The Works of Guy de Maupassant Volume VI Part 8

He was at once ushered along a lengthy pa.s.sage, which brought him to a large room where four gentlemen were writing at a large green-covered table.

Forestier standing before the fireplace was smoking a cigarette and playing at cup and ball. He was very clever at this, and kept spiking the huge ball of yellow boxwood on the wooden point. He was counting "Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five."

"Twenty-six," said Duroy.

His friend raised his eyes without interrupting the regular movement of his arm, saying: "Oh! here you are, then. Yesterday I landed the ball fifty-seven times right off. There is only Saint-Potin who can beat me at it among those here. Have you seen the governor? There is nothing funnier than to see that old tubby Norbert playing at cup and ball. He opens his mouth as if he was going to swallow the ball every time."

One of the others turned round towards him, saying: "I say, Forestier, I know of one for sale, a beauty in West Indian wood; it is said to have belonged to the Queen of Spain. They want sixty francs for it. Not dear."

Forestier asked: "Where does it hang out?"

And as he had missed his thirty-seventh shot, he opened a cupboard in which Duroy saw a score of magnificent cups and b.a.l.l.s, arranged and numbered like a collection of art objects. Then having put back the one he had been using in its usual place, he repeated: "Where does this gem hang out?"

The journalist replied: "At a box-office keeper's of the Vaudeville. I will bring it you to-morrow, if you like."

"All right. If it is really a good one I will take it; one can never have too many." Then turning to Duroy he added: "Come with me. I will take you in to see the governor; otherwise you might be getting mouldy here till seven in the evening."

They re-crossed the waiting-room, in which the same people were waiting in the same order. As soon as Forestier appeared the young woman and the old actress, rising quickly, came up to him. He took them aside one after the other into the bay of the window, and although they took care to talk in low tones, Duroy noticed that they were on familiar terms.

Then, having pa.s.sed through two padded doors, they entered the manager's room. The conference which had been going on for an hour or so was nothing more than a game at ecarte with some of the gentlemen with the flat brimmed hats whom Duroy had noticed the night before.

Monsieur Walter dealt and played with concentrated attention and crafty movements, while his adversary threw down, picked up, and handled the light bits of colored pasteboard with the swiftness, skill, and grace of a practiced player. Norbert de Varenne, seated in the managerial armchair, was writing an article. Jacques Rival, stretched at full length on a couch, was smoking a cigar with his eyes closed.

The room smelled close, with that blended odor of leather-covered furniture, stale tobacco, and printing-ink peculiar to editors' rooms and familiar to all journalists. Upon the black wood table, inlaid with bra.s.s, lay an incredible pile of papers, letters, cards, newspapers, magazines, bills, and printed matter of every description.

Forestier shook hands with the punters standing behind the card players, and without saying a word watched the progress of the game; then, as soon as Daddy Walter had won, he said: "Here is my friend, Duroy."

The manager glanced sharply at the young fellow over the gla.s.ses of his spectacles, and said:

"Have you brought my article? It would go very well to-day with the Morel debate."

Duroy took the sheets of paper folded in four from his pocket, saying: "Here it is sir."

The manager seemed pleased, and remarked, with a smile: "Very good, very good. You are a man of your word. You must look through this for me, Forestier."

But Forestier hastened to reply: "It is not worth while, Monsieur Walter. I did it with him to give him a lesson in the tricks of the trade. It is very well done."

And the manager, who was gathering up the cards dealt by a tall, thin gentleman, a deputy belonging to the Left Center, remarked with indifference: "All right, then."

Forestier, however, did not let him begin the new game, but stooping, murmured in his ear: "You know you promised me to take on Duroy to replace Marambot. Shall I engage him on the same terms?"

"Yes, certainly."

Taking his friend's arm, the journalist led him away, while Monsieur Walter resumed the game.

Norbert de Varenne had not lifted his head; he did not appear to have seen or recognized Duroy. Jacques Rival, on the contrary, had taken his hand with the marked and demonstrative energy of a comrade who may be reckoned upon in the case of any little difficulty.

They pa.s.sed through the waiting-room again, and as everyone looked at them, Forestier said to the youngest of the women, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the rest: "The manager will see you directly. He is just now engaged with two members of the Budget Committee."

Then he pa.s.sed swiftly on, with an air of hurry and importance, as though about to draft at once an article of the utmost weight.

As soon as they were back in the reporters' room Forestier at once took up his cup and ball, and as he began to play with it again, said to Duroy, breaking his sentences in order to count: "You will come here every day at three o'clock, and I will tell you the places you are to go to, either during the day or in the evening, or the next morning--one--I will give you, first of all, a letter of introduction to the head of the First Department of the Prefecture of Police--two--who will put you in communication with one of his clerks. You will settle with him about all the important information--three--from the Prefecture, official and quasi-official information, you know. In all matters of detail you will apply to Saint-Potin, who is up in the work--four--You can see him by-and-by, or to-morrow. You must, above all, cultivate the knack of dragging information out of men I send you to see--five--and to get in everywhere, in spite of closed doors--six--You will have for this a salary of two hundred francs a month, with two sous a line for the paragraphs you glean--seven--and two sous a line for all articles written by you to order on different subjects--eight."

Then he gave himself up entirely to his occupation, and went on slowly counting: "Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen." He missed the fourteenth, and swore, "d.a.m.n that thirteen, it always brings me bad luck. I shall die on the thirteenth of some month, I am certain."

One of his colleagues who had finished his work also took a cup and ball from the cupboard. He was a little man, who looked like a boy, although he was really five-and-thirty. Several other journalists having come in, went one after the other and got out the toy belonging to each of them.

Soon there were six standing side by side, with their backs to the wall, swinging into the air, with even and regular motion, the b.a.l.l.s of red, yellow, and black, according to the wood they were made of. And a match having begun, the two who were still working got up to act as umpires.

Forestier won by eleven points. Then the little man, with the juvenile aspect, who had lost, rang for the messenger, and gave the order, "Nine bocks." And they began to play again pending the arrival of these refreshments.

Duroy drank a gla.s.s of beer with his new comrades, and then said to his friend: "What am I to do now?"

"I have nothing for you to-day. You can go if you want to."

"And our--our--article, will it go in to-night?"

"Yes, but do not bother yourself about it; I will correct the proofs.

Write the continuation for to-morrow, and come here at three o'clock, the same as to-day."

Duroy having shaken hands with everyone, without even knowing their names, went down the magnificent staircase with a light heart and high spirits.

IV

George Duroy slept badly, so excited was he by the wish to see his article in print. He was up as soon as it was daylight, and was prowling about the streets long before the hour at which the porters from the newspaper offices run with their papers from kiosque to kiosque. He went on to the Saint Lazare terminus, knowing that the _Vie Francaise_ would be delivered there before it reached his own district. As he was still too early, he wandered up and down on the footpath.

He witnessed the arrival of the newspaper vendor who opened her gla.s.s shop, and then saw a man bearing on his head a pile of papers. He rushed forward. There were the _Figaro_, the _Gil Blas_, the _Gaulois_, the _Evenement_, and two or three morning journals, but the _Vie Francaise_ was not among them. Fear seized him. Suppose the "Recollections of a Cha.s.seur d'Afrique" had been kept over for the next day, or that by chance they had not at the last moment seemed suitable to Daddy Walter.

Turning back to the kiosque, he saw that the paper was on sale without his having seen it brought there. He darted forward, unfolded it, after having thrown down the three sous, and ran through the headings of the articles on the first page. Nothing. His heart began to beat, and he experienced strong emotion on reading at the foot of a column in large letters, "George Duroy." It was in; what happiness!

He began to walk along unconsciously, the paper in his hand and his hat on one side of his head, with a longing to stop the pa.s.sers-by in order to say to them: "Buy this, buy this, there is an article by me in it."

He would have liked to have bellowed with all the power of his lungs, like some vendors of papers at night on the boulevards, "Read the _Vie Francaise_; read George Duroy's article, 'Recollections of a Cha.s.seur d'Afrique.'" And suddenly he felt a wish to read this article himself, read it in a public place, a _cafe_, in sight of all. He looked about for some establishment already filled with customers. He had to walk in search of one for some time. He sat down at last in front of a kind of wine shop, where several customers were already installed, and asked for a gla.s.s of rum, as he would have asked for one of absinthe, without thinking of the time. Then he cried: "Waiter, bring me the _Vie Francaise_."

A man in a white ap.r.o.n stepped up, saying: "We have not got it, sir; we only take in the _Rappel_, the _Siecle_, the _Lanierne_, and the _Pet.i.t Parisien_."

"What a den!" exclaimed Duroy, in a tone of anger and disgust. "Here, go and buy it for me."

The waiter hastened to do so, and brought back the paper. Duroy began to read his article, and several times said aloud: "Very good, very well put," to attract the attention of his neighbors, and inspire them with the wish to know what there was in this sheet. Then, on going away, he left it on the table. The master of the place, noticing this, called him back, saying: "Sir, sir, you are forgetting your paper."

And Duroy replied: "I will leave it to you. I have finished with it.

There is a very interesting article in it this morning."

He did not indicate the article, but he noticed as he went away one of his neighbors take the _Vie Francaise_ up from the table on which he had left it.

He thought: "What shall I do now?" And he decided to go to his office, take his month's salary, and tender his resignation. He felt a thrill of antic.i.p.atory pleasure at the thought of the faces that would be pulled up by the chief of his room and his colleagues. The notion of the bewilderment of the chief above all charmed him.

He walked slowly, so as not to get there too early, the cashier's office not opening before ten o'clock.