Ги де Мопассан
Bel Ami
A huge, confused, and crushing sense of terror weighed down the soul of Duroy, the terror of that boundless and inevitable annihilation destroying all existence. He already bowed his head before its menace. He thought of the flies who live a few hours, the beasts who live a few days, the men who live a few years, the worlds which live a few centuries. What was the difference between one and the other? A few more days' dawn that was all.
He turned away his eyes in order no longer to have the corpse before them. Madame Forestier, with bent head, seemed also absorbed in painful thoughts. Her fair hair showed so prettily with her pale face, that a feeling, sweet as the touch of hope flitted through the young fellow's breast. Why grieve when he had still so many years before him? And he began to observe her. Lost in thought she did not notice him. He said to himself, "That, though, is the only good thing in life, to love, to hold the woman one loves in one's arms. That is the limit of human happiness."
What luck the dead man had had to meet such an intelligent and charming companion! How had they become acquainted? How ever had she agreed on her part to marry that poor and commonplace young fellow? How had she succeeded in making someone of him? Then he thought of all the hidden mysteries of people's lives. He remembered what had been whispered about the Count de Vaudrec, who had dowered and married her off it was said.
What would she do now? Whom would she marry? A deputy, as Madame de Marelle fancied, or some young fellow with a future before him, a higher class Forestier? Had she any projects, any plans, any settled ideas? How he would have liked to know that. But why this anxiety as to what she would do? He asked himself this, and perceived that his uneasiness was due to one of those half-formed and secret ideas which one hides from even one's self, and only discovers when fathoming one's self to the very bottom.
Yes, why should he not attempt this conquest himself? How strong and redoubtable he would be with her beside him!
How quick, and far, and surely he would fly! And why should he not succeed too? He felt that he pleased her, that she had for him more than mere sympathy; in fact, one of those affections which spring up between two kindred spirits and which partake as much of silent seduction as of a species of mute complicity. She knew him to be intelligent, resolute, and tenacious, she would have confidence in him.
Had she not sent for him under the present grave circumstances? And why had she summoned him? Ought he not to see in this a kind of choice, a species of confession. If she had thought of him just at the moment she was about to become a widow, it was perhaps that she had thought of one who was again to become her companion and ally? An impatient desire to know this, to question her, to learn her intentions, assailed him. He would have to leave on the next day but one, as he could not remain alone with her in the house. So it was necessary to be quick, it was necessary before returning to Paris to become acquainted, cleverly and delicately, with her projects, and not to allow her to go back on them, to yield perhaps to the solicitations of another, and pledge herself irrevocably.
The silence in the room was intense, nothing was audible save the regular and metallic tick of the pendulum of the clock on the mantelpiece.
He murmured: "You must be very tired?"
She replied: "Yes; but I am, above all, overwhelmed."
The sound of their own voices startled them, ringing strangely in this gloomy room, and they suddenly glanced at the dead man's face as though they expected to see it move on hearing them, as it had done some hours before.
Duroy resumed: "Oh! it is a heavy blow for you, and such a complete change in your existence, a shock to your heart and your whole life."
She gave a long sigh, without replying, and he continued, "It is so painful for a young woman to find herself alone as you will be."
He paused, but she said nothing, and he again went on, "At all events, you know the compact entered into between us. You can make what use of me you will. I belong to you."
She held out her hand, giving him at the same time one of those sweet, sad looks which stir us to the very marrow.
"Thank you, you are very kind," she said. "If I dared, and if I could do anything for you, I, too, should say, 'You may count upon me.'"
He had taken the proffered hand and kept it clasped in his, with a burning desire to kiss it. He made up his mind to this at last, and slowly raising it to his mouth, held the delicate skin, warm, slightly feverish and perfumed, to his lips for some time. Then, when he felt that his friendly caress was on the point of becoming too prolonged, he let fall the little hand. It sank back gently onto the knee of its mistress, who said, gravely: "Yes, I shall be very lonely, but I shall strive to be brave."
He did not know how to give her to understand that he would be happy, very happy, to have her for his wife in his turn. Certainly he could not tell her so at that hour, in that place, before that corpse; yet he might, it seemed to him, hit upon one of those ambiguous, decorous, and complicated phrases which have a hidden meaning under their words, and which express all one wants to by their studied reticence. But the corpse incommoded him, the stiffened corpse stretched out before them, and which he felt between them. For some time past, too, he fancied he detected in the close atmosphere of the room a suspicious odor, a fœtid breath exhaling from the decomposing chest, the first whiff of carrion which the dead lying on their bed throw out to the relatives watching them, and with which they soon fill the hollow of their coffin.
"Cannot we open the window a little?" said Duroy. "It seems to me that the air is tainted."
"Yes," she replied, "I have just noticed it, too."
He went to the window and opened it. All the perfumed freshness of night flowed in, agitating the flame of the two lighted candles beside the bed. The moon was shedding, as on the former evening, her full mellow light upon the white walls of the villas and the broad glittering expanse of the sea. Duroy, drawing in the air to the full depth of his lungs, felt himself suddenly seized with hope, and, as it were buoyed up by the approach of happiness. He turned round, saying: "Come and get a little fresh air. It is delightful."
She came quietly, and leant on the window-sill beside him. Then he murmured in a low tone: "Listen to me, and try to understand what I want to tell you. Above all, do not be indignant at my speaking to you of such a matter at such a moment, for I shall leave you the day after to-morrow, and when you return to Paris it may be too late. I am only a poor devil without fortune, and with a position yet to make, as you know. But I have a firm will, some brains I believe, and I am well on the right track. With a man who has made his position, one knows what one gets; with one who is starting, one never knows where he may finish. So much the worse, or so much the better. In short, I told you one day at your house that my brightest dream would have been to have married a woman like you. I repeat this wish to you now. Do not answer, let me continue. It is not a proposal I am making to you. The time and place would render that odious. I wish only not to leave you ignorant that you can make me happy with a word; that you can make me either a friend and brother, or a husband, at your will; that my heart and myself are yours. I do not want you to answer me now. I do not want us to speak any more about the matter here. When we meet again in Paris you will let me know what you have resolved upon. Until then, not a word. Is it not so?" He had uttered all this without looking at her, as though scattering his words abroad in the night before him. She seemed not to have heard them, so motionless had she remained, looking also straight before her with a fixed and vague stare at the vast landscape lit up by the moon. They remained for some time side by side, elbow touching elbow, silent and reflecting. Then she murmured: "It is rather cold," and turning round, returned towards the bed.
He followed her. When he drew near he recognized that Forestier's body was really beginning to smell, and drew his chair to a distance, for he could not have stood this odor of putrefaction long. He said: "He must be put in a coffin the first thing in the morning."
"Yes, yes, it is arranged," she replied. "The undertaker will be here at eight o'clock."
Duroy having sighed out the words, "Poor fellow," she, too, gave a long sigh of heartrending resignation.
They did not look at the body so often now, already accustomed to the idea of it, and beginning to mentally consent to the decease which but a short time back had shocked and angered them – them who were mortals, too. They no longer spoke, continuing to keep watch in befitting fashion without going to sleep. But towards midnight Duroy dozed off the first. When he woke up he saw that Madame Forestier was also slumbering, and having shifted to a more comfortable position, he reclosed his eyes, growling: "Confound it all, it is more comfortable between the sheets all the same."
A sudden noise made him start up. The nurse was entering the room. It was broad daylight. The young wife in the armchair in front of him seemed as surprised as himself. She was somewhat pale, but still pretty, fresh-looking, and nice, in spite of this night passed in a chair.
Then, having glanced at the corpse, Duroy started and exclaimed: "Oh, his beard!" The beard had grown in a few hours on this decomposing flesh as much as it would have in several days on a living face. And they stood scared by this life continuing in death, as though in presence of some fearful prodigy, some supernatural threat of resurrection, one of these startling and abnormal events which upset and confound the mind.
They both went and lay down until eleven o'clock. Then they placed Charles in his coffin, and at once felt relieved and soothed. They had sat down face to face at lunch with an aroused desire to speak of the livelier and more consolatory matters, to return to the things of life again, since they had done with the dead. Through the wide-open window the soft warmth of spring flowed in, bearing the perfumed breath of the bed of pinks in bloom before the door.
Madame Forestier suggested a stroll in the garden to Duroy, and they began to walk slowly round the little lawn, inhaling with pleasure the balmy air, laden with the scent of pine and eucalyptus. Suddenly she began to speak, without turning her head towards him, as he had done during the night upstairs. She uttered her words slowly, in a low and serious voice.
"Look here, my dear friend, I have deeply reflected already on what you proposed to me, and I do not want you to go away without an answer. Besides, I am neither going to say yes nor no. We will wait, we will see, we will know one another better. Reflect, too, on your side. Do not give way to impulse. But if I speak to you of this before even poor Charles is lowered into the tomb, it is because it is necessary, after what you have said to me, that you should thoroughly understand what sort of woman I am, in order that you may no longer cherish the wish you expressed to me, in case you are not of a – of a – disposition to comprehend and bear with me. Understand me well. Marriage for me is not a charm, but a partnership. I mean to be free, perfectly free as to my ways, my acts, my going and coming. I could neither tolerate supervision, nor jealousy, nor arguments as to my behavior. I should undertake, be it understood, never to compromise the name of the man who takes me as his wife, never to render him hateful and ridiculous. But this man must also undertake to see in me an equal, an ally, and not an inferior or an obedient and submissive wife. My notions, I know, are not those of every one, but I shall not change them. There you are. I will also add, do not answer me; it would be useless and unsuitable. We shall see one another again, and shall perhaps speak of all this again later on. Now, go for a stroll. I shall return to watch beside him. Till this evening."
He printed a long kiss on her hand, and went away without uttering a word. That evening they only saw one another at dinnertime. Then they retired to their rooms, both exhausted with fatigue.
Charles Forestier was buried the next day, without any funeral display, in the cemetery at Cannes. George Duroy wished to take the Paris express, which passed through the town at half-past one.
Madame Forestier drove with him to the station. They walked quietly up and down the platform pending the time for his departure, speaking of trivial matters.
The train rolled into the station. The journalist took his seat, and then got out again to have a few more moments' conversation with her, suddenly seized as he was with sadness and a strong regret at leaving her, as though he were about to lose her for ever.
A porter shouted, "Take your seats for Marseilles, Lyons, and Paris." Duroy got in and leant out of the window to say a few more words. The engine whistled, and the train began to move slowly on.
The young fellow, leaning out of the carriage, watched the woman standing still on the platform and following him with her eyes. Suddenly, as he was about to lose sight of her, he put his hand to his mouth and threw a kiss towards her. She returned it with a discreet and hesitating gesture.
IX
George Duroy had returned to all his old habits.
Installed at present in the little ground-floor suite of rooms in the Rue de Constantinople, he lived soberly, like a man preparing a new existence for himself.
Madame Forestier had not yet returned. She was lingering at Cannes. He received a letter from her merely announcing her return about the middle of April, without a word of allusion to their farewell. He was waiting, his mind was thoroughly made up now to employ every means in order to marry her, if she seemed to hesitate. But he had faith in his luck, confidence in that power of seduction which he felt within him, a vague and irresistible power which all women felt the influence of.
A short note informed him that the decisive hour was about to strike: "I am in Paris. Come and see me. – Madeleine Forestier."
Nothing more. He received it by the nine o'clock post. He arrived at her residence at three on the same day. She held out both hands to him smiling with her pleasant smile, and they looked into one another's eyes for a few seconds. Then she said: "How good you were to come to me there under those terrible circumstances."
"I should have done anything you told me to," he replied.
And they sat down. She asked the news, inquired about the Walters, about all the staff, about the paper. She had often thought about the paper.
"I miss that a great deal," she said, "really a very great deal. I had become at heart a journalist. What would you, I love the profession?"
Then she paused. He thought he understood, he thought he divined in her smile, in the tone of her voice, in her words themselves a kind of invitation, and although he had promised to himself not to precipitate matters, he stammered out: "Well, then – why – why should you not resume – this occupation – under – under the name of Duroy?"
She suddenly became serious again, and placing her hand on his arm, murmured: "Do not let us speak of that yet a while."
But he divined that she accepted, and falling at her knees began to passionately kiss her hands, repeating: "Thanks, thanks; oh, how I love you!"
She rose. He did so, too, and noted that she was very pale. Then he understood that he had pleased her, for a long time past, perhaps, and as they found themselves face to face, he clasped her to him and printed a long, tender, and decorous kiss on her forehead. When she had freed herself, slipping through his arms, she said in a serious tone: "Listen, I have not yet made up my mind to anything. However, it may be – yes. But you must promise me the most absolute secrecy till I give you leave to speak."
He swore this, and left, his heart overflowing with joy.
He was from that time forward very discreet as regards the visits he paid her, and did not ask for any more definite consent on her part, for she had a way of speaking of the future, of saying "by-and-by," and of shaping plans in which these two lives were blended, which answered him better and more delicately than a formal acceptation.
Duroy worked hard and spent little, trying to save money so as not to be without a penny at the date fixed for his marriage, and becoming as close as he had been prodigal. The summer went by, and then the autumn, without anyone suspecting anything, for they met very little, and only in the most natural way in the world.
One evening, Madeleine, looking him straight in the eyes said: "You have not yet announced our intentions to Madame de Marelle?"
"No, dear, having promised you to be secret, I have not opened my mouth to a living soul."
"Well, it is about time to tell her. I will undertake to inform the Walters. You will do so this week, will you not?"
He blushed as he said: "Yes, to-morrow."
She had turned away her eyes in order not to notice his confusion, and said: "If you like we will be married in the beginning of May. That will be a very good time."
"I obey you in all things with joy."
"The tenth of May, which is a Saturday, will suit me very nicely, for it is my birthday."
"Very well, the tenth of May."
"Your parents live near Rouen, do they not? You have told me so, at least."
"Yes, near Rouen, at Canteleu."
"What are they?"
"They are – they are small annuitants."
"Ah! I should very much like to know them."
He hesitated, greatly perplexed, and said: "But, you see, they are – " Then making up his mind, like a really clever man, he went on: "My dear, they are mere country folk, innkeepers, who have pinched themselves to the utmost to enable me to pursue my studies. For my part, I am not ashamed of them, but their – simplicity – their rustic manners – might, perhaps, render you uncomfortable."
She smiled, delightfully, her face lit up with gentle kindness as she replied: "No. I shall be very fond of them. We will go and see them. I want to. I will speak of this to you again. I, too, am a daughter of poor people, but I have lost my parents. I have no longer anyone in the world." She held out her hand to him as she added: "But you."
He felt softened, moved, overcome, as he had been by no other woman.
"I had thought about one matter," she continued, "but it is rather difficult to explain."
"What is it?" he asked.
"Well, it is this, my dear boy, I am like all women, I have my weaknesses, my pettinesses. I love all that glitters, that catches the ear. I should have so delighted to have borne a noble name. Could you not, on the occasion of your marriage, ennoble yourself a little?"
She had blushed in her turn, as if she had proposed something indelicate.
He replied simply enough: "I have often thought about it, but it did not seem to me so easy."
"Why so?"
He began to laugh, saying: "Because I was afraid of making myself look ridiculous."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Not at all, not at all Every one does it, and nobody laughs. Separate your name in two – Du Roy. That looks very well."
He replied at once like a man who understands the matter in question: "No, that will not do at all. It is too simple, too common, too well-known. I had thought of taking the name of my native place, as a literary pseudonym at first, then of adding it to my own by degrees, and then, later on, of even cutting my name in two, as you suggest."
"Your native place is Canteleu?" she queried.
"Yes."
She hesitated, saying: "No, I do not like the termination. Come, cannot we modify this word Canteleu a little?"
She had taken up a pen from the table, and was scribbling names and studying their physiognomy. All at once she exclaimed: "There, there it is!" and held out to him a paper, on which read – "Madame Duroy de Cantel."
He reflected a few moments, and then said gravely: "Yes, that does very well."
She was delighted, and kept repeating "Duroy de Cantel, Duroy de Cantel, Madame Duroy de Cantel. It is capital, capital." She went on with an air of conviction: "And you will see how easy it is to get everyone to accept it. But one must know how to seize the opportunity, for it will be too late afterwards. You must from to-morrow sign your descriptive articles D. de Cantel, and your 'Echoes' simply Duroy. It is done every day in the press, and no one will be astonished to see you take a pseudonym. At the moment of our marriage we can modify it yet a little more, and tell our friends that you had given up the 'Du' out of modesty on account of your position, or even say nothing about it. What is your father's Christian name?"
"Alexander."
She murmured: "Alexander, Alexander," two or three times, listening to the sonorous roll of the syllables, and then wrote on a blank sheet of paper:
"Monsieur and Madame Alexander Du Roy de Cantel have the honor to inform you of the marriage of Monsieur George Du Roy de Cantel, their son, to Madame Madeleine Forestier." She looked at her writing, holding it at a distance, charmed by the effect, and said: "With a little method we can manage whatever we wish."
When he found himself once more in the street, firmly resolved to call himself in future Du Roy, and even Du Roy de Cantel, it seemed to him that he had acquired fresh importance. He walked with more swagger, his head higher, his moustache fiercer, as a gentleman should walk. He felt in himself a species of joyous desire to say to the passers-by: "My name is Du Roy de Cantel."
But scarcely had he got home than the thought of Madame de Marelle made him feel uneasy, and he wrote to her at once to ask her to make an appointment for the next day.
"It will be a tough job," he thought. "I must look out for squalls."
Then he made up his mind for it, with the native carelessness which caused him to slur over the disagreeable side of life, and began to write a fancy article on the fresh taxes needed in order to make the Budget balance. He set down in this the nobiliary "De" at a hundred francs a year, and titles, from baron to prince, at from five hundred to five thousand francs. And he signed it "D. de Cantel."
He received a telegram from his mistress next morning saying that she would call at one o'clock. He waited for her somewhat feverishly, his mind made up to bring things to a point at once, to say everything right out, and then, when the first emotion had subsided, to argue cleverly in order to prove to her that he could not remain a bachelor for ever, and that as Monsieur de Marelle insisted on living, he had been obliged to think of another than herself as his legitimate companion. He felt moved, though, and when he heard her ring his heart began to beat.
She threw herself into his arms, exclaiming: "Good morning, Pretty-boy." Then, finding his embrace cold, looked at him, and said: "What is the matter with you?"
"Sit down," he said, "we have to talk seriously."
She sat down without taking her bonnet off, only turning back her veil, and waited.
He had lowered his eyes, and was preparing the beginning of his speech. He commenced in a low tone of voice: "My dear one, you see me very uneasy, very sad, and very much embarrassed at what I have to admit to you. I love you dearly. I really love you from the bottom of my heart, so that the fear of causing you pain afflicts me more than even the news I am going to tell you."
She grew pale, felt herself tremble, and stammered out: "What is the matter? Tell me at once."
He said in sad but resolute tones, with that feigned dejection which we make use of to announce fortunate misfortunes: "I am going to be married."
She gave the sigh of a woman who is about to faint, a painful sigh from the very depths of her bosom, and then began to choke and gasp without being able to speak.
Seeing that she did not say anything, he continued: "You cannot imagine how much I suffered before coming to this resolution. But I have neither position nor money. I am alone, lost in Paris. I needed beside me someone who above all would be an adviser, a consoler, and a stay. It is a partner, an ally, that I have sought, and that I have found."
He was silent, hoping that she would reply, expecting furious rage, violence, and insults. She had placed one hand on her heart as though to restrain its throbbings, and continued to draw her breath by painful efforts, which made her bosom heave spasmodically and her head nod to and fro. He took her other hand, which was resting on the arm of the chair, but she snatched it away abruptly. Then she murmured, as though in a state of stupefaction: "Oh, my God!"
He knelt down before her, without daring to touch her, however, and more deeply moved by this silence than he would have been by a fit of anger, stammered out: "Clo! my darling Clo! just consider my situation, consider what I am. Oh! if I had been able to marry you, what happiness it would have been. But you are married. What could I do? Come, think of it, now. I must take a place in society, and I cannot do it so long as I have not a home. If you only knew. There are days when I have felt a longing to kill your husband."
He spoke in his soft, subdued, seductive voice, a voice which entered the ear like music. He saw two tears slowly gather in the fixed and staring eyes of his mistress and then roll down her cheeks, while two more were already formed on the eyelids.
He murmured: "Do not cry, Clo; do not cry, I beg of you. You rend my very heart."
Then she made an effort, a strong effort, to be proud and dignified, and asked, in the quivering tone of a woman about to burst into sobs: "Who is it?"
He hesitated a moment, and then understanding that he must, said:
"Madeleine Forestier."
Madame de Marelle shuddered all over, and remained silent, so deep in thought that she seemed to have forgotten that he was at her feet. And two transparent drops kept continually forming in her eyes, falling and forming again.
She rose. Duroy guessed that she was going away without saying a word, without reproach or forgiveness, and he felt hurt and humiliated to the bottom of his soul. Wishing to stay her, he threw his arms about the skirt of her dress, clasping through the stuff her rounded legs, which he felt stiffen in resistance. He implored her, saying: "I beg of you, do not go away like that."
Then she looked down on him from above with that moistened and despairing eye, at once so charming and so sad, which shows all the grief of a woman's heart, and gasped out: "I – I have nothing to say. I have nothing to do with it. You – you are right. You – you have chosen well."
And, freeing herself by a backward movement, she left the room without his trying to detain her further.
Left to himself, he rose as bewildered as if he had received a blow on the head. Then, making up his mind, he muttered: "Well, so much the worse or the better. It is over, and without a scene; I prefer that," and relieved from an immense weight, suddenly feeling himself free, delivered, at ease as to his future life, he began to spar at the wall, hitting out with his fists in a kind of intoxication of strength and triumph, as if he had been fighting Fate.
When Madame Forestier asked: "Have you told Madame de Marelle?" he quietly answered, "Yes."
She scanned him closely with her bright eyes, saying: "And did it not cause her any emotion?"
"No, not at all. She thought it, on the contrary, a very good idea."
The news was soon known. Some were astonished, others asserted that they had foreseen it; others, again, smiled, and let it be understood that they were not surprised.
The young man who now signed his descriptive articles D. de Cantel, his "Echoes" Duroy, and the political articles which he was beginning to write from time to time Du Roy, passed half his time with his betrothed, who treated him with a fraternal familiarity into which, however, entered a real but hidden love, a species of desire concealed as a weakness. She had decided that the marriage should be quite private, only the witnesses being present, and that they should leave the same evening for Rouen. They would go the next day to see the journalist's parents, and remain with them some days. Duroy had striven to get her to renounce this project, but not having been able to do so, had ended by giving in to it.
So the tenth of May having come, the newly-married couple, having considered the religious ceremony useless since they had not invited anyone, returned to finish packing their boxes after a brief visit to the Town Hall. They took, at the Saint Lazare terminus, the six o'clock train, which bore them away towards Normandy. They had scarcely exchanged twenty words up to the time that they found themselves alone in the railway carriage. As soon as they felt themselves under way, they looked at one another and began to laugh, to hide a certain feeling of awkwardness which they did not want to manifest.
The train slowly passed through the long station of Batignolles, and then crossed the mangy-looking plain extending from the fortifications to the Seine. Duroy and his wife from time to time made a few idle remarks, and then turned again towards the windows. When they crossed the bridge of Asniéres, a feeling of greater liveliness was aroused in them at the sight of the river covered with boats, fishermen, and oarsmen. The sun, a bright May sun, shed its slanting rays upon the craft and upon the smooth stream, which seemed motionless, without current or eddy, checked, as it were, beneath the heat and brightness of the declining day. A sailing boat in the middle of the river having spread two large triangular sails of snowy canvas, wing and wing, to catch the faintest puffs of wind, looked like an immense bird preparing to take flight.
