It was just five o'clock in the afternoon, when a fashionably dressed young man, of comely aspect, and possessed of an attractive countenance, although his large blue eyes sometimes expressed a decided penchant for raillery, entered the cafÉ which stands, or stood, at the corner of Faubourg PoissonniÈre and the boulevard, on the right as you turn into the latter.

The young man looked into the first room, then into the others in succession, and at last said to himself:

"No one! not a single one of them has come! Probably not a single one of them will come! Five years is quite long enough to forget an appointment. However, I remembered it. I am sure that they are not all dead, for I met Dodichet within two months, and I saw DubottÉ at the theatre less than a week ago. Lucien is the only one I haven't heard of for some time. Well, I'll wait a while. Everyone is entitled to the fifteen minutes' grace."

And the young man, whose name was AdhÉmar Monbrun, seated himself at a table, took up a newspaper, ordered a petit verre of chartreuse, and read a review of the play which had had a successful first performance the night before, but which the newspaper critic abused because the author was not a friend of his. Which fact, luckily, was not likely to prevent the play from making its way and achieving a long run, because the public was beginning to take at their true value the articles of those aristarchs of the press, who took for their motto, generally speaking: "No one shall be allowed to have any cleverness except ourselves and our friends."

AdhÉmar had not been reading the paper two minutes, when a man, who had just entered the cafÉ, walked straight to the table at which he was seated, and tapped him on the shoulder, saying:

"Well, my boy, here I am, too; as prompt as the sun in pleasant weather. I didn't forget our appointment, you see. Good-afternoon, AdhÉmar, I am delighted to see you once more! You're well, I trust? So am I, as you see. Everybody says that I have a prosperous face. Indeed, sometimes it irritates me to hear it, because I have noticed that prosperity often has a stupid look. But I hope that mine isn't so bad as that!"

This second individual was a man of about thirty years, who looked fully as old as he was, because he was a little inclined to corpulency; rather below than above medium height, with a full, high-colored face, always wreathed in smiles, a forest of light hair which curled naturally, china-blue eyes, as round as a cat's, and large mutton-chop whiskers—such was PhilÉmon DubottÉ, who considered himself a very good-looking fellow, and paid court to all the ladies except his own wife, whom he neglected shamefully, but who, on the contrary, adored him, and was always lavishing caresses on him. But the ladies are often like that: the colder you are with them, the more ardent they are with you; perhaps I shall be told that it is because they want to warm you.

AdhÉmar shook hands with the new-comer.

"How are you, PhilÉmon! come and sit down. Yes, you have a look of robust health which does one good to see!"

"I haven't the look of it only, I beg you to believe. I'm as rugged as Porte Saint-Denis. By the way, is Porte Saint-Denis still standing?"

"Yes, to be sure!"

"I didn't know; so many things are being demolished in these days! Well, then, I repeat: I'm as rugged as Porte Saint-Denis."

"I see that you remembered."

"Why in the devil shouldn't I?"

"In five years one forgets so many things, my friend!"

"In love, that may be; but not in friendship."

"Men forget in friendship, as well as in love. Memory is a rare thing in this world, especially memory of the heart."

"Ah! there you are! the same as ever—no confidence in anything or anybody!"

"Is it my fault, my dear fellow, if my confidence has always been betrayed? Time destroys all our illusions, and in the last five years I have lost an infernal lot of them."

"Well, I haven't lost anything at all. I still adore the fair sex, which, I venture to say, repays my adoration with interest—too earnestly, in fact. For I have a wife—you don't know my wife, I believe? I'll introduce you to her; my dear fellow, she adores me, she idolizes me! It's a genuine passion. When she goes half a day without seeing me, she's as good as dead: she doesn't eat, she pines and languishes, sometimes she weeps even. When I come home, I have to scold her. 'ÉlÉonore,' I say—her name's ÉlÉonore—'why, Nonore, what does this mean? What! can't I stay out a little late with friends, without finding you in tears when I come home?' And she throws her arms round my neck, and says: 'I thought you'd fallen off the top of an omnibus! I beg you, my love, don't ride in the three-sou seats. Go inside, PhilÉmon, I implore you; ride inside; you'll make me so much happier!'—That's the kind of a woman my wife is, and I assure you it's an infernal bore to be loved like that!"

"You complain because the bride is too fair, but it won't always be so."

"I trust not—poor Nonore! If she knew how unworthy I am of such adoration—for I am a double-dyed villain: I can't see a pretty face without ogling it. Ah! I see Lucien yonder. Well, well! I really believe we shall have the whole party."

The individual who was approaching the table at which the two friends were seated was a young man of twenty-six, tall and slight, and extremely thin; his face was pale, but his features were rather fine; the expression of the eyes was very sweet, and his manners as well as his speech were calculated to inspire interest. His dress was extremely neat, but did not denote affluence; his black frock-coat, buttoned to the chin, had evidently been brushed frequently, and you would hardly have dared to detain him by grasping one of its skirts, lest it should remain in your hand. His black cravat showed only a tiny bit of collar, and his hat seemed to have been scrubbed with water; but his gray trousers were spotlessly clean; and his shoes, albeit not of patent leather, were carefully polished. The young man's name was Lucien Grischard.

As soon as he caught sight of him, AdhÉmar rose and extended his hand, crying out:

"How are you, Lucien, dear old Lucien! how glad I am to see you! for it's a long while—nearly two years—since I laid eyes on you."

"That is true, Monsieur AdhÉmar, and I am very glad to see you, too. I have been waiting impatiently for this day, which was to bring us together."

"Why on earth do you call me monsieur, and not AdhÉmar, as you used to? Am I not still your old boarding-school comrade?"

"Forgive me! but that was so long ago, and for the last five years you have had nothing but success in literary and dramatic work; you have become a celebrity! while I have remained in obscurity."

"My dear Lucien, if celebrity is to result in separating us from our friends, we ought to shrink from it instead of longing for it. I fancy that mine hasn't yet acquired such dimensions as to make me a subject of envy."

"Oh! pray don't think that I ever had a suspicion of that sentiment when I heard of your triumphs. On the contrary, I was always overjoyed, and said to myself: 'He, at least, is making his way!'"

While this third member of the party was talking with AdhÉmar, the sandy-haired PhilÉmon scrutinized him with unremitting attention, and the aspect of the threadbare coat and the cleaned hat did not seem to add great zest to his friendship; however, he too shook hands with Lucien, and said to him in an almost patronizing tone:

"Good-afternoon, Lucien! how are you, my boy? Sapristi! you haven't put on much flesh since I saw you last!"

"I can't say the same for you, PhilÉmon, for you are almost the shape of a barrel."

"Oh! a barrel; that's putting it a little strong; but, after all, I would rather resemble a barrel than the barrel of a gun."

Instead of losing his temper at this comparison, Lucien laughed heartily, while AdhÉmar interposed with:

"Well, well, messieurs, how's this? old schoolfellows meeting after five years, and making unkind remarks to each other! is that the way to meet after a lustrum has passed over our heads, and have you become so sensitive that you lose your tempers over a jest?"

"Oh! I am not angry in the least," replied Lucien; "far from it; PhilÉmon's remark made me laugh, as you see."

"For my part," said DubottÉ, "I confess that I can't endure being compared to a barrel; any sobriquet you please, except that. But I don't bear Lucien any ill will. Come, sit down here with us, my dear fellow, and take something."

"Thanks; but we're not all here yet: someone is missing—Dodichet."

"Oh! we can't count on him. Was Dodichet ever a man of his word? Why, he doesn't know what it is to keep a promise! He's a good fellow enough, but an erratic, rattle-brained creature, who always has a thousand schemes on hand, but never carries out one of them, and never remembers one day what he said the day before."

"The devil! you judge him rather harshly, PhilÉmon!"

"I am simply telling the truth. However, I've seen very little of him for five years; he may have mended his ways."

"No," said AdhÉmar; "Dodichet is just the same; I have happened to meet him several times, and I have been sorry to see that our old friend has not grown any more sensible. He was in a position to succeed, for he's not a fool, and he inherited some money from his parents; but he thinks of nothing but enjoying life, of making bonnes blagues, as he expresses it; and they don't always succeed; some of them have cost him dear. I believe that he is almost ruined now; and, unfortunately, he hasn't yet decided upon any profession."

"Poor Dodichet!" said Lucien; "he must be very unhappy, then."

"He, unhappy! oh! he'll never be that. He laughs at everything, everything is couleur de rose with him; and he is convinced that he will have a fine house, horses and carriages, and a hundred thousand francs a year, some day. He has a very happy disposition."

"Why, here he is, on my word!" cried PhilÉmon; "yes, it's really he—he has remembered our appointment. Well, he has a better memory than I supposed."

Another person had, in fact, entered the cafÉ. It was a man of twenty-six or twenty-seven years, of medium height, well set up, with dark brown hair, a slightly flushed face, sharp eyes, turned-up nose, and a huge mouth—everything, in short, which denotes a jovial companion. His costume was a little eccentric: his trousers were unconscionably full in the legs and very tight at the hips; his waistcoat was of Scotch plaid with enormous squares, and his coat was so short that it barely covered half of his posterior. On his head was a gray hat of an indescribable shape, but remotely resembling a snail's shell. Lastly, he carried in his hand a light cane with an ivory head, which head he was forever stuffing into his mouth or his nose, and at times he scratched his ear with it. Such was Monsieur Fanfan Dodichet, who, on entering the cafÉ, swung his cane in such a way as to strike a newspaper out of the hands of an old habituÉ of the place, who was reading it as he sipped his glass of beer.

The old gentleman looked up and cast an angry glance at the person who had torn his newspaper into strips; and Dodichet, instead of apologizing for his awkwardness, laughed in his face, and remarked:

"They'll bring you the Tintamarre; it's much more entertaining. I am sure that you were bored by what you were reading; I saw that when I came in, and I said to myself: 'There's a man who longs to change his paper; I'll give him an opportunity.'"

Without waiting for a reply, Dodichet examined all the occupied tables; and discovering at last the persons he sought, shouted, as if he were in his own house:

"Ah! there they are! those are they! O happy fate!"

Then he began to sing:

"For heaven's sake, hold your tongue, Dodichet!" said DubottÉ, affecting not to see the hand which the new-comer held out to him; "you will compromise us. The idea of singing like that in a cafÉ! What do you look like, anyway? These people will be giving you a sou!"

"Well! if everybody here gives me a sou, that will make a very tidy little sum; but our handsome blond is always afraid of compromising himself! He is truly superb, this DubottÉ!—Do you know, DubottÉ, you make me think of the sun, on my word! I can't look at you without squinting. But aren't we all here? Good-evening, messieurs! I haven't forgotten our appointment of five years ago, you see. That surprises you, doesn't it? well, it surprises me too, on my honor! Ah! there's Lucien, dear old Lucien, whom I haven't seen, I believe, since our agreement.—Give us your hand, Lucien—

"'Cette main, cette main si jolie!'"

"Good God! is he going to sing again? I'm going away, then."

"No, Phoebus, don't be alarmed, I won't sing any more—not to please you, but because I want to talk with AdhÉmar and Lucien.—Ah! AdhÉmar—there's a friend that is a friend; you can always find him when you want him. But DubottÉ! his scent tells him when anyone's going to ask a favor of him, and he runs away like a stag. I said, like a stag; the simile is a little risquÉe perhaps, as our friend is married; but, never mind! I have said it, and I won't take it back."

"Oh! I'm not offended, Dodichet. When a man has a wife like mine, he is above such jests."

"You're content with your wife, eh? so much the better, I'm glad of it.—But I say, messieurs, is that all you're going to take? For my part, the weather makes me thirsty."

"Very well! order some beer."

"Beer! oh, no! that's too vulgar; punch, rather."

"Who ever heard of drinking punch just before dinner?"

"Why not? all hours are alike to good fellows!—Punch, waiter! rum punch—and see that it's good; say it's for a connoisseur.—Won't you have a glass of punch, too, my dear Lucien? it warms you up and makes you lively!"

"No, thanks; I won't take anything; I don't need anything."

"Oh! yes, you do; pardieu! you'll take some punch with us; just remember that it is I who invite you!"

"But I'll answer for it that it won't be he who will pay," said AdhÉmar, in an undertone.

However, when the punch was brought, they all concluded to partake. Dodichet immediately poured out a second glass for himself, humming:

"'J'en veux goÛter encore, pour en Être certain.'"

But AdhÉmar silenced him by saying:

"Messieurs, we four, born at Troyes——"

"The home of hashed veal," said Dodichet.

"Oh! Dodichet, you are not going to keep interrupting AdhÉmar, are you?"

"Not I; I simply desired to confirm his statement that we were all born at Troyes.—Go on, AdhÉmar."

"Five years ago, we four happened to meet in this same cafÉ. I was then twenty-four years old, and I had been in Paris for some time; but PhilÉmon DubottÉ and Lucien had just arrived, and Dodichet had run through the inheritance of only one of his uncles. We were old schoolfellows. Do you know what we said when we met here?"

"Perfectly. Each one of us declared: 'I intend to succeed; to make a name and station for myself; and I ask only five years to do it in.'"

"Exactly; and we agreed then to meet again here at the end of five years, in order to find out whether we had succeeded and had reached our respective goals."

"Very good."

"Now, let each of us in turn tell where he stands, and whether he has arrived at the goal which he had in view.—Begin, PhilÉmon."

"Oh, yes! it's DubottÉ's place to begin, because he's the dean in years. Go on, fascinating blond."

"Dean in years! I'm not so sure of that."

"Pshaw! between ourselves, there's no use in prevaricating; we all knew one another's ages at school."

"True; but we're not at school now."

"Ha! ha! that's good, that is; it ought to be framed. DubottÉ, you are well over thirty-one."

"Not very much; only three months."

"That makes you thirty-one and a quarter."

"You're at least twenty-eight yourself, Dodichet."

"I don't conceal my age: I am twenty-seven and a half, AdhÉmar twenty-nine, and Lucien twenty-six; he's the youngest of the lot. So far, so good. I move that Phoebus proceed."

"All right.—Messieurs, I have no reason to complain of destiny. Having obtained a position in the Interior Department, where my assiduity, my zeal, and my fine handwriting procured me rapid promotion, I soon married; I found a very attractive young lady, who had a good-sized dowry; I was introduced to her; she liked me and declared that she would be happy to marry a man employed in the Interior Department. Our nuptials were celebrated. I have every reason to congratulate myself: my wife adores me, she sees only through my eyes. My emoluments are respectable; I am able to live pleasantly; so that I might fairly say that I have arrived, that my position is assured; but no, messieurs, I have not yet reached the height to which I aspire. For I am ambitious: I want to be a sub-prefect, or at least the head of a bureau; but I hope to arrive before long. Dixi."

"Heard and noted. Now it is AdhÉmar's turn."

"I will be brief, messieurs: I was determined to write; I wrote novels, I wrote for the stage; my plays have had more success than I dared hope; in that respect, fortune has constantly favored me, and I earn a good deal of money. But I have been less fortunate in love; I have loved women ardently; and when they told me that they loved me alone, I believed it until I had proof to the contrary; but I have had that proof so often that I am completely disillusioned. Thereupon I set about studying the sex; I discovered that all women are coquettes, and consequently that there is no dependence to be placed on their fidelity; that made me a misanthrope, or rather a misogynist, for some time; but then I said to myself that I must take the world as it is, and content myself with forming liaisons with women which have no other end than mere sensual pleasure. However, I am sure that I was born to love truly, and that it would have made me perfectly happy to be loved truly in return. That is where I stand: I have succeeded, so far as vanity and wealth are concerned, but I have not succeeded according to the longing of my heart; and, in my opinion, a man has not arrived when he is not happy."

"Very good!" cried Dodichet; "now it's my turn. I am very different from AdhÉmar, messieurs, in that I am very happy; for I pass my life enjoying myself. However, I must agree that I have not as yet a well-defined position; I have followed so many trades that you might call me an all-around man. I have had places, in the government service and elsewhere; but I have kept none of them—I don't know why; yes, I ought to say, I do know why. Impelled by my irresistible tendency to jest, I was forever trying to invent some amusing trick to play. When I was a clerk in a fancy goods shop, I succeeded in mixing up all the different things, putting on one shelf what should have been put on another, so that, when customers came, nothing was ever in its place; my employers shouted and swore, and I roared with laughter. As clerk in one of the government bureaux, I had for chief a gentleman who never sat down except on one of those round leather cushions which facilitate respiration. One day, I abstracted that well-padded cushion, and substituted for it one that contained nothing but air; when my chief sank luxuriously into his easy-chair, the cushion burst and flattened out, with a very compromising explosion. This trifling peccadillo caused me to lose that place; there are people whose minds—I should say, whose behinds—are so ill-fashioned! I must confess that, during these various adventures, instead of earning money, I spent all my inheritances little by little. But I still have some wealthy kinsmen; I am going to reform; I have found my real vocation: the stage. Yes, messieurs; I am destined to shine some day on the stage. I have not yet reached that point, it is true; but you will see me there; and I propose that you come to this cafÉ, a year hence, to congratulate me on my talent and my triumphs."

"So be it," said AdhÉmar; "and now it is Lucien's turn to speak."

"I begin, messieurs, by telling you frankly that I have not succeeded at all; and yet I have not been enjoying myself—I have worked, worked hard, I have tried several branches of business in a small way, but I have not been successful; often, too, I have been deceived, worked, as they say, by persons who were supposed to be my partners, but who pocketed all the profits. But still I have not lost courage; I have just invented a new kind of pin for ladies' use; something tells me that it will be popular. I must tell you, too, that I am in love, and that the father of the woman I love will not give his daughter to any man who is not well settled in life."

"What's that! you are in love, my poor Lucien, really in love?" said AdhÉmar. "Ah! that is what prevents you from succeeding! I pray you, do not take that sentiment seriously, or you will be its victim in the end; it will make you sad and unhappy, and then you will be laughed at."

"I beg your pardon, AdhÉmar; but I don't agree with you. On the contrary, my love, far from making me unhappy, is my only comfort, my only hope; it supports me in adversity; for the woman I love loves me, and a word, a smile, from her makes me forget a whole week of gloom."

"The rascal is loved, you see," said PhilÉmon; "he has won the girl's heart to her father's beard; I know what that is, myself!"

"Shall I kidnap your charmer for you, Lucien? shall I think up some trick to play on her daddy? Don't distress yourself—I am on hand!"

"No, Dodichet, I thank you; she is not one of the kind who allow themselves to be kidnapped. She is virtuous and well brought up. She will never give herself to anyone but her husband; and if she were different, I should not love her."

"Very good. But who is this barbarous father who refuses to approve his daughter's choice?"

"Oh! he is a miser, a curmudgeon, a man who has no regard for anything but money. You will understand, from that, that he will not give his daughter any dowry; on the contrary, he would be more likely to demand one from his son-in-law."

"What does the old skinflint do?"

"Nothing, so he says; but, between ourselves, I think that he lends money at usurious rates. He is rich, but he is always complaining of the hard times; unluckily for him, he married a second time—a woman much younger than himself, who is supposed to have brought him some money; he wouldn't have married her otherwise. But she likes to enjoy herself, to receive company now and then; and that drives Monsieur Mirotaine to despair, for he wants to avoid any expense that can possibly be avoided."

"Mirotaine, did you say, Lucien? Why, I know him; Mirotaine, formerly a bailiff, who lives now on Rue Saint-Louis, in the Marais?"

"That's the very man. So you know him, do you, PhilÉmon? Well, is my portrait of him overdrawn?"

"No, indeed, not at all; he's an old hunks of the first order. He asked me to come to his evenings, but I learned that for refreshments, in summer, he gave cocoa."

"Delightful! And in winter?"

"In winter, it's much worse—hot cocoa. As you can imagine, that didn't attract me; so I have never been."

"Cold cocoa and hot cocoa!" cried Dodichet; "it's hard to believe that. Does the fellow deal in licorice root?"

"It's a pity, for his second wife isn't half bad; I would willingly have flirted a little with her; but I didn't feel that I had the courage to defy the cocoa!"

"And his daughter Juliette—isn't she charming?"

"I don't know her; I have never seen her."

"Her stepmother is determined to marry her. As she is a good deal of a flirt, I think that she's jealous of her stepdaughter's beauty; she is looking everywhere for a husband for her; I heard that she had gone so far as to apply to a second-hand clothes woman, who arranges marriages."

"I say! I say! What's that! Do second-hand clothes women make matches?"

"A great many, my dear Dodichet, a great many! The business pays well, as you can imagine; they stipulate that they are to furnish the presents that the groom always gives the bride. If the groom has no money to pay for them, they offer to advance it, being certain of getting their pay out of the bride's dowry."

"Do you know, that's a shrewd game! I have a mind to go into the matchmaking business myself. Do you know the name of this hymeneal procuress?"

"Madame Putiphar."

"The devil! the name is promising. I must see her and tell her to find me a millionairess, and I'll share the dowry with her.—All the same, he's a miserable old crow, is your Monsieur Miroton[P]—Mirotaine. He must smell of onions. I really must play some good practical joke on him."

"I beg you, Dodichet, do nothing of the sort; you would simply get Juliette into trouble, and that wouldn't help my business any."

"Your business! Do you really flatter yourself, Lucien, that your pins will enable you to marry the young woman?"

"If I make money, yes; but it will take a long time, and meanwhile Madame Putiphar will find some man who, fascinated by Juliette's attractions, will agree to marry her without a dowry."

"Poor Lucien! Give me your address; I'll come and see your pins, and try to give them a puff."

"I live very modestly, on the sixth floor, on Quai Jemmapes, facing the bridge, at the corner of Faubourg du Temple."

"Well, messieurs, I see that we are about to part without being able to say, any one of us, that we have reached the goal for which we set out."

"I ask a reprieve for one year, messieurs. In a year, I shall have made a name for myself on the stage. I shall have succeeded——"

"And I," said Lucien, "may have been successful in my new undertaking; in a year's time, perhaps, I shall have started a little business of my own."

"I shall be chief of a bureau or sub-prefect."

"Very good, messieurs," said AdhÉmar; "the reprieve for a year is granted; as for myself, I don't imagine that it will change my position at all."

PhilÉmon DubottÉ rose and left the table, saying:

"You are very pleasant companions, messieurs; but my wife expects me to dinner, and if I should be late again I should find her weeping in her soup. Au revoir, and may destiny be propitious to you!"

And the handsome blond departed.

"He goes off without paying," said Dodichet; "our friend doesn't stand on ceremony."

"He probably forgot it," said Lucien; "but we three will pay."

"Sapristi! I find that I forgot to bring my purse!" said Dodichet, feeling in his pockets.

AdhÉmar smiled and made haste to pay the waiter, saying:

"Allow me to be your host, messieurs; it will give me great pleasure. I believe you know my address, my dear Lucien; do come to see me sometimes."

"Thanks, my dear AdhÉmar; I shall not forget your invitation.—Adieu, Dodichet!"

Lucien Grischard also took his leave.

"He is proud," said AdhÉmar, as he and Dodichet left the cafÉ together. "He doesn't come to see me, because he is poor and doesn't choose that anyone shall help him."

"Well, then, he's wrong. I am not like that, thank you," rejoined Dodichet; "a man shouldn't be proud with his friends. And so, AdhÉmar, d'ye see, I don't hesitate to say to you: I have left my purse at home; pray lend me a hundred sous. I will pay you the next time I see you."

"My dear Dodichet, I like above all things to oblige my friends, but you abuse your privilege. I have lent you many hundred-sou pieces, which you are always going to repay—but you never do."

"Very good! listen: lend me ten francs, and I'll pay back a hundred sous right away."

AdhÉmar could not help laughing, and, on the strength of the jest, lent Dodichet a hundred sous.