Chapter 7
Illnesses like Armand's have one fortunate thing about them: they eitherkill outright or are very soon overcome. A fortnight after the eventswhich I have just related Armand was convalescent, and we had alreadybecome great friends. During the whole course of his illness I hadhardly left his side.
Spring was profuse in its flowers, its leaves, its birds, its songs; andmy friend's window opened gaily upon his garden, from which a revivingbreath of health seemed to come to him. The doctor had allowed him toget up, and we often sat talking at the open window, at the hour whenthe sun is at its height, from twelve to two. I was careful not to referto Marguerite, fearing lest the name should awaken sad recollectionshidden under the apparent calm of the invalid; but Armand, on thecontrary, seemed to delight in speaking of her, not as formerly, withtears in his eyes, but with a sweet smile which reassured me as to thestate of his mind.
I had noticed that ever since his last visit to the cemetery, and thesight which had brought on so violent a crisis, sorrow seemed to havebeen overcome by sickness, and Marguerite's death no longer appeared tohim under its former aspect. A kind of consolation had sprung from thecertainty of which he was now fully persuaded, and in order to banishthe sombre picture which often presented itself to him, he returnedupon the happy recollections of his liaison with Marguerite, and seemedresolved to think of nothing else.
The body was too much weakened by the attack of fever, and even bythe process of its cure, to permit him any violent emotions, and theuniversal joy of spring which wrapped him round carried his thoughtsinstinctively to images of joy. He had always obstinately refused totell his family of the danger which he had been in, and when he was wellagain his father did not even know that he had been ill.
One evening we had sat at the window later than usual; the weather hadbeen superb, and the sun sank to sleep in a twilight dazzling with goldand azure. Though we were in Paris, the verdure which surrounded usseemed to shut us off from the world, and our conversation was only nowand again disturbed by the sound of a passing vehicle.
"It was about this time of the year, on the evening of a day like this,that I first met Marguerite," said Armand to me, as if he were listeningto his own thoughts rather than to what I was saying. I did not answer.Then turning toward me, he said:
"I must tell you the whole story; you will make a book out of it; no onewill believe it, but it will perhaps be interesting to do."
"You will tell me all about it later on, my friend," I said to him; "youare not strong enough yet."
"It is a warm evening, I have eaten my ration of chicken," he said tome, smiling; "I have no fever, we have nothing to do, I will tell it toyou now."
"Since you really wish it, I will listen."
This is what he told me, and I have scarcely changed a word of thetouching story.
Yes (Armand went on, letting his head sink back on the chair), yes, itwas just such an evening as this. I had spent the day in the countrywith one of my friends, Gaston R--. We returned to Paris in the evening,and not knowing what to do we went to the Varietes. We went out duringone of the entr'actes, and a tall woman passed us in the corridor, towhom my friend bowed.
"Whom are you bowing to?" I asked.
"Marguerite Gautier," he said.
"She seems much changed, for I did not recognise her," I said, with anemotion that you will soon understand.
"She has been ill; the poor girl won't last long."
I remember the words as if they had been spoken to me yesterday.
I must tell you, my friend, that for two years the sight of this girlhad made a strange impression on me whenever I came across her. Withoutknowing why, I turned pale and my heart beat violently. I have a friendwho studies the occult sciences, and he would call what I experienced"the affinity of fluids"; as for me, I only know that I was fated tofall in love with Marguerite, and that I foresaw it.
It is certainly the fact that she made a very definite impression uponme, that many of my friends had noticed it and that they had been muchamused when they saw who it was that made this impression upon me.
The first time I ever saw her was in the Place de la Bourse, outsideSusse's; an open carriage was stationed there, and a woman dressedin white got down from it. A murmur of admiration greeted her as sheentered the shop. As for me, I was rivetted to the spot from the momentshe went in till the moment when she came out again. I could see herthrough the shop windows selecting what she had come to buy. I mighthave gone in, but I dared not. I did not know who she was, and Iwas afraid lest she should guess why I had come in and be offended.Nevertheless, I did not think I should ever see her again.
She was elegantly dressed; she wore a muslin dress with many flounces,an Indian shawl embroidered at the corners with gold and silk flowers,a straw hat, a single bracelet, and a heavy gold chain, such as was justthen beginning to be the fashion.
She returned to her carriage and drove away. One of the shopmen stood atthe door looking after his elegant customer's carriage. I went up to himand asked him what was the lady's name.
"Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier," he replied. I dared not ask him forher address, and went on my way.
The recollection of this vision, for it was really a vision, would notleave my mind like so many visions I had seen, and I looked everywherefor this royally beautiful woman in white.
A few days later there was a great performance at the Opera Comique. Thefirst person I saw in one of the boxes was Marguerite Gautier.
The young man whom I was with recognised her immediately, for he said tome, mentioning her name: "Look at that pretty girl."
At that moment Marguerite turned her opera-glass in our direction and,seeing my friend, smiled and beckoned to him to come to her.
"I will go and say 'How do you do?' to her," he said, "and will be backin a moment."
"I could not help saying 'Happy man!'"
"Why?"
"To go and see that woman."
"Are you in love with her?"
"No," I said, flushing, for I really did not know what to say; "but Ishould very much like to know her."
"Come with me. I will introduce you."
"Ask her if you may."
"Really, there is no need to be particular with her; come."
What he said troubled me. I feared to discover that Marguerite was notworthy of the sentiment which I felt for her.
In a book of Alphonse Karr entitles Am Rauchen, there is a man who oneevening follows a very elegant woman, with whom he had fallen in lovewith at first sight on account of her beauty. Only to kiss her hand hefelt that he had the strength to undertake anything, the will to conqueranything, the courage to achieve anything. He scarcely dares glance atthe trim ankle which she shows as she holds her dress out of the mud.While he is dreaming of all that he would do to possess this woman, shestops at the corner of the street and asks if he will come home withher. He turns his head, crosses the street, and goes sadly back to hisown house.
I recalled the story, and, having longed to suffer for this woman, I wasafraid that she would accept me too promptly and give me at once whatI fain would have purchased by long waiting or some great sacrifice. Wemen are built like that, and it is very fortunate that the imaginationlends so much poetry to the senses, and that the desires of the bodymake thus such concession to the dreams of the soul. If anyone hadsaid to me, You shall have this woman to-night and be killed tomorrow, Iwould have accepted. If anyone had said to me, you can be her lover forten pounds, I would have refused. I would have cried like a child whosees the castle he has been dreaming about vanish away as he awakensfrom sleep.
All the same, I wished to know her; it was my only means of making up mymind about her. I therefore said to my friend that I insisted on havingher permission to be introduced to her, and I wandered to and fro in thecorridors, saying to myself that in a moment's time she was going tosee me, and that I should not know which way to look. I tried (sublimechildishness of love!) to string together the words I sh
ould say to her.
A moment after my friend returned. "She is expecting us," he said.
"Is she alone?" I asked.
"With another woman."
"There are no men?"
"No."
"Come, then."
My friend went toward the door of the theatre.
"That is not the way," I said.
"We must go and get some sweets. She asked me for some."
We went into a confectioner's in the passage de l'Opera. I would havebought the whole shop, and I was looking about to see what sweets tochoose, when my friend asked for a pound of raisins glaces.
"Do you know if she likes them?"
"She eats no other kind of sweets; everybody knows it.
"Ah," he went on when we had left the shop, "do you know what kind ofwoman it is that I am going to introduce you to? Don't imagine it isa duchess. It is simply a kept woman, very much kept, my dear fellow;don't be shy, say anything that comes into your head."
"Yes, yes," I stammered, and I followed him, saying to myself that Ishould soon cure myself of my passion.
When I entered the box Marguerite was in fits of laughter. I wouldrather that she had been sad. My friend introduced me; Marguerite gaveme a little nod, and said, "And my sweets?"
"Here they are."
She looked at me as she took them. I dropped my eyes and blushed.
She leaned across to her neighbour and said something in her ear, atwhich both laughed. Evidently I was the cause of their mirth, andmy embarrassment increased. At that time I had as mistress a veryaffectionate and sentimental little person, whose sentiment and whosemelancholy letters amused me greatly. I realized the pain I must havegiven her by what I now experienced, and for five minutes I loved her asno woman was ever loved.
Marguerite ate her raisins glaces without taking any more notice of me.The friend who had introduced me did not wish to let me remain in soridiculous a position.
"Marguerite," he said, "you must not be surprised if M. Duval saysnothing: you overwhelm him to such a degree that he can not find a wordto say."
"I should say, on the contrary, that he has only come with you becauseit would have bored you to come here by yourself."
"If that were true," I said, "I should not have begged Ernest to askyour permission to introduce me."
"Perhaps that was only in order to put off the fatal moment."
However little one may have known women like Marguerite, one can not butknow the delight they take in pretending to be witty and in teasing thepeople whom they meet for the first time. It is no doubt a return forthe humiliations which they often have to submit to on the part of thosewhom they see every day.
To answer them properly, one requires a certain knack, and I had not hadthe opportunity of acquiring it; besides, the idea that I had formedof Marguerite accentuated the effects of her mockery. Nothing that damefrom her was indifferent to me. I rose to my feet, saying in an alteredvoice, which I could not entirely control:
"If that is what you think of me, madame, I have only to ask your pardonfor my indiscretion, and to take leave of you with the assurance that itshall not occur again."
Thereupon I bowed and quitted the box. I had scarcely closed the doorwhen I heard a third peal of laughter. It would not have been well foranybody who had elbowed me at that moment.
I returned to my seat. The signal for raising the curtain was given.Ernest came back to his place beside me.
"What a way you behaved!" he said, as he sat down. "They will think youare mad."
"What did Marguerite say after I had gone?"
"She laughed, and said she had never seen anyone so funny. But don'tlook upon it as a lost chance; only do not do these women the honourof taking them seriously. They do not know what politeness and ceremonyare. It is as if you were to offer perfumes to dogs--they would think itsmelled bad, and go and roll in the gutter."
"After all, what does it matter to me?" I said, affecting to speak in anonchalant way. "I shall never see this woman again, and if I liked herbefore meeting her, it is quite different now that I know her."
"Bah! I don't despair of seeing you one day at the back of her box,and of bearing that you are ruining yourself for her. However, you areright, she hasn't been well brought up; but she would be a charmingmistress to have."
Happily, the curtain rose and my friend was silent. I could not possiblytell you what they were acting. All that I remember is that from time totime I raised my eyes to the box I had quitted so abruptly, and that thefaces of fresh visitors succeeded one another all the time.
I was far from having given up thinking about Marguerite. Anotherfeeling had taken possession of me. It seemed to me that I had herinsult and my absurdity to wipe out; I said to myself that if I spentevery penny I had, I would win her and win my right to the place I hadabandoned so quickly.
Before the performance was over Marguerite and her friend left the box.I rose from my seat.
"Are you going?" said Ernest.
"Yes."
"Why?"
At that moment he saw that the box was empty.
"Go, go," he said, "and good luck, or rather better luck."
I went out.
I heard the rustle of dresses, the sound of voices, on the staircase.I stood aside, and, without being seen, saw the two women pass me,accompanied by two young men. At the entrance to the theatre they weremet by a footman.
"Tell the coachman to wait at the door of the Cafe' Anglais," saidMarguerite. "We will walk there."
A few minutes afterward I saw Marguerite from the street at a window ofone of the large rooms of the restaurant, pulling the camellias of herbouquet to pieces, one by one. One of the two men was leaning overher shoulder and whispering in her ear. I took up my position at theMaison-d'or, in one of the first-floor rooms, and did not lose sight ofthe window for an instant. At one in the morning Marguerite got intoher carriage with her three friends. I took a cab and followed them. Thecarriage stopped at No. 9, Rue d'Antin. Marguerite got out and wentin alone. It was no doubt a mere chance, but the chance filled me withdelight.
From that time forward, I often met Marguerite at the theatre or inthe Champs-Elysees. Always there was the same gaiety in her, the sameemotion in me.
At last a fortnight passed without my meeting her. I met Gaston andasked after her.
"Poor girl, she is very ill," he answered.
"What is the matter?"
"She is consumptive, and the sort of life she leads isn't exactly thething to cure her. She has taken to her bed; she is dying."
The heart is a strange thing; I was almost glad at hearing it.
Every day I went to ask after her, without leaving my name or my card. Iheard she was convalescent and had gone to Bagneres.
Time went by, the impression, if not the memory, faded gradually from mymind. I travelled; love affairs, habits, work, took the place of otherthoughts, and when I recalled this adventure I looked upon it as one ofthose passions which one has when one is very young, and laughs at soonafterward.
For the rest, it was no credit to me to have got the better of thisrecollection, for I had completely lost sight of Marguerite, and, as Itold you, when she passed me in the corridor of the Varietes, I did notrecognise her. She was veiled, it is true; but, veiled though she mighthave been two years earlier, I should not have needed to see her inorder to recognise her: I should have known her intuitively. All thesame, my heart began to beat when I knew that it was she; and the twoyears that had passed since I saw her, and what had seemed to be theresults of that separation, vanished in smoke at the mere touch of herdress.