Chapter 9
"Good-evening, my dear Gaston," said Marguerite to my companion. "I amvery glad to see you. Why didn't you come to see me in my box at theVarietes?"
"I was afraid it would be indiscreet."
"Friends," and Marguerite lingered over the word, as if to intimate tothose who were present that in spite of the familiar way in which shegreeted him, Gaston was not and never had been anything more than afriend, "friends are always welcome."
"Then, will you permit me to introduce M. Armand Duval?"
"I had already authorized Prudence to do so."
"As far as that goes, madame," I said, bowing, and succeeding in gettingmore or less intelligible sounds out of my throat, "I have already hadthe honour of being introduced to you."
Marguerite's beautiful eyes seemed to be looking back in memory, but shecould not, or seemed not to, remember.
"Madame," I continued, "I am grateful to you for having forgotten theoccasion of my first introduction, for I was very absurd and must haveseemed to you very tiresome. It was at the Opera Comique, two years ago;I was with Ernest de ----."
"Ah, I remember," said Marguerite, with a smile. "It was not you whowere absurd; it was I who was mischievous, as I still am, but somewhatless. You have forgiven me?"
And she held out her hand, which I kissed.
"It is true," she went on "you know I have the bad habit of tryingto embarrass people the first time I meet them. It is very stupid.My doctor says it is because I am nervous and always ill; believe mydoctor."
"But you seem quite well."
"Oh! I have been very ill."
"I know."
"Who told you?"
"Every one knew it; I often came to inquire after you, and I was happyto hear of your convalescence."
"They never gave me your card."
"I did not leave it."
"Was it you, then, who called every day while I was ill, and would neverleave your name?"
"Yes, it was I."
"Then you are more than indulgent, you are generous. You, count,wouldn't have done that," said she, turning toward M. de N., aftergiving me one of those looks in which women sum up their opinion of aman.
"I have only known you for two months," replied the count.
"And this gentleman only for five minutes. You always say somethingridiculous."
Women are pitiless toward those whom they do not care for. The countreddened and bit his lips.
I was sorry for him, for he seemed, like myself, to be in love, andthe bitter frankness of Marguerite must have made him very unhappy,especially in the presence of two strangers.
"You were playing the piano when we came in," I said, in order tochange the conversation. "Won't you be so good as to treat me as an oldacquaintance and go on?"
"Oh," said she, flinging herself on the sofa and motioning to us to sitdown, "Gaston knows what my music is like. It is all very well when I amalone with the count, but I won't inflict such a punishment on you."
"You show me that preference?" said M. de N., with a smile which hetried to render delicately ironical.
"Don't reproach me for it. It is the only one." It was fated that thepoor man was not to say a single word. He cast a really supplicatingglance at Marguerite.
"Well, Prudence," she went on, "have you done what I asked you to do?"
"Yes.
"All right. You will tell me about it later. We must talk over it; don'tgo before I can speak with you."
"We are doubtless intruders," I said, "and now that we, or rather I,have had a second introduction, to blot out the first, it is time forGaston and me to be going."
"Not in the least. I didn't mean that for you. I want you to stay."
The count took a very elegant watch out of his pocket and looked at thetime. "I must be going to my club," he said. Marguerite did not answer.The count thereupon left his position by the fireplace and going up toher, said: "Adieu, madame."
Marguerite rose. "Adieu, my dear count. Are you going already?"
"Yes, I fear I am boring you."
"You are not boring me to-day more than any other day. When shall I beseeing you?"
"When you permit me."
"Good-bye, then."
It was cruel, you will admit. Fortunately, the count had excellentmanners and was very good-tempered. He merely kissed Marguerite's hand,which she held out to him carelessly enough, and, bowing to us, wentout.
As he crossed the threshold, he cast a glance at Prudence. She shruggedher shoulders, as much as to say:
"What do you expect? I have done all I could."
"Nanine!" cried Marguerite. "Light M. le Comte to the door."
We heard the door open and shut.
"At last," cried Marguerite, coming back, "he has gone! That man getsfrightfully on my nerves!"
"My dear child," said Prudence, "you really treat him too badly, and heis so good and kind to you. Look at this watch on the mantel-piece, thathe gave you: it must have cost him at least three thousand francs, I amsure."
And Mme. Duvernoy began to turn it over, as it lay on the mantel-piece,looking at it with covetous eyes.
"My dear," said Marguerite, sitting down to the piano, "when I put onone side what he gives me and on the other what he says to me, it seemsto me that he buys his visits very cheap."
"The poor fellow is in love with you."
"If I had to listen to everybody who was in love with me, I shouldn'thave time for my dinner."
And she began to run her fingers over the piano, and then, turning tous, she said:
"What will you take? I think I should like a little punch."
"And I could eat a little chicken," said Prudence. "Suppose we havesupper?"
"That's it, let's go and have supper," said Gaston.
"No, we will have supper here."
She rang, and Nanine appeared.
"Send for some supper."
"What must I get?"
"Whatever you like, but at once, at once."
Nanine went out.
"That's it," said Marguerite, jumping like a child, "we'll have supper.How tiresome that idiot of a count is!"
The more I saw her, the more she enchanted me. She was exquisitelybeautiful. Her slenderness was a charm. I was lost in contemplation.
What was passing in my mind I should have some difficulty in explaining.I was full of indulgence for her life, full of admiration for herbeauty. The proof of disinterestedness that she gave in not accepting arich and fashionable young man, ready to waste all his money upon her,excused her in my eyes for all her faults in the past.
There was a kind of candour in this woman. You could see she was stillin the virginity of vice. Her firm walk, her supple figure, her rosy,open nostrils, her large eyes, slightly tinged with blue, indicatedone of those ardent natures which shed around them a sort of voluptuousperfume, like Eastern vials, which, close them as tightly as you will,still let some of their perfume escape. Finally, whether it was simplenature or a breath of fever, there passed from time to time in the eyesof this woman a glimmer of desire, giving promise of a very heaven forone whom she should love. But those who had loved Marguerite were not tobe counted, nor those whom she had loved.
In this girl there was at once the virgin whom a mere nothing had turnedinto a courtesan, and the courtesan whom a mere nothing would haveturned into the most loving and the purest of virgins. Marguerite hadstill pride and independence, two sentiments which, if they are wounded,can be the equivalent of a sense of shame. I did not speak a word; mysoul seemed to have passed into my heart and my heart into my eyes.
"So," said she all at once, "it was you who came to inquire after mewhen I was ill?"
"Yes."
"Do you know, it was quite splendid of you! How can I thank you for it?"
"By allowing me to come and see you from time to time."
"As often as you like, from five to six, and from eleven to twelve. Now,Gaston, play the Invitation A la Valse."
"Why?"
br /> "To please me, first of all, and then because I never can manage to playit myself."
"What part do you find difficult?"
"The third part, the part in sharps."
Gaston rose and went to the piano, and began to play the wonderfulmelody of Weber, the music of which stood open before him.
Marguerite, resting one hand on the piano, followed every note on themusic, accompanying it in a low voice, and when Gaston had come tothe passage which she had mentioned to him, she sang out, running herfingers along the top of the piano:
"Do, re, mi, do, re, fa, mi, re; that is what I can not do. Over again."
Gaston began over again, after which Marguerite said:
"Now, let me try."
She took her place and began to play; but her rebellious fingers alwayscame to grief over one of the notes.
"Isn't it incredible," she said, exactly like a child, "that I can notsucceed in playing that passage? Would you believe that I sometimesspend two hours of the morning over it? And when I think that that idiotof a count plays it without his music, and beautifully, I really believeit is that that makes me so furious with him." And she began again,always with the same result.
"The devil take Weber, music, and pianos!" she cried, throwing the musicto the other end of the room. "How can I play eight sharps one afteranother?" She folded her arms and looked at us, stamping her foot. Theblood flew to her cheeks, and her lips half opened in a slight cough.
"Come, come," said Prudence, who had taken off her hat and was smoothingher hair before the glass, "you will work yourself into a rage and doyourself harm. Better come and have supper; for my part, I am dying ofhunger."
Marguerite rang the bell, sat down to the piano again, and began to humover a very risky song, which she accompanied without difficulty. Gastonknew the song, and they gave a sort of duet.
"Don't sing those beastly things," I said to Marguerite, imploringly.
"Oh, how proper you are!" she said, smiling and giving me her hand. "Itis not for myself, but for you."
Marguerite made a gesture as if to say, "Oh, it is long since that Ihave done with propriety!" At that moment Nanine appeared.
"Is supper ready?" asked Marguerite. "Yes, madame, in one moment."
"Apropos," said Prudence to me, "you have not looked round; come, and Iwill show you." As you know, the drawing-room was a marvel.
Marguerite went with us for a moment; then she called Gaston and wentinto the dining-room with him to see if supper was ready.
"Ah," said Prudence, catching sight of a little Saxe figure on aside-table, "I never knew you had this little gentleman."
"Which?"
"A little shepherd holding a bird-cage."
"Take it, if you like it."
"I won't deprive you of it."
"I was going to give it to my maid. I think it hideous; but if you likeit, take it."
Prudence only saw the present, not the way in which it was given. Sheput the little figure on one side, and took me into the dressing-room,where she showed me two miniatures hanging side by side, and said:
"That is the Comte de G., who was very much in love with Marguerite; itwas he who brought her out. Do you know him?"
"No. And this one?" I inquired, pointing to the other miniature.
"That is the little Vicomte de L. He was obliged to disappear."
"Why?"
"Because he was all but ruined. That's one, if you like, who lovedMarguerite."
"And she loved him, too, no doubt?"
"She is such a queer girl, one never knows. The night he went awayshe went to the theatre as usual, and yet she had cried when he saidgood-bye to her."
Just then Nanine appeared, to tell us that supper was served.
When we entered the dining-room, Marguerite was leaning against thewall, and Gaston, holding her hands, was speaking to her in a low voice.
"You are mad," replied Marguerite. "You know quite well that I don'twant you. It is no good at the end of two years to make love to a womanlike me. With us, it is at once, or never. Come, gentlemen, supper!"
And, slipping away from Gaston, Marguerite made him sit on her right attable, me on her left, then called to Nanine:
"Before you sit down, tell them in the kitchen not to open to anybody ifthere is a ring."
This order was given at one o'clock in the morning.
We laughed, drank, and ate freely at this supper. In a short while mirthhad reached its last limit, and the words that seem funny to a certainclass of people, words that degrade the mouth that utters them, wereheard from time to time, amidst the applause of Nanine, of Prudence, andof Marguerite. Gaston was thoroughly amused; he was a very good sort offellow, but somewhat spoiled by the habits of his youth. For a momentI tried to forget myself, to force my heart and my thoughts to becomeindifferent to the sight before me, and to take my share of that gaietywhich seemed like one of the courses of the meal. But little by littleI withdrew from the noise; my glass remained full, and I felt almostsad as I saw this beautiful creature of twenty drinking, talking like aporter, and laughing the more loudly the more scandalous was the joke.
Nevertheless, this hilarity, this way of talking and drinking, whichseemed to me in the others the mere results of bad company or of badhabits, seemed in Marguerite a necessity of forgetting, a fever, anervous irritability. At every glass of champagne her cheeks would flushwith a feverish colour, and a cough, hardly perceptible at the beginningof supper, became at last so violent that she was obliged to lean herhead on the back of her chair and hold her chest in her hands every timethat she coughed. I suffered at the thought of the injury to so frail aconstitution which must come from daily excesses like this. At length,something which I had feared and foreseen happened. Toward the end ofsupper Marguerite was seized by a more violent fit of coughing than anyshe had had while I was there. It seemed as if her chest were being tornin two. The poor girl turned crimson, closed her eyes under the pain,and put her napkin to her lips. It was stained with a drop of blood. Sherose and ran into her dressing-room.
"What is the matter with Marguerite?" asked Gaston.
"She has been laughing too much, and she is spitting blood. Oh, it isnothing; it happens to her every day. She will be back in a minute.Leave her alone. She prefers it."
I could not stay still; and, to the consternation of Prudence andNanine, who called to me to come back, I followed Marguerite.