Bel Ami

"Boisrenard? What do you think?"

"Yes. Boisrenard."

"Are you a good swordsman?"

"Not at all."

"The devil! And with the pistol?"

"I can shoot a little."

"Good. You shall practice while I look after everything else. Wait for me a moment."

He went into his dressing-room, and soon reappeared washed, shaved, correct-looking.

"Come with me," said he.

He lived on the ground floor of a small house, and he led Duroy to the cellar, an enormous cellar, converted into a fencing-room and shooting gallery, all the openings on the street being closed. After having lit a row of gas jets running the whole length of a second cellar, at the end of which was an iron man painted red and blue; he placed on a table two pairs of breech-loading pistols, and began to give the word of command in a sharp tone, as though on the ground: "Ready? Fire – one – two – three."

Duroy, dumbfounded, obeyed, raising his arm, aiming and firing, and as he often hit the mark fair on the body, having frequently made use of an old horse pistol of his father's when a boy, against the birds, Jacques Rival, well satisfied, exclaimed: "Good – very good – very good – you will do – you will do."

Then he left George, saying: "Go on shooting till noon; here is plenty of ammunition, don't be afraid to use it. I will come back to take you to lunch and tell you how things are going."

Left to himself, Duroy fired a few more shots, and then sat down and began to reflect. How absurd these things were, all the same! What did a duel prove? Was a rascal less of a rascal after going out? What did an honest man, who had been insulted, gain by risking his life against a scoundrel? And his mind, gloomily inclined, recalled the words of Norbert de Varenne.

Then he felt thirsty, and having heard the sound of water dropping behind him, found that there was a hydrant serving as a douche bath, and drank from the nozzle of the hose. Then he began to think again. It was gloomy in this cellar, as gloomy as a tomb. The dull and distant rolling of vehicles sounded like the rumblings of a far-off storm. What o'clock could it be? The hours passed by there as they must pass in prisons, without anything to indicate or mark them save the visits of the warder. He waited a long time. Then all at once he heard footsteps and voices, and Jacques Rival reappeared, accompanied by Boisrenard. He called out as soon as he saw Duroy: "It's all settled."

The latter thought the matter terminated by a letter of apology, his heart beat, and he stammered: "Ah! thanks."

The descriptive writer continued: "That fellow Langremont is very square; he accepted all our conditions. Twenty-five paces, one shot, at the word of command raising the pistol. The hand is much steadier that way than bringing it down. See here, Boisrenard, what I told you."

And taking a pistol he began to fire, pointed out how much better one kept the line by raising the arm. Then he said: "Now let's go and lunch; it is past twelve o'clock."

They went to a neighboring restaurant. Duroy scarcely spoke. He ate in order not to appear afraid, and then, in course of the afternoon, accompanied Boisrenard to the office, where he got through his work in an abstracted and mechanical fashion. They thought him plucky. Jacques Rival dropped in in the course of the afternoon, and it was settled that his seconds should call for him in a landau at seven o'clock the next morning, and drive to the Bois de Vesinet, where the meeting was to take place. All this had been done so unexpectedly, without his taking part in it, without his saying a word, without his giving his opinion, without accepting or refusing, and with such rapidity, too, that he was bewildered, scared, and scarcely able to understand what was going on.

He found himself at home at nine o'clock, after having dined with Boisrenard, who, out of self-devotion, had not left him all day. As soon as he was alone he strode quickly up and down his room for several minutes. He was too uneasy to think about anything. One solitary idea filled his mind, that of a duel on the morrow, without this idea awakening in him anything else save a powerful emotion. He had been a soldier, he had been engaged with the Arabs, without much danger to himself though, any more than when one hunts a wild boar.

To reckon things up, he had done his duty. He had shown himself what he should be. He would be talked of, approved of, and congratulated. Then he said aloud, as one does under powerful impressions: "What a brute of a fellow."

He sat down and began to reflect. He had thrown upon his little table one of his adversary's cards, given him by Rival in order to retain his address. He read, as he had already done a score of times during the day: "Louis Langremont, 176 Rue Montmartre." Nothing more. He examined these assembled letters, which seemed to him mysterious and full of some disturbing import. Louis Langremont. Who was this man? What was his age, his height, his appearance? Was it not disgusting that a stranger, an unknown, should thus come and suddenly disturb one's existence without cause and from sheer caprice, on account of an old woman who had had a quarrel with her butcher. He again repeated aloud: "What a brute."

And he stood lost in thought, his eyes fixed on the card. Anger was aroused in him against this bit of paper, an anger with which was blended a strange sense of uneasiness. What a stupid business it was. He took a pair of nail scissors which were lying about, and stuck their points into the printed name, as though he was stabbing someone. So he was to fight, and with pistols. Why had he not chosen swords? He would have got off with a prick in the hand or arm, while with the pistols one never knew the possible result. He said: "Come, I must keep my pluck up."

The sound of his own voice made him shudder, and he glanced about him. He began to feel very nervous. He drank a glass of water and went to bed.

As soon as he was in bed he blew out his candle and closed his eyes. He was warm between the sheets, though it was very cold in his room, but he could not manage to doze off. He turned over and over, remained five minutes on his back, then lay on his left side, then rolled on the right. He was still thirsty, and got up to drink. Then a sense of uneasiness assailed him. Was he going to be afraid? Why did his heart beat wildly at each well-known sound in the room? When his clock was going to strike, the faint squeak of the lever made him jump, and he had to open his mouth for some moments in order to breathe, so oppressed did he feel. He began to reason philosophically on the possibility of his being afraid.

No, certainly he would not be afraid, now he had made up his mind to go through with it to the end, since he was firmly decided to fight and not to tremble. But he felt so deeply moved that he asked himself: "Can one be afraid in spite of one's self?" This doubt assailed him. If some power stronger than his will overcame it, what would happen? Yes, what would happen? Certainly he would go on the ground, since he meant to. But suppose he shook? suppose he fainted? And he thought of his position, his reputation, his future.

A strange need of getting up to look at himself in the glass suddenly seized him. He relit the candle. When he saw his face so reflected, he scarcely recognized himself, and it seemed to him that he had never seen himself before. His eyes appeared enormous, and he was pale; yes, he was certainly pale, very pale. Suddenly the thought shot through his mind: "By this time to-morrow I may be dead." And his heart began to beat again furiously. He turned towards his bed, and distinctly saw himself stretched on his back between the same sheets as he had just left. He had the hollow cheeks of the dead, and the whiteness of those hands that no longer move. Then he grew afraid of his bed, and in order to see it no longer he opened the window to look out. An icy coldness assailed him from head to foot, and he drew back breathless.

The thought occurred to him to make a fire. He built it up slowly, without looking around. His hands shook slightly with a kind of nervous tremor when he touched anything. His head wandered, his disjointed, drifting thoughts became fleeting and painful, an intoxication invaded his mind as though he had been drinking. And he kept asking himself: "What shall I do? What will become of me?"

He began to walk up and down, repeating mechanically: "I must pull myself together. I must pull myself together." Then he added: "I will write to my parents, in case of accident." He sat down again, took some notepaper, and wrote: "Dear papa, dear mamma." Then, thinking these words rather too familiar under such tragic circumstances, he tore up the first sheet, and began anew, "My dear father, my dear mother, I am to fight a duel at daybreak, and as it might happen that – " He did not dare write the rest, and sprang up with a jump. He was now crushed by one besetting idea. He was going to fight a duel. He could no longer avoid it. What was the matter with him, then? He meant to fight, his mind was firmly made up to do so, and yet it seemed to him that, despite every effort of will, he could not retain strength enough to go to the place appointed for the meeting. From time to time his teeth absolutely chattered, and he asked himself: "Has my adversary been out before? Is he a frequenter of the shooting galleries? Is he known and classed as a shot?" He had never heard his name mentioned. And yet, if this man was not a remarkably good pistol shot, he would scarcely have accepted that dangerous weapon without discussion or hesitation.

Then Duroy pictured to himself their meeting, his own attitude, and the bearing of his opponent. He wearied himself in imagining the slightest details of the duel, and all at once saw in front of him the little round black hole in the barrel from which the ball was about to issue. He was suddenly seized with a fit of terrible despair. His whole body quivered, shaken by short, sharp shudderings. He clenched his teeth to avoid crying out, and was assailed by a wild desire to roll on the ground, to tear something to pieces, to bite. But he caught sight of a glass on the mantelpiece, and remembered that there was in the cupboard a bottle of brandy almost full, for he had kept up a military habit of a morning dram. He seized the bottle and greedily drank from its mouth in long gulps. He only put it down when his breath failed him. It was a third empty. A warmth like that of flame soon kindled within his body, and spreading through his limbs, buoyed up his mind by deadening his thoughts. He said to himself: "I have hit upon the right plan." And as his skin now seemed burning he reopened the window.

Day was breaking, calm and icy cold. On high the stars seemed dying away in the brightening sky, and in the deep cutting of the railway, the red, green, and white signal lamps were paling. The first locomotives were leaving the engine shed, and went off whistling, to be coupled to the first trains. Others, in the distance, gave vent to shrill and repeated screeches, their awakening cries, like cocks of the country. Duroy thought: "Perhaps I shall never see all this again." But as he felt that he was going again to be moved by the prospect of his own fate, he fought against it strongly, saying: "Come, I must not think of anything till the moment of the meeting; it is the only way to keep up my pluck."

And he set about his toilet. He had another moment of weakness while shaving, in thinking that it was perhaps the last time he should see his face. But he swallowed another mouthful of brandy, and finished dressing. The hour which followed was difficult to get through. He walked up and down, trying to keep from thinking. When he heard a knock at the door he almost dropped, so violent was the shock to him. It was his seconds. Already!

They were wrapped up in furs, and Rival, after shaking his principal's hand, said: "It is as cold as Siberia." Then he added: "Well, how goes it?"

"Very well."

"You are quite steady?"

"Quite."

"That's it; we shall get on all right. Have you had something to eat and drink?"

"Yes; I don't need anything."

Boisrenard, in honor of the occasion, sported a foreign order, yellow and green, that Duroy had never seen him display before.

They went downstairs. A gentleman was awaiting them in the carriage. Rival introduced him as "Doctor Le Brument." Duroy shook hands, saying, "I am very much obliged to you," and sought to take his place on the front seat. He sat down on something hard that made him spring up again, as though impelled by a spring. It was the pistol case.

Rival observed: "No, the back seat for the doctor and the principal, the back seat."

Duroy ended by understanding him, and sank down beside the doctor. The two seconds got in in their turn, and the driver started. He knew where to go. But the pistol case was in the way of everyone, above all of Duroy, who would have preferred it out of sight. They tried to put it at the back of the seat and it hurt their own; they stuck it upright between Rival and Boisrenard, and it kept falling all the time. They finished by stowing it away under their feet. Conversation languished, although the doctor related some anecdotes. Rival alone replied to him. Duroy would have liked to have given a proof of presence of mind, but he was afraid of losing the thread of his ideas, of showing the troubled state of his mind, and was haunted, too, by the disturbing fear of beginning to tremble.

The carriage was soon right out in the country. It was about nine o'clock. It was one of those sharp winter mornings when everything is as bright and brittle as glass. The trees, coated with hoar frost, seemed to have been sweating ice; the earth rang under a footstep, the dry air carried the slightest sound to a distance, the blue sky seemed to shine like a mirror, and the sun, dazzling and cold itself, shed upon the frozen universe rays which did not warm anything.

Rival observed to Duroy: "I got the pistols at Gastine Renette's. He loaded them himself. The box is sealed. We shall toss up, besides, whether we use them or those of our adversary."

Duroy mechanically replied: "I am very much obliged to you."

Then Rival gave him a series of circumstantial recommendations, for he was anxious that his principal should not make any mistake. He emphasized each point several times, saying: "When they say, 'Are you ready, gentlemen?' you must answer 'Yes' in a loud tone. When they give the word 'Fire!' you must raise your arm quickly, and you must fire before they have finished counting 'One, two, three.'"

And Duroy kept on repeating to himself: "When they give the word to fire, I must raise my arm. When they give the word to fire, I must raise my arm." He learnt it as children learn their lessons, by murmuring them to satiety in order to fix them on their minds. "When they give the word to fire, I must raise my arm."

The carriage entered a wood, turned down an avenue on the right, and then to the right again. Rival suddenly opened the door to cry to the driver: "That way, down the narrow road." The carriage turned into a rutty road between two copses, in which dead leaves fringed with ice were quivering. Duroy was still murmuring: "When they give the word to fire, I must raise my arm." And he thought how a carriage accident would settle the whole affair. "Oh! if they could only upset, what luck; if he could only break a leg."

But he caught sight, at the further side of a clearing, of another carriage drawn up, and four gentlemen stamping to keep their feet warm, and he was obliged to open his mouth, so difficult did his breathing become.

The seconds got out first, and then the doctor and the principal. Rival had taken the pistol-case and walked away with Boisrenard to meet two of the strangers who came towards them. Duroy watched them salute one another ceremoniously, and then walk up and down the clearing, looking now on the ground and now at the trees, as though they were looking for something that had fallen down or might fly away. Then they measured off a certain number of paces, and with great difficulty stuck two walking sticks into the frozen ground. They then reassembled in a group and went through the action of tossing, like children playing heads or tails.

Doctor Le Brument said to Duroy: "Do you feel all right? Do you want anything?"