Bel-Ami
by Guy de Maupassant

CHAPTER 5

 

It was autumn. The Du Roys had spent the entire summer in Paris, waging a vigorous campaign in La Vie française in support of the new cabinet, during the deputies’ brief recess.

In spite of the fact that it was only the beginning of October, the two Chambers were about to reconvene, for the Moroccan affair was becoming increasingly threatening.

Basically no one believed that an expeditionary force would be sent to Tangiers, although on the day Parliament was dissolved, a right-wing deputy, the Comte de Lambert-Sarrazin, in an extremely witty speech that even the centrists had applauded, had offered to wager his moustache–and to hand it over as security just as a famous viceroy of India had once done in the past–against the side-whiskers of the President of the Council, that the new cabinet would not be able to resist imitating the old one, and sending a force to Tangier to counterbalance the one in Tunis, out of love of symmetry, just as people put two vases above a fireplace.

He had added: ‘Africa is in fact a fireplace for France, gentlemen, a fireplace that burns our best wood, a fireplace with a powerful draught, and which uses the paper of the Bank for kindling.

‘You have allowed yourselves the artistic licence of decorating the left-hand corner with a Tunisian knick-knack which is costing you dear; and you’ll see that M. Marrot will want to imitate his predecessor, and decorate the right-hand corner with a knick-knack from Morocco.’

This speech, which has gone down in history, provided Du Roy with a central theme for ten articles about the colony of Algeria, indeed for the whole series which had been stopped when he was first working for the paper, and he had strongly supported the idea of a military expedition, although he was convinced it would not materialize. He had harped on about patriotism and had blasted Spain with the entire arsenal of scornful arguments that people use against nations whose interests conflict with their own.

La Vie française had acquired considerable importance thanks to its known connections with those in power. It published items of political news ahead of the more serious papers, and revealed, through subtle hints, the plans of the ministers who were its friends; so that all the Parisian and provincial newspapers looked to it for their information. It was quoted, it was feared, it was beginning to be respected. It was no longer the suspect organ of a group of political speculators, but the acknowledged voice of the cabinet. Laroche-Mathieu was the soul of the paper and Du Roy his mouthpiece. Old man Walter, who as deputy never spoke, and as Director was invariably wary and skilled at self-effacement, remained in the background negotiating, it was said, an important deal involving some copper mines in Morocco.

Madeleine’s drawing-room had become a centre of influence, for several members of the cabinet would meet there each week. The President of the Council had even dined twice at her table; and statesmen’s wives, who in the past had hesitated to cross her threshold, now boasted of being her friends, and called on her more often than she on them.

The Foreign Secretary reigned over the household almost as if he were its master. He dropped in at all hours, bringing dispatches, reports, and information, which he would dictate to either husband or wife, as if they were his secretaries.

When the minister had departed and Du Roy was alone with his wife, he would lose his temper over the way that insignificant upstart behaved, and make insidious suggestions in a threatening tone.

But she, shrugging her shoulders disdainfully, would answer: ‘Why don’t you like him? Become a minister: then you can do as you like. Until then, keep quiet.’

Giving her a sidelong glance, he twirled his moustache. ‘No one knows what I’m capable of,’ he said. ‘Maybe one day people will find out.’

She replied imperturbably: ‘Time will tell.’

The morning when the Chambers reconvened, the young woman, still in bed, was showering her husband with advice while he dressed for a lunch engagement with M. Laroche-Mathieu at which he was to receive instructions, before the session, for the next day’s political article in La Vie française; this article was to be a kind of semi-official announcement of the cabinet’s real intentions.

Madeleine was saying: ‘Be sure not to forget to ask him if General Belloncle is being sent to Oran, as they were thinking of doing. That would be very significant.’

Georges replied edgily: ‘I know as well as you what I have to do. Leave me alone! Stop harping on it all.’

Calmly she said: ‘Georges dear, you always forget half the things I want you to ask the minister.’

He growled: ‘Your minister gets on my nerves, he really does. He’s an idiot.’

Madeleine’s reply was cool: ‘He’s no more my minister than yours. He’s more useful to you than to me.’

He turned a little towards her, curling his lip: ‘I beg your pardon, but it’s not me he’s making up to.’

She said, slowly: ‘Nor me, as a matter of fact; but it’s because of him that we’re doing so well.’

He fell silent, then, after a few moments: ‘If I had to choose among your admirers, I’d prefer that old fogy Vaudrec. What’s become of him, anyway? I haven’t seen him for a week.’

She replied unemotionally: ‘He’s ill, he wrote me that he’s actually in bed with an attack of gout. You ought to call and ask after him. You know he’s very fond of you, and it would please him.’

Georges replied: ‘Yes, certainly, I’ll go round later on.’

He had finished dressing, and stood there, with his hat on, wondering if there was something he had forgotten. Not having thought of anything, he went up to the bed and kissed his wife on the forehead: ‘See you later, sweetheart, I shan’t be home before seven at the earliest.’

And off he went.

M. Laroche-Mathieu was expecting him, for he was lunching at ten that day, since the Council was due to meet at noon, before the start of the new Parliamentary session.

As soon as they were seated at table, alone except for the minister’s private secretary, for Mme Laroche-Mathieu had not wanted to change her lunch hour, Du Roy talked about his article, describing its argument and referring to notes scribbled on visiting cards; then, when he had finished: ‘Do you see anything you would like to change, my dear minister?’

‘Very little, my good fellow. You may perhaps be a trifle too emphatic over the Morocco business. Talk about the military expedition as though it will take place, while making it clear that it isn’t going to, and that you yourself don’t even begin to believe in it. Make sure the public can easily read between the lines that we’re not going to poke our nose into that affair.’

‘Quite. I understand, and I’ll make myself perfectly clear. On that subject, my wife told me to ask you if General Belloncle would be sent to Oran. In view of what you’ve just said, I assume not.’

The statesman replied: ‘No.’

Then they chatted about the session that was about to open. Laroche-Mathieu began making speeches, trying out the phrases that he would be showering his colleagues with in a few hours’ time. He flapped his right hand about, waving in the air now a fork, now a knife, now a chunk of bread, never looking at anyone but addressing the invisible Assembly, his handsome well-groomed head spitting out its gobs of sugary eloquence. On his lip, a tiny twirly moustache poked up in two points like scorpion tails, and his brilliantined hair, parted in the centre of his brow, was combed into two curls on his temples, after the style of a provincial dandy. Despite his youth he was a trifle overweight, a trifle puffy; his waistcoat stretched tightly across his stomach. The private secretary sat calmly eating and drinking, no doubt accustomed to these showers of loquacity; but Du Roy, consumed with jealousy at Laroche-Mathieu’s success, was thinking: ‘Oh, give it a rest, you half-wit; what morons these politicos are!’

And, as he compared his own worth to the minister’s garrulous self-importance, he reflected: ‘God! If I just had a hundred thousand francs so I could stand as candidate for my fine native-city of Rouen, and give all those worthy, wily Normandy yokels a dose of their own cunning, what a statesman I’d make, compared with these short-sighted rogues.’

M. Laroche-Mathieu talked until the coffee and then, seeing it was late, rang for his carriage; offering the journalist his hand, he said:

‘Is that quite clear, my good fellow?’

‘Certainly, my dear minister, rely on me.’

And Du Roy walked slowly off to the newspaper to begin his article, for he had nothing to do until four o’clock. At four he was to meet Mme de Marelle at the Rue de Constantinople; he saw her there regularly twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.

But, when he entered the office, he was handed a sealed message; it was from Mme Walter and said: ‘I absolutely must talk to you today. It’s very, very important. Expect me at the Rue de Constantinople at two. I can do you a great service.

‘Eternally yours,

‘Virginie.’

He swore: ‘Christ Almighty! What a pest she is!’ And, seized by a fit of rage, he went straight out again, too annoyed to work.

For six weeks now he had been trying to break with her, without managing to weary her relentless devotion.

After her seduction she had suffered a terrible attack of remorse, and at three successive meetings had heaped reproaches and abuse on her lover. Bored by these scenes, and already sated by this middle-aged, over-dramatic woman, he had simply kept his distance, hoping by this means to end the affair. But then she had attached herself to him with desperation, throwing herself into this love-affair the way people throw themselves into a river, with a stone tied round their necks. He had let himself be caught again, out of weakness, and self-indulgence, and politeness; and she had imprisoned him in a web of frantic, exhausting passion, tormenting him with her affection.

She kept trying to see him every day, summoning him by telegram at all hours for brief meetings on a street corner, in a shop, in a public park. Then, in a few sentences that never varied, she would tell him that she adored him, that she idolized him, and would then leave, assuring him that she was ‘so very happy to have seen him’.

She had turned out to be quite different from what he had imagined, attempting to captivate him with a youthful winsomeness and childish love-play that were ridiculous at her age. This virtuous woman who had, until then, lived an entirely respectable life, a virgin at heart, impervious to emotion and oblivious of sensuality, had suddenly found her tranquil middle age, which had been like a pallid autumn following upon a chilly summer, transmuted into a kind of faded spring, full of little half-open blossoms and aborted buds, a strange flowering of adolescent love, passionate and artless, made up of unexpected transports, of little girlish cries, of embarrassing sweet-talk, of charms that had aged without ever being young. She would write him ten letters in a day, foolish, demented letters, in bizarre, ridiculously flowery language, embellished in the Indian style, full of the names of animals and birds.

As soon as they were alone she would kiss him with all the awkward allurements of an overgrown girl, pouting her lips almost grotesquely, and jumping about so that her heavy breasts made the fabric of her bodice jiggle.

Most of all he was sickened by hearing her say: ‘my mouse’, ‘my pet’, ‘my kitten’, ‘my jewel’, ‘my sweetie-pie’, ‘my treasure’, and by seeing how every time she gave herself to him, she went through a mini-comedy of childish modesty, with little fearful gestures that she imagined were pleasing, and little games suggestive of a depraved schoolgirl.

She would ask: ‘Whose lips are these?’ And, when he did not instantly reply, she would repeat insistently: ‘They’re mine,’ until he turned white with exasperation.

She ought to have realized, he felt, that the most extreme tact, and skill, and circumspection, and appropriateness were necessary in love, that having surrendered to him, she, a mature woman with a family, with a position in society, ought to give herself with a certain gravity, with a kind of controlled passion, sternly, with tears perhaps, but the tears of Dido, not of Juliet.

She was always saying to him: ‘How I love you, my little pet! Tell me, my baby, do you love me as much?’ He could no longer hear her say ‘my little pet’ or ‘my baby’ without wanting to call her ‘my old girl’.

She would say to him: ‘I was mad to give in to you. But I don’t regret it. It’s so wonderful to be in love!’

Georges found all this, coming from her mouth, irritating. She would murmur: ‘It’s so wonderful to be in love’ just like an ingénue in a play.

Furthermore she exasperated him with the clumsiness of her love-making. Her sensuality having been suddenly kindled by the kisses of this handsome young man who had so fiercely aroused her passion, she brought to her embraces an awkward fervour and a heavy-handed concentration which struck Du Roy as comic, and reminded him of old men trying to learn to read.

And when she should have been crushing him in her arms, gazing ardently at him with that profound and terrible gaze of certain ageing women who are superb in their final love-affair, when she should have been biting him with her mute and quivering mouth as, exhausted yet insatiable, she pressed down upon him with her heavy, warm flesh, instead she would fidget about like a little girl and, thinking it would please, lisp: ‘I love you so, sweetie-pie, I love you so. Give your little wifey a nice cuddle!’

Then he would feel a mad urge to swear, pick up his hat, and leave, slamming the door.

In the early days, they had often met at the Rue de Constantinople, but Du Roy, who feared an encounter with Mme de Marelle, now found a thousand excuses to avoid those meetings.

So then he had had to come to her house almost every day, sometimes to lunch, sometimes to dinner. She would squeeze his hand under the table, offer him her mouth behind the door. But what he most enjoyed was amusing himself with Suzanne, whose funny stories cheered him up. Her doll-like body contained a mind that was nimble and shrewd, unpredictable and sly, which sought constantly to entertain, like a puppet in a street-show. With mordant appositeness, she made fun of everything and everybody. Georges stimulated her lively wit, goading her into derision, and they got on wonderfully.

She was forever calling to him: ‘Listen, Bel-Ami. Come here, Bel-Ami.’ He would immediately leave the mother and hurry over to the daughter who would whisper some spiteful comment in his ear, and they would laugh heartily together.

Nevertheless, weary of the love of the mother, he came to feel an insurmountable aversion towards her; he could no longer see her, or hear her, or think of her without getting angry. So then he stopped going to her house, answering her letters, or responding to her pleas.

Finally she grasped that he did not love her any more, and this caused her terrible suffering. But she pursued him frantically, spying on him, following him, waiting for him in a cab with drawn blinds at the entrance to the newspaper, at the entrance to his home, in streets where she hoped he would pass by.

He wanted to hurt her, to swear at her, to hit her, to tell her outright: ‘I’ve had enough, damn it, you’re pestering me.’ But he continued to treat her with circumspection, because of La Vie française; and he tried, by coldness concealed beneath good manners and even by occasional harsh words, to make her understand that this absolutely had to end.

She was especially determined in thinking up stratagems to lure him to the Rue de Constantinople, and he was always fearful that some day the two women would bump into each other at the door.

His affection for Mme de Marelle, by contrast, had increased over the course of the summer. He called her his ‘little monkey’, and there was no question but that she pleased him. Their two natures had similar quirks; both he and she indisputably belonged to that daredevil breed of high-society vagabonds who, without knowing it, closely resemble the gypsies who travel the highways.

They had enjoyed a delightful summer of love, a summer of students on a spree, escaping to lunch or dine at Argenteuil, at Bougival, at Maisons, at Poissy, spending hours in a boat, picking flowers along the river banks. She adored fried fish from the Seine, rabbit fricassees, and fish stews, eaten in tavern gardens, while listening to the cries of the boatmen. He loved setting off with her on a bright day, sitting on the upper deck of a suburban train and chatting nonsensically as they crossed the ugly Paris countryside, spotted with hideous middle-class chalets.

And when he was obliged to return for dinner with Mme Walter, he felt full of hatred for the old, persistent mistress, remembering the young one he had just left, who had gathered the flower of his desire and the harvest of his ardour in the grasses of the river bank.

He had thought that he was, at last, more or less free of the Director’s wife, to whom he had bluntly, almost brutally, expressed his determination of making a break, when the telegram summoning him at two o’clock to the Rue de Constantinople reached him at the newspaper office.

He reread it while walking along: ‘I absolutely must talk to you today. It’s very, very important. Expect me at the Rue de Constantinople at two. I can do you a great service. Eternally yours, Virginie.’

He was thinking: ‘Whatever can the old witch want with me now? I bet she’s got nothing to say to me. She’s going to tell me again that she adores me. Still, I’d better see her. She mentions something very important, a great service, perhaps it’s true. And Clotilde’s coming at four. I’ll have to get rid of her first, at three at the latest. Christ! As long as they don’t meet each other! What a pest women are!’

And he reflected that in fact his wife was the only woman who never plagued him. She led her own life, and she seemed to love him very much, at those times set aside for love, for she would not allow anything to interfere with the unvarying order of her day’s normal occupations.

He was walking slowly towards his rendezvous, working himself up into a fury against his boss’s wife: ‘Ah! I’ll give her a fine welcome if she has nothing to tell me! A trooper’ll sound polite compared with me! First, I’ll tell her I’ll never again set foot inside her door.’

And he went in to wait for Mme Walter.

She arrived almost immediately, and exclaimed, the moment she saw him: ‘Oh, you got my message! What luck!’

He said, with a nasty look: ‘I certainly did; it came to the paper just as I was leaving for the Chamber. Whatever is it now?’

Raising her little veil to kiss him, she approached him with the timid, cowed look of a dog that is often beaten.

‘How cruel you are to me… What hard things you say to me… What is it that I’ve done? You can’t imagine how I suffer because of you!’

He growled: ‘You’re surely not going to start that again?’

She was standing close beside him, waiting for a smile, or a gesture, to fling herself into his arms.

She murmured: ‘You should not have taken me just to treat me like this, you should have left me the way I was, good, and happy. Do you remember what you said to me in the church, and how you forced me to come into this house? And now look at the way you speak to me! The way you receive me! My God! My God! How you hurt me!’

Stamping his foot, he said violently: ‘Enough, damn it! That’s enough. The minute I see you it’s the same old refrain. Really, anyone would think I had you when you were twelve and as innocent as an angel. No, my dear, let’s look at the facts, this wasn’t a case of seducing a minor. You gave yourself to me as a consenting adult. Thank you very much, I’m infinitely grateful, but I’m under no obligation to remain tied to your apron strings until death. You have a husband and I have a wife. We’re neither of us free. We indulged ourselves in a passing fancy, and that’s that, it’s over.’

She said: ‘Oh, what a brute you are, how coarse, how vile! No, I wasn’t a young girl any longer, but I’d never ever loved, never been unfaithful…’

He cut her short: ‘You’ve told me that over and over again, I know. But you’d had two children… so I didn’t deflower you…’

She recoiled: ‘Oh, Georges, that’s contemptible!’

And, with her hands on her breast, she began to gasp as sobs choked her throat.

When he saw the tears start to flow, he took his hat from the end of the mantelpiece: ‘Oh! You’re going to cry! Then I’m off. Was this performance what you got me here for?’

She took a step so as to block his way and, quickly pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped her eyes with a brusque gesture. In a voice that she made an effort to control, but which was still broken by an anguished quaver, she said:

‘No, I came to give you some news… some political news… to give you the chance to make fifty thousand francs… or even more… if you want to.’

Suddenly appeased, he asked: ‘How exactly? What do you mean?’

‘Last night I happened to overhear something my husband and Laroche said. They didn’t worry, anyway, about talking in front of me. But Walter was advising the minister not to let you into the secret because you’d reveal everything.’

Du Roy had put his hat down again on a chair. He waited, all ears.

‘Well, what is it?’

‘They’re going to take Morocco!’

‘Come on. I had lunch today with Laroche, who practically dictated the cabinet’s plans to me.’

‘No, darling, they’ve tricked you because they’re afraid their scheme will get out.’

‘Sit down,’ said Georges.

And he himself sat down in an armchair. So then she pulled a little stool over and crouched on it, between Duroy’s legs. She went on, in a wheedling tone: ‘Because I’m always thinking of you, I pay attention, now, to all the whispering that goes on in my presence.’

And she quietly began describing to him how for quite a while now she had guessed that something was being planned from which he was being excluded, that although he was being used, they were afraid of including him.

She said: ‘You know, being in love makes you crafty.’

At last, the night before, she had understood what was going on. It was an important affair, an extremely important affair that had been planned in secret. She was smiling now, pleased with her own cleverness; growing excited, she talked like the financier’s wife she was, someone used to the engineering of stock exchange crashes, of changes in the value of shares, of sudden rises and falls that ruin, in a couple of hours of speculation, thousands of ordinary people, of small investors, who put their savings in the funds guaranteed by men with honoured and respected names, politicians or bankers.

She kept saying: ‘Oh, what they’ve done is really something, really something. Actually it was Walter who managed it all, and he knows what he’s doing. Really, it’s quite remarkable.’

All this build-up was making him impatient.

‘Come on, tell me.’

‘Well, it’s like this. The expeditionary force being sent to Tangiers was agreed upon between them from the very day Laroche took over at the Foreign Office; and, little by little, they’ve bought back the whole of the Moroccan loan, which had fallen to sixty-four or sixty-five francs. They’ve bought it up very cleverly, using dubious, shady agents who didn’t arouse any suspicion. They even hoodwinked the Rothschilds, who were astonished that the Moroccan shares should be so much in demand. They were told the names of the agents, every one of them corrupt, every one of them penniless. That reassured all the great banks. And now the expedition is going to take place, and as soon as we’re over there, the French government will underwrite the loan. Our friends will have made fifty or sixty million. So now that you know what’s going on, you’ll also understand how afraid they are of everyone, how afraid of the smallest indiscretion.’

She had leant her head against the young man’s waistcoat, and with her arms resting on his legs she snuggled up and pressed against him, well aware that she had caught his interest now, ready to do anything, no matter what, for a caress or a smile.

‘You’re quite sure?’

She answered confidently: ‘Oh, absolutely!’

He declared: ‘Yes, it really is quite something. As for that bastard Laroche, I’ll get him one day. Oh, what a wretch! He’d better watch out! He’d better watch out! I’ll have his ministerial skin off him!’

Then, after a little reflection, he murmured: ‘Still, this ought to be used to advantage.’

‘You can still buy the debt,’ she said. ‘It’s only at seventy-two.’

‘Yes, but I’ve no spare cash.’

She looked up at him with eyes full of entreaty. ‘I’ve thought of that, my pet, and if you were really nice, really really nice, if you loved me just a little, you’d let me lend you some.’

His reply was sharp, almost cold: ‘As for that, no, certainly not.’

She whispered, in a beseeching voice: ‘Listen, there is something you can do without borrowing money. I myself was going to buy ten thousand worth of this loan, to get myself a little nest egg. Well! I’ll buy twenty thousand. You can be in for half. You understand, of course, that I’m not going to give Walter the cash. So there’s nothing to pay at present. If it succeeds, you’ll make seventy thousand francs. If it doesn’t, you’ll owe me ten thousand that you can pay me when it suits you.’

He said again: ‘No, I don’t like schemes of that kind.’

Then, to persuade him, she reasoned with him, proving that in reality he was pledging ten thousand on his word of honour, that he was running a risk, and that in consequence she wasn’t advancing him anything, since the outgoings were the responsibility of the Walter Bank.

She also proved to him that it was he who, in La Vie française, had led the whole political campaign that made this affair possible, and that not to profit from it would be very simple-minded.

He still hesitated. She added: ‘But, just think, in fact it’s Walter who’s lending you these ten thousand francs, and you’ve rendered him services that are worth more than that.’

‘All right! Agreed. I’ll go halves with you. If we lose, I’ll repay you ten thousand francs.’

She was so pleased that she stood up, grasped his head in her two hands and began kissing him avidly.

At first he did not resist, then, as she grew bolder, hugging him and devouring him with kisses, he remembered that Clotilde would soon be arriving, and that if he weakened he would be wasting time, and exhausting, in the arms of the old woman, an ardour which it would be better to save for the young one.

So then he pushed her gently away: ‘Come on, be good,’ he said.

She looked at him with sorrowful eyes. ‘Oh, Georges, I can’t even kiss you any more.’

He replied: ‘No, not today. I’ve a bit of a headache, and it hurts me.’

So then she sat down again obediently between his legs, and asked: ‘Will you come and have dinner tomorrow at my house? It would make me so happy!’

He hesitated, but did not dare refuse. ‘Yes, certainly.’

‘Thank you, sweetheart.’

She was rubbing her cheek against the young man’s chest in a slow, regular caress, and one of her long black hairs caught in his waistcoat. When she noticed this, a wild idea flashed into her mind, one of those superstitious notions that in women often take the place of reasoning. Very quietly, she began twisting this hair around the button. Then she attached another to the next button, and still another to the button lower down. To each button she affixed a hair.

In a moment, when he stood up, he would pull them out. He would hurt her, what happiness! And, without realizing it, he would carry away something of her, he would carry away a tiny lock of her hair, for which he had never asked. It was a bond by which she was attaching him, a secret, invisible link, a talisman she was leaving on him. Without wanting to, he would think of her, he would dream of her, he would love her a little better on the morrow.

Suddenly he said: ‘I’m going to have to leave you, because I’m expected at the Chamber for the end of the session. I can’t miss it today.’

‘Oh! So soon’ she sighed. Then, in a resigned tone: ‘Off you go, darling, but come for dinner tomorrow.’

And she pulled away quickly. On her head she felt a brief, sharp pain as if her skin had been stuck with needles. Her heart was beating; she was happy to have suffered a little on his account.

‘Goodbye!’ she said. And, with a compassionate smile, he took her in his arms and coldly kissed her eyes. But, maddened by this contact, she murmured again: ‘So soon!’ Her beseeching gaze turned to the bedroom, where the door stood open. He pushed her away, saying hurriedly: ‘I must be off, I’m going to be late.’

So she offered him her lips which he barely brushed with his, and, handing her her parasol which she would have left there, he continued: ‘Come, come, we must hurry, it’s after three.’ She went out first, repeating: ‘Tomorrow, seven o’clock,’ and he replied: ‘Tomorrow, seven o’clock.’

They separated. She turned to the right, he to the left.

Du Roy walked up as far as the outer boulevard. Then he turned back down the Boulevard Malesherbes, which he followed, walking slowly. Passing in front of a confectioners, he noticed some marrons glaces in a crystal bowl, and thought: ‘I’ll take a pound back for Clotilde.’ He bought a bag of those sugared fruits which she absolutely adored.

By four he had returned and was waiting for his young mistress.

She came a little late because her husband had arrived for a week’s stay. She asked: ‘Can you come for dinner tomorrow? He’ll be delighted to see you.’

‘No, I’m having dinner with the Director. We’ve a lot of political and financial plans that we’re working on.’

She had removed her hat. Now she took off her bodice; it was too tight. He indicated the bag on the mantelpiece: ‘I’ve brought you some marrons glacés,’ and she clapped her hands: ‘Wonderful! You are sweet.’ She took them and tasted one, declaring: ‘They’re delicious. I’ve a feeling I shan’t leave a single one.’ Then, gazing at Georges with playful sensuality: ‘So, you pander to all my vices?’

She was slowly eating the chestnuts, glancing constantly into the bottom of the bag as if to see if there were still some left.

She said: ‘Here, sit down in the armchair, I’ll squat between your legs to nibble my bonbons. I’ll be very comfortable.’

He smiled, sat down, and held her between his legs exactly as he had just held Mme Walter.

She raised her head to speak to him, and said, her mouth full: ‘Can you imagine, sweetheart, I dreamt of you, I dreamt we were on a long journey, the two of us, on a camel. It had two humps, we were each riding on a hump and we were crossing the desert. We’d brought with us packets of sandwiches and a bottle of wine, and were having a picnic sitting on our humps. But I didn’t like that because we couldn’t do anything else; we were too far away from each other, and for my part, I wanted to get down.’

He replied: ‘I want to get down too.’

He was laughing, amused by the story, and he egged her on to go on prattling away with her childish, tender nonsense in the way lovers do. This girlishness, which he found appealing in Mme de Marelle, would have exasperated him in Mme Walter.

Clotilde, too, called him ‘my sweetheart, my little pet, my kitten’. These words sounded sweet and caressing to him. When the other woman had used them, a little while before, they had annoyed and sickened him. For the unchanging language of passion takes its flavour from the lips from which it comes.

But, while enjoying this nonsense, he was thinking about the seventy thousand francs he was going to make; and suddenly he gave a couple of little taps with his finger on his lover’s head and stopped her flow of words: ‘Listen, my kitten. I’m going to give you a message to pass on to your husband. Tell him, from me, to buy, tomorrow, ten thousand francs’ worth of the Moroccan loan which is at seventy-two; I promise him he’ll have made between sixty and eighty thousand francs before three months are up. Tell him not to breathe a word about this. Tell him, from me, that the military expedition to Tangiers is a certainty and that the French Government will underwrite the loan. But don’t cut anyone else in. This is a state secret I’m passing on.’

She listened to him attentively, then said in a low voice: ‘Thank you. I’ll tell my husband this evening. You can trust him; he won’t say anything. He’s completely reliable. There’s no danger.’

But she had eaten all the chestnuts. She squashed up the bag in her hands and threw it into the fireplace. Then she said: ‘Let’s go to bed.’ And without getting up, she began unbuttoning Georges’s waistcoat.

She stopped abruptly, and, drawing out a long hair from a buttonhole, began to laugh: ‘Look, you’ve brought away a hair of Madeleine’s. Now there’s a faithful husband!’

Then, turning serious, she stared for a long time at her hand, at the almost invisible hair she had found; she murmured: ‘This isn’t Madeleine’s, it’s brown.’

He smiled: ‘It’s probably the chambermaid’s.’

But she was inspecting his waistcoat as closely as a detective, and culled a second hair twisted round a button; then she saw a third, and, pale and trembling, exclaimed: ‘Oh! You’ve slept with a woman who’s put hairs round all your buttons.’

He stuttered in astonishment: ‘No, no, you’re mad…’ Suddenly he remembered and understood; at first he was flustered, but then he denied the charge with a giggle, not really all that upset that she should suspect him of casual affairs.

She went on looking and went on finding hairs, which she rapidly unwound and then threw onto the carpet.

With her astute feminine instinct she had guessed, and, furiously angry, on the verge of tears, she stammered: ‘She loves you, this one… and she wanted you to take away something of her… Oh, what a sod you are!’ But then she gave a cry, a strident cry of nervous pleasure: ‘Oh!… Oh!… she’s old… here’s a white hair… Ah yes, you go with old women now… Tell me, do they pay you… do they pay you… Ah! You’ve got old women… you don’t need me any more… you keep her…’

She stood up, ran over to her bodice which she had thrown over a chair, and quickly put it on.

Full of shame, he tried to stop her, stuttering: ‘No, no, Clo, you’re being silly… I don’t know what this is… listen… don’t go… look, don’t go…’

She was saying over and over again: ‘Keep your old woman… keep her… get yourself a ring made with her hair, her white hair… You’ve enough of it for that..’

With sharp, rapid movements she had dressed, put on her hat and tied the veil; and when he tried to grab hold of her she gave him a tremendous slap on the face. While he was standing there in a daze she opened the door and fled.

As soon as he was alone, he was overcome with rage at that old bitch Mme Walter. Oh, he would tell her where to go, that one, and in no uncertain fashion.

He sponged his red cheek with water. Then he, in his turn, left, pondering his revenge. He wouldn’t forgive her this time. No, definitely not!

He walked down as far as the boulevard, and, wandering along, stopped in front of a jeweller’s to look at a watch which he had long coveted, and which cost eighteen hundred francs.

He suddenly thought, his heart jumping with joy: ‘If I make my seventy thousand francs I’ll be able to treat myself to it.’ And he began dreaming of all the things he could do with those seventy thousand francs. First, he’d be elected a deputy. Then he would buy his watch, then he would gamble on the stock exchange, and then… and then…

He did not want to go to the newspaper, preferring to talk to Madeleine before seeing Walter again and writing his article; and so he set off for home.

He was nearing the Rue Drouot when he stopped dead; he had forgotten to enquire after the Comte de Vaudrec, who lived on the Chaussée-d’Antin. So he turned round, and, still strolling slowly along, in a happy reverie, let his mind dwell on a host of things, on delightful things and good things, on his approaching wealth, but also on that scoundrel Laroche and that old shrew Mme Walter. He did not, however, worry about Clotilde’s anger, knowing perfectly well that she would soon forgive him.

When he asked the concierge of the building where the Comte de Vaudrec lived: ‘How is M. de Vaudrec? I understand he’s been unwell these last few days,’ the man replied: ‘The count is very ill, Monsieur. They’re afraid he won’t last the night. The gout is affecting his heart.’

Du Roy felt so shocked that he couldn’t think what to do. Vaudrec dying! A mass of confused ideas shot through his mind, disturbing ideas that he did not dare admit to himself. He stammered: ‘Thank you… I’ll be back…’ without knowing what he was saying.

Then he jumped into a cab and had himself driven home.

His wife had returned. He rushed breathlessly into her room and immediately said to her: ‘You haven’t heard? Vaudrec’s dying!’

She was sitting reading a letter. She looked up and repeated three times: ‘Eh? What did you say?… What did you say?… What did you say?’

‘I said that Vaudrec’s dying, an attack of gout has affected his heart.’ Then he added: ‘What are you going to do?’

She had leapt to her feet, deathly pale, her cheeks trembling nervously, and began to sob in a heart-broken way, hiding her face in her hands. She went on standing there, shaken by sobs, rent by grief.

But, suddenly mastering her anguish, she wiped her eyes: ‘I’m… I’m going there… don’t worry about me… I don’t know what time I’ll be back… don’t wait for me…’

He replied: ‘All right, you go.’

They clasped hands, and she left so quickly that she forgot her gloves.

Georges, having dined alone, began writing his article. He did it exactly as the minister had wished, giving the reader the impression that the military expedition to Morocco would not take place. Then he took it to the newspaper, chatted for a few moments with the Director, and departed smoking a cigar and feeling cheerful, without knowing why.

His wife had not returned. He went to bed and slept.

Madeleine came back about midnight. Georges, awakening suddenly, sat up in bed. He asked: ‘Well?’

He had never seen her so pale and upset. She murmured: ‘He’s dead.’

‘Ah! And… he didn’t speak to you?’

‘No. He was unconscious when I arrived.’

Georges reflected. Questions came to his lips that he dared not voice.

‘Come to bed,’ he said.

She undressed quickly, and slipped in beside him.

He continued: ‘Was any of his family at his deathbed?’

‘Only a nephew.’

‘Oh! Did he see this nephew often?’

‘Never. They hadn’t met for ten years.’

‘Had he other relatives?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘So… it’s this nephew who’ll inherit?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was he very rich, Vaudrec?’

‘Very rich.’

‘Do you know, more or less, what he had?’

‘No, not really. One or two million, perhaps?’

He said nothing more. She blew out the candle. And they lay stretched out side by side in the night, not speaking, wide awake, thinking.

He no longer felt sleepy. The seventy thousand francs Mme Walter had promised now struck him as paltry. Suddenly he thought Madeleine was crying. He asked, to be certain:

‘Are you asleep?’

‘No.’

Her voice sounded tearful and tremulous. He went on: ‘I forgot to tell you just now that your minister’s cheated us.’

‘What do you mean?’

And he described to her, in full, with all the details, the scheme thought up by Laroche and Walter.

When he had finished, she asked: ‘How do you know this?’

He replied: ‘You must allow me not to tell you. You have your methods of getting information that I don’t enquire into. I have mine that I’d rather keep secret. In any event, I’m certain my information is correct.’

Then she murmured: ‘Yes… it’s possible… I suspected they were up to something without telling us.’

But Georges, who did not feel sleepy, had moved closer to his wife, and was gently kissing her ear. She pushed him away sharply: ‘Please will you leave me alone? I’m not in the mood for fooling about.’

He turned over resignedly, closed his eyes and, eventually, fell asleep.