Chapter 2
The sale was to take place on the 16th. A day's interval had been leftbetween the visiting days and the sale, in order to give time for takingdown the hangings, curtains, etc. I had just returned from abroad. Itwas natural that I had not heard of Marguerite's death among the piecesof news which one's friends always tell on returning after an absence.Marguerite was a pretty woman; but though the life of such women makessensation enough, their death makes very little. They are suns which setas they rose, unobserved. Their death, when they die young, is heardof by all their lovers at the same moment, for in Paris almost allthe lovers of a well-known woman are friends. A few recollections areexchanged, and everybody's life goes on as if the incident had neveroccurred, without so much as a tear.
Nowadays, at twenty-five, tears have become so rare a thing that theyare not to be squandered indiscriminately. It is the most that can beexpected if the parents who pay for being wept over are wept over inreturn for the price they pay.
As for me, though my initials did not occur on any of Marguerite'sbelongings, that instinctive indulgence, that natural pity that I havealready confessed, set me thinking over her death, more perhaps than itwas worth thinking over. I remembered having often met Marguerite in theBois, where she went regularly every day in a little blue coupe drawn bytwo magnificent bays, and I had noticed in her a distinction quite apartfrom other women of her kind, a distinction which was enhanced by areally exceptional beauty.
These unfortunate creatures whenever they go out are always accompaniedby somebody or other. As no man cares to make himself conspicuous bybeing seen in their company, and as they are afraid of solitude, theytake with them either those who are not well enough off to have acarriage, or one or another of those elegant, ancient ladies, whoseelegance is a little inexplicable, and to whom one can always go forinformation in regard to the women whom they accompany.
In Marguerite's case it was quite different. She was always alone whenshe drove in the Champs-Elysees, lying back in her carriage as much aspossible, dressed in furs in winter, and in summer wearing very simpledresses; and though she often passed people whom she knew, her smile,when she chose to smile, was seen only by them, and a duchess mighthave smiled in just such a manner. She did not drive to and fro like theothers, from the Rond-Point to the end of the Champs-Elysees. She drovestraight to the Bois. There she left her carriage, walked for an hour,returned to her carriage, and drove rapidly home.
All these circumstances which I had so often witnessed came back to mymemory, and I regretted her death as one might regret the destruction ofa beautiful work of art.
It was impossible to see more charm in beauty than in that ofMarguerite. Excessively tall and thin, she had in the fullest degree theart of repairing this oversight of Nature by the mere arrangement of thethings she wore. Her cashmere reached to the ground, and showed on eachside the large flounces of a silk dress, and the heavy muff which sheheld pressed against her bosom was surrounded by such cunningly arrangedfolds that the eye, however exacting, could find no fault with thecontour of the lines. Her head, a marvel, was the object of the mostcoquettish care. It was small, and her mother, as Musset would say,seemed to have made it so in order to make it with care.
Set, in an oval of indescribable grace, two black eyes, surmounted byeyebrows of so pure a curve that it seemed as if painted; veil theseeyes with lovely lashes, which, when drooped, cast their shadow on therosy hue of the cheeks; trace a delicate, straight nose, the nostrilsa little open, in an ardent aspiration toward the life of the senses;design a regular mouth, with lips parted graciously over teeth as whiteas milk; colour the skin with the down of a peach that no handhas touched, and you will have the general aspect of that charmingcountenance. The hair, black as jet, waving naturally or not, wasparted on the forehead in two large folds and draped back over the head,leaving in sight just the tip of the ears, in which there glittered twodiamonds, worth four to five thousand francs each. How it was that herardent life had left on Marguerite's face the virginal, almost childlikeexpression, which characterized it, is a problem which we can but state,without attempting to solve it.
Marguerite had a marvellous portrait of herself, by Vidal, the only manwhose pencil could do her justice. I had this portrait by me for a fewdays after her death, and the likeness was so astonishing that it hashelped to refresh my memory in regard to some points which I might nototherwise have remembered.
Some among the details of this chapter did not reach me until later,but I write them here so as not to be obliged to return to them when thestory itself has begun.
Marguerite was always present at every first night, and passed everyevening either at the theatre or the ball. Whenever there was a newpiece she was certain to be seen, and she invariably had three thingswith her on the ledge of her ground-floor box: her opera-glass, a bag ofsweets, and a bouquet of camellias.
For twenty-five days of the month the camellias were white, and for fivethey were red; no one ever knew the reason of this change of colour,which I mention though I can not explain it; it was noticed both by herfriends and by the habitue's of the theatres to which she most oftenwent. She was never seen with any flowers but camellias. At theflorist's, Madame Barjon's, she had come to be called "the Lady of theCamellias," and the name stuck to her.
Like all those who move in a certain set in Paris, I knew thatMarguerite had lived with some of the most fashionable young men insociety, that she spoke of it openly, and that they themselvesboasted of it; so that all seemed equally pleased with one another.Nevertheless, for about three years, after a visit to Bagnees, she wassaid to be living with an old duke, a foreigner, enormously rich, whohad tried to remove her as far as possible from her former life, and, asit seemed, entirely to her own satisfaction.
This is what I was told on the subject. In the spring of 1847 Margueritewas so ill that the doctors ordered her to take the waters, and she wentto Bagneres. Among the invalids was the daughter of this duke; shewas not only suffering from the same complaint, but she was so likeMarguerite in appearance that they might have been taken for sisters;the young duchess was in the last stage of consumption, and a few daysafter Marguerite's arrival she died. One morning, the duke, who hadremained at Bagneres to be near the soil that had buried a part of hisheart, caught sight of Marguerite at a turn of the road. He seemed tosee the shadow of his child, and going up to her, he took her hands,embraced and wept over her, and without even asking her who she was,begged her to let him love in her the living image of his dead child.Marguerite, alone at Bagneres with her maid, and not being in any fearof compromising herself, granted the duke's request. Some people whoknew her, happening to be at Bagneres, took upon themselves to explainMademoiselle Gautier's true position to the duke. It was a blow tothe old man, for the resemblance with his daughter was ended in onedirection, but it was too late. She had become a necessity to his heart,his only pretext, his only excuse, for living. He made no reproaches,he had indeed no right to do so, but he asked her if she felt herselfcapable of changing her mode of life, offering her in return for thesacrifice every compensation that she could desire. She consented.
It must be said that Marguerite was just then very ill. The past seemedto her sensitive nature as if it were one of the main causes of herillness, and a sort of superstition led her to hope that God wouldrestore to her both health and beauty in return for her repentance andconversion. By the end of the summer, the waters, sleep, the naturalfatigue of long walks, had indeed more or less restored her health. Theduke accompanied her to Paris, where he continued to see her as he haddone at Bagneres.
This liaison, whose motive and origin were quite unknown, caused a greatsensation, for the duke, already known for his immense fortune,now became known for his prodigality. All this was set down to thedebauchery of a rich old man, and everything was believed except thetruth. The father's sentiment for Marguerite had, in truth, so pure acause that anything but a communion of hearts would have seemed to him akind of incest, and he ha
d never spoken to her a word which his daughtermight not have heard.
Far be it from me to make out our heroine to be anything but what shewas. As long as she remained at Bagneres, the promise she had made tothe duke had not been hard to keep, and she had kept it; but, once backin Paris, it seemed to her, accustomed to a life of dissipation, ofballs, of orgies, as if the solitude, only interrupted by the duke'sstated visits, would kill her with boredom, and the hot breath of herold life came back across her head and heart.
We must add that Marguerite had returned more beautiful than she hadever been; she was but twenty, and her malady, sleeping but not subdued,continued to give her those feverish desires which are almost always theresult of diseases of the chest.
It was a great grief to the duke when his friends, always on the lookoutfor some scandal on the part of the woman with whom, it seemed to them,he was compromising himself, came to tell him, indeed to prove to him,that at times when she was sure of not seeing him she received othervisits, and that these visits were often prolonged till the followingday. On being questioned, Marguerite admitted everything to the duke,and advised him, without arriere-pensee, to concern himself with her nolonger, for she felt incapable of carrying out what she had undertaken,and she did not wish to go on accepting benefits from a man whom she wasdeceiving. The duke did not return for a week; it was all he could do,and on the eighth day he came to beg Marguerite to let him still visither, promising that he would take her as she was, so long as he mightsee her, and swearing that he would never utter a reproach against her,not though he were to die of it.
This, then, was the state of things three months after Marguerite'sreturn; that is to say, in November or December, 1842.