"Oh! in heaven's name, speak to me!" I said; "so that I may be sure that
it is you!"
"Yes, yes, it's I, it's your Nicette. Oh! Monsieur Dorsan, pray don't
talk any more; the doctor has strictly forbidden it. That's the reason I
didn't want you to see me."
"Dear Nicette! as if the sight of you was not more powerful than all
their medicines! It is you! it is really you!"
I took her hands and pressed them and held them to my heart; I no longer
had strength to speak. She tried to calm me, but she was as deeply moved
as I was; the tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped on me; but how
sweet they were to us both!
"So it was you, Nicette, who nursed me during my illness?"
"Wasn't it my duty? Could I have trusted others to do it?"
"Then you were my neighbor?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Cruel girl! you concealed yourself from me!"
"I thought that the sight of me would not give you any pleasure."
"You did not think that!"
"You are married."
"But you see that I have ceased to live with my wife."
"I didn't dare show myself to you, for fear that would make you leave
your lodgings."
"What an idea! O Nicette!"
"But I couldn't resist the longing to remind you of me; and that is why
you found the bouquet."
"Ah! it is to it that I am indebted for finding you. Nicette, don't
leave me again, I implore you!"
"Oh, no! I won't leave you again, monsieur, as you allow me to stay.
But, I beg of you, be calm, don't talk any more, and take a little
rest."
I yielded to her entreaties; in truth, I did need to pull myself
together. Nicette was with me, it was to her nursing that I owed my
life! I had difficulty in realizing my happiness. Ah! how blissfully
happy I was! and yet, some regret was mingled with my joy, when I
thought that Raymond---- But if that were not true, I should be too
happy.
Every day my convalescence advanced a step; but I was not content unless
Nicette was by my side; so she never left me. She seemed surprised by
the feeling that I manifested for her; I saw in her eyes all the
intoxicating joy that it caused her. It was plain, therefore, that she
still loved me. Often I flattered myself that it was so, and then I
abandoned myself to the affection that she aroused in me, I basked
blissfully in the fire of her glances, I laid my head on her breast and
inhaled her sweet breath. But when the image of Raymond appeared before
me, all my happiness vanished, my heart swelled, and I moved away from
Nicette.
She noticed these abrupt transitions from joy to gloom, these sudden
changes in my manner toward her.
"Are you thinking of your wife?" she asked me one day, when I had moved
away from her and sighed.
"No," I said, gazing at her in distress; "I am thinking of Raymond."
"Of Monsieur Raymond; and that makes you sigh?"
"Can you wonder at it? Did he not rob me of the greatest of blessings?"
"What do you mean? I don't understand you."
"Ah! Nicette, you loved him, and yet you say that you don't understand
me!"
"I--love him! Great God! who told you that?"
"I saw it; I know that he was your lover."
"My lover! O heaven! then I am a most despicable creature in your eyes!
And you believed that!"
Tears suffocated her; she could say no more. I ran to her, threw my arms
about her, and covered her with kisses; the mere suspicion that Raymond
had lied to me was perfect bliss.
"Nicette, dear Nicette, tell me how it all happened? I saw him in your
shop; he held your hands--and you admitted it yourself."
"Ah! could you believe that I loved anybody but you? I, who would give
my life for you--who have never given a thought to anybody else since I
first saw you! Oh! forgive me for loving you so much; perhaps it offends
you, but I must tell you now the whole secret of my heart. When I lived
in my shop, the only joy I had was to see you; every day I expected or
hoped to see you pass; but it happened very seldom. I used to bring you
bouquets as a pledge of my gratitude, and I would seize a moment when
the concierge was out to run up and tie them on your door. Sometimes I
saw you go by with a lady on your arm. Then I used to cry, for I would
say to myself: 'I shall never walk like that with him'--When I went a
long while without seeing you, I used to long to know something about
you, but I didn't dare go to your house to inquire. One day Monsieur
Raymond stopped to buy some flowers of me; he looked at me very hard,
recognized me, I suppose, and came again the next day. While he was
looking at my flowers, he paid me compliments, but I didn't listen to
him. Then he mentioned you, and I was very glad to listen to him. He
noticed that, for every time he came he talked about you, and I always
urged him to stay. He was the only person from whom I heard anything
about you; what he said made me sad, and yet I wanted to hear it. He
told me that you had twenty mistresses, that you loved all the women,
and that you had made fun of me; then he showed me the bouquets I had
carried to you, which he said you had given to him."
"The miserable cur! And you believed him, Nicette?"
"Alas! when I saw you come to buy flowers with that lady who--who called
you her dear friend and looked at me with such a sneering expression, I
thought he had told me the truth. That made me so unhappy that I
couldn't stay at home; I went out and walked about the streets most of
the night, hardly knowing what I did. It was while I was out that you
came. The next morning, when you came again, you seemed to be very
angry, and you left me very suddenly, you know; I wanted to call you
back, but I didn't dare. That evening Monsieur Raymond came; he talked
about you; I cried, and he tried to comfort me; he may have taken my
hands in his, but if he did I didn't feel it; I was thinking only of
you. He came again the next night, and then he wanted to talk about
himself: he said that he adored me, and a lot of other things; but he
said nothing more about you, and I wouldn't listen to him. I didn't let
him in again; he wrote me a long love letter, calling me cruel and
wicked. I have kept it to show you. At last he let me alone. I never saw
you after that. I came to this house and learned that you had gone away,
but had kept your apartment; that made me hope you would return. But one
day Monsieur Raymond passed my shop, and, being delighted to make me
unhappy, told me you were married. Alas! I should have expected it; I
knew that there must be many other women who loved you; and yet, I
became so miserable that I didn't have the courage to keep my shop;
besides, I was rich enough to get along without it. I came to this house
and found that the other apartment on your landing was empty, so I hired
it on the spot. That brought me nearer to these rooms where I passed
that night which changed the whole course of my life. But when you came
back here to live, I didn't dare to let you see me, because I was afraid
that the sight of me would not be pleasant to you.--That is the truth;
do you believe now that I have loved any man but you?"
When she had finished her story, Nicette went for Raymond's letter and
brought it to me. I no longer needed it to induce me to believe her; but
that final proof thoroughly convinced me that I had been deceived by
appearances and by Raymond's lies.
Ah! how delicious was that moment when I found that Nicette was worthy
of all my love! I hastened to tell her, in my turn, all that had
happened to me, all that I had felt when I believed that she was
Raymond's mistress. She wept with joy and love as she listened; she
gazed into my face, took my hands, and held them to her heart.
"So you did love me," she said, "and you love me still! Ah! how happy I
am!"
The story of my marriage and of Pélagie's conduct caused her the
greatest surprise; she could not conceive how my wife could fail to love
me. Dear Nicette! But for that miserable Raymond, I should still have
been free! but the ties which bound me to Pélagie were broken by nature,
if not by man.
"What!" she said; "are you not going back to your wife?"
"Never. That resolution was irrevocable before I found you; it can bring
no blame upon you."
"And you really want me to stay with you?"
"Do I want you to! Could I live without you now?"
"Oh! how happy I am going to be, monsieur!"
"Dear Nicette! no more _monsieur_, no more formal address! I am your
friend, your lover, and you are the whole world to me! Call me Eugène,
your Eugène!"
The evening passed away in this blissful conversation.
"I must go to my room now," said Nicette; "it is time to go to sleep,
and you need it."
"Oh! happiness has restored my health. But you are my nurse, and you
must not leave me."
She blushed and looked at me; but she had not the strength to deny me
anything.
"Dear Eugène," she said, "I am yours. This is surely the place where I
owe the reward of your love."
Oh! unalloyed ecstasy of true love, I had never known you before! Never
until that day did I really exist!