The Lady of the Camellias (22 page)

“God's will be done!”

“February 5.

“Oh! Come, Armand. I suffer terribly; I am going to die, my God. I was so sad yesterday that I longed to be anywhere but at home in the evening, which promised to be as long as the night before. The duke came in the morning. The sight of this old man whom death has forgotten seems to make me die more quickly.

“Despite the burning fever that consumed me, I had myself dressed and driven to the Vaudeville. Julie put rouge on me, without it I would have looked cadaverous. I went to the box where I permitted you our first encounter. The entire time I kept my eyes fixed on the stall you had occupied that night, which yesterday was occupied by some rustic type, who laughed loudly at all the foolish things the actors said. I was taken home half-dead. I coughed and spat blood all night. Today I can no longer speak; I can hardly move my arms. My God! My God! I am going to die. I am expecting it, but I can't get used to the idea that I will suffer any more than I am already suffering, and if . . .”

After this word, the few characters Marguerite had tried to scrawl were illegible, and it was Julie Duprat who had continued.

“February 18.

“MONSIEUR ARMAND,

“Since the day when Marguerite wanted to go to the theater, she has grown sicker and sicker. She completely lost her voice, then the use of her limbs. What our poor friend suffers is impossible to say. I am not used to this kind of emotion, and I am continually seized by fright.

“How I wish you could be beside us! She is nearly always in delirium, but whether she is delirious or lucid, it is always your name she speaks when she is able to say a word.

“The doctor told me she doesn't have much longer. Since she has become so ill, the old duke has not returned.

“He told the doctor that the sight of her caused him too much pain.

“Mme Duvernoy is not behaving well. This woman, who thought she would be able to keep on getting money from Marguerite, at whose expense she was living almost entirely, has taken on contracts that she cannot keep, and, seeing that her neighbor is no longer useful to her, she no longer even comes to see her. Everyone is abandoning her. M. de G . . . , hounded by his debts, was forced to return to London. When he left, he sent us some money; he has done everything he could, but they came back to seize the things, and the creditors are only waiting for her death to sell it all.

“I would have liked to use my last resources to stop this, but the bailiff told me there was no point, and that there were still more seizures to come. Since she will die, it is better to abandon it all than to save it for her family, whom she did not want to see, and who never loved her. You cannot imagine the gilded misery the poor creature is dying amidst. Yesterday we had no money at all. Silver, jewels, shawls, everything has been pawned; the rest has been sold or seized. Marguerite is still conscious of what is happening around her, and she suffers body, mind, and heart. Giant tears roll down her cheeks, which are so gaunt and so pale that you would no longer recognize the face you loved so much if you could see her. She made me promise to write you when she would no longer be able, and I am writing in front of her. Her eyes are upon me, but she does not see me; her gaze is already clouded by her impending death. However, she is smiling, and all her thoughts, all her soul, are with you; I am sure of it.

“Every time anyone opens the door, her eyes light up, and she always thinks that you will walk in; then, when she sees it is not you, her face resumes its sorrowful expression, dampens with cool perspiration, and her cheeks turn purple.”

“February 19, midnight.

“What a sad day today was, my poor Monsieur Armand! This morning Marguerite couldn't breathe. The doctor bled her, and her voice came back a little. The doctor advised her to see a priest. She gave her consent, and he went himself to look for an abbot at Saint-Roch.

“During this time Marguerite called me to her bedside, begged me to open her armoire, indicated a bonnet and a long chemise covered in lace, and told me in a weak voice, ‘I will die after I make my confession. Afterward, dress me in those things; it's the vanity of a dying woman.'

“Then she embraced me, crying, and added, ‘I can speak, but I suffocate too much when I speak. I'm suffocating! Air!'

“I dissolved in tears. I opened the window, and a few instants later the priest walked in.

“I went straight up to him.

“When he realized whom he was attending, he seemed to be afraid he would receive a poor welcome.

“‘Come in bravely, Father,' I said to him.

“He stayed a short time in the room of the sick woman, and when he left he said to me, ‘She lived like a sinner, but she will die like a Christian.'

“A few moments later he returned accompanied by a choirboy who carried a crucifix, and by a sacristan who walked before them, ringing a bell to announce that God was coming to the dying woman.

“All three of them entered this bedroom that had at other times echoed with so many strange words, but that at this hour was nothing short of a holy tabernacle.

“I fell to my knees. I don't know how long the impression that this spectacle made on me lasted, but I do not think that, until that moment, any other human occurrence had impressed me so much.

“The priest anointed the feet, hands, and forehead of the dying woman with holy oils, recited a short prayer, and Marguerite was ready to depart for Heaven, where she will go without a doubt, if God has observed the trials of her life and the sanctity of her death.

“Since that moment she has not said a word and has not made a movement. Twenty times I would have thought she was dead, had I not heard her labored breathing.”

“February 20, five o'clock.

“Everything is over.

“Marguerite entered her final agony at about two o'clock. Never has a martyr suffered such tortures, judging from her cries. Two or three times she rose up in her bed, as if she were trying to grab back the life that was climbing toward God.

“Two or three times, as well, she spoke your name, then everything went quiet; she fell back exhausted on her bed. Silent tears flowed from her eyes, and she was dead.

“I approached her then. I called out to her, and when she did not respond, I closed her eyes and kissed her forehead.

“Poor, dear Marguerite. I wished I had been a holy woman, so that kiss might have recommended you to God.

“Then I dressed her as she had asked me to do, I went to find a priest at Saint-Roch, I lit two candles for her, and I prayed for an hour in the church.

“I gave money that came from her to the poor.

“I am not well versed in religion, but I think the good Lord will recognize that my tears were genuine, my prayer fervent, my alms sincere, and he will have pity on that woman who, dying young and beautiful, only had me to close her eyes and bury her.”

“February 22.

“Today the burial took place. Many of Marguerite's friends came to the church. Some wept sincerely. When the procession took the road to Montmartre, only two men were in it: the Comte de G . . . , who had come back for that purpose from London, and the duke, who walked with the support of two footmen.

“I write you these details from her home, in the midst of my tears and in front of the lamp that burns sadly next to a dinner I have been unable to touch, as you may well imagine, but which Nanine made for me, as I had not eaten for more than twenty-four hours.

“My memory cannot long retain these sad impressions, as my life does not belong to me any more than Marguerite's belonged to her; that is why I give you all these details in the very places where they occurred, for fear that, should a long time pass between them and your return, I would not be able to relay them to you in all their sad exactness.”

“Have you read it?” Armand asked when I had finished this manuscript.

“I understand what you must have suffered, my friend, if everything I've read is true!”

“My father confirmed it to me in a letter.”

We spoke for some time more of the sad destiny that had just come to a close, and I went home to rest a little.

Armand, still sad, but somewhat relieved from having related this history, recovered quickly, and together we went to visit Prudence and Julie Duprat.

Prudence had just gone bankrupt. She told us that Marguerite was responsible, that she had lent her a lot of money for which she had made promissory notes she could not redeem, since Marguerite had died without returning them to her, and had not given her any receipts she could present as a creditor.

With the help of this fable that Mme Duvernoy spread everywhere as an excuse for her bad business practices, she got a thousand-franc bill out of Armand, who didn't believe her, but who acted as if he did out of respect for anything connected with his mistress.

Then we went to see Julie Duprat, who related to us the sad events she had witnessed, shedding sincere tears in memory of her friend.

Finally we went to Marguerite's tomb, on which the first rays of April sunshine were making the first leaves break their buds.

Armand had one last duty to fulfill, which was to rejoin his father. He wanted me to accompany him.

We arrived at C . . . , where I saw M. Duval just as I had pictured him from the portrait his son had drawn of him: tall, dignified, benevolent.

He welcomed Armand with tears of happiness, and affectionately shook my hand. I soon perceived that, for this tax collector, fatherly feeling dominated all other sentiments.

His daughter, named Blanche, had that clarity of eye and gaze, that serenity of the mouth, that showed that her soul could conceive none but holy thoughts and her lips could pronounce none but pious words. She smiled at her brother's return, not knowing, this chaste young girl, that far away from her, a courtesan had sacrificed her own happiness at the mere invocation of her name.

I stayed for some time with this happy family, all of them fussing over the man who had brought his heart to them to be healed.

I returned to Paris, where I wrote this story just as it was told to me. It has only one merit, though this may yet be challenged: that it is true.

I do not draw from this narrative the conclusion that all girls like Marguerite are capable of doing what she did—far from it—but I know that one of them experienced in her life a profound love, that she suffered for it, and died of it. I have told the reader what I have learned. It was a duty.

I am no apostle of vice, but I will let the echo of noble misfortune ring out everywhere I hear it in prayer.

The story of Marguerite is an exception, I repeat; had it been a general case, it would not have been worth the trouble of writing down.