Bel-Ami (Oxford World's Classics) Page 15

  Slowly, with immeasurable, lingering contempt, she shrugged her shoulders, then said in an emphatic tone: ‘M. de Marelle has no opinion on this subject. He simply… abstains.’

  And, coming down from lofty theories of love, the conversation then descended into a profusion of elegant smut.

  They had now reached the stage of artful suggestiveness, of words lifting veils like a hand lifting a skirt, the stage of plays on meaning, cleverly disguised improprieties and every kind of unblushing hypocrisy, a covert language revealing naked images, generating in the mind’s eye a fleeting vision of all that cannot be said, and enabling sophisticated society to indulge in a subtle, mysterious sort of love, a kind of impure contact of the mind, by the simultaneous evocation—as disturbing and sensual as a sexual embrace—of a secretly and shamefully desired intertwining of bodies. The roast had been served, partridges flanked by quail, followed by peas, then a terrine of foie gras accompanied by a salad of frilly leaves that filled a great basin-shaped salad bowl with a froth of green. They had eaten these things without tasting them, totally unaware, totally preoccupied by what they were saying, immersed in a bath of love.

  The two women, now, were making quite bawdy remarks; Mme de Marelle with a natural audacity that was almost a provocation, Mme Forestier with a charming reserve, a modesty of tone, of voice, of smile, of her whole self, that seemed to mitigate, while actually emphasizing, the daring utterances of her mouth.

  Forestier was lying sprawled on the cushions, laughing, drinking and eating without respite, and from time to time coming out with some remark that was so bold or so coarse that the women, a trifle shocked both for form’s sake and by the words’ form, would assume a little pretence of embarrassment lasting two or three seconds. Whenever he made a joke that was particularly dirty, he would add: ‘You’re doing very well, my dears. If you go on like this you’ll end up doing something you’ll regret.’

  Dessert was served, followed by coffee; and then the liqueurs trickled into their veins a more intense excitement.

  Just as she had promised on sitting down to dinner, Mme de Marelle was tipsy. She cheerfully admitted as much, with the loquacious grace of a woman who, to entertain her guests, overplays her slight, but real, degree of intoxication. Mme Forestier was quiet now, perhaps out of prudence; and Duroy, aware that his drunkenness might make him indiscreet, shrewdly kept silent.

  They lit cigarettes, and suddenly Forestier began to cough.

  The spasm of coughing—a dreadful spasm—tore at his chest; with scarlet face and brow pouring sweat, he coughed and choked into his napkin. When the attack had passed, he growled angrily: ‘They don’t do me any good at all, these parties; they’re idiotic’ All his good humour had vanished, in the terror of the disease that haunted his thoughts.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

  Mme de Marelle rang for the waiter and asked for the bill. It was brought to her almost immediately. She tried to read it, but the figures danced before her eyes, and she passed the paper to Duroy, telling him: ‘Here, pay it for me, I can’t see a thing, I’ve had too much.’ And as she said this, she tossed her purse into his hands.

  The bill totalled a hundred and thirty francs. Duroy studied and checked the bill, then put down two notes, asking quietly as he picked up the change: ‘How much should I leave for the waiters?’

  ‘Whatever you like; I don’t know.’

  He put five francs on the plate, then enquired, as he handed back the purse to the young woman, ‘Would you like me to see you home?’

  ‘Yes, of course; I’m not capable of finding my own front door.’

  They shook hands with the Forestiers, and Duroy found himself alone with Mme de Marelle in a moving cab.

  He could feel her beside him, so close beside him, shut up with him in this dark box which the gas lights on the pavements would suddenly, for an instant, illuminate. He could feel the warmth of her shoulder through his sleeve, and he could think of nothing to say to her, absolutely nothing, for his wits were paralysed by the overriding desire to clasp her in his arms. ‘What would she do if I dared?’ he wondered. The memory of all those indelicacies whispered during dinner encouraged him, but, at the same time, the fear of a scene held him back.

  She too was silent, and sat motionless, huddled into her corner. He might have thought she was asleep had he not seen her eyes glitter each time a ray of light shone into the cab.

  What was she thinking? He was certain that he ought to remain silent, that a word, a single word, by breaking the silence, would destroy all his hopes; but he lacked daring, the daring to act swiftly and decisively.

  Suddenly, he felt her foot move. She had made a movement, a sharp, sudden twitch of impatience or perhaps of entreaty. This almost imperceptible movement electrified him from head to foot, and, turning rapidly, he threw himself on her, seeking her mouth with his lips and her bare flesh with his hands.

  She gave a cry, a little cry, tried to draw away, to resist, to push him off, then she surrendered, as if she did not have the strength to resist any longer.

  The carriage soon drew up in front of the house where she lived, and Duroy, taken by surprise, did not need to search for passionate words of thanks, devotion, and love. But, dazed by what had just occurred, she did not get up, she did not stir. So, afraid that the driver might suspect something, he got out first in order to help the young woman down.

  Eventually she stumbled out of the cab without uttering a word. He rang the bell and, as the door opened, he asked her in a trembling voice: ‘When shall I see you again?’

  So quietly that she could hardly be heard, she whispered: ‘Come and have lunch with me tomorrow.’ And she disappeared into the shadowy hallway, pushing the heavy door to; it shut with a sound like a cannon shot.

  He gave the driver a hundred sous and walked on, his step rapid and triumphant, filled with joy.

  At last he had one, a married woman, a society woman, from real society! Paris society! How easy it had been, how unexpected!

  Until then, he had imagined that to approach and conquer one of those intensely desirable creatures would require interminable attentiveness, endless patience, and a skilful campaign involving compliments, words of love, tender sighs, and gifts. And yet here, quite suddenly, with minimal effort on his part, the first one he’d met had given herself to him, with an alacrity that left him stunned.

  ‘She was tipsy,’ he thought. ‘Tomorrow it’ll be a different story. There’ll be tears.’ This idea worried him, then he told himself: ‘Well, too bad. Now that I’ve got her, I’m certainly going to keep her.’

  And, in the jumbled mirage of his roving hopes—hopes of greatness, of success, of fame, wealth, and love—he suddenly glimpsed, like those garlands of dancing figures that decorate the sky in triumphal scenes, a procession of elegant, rich, powerful women who moved past him smiling, before disappearing, one behind the other, into the golden mist of his dreams.

  And his sleep was peopled with visions.

  He felt a trifle nervous, the following day, as he climbed Mme de Marelle’s staircase. How would she receive him? And what if she did not receive him? What if she had given orders for him not to be admitted? What if she were to tell…? But no, she couldn’t say anything without running the risk of revealing everything. So he was in control of the situation.

  The little maid opened the door. Her expression was quite normal. He felt reassured, as if he had been expecting the servant to look upset.

  He asked: ‘Is Madame well?’

  She replied: ‘Yes, Monsieur, the same as ever.’ And she showed him into the drawing-room.

  He walked straight over to the mantelpiece to check the appearance of his hair and his clothes, and he was adjusting his cravat in the mirror when he saw, reflected in it, the young woman standing on the threshold of the room, looking at him. He pretended he had not seen her. For a few seconds they appraised one another in the mirror, each observing and studying the other, before they came face to
face.

  He turned round. She had not moved, and seemed to be waiting. He leapt forward, stammering: ‘I love you so much! I love you so much!’ She opened her arms and fell into his; then, when she had lifted up her head, they kissed for a long time.

  He thought: ‘It’s easier than I had imagined. This is going beautifully.’ And, when their lips parted, he smiled, not saying anything, but trying to express infinite love by the look in his eyes. She was smiling too, smiling the way women smile in offering their desire, their consent, their readiness to surrender. She whispered: ‘We’re alone. I’ve sent Laurine off to lunch with a friend.’

  He sighed, as he kissed her wrists: ‘Thank you. I adore you.’

  Then she took his arm, as if he were her husband, to walk over to the sofa where they sat down side by side.

  He would have liked to open the conversation with some clever, fascinating remark, but, unable to think of anything suitable, he stammered: ‘So, you’re not too angry with me?’

  She put a hand over his mouth: ‘Be quiet!’

  They sat in silence, gazing at one another, their fingers intertwined, burning hot.

  ‘I wanted you so much!’

  She said again: ‘Hush!’

  They could hear the maid moving plates about in the dining-room, on the other side of the wall.

  He stood up: ‘I’d better not sit so close to you. I might lose my head.’

  The door opened: ‘Lunch is served, Madame.’

  He solemnly offered her his arm.

  They had lunch sitting face to face, constantly looking at one another and smiling, wholly absorbed in one another, enthralled by the sweet charm of the beginning of a love-affair. They had no idea what they were eating. He felt a foot, a small foot, roaming about under the table. He caught it between his and kept it there, pressing it with all his might.

  The maid came and went, nonchalantly bringing in and removing dishes without appearing to notice anything.

  When they had finished eating, they returned to the drawing-room and sat down again on the sofa, side by side.

  Little by little he pressed closer up against her, and tried to embrace her. But she pushed him away calmly: ‘Be careful. Someone might come in.’

  He murmured: ‘When can I see you really alone, to tell you how much I love you?’

  She leant towards his ear and said very softly: ‘One of these days I’ll pay you a little visit at home.’

  He felt himself blush: ‘But… it’s just that… my room… my room’s nothing much.’

  She smiled: ‘That doesn’t matter. It’s you I’ll be visiting and not your room.’

  So then he begged her to tell him when she would come. She named a day at the end of the following week, and he begged her to advance the date, stammering out the words, his eyes glittering as he kneaded and squeezed her hands, his face red, feverish, contorted with desire, with that impetuous desire that follows an intimate meal.

  She enjoyed seeing him plead, and, a day at a time, she slowly advanced the date. But he kept repeating: ‘Tomorrow… please… tomorrow.’

  Finally she consented: ‘Yes, Tomorrow. Five o’clock.’

  He gave a long sigh of happiness; and they chatted away almost peacefully, in an intimate way, as if they had known each other for twenty years.

  A ring on the bell made them jump, and they moved apart.

  She whispered: ‘That will be Laurine.’

  The child came in, and, disconcerted, stopped dead; then she ran towards Duroy, clapping her hands, overjoyed at seeing him, and cried:‘Ah! Bel-Ami!’*

  Mme de Marelle began to laugh: ‘Goodness! Bel-Ami! Laurine’s christened you! That’s a nice friendly little nickname for you; I’ll call you Bel-Ami too!’

  He had taken the child on his knee, and had to play all those little games with her that he had taught her.

  At twenty to three he took his leave, to go to the newspaper; on the landing, through the half-open door, he whispered again, barely moving his lips: ‘Tomorrow. Five o’clock.’

  The young woman answered ‘Yes’ with a smile, and disappeared.

  His jobs for the day completed, he thought about how to arrange his room to receive his mistress, and how best to disguise the poverty of his surroundings. He had the idea of pinning some trifling Japanese bric-à-brac on the walls, and for five francs bought a lot of crêpe paper hangings, tiny fans, and decorations, with which he hid the more obvious stains on the wallpaper. On the window panes he stuck transparencies depicting boats on rivers, birds flying across red skies, multicoloured ladies on balconies, and processions of little black men moving across snow-covered plains.

  Soon his room, which was barely large enough to sleep and sit in, looked like the inside of a painted paper lantern. He was pleased with the general effect, and spent the evening sticking on the ceiling some birds cut out of the remaining coloured sheets.

  Then he went to bed, lulled by the whistle of the trains. The following day he came home early, with a bag of little cakes and a bottle of Madeira from the grocer’s. He had to go out again to buy two plates and two glasses; and he set all this out on his dressing-table, whose dirty wooden top he covered with a napkin, after stowing away the wash-basin and ewer underneath.

  Then he waited.

  She arrived about a quarter past five, and, captivated by the multicoloured brilliance of the decorations, exclaimed: ‘My, your room is nice. But what a lot of people live on the staircase.’

  He had taken her in his arms, and was passionately kissing her hair between her brow and her hat, through the veil.

  An hour and a half later, he took her to the cab-stand in the Rue de Rome. When she had got in, he whispered: ‘Tuesday, same time.’ She said: ‘Same time, Tuesday.’ And as night had fallen, she pulled his head into the window and kissed him on the lips. Then, as the driver was whipping up the horse, she cried: ‘Goodbye, Bel-Ami!’ and the old cab set off, to the weary trotting of a white horse.

  For the next three weeks, this was how Duroy received Mme de Marelle every two or three days, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening.

  As he was waiting for her one afternoon, a tremendous noise on the staircase drew him to his door. A child was screaming. A furious voice—a man’s voice—shouted: ‘What the devil is that little bugger bellowing about now?’ A woman replied in strident, exasperated tones: ‘That dirty tart that visits the journalist upstairs pushed Nicholas over, on the landing. Sluts like that what don’t watch out for kids shouldn’t be let into the building!’

  Disconcerted, Duroy stepped back inside, for he could hear a rapid rustling of skirts and a swift step climbing up the flight of stairs beneath him.

  Soon there was a knock on his door, which he had closed behind him. He opened it, and Mme de Marelle, breathless and dreadfully upset, flung herself into the room, stammering: ‘Did you hear?’

  He pretended to know nothing. ‘No, what?’

  ‘The way they insulted me?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those dreadful people downstairs.’

  ‘No, what’s the matter, tell me.’

  Unable to utter a word, she began to sob.

  He had to remove her hat, undo her laces, lay her on the bed, dab her temples with a damp cloth; she was choking; then, when she was a little calmer, all her indignant rage exploded.

  She wanted him to go down straight away, fight them, kill them.

  He kept repeating: ‘But they’re working people, peasants. Remember, the law would be called in, you might be recognized, arrested, ruined. You don’t get involved with people like that.’

  She turned to something else: ‘How are we going to manage now? I can’t come back here.’ He replied: ‘It’s perfectly simple, I’ll move.’

  She murmured: ‘Yes, but that would take a long time.’ Then, suddenly struck by an idea, she quickly regained her composure: ‘No, listen, I know what to do, leave it to me, don’t you worry about a thing; I’ll send you an “express”* to
morrow morning.’ ‘Express’ was her name for the personal telegrams that could be sent within Paris.

  Now she was smiling, thrilled with her brainwave, that she refused to divulge; and, wild with passion, she made love to him without restraint.

  Nevertheless she felt extremely nervous as she went down the stairs, and her legs were so shaky she had to lean heavily on her lover’s arm. They did not meet a soul.

  As he got up late, he was still in bed when, about eleven the next morning, the telegraph boy delivered the promised ‘express’.

  Duroy opened it and read: ‘Meet me this afternoon, five o’clock, 127 rue de Constantinople.* Ask for Mme Duroy’s apartment. Your loving Clo.’

  At exactly five o’clock, he arrived at a large building of furnished flats and enquired of the concierge: ‘It’s here that Mme Duroy has taken an apartment?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur.’

  ‘Would you show me in, please.’

  The man, no doubt accustomed to delicate situations where discretion is required, looked him straight in the eye and asked, as he selected one of the long row of keys: ‘I take it you are M. Duroy?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’

  And he opened a small two-room apartment located on the ground floor, opposite the concierge’s lodge.

  The drawing-room, decorated with a reasonably clean floral wallpaper, contained a mahogany couch upholstered in a greenish rep patterned in yellow, and a skimpy flowered carpet, so thin that you could feel the wooden floor through it.

  The bedroom was so tiny that three-quarters of the space was taken up by the bed, which filled the far end from one wall to the other; it was the sort of big bed you find in furnished rooms, draped in heavy blue curtains also made of rep, and engulfed by a red silk eiderdown spotted with suspicious stains.

  Duroy, uneasy and annoyed, was thinking: ‘This flat’s going to cost me a fortune. I’ll have to borrow more money. It’s absurd, what she’s done.’

  The door opened and Clotilde burst into the room with a great rustling of skirts, her arms wide open. She was delighted. ‘Isn’t this nice, don’t you think this is nice? And no stairs to climb, it’s on the ground floor, looking onto the street! You can come and go through the window without the concierge seeing you. Oh, how we’re going to love each other in here!’