Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)
“But what do they want?”
“They want to see you.”
“What are they called?”
“You know one, M. Gaston R.”
“Ah, yes, I know him. And the other?”
“M. Armand Duval; and you don’t know him.”
“No, but bring them along. Anything is better than the count. I expect
you. Come at once.”
Marguerite closed her window and Prudence hers. Marguerite, who had
remembered my face for a moment, did not remember my name. I would
rather have been remembered to my disadvantage than thus forgotten.
“I knew,” said Gaston, “that she would be delighted to see us.”
“Delighted isn’t the word,” replied Prudence, as she put on her hat and
shawl. “She will see you in order to get rid of the count. Try to be
more agreeable than he is, or (I know Marguerite) she will put it all
down to me.”
We followed Prudence downstairs. I trembled; it seemed to me that this
visit was to have a great influence on my life. I was still more
agitated than on the evening when I was introduced in the box at the
Opera Comique. As we reached the door that you know, my heart beat so
violently that I was hardly able to think.
We heard the sound of a piano. Prudence rang. The piano was silent. A
woman who looked more like a companion than a servant opened the door.
We went into the drawing-room, and from that to the boudoir, which was
then just as you have seen it since. A young man was leaning against
the mantel-piece. Marguerite, seated at the piano, let her fingers
wander over the notes, beginning scraps of music without finishing
them. The whole scene breathed boredom, the man embarrassed by the
consciousness of his nullity, the woman tired of her dismal visitor. At
the voice of Prudence, Marguerite rose, and coming toward us with a
look of gratitude to Mme. Duvernoy, said:
“Come in, and welcome.”
Chapter IX
“Good-evening, my dear Gaston,” said Marguerite to my companion. “I am
very glad to see you. Why didn’t you come to see me in my box at the
Variétés?”
“I was afraid it would be indiscreet.”
“Friends,” and Marguerite lingered over the word, as if to intimate to
those who were present that in spite of the familiar way in which she
greeted him, Gaston was not and never had been anything more than a
friend, “friends are always welcome.”
“Then, will you permit me to introduce M. Armand Duval?”
“I had already authorized Prudence to do so.”
“As far as that goes, madame,” I said, bowing, and succeeding in
getting more or less intelligible sounds out of my throat, “I have
already had the honour of being introduced to you.”
Marguerite’s beautiful eyes seemed to be looking back in memory, but
she could not, or seemed not to, remember.
“Madame,” I continued, “I am grateful to you for having forgotten the
occasion of my first introduction, for I was very absurd and must have
seemed to you very tiresome. It was at the Opera Comique, two years
ago; I was with Ernest de ——.”
“Ah, I remember,” said Marguerite, with a smile. “It was not you who
were absurd; it was I who was mischievous, as I still am, but somewhat
less. You have forgiven me?”
And she held out her hand, which I kissed.
“It is true,” she went on; “you know I have the bad habit of trying to
embarrass people the first time I meet them. It is very stupid. My
doctor says it is because I am nervous and always ill; believe my
doctor.”
“But you seem quite well.”
“Oh! I have been very ill.”
“I know.”
“Who told you?”
“Every one knew it; I often came to inquire after you, and I was happy
to hear of your convalescence.”
“They never gave me your card.”
“I did not leave it.”
“Was it you, then, who called every day while I was ill, and would
never leave your name?”
“Yes, it was I.”
“Then you are more than indulgent, you are generous. You, count,
wouldn’t have done that,” said she, turning toward M. de N., after
giving me one of those looks in which women sum up their opinion of a
man.
“I have only known you for two months,” replied the count.
“And this gentleman only for five minutes. You always say something
ridiculous.”
Women are pitiless toward those whom they do not care for. The count
reddened and bit his lips.
I was sorry for him, for he seemed, like myself, to be in love, and the
bitter frankness of Marguerite must have made him very unhappy,
especially in the presence of two strangers.
“You were playing the piano when we came in,” I said, in order to
change the conversation. “Won’t you be so good as to treat me as an old
acquaintance and go on?”
“Oh,” said she, flinging herself on the sofa and motioning to us to sit
down, “Gaston knows what my music is like. It is all very well when I
am alone with the count, but I won’t inflict such a punishment on you.”
“You show me that preference?” said M. de N., with a smile which he
tried to render delicately ironical.
“Don’t reproach me for it. It is the only one.” It was fated that the
poor man was not to say a single word. He cast a really supplicating
glance at Marguerite.
“Well, Prudence,” she went on, “have you done what I asked you to do?”
“Yes.
“All right. You will tell me about it later. We must talk over it;
don’t go before I can speak with you.”
“We are doubtless intruders,” I said, “and now that we, or rather I,
have had a second introduction, to blot out the first, it is time for
Gaston and me to be going.”
“Not in the least. I didn’t mean that for you. I want you to stay.”
The count took a very elegant watch out of his pocket and looked at the
time. “I must be going to my club,” he said. Marguerite did not answer.
The count thereupon left his position by the fireplace and going up to
her, said: “Adieu, madame.”
Marguerite rose. “Adieu, my dear count. Are you going already?”
“Yes, I fear I am boring you.”
“You are not boring me to-day more than any other day. When shall I be
seeing you?”
“When you permit me.”
“Good-bye, then.”
It was cruel, you will admit. Fortunately, the count had excellent
manners and was very good-tempered. He merely kissed Marguerite’s hand,
which she held out to him carelessly enough, and, bowing to us, went
out.
As he crossed the threshold, he cast a glance at Prudence. She shrugged
her shoulders, as much as to say:
“What do you expect? I have done all I could.”
“Nanine!” cried Marguerite. “Light M. le Comte to the door.”
We heard the door open and shut.
“At last,” cried Marguerite, coming back, “he has gone! That man gets
frightfully on my nerves!”
“My dear child,” said Prudence, “you really treat him too badly, and he
is so good and kind to you. Look at this watch on the mantel-piece,
that he gave you: it must have cost him at least three thousand francs,
I am sure.”
And Mme. Duvernoy began to turn it over, as it lay on the mantel-piece,
looking at it with covetous eyes.
“My dear,” said Marguerite, sitting down to the piano, “when I put on
one side what he gives me and on the other what he says to me, it seems
to me that he buys his visits very cheap.”
“The poor fellow is in love with you.”
“If I had to listen to everybody who was in love with me, I shouldn’t
have time for my dinner.”
And she began to run her fingers over the piano, and then, turning to
us, she said:
“What will you take? I think I should like a little punch.”
“And I could eat a little chicken,” said Prudence. “Suppose we have
supper?”
“That’s it, let’s go and have supper,” said Gaston.
“No, we will have supper here.”
She rang, and Nanine appeared.
“Send for some supper.”
“What must I get?”
“Whatever you like, but at once, at once.”
Nanine went out.
“That’s it,” said Marguerite, jumping like a child, “we’ll have supper.
How tiresome that idiot of a count is!”
The more I saw her, the more she enchanted me. She was exquisitely
beautiful. Her slenderness was a charm. I was lost in contemplation.
What was passing in my mind I should have some difficulty in
explaining. I was full of indulgence for her life, full of admiration
for her beauty. The proof of disinterestedness that she gave in not
accepting a rich and fashionable young man, ready to waste all his
money upon her, excused her in my eyes for all her faults in the past.
There was a kind of candour in this woman. You could see she was still
in the virginity of vice. Her firm walk, her supple figure, her rosy,
open nostrils, her large eyes, slightly tinged with blue, indicated one
of those ardent natures which shed around them a sort of voluptuous
perfume, like Eastern vials, which, close them as tightly as you will,
still let some of their perfume escape. Finally, whether it was simple
nature or a breath of fever, there passed from time to time in the eyes
of this woman a glimmer of desire, giving promise of a very heaven for
one whom she should love. But those who had loved Marguerite were not
to be counted, nor those whom she had loved.
In this girl there was at once the virgin whom a mere nothing had
turned into a courtesan, and the courtesan whom a mere nothing would
have turned into the most loving and the purest of virgins. Marguerite
had still pride and independence, two sentiments which, if they are
wounded, can be the equivalent of a sense of shame. I did not speak a
word; my soul seemed to have passed into my heart and my heart into my
eyes.
“So,” said she all at once, “it was you who came to inquire after me
when I was ill?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know, it was quite splendid of you! How can I thank you for
it?”
“By allowing me to come and see you from time to time.”
“As often as you like, from five to six, and from eleven to twelve.
Now, Gaston, play the Invitation à la Valse.”
“Why?”
“To please me, first of all, and then because I never can manage to
play it myself.”
“What part do you find difficult?”
“The third part, the part in sharps.”
Gaston rose and went to the piano, and began to play the wonderful
melody of Weber, the music of which stood open before him.
Marguerite, resting one hand on the piano, followed every note on the
music, accompanying it in a low voice, and when Gaston had come to the
passage which she had mentioned to him, she sang out, running her
fingers along the top of the piano:
“Do, re, mi, do, re, fa, mi, re; that is what I can not do. Over
again.”
Gaston began over again, after which Marguerite said:
“Now, let me try.”
She took her place and began to play; but her rebellious fingers always
came to grief over one of the notes.
“Isn’t it incredible,” she said, exactly like a child, “that I can not
succeed in playing that passage? Would you believe that I sometimes
spend two hours of the morning over it? And when I think that that
idiot of a count plays it without his music, and beautifully, I really
believe it is that that makes me so furious with him.” And she began
again, always with the same result.
“The devil take Weber, music, and pianos!” she cried, throwing the
music to the other end of the room. “How can I play eight sharps one
after another?” She folded her arms and looked at us, stamping her
foot. The blood flew to her cheeks, and her lips half opened in a
slight cough.
“Come, come,” said Prudence, who had taken off her hat and was
smoothing her hair before the glass, “you will work yourself into a
rage and do yourself harm. Better come and have supper; for my part, I
am dying of hunger.”
Marguerite rang the bell, sat down to the piano again, and began to hum
over a very risky song, which she accompanied without difficulty.
Gaston knew the song, and they gave a sort of duet.
“Don’t sing those beastly things,” I said to Marguerite, imploringly.
“Oh, how proper you are!” she said, smiling and giving me her hand. “It
is not for myself, but for you.”
Marguerite made a gesture as if to say, “Oh, it is long since that I