Volume VI Part 17 (1/2)
The cab slowlystones Clotilde, seized by a kind of hysterical attack, sat choking and gasping with her hands covering her face, and Duroy neither knehat to do nor what to say At last, as he heard her sobbing, he stammered out: ”Clo, my dear little Clo, just listen, let me explain It is not o, you know--”
She suddenly took her hands fro and deceitful woman, a furious wrath that enabled her to recover her speech, she pantingly jerked out, in rapid and broken sentences: ”Oh!--you wretch--you wretch--what a scoundrel you are--can it be possible? How sharier as her ideas grew clearer and arguested themselves to her, she went on: ”It ithhim money--for that creature Oh, the scoundrel!” She seeer expression that would not come, and then all at once she spat out, as it were, the words: ”Oh! you swine--you swine--you swine--you paid her with myelse, and kept repeating, ”You swine, you swine!”
Suddenly she leant out of the , and catching the driver by the sleeve, cried, ”Stop,” and opening the door, sprang out
George wanted to follow, but she cried, ”I won't have you get out,” in such loud tones that the passers-by began to gather about her, and Duroy did not move for fear of a scandal She took her purse froht of the cab lantern, then taking two francs fifty centi tones: ”There is your fare--I pay you, now take this blackguard to the Rue Boursault, Batignolles”
Mirth was aroused in the group surrounding her A gentle rapscallion standing close to the cab thrust his head into the open door and sang out, in shrill tones, ”Good-night, lovey!” Then the cab started off again, followed by a burst of laughter
VI
George Duroy woke up chapfallen the next
He dressed hian to reflect He felt a kind of aching sensation all over, just as though he had received a drubbing over night At last the necessity of finding some money spurred him up, and he went first to Forestier
His friend received him in his study with his feet on the fender
”What has brought you out so early?” said he
”A very serious matter, a debt of honor”
”At play?”
He hesitated a moment, and then said: ”At play”
”Heavy?”
”Five hundred francs”
He only oo hundred and eighty
Forestier, skeptical on the point, inquired: ”Whoht off ”To--to--a Monsieur de Carleville”
”Ah! and where does he live?”
”At--at--”
Forestier began to laugh ”Nuentleman, my dear fellow If you want twenty francs, I have still that much at your service, but no more”
Duroy took the offered louis Then he went fro the people he knew, and wound up by having collected at about five o'clock the suhty francs And he still needed two hundredfor hi to put myself out for that cat I will pay her when I can”
For a fortnight he lived regularly, econoetic resolves Then he was seized with a strong longing for love It seemed to him that several years had passed since he last clasped a wo land, every passing petticoat ere in the hope of finding Rachel He caught sight of her indeed, directly he entered, for she scarcely went elsewhere, and went up to her s with outstretched hand But she : ”What do you ith h it off with, ”Co: ”I don't associate with ponces”