"If you think I had better admit Henry Murger, I consent; but remember what I say to you: It will be the source of annoyance to you."
The next day a hack bore Henry Murger and me from the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue du Helder to the office of the "Revue des Deux Mondes." We talked on the way. If I had had any illusions left of the poetical dreams and virginal thoughts of young men fevered by literary ambition, these few minutes would have been enough to dispel them all. Henry Murger thought of nothing upon earth but money. How was he going to pay his quarter's rent, or rather his two or three quarters' rent? for he was two or three quarters behindhand. He still had credit with this restaurateur, but he owed so much to such another that he dared not show his face there. He was over head and ears in debt to his tailor. He was afraid to think of the amount of money he owed his shoemaker. The list was long, and "bills payable" lamentable. To end this dreary balance-sheet, I took it into my head to deliver him a lecture on the morality of literature and the duty of literary men. "Art," said I to him, "must escape the materialism which oppresses and will at last absorb it. We romantics of 1828 were mistaken. We thought we were reacting against the pagan and mummified school of the eighteenth century and of the First Empire. We did not perceive that a revolutionary Art can under no circumstances turn to the profit of grand spiritual and Christian traditions, to the worship of the ideal, to the elevation of intellects. We did not see that it would be a little sooner or a little later discounted by literary demagogues, who, without tradition, without a creed, without any law except their own whims, would become the slaves of every base passion, and of all physical and moral deformities. It is not yet too late. Let us repair our faults. Let us elevate, let us regenerate literature; let us bear it aloft to those noble spheres where the soul soars in her native majes"——
I was declaiming with fire, my enthusiasm was becoming more and more heated, when Henry Murger interrupted me by asking,—"Do you think Monsieur Buloz will pay me in advance?"
This question produced on my missionary's enthusiasm the same effect a tub of cold water would have upon an excited poodle-dog.
"Monsieur Murger," I replied, without being too much disconcerted, "you will arrange those details with Monsieur Buloz. All I can do is to introduce you."
We reached the office. I was afraid I might embarrass Monsieur Buloz and Monsieur Murger, if I remained with them; I therefore took a book and went into the garden. I was called back in twenty minutes, and was briefly told that Henry Murger had engaged to write a novel for the "Revue." We went out together; but we had scarcely passed three doors, when Murger said hurriedly to me,—"I beg your pardon, I have forgotten something!"—and he went back to the office. I afterwards found out that this "something" was an advance of money which he asked for upon a novel whose first syllable he had not yet written.
If I dwell upon these miserable details, it is not (God forbid!) to insult laborious poverty, or talent forced to struggle against the hardships of life or the embarrassments of improvident, careless youth. No,—but there was here, and this is the reason I speak of it, the trade-mark of that literary living-by-the wits which had taken entire possession of Henry Murger, against which he had struggled in vain all his life long, and which at last crushed him in its feverish grasp. Living by the wits was to Henry Murger what roulette is to the gambler, what brandy is to the drunkard, what the traps of the police are to the knave and the burglar: he cursed it, but he could not quit it; he lived in it, he lived by it, he died of it. The first time I talked with Murger, and every subsequent conversation I had with him, brought up money incessantly, in every tone, in every form; and when, having become more familiar with what he called my squeamishness, he talked more frankly to me, I saw that he required to support him a sum of money three times greater than the annual income of which a whole family of office-holders in the country, or even in Paris, live with ease. This brought on him protests, bailiffs, constables, incredible complications, continual uneasiness, a hankering after pecuniary success, eternal complaints against publishers, magazine-editors, theatre-managers, anxious negotiations, an immense loss of time, an incredible wear-and-tear of brain, annoyances and cares enough to put every thought to flight and to dry every source of inspiration and of poetry. Remember that Henry Murger is one of the luckiest of the new men who have appeared within these last fifteen years, for he received the cross of the Legion of Honor, which, as everybody knows, is never given except to men who deserve it. Judge, then, what the others must be! Judge what must be the abortions, the disdained, the supernumeraries,—those who sleep in lodging-houses at two cents a night, or who eat their pitiful dinner outside the barrier-gate in a wretched eating-house patronized by hack-drivers,—those who kill themselves with charcoal, or who hang themselves, murdered by madness or by hunger, the two pale goddesses of atheistical literatures!
"Well," said I to Henry Murger, after we were once more seated in our carriage, "are you pleased with Monsieur Buloz?"
"Yes—and no. The most difficult step is taken. He allows me to contribute my masterpieces to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' and I shall never forget the immense service you have done me. Although you and I do not serve the same literary gods, I am henceforward yours to the death! But—the book-keeper is deusedly hard on trigger. Will you believe it? I asked him to advance me forty dollars, and he refused!"
We parted excellent friends, and he continued to assure me of his gratitude, until the carriage stopped at my door.