Bel-Ami; One Evening, an Artifice and Other Stories (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... BEL-AMI CHAPTER I A LEAN POCKET WHEN the cashier had given him the change out of his five-franc piece, George Duroy left the restaurant. As he had a good carriage, by nature as well as from his military training, he drew himself up, twirled his mustache, and threw upon the lingering customers a rapid and sweeping glance--one of those glances which take in everything within their range like a cast 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 popular-price establishment. When he was on the sidewalk, he stood still 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 luncheon or two luncheons 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 luncheons, he one franc twenty centimes to the good, which would further represent two repasts of bread and sausage and two "bocks" on the boulevard. 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 people to avoid having to step aside. He wore his somewhat shabby hat slightly on one side, and brought his heels smartly down on the pavement. He seemed ever ready...