They passed 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 passed 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 Préfecture 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 Préfecture, 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 tomorrow. 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, “Damn 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 balls 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 glass 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 tonight?”
“Yes, but do not bother yourself about it; I will correct the proofs. Write the continuation for tomorrow, 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 glass 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 Chasseur 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 passersby 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 Chasseur d’Afrique.’” And suddenly he felt a wish to read this article himself, read it in a public place, a café, 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 glass 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 apron stepped up, saying: “We have not got it, sir; we only take in the Rappel, the Siecle, the Lanierne, and the Petit 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 anticipatory 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.
His office was a large, gloomy room, in which gas had to be kept burning almost all day long in winter. It looked into a narrow courtyard, with other offices on the further side of it. There were eight clerks there, besides a sub-chief hidden behind a screen in one corner.
Duroy first went to get the hundred and eighteen francs twenty-five centimes enclosed in a yellow envelope, and placed in the drawer of the clerk entrusted with such payments, and then, with a conquering air, entered the large room in which he had already spent so many days.
As soon as he came in the sub-chief, Monsieur Potel, called out to him: “Ah! it is you, Monsieur Duroy? The chief has already asked for you several times. You know that he will not allow anyone to plead illness two days running without a doctor’s certificate.”
Duroy, who was standing in the middle of the room preparing his sensational effect, replied in a loud voice:
“I don’t care a damn whether he does or not.”
There was a movement of stupefaction among the clerks, and Monsieur Potel’s features showed affrightedly