Publisher's Synopsis
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: ... he thought, as he saw some of his colleagues with their pockets full of money without ever being able to understand what secret methods they employed to procure this abundance. He enviously suspected unknown and suspicious transactions, services rendered, a whole system of graft carried on and tolerated. He would have to solve the mystery, enter into a tacit partnership, obtrude himself on the comrades who were dividing the spoils without him. And of an evening, as he watched the trains go by from his window, he would think over the best method to attain this end. CHAPTER V THE FIRST AFFAIR Two months had gone by, September was at hand, and the rapid fortune which Duroy had hoped for seemed to him slow in coming. He was, above all, distressed at the social mediocrity of his position, and did not see by what path he could scale the heights on which one finds respect, power, and money. He felt shut up in the middleclass calling of a reporter, so walled in as to be unable to get out of it. He was appreciated, but only in accordance with his position. Even Forestier, to whom he rendered a thousand services, no longer invited him to dinner, and treated him in every way as an inferior, though still accosting him as a friend. From time to time, it is true, Duroy, seizing an opportunity, got in a short article, and having acquired through his news items a mastery over his pen, and a tact which he lacked when he wrote his second article on Algeria, no longer ran any risk of having his descriptions of facts refused. But between this and drawing on his imagination for a story, or writing authoritatively on political questions, there was as great a difference as between driving in the Bois de Boulogne as the coachman or as the owner of the carriage....