The Lady of the Camellias (16 page)

To give you the details of our new life would be difficult. It was made up of a series of childlike indulgences that were delightful to us, but would be insignificant to anyone I might tell them to. You know what it is to be in love with a woman; you know how short the days are, and with what amorous indolence one passes from one day to the next. You are not unaware of the obliviousness to all other things that accompanies the birth of a strong, confident, shared passion. Any creature who is not the woman you love seems to you an entirely pointless being. One regrets having given away any portion of one's heart to other women, and one cannot imagine the possibility of ever holding any hand but the one you now hold in yours. The brain will not tolerate work or memory—anything, in short, that could distract you from the overwhelming obsession that constantly presents itself to the mind. Every day one finds in one's mistress a new charm, a previously unsuspected sensuality.

Existence becomes nothing more than the repeated fulfillment of a continuing desire; the soul is nothing but the vestal virgin charged with maintaining the sacred fire of love.

Often, once night fell, we would go to sit in the little woods that surrounded the house. There we would listen to the cheerful harmonies of the night, while we both thought of the hour to come, when we would fall into each other's arms and lie there until the next day. Other times we remained in bed the entire day, without even letting the sun enter our bedroom. The curtains were hermetically sealed, and for a moment, the outside world ceased to exist for us. Only Nanine had the right to open our door, but only to bring us our meals, and even those we took without getting out of bed, and we interrupted them continually with laughter and giddiness. This would be followed by a sleep of a few moments, for, lost in our love, we were like two stubborn divers who surface only long enough to draw air.

Sometimes, though, I was surprised to come upon Marguerite in moments of sadness, even in tears. I would ask her the cause of her sudden sorrow, and she would answer, “Our love is not an ordinary love, my dear Armand. You love me as if I had never belonged to anybody else, and I tremble to think that, later, repenting of your love and blaming me for my past, you might throw me back into the midst of the existence you snatched me from. Please remember that, now that I've tasted a new life, it would kill me to take up the old one again. Tell me that you will never leave me.”

“I swear it to you!”

At these words she looked searchingly into my eyes, as if to try to read there if my vow was sincere, then flung herself into my arms and, hiding her head against my chest, said, “It's just that you don't know how much I love you!”

One night we were leaning against the balcony outside the window, looking at the moon, which seemed to extricate itself with difficulty from its bed of clouds, and listening to the wind noisily shaking the trees. We held hands, and for a solid quarter of an hour we had not spoken, when Marguerite said, “Winter is here; would you like us to go away?”

“To go where?”

“To Italy.”

“So you're bored?”

“I'm afraid of winter, but above all I'm afraid of our return to Paris.”

“Why?”

“For many reasons.”

She continued rapidly, without giving me the reasons for her fears, “Do you want to go? I will sell everything I own; we will go live abroad. Nothing will be left of what I used to be; nobody will know who I am. Do you want to?”

“Let's go, if that makes you happy, Marguerite; let's take a trip,” I said. “But why sell all the things that you'll be glad to find upon returning? I don't have a big enough fortune to accept so great a sacrifice, but I have enough for us to travel in style for five or six months, if that would entertain you at all.”

“Actually, no,” she said, leaving the window and going to sit on the sofa at the dark end of the room. “What's the good of going over there to spend money? I'm costing you enough here.”

“It's not generous of you to reproach me for that, Marguerite.”

“I'm sorry, my friend,” she said, giving me her hand. “This stormy weather is hard on my nerves; I'm not saying what I mean to say.”

And, after kissing me, she fell into a long reverie.

Similar scenes took place many times, and even if I did not know what it was that caused them, this did not keep me from sensing in Marguerite a feeling of anxiety about the future. She could not doubt my love; it grew every day. Yet all the same, I often saw her unhappy, and she was never able to give me any explanation for her sadness, apart from some physical excuse.

Afraid that she might be growing tired of a life that had become too monotonous for her, I would propose that we return to Paris, but she always rejected the suggestion, and assured me that she could not be as happy anywhere as she was in the countryside.

Prudence came rarely now, but to make up for it she wrote letters, which I never asked to see, although Marguerite became deeply preoccupied every time she got one. I did not know what to think.

One day Marguerite kept to her room. I walked in. She was writing.

“Who are you writing to?” I asked.

“To Prudence; would you like me to read you what I'm writing?”

Horrified by anything that might smack of suspicion, I told Marguerite that I did not need to know what she was writing; nonetheless I was sure the letter would have acquainted me with the true cause of her sadness.

The next day the weather was glorious. Marguerite proposed that we go out on the boat and visit the island of Croissy. She seemed extremely cheerful; it was five o'clock when we got home.

“Mme Duvernoy came by,” Nanine said as she saw us come in.

“And she left?” Marguerite asked.

“Yes, in madam's carriage; she said that it had been arranged.”

“Very good,” Marguerite said spiritedly. “May it serve us well.”

Two days later a letter arrived from Prudence, and for two weeks, Marguerite seemed to be over her mysterious depressions, which she didn't stop begging my pardon for, once they no longer existed.

However, the carriage did not come back.

“Why hasn't Prudence sent back your coupé?” I asked one day.

“One of the two horses is sick, and the carriage is being fixed. We might as well have all of that dealt with while we're still here, where we don't need a carriage, rather than wait until we're back in Paris.”

Prudence came to see us a few days later, and confirmed what Marguerite had told me.

The two women went for a walk alone in the garden, and when I came to join them, they changed the subject.

That night, when she went out, Prudence complained of the cold and asked Marguerite to lend her a cashmere shawl.

A month passed, during which Marguerite was more joyful and loving than she had ever been.

However, the carriage never returned; the cashmere was not sent back. All this intrigued me, in spite of myself, and as I knew in which drawer Marguerite put her letters from Prudence, I took advantage of a moment when she was at the far end of the garden, went to the drawer, and tried to open it, but in vain; it was double-locked.

Then I searched through drawers where her jewels and diamonds ordinarily could be found. These opened without resistance, but the cases had disappeared, along with their contents, of course.

A sinking feeling gripped my heart.

I determined to get the truth out of Marguerite about the meaning of these disappearances, but was sure she would not own up to it.

“My good Marguerite,” I said to her later, “I've come to ask your leave to go to Paris. Nobody at my residence knows where I am, and they must have received letters from my father. No doubt he is worried; I must send him a reply.”

“Go, my friend,” she said, “but come back quickly.”

I left.

I ran at once to see Prudence.

“All right,” I said to her without any preliminaries, “tell me frankly, where are Marguerite's horses?”

“Sold.”

“Her cashmere shawl?”

“Sold.”

“The diamonds?”

“Pawned.”

“And who did the selling and pawning?”

“I did.”

“Why didn't you alert me to this?”

“Because Marguerite forbade me to.”

“And why didn't you ask me for money?”

“Because she didn't want me to.”

“And what was this money for?”

“To pay for things.”

“So she owes a lot?”

“She still owes thirty thousand francs or thereabouts. Ah! My dear, I told you, and you didn't want to believe me; well, now, consider yourself convinced. The decorator who formerly was paid by the duke was shown the door when he presented himself there, and the duke wrote him the next day that he would do nothing further for Mlle Gautier. That man wanted money; we gave him a portion of what he was due, which is where those few thousand francs I asked you for went. Then, some charitable souls informed him that his debtor, abandoned by the duke, was living with a boy with no fortune. The other creditors got wind of the same thing; they all started asking for money and demanding their goods back. Marguerite wanted to sell everything, but there wasn't time, and anyway, I would have been against it. We simply had to pay, and in order not to ask you for money, she sold her horses and her cashmeres and pawned her jewelry. Would you like the receipts from the buyers and the receipts from the pawnshop?”

And Prudence, opening a drawer, showed me these papers.

“Ah! You see,” she continued with the persistence of a woman determined to speak her piece, “I was right! Ah! You thought it was enough to be in love and to go live a pastoral, ethereal existence in the country? No, my friend; no. The material world coexists alongside the ideal life, and the purest intentions are bound to the earth by ridiculous threads, but they are threads of iron, and they are not easily broken. If Marguerite has not cheated on you twenty times, it's only because she has extraordinary character. It's not for lack of my counsel, either, because it pained me to watch the poor girl lose everything. But she didn't want to! She told me she loved you and would not deceive you for anything in the world. All that is very pretty, very poetic, but it won't pay the creditors, and today she can no longer get out of this mess, except, I repeat, with thirty thousand francs.”

“That's fine; I will furnish that sum.”

“You will borrow it?”

“Good God, yes.”

“A fine mess you'll get yourself in that way. You'll fight with your father, deplete your resources; and it's not so easy to come up with thirty thousand francs overnight. Believe me, my dear Armand; I know women better than you do. Do not commit this folly, which you will repent one day. Be reasonable. I am not telling you to leave Marguerite, but live with her as you did at the beginning of summer. Let her find the means to extricate herself from her predicament. The duke will come back to her, step by step. The Comte de N . . . , if she will take him, he told me again yesterday, will pay off all her debts and give her four or five thousand francs per month. He has two hundred thousand francs a year. That would create a secure position for her, whereas you? You will inevitably have to leave her anyway. Don't wait to do it until you are ruined, and keep in mind that the Comte de N . . . is an imbecile, and that nothing will prevent you from being Marguerite's lover. She will cry a little at first, but she'll end by getting used to it, and she'll thank you one day for what you have done. Just pretend that Marguerite is married and you're cheating on her husband, that's all.

“I told you all of this before; only, at that time, it was still just advice. Today it's practically a necessity.”

Prudence was cruelly correct.

“Here's how it is,” she continued, while putting away the papers she had just shown me. “Kept women always anticipate being loved, but they never anticipate being in love. Otherwise they would put money aside, and at thirty they could afford the luxury of taking a lover for free. If I had only known then what I know now! Well, say nothing to Marguerite, but take her back to Paris. You have spent four or five months alone with her, that's a marvelous thing, now all that is required of you is to shut your eyes. After two weeks she will take the Comte de N . . . as a lover, she will make economies this winter, and next summer, you will start over. That's what you need to do, my dear!”

Prudence appeared enchanted by her sage advice, which I indignantly rejected.

Not only did my love and my dignity prevent me from acting in such a way, but I was also convinced that, given the point to which things had come, Marguerite would have rather died than share herself with another.

“That's enough kidding around,” I said to Prudence. “How much, definitively, does Marguerite have to have?”

“I told you, thirty thousand francs.”

“And by what time must she have this sum?”

“Within two months.”

“She will have it.”

Prudence shrugged her shoulders.

“I will get it for you,” I continued, “but you must swear to me that you will not tell Marguerite that it was I who gave it to you.”

“Don't worry.”

“And if she sends you to sell or pawn something else, let me know.”

“There's no danger of that, she has nothing left.”

I went first to my residence to see if there were any letters from my father.

There were four.

In his first three letters, my father expressed anxiety about my silence and asked me the cause of it; in the last, he led me to see that he had been apprised of the change in my life, and announced his imminent arrival.

I have always had a great respect and a sincere fondness for my father. I therefore responded that a little trip had been the cause of my silence, and begged him to tell me the day of his arrival in advance, so I could go see him.

I gave my servant my address in the country, instructing him to bring me the first letter he received postmarked with the city of C . . . , and then returned at once to Bougival.

Marguerite was waiting for me at the garden gate.

Her gaze looked anxious. She threw her arms around my neck, and couldn't keep from saying, “Did you see Prudence?”

“No.”

“You were in Paris for some time.”

“I found letters from my father which I had to respond to.”

A few moments later Nanine entered all out of breath. Marguerite got up and went to speak to her in a low voice.

When Nanine had left, Marguerite said, as she sat near me and took my hand, “Why did you deceive me? You went to see Prudence?”

“Who told you?”

“Nanine.”

“And how did she know?”

“She followed you.”

“You told her to follow me?”

“Yes. I thought that you must have a motive to go to Paris like that, you who have not left me for four months. I was afraid that some stroke of bad luck had come to you, or that perhaps you were going to go see another woman.”

“Child!”

“I'm reassured, now that I know what you have done, but I don't know yet what you have been told.”

I showed Marguerite the letters from my father.

“That's not what I am asking you for; what I would like to know is why you went to see Prudence.”

“Just to see her.”

“You are lying, my friend.”

“All right, well, I went to ask her if the horse was doing better, and if she still needed your cashmere and your jewels.”

Marguerite colored but did not respond.

“And,” I continued, “I found out what use you had put the horses to, and the cashmere and the diamonds.”

“And you hold it against me?”

“I hold it against you that it didn't occur to you to come ask me for what you needed.”

“In a relationship such as ours, if the woman is to retain any dignity, she must make every possible sacrifice rather than ask for money from her lover and cast a venal character on her love. You love me, I'm sure of it, but you don't know how slender the thread is that secures the love people have for girls like me to their hearts. Who knows? Maybe on some day of irritation or tedium you might decide you perceive in our relationship some sort of clever calculation! Prudence is a chatterbox. What need had I of those horses! It was a savings for me to sell them; I can get along just fine without them, and I no longer have to spend anything on them. As long as you love me, that's all that I ask, and you will love me just as much without horses, without cashmere, and without diamonds.”

All of this was said in a tone so natural that tears came to my eyes as I listened to her.

“But, my good Marguerite,” I said, clasping my mistress's hands with love, “you must have known that one day I would learn of this sacrifice, and that the day I learned of it, I would not tolerate it.”

“But why?”

“Because, dear child, I cannot accept that the affection you choose to have for me should deprive you of even one jewel. Nor do I, either, want to think that, in some moment of irritation or tedium, you might reflect that if you lived with a different man, such difficulties would not arise; nor do I want for you to regret, if only for a minute, that you live with me. In a few days your horses, your diamonds, and your cashmere will be returned to you. They are as necessary to you as oxygen is to life, and it may be ridiculous, but I love you more when you're sumptuous than when you're simple.”

“So you don't love me anymore.”

“You're crazy!”

“If you loved me, you would let me love you in my own way; instead you continue to see in me nothing but a girl to whom luxury is indispensable, and whom you believe yourself always forced to pay for. You are ashamed to accept the proofs of my love. In spite of yourself, you intend to leave me one day, and out of delicacy you make sure your behavior is unexceptionable. Fair enough, my friend, but I had hoped for better.”

Marguerite made a movement to rise, but I held her back, saying, “I want you to be happy, and for you to have nothing to reproach me with, that is all.”

“But we will part!”

“Why, Marguerite? Who can part us?” I cried.

“You, who do not want to permit me to consider your position, yet who have the vanity to keep me in mine; you, who in preserving the luxury in which I used to live, seek to preserve the moral distance that divides us; you, finally, who do not believe my affection for you is disinterested enough to share with me the income you have, on which we could live happily together, but who prefer to ruin yourself, slave that you are to an absurd preconception. Does that mean that you believe I would prefer a carriage and jewelry to your love? Do you believe happiness consists for me of the trifles that one takes pleasure in when one loves nothing, and that become worthless when one truly loves? You will pay my debts, use up your fortune, and keep me! How long will all of that last? Two or three months, and then it will be too late to attempt the life that I'm proposing to you, because in that way you would accept everything about me, which is all a man of honor may do. As it is, now you have eight or ten thousand francs a year on which we could live. I will sell what is left of what I have, and by this sale alone I will make two thousand francs a year. We will rent a pretty little apartment in which we will live, just the two of us. In the summer we'll go to the country, not to a house like this one but to a little place that's just fine for two people. You are independent, I am free, we are young. In the name of Heaven, Armand, do not throw me back into the life I was forced to lead in the past.”

I could not respond; tears of acknowledgment and love flooded my eyes, and I threw myself into Marguerite's arms.

“I had wanted,” she continued, “to arrange everything without telling you about it, to pay off all my debts and get my new apartment ready. In the month of October we would have returned to Paris, and I would have told you everything then; but since Prudence has told you everything, now you must give your consent beforehand, instead of after. Do you love me enough to do that?”

It was impossible to resist such great devotion. I showered Marguerite's hands with kisses and said to her, “I will do as you wish.”

What she had decided was agreed.

She then was overcome with wild joy. She danced, she sang, she gushed about the simplicity of her new apartment, about the neighborhood and how we would live there, and made me part of her plans.

I saw her happy and proud of this resolve, which seemed to have brought us definitively closer together.

I wanted to be with nobody but her.

In an instant I decided what to do with my life. I would put my financial affairs in order, and I would give Marguerite the use of the income that came to me from my mother, and that seemed to me hardly sufficient recompense for the sacrifice I was accepting from her.

I still had the five thousand francs in allowance that my father gave me, and as long as that kept coming, I would always have enough to live on from this annual sum.

I did not tell Marguerite what I had resolved, convinced she would refuse this gift.

The income came from a sixty-thousand-franc mortgage on a house I'd never even seen. All I knew was that every three months my father's notary, an old friend of the family, sent me 750 francs.

The day when Marguerite and I came to Paris to go apartment hunting, I went to see this notary and asked him how I could transfer this income to another person.

The good man assumed I was ruined, and asked me the reason for this decision. And, rationalizing that sooner or later I would have to tell him to whom I was making over this money, I chose to tell him the truth at once.

He made none of the objections that his position as notary and friend entitled him to make, and assured me that he would take it upon himself to arrange everything for the best.

I naturally asked him to exercise great discretion on the matter when it came to my father, and then went to join Marguerite, who was waiting for me at Julie Duprat's, where she had decided to go, instead of to Prudence's, where she was bound to get a lecture.

We went apartment hunting. Everything we saw was either too expensive for Marguerite's taste or too simple for mine. However, we ended up agreeing on a place in one of the most tranquil neighborhoods of Paris, a little detached residence set back from the main house on the grounds of a property.

Behind this little residence extended a charming garden that belonged to it, surrounded by walls that were high enough to separate us from our neighbors, yet low enough not to obstruct the view.

It was better than we had hoped for.

While I went home to revisit my apartment, Marguerite went to see a businessman who, she said, had already done for one of her girlfriends what she was going to ask him to undertake for her.

She came to find me on the rue de Provence in an exhilarated mood. The man had promised to pay off all her debts, to liberate her from them, and to give her twenty thousand francs on expectation of the sale of her furniture.

You saw by the amount of money the sale yielded that this honest man would have made more than thirty thousand francs off his client.

We left for Bougival all elated, and we continued to discuss our plans for the future, which, thanks to our carefree mood and, above all, to our love, we saw in the rosiest hue.

Eight days later we were having lunch when Nanine came to alert me that my servant was there to see me.

I bid him enter.

“Sir,” he told me, “your father has come to Paris, and begs you immediately to return home, where he awaits you.”

This news was the simplest thing in the world, and yet, in learning of it, Marguerite and I looked at each other.

We sensed misfortune in this development.

Also, without her needing to admit this emotion, which I shared, I said to her, giving her my hand, “Have no fear.”

“Come back as soon as you can,” Marguerite murmured as she kissed me. “I will wait for you at the window.”

I sent Joseph to tell my father that I was on my way.

Two hours later I was on the rue de Provence.