Georges murmured: ‘An assignation.’ But as they passed through the conservatory, he again saw his wife, sitting close to Laroche-Mathieu, both of them almost hidden behind a clump of plants. They seemed to be saying: ‘We planned on meeting here, in public. Because we don’t care what people think.’
Mme de Marelle acknowledged that this Jesus of Karl Marco-witch’s was quite amazing; and they made their way back. They had lost the husband.
He asked: ‘And Laurine, is she still annoyed with me?’
‘Oh yes, still just as annoyed. She refuses to see you and always disappears when we talk about you.’
He made no reply. He was upset and troubled by the little girl’s sudden hostility.
Suzanne caught them as they turned through a doorway, crying: ‘Ah! Here you are! Well, Bel-Ami, you’re going to be left on your own. I’m stealing the lovely Clotilde to show her my room.’
And away went the two women, walking fast, slipping through the throng with that sinuous, serpentine movement that they know how to use in crowds.
Almost at the same moment, a voice murmured: ‘Georges.’ It was Mme Walter. She continued, very softly: ‘Oh, how horribly cruel you are! How you make me suffer needlessly. I told Suzanne to take your companion away, so that I could speak to you. Listen… I must… I must speak to you this evening… or else… or else… you don’t know what I’ll do. Go into the conservatory. There’s a door on the left, it will take you into the garden. Follow the path you see opposite. You’ll find an arbour at the end. Wait for me there in ten minutes; if you won’t, I swear I’ll make a scene, here, right now!’
He replied, haughtily: ‘Very well. I’ll be there, where you say, in ten minutes.’
And they parted. But Jacques Rival almost made him late. He had grasped him by the arm, and was telling him all sorts of things, his manner overexcited. He must have been patronizing the buffet. Finally Du Roy left him in the hands of M. de Marelle, whom he had run into again for a moment, and fled. He still had to take care not to be seen by his wife and Laroche. In this he was successful, for they appeared very involved with one another, and he found himself in the garden.
The cold air gripped him like an icy bath. He thought: ‘God, I’ll catch a chill,’ and tied his handkerchief round his neck like a cravat. Then he made his way slowly along the path, because he could not see clearly after the bright lights of the drawing-rooms.
To his right and left he could make out leafless shrubs with slender, quivering boughs. Greyish lights played on these branches, lights from the windows of the house. He saw something white in the middle of the path, ahead of him, and Mme Walter, wearing a short-sleeved, low-cut dress, stammered in a quavering voice:
‘Ah! Is it you? Do you want to kill me?’
He replied calmly: ‘I beg you, let’s not have a scene, all right? Or else I’m off, straight away.’
She had grabbed him round the neck, and, with her lips very close to his, was saying: ‘But what have I done to you? You’re treating me horribly. What have I done to you?’
He was trying to push her away: ‘You twisted your hair round all my buttons the last time I saw you, and that nearly caused a break-up between my wife and me.’
She seemed surprised and said, shaking her head: ‘Oh! As if your wife cared! It must have been one of your mistresses who made a scene.’
‘I haven’t any mistresses.’
‘Be quiet! Why don’t you even come and see me any more? Why won’t you have dinner at my house even just once a week? Oh, I’m going through such agonies; I love you so much that I can no longer think of anything but you, I can no longer look at anything without seeing you before my eyes, I no longer dare say anything, for fear of uttering your name! You can have no idea, Georges, what it’s like. I feel as if I’ve fallen into someone’s clutches, that I’m tied up in a sack, oh I don’t know. The memory of you is always with me, seizing me by the throat, tearing at something here, in my bosom, beneath my breast, making me so weak that I no longer have the strength to walk. And I just sit on a chair all day, like a half-wit, thinking of you.’
He stared at her in astonishment. This was no longer the clumsy, giddy girl he had known, but a frantic, desperate woman, capable of anything.
However a vague plan was taking shape in his mind. He replied: ‘My dear, love isn’t eternal. People come together, and then they part. But when it lasts, as it has with us, it becomes a terrible bore. I’ve had enough. That’s the truth. Still, if you can behave sensibly, receive me and treat me like a friend, I’ll come again, the way I used to. Do you think you can do that?’
Putting her bare arms on Georges’s black coat she murmured: ‘I can do anything, if it means seeing you.’
‘Then it’s agreed,’ he said, ‘we’re friends, nothing more.’
She stammered: ‘It’s agreed.’ Then, raising up her lips to his: ‘One more kiss… the last.’
Gently, he refused: ‘No. We must stick to our agreement.’
She turned, wiping away two tears, then, pulling out from the neck of her dress a packet of papers tied with a pink silk ribbon, she offered it to Du Roy: ‘Here. It’s your share of the profit from the Morocco venture. I was so happy to have made that for you. Here, go on, take it…’
He tried to refuse: ‘No, I won’t take that money!’
At that she protested: ‘Ah! You can’t do that to me, now! It belongs to you, no one else. If you don’t take it, I’ll throw it into a drain. You’re not going to do that to me, are you, Georges?’
He accepted the tiny packet and slipped it into his pocket. ‘We’d better go in,’ he said, ‘you’ll catch your death of cold.’
She murmured: ‘All the better! If I could die…’
She took his hand and kissed it passionately, fiercely, despairingly, then fled into the house.
He returned slowly; he was thinking. Then, with head held high and a smile on his lips, he went back into the conservatory.
His wife and Laroche were no longer there. The crowd had thinned. It was obvious that people would not be staying for the ball. He saw Suzanne, who was arm in arm with her sister. They both came up to him to ask him to dance the first quadrille with the Comte de Latour-Yvelin.
‘Whoever’s that?’ he asked in astonishment.
Suzanne replied maliciously: ‘A new friend of my sister’s.’
Blushing, Rose murmured: ‘You are naughty, Suzette, that gentleman’s no more my friend than yours.’
The other said with a smile: ‘I know what I know.’
Rose turned her back on them, annoyed, and moved away.
Grasping, in a familiar way, the elbow of the young girl who was still standing at his side, Du Roy said in a fond voice: ‘Listen, my dear little creature, do you believe that I’m really and truly your friend?’
‘Yes, I do, Bel-Ami.’
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Completely.’
‘Do you remember what I was saying to you just now?’
‘About what?’
‘About your marriage, or rather about the man you’ll marry.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well! Will you promise me something?’
‘Yes, what?’
‘To consult me every time someone asks for your hand, and not to accept anyone without having heard my advice.’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘And it’s a secret of ours. Not a word about it to your father or your mother.’
‘Not a word.’
‘You swear?’
‘I swear.’
Rival bustled up to them: ‘Mademoiselle, your father needs you for the ball.’
She said: ‘Come along, Bel-Ami.’
But he refused, deciding to leave immediately, for he wanted to be alone in order to think. Too many new things had come into his mind, and he began to look for his wife. After a while he caught sight of her, drinking chocolate at the buffet with two men he did not know. She introduced her husband to them, without telling him their n
ames.
He waited a moment or two then enquired: ‘Shall we leave?’
‘Whenever you wish.’
She took his arm and they walked back through the drawing-rooms, which were rapidly emptying.
She asked: ‘Where’s our hostess? I’d like to say goodbye.’
‘There’s no point. She’d try to make us stay for the ball and I’ve had enough.’
‘That’s true, you’re right.’
The whole way home they kept silent. But as soon as they were in their room, Madeleine, without even removing her veil, said to him with a smile:
‘There’s something you don’t know, I’ve a surprise for you.’
He grunted crossly: ‘What?’
‘Guess.’
‘I can’t be bothered.’
‘Well! It’s the 1st of January the day after tomorrow’
‘Yes.’
‘The time for presents.’
‘Yes.’
‘This is yours, which Laroche gave me just now.’
She handed him a small black box, like a jewel case.
He opened it unconcernedly, and saw the cross of the Legion of Honour. Turning a little pale, he smiled and said: ‘I would rather have had ten million. This doesn’t cost him much.’
She had expected him to be overjoyed, and was annoyed by this coolness. ‘You really are incredible. Nothing satisfies you now.’
He replied calmly: ‘That man’s only paying his debt. And he owes me a lot more.’
Astonished at his tone, she went on: ‘But it’s still wonderful, at your age.’
He declared: ‘Everything’s relative. I could have had more, today.’
He had picked up the case, and placed it, wide open, on the mantelpiece, gazing for a few seconds at the brilliant star that lay inside. Then he closed it again, and, shrugging his shoulders, got into bed.
Sure enough, L’Officiel* of the 1st of January carried the announcement that M. Prosper-Georges Du Roy, journalist, had been nominated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, in recognition of exceptional services.
The name was written in two words, which gave Georges greater pleasure than the decoration itself.
An hour after reading this news which was now public property, he received a note from Mme Walter begging him to come for dinner that very evening, with his wife, to celebrate this honour. He hesitated for a few moments, then, tossing the note, which was ambiguously worded, into the fire, he said to Madeleine: ‘Tonight we’re dining at the Walters’.’
She was astonished: ‘Goodness! But I thought you didn’t want to set foot there ever again?’
He simply said: ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
When they arrived, the Director’s wife was alone in the small Louis XVI sitting-room which she preferred for intimate little parties. Dressed in black, she had powdered her hair, which gave her a charming appearance. From a distance she looked old, from close up she looked young, and when you studied her closely, she looked like a pretty snare for the eye.
‘Are you in mourning?’ enquired Madeleine.
She replied sadly: ‘Yes and no. I haven’t lost any member of my family. But I’ve reached the age where one is in mourning for one’s life. I’m wearing black today, as a beginning. In future I shall wear it in my heart.’
Du Roy wondered: ‘Will that resolution last?’
The dinner was some what gloomy. Only Suzanne chattered incessantly. Rose seemed preoccupied. The journalist was much congratulated.
In the evening they wandered, chatting, through the drawing-rooms and the conservatory. When Du Roy was walking at the rear, beside his hostess, she took his arm and held him back.
‘Listen,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I’ll never again say anything to you. But come and see me, Georges. You can see that I’m no longer addressing you in an intimate way. It’s impossible for me to live without you, impossible. It’s unimaginable torture. I feel you, I keep you in my eyes, in my heart, in my flesh all day and all night long. It’s as if you’d made me drink a poison that was eating me away, inside. I can’t, no, I can’t. I’m willing to be simply an old woman, for you. I made my hair white to show you that, but come, come now and again, as a friend.’
She had taken his hand and was squeezing it, crushing it, digging her nails into his flesh.
He answered calmly: ‘Very well. There’s no need to speak of this again. As you can see, I came today, straight away, when I got your letter.’
Walter, who had gone ahead with his two daughters and Madeleine, was waiting for Du Roy beside Jesus Walking on the Water. ‘Just imagine,’ he said laughingly, ‘yesterday I found my wife kneeling in front of this picture as though she were in a chapel. She was saying her prayers. I did laugh!’
Mme Walter replied in a firm voice, in a voice that thrilled with secret exaltation: ‘It’s this Christ who will save my soul. He gives me courage and strength every time I look at him.’
And, halting in front of the God who was standing on the sea, she said softly: ‘How beautiful he is! How frightened these men are, and how they love him! Just look at his head, at his eyes, how he seems both simple and supernatural at the same time!’
Suzanne exclaimed: ‘But he looks like you, Bel-Ami. I’m positive he looks like you. If you had side-whiskers, or else if he were cleanshaven, you’d look just the same, the pair of you. Oh, but it’s quite striking!’
She made him stand beside the painting; and everybody agreed that the two faces were indeed alike!
They were all amazed. Walter thought it a most remarkable thing. Madeleine declared with a smile that Jesus had a more virile appearance. Mme Walter stood motionless, gazing fixedly at the face of her lover beside the face of Christ; she had turned as white as her white hair.
CHAPTER 8
During the remainder of the winter, the Du Roys visited the Walters often. Georges even dined there frequently on his own, when Madeleine said she was tired and would rather stay at home.
He had taken over Friday as his regular day, and the Director’s wife never invited anyone else that evening; it belonged to Bel-Ami, to him alone. After dinner they would play cards, or feed the Chinese fish, relaxing and entertaining themselves as a family. Several times, behind a door or a clump of shrubs in the conservatory, or in a dark corner, Mme Walter had suddenly seized the young man in her arms and, clasping him to her bosom with all her strength, had gasped into his ear: ‘I love you… I love you… I’m dying of love for you!…’ But he had always repulsed her coldly, his tone curt as he answered: ‘If you begin again, I won’t come here any more.’
Suddenly, towards the end of March, there was talk of marriage for both sisters. It was rumoured that Rose was to marry the Comte de Latour-Yvelin, and Suzanne the Marquis de Cazolles. These two men had become regular visitors to the house, visitors of the kind that are accorded special favours and obvious privileges.
Georges and Suzanne lived in a sort of fraternal, free intimacy, chatting for hours, making fun of everyone and apparently greatly enjoying each other’s company. They had never spoken again of the young girl’s possible marriage, nor of the suitors that were presenting themselves.
One day, when the Director had brought Du Roy home with him for lunch, Mme Walter was called away after the meal to deal with a tradesman. Georges said to Suzanne: ‘Let’s go and give the goldfish some bread.’
They each took a big chunk of soft bread from the table and went into the conservatory.
All round the alabaster basin, cushions lay on the ground for people to kneel on, so as to be nearer the fish as they swam. The young people each took a cushion and, leaning side by side over the water, began throwing in little pellets that they had rolled between their fingers. The second they caught sight of them, the fish came over, swishing their tails, flapping their fins, rolling their huge protruding eyes, spinning round, diving to snatch their spherical quarry as it sank and instantly coming back up to demand another one.
They did comic things with
their mouths, they gave sudden, rapid leaps, they had a strange appearance, like miniature monsters; and they stood out, fiery red against the golden sand of the bottom, as they passed like flames through the transparent water or displayed, the instant they stopped, the strip of blue that edged their scales.
Georges and Suzanne could see their own faces upside down in the water, and they smiled at their reflections.
Suddenly, he said in a low voice: ‘It isn’t nice to hide things from me, Suzanne.’
She asked: ‘What things, Bel-Ami?’
‘Don’t you remember what you promised me, on this very spot, the evening of the party?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘To consult me every time anyone asked for your hand.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, someone’s asked for it.’
‘Who?’
‘You know perfectly well.’
‘No. I swear I don’t.’
‘Yes, you do. That smug creature the Marquis de Cazolles.’
‘He’s not smug, for one thing.’
‘Perhaps not, but he is stupid, he’s been ruined by gambling and worn out by fast living. He really is a fine match for you, so pretty, so fresh, so intelligent.’
She asked with a smile: ‘What have you got against him?’
‘Me? Nothing.’
‘But there’s something. He’s not all that you say.’
‘Oh come on! He’s a fool and a schemer.’
She turned a little, no longer looking at the water: ‘Tell me, what’s the matter?’
He said, as if a secret was being wrenched from the bottom of his heart: ‘It’s… it’s… it’s that I’m jealous of him.’
She was somewhat surprised: ‘You?’
‘Yes, me!’
‘Goodness, why’s that?’
‘Because I’m in love with you, as you perfectly well know, you naughty creature!’
At that she said, her tone severe: ‘You must be crazy, Bel-Ami!’
He went on: ‘I’m well aware that I’m crazy. Ought I to admit this to you, I, a married man, to you, a young girl? I’m worse than crazy, I’m culpable, almost despicable. I’ve no possible hope, and I’m going out of my mind thinking about it. And when I hear it said that you’re going to be married, I’m overcome with rage, to the point where I could kill someone. You must forgive me for this, Suzanne!’ He fell silent. The fish, at which no more bread was being thrown, remained motionless, lined up almost perfectly like English soldiers, staring at the faces of those two people who, bending over the water, were no longer paying them any attention.