So for three years these friends had mingled the destinies bright with such glorious promise. Together they read the great works that appeared above the horizon of literature and science since the Peace--the poems of Schiller, Goethe, and Byron, the prose writings of Scott, Jean-Paul, Berzelius, Davy, Cuvier, Lamartine, and many more. They warmed themselves beside these great hearthfires; they tried their powers in abortive creations, in work laid aside and taken up again with new glow of enthusiasm. Incessantly they worked with the unwearied vitality of youth; comrades in poverty, comrades in the consuming love of art and science, till they forgot the hard life of the present, for their minds were wholly bent on laying the foundations of future fame.
"Lucien," said David, "do you know what I have just received from Paris?" He drew a tiny volume from his pocket. "Listen!"
And David read, as a poet can read, first Andre de Chenier's Idyll Neerc, then Le Malade, following on with the Elegy on a Suicide, another elegy in the classic taste, and the last two Iambes.
"So that is Andre de Chenier!" Lucien exclaimed again and again. "It fills one with despair!" he cried for the third time, when David surrendered the book to him, unable to read further for emotion.--"A poet rediscovered by a poet!" said Lucien, reading the signature of the preface.
"After Chenier had written those poems, he thought that he had written nothing worth publishing," added David.
Then Lucien in his turn read aloud the fragment of an epic called L'Aveugle and two or three of the Elegies, till, when he came upon the line--If they know not bliss, is there happiness on earth?
He pressed the book to his lips, and tears came to the eyes of either, for the two friends were lovers and fellow-worshipers.
The vine-stems were changing color with the spring; covering the rifted, battered walls of the old house where squalid cracks were spreading in every direction, with fluted columns and knots and bas-reliefs and uncounted masterpieces of I know not what order of architecture, erected by fairy hands. Fancy had scattered flowers and crimson gems over the gloomy little yard, and Chenier's Camille became for David the Eve whom he worshiped, for Lucien a great lady to whom he paid his homage. Poetry had shaken out her starry robe above the workshop where the "monkeys" and "bears" were grotesquely busy among types and presses. Five o'clock struck, but the friends felt neither hunger nor thirst; life had turned to a golden dream, and all the treasures of the world lay at their feet. Far away on the horizon lay the blue streak to which Hope points a finger in storm and stress; and a siren voice sounded in their ears, calling, "Come, spread your wings; through that streak of gold or silver or azure lies the sure way of escape from evil fortune!"
Just at that moment the low glass door of the workshop was opened, and out came Cerizet, an apprentice (David had brought the urchin from Paris). This youth introduced a stranger, who saluted the friends politely, and spoke to David.
"This, sir, is a monograph which I am desirous of printing," said he, drawing a huge package of manuscript from his pocket. "Will you oblige me with an estimate?"
"We do not undertake work on such a scale, sir," David answered, without looking at the manuscript. "You had better see the Messieurs Cointet about it."
"Still we have a very pretty type which might suit it," put in Lucien, taking up the roll. "We must ask you to be kind enough, sir, to leave your commission with us and call again to-morrow, and we will give you an estimate."
"Have I the pleasure of addressing M. Lucien Chardon?"
"Yes, sir," said the foreman.
"I am fortunate in this opportunity of meeting with a young poet destined to such greatness," returned the author. "Mme. de Bargeton sent me here."
Lucien flushed red at the name, and stammered out something about gratitude for the interest which Mme. de Bargeton took in him. David noticed his friend's embarrassed flush, and left him in conversation with the country gentleman, the author of a monograph on silkwork cultivation, prompted by vanity to print the effort for the benefit of fellow-members of the local agricultural society.
When the author had gone, David spoke.
"Lucien, are you in love with Mme. de Bargeton?"
"Passionately."
"But social prejudices set you as far apart as if she were living at Pekin and you in Greenland."
"The will of two lovers can rise victorious over all things," said Lucien, lowering his eyes.
"You will forget us," returned the alarmed lover, as Eve's fair face rose before his mind.
"On the contrary, I have perhaps sacrificed my love to you," cried Lucien.
"What do you mean?"
"In spite of my love, in spite of the different motives which bid me obtain a secure footing in her house, I have told her that I will never go thither again unless another is made welcome too, a man whose gifts are greater than mine, a man destined for a brilliant future--David Sechard, my brother, my friend. I shall find an answer waiting when I go home. All the aristocrats may have been asked to hear me read my verses this evening, but I shall not go if the answer is negative, and I will never set foot in Mme. de Bargeton's house again."
David brushed the tears from his eyes, and wrung Lucien's hand. The clock struck six.
"Eve must be anxious; good-bye," Lucien added abruptly.
He hurried away. David stood overcome by the emotion that is only felt to the full at his age, and more especially in such a position as his --the friends were like two young swans with wings unclipped as yet by the experiences of provincial life.
"Heart of gold!" David exclaimed to himself, as his eyes followed Lucien across the workshop.