“Well, what?” said Canalis.

“Why, a man might suffer as much as Tasso and yet feel recompensed,” cried La Briere.

“So he might, my dear fellow, by a first letter of that kind, and even a second; but how about the thirtieth?  And suppose you find out that these young enthusiasts are little jades?  Or imagine a poet rushing along the brilliant path in search of her, and finding at the end of it an old Englishwoman sitting on a mile-stone and offering you her hand!  Or suppose this post-office angel should really be a rather ugly girl in quest of a husband?  Ah, my boy! the effervescence then goes down.”

“I begin to perceive,” said La Briere, smiling, “that there is something poisonous in glory, as there is in certain dazzling flowers.”

“And then,” resumed Canalis, “all these women, even when they are simple-minded, have ideals, and you can’t satisfy them.  They never say to themselves that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being; they can’t conceive what it is for an author to be at the mercy of a feverish excitement, which makes him disagreeable and capricious; they want him always grand, noble; it never occurs to them that genius is a disease, or that Nathan lives with Florine; that D’Arthez is too fat, and Joseph Bridau is too thin; that Beranger limps, and that their own particular deity may have the snuffles!  A Lucien de Rubempre, poet and cupid, is a phoenix.  And why should I go in search of compliments only to pull the string of a shower-bath of horrid looks from some disillusioned female?”

“Then the true poet,” said La Briere, “ought to remain hidden, like God, in the centre of his worlds, and be only seen in his own creations.”

“Glory would cost too dear in that case,” answered Canalis.  “There is some good in life.  As for that letter,” he added, taking a cup of tea, “I assure you that when a noble and beautiful woman loves a poet she does not hide in the corner boxes, like a duchess in love with an actor; she feels that her beauty, her fortune, her name are protection enough, and she dares to say openly, like an epic poem:  ’I am the nymph Calypso, enamored of Telemachus.’  Mystery and feigned names are the resources of little minds.  For my part I no longer answer masks—­”

“I should love a woman who came to seek me,” cried La Briere.  “To all you say I reply, my dear Canalis, that it cannot be an ordinary girl who aspires to a distinguished man; such a girl has too little trust, too much vanity; she is too faint-hearted.  Only a star, a—­”

“—­princess!” cried Canalis, bursting into a shout of laughter; “only a princess can descend to him.  My dear fellow, that doesn’t happen once in a hundred years.  Such a love is like that flower that blossoms every century.  Princesses, let me tell you, if they are young, rich, and beautiful, have something else to think of; they are surrounded like rare plants by a hedge of fools, well-bred idiots as hollow as elder-bushes!  My