The mood was upon him; he went on to indite, stroke by stroke, the promised terrible article on Chatelet and Mme. de Bargeton.  That morning he experienced one of the keenest personal pleasures of journalism; he knew what it was to forge the epigram, to whet and polish the cold blade to be sheathed in a victim’s heart, to make of the hilt a cunning piece of workmanship for the reader to admire.  For the public admires the handle, the delicate work of the brain, while the cruelty is not apparent; how should the public know that the steel of the epigram, tempered in the fire of revenge, has been plunged deftly, to rankle in the very quick of a victim’s vanity, and is reeking from wounds innumerable which it has inflicted?  It is a hideous joy, that grim, solitary pleasure, relished without witnesses; it is like a duel with an absent enemy, slain at a distance by a quill; a journalist might really possess the magical power of talismans in Eastern tales.  Epigram is distilled rancor, the quintessence of a hate derived from all the worst passions of man, even as love concentrates all that is best in human nature.  The man does not exist who cannot be witty to avenge himself; and, by the same rule, there is not one to whom love does not bring delight.  Cheap and easy as this kind of wit may be in France, it is always relished.  Lucien’s article was destined to raise the previous reputation of the paper for venomous spite and evil-speaking.  His article probed two hearts to the depths; it dealt a grievous wound to Mme. de Bargeton, his Laura of old days, as well as to his rival, the Baron du Chatelet.

“Well, let us go for a drive in the Bois,” said Coralie, “the horses are fidgeting.  There is no need to kill yourself.”

“We will take the article on Nathan to Hector.  Journalism is really very much like Achilles’ lance, it salves the wounds that it makes,” said Lucien, correcting a phrase here and there.

The lovers started forth in splendor to show themselves to the Paris which had but lately given Lucien the cold shoulder, and now was beginning to talk about him.  To have Paris talking of you! and this after you have learned how large the great city is, how hard it is to be anybody there—­it was this thought that turned Lucien’s head with exultation.

“Let us go by way of your tailor’s, dear boy, and tell him to be quick with your clothes, or try them on if they are ready.  If you are going to your fine ladies’ houses, you shall eclipse that monster of a de Marsay and young Rastignac and any Ajuda-Pinto or Maxime de Trailles or Vandenesse of them all.  Remember that your mistress is Coralie!  But you will not play me any tricks, eh?”