ger rush to Paris from the
provinces; the same, not to say a growing, number of beardless,
ambitious boys, who advance, head erect, and the heart that Princess
Tourandocte of the _Mille et un Jours_--each one of them fain to be her
Prince Calaf. But never a one of them reads the riddle. One by one
they drop, some into the trench where failures lie, some into the mire
of journalism, some again into the quagmires of the book-trade.

"They pick up a living, these beggars, what with biographical notices,
penny-a-lining, and scraps of news for the papers. They become
booksellers' hacks for the clear-headed dealers in printed paper, who
would sooner take the rubbish that goes off in a fortnight than a
masterpiece which requires time to sell. The life is crushed out of
the grubs before they reach the butterfly stage. They live by shame
and dishonor. They are ready to write down a rising genius or to
praise him to the skies at a word from the pasha of the
_Constitutionnel_, the _Quotidienne_, or the _Debats_, at a sign from a
publisher, at the request of a jealous comrade, or (as not seldom
happens) simply for a dinner. Some surmount the obstacles, and these
forget the misery of their early days. I, who am telling you this,
have been putting the best that is in me into newspaper articles for
six months past for a blackguard who gives them out as his own and has
secured a _feuilleton_ in another paper on the strength of them. He has
not taken me on as his collaborator, he has not give me so much as a
five-franc piece, but I hold out a hand to grasp his when we meet; I
cannot help myself."

"And why?" Lucien, asked, indignantly.

"I may want to put a dozen lines into his _feuilleton_ some day,"
Lousteau answered coolly. "In short, my dear fellow, in literature you
will not make money by hard work, that is not the secret of success;
the point is to exploit the work of somebody else. A newspaper
proprietor is a contractor, we are the bricklayers. The more mediocre
the man, the better his chance of getting on among mediocrities; he
can play the toad-eater, put up with any treatment, and flatter all
the little base passions of the sultans of literature. There is Hector
Merlin, who came from Limoges a short time ago; he is writing
political articles already for a Right Centre daily, and he is at work
on our little paper as well. I have seen an editor drop his hat and
Merlin pick it up. The fellow was careful never to give offence,