Bel Ami quotes

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 passersby, the houses, the whole city, retaining all the swagger of a dashing cavalryman in civil life.

Although wearing a sixty-franc suit, he was not devoid of a certain somewhat loud elegance.

His comrade scanned him from head to foot, like a practical man examining a subject, and then said, in a tone of conviction: “

You see, my boy, everything depends upon assurance here.

A clever fellow can more easily become a minister than an undersecretary. One must obtrude one’s self on people; not ask things of them.

It is not difficult to pass for being well informed; the great thing is not to be caught in some blunder. You can maneuver, avoid the difficulty, turn the obstacle, and floor others by means of a dictionary.

Men are all as stupid as geese and ignorant as donkeys.

”

Forestier was astounded. “You have no dress clothes? Hang it all, they are indispensable, though.

In Paris one would be better off without a bed than without a dress suit.

”

… going down two steps at a time, but suddenly he caught sight in a large mirror on the second-floor landing of a gentleman in a hurry, who was advancing briskly to meet him, and he stopped short, ashamed, as if he had been caught tripping.

Then he looked at himself in the glass for some time, astonished at being really such a handsome fellow, smiled complacently, and taking leave of his reflection, bowed low to it as one bows to a personage of importance.

And he traced on his paper the words: “

Algiers is a white city

,” without being able to state anything further.

Then, after a short silence, he added: “

One must strike the iron while it is hot, or the deuce is in it.

”

She shrugged her shoulders slightly, with infinite and prolonged disdain; and then in a decided tone remarked: “

Monsieur de Marelle has no opinions on this point. He only has⁠—abstentions.

”

and the astonished waiter would stare at this strange couple as he placed before them two cherry brandies. She—trembling, fearsome, yet charmed—began to sip the red liquid, looking round her with uneasy and kindling eye.

Each cherry swallowed gave her the sensation of a sin committed, each drop of burning liquor flowing down her throat gave her the pleasure of a naughty and forbidden joy.

Then she would say, “Let us go,” and they would leave.

She turned towards him: “

My dear friend, for me a man in love is struck off the list of the living.

He becomes idiotic, and not only idiotic, but dangerous. I cease all intimate relations with people who are in love with me, or who pretend to be so—because they bore me, in the first place;

The ladies, still slightly disconcerted, began however, to smile, so true were his remarks. He concluded, as he rose: “

It is you who really elect them, ladies, and you only elect them to see them die.

Choose them old, therefore, very old; as old as possible, and do not trouble yourselves about anything else.”

“It is possible.

In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

All these people are commonplace because their mind is shut in between two walls, money and politics. They are dullards, my dear fellow, with whom it is impossible to talk about anything we care for. Their minds are at the bottom mud, or rather sewage;

The poet replied: “I am always so, my lad, so will you be in a few years.

Life is a hill. As long as one is climbing up one looks towards the summit and is happy, but when one reaches the top one suddenly perceives the descent before one, and its bottom, which is death.

One climbs up slowly, but one goes down quickly. At your age a man is happy. He hopes for many things, which, by the way, never come to pass. At mine, one no longer expects anything—but death.”

Death has taken my firm skin, my muscles, my teeth, my whole body of old, only leaving me a despairing soul, soon to be taken too. Every step brings me nearer to death, every moment, every breath hastens his odious work.

To breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work, dream, everything we do is to die. To live, in short, is to die.

I now see death so near that I often want to stretch my arms to push it back. I see it everywhere.

He stopped, reflected for a few moments, and then, with a look of resignation, said: “

I am a lost creature. I have neither father nor mother, nor sister nor brother; no wife, no children, no God.

”

Duroy halted with a desire to applaud this mushroom of love, who displayed so boldly at this place and time set apart for aristocratic hypocrites the dashing luxury earned between her sheets.

He felt, perhaps vaguely, that there was something in common between them⁠—a tie of nature, that they were of the same race, the same spirit, and that his success would be achieved by daring steps of the same kind.

He walked back more slowly, his heart aglow with satisfaction, and arrived a little in advance of the time at the door of his former mistress.

He was growing seasoned now, and thought the situation a very amusing one. He looked at Monsieur de Marelle’s serious and respectable face, with a temptation to laugh, as he thought: “I have cuckolded you, old fellow, I have cuckolded you.”

A vicious, inward satisfaction stole over him⁠—the satisfaction of a thief who has been successful, and is not even suspected⁠—a delicious, roguish joy.

He suddenly longed to be the friend of this man, to win his confidence, to get him to relate the secrets of his life.

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.”

Understand me well.

Marriage for me is not a charm, but a partnership.

I mean to be free, perfectly free as to my ways, my acts, my going and coming. I could neither tolerate supervision, nor jealousy, nor arguments as to my behavior.

She looked at her writing, holding it at a distance, charmed by the effect, and said: “

With a little method we can manage whatever we wish.

”

Since she had deceived the other, how could he have confidence in her himself? Then by degrees his mind became calmer, and bearing up against his pain, he thought:

“All women are prostitutes. We must make use of them, and not give them anything of ourselves.”

The bitterness in his heart rose to his lips in words of contempt and disgust. He repeated to himself: “The victory in this world is to the strong. One must be strong. One must be above all prejudices.”

“All women are prostitutes. We must make use of them, and not give them anything of ourselves.” The bitterness in his heart rose to his lips in words of contempt and disgust. He repeated to himself: “

The victory in this world is to the strong.

One must be strong. One must be above all prejudices.”

George reflected: “I should be very stupid to fret about it. Everyone for himself. Fortune favors the bold. Egotism is everything.

Egotism as regards ambition and fortune is better than egotism as regards woman and love.

”

“They console her for having married a Jew, enable her to assume an attitude of protestation in the world of politics and a respectable one in that of fashion, and serve as a shelter to her gallant rendezvous.

So much for the habit of making use of religion as an umbrella. If it is fine it is a walking stick; if sunshiny, a parasol; if it rains, a shelter; and if one does not go out, why, one leaves it in the hall.

And there are hundreds like that who care for God about as much as a cherry stone, but who will not hear him spoken against.

She replied, philosophically: “

Who lives long enough will see it.

”

Clotilde, too, called him “My darling,” “My pet,” “My own.” These words seemed sweet and caressing. Said by the other woman shortly before, they had irritated and sickened him.

For words of love, which are always the same, take the flavor of the lips they come from.

But he was thinking, even while amusing himself with this nonsense, of the seventy thousand francs he was going to gain, and suddenly checked the gabble of his companion by two little taps with his finger on her head. “Listen, pet,” said he.

George thought: “If I had been really clever, this is the girl I should have married. It was possible. How is it I did not think of it? How did I come to take that other one? What a piece of stupidity.

We always act too impetuously, and never reflect sufficiently.

”

People who look at such things at the outset remain silent, and then go thoughtfully away, and only speak later on of the worth of the painting. Du Roy, having contemplated it for some time, said: “

It is nice to be able to afford such trifles.

”

He had a glass filled for himself, and bowing to Du Roy, who had taken another, said: “I drink to the triumph of wit over wealth.” Then he added softly: “

Not that wealth on the part of others hurts me; or that I am angry at it. But I protest on principle.

”

He had a glass filled for himself, and bowing to Du Roy, who had taken another, said: “

I drink to the triumph of wit over wealth.

” Then he added softly: “Not that wealth on the part of others hurts me; or that I am angry at it. But I protest on principle.”

Several men turned round to look at the pretty and elegant brunette. Du Roy replied: “In exchange for that service, my dear fellow, I am going to take your wife, or rather to offer her my arm.

Husband and wife are best apart, you know.

”

She gave him a little black box resembling a jewel-case. He opened it indifferently, and saw the cross of the Legion of Honor. He grew somewhat pale, then smiled, and said: “

I should have preferred ten millions. That did not cost him much.

”

Du Roy began to chuckle sneeringly, and picking up a shirt that had fallen onto the floor, threw it onto the bed, exclaiming: “Come, get up.

Since you have undressed in my wife’s presence, you can very well dress in mine.

”

“To upset that scoundrel, that wretch, that open evildoer.” George placed his hat on an armchair, and added: “

Woe to those who cross my path. I never forgive.

”