And she would clasp his arm with happiness, with, perhaps, a vague wish
to be insulted and defended, to see men fight on her account, even such
men as those, with her lover.
But these excursions taking place two or three times a week began to
weary Duroy, who had great difficulty, besides, for some time past, in
procuring the ten francs necessary for the cake and the drinks. He now
lived very hardly and with more difficulty than when he was a clerk in
the Northern Railway; for having spent lavishly during his first month
of journalism, in the constant hope of gaining large sums of money in a
day or two, he had exhausted all his resources and all means of
procuring money. A very simple method, that of borrowing from the
cashier, was very soon exhausted; and he already owed the paper four
months' salary, besides six hundred francs advanced on his lineage
account. He owed, besides, a hundred francs to Forestier, three hundred
to Jacques Rival, who was free-handed with his money; and he was also
eaten up by a number of small debts of from five francs to twenty.
Saint-Potin, consulted as to the means of raising another hundred
francs, had discovered no expedient, although a man of inventive mind,
and Duroy was exasperated at this poverty, of which he was more sensible
now than formerly, since he had more wants. A sullen rage against
everyone smouldered within him, with an ever-increasing irritation,
which manifested itself at every moment on the most futile pretexts. He
sometimes asked himself how he could have spent an average of a thousand
francs a month, without any excess and the gratification of any
extravagant fancy, and he found that, by adding a lunch at eight
francs to a dinner at twelve, partaken of in some large cafe on the
boulevards, he at once came to a louis, which, added to ten francs
pocket-money--that pocket-money that melts away, one does not know
how--makes a total of thirty francs. But thirty francs a day is nine
hundred francs at the end of the month. And he did not reckon in the
cost of clothes, boots, linen, washing, etc.
So on the 14th December he found himself without a sou in his pocket,
and without a notion in his mind how to get any money. He went, as he
had often done of old, without lunch, and passed the afternoon working
at the newspaper office, angry and preoccupied. About four o'clock he
received a telegram from his mistress, running: "Shall we dine together,
and have a lark afterwards?"
He at once replied: "Cannot dine." Then he reflected that he would be
very stupid to deprive himself of the pleasant moments she might afford
him, and added: "But will wait at nine at our place." And having sent
one of the messengers with this, to save the cost of a telegram, he
began to reflect what he should do to procure himself a dinner.
At seven o'clock he had not yet hit upon anything and a terrible hunger
assailed him. Then he had recourse to the stratagem of a despairing man.
He let all his colleagues depart, one after the other, and when he was
alone rang sharply. Monsieur Walter's messenger, left in charge of the
offices, came in. Duroy was standing feeling in his pockets, and said in
an abrupt voice: "Foucart, I have left my purse at home, and I have to
go and dine at the Luxembourg. Lend me fifty sous for my cab."
The man took three francs from his waistcoat pocket and said: "Do you
want any more, sir?"
"No, no, that will be enough. Thanks."
And having seized on the coins, Duroy ran downstairs and dined at a
slap-bank, to which he drifted on his days of poverty.
At nine o'clock he was awaiting his mistress, with his feet on the
fender, in the little sitting-room. She came in, lively and animated,
brisked up by the keen air of the street. "If you like," said she, "we
will first go for a stroll, and then come home here at eleven. The
weather is splendid for walking."
He replied, in a grumbling tone: "Why go out? We are very comfortable
here."
She said, without taking off her bonnet: "If you knew, the moonlight is
beautiful. It is splendid walking about to-night."
"Perhaps so, but I do not care for walking about!"
He had said this in an angry fashion. She was struck and hurt by it, and
asked: "What is the matter with you? Why do you go on in this way? I
should like to go for a stroll, and I don't see how that can vex you."