This
flattery was the jam enveloping the information that he had drawn on
his publisher for another fifteen hundred francs; there was also a
promise made that he would come back with his pockets full of
manuscripts. Instead of the manuscripts, he brought back some Viennese
curiosities. He had done no work while with Madame Hanska, but he had
seen Munich, and had enjoyed himself immensely, being idolized by the
aristocracy of the Austrian capital. "And what an aristocracy!" he
remarked to Werdet; "quite different from ours, my dear fellow; quite
another world. There the nobility are a real nobility. They are all
old families, not an adulterated nobility like in France."
The Vienna visit, which cost him, in total, some five thousand francs
--a foolish expense in his involved circumstances--was the cause of
his silver plate having to be pawned while he was away, in order that
certain payments of interest that he owed might be made at the end of
the month. Since he was always plunging into fresh extravagance of one
kind or another, his liabilities had a fatal tendency to grow; and at
present even more than before, since he was puffed up by the lionizing
he had enjoyed abroad.
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