ce as
yet unstained, of budding hopes undespoiled by rough winds, and at these
thoughts the past broke into flowers once more for his memory.

Then he told himself that it was a far finer thing to hew his own way
through serried hostile mobs of aristocrats or philistines by repeated
successful strokes, than to reach the goal through a woman's favor.
Sooner or later his genius should shine out; it had been so with the
others, his predecessors; they had tamed society. Women would love him
when that day came! The example of Napoleon, which, unluckily for this
nineteenth century of ours, has filled a great many ordinary persons
with aspirations after extraordinary destinies,--the example of Napoleon
occurred to Lucien's mind. He flung his schemes to the winds and blamed
himself for thinking of them. For Lucien was so made that he went from
evil to good, or from good to evil, with the same facility.

Lucien had none of the scholar's love for his retreat; for the past
month indeed he had felt something like shame at the sight of the shop
front, where you could read--

POSTEL (LATE CHARDON), PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMIST,

in yellow letters on a green ground. It was an offence to him that his
father's name should be thus posted up in a place where every carriage
passed.

Every evening, when he closed the ugly iron gate and went up to Beaulieu
to give his arm to Mme. de Bargeton among the dandies of the upper town,
he chafed beyond all reason at the disparity between his lodging and his
fortune.

"I love Mme. de Bargeton; perhaps in a few days she will be mine, yet
here I live in this rat-hole!" he said to himself this evening, as he
went down the narrow passage into the little yard behind the shop. This
evening bundles of boiled herbs were spread out along the wall, the
apprentice was scouring a caldron, and M. Postel himself, girded about
with his laboratory apron, was standing with a retort in his hand,
inspecting some chemical product while keeping an eye upon the shop
door, or if the eye happened to be engaged, he had at any rate an ear
for the bell.

A strong scent of camomile and peppermint pervaded the yard and the poor
little dwelling at the side, which you reached by a short ladder, with a
rope on either side by way of hand-rail. Lucien's room was an attic just
under the roof.

"Good-day, sonny," said M. Postel, that typical, provincial tradesman.
"Are you pretty middling? I have just been experimenting