Down once more in L’Houmeau he wished that he had not written that letter; he wished he could have it back again; for down the vista of the future he caught a glimpse of the inexorable laws of the world.  He guessed that nothing succeeds like success, and it cost him something to step down from the first rung of the scaling ladder by which he meant to reach and storm the heights above.  Pictures of his quiet and simple life rose before him, pictures fair with the brightest colors of blossoming love.  There was David; what a genius David had—­David who had helped him so generously, and would die for him at need; he thought of his mother, of how great a lady she was in her lowly lot, and how she thought that he was as good as he was clever; then of his sister so gracious in submission to her fate, of his own innocent childhood and conscience as yet unstained, of budding hopes undespoiled by rough winds, and at these thoughts the past broke into flowers once more for his memory.

Then he told himself that it was a far finer thing to hew his own way through serried hostile mobs of aristocrats or philistines by repeated successful strokes, than to reach the goal through a woman’s favor.  Sooner or later his genius should shine out; it had been so with the others, his predecessors; they had tamed society.  Women would love him when that day came!  The example of Napoleon, which, unluckily for this nineteenth century of ours, has filled a great many ordinary persons with aspirations after extraordinary destinies,—­the example of Napoleon occurred to Lucien’s mind.  He flung his schemes to the winds and blamed himself for thinking of them.  For Lucien was so made that he went from evil to good, or from good to evil, with the same facility.

Lucien had none of the scholar’s love for his retreat; for the past month indeed he had felt something like shame at the sight of the shop front, where you could read—­

POSTEL (LATE CHARDON), PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMIST,

in yellow letters on a green ground.  It was an offence to him that his father’s name should be thus posted up in a place where every carriage passed.

Every evening, when he closed the ugly iron gate and went up to Beaulieu to give his arm to Mme. de Bargeton among the dandies of the upper town, he chafed beyond all reason at the disparity between his lodging and his fortune.

“I love Mme. de Bargeton; perhaps in a few days she will be mine, yet here I live in this rat-hole!” he said to himself this evening, as he went down the narrow passage into the little yard behind the shop.  This evening bundles of boiled herbs were spread out along the wall, the apprentice was scouring a caldron, and M. Postel himself, girded about with his laboratory apron, was standing with a retort in his hand, inspecting some chemical product while keeping an eye upon the shop door, or if the eye happened to be engaged, he had at any rate an ear for the bell.