Bel-Ami (Oxford World's Classics) Read online

  He kissed her coldly, not daring to voice the question on his lips.

  She had put down a large parcel on the pedestal table in the middle of the room. Opening it, she took out a bar of soap, a bottle of Lubin water,* a sponge, a box of hair pins, a bottle opener, and a tiny curling iron for arranging the curls on her forehead, which came undone every single time.

  She made a game of settling in, deciding where to put everything, enjoying herself enormously.

  She chatted while opening drawers: ‘I’ll have to bring some underwear, so I can change if necessary. It will be so handy. If I happen to get soaked, for example, when I’m out shopping, I’ll come here to dry off. We’ll each have our own key, apart from the one we leave with the concierge in case we forget ours. I’ve rented it for three months, in your name of course, since I couldn’t give mine.’

  So then he asked: ‘You’ll tell me when I must pay, won’t you?’

  She replied simply: ‘But it’s already paid, my dearest!’

  He went on: ‘So I owe it to you?’

  ‘No, my pet, it’s nothing to do with you, this little escapade is entirely my idea.’

  He gave the appearance of being annoyed: ‘Oh! No, absolutely not. I won’t allow that.’

  She came and pleaded with him, putting her hands on his shoulders: ‘I beg you, Georges, it would make me so happy, so very happy if it’s mine, if our nest is really mine! That doesn’t offend you, does it? Why should it? I wanted to do this for our love. Say you would like it, please, darling Georges, say yes?’ She was begging him with her eyes, with her lips, with her whole being.

  He let her go on imploring, frowning angrily in refusal, then he gave in, feeling that, after all, it was only fair.

  When she had left, he murmured, rubbing his hands, and without searching the depths of his heart to discover why he should have thought this on this particular day: ‘When all’s said and done, she really is nice.’

  A few days later he received another ‘express’ that said: ‘My husband returns this evening after a six weeks’ tour of inspection. So we must schedule a week’s intermission. What a chore, my darling! Your Clo.’

  Duroy was dumbfounded. He no longer ever thought of her as married. Now there was a man whose face he’d like to see, just once, so as to know what he looked like!

  He did, however, patiently await the departure of the husband, although he spent two evenings at the Folies-Bergère, evenings which ended at Rachel’s.

  Then, one morning, another telegram came, containing five words: ‘Five o’clock this afternoon.—Clo.’

  They both arrived early at the rendezvous. She flung herself into his arms with a great outburst of love, kissing him passionately all over his face, then she said: ‘If you like, when we’ve made love, you can take me somewhere for dinner. I’ve arranged it so I’m free.’

  It was the beginning of the month, and although his salary was pledged far in advance and he was living from hand to mouth on cash he picked up here and there, Duroy happened to be in funds; and he was pleased to have the opportunity to spend something on her.

  He replied: ‘Yes, my love, wherever you want.’

  So they set off around seven o’clock and made for the outer boulevard. Clinging tightly to his arm, she said in his ear: ‘If you knew how happy it makes me to take your arm when we’re walking, how I love to feel you close to me.’

  He asked: ‘Would you like to go to Père Lathuile’s?’*

  ‘Oh no, that’s too fashionable,’ she replied. ‘I’d like something fun, something common, like a restaurant where clerks and working girls go; I adore going to little places on the outskirts! Oh, if only we could have gone into the country!’

  As he knew of nowhere like that in the area, they wandered right along the boulevard, and eventually went into a wine merchant’s where food was served in a separate room. Through the window, she had seen two bare-headed girls* sitting at a table opposite a pair of soldiers.

  Three cab drivers were having their dinner in the rear of the long, narrow room, and another man, whose profession it was impossible to determine, was smoking his pipe with his legs stretched out and his hands tucked into the band of his trousers, lounging in his chair with his head lolling over the back. His coat was a repository of stains, and in its pockets—which bulged like swollen bellies—the neck of a bottle could be seen, along with a piece of bread, a parcel wrapped in a newspaper and a trailing length of string. His hair was thick, frizzy, tousled, grey with dirt; his cap lay on the ground, under his chair.

  The entry of Clotilde in her elegant outfit caused a sensation. The two couples stopped whispering, the three cabbies stopped arguing, and the fellow who was smoking, having removed his pipe from his mouth and spat in front of him, turned his head a little to look.

  Mme de Marelle murmured: ‘This is really lovely! We’ll be fine here; another time, I’ll dress up as a working girl.’

  And, without any embarrassment or distaste, she sat down at the table, the wood of which had been varnished by grease from the food, rinsed by spilt drinks, and wiped down with a waiter’s cursory rag. Duroy, somewhat ill-at-ease and ashamed, was searching for a peg on which to hang his top hat. Not finding one, he put it on a chair.

  They ate mutton stew, and a slice of leg of mutton with a salad. Clotilde kept repeating: ‘I just adore this. I like slumming. I find this more fun than the Café Anglais.’* Then she said: ‘If you want to give me a special treat, you’ll take me to a dance hall. I know one near here that’s great fun—it’s called La Reine Blanche.’*

  Surprised, Duroy enquired: ‘Who was it took you there?’

  He was watching her, and saw her blush and look a trifle discomfited, as if this sudden question had sparked a sensitive memory. After one of those feminine hesitations so transient as to be barely noticeable, she answered: ‘Someone I knew…’ Then, after a silence, she added: ‘who died.’

  And she lowered her eyes with a sadness that was perfectly natural. And, for the first time, Duroy thought of all the things in this woman’s past about which he knew nothing; and he wondered. Of course she’d had lovers before, but what kind? From what social class? A vague kind of jealousy, a sort of hostility towards her was stirring in him, a hostility towards everything he did not know about her, towards everything in her feelings and in her life that had never belonged to him. He gazed at her, exasperated by the mystery locked inside this pretty, silent head that was thinking—perhaps at this very moment—of the other man, of other men, with regret. How he would have loved to see into her memory, to search through it, and find out everything, know everything!…

  She repeated: ‘Will you take me to La Reine Blanche? That would really top off the evening.’

  He thought: ‘Bah! What does the past matter? I’m being very stupid to let it bother me.’ And he answered with a smile: ‘Yes, of course, sweetheart.’

  When they were out in the street, she continued, very softly, in that mysterious tone people use for confiding secrets: ‘Until now I haven’t dared ask you this; but you can’t imagine how I love these adventures—going to all these places single men go to, and women don’t. At carnival time I’ll dress up as a schoolboy. I look priceless as a schoolboy.’

  When they went into the dance-hall, she pressed up against him, frightened and happy, gazing delightedly at the prostitutes and pimps and, from time to time, as if to reassure herself against potential danger, remarking, upon noticing a solemn, motionless military policeman: ‘There’s a constable who looks a reliable type.’ After a quarter of an hour she had had enough, and he took her home.

  Then began a series of expeditions to all the seedy haunts where working people go for a good time; and Duroy discovered in his mistress a remarkable appetite for roaming round the town like a student on a spree.

  She would arrive at their usual meeting place wearing a coarse cotton dress, her head covered by a bonnet like that worn by the lady’s maid in a farce, and, despite the elegant and stud
ied simplicity of her outfit, she would still be wearing her diamond rings, bracelets and earrings, explaining, when he begged her to remove them: ‘Nonsense! They’ll think they’re rhinestones.’*

  She believed herself to be wonderfully disguised, and, although in fact she was merely concealed ostrich-fashion, she would go into the most disreputable taverns.

  She had wanted Duroy to dress as a workman, but he refused, keeping his conventional man-about-town clothes, not even agreeing to replace his top hat with a soft felt one. She had consoled herself at this obstinacy by reasoning that ‘they’ll think I’m a servant girl who’s got off with a young man of good family’. She thought this a delicious joke.

  In this way they would go into working-class cafés, sitting down at the back of the smoky hovel, on rickety chairs, at an old wooden table. A cloud of acrid smoke permeated by the smell of the fried fish served at dinner filled the room; men in overalls shouted as they downed their tots of spirit, and the waiter would stare in astonishment at this strange couple, as he placed before them two glasses of brandied cherries.

  Trembling, frightened, and enthralled, she would begin sipping the fruity red juice, gazing round her with uneasy, excited eyes. Every cherry she swallowed gave her the feeling of committing a sin, every drop of the burning, spicy liquid going down her throat gave her a fierce pleasure, the pleasure of a wicked, forbidden gratification.

  Then she would say in a low voice: ‘Let’s go.’ And they would leave. She walked out quickly with her head bent, the way an actress walks off the stage, passing between the drinkers who, leaning their elbows on the tables, watched her with a suspicious, annoyed air; and when she was through the door she would give a great sigh, as if she had just escaped from some terrible danger.

  Sometimes, with a shiver, she would ask Duroy: ‘What would you do if I was insulted in one of those places?’ and he would reply in a blustering tone: ‘I’d defend you, by God!’

  And she would give his arm a delighted squeeze, feeling, perhaps, a vague longing to be insulted and defended, to see men fighting over her, even that kind of men, fighting with her beloved.

  But these expeditions, which were repeated two or three times a week, began to bore Duroy, who moreover found it very hard to lay his hands on the ten francs needed to pay for the carriage and the drinks.

  His circumstances were now severely straitened, worse than in the days when he was employed by the railway, for, having spent money freely, heedlessly, during his first months as a journalist, in the continual expectation of earning large sums in the very near future, he had used up all his resources and every possible way of raising money.

  A very simple technique—that of borrowing from the cashier—had rapidly been exhausted, and he already owed the paper four months’ salary, plus six hundred francs against what he earned for his writing. In addition, he owed a hundred francs to Forestier, three hundred to Jacques Rival, who was very open-handed, and he was bothered by a pile of embarrassing little debts, ranging from twenty francs to five.

  Saint-Potin, whom he had consulted about ways to find another hundred francs, had been unable, despite his resourcefulness, to come up with any suggestion; and Duroy was increasingly frustrated by this poverty of which he was more conscious than in the past, because his needs were greater. A feeling of repressed rage against the whole world festered in him, and a constant irritation, which manifested itself at every moment, for the most trifling reasons.

  He sometimes wondered how, without indulging in any extravagance or whim, he had managed to spend an average of a thousand francs a month, but then he would work out that if you added together eight francs for lunch and twelve for dinner in any big café on the boulevard, that alone came to twenty, which, along with ten francs’ pocket money—those coins that just trickle away on nothing in particular—you reached a total of thirty francs. Thirty francs a day came to nine hundred by the end of the month. And that sum didn’t allow for all those expenses of clothing, shoes, linen, laundry, and the like.

  So, on the 14th of December, there he was without a sou in his pocket, and without the faintest notion of how to get his hands on any money.

  As he had so often done in the past, he went without lunch; then, irritable and uneasy, he spent the afternoon at the office. About four o’clock, he received an ‘express’ from his mistress, which said: ‘How about dinner tonight? We can go on one of our jaunts afterwards.’ He replied immediately: ‘Dinner impossible.’ Then he reflected that it would be very stupid indeed to deprive himself of the pleasant interlude she could afford him, and added: ‘But I’ll expect you at nine at our place.’ And having dispatched one of the office boys with the note, to save the cost of the telegram, he began thinking how to set about paying for his dinner that evening. By seven he still had not come up with a solution, and his stomach was being racked by dreadful hunger pangs. So he resorted to a desperate stratagem. He waited until, one by one, all his colleagues had left, and, when he was alone, rang the bell sharply. The Director’s doorman, who looked after the offices, appeared.

  Duroy was on his feet, nervously searching through his pockets, and said in a brusque tone, ‘Look here, Foucart, I’ve left my purse at home, and I’ve got to go to the Luxembourg* for dinner. Lend me a couple of francs for a cab.’

  The man took three francs from his waistcoat pocket, enquiring: ‘Would you like more than that, Monsieur?’

  ‘No, no, that’s enough. Thanks very much.’

  And, snatching up the coins, Duroy ran down the stairs, then went for dinner to a cheap eatery he used to frequent when he was penniless.

  At nine, he was waiting for his mistress, warming his feet by the fire in the little sitting-room.

  In she came, very lively and cheerful, invigorated by the cold air of the street, saying: ‘We could go out for a bit first, if you like, then come back here at eleven. It’s wonderful weather for walking.’

  He replied in a peevish tone: ‘Why go out? We’re very comfortable here.’

  She continued, without removing her hat: ‘You know, the moonlight’s heavenly. It’s a real pleasure to be out, tonight.’

  ‘That may be, but I don’t want to go out.’

  He had said this in a very angry manner. Startled and offended, she asked: ‘What’s the matter with you? Why are you speaking to me like that? I’d like to go for a bit of a walk, I don’t see why that should make you cross.’

  He stood up in exasperation: ‘It doesn’t make me cross. It bores me, that’s all.’

  She was one of those women who are irritated by opposition and exasperated by rudeness. She said, with scornful, icy anger: ‘I’m not accustomed to being spoken to like that. I’ll go out by myself, then: goodbye!’

  He realized that he had made a serious mistake, and rushing towards her he took her hands, kissed them, and stammered: ‘Forgive me, darling, forgive me. I’m feeling very on edge tonight, very touchy. I’ve problems, you see, worries—things connected with the paper.’

  Somewhat mollified, but not entirely soothed, she replied: ‘That’s nothing to do with me; and I’m not going to put up with the effects of your bad temper.’

  He took her in his arms, drawing her towards the sofa: ‘Listen, my pet, I didn’t mean to hurt you; I wasn’t thinking what I was saying.’

  He had made her sit down, and, kneeling in front of her, asked: ‘Have you forgiven me? Tell me you’ve forgiven me.’

  She murmured, in a cold voice: ‘All right; but don’t do that again.’ And, standing up, she added: ‘Now let’s go out for a walk.’

  He was still on his knees, encircling her hips with his arms; he mumbled: ‘Please, let’s stay here. Please. Do this for me. I would so love to keep you all to myself this evening, here, by the fire. Say yes, please, please say yes.’

  She answered in a sharp, cold voice: ‘No. I really want to go out, and I’m not going to give in to your whims.’

  He insisted: ‘Please, I have a reason, a very good reason…’
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  Again she said: ‘No. And if you don’t want to go out with me, I’m leaving. Goodbye!’

  She had shaken herself free, and was making for the door. He ran towards her, enveloping her in his arms: ‘Listen, Clo, my little Clo, do this for me…’ She was shaking her head in refusal, without replying, avoiding his kisses and trying to escape from his grasp so that she could leave.

  He was stammering: ‘Clo, my little Clo, I have a reason.’

  She stopped, looking him full in the face: ‘You’re lying… What is it?’

  He blushed, not knowing what to say. And she went on indignantly: ‘You see… it’s obvious you’re lying… You filthy beast.’

  Her eyes brimming with tears, she freed herself from him with an angry gesture. He grabbed hold of her again by the shoulders, and, utterly miserable, ready to confess everything to avoid losing her, declared in desperate tones: ‘The thing is… I’m flat broke. There.’

  She stopped dead, gazing deep into his eyes, trying to read the truth in them: ‘What did you say?’

  He had blushed to the roots of his hair: ‘I said I’m flat broke. Do you understand? I haven’t twenty sous, I haven’t ten, I haven’t got enough to buy us a cassis when we go into a café. You’re forcing me to confess things I’m ashamed of. But it just wasn’t possible for me to go out with you, and then when we were sitting down with two drinks in front of us, calmly tell you that I couldn’t pay for them…’

  She was still looking directly at him: ‘So… it really is true… what you said?’

  Instantly he turned out all his pockets, those in his trousers, those in his waistcoat, those in his jacket, muttering: ‘There… now are you satisfied?’

  Suddenly, spreading wide her arms in a burst of passion, she flung them round his neck, stammering: ‘Oh, my poor darling, my poor darling, if only I’d known! How did this happen?’