So Lucien never lost sight of his principal idea; and though to-morrow, following close upon the heels of to-day in the midst of an orgy, never found the promised work accomplished, Lucien was assiduous in society.  He paid court to Mme. de Bargeton, the Marquise d’Espard, and the Comtesse de Montcornet; he never missed a single party given by Mlle. des Touches, appearing in society after a dinner given by authors or publishers, and leaving the salons for a supper given in consequence of a bet.  The demands of conversation and the excitement of play absorbed all the ideas and energy left by excess.  The poet had lost the lucidity of judgment and coolness of head which must be preserved if a man is to see all that is going on around him, and never to lose the exquisite tact which the parvenu needs at every moment.  How should he know how many a time Mme. de Bargeton left him with wounded susceptibilities, how often she forgave him or added one more condemnation to the rest?

Chatelet saw that his rival had still a chance left, so he became Lucien’s friend.  He encouraged the poet in dissipation that wasted his energies.  Rastignac, jealous of his fellow-countryman, and thinking, besides, that Chatelet would be a surer and more useful ally than Lucien, had taken up the Baron’s cause.  So, some few days after the meeting of the Petrarch and Laura of Angouleme, Rastignac brought about the reconciliation between the poet and the elderly beau at a sumptuous supper given at the Rocher de Cancale.  Lucien never returned home till morning, and rose in the middle of the day; Coralie was always at his side, he could not forego a single pleasure.  Sometimes he saw his real position, and made good resolutions, but they came to nothing in his idle, easy life; and the mainspring of will grew slack, and only responded to the heaviest pressure of necessity.

Coralie had been glad that Lucien should amuse himself; she had encouraged him in this reckless expenditure, because she thought that the cravings which she fostered would bind her lover to her.  But tender-hearted and loving as she was, she found courage to advise Lucien not to forget his work, and once or twice was obliged to remind him that he had earned very little during the month.  Their debts were growing frightfully fast.  The fifteen hundred francs which remained from the purchase-money of the Marguerites had been swallowed up at once, together with Lucien’s first five hundred livres.  In three months he had only made a thousand francs, yet he felt as though he had been working tremendously hard.  But by this time Lucien had adopted the “free-livers” pleasant theory of debts.