George replied: "Yes, sir; I was there nearly two years and a half, and
I was quartered in all three provinces."
Suddenly unmindful of the Morel question, Norbert de Varenne
interrogated him respecting a detail of manners and customs of which he
had been informed by an officer. It was with respect to the Mzab, that
strange little Arab republic sprung up in the midst of the Sahara, in
the driest part of that burning region.
Duroy had twice visited the Mzab, and he narrated some of the customs of
this singular country, where drops of water are valued as gold; where
every inhabitant is bound to discharge all public duties; and where
commercial honesty is carried further than among civilized nations.
He spoke with a certain raciness excited by the wine and the desire to
please, and told regimental yarns, incidents of Arab life and military
adventure. He even hit on some telling phrases to depict these bare and
yellow lands, eternally laid waste by the devouring fire of the sun.
All the women had their eyes turned upon him, and Madame Walter said, in
her deliberate tones: "You could make a charming series of articles out
of your recollections."
Then Walter looked at the young fellow over the glasses of his
spectacles, as was his custom when he wanted to see anyone's face
distinctly. He looked at the dishes underneath them.
Forestier seized the opportunity. "My dear sir, I had already spoken to
you about Monsieur George Duroy, asking you to let me have him for my
assistant in gleaning political topics. Since Marambot left us, I have
no one to send in quest of urgent and confidential information, and the
paper suffers from it."
Daddy Walter became serious, and pushed his spectacles upon his
forehead, in order to look Duroy well in the face. Then he said: "It is
true that Monsieur Duroy has evidently an original turn of thought. If
he will come and have a chat with us to-morrow at three o'clock, we will
settle the matter." Then, after a short silence, turning right round
towards George, he added: "But write us a little fancy series of
articles on Algeria at once. Relate your experiences, and mix up the
colonization question with them as you did just now. They are facts,
genuine facts, and I am sure they will greatly please our readers. But
be quick. I must have the first article to-morrow or the day after,
while the subject is being discussed in the Chamber, in order to catch
the public."
Madame Walter added, with that serious grace which characterized
everything she did, and which lent an air of favor to her words: "And
you have a charming title, 'Recollections of a Chasseur d'Afrique.' Is
it not so, Monsieur Norbert?"
The old poet, who had worn renown late in life, feared and hated
new-comers. He replied dryly: "Yes, excellent, provided that the keynote
be followed, for that is the great difficulty; the exact note, what in
music is called the pitch."
Madame Forestier cast on Duroy a smiling and protective glance, the
glance of a connoisseur, which seemed to say: "Yes, you will get on."
Madame de Marelle had turned towards him several times, and the diamond
in her ear quivered incessantly as though the drop of water was about to
fall.
The little girl remained quiet and serious, her head bent over her
plate.
But the servant passed round the table, filling the blue glasses with
Johannisberg, and Forestier proposed a toast, drinking with a bow to
Monsieur Walter: "Prosperity to the _Vie Francaise_."
Everyone bowed towards the proprietor, who smiled, and Duroy,
intoxicated with success, emptied his glass at a draught. He would have
emptied a whole barrel after the same fashion; it seemed to him that he
could have eaten a bullock or strangled a lion. He felt a superhuman
strength in his limbs, unconquerable resolution and unbounded hope in
his mind. He was now at home among these people; he had just taken his
position, won his place. His glance rested on their faces with a
new-born assurance, and he ventured for the first time to address his
neighbor. "You have the prettiest earrings I have ever seen, Madame."
She turned towards him with a smile. "It was an idea of my own to have
the diamonds hung like that, just at the end of a thread. They really
look like dew-drops, do they not?"
He murmured, ashamed of his own daring, and afraid of making a fool of
himself:
"It is charming; but the ear, too, helps to set it off."
She thanked him with a look, one of those woman's looks that go straight
to the heart. And as he turned his head he again met Madame Forestier's
eye, always kindly, but now he thought sparkling with a livelier mirth,
an archness, an encouragement.
All the men were now talking at once with gesticulations and raised
voices. They were discussing the great project of the metropolitan
railway. The subject was not exhausted till dessert was finished,
everyone having a deal to say about the slowness of the methods of
communication in Paris, the inconvenience of the tramway, the delays of
omnibus traveling, and the rudeness of cabmen.
Then they left the dining-room to take coffee. Duroy, in jest, offered
his arm to the little girl. She gravely thanked him, and rose on tiptoe
in order to rest her hand on it.
On returning to the drawing-room he again experienced the sensation of
entering a greenhouse. In each of the four corners of the room tall
palms unfolded their elegantly shaped leaves, rising to the ceiling, and
there spreading fountain-wise.
On each side of the fireplace were india-rubber plants like round
columns, with their dark green leaves tapering one above the other; and
on the piano two unknown shrubs covered with flowers, those of one all
crimson and those of the other all white, had the appearance of
artificial plants, looking too beautiful to be real.
The air was cool, and laden with a soft, vague perfume that could
scarcely be defined. The young fellow, now more himself, considered the
room more attentively. It was not large; nothing attracted attention
with the exception of the shrubs, no bright color struck one, but one
felt at one's ease in it; one felt soothed and refreshed, and, as it
were, caressed by one's surroundings. The walls were covered with an
old-fashioned stuff of faded violet, spotted with little flowers in
yellow silk about the size of flies. Hangings of grayish-blue cloth,
embroidered here and there with crimson poppies, draped the doorways,
and the chairs of all shapes and sizes, scattered about the room,
lounging chairs, easy chairs, ottomans, and stools, were upholstered in
Louise Seize silk or Utrecht velvet, with a crimson pattern on a
cream-colored ground.
"Do you take coffee, Monsieur Duroy?" and Madame Forestier held out a
cup towards him with that smile which never left her lips.
"Thank you, Madame." He took the cup, and as he bent forward to take a
lump of sugar from the sugar-basin carried by the little girl, Madame
Forestier said to him in a low voice: "Pay attention to Madame Walter."
Then she drew back before he had time to answer a word.
He first drank off his coffee, which he was afraid of dropping onto the
carpet; then, his mind more at ease, he sought for some excuse to
approach the wife of his new governor, and begin a conversation. All at
once he noticed that she was holding an empty cup in her hand, and as
she was at some distance from a table, did not know where to put it. He
darted forward with, "Allow me, Madame?"
"Thank you, sir."
He took away the cup and then returned.
"If you knew, Madame," he began, "the happy hours the _Vie Francaise_
helped me to pass when I was away in the desert. It is really the only
paper that is readable out of France, for it is more literary, wittier,
and less monotonous than the others. There is something of everything in
it."
She smiled with amiable indifference, and answered, seriously:
"Monsieur Walter has had a great deal of trouble to create a type of
newspaper supplying the want of the day."
And they began to chat. He had an easy flow of commonplace conversation,
a charm in his voice and look, and an irresistible seductiveness about
his moustache. It curled coquettishly about his lips, reddish brown,
with a paler tint about the ends. They chatted about Paris, its suburbs,
the banks of the Seine, watering places, summer amusements, all the
current topics on which one can prate to infinity without wearying
oneself.
Then as Monsieur Norbert de Varenne approached with a liqueur glass in
his hand, Duroy discreetly withdrew.
Madame de Marelle, who had been speaking with Madame Forestier, summoned
him.
"Well, sir," she said, abruptly, "so you want to try your hand at
journalism?"
He spoke vaguely of his prospects, and there recommenced with her the
conversation he had just had with Madame Walter, but as he was now a
better master of his subject, he showed his superiority in it, repeating
as his own the things he had just heard. And he continually looked his
companion in the eyes, as though to give deep meaning to what he was
saying.
She, in her turn, related anecdotes with the easy flow of spirits of a
woman who knows she is witty, and is always seeking to appear so, and
becoming familiar, she laid her hand from time to time on his arm, and
lowered her voice to make trifling remarks which thus assumed a
character of intimacy. He was inwardly excited by her contact. He would
have liked to have shown his devotion for her on the spot, to have
defended her, shown her what he was worth, and his delay in his replies
to her showed the preoccupation of his mind.
But suddenly, without any reason, Madame de Marelle called, "Laurine!"
and the little girl came.
"Sit down here, child; you will catch cold near the window."
Duroy was seized with a wild longing to kiss the child. It was as though
some part of the kiss would reach the mother.
He asked in a gallant, and at the same time fatherly, tone: "Will you
allow me to kiss you, Mademoiselle?"
The child looked up at him in surprise.
"Answer, my dear," said Madame de Marelle, laughingly.
"Yes, sir, this time; but it will not do always."
Duroy, sitting down, lifted Laurine onto his knees and brushed the fine
curly hair above her forehead with his lips.
Her mother was surprised. "What! she has not run away; it is astounding.
Usually she will only let ladies kiss her. You are irresistible,
Monsieur Duroy."
He blushed without answering, and gently jogged the little girl on his
knee.
Madame Forestier drew near, and exclaimed, with astonishment: "What,
Laurine tamed! What a miracle!"
Jacques Rival also came up, cigar in mouth, and Duroy rose to take
leave, afraid of spoiling, by some unlucky remark, the work done, his
task of conquest begun.
He bowed, softly pressed the little outstretched hands of the women, and
then heartily shook those of the men. He noted that the hand of Jacques
Rival, warm and dry, answered cordially to his grip; that of Norbert de
Varenne, damp and cold, slipped through his fingers; that of Daddy
Walter, cold and flabby, was without expression or energy; and that of
Forestier was plump and moist. His friend said to him in a low tone,
"To-morrow, at three o'clock; do not forget."
"Oh! no; don't be afraid of that."
When he found himself once more on the stairs he felt a longing to run
down them, so great was his joy, and he darted forward, going down two
steps at a time, but suddenly he caught sight in a large mirror on the
second-floor landing of a gentleman in a hurry, who was advancing
briskly to meet him, and he stopped short, ashamed, as if he had been
caught tripping. Then he looked at himself in the glass for some time,
astonished at being really such a handsome fellow, smiled complacently,
and taking leave of his reflection, bowed low to it as one bows to a
personage of importance.