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                                BEL AMI

                     The Works of Guy de Maupassant

                               VOLUME VI


NATIONAL LIBRARY COMPANY
NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
BIGELOW, SMITH & CO.




BEL AMI

(A LADIES' MAN)




I


When the cashier had given him the change out of his five francpiece,
George Duroy left the restaurant.

As he had a good carriage, both naturally and from his military
training, he drew himself up, twirled his moustache, and threw upon the
lingering customers a rapid and sweeping glance--one of those glances
which take in everything within their range like a casting net.

The women looked up at him in turn--three little work-girls, a
middle-aged music mistress, disheveled, untidy, and wearing a bonnet
always dusty and a dress always awry; and two shopkeepers' wives dining
with their husbands--all regular customers at this slap-bang
establishment.

When he was on the pavement outside, he stood still for a moment, asking
himself what he should do. It was the 28th of June, and he had just
three francs forty centimes in his pocket to carry him to the end of the
month. This meant the option of two dinners without lunch or two lunches
without dinner. He reflected that as the earlier repasts cost twenty
sous apiece, and the latter thirty, he would, if he were content with
the lunches, be one franc twenty centimes to the good, which would
further represent two snacks of bread and sausage and two bocks of beer
on the boulevards. This latter item was his greatest extravagance and
his chief pleasure of a night; and he began to descend the Rue
Notre-Dame de Lorette.

He walked as in the days when he had worn a hussar uniform, his chest
thrown out and his legs slightly apart, as if he had just left the
saddle, pushing his way through the crowded street, and shouldering folk
to avoid having to step aside. He wore his somewhat shabby hat on one
side, and brought his heels smartly down on the pavement. He seemed ever
ready to defy somebody or something, the passers-by, the houses, the
whole city, retaining all the swagger of a dashing cavalry-man in civil
life.

Although wearing a sixty-franc suit, he was not devoid of a certain
somewhat loud elegance. Tall, well-built, fair, with a curly moustache
twisted up at the ends, bright blue eyes with small pupils, and
reddish-brown hair curling naturally and parted in the middle, he bore a
strong resemblance to the dare-devil of popular romances.

It was one of those summer evenings on which air seems to be lacking in
Paris. The city, hot as an oven, seemed to swelter in the stifling
night. The sewers breathed out their poisonous breath through their
granite mouths, and the underground kitchens gave forth to the street
through their windows the stench of dishwater and stale sauces.

The doorkeepers in their shirtsleeves sat astride straw-bottomed chairs
within the carriage entrances to the houses, smoking their pipes, and
the pedestrians walked with flagging steps, head bare, and hat in hand.


When George Duroy reached the boulevards he paused again, undecided as
to what he should do. He now thought of going on to the Champs Elysees
and the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne to seek a little fresh air under the
trees, but another wish also assailed him, a desire for a love affair.

What shape would it take? He did not know, but he had been awaiting it
for three months, night and day. Occasionally, thanks to his good looks
and gallant bearing, he gleaned a few crumbs of love here and there, but
he was always hoping for something further and better.

With empty pockets and hot blood, he kindled at the contact of the
prowlers who murmur at