In his experience, writers belonged to one of two classes: the unspeakably rapacious or the unspeakably ill-mannered.
The first group consisted of the public’s favourites and, though corrupted by their popularity, there was no doubting they had arrived. Ever in need of more attention, they imitated the ways of big business, rejoiced in gala dinners, hosted evening parties, spoke of copyrights, sales figures and box office receipts, and generally proclaimed their prosperity.
The second group was made up of the dregs of society, the flotsam and jetsam of the capital’s bars and cheap watering-holes. There they vaunted their inferior wares, full of self-loathing as they did so, gave free range to their particular form of genius and vented their spleen, while all the time lolling around on benches, pouring beer down their gullets.
No intermediate state existed between the promiscuity of the overcrowded cafes and that of the drawing-room, both offering boundless opportunity for gossip and back-stabbing. Places where one could meet and chat intimately, exchange ideas with a few like-minded artists, untroubled by the presence of women, had almost ceased to exist.
In short, no aristocracy of the soul existed in the world of letters; no view was ever expressed which might provoke consternation; no sudden, breathtaking flight of fancy was ever allowed. The conversations which occurred were the same ones every night whether they occurred in the rue du Sentier or the rue Cujas.
—J.-K. Huysmans, Lá-Bas