(“He is so nervous that he is committing a pleonasm,” said Félicien in an aside to Lousteau.) “——to give expression to my gratitude for the splendid review which you were so good as to give me in the _Journal des Débats_. Half the success of my book is owing to you.” “No, my dear fellow, no,” said Blondet, with an air of patronage scarcely masked by good-nature. “You have talent, the deuce you have, and I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.” “Now that your review has appeared, I shall not seem to be courting power; we can feel at ease. Will you do me the honor and the pleasure of dining with me to-morrow? Finot is coming.—Lousteau, old man, you will not refuse me, will you?” added Nathan, shaking Étienne by the hand.—“Ah, you are on the way to a great future, monsieur,” he added, turning again to Blondet; “you will carry on the line of Dussaults, Fiévées, and Geoffrois! Hoffmann was talking about you to a friend of mine, Claude Vignon, his pupil; he said that he could die in peace, the _Journal des Débats_ would live forever. 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.”