y 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. He was the handsomer for it. Consciousness of his powers and
his strength was visible in his face, enlightened as it was by love
and experience. Looking out over the world of letters and of men