swarms upon the Paris boulevards; selling watch guards and brass
jewelry in the streets by day, applauding under the chandeliers of the
theatre at night, and ready to lend themselves to any dirty business in
the great city.

"Behold the Romans!" laughed Lousteau; "behold fame incarnate for
actresses and dramatic authors. It is no prettier than our own when you
come to look at it close."

"It is difficult to keep illusions on any subject in Paris,"
answered Lucien as they turned in at his door. "There is a tax upon
everything--everything has its price, and anything can be made to
order--even success."

Thirty guests were assembled that evening in Coralie's rooms, her dining
room would not hold more. Lucien had asked Dauriat and the manager of
the Panorama-Dramatique, Matifat and Florine, Camusot, Lousteau, Finot,
Nathan, Hector Merlin and Mme. du Val-Noble, Felicien Vernou, Blondet,
Vignon, Philippe Bridau, Mariette, Giroudeau, Cardot and Florentine, and
Bixiou. He had also asked all his friends of the Rue des Quatre-Vents.
Tullia the dancer, who was not unkind, said gossip, to du Bruel, had
come without her duke. The proprietors of the newspapers, for whom most
of the journalists wrote, were also of the party.

At eight o'clock, when the lights of the candles in the chandeliers
shone over the furniture, the hangings, and the flowers, the rooms wore
the festal air that gives to Parisian luxury the appearance of a dream;
and Lucien felt indefinable stirrings of hope and gratified vanity and
pleasure at the thought that he was the master of the house. But how and
by whom the magic wand had been waved he no longer sought to remember.
Florine and Coralie, dressed with the fanciful extravagance and
magnificent artistic effect of the stage, smiled on the poet like two
fairies at the gates of the Palace of Dreams. And Lucien was almost in a
dream.

His life had been changed so suddenly during the last few months; he had
gone so swiftly from the depths of penury to the last extreme of luxury,
that at moments he felt as uncomfortable as a dreaming man who knows
that he is asleep. And yet, he looked round at the fair reality about
him with a confidence to which envious minds might have given the name
of fatuity.

Lucien himself had changed. He had grown paler during these days of
continual enjoyment; languor had lent a humid look to his eyes; in
short, to use Mme. d'Espard's expression, he looked like a man who is
loved. H