Bel Ami (A Ladies' Man)

by Guy de Maupassant

  X

  The Du Roys had been back in Paris a couple of days, and the journalisthad taken up his old work pending the moment when he should definitelyassume Forestier's duties, and give himself wholly up to politics. Hewas going home that evening to his predecessor's abode to dinner, with alight heart and a keen desire to embrace his wife, whose physicalattractions and imperceptible domination exercised a powerful impulseover him. Passing by a florist's at the bottom of the Rue Notre Dame deLorette, he was struck by the notion of buying a bouquet for Madeleine,and chose a large bunch of half-open roses, a very bundle of perfumedbuds.

  At each story of his new staircase he eyed himself complacently in themirrors, the sight of which continually recalled to him his first visitto the house. He rang the bell, having forgotten his key, and the sameman-servant, whom he had also kept on by his wife's advice, opened thedoor.

  "Has your mistress come home?" asked George.

  "Yes, sir."

  But on passing through the dining-room he was greatly surprised to findthe table laid for three, and the hangings of the drawing-room doorbeing looped up, saw Madeleine arranging in a vase on the mantelpiece abunch of roses exactly similar to his own. He was vexed and displeased;it was as though he had been robbed of his idea, his mark of attention,and all the pleasure he anticipated from it.

  "You have invited some one to dinner, then?" he inquired, as he enteredthe room.

  She answered without turning round, and while continuing to arrange theflowers: "Yes, and no. It is my old friend, the Count de Vaudrec, whohas been accustomed to dine here every Monday, and who has come asusual."

  George murmured: "Ah! very good."

  He remained standing behind her, bouquet in hand, with a longing to hideit or throw it away. He said, however: "I have brought you some roses."

  She turned round suddenly, smiling, and exclaimed: "Ah! how nice of youto have thought of that."

  And she held out her arms and lips to him with an outburst of joy soreal that he felt consoled. She took the flowers, smelt them, and withthe liveliness of a delighted child, placed them in the vase thatremained empty opposite the other. Then she murmured, as she viewed theresult: "How glad I am. My mantelpiece is furnished now." She addedalmost immediately, in a tone of conviction: "You know Vaudrec isawfully nice; you will be friends with him at once."

  A ring announced the Count. He entered quietly, and quite at his ease,as though at home. After having gallantly kissed the young wife'sfingers, he turned to the husband and cordially held out his hand,saying: "How goes it, my dear Du Roy?"

  It was no longer his former stiff and starched bearing, but an affableone, showing that the situation was no longer the same. The journalist,surprised, strove to make himself agreeable in response to theseadvances. It might have been believed within five minutes that they hadknown and loved one another for ten years past.

  Then Madeleine, whose face was radiant, said: "I will leave youtogether, I must give a look to my dinner." And she went out, followedby a glance from both men. When she returned she found them talkingtheatricals apropos of a new piece, and so thoroughly of the sameopinion that a species of rapid friendship awoke in their eyes at thediscovery of this absolute identity of ideas.

  The dinner was delightful, so intimate and cordial, and the Count stayedon quite late, so comfortable did he feel in this nice little newhousehold.

  As soon as he had left Madeleine said to her husband: "Is he notperfect? He gains in every way by being known. He is a truefriend--safe, devoted, faithful. Ah, without him--"

  She did not finish the sentence, and George replied: "Yes, I find himvery agreeable. I think that we shall get on very well together."

  She resumed: "You do not know, but we have some work to do togetherbefore going to bed. I had not time to speak to you about it beforedinner, because Vaudrec came in at once. I have had some important news,news from Morocco. It was Laroche-Mathieu, the deputy, the futureminister, who brought it to me. We must work up an important article, asensational one. I have the facts and figures. We will set to work atonce. Bring the lamp."

  He took it, and they passed into the study. The same books were rangedin the bookcase, which now bore on its summit the three vases bought atthe Golfe Juan by Forestier on the eve of his death. Under the table thedead man's mat awaited the feet of Du Roy, who, on sitting down, took upan ivory penholder slightly gnawed at the end by the other's teeth.Madeleine leant against the mantelpiece, and having lit a cigaretterelated her news, and then explained her notions and the plan of thearticle she meditated. He listened attentively, scribbling notes as hedid so, and when she had finished, raised objections, took up thequestion again, enlarged its bearing, and sketched in turn, not the planof an article, but of a campaign against the existing Ministry. Thisattack would be its commencement. His wife had left off smoking, sostrongly was her interest aroused, so vast was the vision that openedbefore her as she followed out George's train of thought.

  She murmured, from time to time: "Yes, yes; that is very good. That iscapital. That is very clever."

  And when he had finished speaking in turn, she said: "Now let us write."

  But he always found it hard to make a start, and with difficulty soughthis expressions. Then she came gently, and, leaning over his shoulder,began to whisper sentences in his ear. From time to time she wouldhesitate, and ask: "Is that what you want to say?"

  He answered: "Yes, exactly."

  She had piercing shafts, the poisoned shafts of a woman, to wound thehead of the Cabinet, and she blended jests about his face with othersrespecting his policy in a curious fashion, that made one laugh, and, atthe same time, impressed one by their truth of observation.

  Du Roy from time to time added a few lines which widened andstrengthened the range of attack. He understood, too, the art ofperfidious insinuation, which he had learned in sharpening up his"Echoes"; and when a fact put forward as certain by Madeleine appeareddoubtful or compromising, he excelled in allowing it to be divined andin impressing it upon the mind more strongly than if he had affirmed it.When their article was finished, George read it aloud. They both thoughtit excellent, and smiled, delighted and surprised, as if they had justmutually revealed themselves to one another. They gazed into the depthsof one another's eyes with yearnings of love and admiration, and theyembraced one another with an ardor communicated from their minds totheir bodies.

  Du Roy took up the lamp again. "And now to bye-bye," said he, with a

  kindling glance.

  She replied: "Go first, sir, since you light the way."

  He went first, and she followed him into their bedroom, tickling hisneck to make him go quicker, for he could not stand that.

  The article appeared with the signature of George Duroy de Cantel, andcaused a great sensation. There was an excitement about it in theChamber. Daddy Walter congratulated the author, and entrusted him withthe political editorship of the _Vie Francaise_. The "Echoes" fell againto Boisrenard.

  Then there began in the paper a violent and cleverly conducted campaignagainst the Ministry. The attack, now ironical, now serious, nowjesting, and now virulent, but always skillful and based on facts, wasdelivered with a certitude and continuity which astonished everyone.Other papers continually cited the _Vie Francaise_, taking wholepassages from it, and those in office asked themselves whether theycould not gag this unknown and inveterate foe with the gift of aprefecture.

  Du Roy became a political celebrity. He felt his influence increasing bythe pressure of hands and the lifting of hats. His wife, too, filled himwith stupefaction and admiration by the ingenuity of her mind, the valueof her information, and the number of her acquaintances. Continually hewould find in his drawing-room, on returning home, a senator, a deputy,a magistrate, a general, who treated Madeleine as an old friend, withserious familiarity. Where had she met all these people? In society, soshe said. But how had she been able to gain their confidence and theiraffection? He could not understand it.

  "She would make
a terrible diplomatist," he thought.

  She often came in late at meal times, out of breath, flushed, quivering,and before even taking off her veil would say: "I have something goodto-day. Fancy, the Minister of Justice has just appointed twomagistrates who formed a part of the mixed commission. We will give hima dose he will not forget in a hurry."

  And they would give the minister a dose, and another the next day, anda third the day after. The deputy, Laroche-Mathieu, who dined at the RueFontaine every Tuesday, after the Count de Vaudrec, who began the week,would shake the hands of husband and wife with demonstrations of extremejoy. He never ceased repeating: "By Jove, what a campaign! If we don'tsucceed after all?"

  He hoped, indeed, to succeed in getting hold of the portfolio of foreignaffairs, which he had had in view for a long time.

  He was one of those many-faced politicians, without strong convictions,without great abilities, without boldness, and without any depth ofknowledge, a provincial barrister, a local dandy, preserving a cunningbalance between all parties, a species of Republican Jesuit and Liberalmushroom of uncertain character, such as spring up by hundreds on thepopular dunghill of universal suffrage. His village machiavelism causedhim to be reckoned able among his colleagues, among all the adventurersand abortions who are made deputies. He was sufficiently well-dressed,correct, familiar, and amiable to succeed. He had his successes insociety, in the mixed, perturbed, and somewhat rough society of the highfunctionaries of the day. It was said everywhere of him: "Laroche willbe a minister," and he believed more firmly than anyone else that hewould be. He was one of the chief shareholders in Daddy Walter's paper,and his colleague and partner in many financial schemes.

  Du Roy backed him up with confidence and with vague hopes as to thefuture. He was, besides, only continuing the work begun by Forestier, towhom Laroche-Mathieu had promised the Cross of the Legion of Honor whenthe day of triumph should come. The decoration would adorn the breast ofMadeleine's second husband, that was all. Nothing was changed in themain.

  It was seen so well that nothing was changed that Du Roy's comradesorganized a joke against him, at which he was beginning to grow angry.They no longer called him anything but Forestier. As soon as he enteredthe office some one would call out: "I say, Forestier."

  He would pretend not to hear, and would look for the letters in hispigeon-holes. The voice would resume in louder tones, "Hi! Forestier."Some stifled laughs would be heard, and as Du Roy was entering themanager's room, the comrade who had called out would stop him, saying:"Oh, I beg your pardon, it is you I want to speak to. It is stupid, butI am always mixing you up with poor Charles. It is because your articlesare so infernally like his. Everyone is taken in by them."

  Du Roy would not answer, but he was inwardly furious, and a sullen wrathsprang up in him against the dead man. Daddy Walter himself haddeclared, when astonishment was expressed at the flagrant similarity instyle and inspiration between the leaders of the new political editorand his predecessor: "Yes, it is Forestier, but a fuller, stronger, moremanly Forestier."

  Another time Du Roy, opening by chance the cupboard in which the cup andballs were kept, had found all those of his predecessor with crape roundthe handles, and his own, the one he had made use of when he practicedunder the direction of Saint-Potin, ornamented with a pink ribbon. Allhad been arranged on the same shelf according to size, and a card likethose in museums bore the inscription: "The Forestier-Du Roy (lateForestier and Co.) Collection." He quietly closed the cupboard, saying,in tones loud enough to be heard: "There are fools and envious peopleeverywhere."

  But he was wounded in his pride, wounded in his vanity, that touchypride and vanity of the writer, which produce the nervous susceptibilityever on the alert, equally in the reporter and the genial poet. The word"Forestier" made his ears tingle. He dreaded to hear it, and felthimself redden when he did so. This name was to him a biting jest, morethan a jest, almost an insult. It said to him: "It is your wife who doesyour work, as she did that of the other. You would be nothing withouther."

  He admitted that Forestier would have been no one without Madeleine; butas to himself, come now!

  Then, at home, the haunting impression continued. It was the whole placenow that recalled the dead man to him, the whole of the furniture, thewhole of the knicknacks, everything he laid hands on. He had scarcelythought of this at the outset, but the joke devised by his comrades hadcaused a kind of mental wound, which a number of trifles, unnoticed upto the present, now served to envenom. He could not take up anythingwithout at once fancying he saw the hand of Charles upon it. He onlylooked at it and made use of things the latter had made use of formerly;things that he had purchased, liked, and enjoyed. And George began evento grow irritated at the thought of the bygone relations between hisfriend and his wife. He was sometimes astonished at this revolt of hisheart, which he did not understand, and said to himself, "How the deuceis it? I am not jealous of Madeleine's friends. I am never uneasy aboutwhat she is up to. She goes in and out as she chooses, and yet therecollection of that brute of a Charles puts me in a rage." He added,"At the bottom, he was only an idiot, and it is that, no doubt, thatwounds me. I am vexed that Madeleine could have married such a fool."And he kept continually repeating, "How is it that she could havestomached such a donkey for a single moment?"

  His rancor was daily increased by a thousand insignificant details,which stung him like pin pricks, by the incessant reminders of the otherarising out of a word from Madeleine, from the man-servant, from thewaiting-maid.

  One evening Du Roy, who liked sweet dishes, said, "How is it we neverhave sweets at dinner?"

  His wife replied, cheerfully, "That is quite true. I never think aboutthem. It is all through Charles, who hated--"

  He cut her short in a fit of impatience he was unable to control,exclaiming, "Hang it all! I am sick of Charles. It is always Charleshere and Charles there, Charles liked this and Charles liked that. SinceCharles is dead, for goodness sake leave him in peace."

  Madeleine looked at her husband in amazement, without being able tounderstand his sudden anger. Then, as she was sharp, she guessed whatwas going on within him; this slow working of posthumous jealousy,swollen every moment by all that recalled the other. She thought itpuerile, may be, but was flattered by it, and did not reply.

  He was vexed with himself at this irritation, which he had not beenable to conceal. As they were writing after dinner an article for thenext day, his feet got entangled in the foot mat. He kicked it aside,and said with a laugh:

  "Charles was always chilly about the feet, I suppose?"

  She replied, also laughing: "Oh! he lived in mortal fear of catchingcold; his chest was very weak."

  Du Roy replied grimly: "He has given us a proof of that." Then kissinghis wife's hand, he added gallantly: "Luckily for me."

  But on going to bed, still haunted by the same idea, he asked: "DidCharles wear nightcaps for fear of the draughts?"

  She entered into the joke, and replied: "No; only a silk handkerchieftied round his head."

  George shrugged his shoulders, and observed, with contempt, "What ababy."

  From that time forward Charles became for him an object of continualconversation. He dragged him in on all possible occasions, speaking ofhim as "Poor Charles," with an air of infinite pity. When he returnedhome from the office, where he had been accosted twice or thrice asForestier, he avenged himself by bitter railleries against the dead manin his tomb. He recalled his defects, his absurdities, his littleness,enumerating them with enjoyment, developing and augmenting them asthough he had wished to combat the influence of a dreaded rival over theheart of his wife. He would say, "I say, Made, do you remember the daywhen that duffer Forestier tried to prove to us that stout men werestronger than spare ones?"

  Then he sought to learn a number of private and secret detailsrespecting the departed, which his wife, ill at ease, refused to tellhim. But he obstinately persisted, saying, "Come, now, tell me all aboutit. He must have been very comical at such a t
ime?"

  She murmured, "Oh! do leave him alone."

  But he went on, "No, but tell me now, he must have been a duffer tosleep with?" And he always wound up with, "What a donkey he was."

  One evening, towards the end of June, as he was smoking a cigarette atthe window, the fineness of the evening inspired him with a wish for adrive, and he said, "Made, shall we go as far as the Bois de Boulogne?"

  "Certainly."

  They took an open carriage and drove up the Champs Elysees, and thenalong the main avenue of the Bois de Boulogne. It was a breezelessnight, one of those stifling nights when the overheated air of Parisfills the chest like the breath of a furnace. A host of carriages borealong beneath the trees a whole population of lovers. They came onebehind the other in an unbroken line. George and Madeleine amusedthemselves with watching all these couples, the woman in summer toiletand the man darkly outlined beside her. It was a huge flood of loverstowards the Bois, beneath the starry and heated sky. No sound was heard

  save the dull rumble of wheels. They kept passing by, two by two in eachvehicle, leaning back on the seat, silent, clasped one against theother, lost in dreams of desire, quivering with the anticipation ofcoming caresses. The warm shadow seemed full of kisses. A sense ofspreading lust rendered the air heavier and more suffocating. All thecouples, intoxicated with the same idea, the same ardor, shed a feverabout them.

  George and Madeleine felt the contagion. They clasped hands without aword, oppressed by the heaviness of the atmosphere and the emotion thatassailed them. As they reached the turning which follows the line of thefortification, they kissed one another, and she stammered somewhatconfusedly, "We are as great babies as on the way to Rouen."

  The great flood of vehicles divided at the entrance of the wood. On theroad to the lake, which the young couple were following, they were nowthinner, but the dark shadow of the trees, the air freshened by theleaves and by the dampness arising from the streamlets that could beheard flowing beneath them, and the coolness of the vast nocturnal vaultbedecked with stars, gave to the kisses of the perambulating pairs amore penetrating charm.

  George murmured, "Dear little Made," as he pressed her to him.

  "Do you remember the forest close to your home, how gloomy it was?" saidshe. "It seemed to me that it was full of horrible creatures, and thatthere was no end to it, while here it is delightful. One feels caressesin the breeze, and I know that Sevres lies on the other side of thewood."

  He replied, "Oh! in the forest at home there was nothing but deer,foxes, and wild boars, and here and there the hut of a forester."

  This word, akin to the dead man's name, issuing from his mouth,surprised him just as if some one had shouted it out to him from thedepths of a thicket, and he became suddenly silent, assailed anew bythe strange and persistent uneasiness, and gnawing, invincible, jealousirritation that had been spoiling his existence for some time past.After a minute or so, he asked: "Did you ever come here like this of anevening with Charles?"

  "Yes, often," she answered.

  And all of a sudden he was seized with a wish to return home, a nervousdesire that gripped him at the heart. But the image of Forestier hadreturned to his mind and possessed and laid hold of him. He could nolonger speak or think of anything else and said in a spiteful tone, "Isay, Made?"

  "Yes, dear."

  "Did you ever cuckold poor Charles?"

  She murmured disdainfully, "How stupid you are with your stock joke."

  But he would not abandon the idea.

  "Come, Made, dear, be frank and acknowledge it. You cuckolded him, eh?Come, admit that you cuckolded him?"

  She was silent, shocked as all women are by this expression.

  He went on obstinately, "Hang it all, if ever anyone had the head for acuckold it was he. Oh! yes. It would please me to know that he was one.What a fine head for horns." He felt that she was smiling at somerecollection, perhaps, and persisted, saying, "Come out with it. Whatdoes it matter? It would be very comical to admit that you had deceivedhim, to me."

  He was indeed quivering with hope and desire that Charles, the hatefulCharles, the detested dead, had borne this shameful ridicule. Andyet--yet--another emotion, less definite. "My dear little Made, tell me,I beg of you. He deserved it. You would have been wrong not to havegiven him a pair of horns. Come, Made, confess."

  She now, no doubt, found this persistence amusing, for she was laughinga series of short, jerky laughs.

  He had put his lips close to his wife's ear and whispered: "Come, come,confess."

  She jerked herself away, and said, abruptly: "You are crazy. As if oneanswered such questions."

  She said this in so singular a tone that a cold shiver ran through herhusband's veins, and he remained dumbfounded, scared, almost breathless,as though from some mental shock.

  The carriage was now passing along the lake, on which the sky seemed tohave scattered its stars. Two swans, vaguely outlined, were swimmingslowly, scarcely visible in the shadow. George called out to the driver:"Turn back!" and the carriage returned, meeting the others going at awalk, with their lanterns gleaming like eyes in the night.

  What a strange manner in which she had said it. Was it a confession? DuRoy kept asking himself. And the almost certainty that she had deceivedher first husband now drove him wild with rage. He longed to beat her,to strangle her, to tear her hair out. Oh, if she had only replied: "Butdarling, if I had deceived him, it would have been with yourself," howhe would have kissed, clasped, worshiped her.

  He sat still, his arms crossed, his eyes turned skyward, his mind tooagitated to think as yet. He only felt within him the rancor fermentingand the anger swelling which lurk at the heart of all mankind inpresence of the caprices of feminine desire. He felt for the first timethat vague anguish of the husband who suspects. He was jealous at last,jealous on behalf of the dead, jealous on Forestier's account, jealousin a strange and poignant fashion, into which there suddenly entered ahatred of Madeleine. Since she had deceived the other, how could he haveconfidence in her himself? Then by degrees his mind became calmer, andbearing up against his pain, he thought: "All women are prostitutes. Wemust make use of them, and not give them anything of ourselves." Thebitterness in his heart rose to his lips in words of contempt anddisgust. He repeated to himself: "The victory in this world is to thestrong. One must be strong. One must be above all prejudices."

  The carriage was going faster. It repassed the fortifications. Du Roysaw before him a reddish light in the sky like the glow of an immenseforge, and heard a vast, confused, continuous rumor, made up ofcountless different sounds, the breath of Paris panting this summernight like an exhausted giant.

  George reflected: "I should be very stupid to fret about it. Everyonefor himself. Fortune favors the bold. Egotism is everything. Egotism asregards ambition and fortune is better than egotism as regards woman andlove."

  The Arc de Triomphe appeared at the entrance to the city on its two tallsupports like a species of shapeless giant ready to start off and marchdown the broad avenue open before him. George and Madeleine foundthemselves once more in the stream of carriages bearing homeward andbedwards the same silent and interlaced couples. It seemed that thewhole of humanity was passing by intoxicated with joy, pleasure, andhappiness. The young wife, who had divined something of what was passingthrough her husband's mind, said, in her soft voice: "What are youthinking of, dear? You have not said a word for the last half hour."

  He answered, sneeringly: "I was thinking of all these fools cuddling oneanother, and saying to myself that there is something else to do inlife."

  She murmured: "Yes, but it is nice sometimes."

  "It is nice--when one has nothing better to do."

  George's thoughts were still hard at it, stripping life of its poesy ina kind of spiteful anger. "I should be very foolish to trouble myself,to deprive myself of anything whatever, to worry as I have done for sometime past." Forestier's image crossed his mind without causing anyirritation. It seemed to him that they had j
ust been reconciled, thatthey had become friends again. He wanted to cry out: "Good evening, oldfellow."

  Madeleine, to whom this silence was irksome, said: "Suppose we have anice at Tortoni's before we go in."

  He glanced at her sideways. Her fine profile was lit up by the brightlight from the row of gas jets of a cafe. He thought, "She is pretty.Well, so much the better. Jack is as good as his master, my dear. But ifever they catch me worrying again about you, it will be hot at the NorthPole." Then he replied aloud: "Certainly, my dear," and in order thatshe should not guess anything, he kissed her.

  It seemed to the young wife that her husband's lips were frozen. Hesmiled, however, with his wonted smile, as he gave her his hand toalight in front of the cafe.