“I am political editor of the Vie Francaise . I write the proceedings in the Senate for the Salut , and from time to time literary criticisms for the Planète . That is so. I have made my way.”
Duroy looked at him with surprise. He was greatly changed, matured. He had now the manner, bearing, and dress of a man in a good position and sure of himself, and the stomach of a man who dines well. Formerly he had been thin, slight, supple, heedless, brawling, noisy, and always ready for a spree. In three years Paris had turned him into someone quite different, stout and serious, and with some white hairs about his temples, though he was not more than twenty-seven.
Forestier asked: “Where are you going?”
Duroy answered: “Nowhere; I am just taking a stroll before turning in.”
“Well, will you come with me to the Vie Francaise , where I have some proofs to correct, and then we will take a bock together?”
“All right.”
They began to walk on, arm-in-arm, with that easy familiarity existing between schoolfellows and men in the same regiment.
“What are you doing in Paris?” asked Forestier.
Duroy shrugged his shoulders. “Simply starving. As soon as I finished my term of service I came here—to make a fortune, or rather for the sake of living in Paris; and for six months I have been a clerk in the offices of the Northern Railway at fifteen hundred francs a year, nothing more.”
Forestier murmured: “Hang it, that’s not much!”