At this point Armand stopped.
“Would you close the window for me?” he said. “I am beginning to feel
cold. Meanwhile, I will get into bed.”
I closed the window. Armand, who was still very weak, took off his
dressing-gown and lay down in bed, resting his head for a few moments
on the pillow, like a man who is tired by much talking or disturbed by
painful memories.
“Perhaps you have been talking too much,” I said to him. “Would you
rather for me to go and leave you to sleep? You can tell me the rest of
the story another day.”
“Are you tired of listening to it?”
“Quite the contrary.”
“Then I will go on. If you left me alone, I should not sleep.”
When I returned home (he continued, without needing to pause and
recollect himself, so fresh were all the details in his mind), I did
not go to bed, but began to reflect over the day’s adventure. The
meeting, the introduction, the promise of Marguerite, had followed one
another so rapidly, and so unexpectedly, that there were moments when
it seemed to me I had been dreaming. Nevertheless, it was not the first
time that a girl like Marguerite had promised herself to a man on the
morrow of the day on which he had asked for the promise.
Though, indeed, I made this reflection, the first impression produced
on me by my future mistress was so strong that it still persisted. I
refused obstinately to see in her a woman like other women, and, with
the vanity so common to all men, I was ready to believe that she could
not but share the attraction which drew me to her.
Yet, I had before me plenty of instances to the contrary, and I had
often heard that the affection of Marguerite was a thing to be had more
or less dear, according to the season.
But, on the other hand, how was I to reconcile this reputation with her
constant refusal of the young count whom we had found at her house? You
may say that he was unattractive to her, and that, as she was
splendidly kept by the duke, she would be more likely to choose a man
who was attractive to her, if she were to take another lover. If so,
why did she not choose Gaston, who was rich, witty, and charming, and
why did she care for me, whom she had thought so ridiculous the first
time she had seen me?
It is true that there are events of a moment which tell more than the
courtship of a year. Of those who were at the supper, I was the only
one who had been concerned at her leaving the table. I had followed
her, I had been so affected as to be unable to hide it from her, I had
wept as I kissed her hand. This circumstance, added to my daily visits
during the two months of her illness, might have shown her that I was
somewhat different from the other men she knew, and perhaps she had
said to herself that for a love which could thus manifest itself she
might well do what she had done so often that it had no more
consequence for her.
All these suppositions, as you may see, were improbable enough; but
whatever might have been the reason of her consent, one thing was
certain, she had consented.
Now, I was in love with Marguerite. I had nothing more to ask of her.
Nevertheless, though she was only a kept woman, I had so anticipated
for myself, perhaps to poetize it a little, a hopeless love, that the
nearer the moment approached when I should have nothing more to hope,
the more I doubted. I did not close my eyes all night.
I scarcely knew myself. I was half demented. Now, I seemed to myself
not handsome or rich or elegant enough to possess such a woman, now I
was filled with vanity at the thought of it; then I began to fear lest
Marguerite had no more than a few days’ caprice for me, and I said to
myself that since we should soon have to part, it would be better not
to keep her appointment, but to write and tell her my fears and leave
her. From that I went on to unlimited hope, unbounded confidence. I
dreamed incredible dreams of the future; I said to myself that she
should owe to me her moral and physical recovery, that I should spend
my whole life with her, and that her love should make me happier than
all the maidenly loves in the world.
But I can not repeat to you the thousand thoughts that rose from my
heart to my head, and that only faded away with the sleep that came to
me at daybreak.
When I awoke it was two o’clock. The weather was superb. I don’t think
life ever seemed to me so beautiful and so full of possibilities. The
memories of the night before came to me without shadow or hindrance,
escorted gaily by the hopes of the night to come. From time to time my
heart leaped with love and joy in my breast. A sweet fever thrilled me.
I thought no more of the reasons which had filled my mind before I
slept. I saw only the result, I thought only of the hour when I was to
see Marguerite again.
It was impossible to stay indoors. My room seemed too small to contain
my happiness. I needed the whole of nature to unbosom myself.
I went out. Passing by the Rue d’Antin, I saw Marguerite’s coupé
waiting for her at the door. I went toward the Champs-Elysées. I loved
all the people whom I met. Love gives one a kind of goodness.
After I had been walking for an hour from the Marly horses to the
Rond-Point, I saw Marguerite’s carriage in the distance; I divined
rather than recognised it. As it was turning the corner of the
Champs-Elysées it stopped, and a tall young man left a group of people
with whom he was talking and came up to her. They talked for a few
moments; the young man returned to his friends, the horses set out
again, and as I came near the group I recognised the one who had spoken
to Marguerite as the Comte de G., whose portrait I had seen and whom
Prudence had indicated to me as the man to whom Marguerite owed her
position. It was to him that she had closed her doors the night before;
I imagined that she had stopped her carriage in order to explain to him
why she had done so, and I hoped that at the same time she had found
some new pretext for not receiving him on the following night.
How I spent the rest of the day I do not know; I walked, smoked,
talked, but what I said, whom I met, I had utterly forgotten by ten
o’clock in the evening.
All I remember is that when I returned home, I spent three hours over
my toilet, and I looked at my watch and my clock a hundred times, which
unfortunately both pointed to the same hour.
When it struck half past ten, I said to myself that it was time to go.
I lived at that time in the Rue de Provence; I followed the Rue du
Mont-Blanc, crossed the Boulevard, went up the Rue Louis-le-Grand, the
Rue de Port-Mahon, and the Rue d’Antin. I looked up at Marguerite’s
windows. There was a light. I rang. I asked the porter if Mlle. Gautier
was at home. He replied that she never came in before eleven or a
quarter past eleven. I looked at my watch. I intended to come quite
slowly, and I had come in five minutes from the Rue de Provence to the
Rue d’Antin.
I walked to and fro in the street; there are no shops, and at that hour
it is quite deserted. In half an hour’s time Marguerite arrived. She
looked around her as she got down from her coupé, as if she were
looking for some one. The carriage drove off; the stables were not at
the house. Just as Marguerite was going to ring, I went up to her and
said, “Good-evening.”
“Ah, it is you,” she said, in a tone that by no means reassured me as
to her pleasure in seeing me.
“Did you not promise me that I might come and see you to-day?”
“Quite right. I had forgotten.”
This word upset all the reflections I had had during the day.
Nevertheless, I was beginning to get used to her ways, and I did not
leave her, as I should certainly have done once. We entered. Nanine had
already opened the door.
“Has Prudence come?” said Marguerite.
“No, madame.”
“Say that she is to be admitted as soon as she comes. But first put out
the lamp in the drawing-room, and if anyone comes, say that I have not
come back and shall not be coming back.”
She was like a woman who is preoccupied with something, and perhaps
annoyed by an unwelcome guest. I did not know what to do or say.
Marguerite went toward her bedroom; I remained where I was.
“Come,” she said.
She took off her hat and her velvet cloak and threw them on the bed,
then let herself drop into a great armchair beside the fire, which she
kept till the very beginning of summer, and said to me as she fingered
her watch-chain:
“Well, what news have you got for me?”
“None, except that I ought not to have come to-night.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem vexed, and no doubt I am boring you.”
“You are not boring me; only I am not well; I have been suffering all
day. I could not sleep, and I have a frightful headache.”
“Shall I go away and let you go to bed?”
“Oh, you can stay. If I want to go to bed I don’t mind your being
here.”
At that moment there was a ring.
“Who is coming now?” she said, with an impatient movement.
A few minutes after there was another ring.
“Isn’t there anyone to go to the door? I shall have to go.” She got up
and said to me, “Wait here.”
She went through the rooms, and I heard her open the outer door. I
listened.
The person whom she had admitted did not come farther than the
dining-room. At the first word I recognised the voice of the young
Comte de N.
“How are you this evening?” he said.
“Not well,” replied Marguerite drily.
“Am I disturbing you?”
“Perhaps.”
“How you receive me! What have I done, my dear Marguerite?”
“My dear friend, you have done nothing. I am ill; I must go to bed, so
you will be good enough to go. It is sickening not to be able to return
at night without your making your appearance five minutes afterward.
What is it you want? For me to be your mistress? Well, I have already
told you a hundred times, No; you simply worry me, and you might as
well go somewhere else. I repeat to you to-day, for the last time, I
don’t want to have anything to do with you; that’s settled. Good-bye.
Here’s Nanine coming in; she can light you to the door. Good-night.”
Without adding another word, or listening to what the young man
stammered out, Marguerite returned to the room and slammed the door.
Nanine entered a moment after.
“Now understand,” said Marguerite, “you are always to say to that idiot
that I am not in, or that I will not see him. I am tired out with
seeing people who always want the same thing; who pay me for it, and
then think they are quit of me. If those who are going to go in for our
hateful business only knew what it really was they would sooner be
chambermaids. But no, vanity, the desire of having dresses and
carriages and diamonds carries us away; one believes what one hears,
for here, as elsewhere, there is such a thing as belief, and one uses
up one’s heart, one’s body, one’s beauty, little by little; one is
feared like a beast of prey, scorned like a pariah, surrounded by
people who always take more than they give; and one fine day one dies
like a dog in a ditch, after having ruined others and ruined one’s
self.”
“Come, come, madame, be calm,” said Nanine; “your nerves are a bit
upset to-night.”
“This dress worries me,” continued Marguerite, unhooking her bodice;
“give me a dressing-gown. Well, and Prudence?”
“She has not come yet, but I will send her to you, madame, the moment
she comes.”
“There’s one, now,” Marguerite went on, as she took off her dress and
put on a white dressing-gown, “there’s one who knows very well how to
find me when she is in want of me, and yet she can’t do me a service
decently. She knows I am waiting for an answer. She knows how anxious I
am, and I am sure she is going about on her own account, without giving
a thought to me.”
“Perhaps she had to wait.”
“Let us have some punch.”
“It will do you no good, madame,” said Nanine.
“So much the better. Bring some fruit, too, and a paté or a wing of
chicken; something or other, at once. I am hungry.”
Need I tell you the impression which this scene made upon me, or can
you not imagine it?
“You are going to have supper with me,” she said to me; “meanwhile,
take a book. I am going into my dressing-room for a moment.”
She lit the candles of a candelabra, opened a door at the foot of the
bed, and disappeared.
I began to think over this poor girl’s life, and my love for her was
mingled with a great pity. I walked to and fro in the room, thinking
over things, when Prudence entered.
“Ah, you here?”’ she said, “where is Marguerite?”
“In her dressing-room.”
“I will wait. By the way, do you know she thinks you charming?”
“No.”
“She hasn’t told you?”
“Not at all.”
“How are you here?”
“I have come to pay her a visit.”
“At midnight?”
“Why not?”
“_Farceur!_”
“She has received me, as a matter of fact, very badly.”
“She will receive you better by and by.”
“Do you think so?”
“I have some good news for her.”
“No harm in that. So she has spoken to you about me?”
“Last night, or rather to-night, when you and your friend went. By the
way, what is your friend called? Gaston R., his name is, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said I, not without smiling, as I thought of what Gaston had
confided to me, and saw that Prudence scarcely even knew his name.
“He is quite nice, that fellow; what does he do?”
“He has twenty-five thousand francs a year.”
“Ah, indeed! Well, to return to you. Marguerite asked me all about you:
who you were, what you did, what mistresses you had had; in short,
everything that one could ask about a man of your age. I told her all I
knew, and added that you were a charming young man. That’s all.”
“Thanks. Now tell me what it was she wanted to say to you last night.”
“Nothing at all. It was only to get rid of the count; but I have really
something to see her about to-day, and I am bringing her an answer
now.”
At this moment Marguerite reappeared from her dressing-room, wearing a
coquettish little nightcap with bunches of yellow ribbons, technically
known as “cabbages.” She looked ravishing. She had satin slippers on
her bare feet, and was in the act of polishing her nails.
“Well,” she said, seeing Prudence, “have you seen the duke?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“And what did he say to you?”
“He gave me—”
“How much?”
“Six thousand.”
“Have you got it?”
“Yes.
“Did he seem put out?”
“No.”
“Poor man!”
This “Poor man!” was said in a tone impossible to render. Marguerite
took the six notes of a thousand francs.
“It was quite time,” she said. “My dear Prudence, are you in want of
any money?”
“You know, my child, it is the 15th in a couple of days, so if you
could lend me three or four hundred francs, you would do me a real
service.”
“Send over to-morrow; it is too late to get change now.”
“Don’t forget.”
“No fear. Will you have supper with us?”
“No, Charles is waiting for me.”
“You are still devoted to him?”
“Crazy, my dear! I will see you to-morrow. Good-bye, Armand.”
Mme. Duvernoy went out.
Marguerite opened the drawer of a side-table and threw the bank-notes
into it.
“Will you permit me to get into bed?” she said with a smile, as she
moved toward the bed.
“Not only permit, but I beg of you.”
She turned back the covering and got into bed.
“Now,” said she, “come and sit down by me, and let’s have a talk.”
Prudence was right: the answer that she had brought to Marguerite had
put her into a good humour.
“Will you forgive me for my bad temper tonight?” she said, taking my
hand.
“I am ready to forgive you as often as you like.”
“And you love me?”
“Madly.”
“In spite of my bad disposition?”
“In spite of all.”
“You swear it?”
“Yes,” I said in a whisper.
Nanine entered, carrying plates, a cold chicken, a bottle of claret,
and some strawberries.
“I haven’t had any punch made,” said Nanine; “claret is better for you.
Isn’t it, sir?”
“Certainly,” I replied, still under the excitement of Marguerite’s last
words, my eyes fixed ardently upon her.
“Good,” said she; “put it all on the little table, and draw it up to
the bed; we will help ourselves. This is the third night you have sat
up, and you must be in want of sleep. Go to bed. I don’t want anything
more.”
“Shall I lock the door?”
“I should think so! And above all, tell them not to admit anybody
before midday.”