unless it were followed up by contemptuous" target="_blank" title="a.蔑视的；傲慢的">contemptuousindifference; so they

showed their tacit disdain for the native product by leaving Lucien
and Mme. de Bargeton to themselves. Every one appeared to be absorbed

in his own affairs; one chattered with the prefect about a new
crossroad, another proposed to vary the pleasures of the evening with

a little music. The great world of Angouleme, feeling that it was no
judge of poetry, was very anxious, in the first place, to hear the

verdict of the Pimentels and the Rastignacs, and formed a little group
about them. The great influence wielded in the department by these two

families was always felt on every important occasion; every one was
jealous of them, every one paid court to them, foreseeing that they

might some day need that influence.
"What do you think of our poet and his poetry?" Jacques asked of the

Marquise. Jacques used to shoot over the lands belonging to the
Pimentel family.

"Why, it is not bad for provincialpoetry," she said, smiling; "and
besides, such a beautiful poet cannot do anything amiss."

Every one thought the decision admirable; it traveled from lip to lip,
gaining malignance by the way. Then Chatelet was called upon to

accompany M. du Bartas on the piano while he mangled the great solo
from Figaro; and the way being opened to music, the audience, as in

duty bound listened while Chatelet in turn sang one of Chateaubriand's
ballads, a chivalrous ditty made in the time of the Empire. Duets

followed, of the kind usually left to boarding-school misses, and
rescued from the schoolroom by Mme. du Brossard, who meant to make a

brilliant display of her dear Camille's talents for M. de Severac's
benefit.

Mme. du Bargeton, hurt by the contempt which every one showed her
poet, paid back scorn for scorn by going to her boudoir during these

performances. She was followed by the prelate. His Vicar-General had
just been explaining the profound irony of the epigram into which he

had been entrapped, and the Bishop wished to make amends. Mlle. de
Rastignac, fascinated by the poetry, also slipped into the boudoir

without her mother's knowledge.
Louise drew Lucien to her mattress-cushioned sofa; and with no one to

see or hear, she murmured in his ear, "Dear angel, they did not
understand you; but, 'Thy songs are sweet, I love to say them over.' "

And Lucien took comfort from the pretty speech, and forgot his woes
for a little.

"Glory is not to be had cheaply," Mme. de Bargeton continued, taking
his hand and holding it tightly in her own. "Endure your woes, my

friend, you will be great one day; your pain is the price of your
immortality. If only I had a hard struggle before me! God preserve you

from the enervating life without battles, in which the eagle's wings
have no room to spread themselves. I envy you; for if you suffer, at

least you live. You will put out your strength, you will feel the hope
of victory; your strife will be glorious. And when you shall come to

your kingdom, and reach the imperialsphere where great minds are
enthroned, then remember the poor creatures disinherited by fate,

whose intellects pine in an oppressive moral atmosphere, who die and
have never lived, knowing all the while what life might be; think of

the piercing eyes that have seen nothing, the delicate senses that
have only known the scent of poison flowers. Then tell in your song of

plants that wither in the depths of the forest, choked by twining
growths and rank, greedyvegetation, plants that have never been

kissed by the sunlight, and die, never having put forth a blossom. It
would be a terriblygloomy poem, would it not, a fanciful subject?

What a sublime poem might be made of the story of some daughter of the
desert transported to some cold, western clime, calling for her

beloved sun, dying of a grief that none can understand, overcome with
cold and longing. It would be an allegory; many lives are like that."

"You would picture the spirit which remembers Heaven," said the
Bishop; "some one surely must have written such a poem in the days of

old; I like to think that I see a fragment of it in the Song of
Songs."

"Take that as your subject," said Laure de Rastignac, expressing her
artless belief in Lucien's powers.

"The great sacred poem of France is still unwritten," remarked the
Bishop. "Believe me, glory and success await the man of talent who

shall work for religion."
"That task will be his," said Mme. de Bargeton rhetorically. "Do you

not see the first beginnings of the vision of the poem, like the flame
of dawn, in his eyes?"

"Nais is treating us very badly," said Fifine; "what can she be
doing?"

"Don't you hear?" said Stanislas. "She is flourishing away, using big
words that you cannot make head or tail of."

Amelie, Fifine, Adrien, and Francis appeared in the doorway with Mme.
de Rastignac, who came to look for her daughter.

"Nais," cried the two ladies, both delighted to break in upon the
quiet chat in the boudoir, "it would be very nice of you to come and

play something for us."
"My dear child, M. de Rubempre is just about to recite his Saint John

in Patmos, a magnificent biblical poem."
"Biblical!" echoed Fifine in amazement.

Amelie and Fifine went back to the drawing-room, taking the word back
with them as food for laughter. Lucien pleaded a defective memory and

excused himself. When he reappeared, nobody took the slightest notice
of him; every one was chatting or busy at the card-tables; the poet's

aureole had been plucked away, the landowners had no use for him, the
more pretentious sort looked upon him as an enemy to their ignorance,

while the women were jealous of Mme. de Bargeton, the Beatrice of this
modern Dante, to use the Vicar-General's phrase, and looked at him

with cold, scornful eyes.
"So this is society!" Lucien said to himself as he went down to

L'Houmeau by the steps of Beaulieu; for there are times when we choose
to take the longest way, that the physical exercise of walking may

promote the flow of ideas.
So far from being disheartened, the fury of repulsed ambition gave

Lucien new strength. Like all those whose instincts bring them to a
higher social sphere which they reach before they can hold their own

in it, Lucien vowed to make any sacrifice to the end that he might
remain on that higher social level. One by one he drew out the

poisoned shafts on his way home, talking aloud to himself, scoffing at
the fools with whom he had to do, inventing neat answers to their

idiotic questions, desperately vexed that the witty responses occurred
to him so late in the day. By the time that he reached the Bordeaux

road, between the river and the foot of the hill, he thought that he
could see Eve and David sitting on a baulk of timber by the river in

the moonlight, and went down the footpath towards them.
While Lucien was hastening to the torture in Mme. de Bargeton's rooms,

his sister had changed her dress for a gown of pink cambric covered
with narrow stripes, a straw hat, and a little silk shawl. The simple

costume seemed like a rich toilette on Eve, for she was one of those
women whose great nature lends stateliness to the least personal

detail; and David felt prodigiously shy of her now that she had
changed her working dress. He had made up his mind that he would speak

of himself; but now as he gave his arm to this beautiful girl, and
they walked through L'Houmeau together, he could find nothing to say

to her. Love delights in such reverent awe as redeemed souls know on
beholding the glory of God. So, in silence, the two lovers went across

the Bridge of Saint Anne, and followed the left bank of the Charente.
Eve felt embarrassed by the pause, and stopped to look along the

river; a joyous shaft of sunset had turned the water between the
bridge and the new powder mills into a sheet of gold.

"What a beautiful evening it is!" she said, for the sake of saying
something; "the air is warm and fresh, and full of the scent of

flowers, and there is a wonderful sky."
"Everything speaks to our heart," said David, trying to proceed to

love by way of analogy. "Those who love find infinite delight in
discovering the poetry of their own inmost souls in every chance

effect of the landscape, in the thin, clear air, in the scent of the
earth. Nature speaks for them."

"And loosens their tongues, too," Eve said merrily. "You were very