'Hello! What on earth are you pair up to? 'cried Prudence, whom we had not heard coming, as she appeared at the bedroom door, her hair half undone and her dress open. In her disordered appearance, I recognized Gaston's handiwork.
'We're having a serious talk, ' said Marguerite, ' leave us for a while, we'll rejoin you shortly.'
'All right, all right, talk away, my children, 'said Prudence, and she left, closing the door as if to reinforce the tone in which she had spoken these last words.
'So it's agreed, 'Marguerite went on, when we were alone, ' you will stop loving me.'
'I shall go away.'
'It's as bad as that?'
I had gone too far to turn back, and besides, this girl overwhelmed me. Her mixture of high spirits, sadness, ingenuousness and prostitution, the very illness which as surely heightened her sensitivity to impressions as it did her nervous reactions ?everything made me see that if, from the outset, I did not gain some hold over her heedless, fickle nature, then she would be lost to me forever.
'So what you are saying is quite serious? ' she said.
'Very serious.'
'But why didn't you tell me all this before?'
'When could I have told you?'
'The day after you were introduced to me at the Opera-Comique.'
'I think you'd have received me very badly if I had come to see you.'
'Why?'
'Because I had behaved stupidly the previous evening.'
'Yes, that's true. But all the same, you were already in love with me then.'
'Yes.'
'None of which prevented you from going home to bed and sleeping very soundly after the play. We all know about great loves of that sort.'
'Now that's where you're wrong. Do you know what I did that evening we met at the Opera-Comique?'
'No. '
'I waited for you outside the entrance to the Cafe Anglais. I followed the carriage which brought you and your friends back here and, when I saw you get out by yourself and go up to your apartment alone, I was very happy.'
Marguerite began to laugh.
'What are you laughing at?'
'Nothing.'
'Tell me, I beg you, or I shall think that you're laughing at me again.'
'You won't be cross?'
'I have no right to be cross.'
'Well, there was a good reason why I should return alone.'
'What was that?'
'There was someone waiting for me here.'
Had she stabbed me with a knife, she could not have hurt me more. I stood up and, offering my hand, said:
'Goodbye.'
'I knew you'd be cross, ' she said. 'Men have a mania for wanting to know things that will upset them.'
'But I assure you, ' I added coldly, as though I had wanted to show that I was cured of my passion for ever, ' I assure you that I am not cross. It was only natural that someone should have been waiting for you, as natural as it is that I should leave here at three in the morning.'
'Have you got someone waiting for you at home too?'
'No, but I must go.'
'Goodbye, then.'
'You are sending me away.'
'Not at all.'
'Then why do you say hurtful things?'
'What hurtful things?'
'You told me someone was waiting for you.'
'I couldn't help laughing at the thought of your being so happy to see me coming in by myself, when there was such a good reason for me to do so.'
'People often find happiness in foolish things. It is unkind to destroy their happiness when, simply by allowing it to continue, we can increase the joy of those who have discovered such happiness.'
'But what do you think I am? I am neither a virgin nor a duchess. I'd never met you before today and I don't have to justify my actions to you. Assuming that one day I become your mistress, you must realize that I've had other lovers before you. If you're going to carry on and be jealous now, what's it going to be like after? if there's ever an after! I never met a man like you.'
'That's because no man has ever loved you as I do.'
'Let's be clear about this: are you really in love with me?'
'As much as anyone could possibly love anybody, I believe.'
'And how long has this been going on?'
'Since I saw you one day get out of your barouche and go into Susse's, three years ago.'
'How wonderful, it really is! And what do I have to do to acknowledge this great love?'
'You must love me a little, ' I said, with a beating heart which almost prevented me from speaking; for, despite the half-mocking smiles with which she had accompanied the whole of our conversation, it seemed to me that Marguerite was beginning to share my troubled state and that I was approaching the moment which I had been so long awaiting.
'But what about the Duke?'
'What Duke?'
'My old Duke. He's very suspicious.'
'He won't know.'
'And if he does?'
'He'll forgive you.'
'Oh no! He'll leave me and then what'll become of me?'
'You are already running that risk for someone else's sake.'
'How do you know that?'
'From the order you gave that no one should be allowed in tonight.'
'You're right; but he is a good friend.'
'Who you don't much care for, if you can close you door to him at this time of night.'
'You're in no position to criticize me since I did it to receive you and your friend.'
Imperceptibly, I had drawn closer to Marguerite, I had put my arms around her waist and could feel her supple body pressing lightly against my clasped hands.
'If you only knew how much I love you!' I whispered.
'Do you really mean it?'
'I swear it.'
'Well, if you promise to do everything I say without arguing, without finding fault or asking questions, I will love you, perhaps.'
'Whatever you ask!'
'But I warn you, I want to be free to do whatever I choose, without having to tell you anything about the life I lead. For a long time now, I've been looking for a young, easygoing lover, someone who would love me without asking questions, someone I could love without his feeling that he has any rights over me. I have never found one yet. Men, instead of being content with being freely given for long periods what they hardly dared hope to get once, are forever asking their mistresses for an account of the present, the past and even the future. As they get used to a mistress, they try to dominate her, and they become all the more demanding the more they are given. If I decide to take a new lover now, I want him to have three very rare qualities: he must be trusting, submissive and discreet.'
'Very well, I shall be everything you desire.'
'We'll see. '
'And when will we see?'
'Later.'
'Why?'
'Because, ' said Marguerite, slipping out of my arms and taking a single bloom from a large bunch of red camellias which had been delivered that morning and putting it in my buttonhole, 'because you can't always implement treaties the day they are signed.'
The meaning is plain.
'And when shall I see you again?' I said, taking her in my arms.
'When this camellia is a different colour.'
'And when will it be a different colour.'
'Tomorrow, between eleven and midnight. Are you happy?'
'How can you ask?'
'Not a word of any of this to your friend nor to Prudence, nor anyone.'
'I promise. '
'Now kiss me, and let's go back to the dining-room.'
She proffered her lips, smoothed her hair again and then she, singing as she went, and I, who was madly elated, left the room together.
In the drawing-room, she stopped and said softly:
'It must seem strange to you that I should appear ready to accept you straightway like this: do you know the reason?'
'The reason, ' she went on, taking my hand and pressing it to her heart which I could fell beating violently and insistently, 'the reason is that since I shall not live as long as the others, I have promised myself that I shall live my life faster.'
'Don't talk to me like this, I implore you.'
'Oh, cheer up! 'she went on, laughing. 'However little time I have to live, I'll live long enough to see you love out.'
And, singing, she went into the dining-room.
'Where's Nanine? ' she said, seeing Gaston and Prudence alone.
'Asleep in your bedroom, waiting for you to go to bed, ' answered Prudence.
'Poor girl, I'm wearing her out! Come, gentlemen, be off with you, it's high time.'
Ten minutes later, Gaston and I were on our way out. Marguerite squeezed my hand as she said good- bye and remained with Prudence.
'Well?' asked Gaston, when we were outside, 'what do you make of Marguerite?'
'She's an angel and I'm mad about her.'
'I thought so. Did you tell her?'
'Yes.'
'And did she promise to believe you?'
'No.'
'She's not like Prudence, then.'
'Did she promise to believe you?'
'She did more than that, old man! You wouldn't think so, but that Duvernoy woman is still a bit of all right, even if she is on the large side!'
Chapter 11
AT this point in his story, Armand paused.
'Would you close the window?' he said to me, 'I'm beginning to feel cold. While you're doing that, I shall go to bed.'
I closed the window. Armand, who was still very weak, took off his dressing-gown and got into bed, allowing his head to rest on the pillow for a few moments, like a man wearied by a long march or troubled by painful memories.
'Perhaps you have talked too much, ' I said. 'Would you like me to go and leave you to sleep? You can tell me the end of the story some other day.'
'Do you find it tedious?'
'On the contrary.'
'In that case, I shall go on with it; if you were to leave me on my own, I shouldn't sleep.'
When I reached home, he went on (without having to gather his thoughts together, so fresh in his mind were all these particulars), I did not go to bed. I began to reflect on the day's happenings. The meeting, the introduction, Marguerite's pledge to me, had all been so sudden, so unexpected, that there were moments when I thought I had been dreaming. However, it was not the first time a girl like Marguerite had promised herself to a man, with her promise to take effect on the very day after she was asked to give it.
But though I tried to keep this thought uppermost in my mind, that first impression produced in me by my future mistress had been so powerful that it lingered still. Stubbornly, I continued to refuse to think of her as a rather loose girl like all the others and, with the vanity so commonly found in all men, I was ready to believe that she was as unshakeably attracted to me as I was to her.
However, I was personally acquainted with examples which showed the exact opposite, and I had often heard it said that Marguerite's love had sunk to the level of a commodity, the price of which fluctuates according to the season.
But, yet again, how was such a reputation to be reconciled with the repeated refusals given to the young Count we had found in her apartment? You will say that she did not like him and that, since she was already being kept in some splendour by the Duke, then if she was prepared to go to the length of taking another lover, she would naturally prefer to have a man she did like. But if that were so, why did she not want Gaston, who was charming, witty and rich, and why did she appear to want me, whom she had found so ridiculous the first time she saw me?
It is true that events lasting only a moment may achieve more than courtships which last a year.
Among those who had been present at the supper, I was the only one to have been anxious on seeing her leave the table. I had followed her. I had been so affected that I had been unable to hide my feelings. I had wept as I kissed her hand. These circumstances, together with my daily calls during the two months of her illness, had perhaps led her to regard me as a man quite different from those she had hitherto known, and she may have told herself that she could very well grant to such devoted love what she had granted on so many other occasions, and it could well have been that none of it meant much more to her than that.
All these suppositions, as you can see, were plausible enough. But whatever the reason for her consenting, one thing was sure: she had consented.
Now, I was in love with Marguerite, I was going to have her: I could not ask any more of her. Yet, I repeat, though she was a kept woman, I had in my mind turned my love? to poeticize her, perhaps? into such a hopeless passion, that the closer the moment came when I would have no further need for hope, the more uncertain I became.
I did not lose my eyes that night.
I did not know what to think. I was half mad. At some moments, I could not believe I was handsome enough nor rich enough nor sufficiently fashionable to possess a woman like her; at others, I felt swollen with vanity at the thought that she was to be mine. Then I would start fearing that Marguerite had no more than a passing fancy for me which would last only a few days and, scenting disaster for me if the affair ended abruptly, I told myself that I would do better not to call on her that evening but go away and tell her my fears in a letter. From thinking this, I moved to limitless hopes and boundless optimism. I dreamed impossible dreams for the future; I told myself that this girl would have me to thank for her spiritual and physical salvation, that I would spend the whole of my life by her side, and that her love would make me happier than all the most virginal of loves in creation.
In short, I should be quite incapable of repeating to you the countless thoughts which rose from my heart to my head and faded slowly into the sleep which overpowered me when it grew light.
