drop of burning liquor flowing down her throat gave her the pleasure of a naughty and forbidden joy.
Then she would say, “Let us go,” and they would leave. She would pass rapidly, with bent head and the short steps of an actress leaving the stage, among the drinkers, who, with their elbows on the tables, watched her go by with suspicious and dissatisfied glances; and when she had crossed the threshold would give a deep sigh, as if she had just escaped some terrible danger.
Sometimes she asked Duroy, with a shudder: “If I were insulted in these places, what would you do?”
He would answer, with a swaggering air: “Take your part, by Jove!”
And she would clasp his arm with happiness, with, perhaps, a vague wish to be insulted and defended, to see men fight on her account, even such men as those, with her lover.
But these excursions taking place two or three times a week began to weary Duroy, who had great difficulty, besides, for some time past, in procuring the ten francs necessary for the cake and the drinks. He now lived very hardly and with more difficulty than when he was a clerk in the Northern Railway; for having spent lavishly during his first month of journalism, in the constant hope of gaining large sums of money in a day or two, he had exhausted all his resources and all means of procuring money. A very simple method, that of borrowing from the cashier, was very soon exhausted; and he already owed the paper four months’ salary, besides six hundred francs advanced on his lineage account. He owed, besides, a hundred francs to Forestier, three hundred to Jacques Rival, who was free-handed with his money; and he was also eaten up by a number of small debts of from five francs to twenty. Saint-Potin, consulted as to the means of raising another hundred francs, had discovered no expedient, although a man of inventive mind, and Duroy was exasperated at this poverty, of which he was more sensible now than formerly, since he had more wants. A sullen rage against everyone smouldered within him, with an ever-increasing irritation, which manifested itself at every moment on the most futile pretexts. He sometimes asked himself how he could have spent an average of a thousand francs a month, without any excess and the gratification of any extravagant fancy, and he found that, by adding a lunch at eight francs to a dinner at twelve, partaken of in some large café on the boulevards, he at once came to a louis, which, added to ten francs pocket-money — that pocket-money that melts away, one does not know how — makes a total of thirty francs. But thirty francs a day is nine hundred francs at the end of the month. And he did not reckon in the cost of clothes, boots, linen, washing, etc.
So on the 14th December he found himself without a sou in his pocket, and without a notion in his mind how to get any money. He went, as he had often done of old, without lunch, and passed the afternoon working at the newspaper office, angry and preoccupied. About four o’clock he received a telegram from his mistress, running: “Shall we dine together, and have a lark afterwards?”
He at once replied: “Cannot dine.” Then he reflected that he would be very stupid to deprive himself of the pleasant moments she might afford him, and added: “But will wait at nine at our place.” And having sent one of the messengers with this, to save the cost of a telegram, he began to reflect what he should do to procure himself a dinner.
At seven o’clock he had not yet hit upon anything and a terrible hunger assailed him. Then he had recourse to the stratagem of a despairing man. He let all his colleagues depart, one after the other, and when he was alone rang sharply. Monsieur Walter’s messenger, left in charge of the offices, came in. Duroy was standing feeling in his pockets, and said in an abrupt voice: “Foucart, I have left my purse at home, and I have to go and dine at the Luxembourg. Lend me fifty sous for my cab.”
The man took three francs from his waistcoat pocket and said: “Do you want any more, sir?”
“No, no, that will be enough. Thanks.”
And having seized on the coins, Duroy ran downstairs and dined at a slap-bank, to which he drifted on his days of poverty.
At nine o’clock he was awaiting his mistress, with his feet on the fender, in the little sitting-room. She came in, lively and animated, brisked up by the keen air of the street. “If you like,” said she, “we will first go for a stroll, and then come home here at eleven. The weather is splendid for walking.”
He replied, in a grumbling tone: “Why go out? We are very comfortable here.”
She said, without taking off her bonnet: “If you knew, the moonlight is beautiful. It is splendid walking about tonight.”
“Perhaps so, but I do not care for walking about!”
He had said this in an angry fashion. She was struck and hurt by it, and asked: “What is the matter with you? Why do you go on in this way? I should like to go for a stroll, and I don’t see how that can vex you.”
He got up in a rage. “It does not vex me. It is a bother, that is all.”
She was one of those sort of women whom resistance irritates and impoliteness exasperates, and she said disdainfully and with angry calm: “I am not accustomed to be spoken to like that. I will go alone, then. Goodbye.”
He understood that it was serious, and darting towards her, seized her hands and kissed them, saying: “Forgive me, darling, forgive me. I am very nervous this evening, very irritable. I have had vexations and annoyances, you know — matters of business.”
She replied, somewhat softened, but not calmed down: “That does not concern me, and I will not bear the consequences of your ill-temper.”
He took her in his arms, and drew her towards the couch.
“Listen, darling, I did not want to hurt you; I was not thinking of what I was saying.”
He had forced her to sit down, and, kneeling before her, went on: “Have you forgiven me? Tell me you have forgiven me?”
She murmured, coldly: “Very well, but do not do so again;” and rising, she added: “Now let us go for a stroll.”
He had remained at her feet, with his arms clasped about her hips, and stammered: “Stay here, I beg of you. Grant me this much. I should so like to keep you here this evening all to myself, here by the fire. Say yes, I beg of you, say yes.”
She answered plainly and firmly: “No, I want to go out, and I am not going to give way to your fancies.”
He persisted. “I beg of you, I have a reason, a very serious reason.”
She said again: “No; and if you won’t go out with me, I shall go. Goodbye.”
She had freed herself with a jerk, and gained the door. He ran towards her, and clasped her in his arms, crying:
“Listen, Clo, my little Clo; listen, grant me this much.”
She shook her head without replying, avoiding his kisses, and striving to escape from his grasp and go.
He stammered: “Clo, my little Clo, I have a reason.”
She stopped, and looking him full in the face, said: “You are lying. What is it?”
He blushed not knowing what to say, and she went on in an indignant tone: “You see very well that you are lying, you low brute.” And with an angry gesture and tears in her eyes, she escaped him.
He again caught her
