play of his which was about to be produced at the Gymnase. Then Nathan
went to Florine and made capital with her out of the service done by the
promise of a conditional engagement. Ambition turned Florine's head; she
did not hesitate. She had had time to gauge Lousteau pretty thoroughly.
Lousteau's courses were weakening his will, and here was Nathan with
his ambitions in politics and literature, and energies strong as his
cravings. Florine proposed to reappear on the stage with renewed eclat,
so she handed over Matifat's correspondence to Nathan. Nathan drove
a bargain for them with Matifat, and took the sixth share of Finot's
review in exchange for the compromising billets. After this, Florine
was installed in sumptuously furnished apartments in the Rue Hauteville,
where she took Nathan for her protector in the face of the theatrical
and journalistic world.

Lousteau was terribly overcome. He wept (towards the close of a dinner
given by his friends to console him in his affliction). In the course of
that banquet it was decided that Nathan had not acted unfairly; several
writers present--Finot and Vernou, for instance,--knew of Florine's
fervid admiration for dramatic literature; but they all agreed that
Lucien had behaved very ill when he arranged that business at the
Gymnase; he had indeed broken the most sacred laws of friendship.
Party-spirit and zeal to serve his new friends had led the Royalist poet
on to sin beyond forgiveness.

"Nathan was carried away by passion," pronounced Bixiou, "while this
'distinguished provincial,' as Blondet calls him, is simply scheming for
his own selfish ends."

And so it came to pass that deep plots were laid by all parties alike to
rid themselves of this little upstart intruder of a poet who wanted to
eat everybody up. Vernou bore Lucien a personal grudge, and undertook
to keep a tight hand on him; and Finot declared that Lucien had betrayed
the secret of the combination against Matifat, and thereby swindled
him (Finot) out of fifty thousand francs. Nathan, acting on Florine's
advice, gained Finot's support by selling him the sixth share for
fifteen thousand francs, and Lousteau consequently lost his commission.
His thousand crowns had vanished away; he could not forgive Lucien for
this treacherous blow (as he supposed it) dealt to his interests. The
wounds of vanity refuse to heal if oxide of silver gets into them.

No words, no amount of description, can depict the wrath of a