"whist," several card-players were of the opinion that the
reader's voice needed a rest, and on this pretext one or two couples
slipped away into the card-room. But Louise, and the Bishop, and
pretty Laure de Rastignac besought Lucien to continue, and this time
he caught the attention of his audience with Chenier's spirited
reactionary _Iambes_. Several persons, carried away by his impassioned
delivery, applauded the reading without understanding the sense.
People of this sort are impressed by vociferation, as a coarse palate
is ticked by strong spirits.

During the interval, as they partook of ices, Zephirine despatched
Francis to examine the volume, and informed her neighbor Amelie that
the poetry was in print.

Amelie brightened visibly.

"Why, that is easily explained," said she. "M. de Rubempre works for a
printer. It is as if a pretty woman should make her own dresses," she
added, looking at Lolotte.

"He printed his poetry himself!" said the women among themselves.

"Then, why does he call himself M. de Rubempre?" inquired Jacques. "If
a noble takes a handicraft, he ought to lay his name aside."

"So he did as a matter of fact," said Zizine, "but his name was
plebeian, and he took his mother's name, which is noble."

"Well, if his verses are printed, we can read them for ourselves,"
said Astolphe.

This piece of stupidity complicated the question, until Sixte du
Chatelet condescended to inform these unlettered folk that the
prefatory announcement was no oratorical flourish, but a statement of
fact, and added that the poems had been written by a Royalist brother
of Marie-Joseph Chenier, the Revolutionary leader. All Angouleme,
except Mme. de Rastignac and her two daughters and the Bishop, who had
really felt the grandeur of the poetry, were mystified, and took
offence at the hoax. There was a smothered murmur, but Lucien did not
heed it. The intoxication of the poetry was upon him; he was far away
from the hateful world, striving to render in speech the music that
filled his soul, seeing the faces about him through a cloudy haze. He
read the sombre Elegy on the Suicide, lines in the taste of a by-gone
day, pervaded by sublime melancholy; then he turned to the page where
the line occurs, "Thy songs are sweet, I love to say them over," and
ended with the delicate idyll _Neere_.

Mme. de Bargeton sat with one hand buried in her curls, heedless of
the havoc she wrought among them, gazing before her with un