Faces grew red, and voices rose, as from time to time the man-servant murmured in the guests" ears: "Corton or Chateau-Laroze."
Duroy had found the Corton to his liking, and let his gla.s.s be filled every time. A delicious liveliness stole over him, a warm cheerfulness, that mounted from the stomach to the head, flowed through his limbs and penetrated him throughout. He felt himself wrapped in perfect comfort of life and thought, body and soul.
A longing to speak a.s.sailed him, to bring himself into notice, to be appreciated like these men, whose slightest words were relished.
But the conversation, which had been going on unchecked, linking ideas one to another, jumping from one topic to another at a chance word, a mere trifle, and skimming over a thousand matters, turned again on the great question put by Monsieur Morel in the Chamber respecting the colonization of Algeria.
Monsieur Walter, between two courses, made a few jests, for his wit was skeptical and broad. Forestier recited his next day"s leader. Jacques Rival insisted on a military government with land grants to all officers after thirty years of colonial service.
"By this plan," he said, "you will create an energetic cla.s.s of colonists, who will have already learned to love and understand the country, and will be acquainted with its language, and with all those grave local questions against which new-comers invariably run their heads."
Norbert de Varenne interrupted him with: "Yes; they will be acquainted with everything except agriculture. They will speak Arabic, but they will be ignorant how beet-root is planted out and wheat sown. They will be good at fencing, but very shaky as regards manures. On the contrary, this new land should be thrown entirely open to everyone. Intelligent men will achieve a position there; the others will go under. It is the social law."
A brief silence followed, and the listeners smiled at one another.
George Duroy opened his mouth, and said, feeling as much surprised at the sound of his own voice as if he had never heard himself speak: "What is most lacking there is good land. The really fertile estates cost as much as in France, and are bought up as investments by rich Parisians.
The real colonists, the poor fellows who leave home for lack of bread, are forced into the desert, where nothing will grow for want of water."
Everyone looked at him, and he felt himself blushing.
Monsieur Walter asked: "Do you know Algeria, sir?"
George replied: "Yes, sir; I was there nearly two years and a half, and I was quartered in all three provinces."
Suddenly unmindful of the Morel question, Norbert de Varenne interrogated him respecting a detail of manners and customs of which he had been informed by an officer. It was with respect to the Mzab, that strange little Arab republic sprung up in the midst of the Sahara, in the driest part of that burning region.
Duroy had twice visited the Mzab, and he narrated some of the customs of this singular country, where drops of water are valued as gold; where every inhabitant is bound to discharge all public duties; and where commercial honesty is carried further than among civilized nations.
He spoke with a certain raciness excited by the wine and the desire to please, and told regimental yarns, incidents of Arab life and military adventure. He even hit on some telling phrases to depict these bare and yellow lands, eternally laid waste by the devouring fire of the sun.
All the women had their eyes turned upon him, and Madame Walter said, in her deliberate tones: "You could make a charming series of articles out of your recollections."
Then Walter looked at the young fellow over the gla.s.ses of his spectacles, as was his custom when he wanted to see anyone"s face distinctly. He looked at the dishes underneath them.
Forestier seized the opportunity. "My dear sir, I had already spoken to you about Monsieur George Duroy, asking you to let me have him for my a.s.sistant in gleaning political topics. Since Marambot left us, I have no one to send in quest of urgent and confidential information, and the paper suffers from it."
Daddy Walter became serious, and pushed his spectacles upon his forehead, in order to look Duroy well in the face. Then he said: "It is true that Monsieur Duroy has evidently an original turn of thought. If he will come and have a chat with us to-morrow at three o"clock, we will settle the matter." Then, after a short silence, turning right round towards George, he added: "But write us a little fancy series of articles on Algeria at once. Relate your experiences, and mix up the colonization question with them as you did just now. They are facts, genuine facts, and I am sure they will greatly please our readers. But be quick. I must have the first article to-morrow or the day after, while the subject is being discussed in the Chamber, in order to catch the public."
Madame Walter added, with that serious grace which characterized everything she did, and which lent an air of favor to her words: "And you have a charming t.i.tle, "Recollections of a Cha.s.seur d"Afrique." Is it not so, Monsieur Norbert?"
The old poet, who had worn renown late in life, feared and hated new-comers. He replied dryly: "Yes, excellent, provided that the keynote be followed, for that is the great difficulty; the exact note, what in music is called the pitch."
Madame Forestier cast on Duroy a smiling and protective glance, the glance of a connoisseur, which seemed to say: "Yes, you will get on."
Madame de Marelle had turned towards him several times, and the diamond in her ear quivered incessantly as though the drop of water was about to fall.
The little girl remained quiet and serious, her head bent over her plate.
But the servant pa.s.sed round the table, filling the blue gla.s.ses with Johannisberg, and Forestier proposed a toast, drinking with a bow to Monsieur Walter: "Prosperity to the _Vie Francaise_."
Everyone bowed towards the proprietor, who smiled, and Duroy, intoxicated with success, emptied his gla.s.s at a draught. He would have emptied a whole barrel after the same fashion; it seemed to him that he could have eaten a bullock or strangled a lion. He felt a superhuman strength in his limbs, unconquerable resolution and unbounded hope in his mind. He was now at home among these people; he had just taken his position, won his place. His glance rested on their faces with a new-born a.s.surance, and he ventured for the first time to address his neighbor. "You have the prettiest earrings I have ever seen, Madame."
She turned towards him with a smile. "It was an idea of my own to have the diamonds hung like that, just at the end of a thread. They really look like dew-drops, do they not?"
He murmured, ashamed of his own daring, and afraid of making a fool of himself:
"It is charming; but the ear, too, helps to set it off."
She thanked him with a look, one of those woman"s looks that go straight to the heart. And as he turned his head he again met Madame Forestier"s eye, always kindly, but now he thought sparkling with a livelier mirth, an archness, an encouragement.
All the men were now talking at once with gesticulations and raised voices. They were discussing the great project of the metropolitan railway. The subject was not exhausted till dessert was finished, everyone having a deal to say about the slowness of the methods of communication in Paris, the inconvenience of the tramway, the delays of omnibus traveling, and the rudeness of cabmen.
Then they left the dining-room to take coffee. Duroy, in jest, offered his arm to the little girl. She gravely thanked him, and rose on tiptoe in order to rest her hand on it.
On returning to the drawing-room he again experienced the sensation of entering a greenhouse. In each of the four corners of the room tall palms unfolded their elegantly shaped leaves, rising to the ceiling, and there spreading fountain-wise.
On each side of the fireplace were india-rubber plants like round columns, with their dark green leaves tapering one above the other; and on the piano two unknown shrubs covered with flowers, those of one all crimson and those of the other all white, had the appearance of artificial plants, looking too beautiful to be real.
The air was cool, and laden with a soft, vague perfume that could scarcely be defined. The young fellow, now more himself, considered the room more attentively. It was not large; nothing attracted attention with the exception of the shrubs, no bright color struck one, but one felt at one"s ease in it; one felt soothed and refreshed, and, as it were, caressed by one"s surroundings. The walls were covered with an old-fashioned stuff of faded violet, spotted with little flowers in yellow silk about the size of flies. Hangings of grayish-blue cloth, embroidered here and there with crimson poppies, draped the doorways, and the chairs of all shapes and sizes, scattered about the room, lounging chairs, easy chairs, ottomans, and stools, were upholstered in Louise Seize silk or Utrecht velvet, with a crimson pattern on a cream-colored ground.
"Do you take coffee, Monsieur Duroy?" and Madame Forestier held out a cup towards him with that smile which never left her lips.
"Thank you, Madame." He took the cup, and as he bent forward to take a lump of sugar from the sugar-basin carried by the little girl, Madame Forestier said to him in a low voice: "Pay attention to Madame Walter."
Then she drew back before he had time to answer a word.
He first drank off his coffee, which he was afraid of dropping onto the carpet; then, his mind more at ease, he sought for some excuse to approach the wife of his new governor, and begin a conversation. All at once he noticed that she was holding an empty cup in her hand, and as she was at some distance from a table, did not know where to put it. He darted forward with, "Allow me, Madame?"
"Thank you, sir."
He took away the cup and then returned.
"If you knew, Madame," he began, "the happy hours the _Vie Francaise_ helped me to pa.s.s when I was away in the desert. It is really the only paper that is readable out of France, for it is more literary, wittier, and less monotonous than the others. There is something of everything in it."
She smiled with amiable indifference, and answered, seriously:
"Monsieur Walter has had a great deal of trouble to create a type of newspaper supplying the want of the day."
And they began to chat. He had an easy flow of commonplace conversation, a charm in his voice and look, and an irresistible seductiveness about his moustache. It curled coquettishly about his lips, reddish brown, with a paler tint about the ends. They chatted about Paris, its suburbs, the banks of the Seine, watering places, summer amus.e.m.e.nts, all the current topics on which one can prate to infinity without wearying oneself.
Then as Monsieur Norbert de Varenne approached with a liqueur gla.s.s in his hand, Duroy discreetly withdrew.
Madame de Marelle, who had been speaking with Madame Forestier, summoned him.
"Well, sir," she said, abruptly, "so you want to try your hand at journalism?"
He spoke vaguely of his prospects, and there recommenced with her the conversation he had just had with Madame Walter, but as he was now a better master of his subject, he showed his superiority in it, repeating as his own the things he had just heard. And he continually looked his companion in the eyes, as though to give deep meaning to what he was saying.
She, in her turn, related anecdotes with the easy flow of spirits of a woman who knows she is witty, and is always seeking to appear so, and becoming familiar, she laid her hand from time to time on his arm, and lowered her voice to make trifling remarks which thus a.s.sumed a character of intimacy. He was inwardly excited by her contact. He would have liked to have shown his devotion for her on the spot, to have defended her, shown her what he was worth, and his delay in his replies to her showed the preoccupation of his mind.