La dame aux camélias (Novel). English

by Alexandre Dumas

  Chapter 17

  Next day Marguerite sent me away very early, saying that the duke wascoming at an early hour, and promising to write to me the moment hewent, and to make an appointment for the evening. In the course of theday I received this note:

  "I am going to Bougival with the duke; be at Prudence's to-night ateight."

  At the appointed hour Marguerite came to me at Mme. Duvernoy's. "Well,it is all settled," she said, as she entered. "The house is taken?"asked Prudence. "Yes; he agreed at once."

  I did not know the duke, but I felt ashamed of deceiving him.

  "But that is not all," continued Marguerite.

  "What else is there?"

  "I have been seeing about a place for Armand to stay."

  "In the same house?" asked Prudence, laughing.

  "No, at Point du Jour, where we had dinner, the duke and I. While hewas admiring the view, I asked Mme. Arnould (she is called Mme. Arnould,isn't she?) if there were any suitable rooms, and she showed me just thevery thing: salon, anteroom, and bed-room, at sixty francs a month; thewhole place furnished in a way to divert a hypochondriac. I took it. WasI right?" I flung my arms around her neck and kissed her.

  "It will be charming," she continued. "You have the key of the littledoor, and I have promised the duke the key of the front door, whichhe will not take, because he will come during the day when he comes. Ithink, between ourselves, that he is enchanted with a caprice which willkeep me out of Paris for a time, and so silence the objections of hisfamily. However, he has asked me how I, loving Paris as I do, could makeup my mind to bury myself in the country. I told him that I was ill, andthat I wanted rest. He seemed to have some difficulty in believing me.The poor old man is always on the watch. We must take every precaution,my dear Armand, for he will have me watched while I am there; and itisn't only the question of his taking a house for me, but he has mydebts to pay, and unluckily I have plenty. Does all that suit you?"

  "Yes," I answered, trying to quiet the scruples which this way of livingawoke in me from time to time.

  "We went all over the house, and we shall have everything perfect. Theduke is going to look after every single thing. Ah, my dear," she added,kissing me, "you're in luck; it's a millionaire who makes your bed foryou."

  "And when shall you move into the house?" inquired Prudence.

  "As soon as possible."

  "Will you take your horses and carriage?"

  "I shall take the whole house, and you can look after my place while Iam away."

  A week later Marguerite was settled in her country house, and I wasinstalled at Point du Jour.

  Then began an existence which I shall have some difficulty in describingto you. At first Marguerite could not break entirely with her formerhabits, and, as the house was always en fete, all the women whomshe knew came to see her. For a whole month there was not a day whenMarguerite had not eight or ten people to meals. Prudence, on her side,brought down all the people she knew, and did the honours of the houseas if the house belonged to her.

  The duke's money paid for all that, as you may imagine; but from timeto time Prudence came to me, asking for a note for a thousand francs,professedly on behalf of Marguerite. You know I had won some money atgambling; I therefore immediately handed over to Prudence what sheasked for Marguerite, and fearing lest she should require more than Ipossessed, I borrowed at Paris a sum equal to that which I had alreadyborrowed and paid back. I was then once more in possession of some tenthousand francs, without reckoning my allowance. However, Marguerite'spleasure in seeing her friends was a little moderated when she saw theexpense which that pleasure entailed, and especially the necessity shewas sometimes in of asking me for money. The duke, who had taken thehouse in order that Marguerite might rest there, no longer visited it,fearing to find himself in the midst of a large and merry company, bywhom he did not wish to be seen. This came about through his having oncearrived to dine tete-a-tete with Marguerite, and having fallen upona party of fifteen, who were still at lunch at an hour when he wasprepared to sit down to dinner. He had unsuspectingly opened thedining-room door, and had been greeted by a burst of laughter, and hadhad to retire precipitately before the impertinent mirth of the womenwho were assembled there.

  Marguerite rose from table, and joined the duke in the next room, whereshe tried, as far as possible, to induce him to forget the incident, butthe old man, wounded in his dignity, bore her a grudge for it, and couldnot forgive her. He said to her, somewhat cruelly, that he was tired ofpaying for the follies of a woman who could not even have him treatedwith respect under his own roof, and he went away in great indignation.

  Since that day he had never been heard of.

  In vain Marguerite dismissed her guests, changed her way of life;the duke was not to be heard of. I was the gainer in so, far that mymistress now belonged to me more completely, and my dream was at lengthrealized. Marguerite could not be without me. Not caring what the resultmight be, she publicly proclaimed our liaison, and I had come to liveentirely at her house. The servants addressed me officially as theirmaster.

  Prudence had strictly sermonized Marguerite in regard to her new mannerof life; but she had replied that she loved me, that she could not livewithout me, and that, happen what might, she would not sacrifice thepleasure of having me constantly with her, adding that those who werenot satisfied with this arrangement were free to stay away. So muchI had heard one day when Prudence had said to Marguerite that she hadsomething very important to tell her, and I had listened at the door ofthe room into which they had shut themselves.

  Not long after, Prudence returned again. I was at the other end of thegarden when she arrived, and she did not see me. I had no doubt, fromthe way in which Marguerite came to meet her, that another similarconversation was going to take place, and I was anxious to hear whatit was about. The two women shut themselves into a boudoir, and I putmyself within hearing.

  "Well?" said Marguerite.

  "Well, I have seen the duke."

  "What did he say?"

  "That he would gladly forgive you in regard to the scene which tookplace, but that he has learned that you are publicly living with M.Armand Duval, and that he will never forgive that. 'Let Marguerite leavethe young man,' he said to me, 'and, as in the past, I will give her allthat she requires; if not, let her ask nothing more from me.'"

  "And you replied?"

  "That I would report his decision to you, and I promised him that Iwould bring you into a more reasonable frame of mind. Only think, mydear child, of the position that you are losing, and that Armand cannever give you. He loves you with all his soul, but he has no fortunecapable of supplying your needs, and he will be bound to leave you oneday, when it will be too late and when the duke will refuse to do anymore for you. Would you like me to speak to Armand?"

  Marguerite seemed to be thinking, for she answered nothing. My heartbeat violently while I waited for her reply.

  "No," she answered, "I will not leave Armand, and I will not conceal thefact that I am living with him. It is folly no doubt, but I love him.What would you have me do? And then, now that he has got accustomed tobe always with me, he would suffer too cruelly if he had to leave me somuch as an hour a day. Besides, I have not such a long time to live thatI need make myself miserable in order to please an old man whose verysight makes me feel old. Let him keep his money; I will do without it."

  "But what will you do?"

  "I don't in the least know."

  Prudence was no doubt going to make some reply, but I entered suddenlyand flung myself at Marguerite's feet, covering her hands with tears inmy joy at being thus loved.

  "My life is yours, Marguerite; you need this man no longer. Am I nothere? Shall I ever leave you, and can I ever repay you for the happinessthat you give me? No more barriers, my Marguerite; we love; what mattersall the rest?"

  "Oh yes, I love you, my Armand," she murmured, putting her two armsaround my neck. "I love you as I never thought I should ever love. Wewill be happy; we wil
l live quietly, and I will say good-bye forever tothe life for which I now blush. You won't ever reproach me for the past?Tell me!"

  Tears choked my voice. I could only reply by clasping Marguerite to myheart.

  "Well," said she, turning to Prudence, and speaking in a broken voice,"you can report this scene to the duke, and you can add that we have nolonger need of him."

  From that day forth the duke was never referred to. Marguerite was nolonger the same woman that I had known. She avoided everything thatmight recall to me the life which she had been leading when I firstmet her. Never did wife or sister surround husband or brother withsuch loving care as she had for me. Her nature was morbidly open to allimpressions and accessible to all sentiments. She had broken equallywith her friends and with her ways, with her words and with herextravagances. Any one who had seen us leaving the house to go on theriver in the charming little boat which I had bought would never havebelieved that the woman dressed in white, wearing a straw hat, andcarrying on her arm a little silk pelisse to protect her against thedamp of the river, was that Marguerite Gautier who, only four monthsago, had been the talk of the town for the luxury and scandal of herexistence.

  Alas, we made haste to be happy, as if we knew that we were not to behappy long.

  For two months we had not even been to Paris. No one came to see us,except Prudence and Julie Duprat, of whom I have spoken to you, and towhom Marguerite was afterward to give the touching narrative that I havethere.

  I passed whole days at the feet of my mistress. We opened the windowsupon the garden, and, as we watched the summer ripening in its flowersand under the shadow of the trees, we breathed together that true lifewhich neither Marguerite nor I had ever known before.

  Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There weredays when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterflyor a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets thanwould have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on thegrass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore.

  It was at this time that she read Manon Lescaut, over and over again.I found her several times making notes in the book, and she alwaysdeclared that when a woman loves, she can not do as Manon did.

  The duke wrote to her two or three times. She recognised the writing andgave me the letters without reading them. Sometimes the terms of theseletters brought tears to my eyes. He had imagined that by closing hispurse to Marguerite, he would bring her back to him; but when he hadperceived the uselessness of these means, he could hold out no longer;he wrote and asked that he might see her again, as before, no matter onwhat conditions.

  I read these urgent and repeated letters, and tore them in pieces,without telling Marguerite what they contained and without advising herto see the old man again, though I was half inclined to, so much did Ipity him, but I was afraid lest, if I so advised her she should thinkthat I wished the duke, not merely to come and see her again, but totake over the expenses of the house; I feared, above all, that she mightthink me capable of shirking the responsibilities of every consequenceto which her love for me might lead her.

  It thus came about that the duke, receiving no reply, ceased to write,and that Marguerite and I continued to live together without giving athought to the future.