Bel Ami

XVIII

It was dark in the little suite of rooms in the Rue de Constantinople; for George Du Roy and Clotilde de Marelle, having met at the door, had gone in at once, and she had said to him, without giving him time to open the Venetian blinds: "So you are going to marry Susan Walter?"

He admitted it quietly, and added: "Did not you know it?"

She exclaimed, standing before him, furious and indignant:

"You are going to marry Susan Walter? That is too much of a good thing. For three months you have been humbugging in order to hide that from me. Everyone knew it but me. It was my husband who told me of it."

Du Roy began to laugh, though somewhat confused all the same; and having placed his hat on a corner of the mantel-shelf, sat down in an armchair. She looked at him straight in the face, and said, in a low and irritated tone: "Ever since you left your wife you have been preparing this move, and you only kept me on as a mistress to fill up the interim nicely. What a rascal you are!"

He asked: "Why so? I had a wife who deceived me. I caught her, I obtained a divorce, and I am going to marry another. What could be simpler?"

She murmured, quivering: "Oh! how cunning and dangerous you are."

He began to smile again. "By Jove! Simpletons and fools are always someone's dupes."

But she continued to follow out her idea: "I ought to have divined your nature from the beginning. But no, I could not believe that you could be such a blackguard as that."

He assumed an air of dignity, saying: "I beg of you to pay attention to the words you are making use of."

His indignation revolted her. "What? You want me to put on gloves to talk to you now. You have behaved towards me like a vagabond ever since I have known you, and you want to make out that I am not to tell you so. You deceive everyone; you take advantage of everyone; you filch money and enjoyment wherever you can, and you want me to treat you as an honest man!"

He rose, and with quivering lip, said: "Be quiet, or I will turn you out of here."

She stammered: "Turn me out of here; turn me out of here! You will turn me out of here – you – you?" She could not speak for a moment for choking with anger, and then suddenly, as though the door of her wrath had been burst open, she broke out with: "Turn me out of here? You forget, then, that it is I who have paid for these rooms from the beginning. Ah, yes, you have certainly taken them on from time to time. But who first took them? I did. Who kept them on? I did. And you want to turn me out of here. Hold your tongue, you good-for-nothing fellow. Do you think I don't know you robbed Madeleine of half Vaudrec's money? Do you think I don't know how you slept with Susan to oblige her to marry you?"

He seized her by the shoulders, and, shaking her with both hands, exclaimed: "Don't speak of her, at any rate. I won't have it."

She screamed out: "You slept with her; I know you did."

He would have accepted no matter what, but this falsehood exasperated him. The truths she had told him to his face had caused thrills of anger to run through him, but this lie respecting the young girl who was going to be his wife, awakened in the palm of his hand a furious longing to strike her.

He repeated: "Be quiet – have a care – be quiet," and shook her as we shake a branch to make the fruit fall.

She yelled, with her hair coming down, her mouth wide open, her eyes aglow: "You slept with her!"

He let her go, and gave her such a smack on the face that she fell down beside the wall. But she turned towards him, and raising herself on her hands, once more shouted: "You slept with her!"

He rushed at her, and, holding her down, struck her as though striking a man. She left off shouting, and began to moan beneath his blows. She no longer stirred, but hid her face against the bottom of the wall and uttered plaintive cries. He left off beating her and rose up. Then he walked about the room a little to recover his coolness, and, an idea occurring to him, went into the bedroom, filled the basin with cold water, and dipped his head into it. Then he washed his hands and came back to see what she was doing, carefully wiping his fingers. She had not budged. She was still lying on the ground quietly weeping.

"Shall you have done grizzling soon?"

She did not answer. He stood in the middle of the room, feeling somewhat awkward and ashamed in the presence of the form stretched out before him. All at once he formed a resolution, and took his hat from the mantel-shelf, saying: "Good-night. Give the key to the doorkeeper when you leave. I shan't wait for your convenience."

He went out, closed the door, went to the doorkeeper's, and said: "Madame is still there. She will be leaving in a few minutes. Tell the landlord that I give notice to leave at the end of September. It is the 15th of August, so I am within the limits."

And he walked hastily away, for he had some pressing calls to make touching the purchase of the last wedding gifts.

The wedding was fixed for the 20th of October after the meeting of the Chambers. It was to take place at the Church of the Madeleine. There had been a great deal of gossip about it without anyone knowing the exact truth. Different tales were in circulation. It was whispered that an elopement had taken place, but no one was certain about anything. According to the servants, Madame Walter, who would no longer speak to her future son-in-law, had poisoned herself out of rage the very evening the match was decided on, after having taken her daughter off to a convent at midnight. She had been brought back almost dead. Certainly, she would never get over it. She had now the appearance of an old woman; her hair had become quite gray, and she had gone in for religion, taking the Sacrament every Sunday.

At the beginning of September the Vie Francaise announced that the Baron Du Roy de Cantel had become chief editor, Monsieur Walter retaining the title of manager. A battalion of well-known writers, reporters, political editors, art and theatrical critics, detached from old important papers by dint of monetary influence, were taken on. The old journalists, the serious and respectable ones, no longer shrugged their shoulders when speaking of the Vie Francaise. Rapid and complete success had wiped out the contempt of serious writers for the beginnings of this paper.

The marriage of its chief editor was what is styled a Parisian event, George Du Roy and the Walters having excited a great deal of curiosity for some time past. All the people who are written about in the papers promised themselves to be there.

The event took place on a bright autumn day.

At eight in the morning the sight of the staff of the Madeleine stretching a broad red carpet down the lofty flight of steps overlooking the Rue Royale caused passers-by to pause, and announced to the people of Paris that an important ceremony was about to take place. The clerks on the way to their offices, the work-girls, the shopmen, paused, looked, and vaguely speculated about the rich folk who spent so much money over getting spliced. Towards ten o'clock idlers began to halt. They would remain for a few minutes, hoping that perhaps it would begin at once, and then moved away. At eleven squads of police arrived and set to work almost at once to make the crowd move on, groups forming every moment. The first guests soon made their appearance – those who wanted to be well placed for seeing everything. They took the chairs bordering the main aisles. By degrees came others, ladies in rustling silks, and serious-looking gentlemen, almost all bald, walking with well-bred air, and graver than usual in this locality.

The church slowly filled. A flood of sunlight entered by the huge doorway lit up the front row of guests. In the choir, which looked somewhat gloomy, the altar, laden with tapers, shed a yellow light, pale and humble in face of that of the main entrance. People recognized one another, beckoned to one another, and gathered in groups. The men of letters, less respectful than the men in society, chatted in low tones and looked at the ladies.

Norbert de Varenne, who was looking out for an acquaintance, perceived Jacques Rival near the center of the rows of chair, and joined him. "Well," said he, "the race is for the cunning."

The other, who was not envious, replied: "So much the better for him. His career is safe." And they began to point out the people they recognized.

"Do you know what became of his wife?" asked Rival.

The poet smiled. "Yes, and no. She is living in a very retired style, I am told, in the Montmartre district. But – there is a but – I have noticed for some time past in the Plume some political articles terribly like those of Forestier and Du Roy. They are by Jean Le Dal, a handsome, intelligent young fellow, of the same breed as our friend George, and who has made the acquaintance of his late wife. From whence I conclude that she had, and always will have, a fancy for beginners. She is, besides, rich. Vaudrec and Laroche-Mathieu were not assiduous visitors at the house for nothing."

Rival observed: "She is not bad looking, Madeleine. Very clever and very sharp. She must be charming on terms of intimacy. But, tell me, how is it that Du Roy comes to be married in church after a divorce?"

Norbert replied: "He is married in church because, in the eyes of the Church, he was not married before."

"How so?"

"Our friend, Pretty-boy, from indifference or economy, thought the registrar sufficient when marrying Madeleine Forestier. He therefore dispensed with the ecclesiastical benediction, which constituted in the eyes of Holy Mother Church a simple state of concubinage. Consequently he comes before her to-day as a bachelor, and she lends him all her pomp and ceremony, which will cost Daddy Walter a pretty penny."

The murmur of the augmented throng swelled beneath the vaulted room. Voices could be heard speaking almost out loud. People pointed out to one another celebrities who attitudinized, pleased to be seen, and carefully maintained the bearing adopted by them towards the public accustomed to exhibit themselves thus at all such gatherings, of which they were, it seemed to them, the indispensable ornaments.

Rival resumed: "Tell me, my dear fellow, you who go so often to the governor's, is it true that Du Roy and Madame Walter no longer speak to one another?"

"Never. She did not want to give him the girl. But he had a hold, it seems, on the father through skeletons in the house – skeletons connected with the Morocco business. He threatened the old man with frightful revelations. Walter recollected the example he made of Laroche-Mathieu, and gave in at once. But the mother, obstinate like all women, swore that she would never again speak a word to her son-in-law. She looks like a statue, a statue of Vengeance, and he is very uneasy at it, although he puts a good face on the matter, for he knows how to control himself, that fellow does."

Fellow-journalists came up and shook hands with them. Bits of political conversation could be caught. Vague as the sound of a distant sea, the noise of the crowd massed in front of the church entered the doorway with the sunlight, and rose up beneath the roof, above the more discreet murmur of the choicer public gathered within it.

All at once the beadle struck the pavement thrice with the butt of his halberd. Every one turned round with a prolonged rustling of skirts and a moving of chairs. The bride appeared on her father's arm in the bright light of the doorway.

She had still the air of a doll, a charming white doll crowned with orange flowers. She stood for a few moments on the threshold, then, when she made her first step up the aisle, the organ gave forth a powerful note, announcing the entrance of the bride in loud metallic tones. She advanced with bent head, but not timidly; vaguely moved, pretty, charming, a miniature bride. The women smiled and murmured as they watched her pass. The men muttered: "Exquisite! Adorable!" Monsieur Walter walked with exaggerated dignity, somewhat pale, and with his spectacles straight on his nose. Behind them four bridesmaids, all four dressed in pink, and all four pretty, formed the court of this gem of a queen. The groomsmen, carefully chosen to match, stepped as though trained by a ballet master. Madame Walter followed them, giving her arm to the father of her other son-in-law, the Marquis de Latour-Yvelin, aged seventy-two. She did not walk, she dragged herself along, ready to faint at each forward movement. It could be felt that her feet stuck to the flagstones, that her legs refused to advance, and that her heart was beating within her breast like an animal bounding to escape. She had grown thin. Her white hair made her face appear still more blanched and her cheeks hollower. She looked straight before her in order not to see any one – in order not to recall, perhaps, that which was torturing her.