Nathan's
book, he had reverenced the author as an immortal; Nathan's abject
attitude before this critic, whose name and importance were both unknown
to him, stupefied Lucien.

"How if I should come to behave as he does?" he thought. "Is a man
obliged to part with his self-respect?--Pray put on your hat again,
Nathan; you have written a great book, and the critic has only written a
review of it."

These thoughts set the blood tingling in his veins. Scarce a minute
passed but some young author, poverty-stricken and shy, came in, asked
to speak with Dauriat, looked round the crowded shop despairingly, and
went out saying, "I will come back again." Two or three politicians were
chatting over the convocation of the Chambers and public business with
a group of well-known public men. The weekly newspaper for which Dauriat
was in treaty was licensed to treat of matters political, and the number
of newspapers suffered to exist was growing smaller and smaller, till a
paper was a piece of property as much in demand as a theatre. One of the
largest shareholders in the _Constitutionnel_ was standing in the midst
of the knot of political celebrities. Lousteau performed the part of
cicerone to admiration; with every sentence he uttered Dauriat rose
higher in Lucien's opinion. Politics and literature seemed to converge
in Dauriat's shop. He had seen a great poet prostituting his muse to
journalism, humiliating Art, as woman was humiliated and prostituted in
those shameless galleries without, and the provincial took a terrible
lesson to heart. Money! That was the key to every enigma. Lucien
realized the fact that he was unknown and alone, and that the fragile
clue of an uncertain friendship was his sole guide to success and
fortune. He blamed the kind and loyal little circle for painting the
world for him in false colors, for preventing him from plunging into the
arena, pen in hand. "I should be a Blondet at this moment!" he exclaimed
within himself.

Only a little while ago they had sat looking out over Paris from the
Gardens of the Luxembourg, and Lousteau had uttered the cry of a wounded
eagle; then Lousteau had been a great man in Lucien's eyes, and now he
had shrunk to scarce visible proportions. The really important man for
him at this moment was the fashionable bookseller, by whom all these men
lived; and the poet, manuscript in hand, felt a nervous tremor that
was almost like fear. He noticed a group of busts mounted on wood