away, when as a fact I attracted them.  Pass over the insults I put up with.  At this moment I am doing the plays at the Boulevard theatres, almost gratis, for a paper belonging to Finot, that stout young fellow who breakfasts two or three times a month, even now, at the Cafe Voltaire (but you don’t go there).  I live by selling tickets that managers give me to bribe a good word in the paper, and reviewers’ copies of books.  In short, Finot once satisfied, I am allowed to write for and against various commercial articles, and I traffic in tribute paid in kind by various tradesmen.  A facetious notice of a Carminative Toilet Lotion, Pate des Sultanes, Cephalic Oil, or Brazilian Mixture brings me in twenty or thirty francs.

“I am obliged to dun the publishers when they don’t send in a sufficient number of reviewers’ copies; Finot, as editor, appropriates two and sells them, and I must have two to sell.  If a book of capital importance comes out, and the publisher is stingy with copies, his life is made a burden to him.  The craft is vile, but I live by it, and so do scores of others.  Do not imagine that things are any better in public life.  There is corruption everywhere in both regions; every man is corrupt or corrupts others.  If there is any publishing enterprise somewhat larger than usual afoot, the trade will pay me something to buy neutrality.  The amount of my income varies, therefore, directly with the prospectuses.  When prospectuses break out like a rash, money pours into my pockets; I stand treat all round.  When trade is dull, I dine at Flicoteaux’s.

“Actresses will pay you likewise for praise, but the wiser among them pay for criticism.  To be passed over in silence is what they dread the most; and the very best thing of all, from their point of view, is criticism which draws down a reply; it is far more effectual than bald praise, forgotten as soon as read, and it costs more in consequence.  Celebrity, my dear fellow, is based upon controversy.  I am a hired bravo; I ply my trade among ideas and reputations, commercial, literary, and dramatic; I make some fifty crowns a month; I can sell a novel for five hundred francs; and I am beginning to be looked upon as a man to be feared.  Some day, instead of living with Florine at the expense of a druggist who gives himself the airs of a lord, I shall be in a house of my own; I shall be on the staff of a leading newspaper, I shall have a feuilleton; and on that day, my dear fellow, Florine will become a great actress.  As for me, I am not sure what I shall be when that time comes, a minister or an honest man—­all things are still possible.”

He raised his humiliated head, and looked out at the green leaves, with an expression of despairing self-condemnation dreadful to see.

“And I had a great tragedy accepted!” he went on.  “And among my papers there is a poem, which will die.  And I was a good fellow, and my heart was clean!  I used to dream lofty dreams of love for great ladies, queens in the great world; and—­my mistress is an actress at the Panorama-Dramatique.  And lastly, if a bookseller declines to send a copy of a book to my paper, I will run down work which is good, as I know.”