But as he did not know where to commence, she began to question him as a priest would have done in the confessional, putting precise questions which recalled to him forgotten details, people encountered and faces merely caught sight of.
When she had made him speak thus for about a quarter of an hour, she suddenly interrupted him with: "Now we will begin. In the first place, we will imagine that you are narrating your impressions to a friend, which will allow you to write a lot of tom-foolery, to make remarks of all kinds, to be natural and funny if we can. Begin:
""My Dear Henry,--You want to know what Algeria is like, and you shall.
I will send you, having nothing else to do in a little cabin of dried mud which serves me as a habitation, a kind of journal of my life, day by day, and hour by hour. It will be a little lively at times, more is the pity, but you are not obliged to show it to your lady friends.""
She paused to re-light her cigarette, which had gone out, and the faint creaking of the quill on the paper stopped, too.
"Let us continue," said she.
"Algeria is a great French country on the frontiers of the great unknown countries called the Desert, the Sahara, central Africa, etc., etc.
"Algiers is the door, the pretty white door of this strange continent.
"But it is first necessary to get to it, which is not a rosy job for everyone. I am, you know, an excellent horseman, since I break in the colonel"s horses; but a man may be a very good rider and a very bad sailor. That is my case.
"You remember Surgeon-Major Simbretras, whom we used to call Old Ipecacuanha, and how, when we thought ourselves ripe for a twenty-four hours" stay in the infirmary, that blessed sojourning place, we used to go up before him.
"How he used to sit in his chair, with his fat legs in his red trousers, wide apart, his hands on his knees, and his elbows stuck, rolling his great eyes and gnawing his white moustache.
"You remember his favorite mode of treatment: "This man"s stomach is out of order. Give him a dose of emetic number three, according to my prescription, and then twelve hours off duty, and he will be all right."
"It was a sovereign remedy that emetic--sovereign and irresistible. One swallowed it because one had to. Then when one had undergone the effects of Old Ipecacuanha"s prescription, one enjoyed twelve well-earned hours"
rest.
"Well, my dear fellow, to reach Africa, it is necessary to undergo for forty hours the effects of another kind of irresistible emetic, according to the prescription of the Compagnie Transatlantique."
She rubbed her hands, delighted with the idea.
She got up and walked about, after having lit another cigarette, and dictated as she puffed out little whiffs of smoke, which, issuing at first through a little round hole in the midst of her compressed lips, slowly evaporated, leaving in the air faint gray lines, a kind of transparent mist, like a spider"s web. Sometimes with her open hand she would brush these light traces aside; at others she would cut them asunder with her forefinger, and then watch with serious attention the two halves of the almost impenetrable vapor slowly disappear.
Duroy, with his eyes, followed all her gestures, her att.i.tudes, the movements of her form and features--busied with this vague pastime which did not preoccupy her thoughts.
She now imagined the incidents of the journey, sketched traveling companions invented by herself, and a love affair with the wife of a captain of infantry on her way to join her husband.
Then, sitting down again, she questioned Duroy on the topography of Algeria, of which she was absolutely ignorant. In ten minutes she knew as much about it as he did, and she dictated a little chapter of political and colonial geography to coach the reader up in such matters and prepare him to understand the serious questions which were to be brought forward in the following articles. She continued by a trip into the provinces of Oran, a fantastic trip, in which it was, above all, a question of women, Moorish, Jewish, and Spanish.
"That is what interests most," she said.
She wound up by a sojourn at Sada, at the foot of the great tablelands; and by a pretty little intrigue between the sub-officer, George Duroy, and a Spanish work-girl employed at the _alfa_ factory at Ain el Hadjar.
She described their rendezvous at night amidst the bare, stony hills, with jackals, hyenas, and Arab dogs yelling, barking and howling among the rocks.
And she gleefully uttered the words: "To be continued." Then rising, she added: "That is how one writes an article, my dear sir. Sign it, if you please."
He hesitated.
"But sign it, I tell you."
Then he began to laugh, and wrote at the bottom of the page, "George Duroy."
She went on smoking as she walked up and down; and he still kept looking at her, unable to find anything to say to thank her, happy to be with her, filled with grat.i.tude, and with the sensual pleasure of this new-born intimacy. It seemed to him that everything surrounding him was part of her, everything down to the walls covered with books. The chairs, the furniture, the air in which the perfume of tobacco was floating, had something special, nice, sweet, and charming, which emanated from her.
Suddenly she asked: "What do you think of my friend, Madame de Marelle?"
He was surprised, and answered: "I think--I think--her very charming."
"Is it not so?"
"Yes, certainly."
He longed to add: "But not so much as yourself," but dared not.
She resumed: "And if you only knew how funny, original, and intelligent she is. She is a Bohemian--a true Bohemian. That is why her husband scarcely cares for her. He only sees her defects, and does not appreciate her good qualities."
Duroy felt stupefied at learning that Madame de Marelle was married, and yet it was only natural that she should be.
He said: "Oh, she is married, then! And what is her husband?"
Madame Forestier gently shrugged her shoulders, and raised her eyebrows, with a gesture of incomprehensible meaning.
"Oh! he is an inspector on the Northern Railway. He spends eight days out of the month in Paris. What his wife calls "obligatory service," or "weekly duty," or "holy week." When you know her better you will see how nice and bright she is. Go and call on her one of these days."
Duroy no longer thought of leaving. It seemed to him that he was going to stop for ever; that he was at home.
But the door opened noiselessly, and a tall gentleman entered without being announced. He stopped short on seeing a stranger. Madame Forestier seemed troubled for a moment; then she said in natural tones, though a slight rosy flush had risen to her cheeks:
"Come in, my dear sir. I must introduce one of Charles" old friends, Monsieur George Duroy, a future journalist." Then in another tone, she added: "Our best and most intimate friend, the Count de Vaudrec."
The two men bowed, looking each other in the eyes, and Duroy at once took his leave.
There was no attempt to detain him. He stammered a few thanks, grasped the outstretched hand of Madame Forestier, bowed again to the new-comer, who preserved the cold, grave air of a man of position, and went out quite disturbed, as if he had made a fool of himself.
On finding himself once more in the street, he felt sad and uneasy, haunted by the vague idea of some hidden vexation. He walked on, asking himself whence came this sudden melancholy. He could not tell, but the stern face of the Count de Vaudrec, already somewhat aged, with gray hair, and the calmly insolent look of a very wealthy man, constantly recurred to his recollection. He noted that the arrival of this unknown, breaking off a charming _tete-a-tete_, had produced in him that chilly, despairing sensation that a word overheard, a trifle noticed, the least thing suffices sometimes to bring about. It seemed to him, too, that this man, without his being able to guess why, had been displeased at finding him there.
He had nothing more to do till three o"clock, and it was not yet noon.
He had still six francs fifty centimes in his pocket, and he went and lunched at a Bouillon Duval. Then he prowled about the boulevard, and as three o"clock struck, ascended the staircase, in itself an advertis.e.m.e.nt, of the _Vie Francaise_.
The messengers-in-waiting were seated with folded arms on a bench, while at a kind of desk a doorkeeper was sorting the correspondence that had just arrived. The entire get-up of the place, intended to impress visitors, was perfect. Everyone had the appearance, bearing, dignity, and smartness suitable to the ante-room of a large newspaper.
"Monsieur Walter, if you please?" inquired Duroy.
"The manager is engaged, sir," replied the doorkeeper. "Will you take a seat, sir?" and he indicated the waiting-room, already full of people.
There were men grave, important-looking, and decorated; and men without visible linen, whose frock-coats, b.u.t.toned up to the chin, bore upon the breast stains recalling the outlines of continents and seas on geographical maps. There were three women among them. One of them was pretty, smiling, and decked out, and had the air of a gay woman; her neighbor, with a wrinkled, tragic countenance, decked out also, but in more severe fashion, had about her something worn and artificial which old actresses generally have; a kind of false youth, like a scent of stale love. The third woman, in mourning, sat in a corner, with the air of a desolate widow. Duroy thought that she had come to ask for charity.
However, no one was ushered into the room beyond, and more than twenty minutes had elapsed.
Duroy was seized with an idea, and going back to the doorkeeper, said: "Monsieur Walter made an appointment for me to call on him here at three o"clock. At all events, see whether my friend, Monsieur Forestier, is here."