They ought to pay you
tremendously well."
"A hundred francs a column," said Blondet. "Poor pay when one is
obliged to read the books, and read a hundred before you find one
worth interesting yourself in, like yours. Your work gave me pleasure,
upon my word."
"And brought him in fifteen hundred francs," said Lousteau for
Lucien's benefit.
"But you write political articles, don't you?" asked Nathan.
"Yes; now and again."
Lucien felt like an embryo among these men; he had admired Nathan's
book, he had reverenced the author as an immortal; Nathan's abject
attitude before this critic, whose name and importance were both
unknown to him, stupefied Lucien.
"How if I should come to behave as he does?" he thought. "Is a man
obliged to part with his self-respect?--Pray put on your hat again,
Nathan; you have written a great book, and the critic has only written
a review of it."
These thoughts set the blood tingling in his veins. Scarce a minute
passed but some young author, poverty-stricken and shy, came in, asked
to speak with Dauriat, looked round the crowded shop despairingly, and
went out saying, "I will come back again." Two or three politicians
were chatting over the convocation of the Chambers and public business
with a group of well-known public men. The weekly newspaper for which
Dauriat was in treaty was licensed to treat of matters political, and
the number of newspapers suffered to exist was growing smaller and
smaller, till a paper was a piece of property as much in demand as a
theatre.
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