"I should think not. But how can I get out of it? I am alone; I don't
know anyone; I can get no one to recommend me. It is not goodwill that
is lacking, but means."
His comrade scanned him from head to foot, like a practical man
examining a subject, and then said, in a tone of conviction: "You see,
my boy, everything depends upon assurance here. A clever fellow can more
easily become a minister than an under-secretary. One must obtrude one's
self on people; not ask things of them. But how the deuce is it that you
could not get hold of anything better than a clerk's berth on the
Northern Railway?"
Duroy replied: "I looked about everywhere, but could not find anything.
But I have something in view just now; I have been offered a
riding-master's place at Pellerin's. There I shall get three thousand
francs at the lowest."
Forestier stopped short. "Don't do that; it is stupid, when you ought to
be earning ten thousand francs. You would nip your future in the bud. In
your office, at any rate, you are hidden; no one knows you; you can
emerge from it if you are strong enough to make your way. But once a
riding-master, and it is all over. It is as if you were head-waiter at a
place where all Paris goes to dine. When once you have given riding
lessons to people in society or to their children, they will never be
able to look upon you as an equal."
He remained silent for a few moments, evidently reflecting, and then
asked:
"Have you a bachelor's degree?"
"No; I failed to pass twice."
"That is no matter, as long as you studied for it. If anyone mentions
Cicero or Tiberius, you know pretty well what they are talking about?"
"Yes; pretty well."
"Good; no one knows any more, with the exception of a score of idiots
who have taken the trouble. It is not difficult to pass for being well
informed; the great thing is not to be caught in some blunder. You can
maneuver, avoid the difficulty, turn the obstacle, and floor others by
means of a dictionary. Men are all as stupid as geese and ignorant as
donkeys."
He spoke like a self-possessed blade who knows what life is, and smiled
as he watched the crowd go by. But all at once he began to cough, and
stopped again until the fit was over, adding, in a tone of
discouragement: "Isn't it aggravating not to be able to get rid of this
cough? And we are in the middle of summer. Oh! this winter I shall go
and get cured at Mentone. Health before everything."
They halted on the Boulevard Poissoniere before a large glass door, on
the inner side of which an open newspaper was pasted. Three passers-by
had stopped and were reading it.
Above the door, stretched in large letters of flame, outlined by gas
jets, the inscription _La Vie Francaise_. The pedestrians passing into
the light shed by these three dazzling words suddenly appeared as
visible as in broad daylight, then disappeared again into darkness.
Forestier pushed the door open, saying, "Come in." Duroy entered,
ascended an ornate yet dirty staircase, visible from the street, passed
through an ante-room where two messengers bowed to his companion, and
reached a kind of waiting-room, shabby and dusty, upholstered in dirty
green Utrecht velvet, covered with spots and stains, and worn in places
as if mice had been gnawing it.
"Sit down," said Forestier. "I will be back in five minutes."
And he disappeared through one of the three doors opening into the room.
A strange, special, indescribable odor, the odor of a newspaper office,
floated in the air of the room. Duroy remained motionless, slightly
intimidated, above all surprised. From time to time folk passed
hurriedly before him, coming in at one door and going out at another
before he had time to look at them.
They were now young lads, with an appearance of haste, holding in their
hand a sheet of paper which fluttered from the hurry of their progress;
now compositors, whose white blouses, spotted with ink, revealed a clean
shirt collar and cloth trousers like those of men of fashion, and who
carefully carried strips of printed paper, fresh proofs damp from the
press. Sometimes a gentleman entered rather too elegantly attired, his
waist too tightly pinched by his frock-coat, his leg too well set off by
the cut of his trousers, his foot squeezed into a shoe too pointed at
the toe, some fashionable reporter bringing in the echoes of the
evening.
Others, too, arrived, serious, important-looking men, wearing tall hats
with flat brims, as if this shape distinguished them from the rest of
mankind.
Forestier reappeared holding the arm of a tall, thin fellow, between
thirty and forty years of age, in evening dress, very dark, with his
moustache ends stiffened in sharp points, and an insolent and
self-satisfied bearing.