a friend to his face; but would defend him, if absent, with courage
and loyalty. He laughed at everything, even at his own career. Always
impecunious, he yet lived, like all men of his calibre, plunged in
unspeakable indolence. He would fling some word containing volumes
in the teeth of folk who could not put a syllable of sense into their
books. He lavished promises that he never fulfilled; he made a pillow of
his luck and reputation, on which he slept, and ran the risk of waking
up to old age in a workhouse. A steadfast friend to the gallows foot,
a cynical swaggerer with a child's simplicity, a worker only from
necessity or caprice.

"In the language of Maitre Alcofribas, we are about to make a famous
_troncon de chiere lie_," he remarked to Raphael as he pointed out the
flower-stands that made a perfumed forest of the staircase.

"I like a vestibule to be well warmed and richly carpeted," Raphael
said. "Luxury in the peristyle is not common in France. I feel as if
life had begun anew here."

"And up above we are going to drink and make merry once more, my dear
Raphael. Ah! yes," he went on, "and I hope we are going to come off
conquerors, too, and walk over everybody else's head."

As he spoke, he jestingly pointed to the guests. They were entering
a large room which shone with gilding and lights, and there all the
younger men of note in Paris welcomed them. Here was one who had just
revealed fresh powers, his first picture vied with the glories of
Imperial art. There, another, who but yesterday had launched forth a
volume, an acrid book filled with a sort of literary arrogance, which
opened up new ways to the modern school. A sculptor, not far away, with
vigorous power visible in his rough features, was chatting with one of
those unenthusiastic scoffers who can either see excellence anywhere or
nowhere, as it happens. Here, the cleverest of our caricaturists,
with mischievous eyes and bitter tongue, lay in wait for epigrams to
translate into pencil strokes; there, stood the young and audacious
writer, who distilled the quintessence of political ideas better than
any other man, or compressed the work of some prolific writer as he held
him up to ridicule; he was talking with the poet whose works would
have eclipsed all the writings of the time if his ability had been as
strenuous as his hatreds. Both were trying not to say the truth while
they kept clear of lies, as they exchanged flattering speec