Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (beautiful books to read TXT) 📖
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There was a pause. De Mauleon had resettled himself at his desk, bending over his papers, and his manner seemed to imply that he considered the conversation at an end.
But a pang of shame, of remorse, of tender remembrance, shot across the heart of the decorous, worldly, self-seeking man, who owed all that he now was to the ci-devant vaurien before him. Again he stretched forth his hand, and this time grasped De Mauleon’s warmly. “Forgive me,” he said, feelingly and hoarsely; “forgive me, I was to blame. By character, and perhaps by the necessities of my career, I am over-timid to public opinion, public scandal. Forgive me. Say if in anything now I can requite, though but slightly, the service I owe you.”
De Mauleon looked steadily at the Prefet, and said slowly, “Would you serve me in turn? Are you sincere?”
The Prefet hesitated a moment, then answered firmly, “Yes.”
“Well, then, what I ask of you is a frank opinion,—not as lawyer, not as Prefet, but as a man who knows the present state of French society. Give that opinion without respect to my feelings one way or other. Let it emanate solely from your practised judgment.”
“Be it so,” said Hennequin, wondering what was to come. De Mauleon resumed, “As you may remember, during my former career I had no political ambition. I did not meddle with politics. In the troubled times that immediately succeeded the fall of Louis Philippe I was but an epicurean looker-on. Grant that, so far as admission to the salons is concerned, I shall encounter no difficulty in regaining position; but as regards the Chamber, public life, a political career, can I have my fair opening under the Empire? You pause. Answer as you have promised, frankly.”
“The difficulties in the way of a political career would be very great.”
“Insuperable?”
“I fear so. Of course, in my capacity of Prefet, I have no small influence in my department in support of a Government candidate. But I do not think that the Imperial Government could, at this time especially, in which it must be very cautious in selecting its candidates, be induced to recommend you. The affair of the jewels would be raked up; your vindication disputed, denied; the fact that for so many years you have acquiesced in that charge without taking steps to refute it; your antecedents, even apart from that charge; your present want of property (M. Enguerrand tells me your income is but moderate); the absence of all previous repute in public life. No; relinquish the idea of political contest,—it would expose you to inevitable mortifications, to a failure that would even jeopardize the admission to the salons which you are now gaining. You could not be a Government candidate.”
“Granted. I may have no desire to be one; but an opposition candidate, one of the Liberal party?”
“As an Imperialist,” said Hennequin, smiling gravely, “and holding the office I do, it would not become me to encourage a candidate against the Emperor’s Government. But speaking with the frankness you solicit, I should say that your chances there are infinitely worse. The Opposition are in a pitiful minority,—the most eminent of the Liberals can scarcely gain seats for themselves; great local popularity or property, high established repute for established patriotism, or proved talents of oratory and statesmanship, are essential qualifications for a seat in the Opposition; and even these do not suffice for a third of the persons who possess them. Be again what you were before,—the hero of salons remote from the turbulent vulgarity of politics.”
“I am answered. Thank you once more. The service I rendered you once is requited now.”
“No, indeed,—no; but will you dine with me quietly today, and allow me to present to you my wife and two children, born since we parted? I say to-day, for to-morrow I return to my Prefecture.”
“I am infinitely obliged by your invitation, but to-day I dine with the Comte de Beauvilliers to meet some of the Corps Diplomatique. I must make good my place in the salons, since you so clearly show me that I have no chance of one in the Legislature—unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless there happen one of those revolutions in which the scum comes uppermost.”
“No fear of that. The subterranean barracks and railway have ended forever the rise of the scum, the reign of the canaille and its barricades.”
“Adieu, my dear Hennequin. My respectful hommages a Madame.”
After that day the writing of Pierre Firmin in “Le Sens Commun,” though still keeping within the pale of the law, became more decidedly hostile to the Imperial system, still without committing their author to any definite programme of the sort of government that should succeed it.
CHAPTER IV.
The weeks glided on. Isaura’s manuscript bad passed into print; it came out in the French fashion of feuilletons,—a small detachment at a time. A previous flourish of trumpets by Savarin and the clique at his command insured it attention, if not from the general public, at least from critical and literary coteries. Before the fourth instalment appeared it had outgrown the patronage of the coteries; it seized hold of the public. It was not in the last school in fashion; incidents were not crowded and violent,—they were few and simple, rather appertaining to an elder school, in which poetry of sentiment and grace of diction prevailed. That very resemblance to old favourites gave it the attraction of novelty. In a word, it excited a pleased admiration, and great curiosity was felt as to the authorship. When it oozed out that it was by the young lady whose future success in the musical world had been so sanguinely predicted by all who had heard her sing, the interest wonderfully increased. Petitions to be introduced to her acquaintance were showered upon Savarin. Before she scarcely realized her dawning fame, she was drawn from her quiet home and retired habits; she was fetee and courted in the literary circle of which Savarin was a chief. That circle touched, on one side, Bohemia; on the other, that realm of politer fashion which, in every intellectual metropolis, but especially in Paris, seeks to gain borrowed light from luminaries in art and letters. But the very admiration she obtained somewhat depressed, somewhat troubled her; after all, it did not differ from that which was at her command as a singer.
On the one hand, she shrank instinctively
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