(A LADIES' MAN)
I
When the cashier had given him the change out of his five francpiece,
George Duroy left the restaurant.
As he had a good carriage, both naturally and from his military
training, he drew himself up, twirled his moustache, and threw upon the
lingering customers a rapid and sweeping glance--one of those glances
which take in everything within their range like a casting net.
The women looked up at him in turn--three little work-girls, a
middle-aged music mistress, disheveled, untidy, and wearing a bonnet
always dusty and a dress always awry; and two shopkeepers' wives dining
with their husbands--all regular customers at this slap-bang
establishment.
When he was on the pavement outside, he stood still for a moment, asking
himself what he should do. It was the 28th of June, and he had just
three francs forty centimes in his pocket to carry him to the end of the
month. This meant the option of two dinners without lunch or two lunches
without dinner. He reflected that as the earlier repasts cost twenty
sous apiece, and the latter thirty, he would, if he were content with
the lunches, be one franc twenty centimes to the good, which would
further represent two snacks of bread and sausage and two bocks of beer
on the boulevards. This latter item was his greatest extravagance and
his chief pleasure of a night; and he began to descend the Rue
Notre-Dame de Lorette.
He walked as in the days when he had worn a hussar uniform, his chest
thrown out and his legs slightly apart, as if he had just left the
saddle, pushing his way through the crowded street, and shouldering folk
to avoid having to step aside. He wore his somewhat shabby hat on one
side, and brought his heels smartly down on the pavement. He seemed ever
ready to defy somebody or something, the passers-by, the houses, the
whole city, retaining all the swagger of a dashing cavalry-man in civil
life.
Although wearing a sixty-franc suit, he was not devoid of a certain
somewhat loud elegance. Tall, well-built, fair, with a curly moustache
twisted up at the ends, bright blue eyes with small pupils, and
reddish-brown hair curling naturally and parted in the middle, he bore a
strong resemblance to the dare-devil of popular romances.
It was one of those summer evenings on which air seems to be lacking in
Paris. The city, hot as an oven, seemed to swelter in the stifling
night. The sewers breathed out their poisonous breath through their
granite mouths, and the underground kitchens gave forth to the street
through their windows the stench of dishwater and stale sauces.
The doorkeepers in their shirtsleeves sat astride straw-bottomed chairs
within the carriage entrances to the houses, smoking their pipes, and
the pedestrians walked with flagging steps, head bare, and hat in hand.
When George Duroy reached the boulevards he paused again, undecided as
to what he should do. He now thought of going on to the Champs Elysees
and the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne to seek a little fresh air under the
trees, but another wish also assailed him, a desire for a love affair.
What shape would it take? He did not know, but he had been awaiting it
for three months, night and day. Occasionally, thanks to his good looks
and gallant bearing, he gleaned a few crumbs of love here and there, but
he was always hoping for something further and better.
With empty pockets and hot blood, he kindled at the contact of the
prowlers who murmur at street corners: "Will you come home with me,
dear?" but he dared not follow them, not being able to pay them, and,
besides, he was awaiting something else, less venally vulgar kisses.
He liked, however, the localities in which women of the town
swarm--their balls, their cafes, and their streets. He liked to rub
shoulders with them, speak to them, chaff them, inhale their strong
perfumes, feel himself near them. They were women at any rate, women
made for love. He did not despise them with the innate contempt of a
well-born man.
He turned towards the Madeleine, following the flux of the crowd which
flowed along overcome by the heat. The chief cafes, filled with
customers, were overflowing on to the pavement, and displayed their
drinking public under the dazzling glare of their lit-up facias. In
front of them, on little tables, square or round, were glasses holding
fluids of every shade, red, yellow, green, brown, and inside the
decanters glittered the large transparent cylinders of ice, serving to
cool the bright, clear water. Duroy had slackened his pace, a longing to
drink parched his throat.
A hot thirst, a summer evening's thirst assailed him, and he fancied the
delightful sensation of cool drinks flowing across his palate. But if he
only drank two bocks of beer in the evening, farewell to the slender
supper of the morrow, and he was only too well acquainted with the hours
of short commons at the end of the month.
He said to himself: "I must hold out till ten o'clock, and then I'll
have my bock at the American cafe. Confound it, how thirsty I am
though." And he scanned the men seated at the tables drinking, all the
people who could quench their thirst as much as they pleased. He went
on, passing in front of the cafes with a sprightly swaggering air, and
guessing at a glance from their dress and bearing how much money each
customer ought to have about him. Wrath against these men quietly
sitting there rose up within him. If their pockets were rummaged, gold,
silver, and coppers would be found in them. On an average each one must
have at least two louis. There were certainly a hundred to a cafe, a
hundred times two louis is four thousand francs. He murmured "the
swine," as he walked gracefully past them. If he could have had hold of
one of them at a nice dark corner he would have twisted his neck without
scruple, as he used to do the country-folk's fowls on field-days.
And he recalled his two years in Africa and the way in which he used to
pillage the Arabs when stationed at little out-posts in the south. A
bright and cruel smile flitted across his lips at the recollection of an
escapade which had cost the lives of three men of the Ouled-Alane
tribe, and had furnished him and his comrades with a score of fowls, a
couple of sheep, some gold, and food for laughter for six months.
The culprits had never been found, and, what is more, they had hardly
been looked for, the Arab being looked upon as somewhat in the light of
the natural prey of the soldier.
In Paris it was another thing. One could not plunder prettily, sword by
side and revolver in hand, far from civil authority. He felt in his
heart all the instincts of a sub-officer let loose in a conquered
country. He certainly regretted his two years in the desert. What a pity
he had not stopped there. But, then, he had hoped something better in
returning home. And now--ah! yes, it was very nice now, was it not?
He clicked his tongue as if to verify the parched state of his palate.
The crowd swept past him slowly, and he kept thinking. "Set of hogs--all
these idiots have money in their waistcoat pockets." He pushed against
people and softly whistled a lively tune. Gentlemen whom he thus elbowed
turned grumbling, and women murmured: "What a brute!"
He passed the Vaudeville Theater and stopped before the American cafe,
asking himself whether he should not take his bock, so greatly did
thirst torture him. Before making up his mind, he glanced at the
illuminated clock. It was a quarter past nine. He knew himself that as
soon as the glassful of beer was before him he would gulp it down. What
would he do then up to eleven o'clock?
He passed on. "I will go as far as the Madeleine," he said, "and walk
back slowly."
As he reached the corner of the Palace de l'Opera, he passed a stout
young fellow, whose face he vaguely recollected having seen somewhere.
He began to follow him, turning over his recollections and repeating to
himself half-aloud: "Where the deuce did I know that joker?"
He searched without being able to recollect, and then all at once, by a
strange phenomenon of memory, the same man appeared to him thinner,
younger, and clad in a hussar uniform. He exclaimed aloud: "What,
Forestier!" and stepping out he tapped the other on the shoulder. The
promenader turned round and looked at him, and then said: "What is it,
sir?"
Duroy broke into a laugh. "Don't you know me?" said he.
"No."
"George Duroy, of the 6th Hussars."
Forestier held out his hands, exclaiming: "What, old fellow! How are
you?"
"Very well, and you?"
"Oh, not very brilliant! Just fancy, I have a chest in brown paper now.
I cough six months out of twelve, through a cold I caught at Bougival
the year of my return to Paris, four years ago."
And Forestier, taking his old comrade's arm, spoke to him of his
illness, related the consultations, opinions, and advice of the doctors,
and the difficulty of following this advice in his position. He was told
to spend the winter in the South, but how could he? He was married, and
a journalist in a good position.
"I am political editor of the _Vie Francaise_. I write the proceedings
in the Senate for the _Salut_, and from time to time literary criticisms
for the _Planete_. That is so. I have made my way."
Duroy looked at him with surprise. He was greatly changed, matured. He
had now the manner, bearing, and dress of a man in a good position and
sure of himself, and the stomach of a man who dines well. Formerly he
had been thin, slight, supple, heedless, brawling, noisy, and always
ready for a spree. In three years Paris had turned him into someone
quite different, stout and serious, and with some white hairs about his
temples, though he was not more than twenty-seven.