Chapter 15
It was hardly an hour after Joseph and I had begun preparing for mydeparture, when there was a violent ring at the door.
"Shall I go to the door?" said Joseph.
"Go," I said, asking myself who it could be at such an hour, and notdaring to believe that it was Marguerite.
"Sir," said Joseph coming back to me, "it is two ladies."
"It is we, Armand," cried a voice that I recognised as that of Prudence.
I came out of my room. Prudence was standing looking around the place;Marguerite, seated on the sofa, was meditating. I went to her, kneltdown, took her two hands, and, deeply moved, said to her, "Pardon."
She kissed me on the forehead, and said:
"This is the third time that I have forgiven you."
"I should have gone away to-morrow."
"How can my visit change your plans? I have not come to hinder you fromleaving Paris. I have come because I had no time to answer you duringthe day, and I did not wish to let you think that I was angry with you.Prudence didn't want me to come; she said that I might be in the way."
"You in the way, Marguerite! But how?"
"Well, you might have had a woman here," said Prudence, "and it wouldhardly have been amusing for her to see two more arrive."
During this remark Marguerite looked at me attentively.
"My dear Prudence," I answered, "you do not know what you are saying."
"What a nice place you've got!" Prudence went on. "May we see thebedroom?"
"Yes."
Prudence went into the bedroom, not so much to see it as to make up forthe foolish thing which she had just said, and to leave Marguerite andme alone.
"Why did you bring Prudence?" I asked her.
"Because she was at the theatre with me, and because when I leave here Iwant to have someone to see me home."
"Could not I do?"
"Yes, but, besides not wishing to put you out, I was sure that if youcame as far as my door you would want to come up, and as I could not letyou, I did not wish to let you go away blaming me for saying 'No.'"
"And why could you not let me come up?"
"Because I am watched, and the least suspicion might do me the greatestharm."
"Is that really the only reason?"
"If there were any other, I would tell you; for we are not to have anysecrets from one another now."
"Come, Marguerite, I am not going to take a roundabout way of sayingwhat I really want to say. Honestly, do you care for me a little?"
"A great deal."
"Then why did you deceive me?"
"My friend, if I were the Duchess So and So, if I had two hundredthousand francs a year, and if I were your mistress and had anotherlover, you would have the right to ask me; but I am Mlle. MargueriteGautier, I am forty thousand francs in debt, I have not a penny of myown, and I spend a hundred thousand francs a year. Your question becomesunnecessary and my answer useless."
"You are right," I said, letting my head sink on her knees; "but I loveyou madly."
"Well, my friend, you must either love me a little less or understand mea little better. Your letter gave me a great deal of pain. If I hadbeen free, first of all I would not have seen the count the day beforeyesterday, or, if I had, I should have come and asked your forgivenessas you ask me now, and in future I should have had no other lover butyou. I fancied for a moment that I might give myself that happiness forsix months; you would not have it; you insisted on knowing the means.Well, good heavens, the means were easy enough to guess! In employingthem I was making a greater sacrifice for you than you imagine. I mighthave said to you, 'I want twenty thousand francs'; you were in love withme and you would have found them, at the risk of reproaching me for itlater on. I preferred to owe you nothing; you did not understand thescruple, for such it was. Those of us who are like me, when we have anyheart at all, we give a meaning and a development to words and thingsunknown to other women; I repeat, then, that on the part of MargueriteGautier the means which she used to pay her debts without asking you forthe money necessary for it, was a scruple by which you ought to profit,without saying anything. If you had only met me to-day, you would be toodelighted with what I promised you, and you would not question me as towhat I did the day before yesterday. We are sometimes obliged to buy thesatisfaction of our souls at the expense of our bodies, and we sufferstill more, when, afterward, that satisfaction is denied us."
I listened, and I gazed at Marguerite with admiration. When I thoughtthat this marvellous creature, whose feet I had once longed to kiss, waswilling to let me take my place in her thoughts, my part in her life,and that I was not yet content with what she gave me, I asked if man'sdesire has indeed limits when, satisfied as promptly as mine had been,it reached after something further.
"Truly," she continued, "we poor creatures of chance have fantasticdesires and inconceivable loves. We give ourselves now for one thing,now for another. There are men who ruin themselves without obtainingthe least thing from us; there are others who obtain us for a bouquet offlowers. Our hearts have their caprices; it is their one distractionand their one excuse. I gave myself to you sooner than I ever did toany man, I swear to you; and do you know why? Because when you saw mespitting blood you took my hand; because you wept; because you are theonly human being who has ever pitied me. I am going to say a mad thingto you: I once had a little dog who looked at me with a sad look whenI coughed; that is the only creature I ever loved. When he died I criedmore than when my mother died. It is true that for twelve years of herlife she used to beat me. Well, I loved you all at once, as much as mydog. If men knew what they can have for a tear, they would be betterloved and we should be less ruinous to them.
"Your letter undeceived me; it showed me that you lacked theintelligence of the heart; it did you more harm with me than anythingyou could possibly have done. It was jealousy certainly, but ironicaland impertinent jealousy. I was already feeling sad when I received yourletter. I was looking forward to seeing you at twelve, to having lunchwith you, and wiping out, by seeing you, a thought which was withme incessantly, and which, before I knew you, I had no difficulty intolerating.
"Then," continued Marguerite, "you were the only person before whom itseemed to me, from the first, that I could think and speak freely. Allthose who come about women like me have an interest in calculatingtheir slightest words, in thinking of the consequences of their mostinsignificant actions. Naturally we have no friends. We have selfishlovers who spend their fortunes, riot on us, as they say, but on theirown vanity. For these people we have to be merry when they are merry,well when they want to sup, sceptics like themselves. We are not allowedto have hearts, under penalty of being hooted down and of ruining ourcredit.
"We no longer belong to ourselves. We are no longer beings, but things.We stand first in their self-esteem, last in their esteem. We have womenwho call themselves our friends, but they are friends like Prudence,women who were once kept and who have still the costly tastes that theirage does not allow them to gratify. Then they become our friends, orrather our guests at table. Their friendship is carried to the point ofservility, never to that of disinterestedness. Never do they give youadvice which is not lucrative. It means little enough to them that weshould have ten lovers extra, as long as they get dresses or a braceletout of them, and that they can drive in our carriage from time to timeor come to our box at the theatre. They have our last night's bouquets,and they borrow our shawls. They never render us a service, howeverslight, without seeing that they are paid twice its value. You yourselfsaw when Prudence brought me the six thousand francs that I had askedher to get from the duke, how she borrowed five hundred francs, whichshe will never pay me back, or which she will pay me in hats, which willnever be taken out of their boxes.
"We can not, then, have, or rather I can not have more than one possiblekind of happiness, and this is, sad as I sometimes am, suffering as Ialways am, to find a man superior enough not to ask questions about mylife, and to be the lover of
my impressions rather than of my body.Such a man I found in the duke; but the duke is old, and old age neitherprotects nor consoles. I thought I could accept the life which heoffered me; but what would you have? I was dying of ennui, and if one isbound to be consumed, it is as well to throw oneself into the flames asto be asphyxiated with charcoal.
"Then I met you, young, ardent, happy, and I tried to make you the man Ihad longed for in my noisy solitude. What I loved in you was not theman who was, but the man who was going to be. You do not accept theposition, you reject it as unworthy of you; you are an ordinary lover.Do like the others; pay me, and say no more about it."
Marguerite, tired out with this long confession, threw herself back onthe sofa, and to stifle a slight cough put up her handkerchief to herlips, and from that to her eyes.
"Pardon, pardon," I murmured. "I understood it all, but I wanted tohave it from your own lips, my beloved Marguerite. Forget the rest andremember only one thing: that we belong to one another, that we areyoung, and that we love. Marguerite, do with me as you will; I am yourslave, your dog, but in the name of heaven tear up the letter which Iwrote to you and do not make me leave you to-morrow; it would kill me."
Marguerite drew the letter from her bosom, and handing it to me with asmile of infinite sweetness, said:
"Here it is. I have brought it back."
I tore the letter into fragments and kissed with tears the hand thatgave it to me.
At this moment Prudence reappeared.
"Look here, Prudence; do you know what he wants?" said Marguerite.
"He wants you to forgive him."
"Precisely."
"And you do?"
"One has to; but he wants more than that."
"What, then?"
"He wants to have supper with us."
"And do you consent?"
"What do you think?"
"I think that you are two children who haven't an atom of sense betweenyou; but I also think that I am very hungry, and that the sooner youconsent the sooner we shall have supper."
"Come," said Marguerite, "there is room for the three of us in mycarriage."
"By the way," she added, turning to me, "Nanine will be gone to bed. Youmust open the door; take my key, and try not to lose it again."
I embraced Marguerite until she was almost stifled.
Thereupon Joseph entered.
"Sir," he said, with the air of a man who is very well satisfied withhimself, "the luggage is packed."
"All of it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, then, unpack it again; I am not going."
La dame aux camélias (Novel). English Page 15