Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)
“We are talking sense,” said Marguerite; “leave us alone; we will be
back soon.”
“Good, good! Talk, my children,” said Prudence, going out and closing
the door behind her, as if to further emphasize the tone in which she
had said these words.
“Well, it is agreed,” continued Marguerite, when we were alone, “you
won’t fall in love with me?”
“I will go away.”
“So much as that?”
I had gone too far to draw back; and I was really carried away. This
mingling of gaiety, sadness, candour, prostitution, her very malady,
which no doubt developed in her a sensitiveness to impressions, as well
as an irritability of nerves, all this made it clear to me that if from
the very beginning I did not completely dominate her light and
forgetful nature, she was lost to me.
“Come, now, do you seriously mean what you say?” she said.
“Seriously.”
“But why didn’t you say it to me sooner?”
“When could I have said it?”
“The day after you had been introduced to me at the Opera Comique.”
“I thought you would have received me very badly if I had come to see
you.”
“Why?”
“Because I had behaved so stupidly.”
“That’s true. And yet you were already in love with me.”
“Yes.”
“And that didn’t hinder you from going to bed and sleeping quite
comfortably. One knows what that sort of love means.”
“There you are mistaken. Do you know what I did that evening, after the
Opera Comique?”
“No.”
“I waited for you at the door of the Café Anglais. I followed the
carriage in which you and your three friends were, and when I saw you
were the only one to get down, and that you went in alone, I was very
happy.”
Marguerite began to laugh.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me, I beg of you, or I shall think you are still laughing at me.”
“You won’t be cross?”
“What right have I to be cross?”
“Well, there was a sufficient reason why I went in alone.”
“What?”
“Some one was waiting for me here.”
If she had thrust a knife into me she would not have hurt me more. I
rose, and holding out my hand, “Goodbye,” said I.
“I knew you would be cross,” she said; “men are frantic to know what is
certain to give them pain.”
“But I assure you,” I added coldly, as if wishing to prove how
completely I was cured of my passion, “I assure you that I am not
cross. It was quite natural that someone should be waiting for you,
just as it is quite natural that I should go from here at three in the
morning.”
“Have you, too, someone waiting for you?”
“No, but I must go.”
“Good-bye, then.”
“You send me away?”
“Not the least in the world.”
“Why are you so unkind to me?”
“How have I been unkind to you?”
“In telling me that someone was waiting for you.”
“I could not help laughing at the idea that you had been so happy to
see me come in alone when there was such a good reason for it.”
“One finds pleasure in childish enough things, and it is too bad to
destroy such a pleasure when, by simply leaving it alone, one can make
somebody so happy.”
“But what do you think I am? I am neither maid nor duchess. I didn’t
know you till to-day, and I am not responsible to you for my actions.
Supposing one day I should become your mistress, you are bound to know
that I have had other lovers besides you. If you make scenes of
jealousy like this before, what will it be after, if that after should
ever exist? I never met anyone like you.”
“That is because no one has ever loved you as I love you.”
“Frankly, then, you really love me?”
“As much as it is possible to love, I think.”
“And that has lasted since—?”
“Since the day I saw you go into Susse’s, three years ago.”
“Do you know, that is tremendously fine? Well, what am I to do in
return?”
“Love me a little,” I said, my heart beating so that I could hardly
speak; for, in spite of the half-mocking smiles with which she had
accompanied the whole conversation, it seemed to me that Marguerite
began to share my agitation, and that the hour so long awaited was
drawing near.
“Well, but the duke?”
“What duke?”
“My jealous old duke.”
“He will know nothing.”
“And if he should?”
“He would forgive you.”
“Ah, no, he would leave me, and what would become of me?”
“You risk that for someone else.”
“How do you know?”
“By the order you gave not to admit anyone to-night.”
“It is true; but that is a serious friend.”
“For whom you care nothing, as you have shut your door against him at
such an hour.”
“It is not for you to reproach me, since it was in order to receive
you, you and your friend.”
Little by little I had drawn nearer to Marguerite. I had put my arms
about her waist, and I felt her supple body weigh lightly on my clasped
hands.
“If you knew how much I love you!” I said in a low voice.
“Really true?”
“I swear it.”
“Well, if you will promise to do everything I tell you, without a word,
without an opinion, without a question, perhaps I will say yes.”
“I will do everything that you wish!”
“But I forewarn you I must be free to do as I please, without giving
you the slightest details what I do. I have long wished for a young
lover, who should be young and not self-willed, loving without
distrust, loved without claiming the right to it. I have never found
one. Men, instead of being satisfied in obtaining for a long time what
they scarcely hoped to obtain once, exact from their mistresses a full
account of the present, the past, and even the future. As they get
accustomed to her, they want to rule her, and the more one gives them
the more exacting they become. If I decide now on taking a new lover,
he must have three very rare qualities: he must be confiding,
submissive, and discreet.”
“Well, I will be all that you wish.”
“We shall see.”
“When shall we see?”
“Later on.”
“Why?”
“Because,” said Marguerite, releasing herself from my arms, and, taking
from a great bunch of red camellias a single camellia, she placed it in
my buttonhole, “because one can not always carry out agreements the day
they are signed.”
“And when shall I see you again?” I said, clasping her in my arms.
“When this camellia changes colour.”
“When will it change colour?”
“To-morrow night between eleven and twelve. Are you satisfied?”
“Need you ask me?”
“Not a word of this either to your friend or to Prudence, or to anybody
whatever.”
“I promise.”
“Now, kiss me, and we will go back to the dining-room.”
She held up her lips to me, smoothed her hair again, and we went out of
the room, she singing, and I almost beside myself.
In the next room she stopped for a moment and said to me in a low
voice:
“It must seem strange to you that I am ready to take you at a moment’s
notice. Shall I tell you why? It is,” she continued, taking my hand and
placing it against her heart so that I could feel how rapidly and
violently it palpitated; “it is because I shall not live as long as
others, and I have promised myself to live more quickly.”
“Don’t speak to me like that, I entreat you.”
“Oh, make yourself easy,” she continued, laughing; “however short a
time I have to live, I shall live longer than you will love me!”
And she went singing into the dining-room.
“Where is Nanine?” she said, seeing Gaston and Prudence alone.
“She is asleep in your room, waiting till you are ready to go to bed,”
replied Prudence.
“Poor thing, I am killing her! And now gentlemen, it is time to go.”
Ten minutes after, Gaston and I left the house. Marguerite shook hands
with me and said good-bye. Prudence remained behind.
“Well,” said Gaston, when we were in the street, “what do you think of
Marguerite?”
“She is an angel, and I am madly in love with her.”
“So I guessed; did you tell her so?”
“Yes.”
“And did she promise to believe you?”
“No.”
“She is not like Prudence.”
“Did she promise to?”
“Better still, my dear fellow. You wouldn’t think it; but she is still
not half bad, poor old Duvernoy!”
Chapter XI
At this point Armand stopped.
“Would you close the window for me?” he said. “I am beginning to feel
cold. Meanwhile, I will get into bed.”
I closed the window. Armand, who was still very weak, took off his
dressing-gown and lay down in bed, resting his head for a few moments
on the pillow, like a man who is tired by much talking or disturbed by
painful memories.
“Perhaps you have been talking too much,” I said to him. “Would you
rather for me to go and leave you to sleep? You can tell me the rest of
the story another day.”
“Are you tired of listening to it?”
“Quite the contrary.”
“Then I will go on. If you left me alone, I should not sleep.”
When I returned home (he continued, without needing to pause and
recollect himself, so fresh were all the details in his mind), I did
not go to bed, but began to reflect over the day’s adventure. The
meeting, the introduction, the promise of Marguerite, had followed one
another so rapidly, and so unexpectedly, that there were moments when
it seemed to me I had been dreaming. Nevertheless, it was not the first
time that a girl like Marguerite had promised herself to a man on the
morrow of the day on which he had asked for the promise.
Though, indeed, I made this reflection, the first impression produced
on me by my future mistress was so strong that it still persisted. I
refused obstinately to see in her a woman like other women, and, with
the vanity so common to all men, I was ready to believe that she could
not but share the attraction which drew me to her.
Yet, I had before me plenty of instances to the contrary, and I had
often heard that the affection of Marguerite was a thing to be had more
or less dear, according to the season.
But, on the other hand, how was I to reconcile this reputation with her
constant refusal of the young count whom we had found at her house? You
may say that he was unattractive to her, and that, as she was
splendidly kept by the duke, she would be more likely to choose a man
who was attractive to her, if she were to take another lover. If so,
why did she not choose Gaston, who was rich, witty, and charming, and
why did she care for me, whom she had thought so ridiculous the first
time she had seen me?
It is true that there are events of a moment which tell more than the
courtship of a year. Of those who were at the supper, I was the only
one who had been concerned at her leaving the table. I had followed
her, I had been so affected as to be unable to hide it from her, I had
wept as I kissed her hand. This circumstance, added to my daily visits
during the two months of her illness, might have shown her that I was
somewhat different from the other men she knew, and perhaps she had
said to herself that for a love which could thus manifest itself she
might well do what she had done so often that it had no more
consequence for her.
All these suppositions, as you may see, were improbable enough; but
whatever might have been the reason of her consent, one thing was
certain, she had consented.
Now, I was in love with Marguerite. I had nothing more to ask of her.
Nevertheless, though she was only a kept woman, I had so anticipated
for myself, perhaps to poetize it a little, a hopeless love, that the
nearer the moment approached when I should have nothing more to hope,
the more I doubted. I did not close my eyes all night.
I scarcely knew myself. I was half demented. Now, I seemed to myself
not handsome or rich or elegant enough to possess such a woman, now I
was filled with vanity at the thought of it; then I began to fear lest
Marguerite had no more than a few days’ caprice for me, and I said to
myself that since we should soon have to part, it would be better not
to keep her appointment, but to write and tell her my fears and leave