arrow house, in the Passage
Sandrie, a poor enough lodging, cold and bare, where he lived ostensibly
for the general public, for literary neophytes, and for his creditors,
duns, and other annoying persons whom he kept on the threshold of
private life. His real home, his fine existence, his presentation of
himself before his friends, was in the house of Mademoiselle Florine,
a second-class comedy actress, where, for ten years, the said friends,
journalists, certain authors, and writers in general disported
themselves in the society of equally illustrious actresses. For ten
years Raoul had attached himself so closely to this woman that he passed
more than half his life with her; he took all his meals at her house
unless he had some friend to invite, or an invitation to dinner
elsewhere.

To consummate corruption, Florine added a lively wit, which intercourse
with artists had developed and practice sharpened day by day. Wit is
thought to be a quality rare in comedians. It is so natural to suppose
that persons who spend their lives in showing things on the outside
have nothing within. But if we reflect on the small number of actors
and actresses who live in each century, and also on how many dramatic
authors and fascinating women this population has supplied relatively
to its numbers, it is allowable to refute that opinion, which rests,
and apparently will rest forever, on a criticism made against dramatic
artists,--namely, that their personal sentiments are destroyed by the
plastic presentation of passions; whereas, in fact, they put into their
art only their gifts of mind, memory, and imagination. Great artists are
beings who, to quote Napoleon, can cut off at will the connection which
Nature has put between the senses and thought. Moliere and Talma, in
their old age, were more in love than ordinary men in all their lives.

Accustomed to listen to journalists, who guess at most things, putting
two and two together, to writers, who foresee and tell all that they
see; accustomed also to the ways of certain political personages,
who watched one another in her house, and profited by all admissions,
Florine presented in her own person a mixture of devil and angel, which
made her peculiarly fitted to receive these roues. They delighted in her
cool self-possession; her anomalies of mind and heart entertained them
prodigiously. Her house, enriched by gallant tributes, displayed the
exaggerated magnificence of women who, caring l