Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)
possibly tell you what they were acting. All that I remember is that
from time to time I raised my eyes to the box I had quitted so
abruptly, and that the faces of fresh visitors succeeded one another
all the time.
I was far from having given up thinking about Marguerite. Another
feeling had taken possession of me. It seemed to me that I had her
insult and my absurdity to wipe out; I said to myself that if I spent
every penny I had, I would win her and win my right to the place I had
abandoned so quickly.
Before the performance was over Marguerite and her friend left the box.
I rose from my seat.
“Are you going?” said Ernest.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
At that moment he saw that the box was empty.
“Go, go,” he said, “and good luck, or rather better luck.”
I went out.
I heard the rustle of dresses, the sound of voices, on the staircase. I
stood aside, and, without being seen, saw the two women pass me,
accompanied by two young men. At the entrance to the theatre they were
met by a footman.
“Tell the coachman to wait at the door of the Café Anglais,” said
Marguerite. “We will walk there.”
A few minutes afterward I saw Marguerite from the street at a window of
one of the large rooms of the restaurant, pulling the camellias of her
bouquet to pieces, one by one. One of the two men was leaning over her
shoulder and whispering in her ear. I took up my position at the
Maison-d’or, in one of the first-floor rooms, and did not lose sight of
the window for an instant. At one in the morning Marguerite got into
her carriage with her three friends. I took a cab and followed them.
The carriage stopped at No. 9, Rue d’Antin. Marguerite got out and went
in alone. It was no doubt a mere chance, but the chance filled me with
delight.
From that time forward, I often met Marguerite at the theatre or in the
Champs-Elysées. Always there was the same gaiety in her, the same
emotion in me.
At last a fortnight passed without my meeting her. I met Gaston and
asked after her.
“Poor girl, she is very ill,” he answered.
“What is the matter?”
“She is consumptive, and the sort of life she leads isn’t exactly the
thing to cure her. She has taken to her bed; she is dying.”
The heart is a strange thing; I was almost glad at hearing it.
Every day I went to ask after her, without leaving my name or my card.
I heard she was convalescent and had gone to Bagnères.
Time went by, the impression, if not the memory, faded gradually from
my mind. I travelled; love affairs, habits, work, took the place of
other thoughts, and when I recalled this adventure I looked upon it as
one of those passions which one has when one is very young, and laughs
at soon afterward.
For the rest, it was no credit to me to have got the better of this
recollection, for I had completely lost sight of Marguerite, and, as I
told you, when she passed me in the corridor of the Variétés, I did not
recognise her. She was veiled, it is true; but, veiled though she might
have been two years earlier, I should not have needed to see her in
order to recognise her: I should have known her intuitively. All the
same, my heart began to beat when I knew that it was she; and the two
years that had passed since I saw her, and what had seemed to be the
results of that separation, vanished in smoke at the mere touch of her
dress.
Chapter VIII
However (continued Armand after a pause), while I knew myself to be
still in love with her, I felt more sure of myself, and part of my
desire to speak to Marguerite again was a wish to make her see that I
was stronger than she.
How many ways does the heart take, how many reasons does it invent for
itself, in order to arrive at what it wants!
I could not remain in the corridor, and I returned to my place in the
stalls, looking hastily around to see what box she was in. She was in a
ground-floor box, quite alone. She had changed, as I have told you, and
no longer wore an indifferent smile on her lips. She had suffered; she
was still suffering. Though it was April, she was still wearing a
winter costume, all wrapped up in furs.
I gazed at her so fixedly that my eyes attracted hers. She looked at me
for a few seconds, put up her opera-glass to see me better, and seemed
to think she recognised me, without being quite sure who I was, for
when she put down her glasses, a smile, that charming, feminine
salutation, flitted across her lips, as if to answer the bow which she
seemed to expect; but I did not respond, so as to have an advantage
over her, as if I had forgotten, while she remembered. Supposing
herself mistaken, she looked away.
The curtain went up. I have often seen Marguerite at the theatre. I
never saw her pay the slightest attention to what was being acted. As
for me, the performance interested me equally little, and I paid no
attention to anything but her, though doing my utmost to keep her from
noticing it.
Presently I saw her glancing across at the person who was in the
opposite box; on looking, I saw a woman with whom I was quite familiar.
She had once been a kept woman, and had tried to go on the stage, had
failed, and, relying on her acquaintance with fashionable people in
Paris, had gone into business and taken a milliner’s shop. I saw in her
a means of meeting with Marguerite, and profited by a moment in which
she looked my way to wave my hand to her. As I expected, she beckoned
to me to come to her box.
Prudence Duvernoy (that was the milliner’s auspicious name) was one of
those fat women of forty with whom one requires very little diplomacy
to make them understand what one wants to know, especially when what
one wants to know is as simple as what I had to ask of her.
I took advantage of a moment when she was smiling across at Marguerite
to ask her, “Whom are you looking at?”
“Marguerite Gautier.”
“You know her?”
“Yes, I am her milliner, and she is a neighbour of mine.”
“Do you live in the Rue d’Antin?”
“No. 7. The window of her dressing-room looks on to the window of
mine.”
“They say she is a charming girl.”
“Don’t you know her?”
“No, but I should like to.”
“Shall I ask her to come over to our box?”
“No, I would rather for you to introduce me to her.”
“At her own house?”
“Yes.
“That is more difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because she is under the protection of a jealous old duke.”
“‘Protection’ is charming.”
“Yes, protection,” replied Prudence. “Poor old man, he would be greatly
embarrassed to offer her anything else.”
Prudence then told me how Marguerite had made the acquaintance of the
duke at Bagnères.
“That, then,” I continued, “is why she is alone here?”
“Precisely.”
“But who will see her home?”
“He will.”
“He will come for her?”
“In a moment.”
“And you, who is seeing you home?”
“No one.”
“May I offer myself?”
“But you are with a friend, are you not?”
“May we offer, then?”
“Who is your friend?”
“A charming fellow, very amusing. He will be delighted to make your
acquaintance.”
“Well, all right; we will go after this piece is over, for I know the
last piece.”
“With pleasure; I will go and tell my friend.”
“Go, then. Ah,” added Prudence, as I was going, “there is the duke just
coming into Marguerite’s box.”
I looked at him. A man of about seventy had sat down behind her, and
was giving her a bag of sweets, into which she dipped at once, smiling.
Then she held it out toward Prudence, with a gesture which seemed to
say, “Will you have some?”
“No,” signalled Prudence.
Marguerite drew back the bag, and, turning, began to talk with the
duke.
It may sound childish to tell you all these details, but everything
relating to Marguerite is so fresh in my memory that I can not help
recalling them now.
I went back to Gaston and told him of the arrangement I had made for
him and for me. He agreed, and we left our stalls to go round to Mme.
Duvernoy’s box. We had scarcely opened the door leading into the stalls
when we had to stand aside to allow Marguerite and the duke to pass. I
would have given ten years of my life to have been in the old man’s
place.
When they were on the street he handed her into a phaeton, which he
drove himself, and they were whirled away by two superb horses.
We returned to Prudence’s box, and when the play was over we took a cab
and drove to 7, Rue d’Antin. At the door, Prudence asked us to come up
and see her showrooms, which we had never seen, and of which she seemed
very proud. You can imagine how eagerly I accepted. It seemed to me as
if I was coming nearer and nearer to Marguerite. I soon turned the
conversation in her direction.
“The old duke is at your neighbour’s,” I said to Prudence.
“Oh, no; she is probably alone.”
“But she must be dreadfully bored,” said Gaston.
“We spend most of our evening together, or she calls to me when she
comes in. She never goes to bed before two in the morning. She can’t
sleep before that.”
“Why?”
“Because she suffers in the chest, and is almost always feverish.”
“Hasn’t she any lovers?” I asked.
“I never see anyone remain after I leave; I don’t say no one ever comes
when I am gone. Often in the evening I meet there a certain Comte de
N., who thinks he is making some headway by calling on her at eleven in
the evening, and by sending her jewels to any extent; but she can’t
stand him. She makes a mistake; he is very rich. It is in vain that I
say to her from time to time, ‘My dear child, there’s the man for you.’
She, who generally listens to me, turns her back and replies that he is
too stupid. Stupid, indeed, he is; but it would be a position for her,
while this old duke might die any day. Old men are egoists; his family
are always reproaching him for his affection for Marguerite; there are
two reasons why he is likely to leave her nothing. I give her good
advice, and she only says it will be plenty of time to take on the
count when the duke is dead. It isn’t all fun,” continued Prudence, “to
live like that. I know very well it wouldn’t suit me, and I should soon
send the old man about his business. He is so dull; he calls her his
daughter; looks after her like a child; and is always in the way. I am
sure at this very moment one of his servants is prowling about in the
street to see who comes out, and especially who goes in.”
“Ah, poor Marguerite!” said Gaston, sitting down to the piano and
playing a waltz. “I hadn’t a notion of it, but I did notice she hasn’t
been looking so gay lately.”
“Hush,” said Prudence, listening. Gaston stopped.
“She is calling me, I think.”
We listened. A voice was calling, “Prudence!”
“Come, now, you must go,” said Mme. Duvernoy.
“Ah, that is your idea of hospitality,” said Gaston, laughing; “we
won’t go till we please.”
“Why should we go?”
“I am going over to Marguerite’s.”
“We will wait here.”
“You can’t.”
“Then we will go with you.”
“That still less.”
“I know Marguerite,” said Gaston; “I can very well pay her a call.”
“But Armand doesn’t know her.”
“I will introduce him.”
“Impossible.”
We again heard Marguerite’s voice calling to Prudence, who rushed to
her dressing-room window. I followed with Gaston as she opened the
window. We hid ourselves so as not to be seen from outside.
“I have been calling you for ten minutes,” said Marguerite from her
window, in almost an imperious tone of voice.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to come over at once.”
“Why?”
“Because the Comte de N. is still here, and he is boring me to death.”
“I can’t now.”
“What is hindering you?”
“There are two young fellows here who won’t go.”
“Tell them that you must go out.”
“I have told them.”
“Well, then, leave them in the house. They will soon go when they see
you have gone.”
“They will turn everything upside down.”