'Where?' said Prudence, who was staring at me and evidently wondering if this was the same man she had known so much in love.
'On the Champs-Elysees. She was with another, very attractive woman. Who would that be?'
'What's she look like?
''A blonde girl, slim. Had her hair in ringlets. Blue eyes, very fashionably dressed.'
'Ah! That's Olympe. Yes, she's a very pretty girl.'
'Who's she living with?'
'Nobody. Everybody.'
'And her address?'
'In the rue Tronchet, number...Well, I declare! You want to take up with her?'
'You never know what can happen.'
'And Marguerite?'
'I'd be lying if I told you that I never think of her any more. But I'm one of those men who set great store by the way an affair is ended. Now Marguerite gave me my marching orders in such an offhand sort of way, that I was left feeling I'd been rather silly to have fallen in love with her the way I did? for I really was in love with her. '
You can guess in what tone of voice I tried to say all this: the perspiration was pouring off my forehead.
'She loved you too, you know, and still does. You want proof? Well, after she met you today, she came straight round here to tell me all about it. When she got here, she was all of a tremble, almost ill she was.'
'And what did she tell you?'
'She said: "I expect he'll come to see you," and she begged me to ask you to forgive her.'
'I've forgiven her, you can tell her. She's a good girl, but she's a good- time girl, and I should have expected what she did to me. I'm grateful to her for making the break, because I wonder now where my idea that I could live exclusively with her would have got us. It was very silly.'
'She'll be very happy when she learns you took it like that when you saw she had no alternative. It was high time she left you, my dear. The rogue of a dealer she'd offered to sell her furniture to, had been to see her creditors to ask how much she owed them. They'd got cold feet and were planning to sell everything in another two days.'
'And now, it's all paid back?'
'Almost.'
'And who provided the money?'
'Count de N. Listen, dear, there are men who were put in this would for paying up. To cut a long story short, he came up with twenty thousand francs ?but he's got what he wanted. He knows Marguerite doesn't love him, but that doesn't prevent him being very nice to her. You saw for yourself that he's bought back her horses and redeemed her jewels, and he gives her as much money as the Duke used to. If she's prepared to settle for a quiet life, then this is one man who'll stay with her for a long time. '
'And what does she do with herself? Does she stay in Paris all the time?'
'She's never once wanted to go back to Bougival since the day you left. It was me that went down to fetch all her things, and yours too: I've made a bundle of them that you can send round for. It's all there except for a little pocketbook with your monogram on it. Marguerite wanted to have it, and she's got it with her in the apartment. If you want it particularly, I could ask for it back.'
'She can keep it, ' I stammered, for I could feel tears welling up from my heart into my eyes at the memory of the village where I had been so happy, and at the thought that Marguerite should want to keep something that had been mine and reminded her of me.
If she had come into the room at that moment, all my plans for revenge would have collapsed, and I would have fallen at her feet.
'Mind you, ' Prudence went on, 'I've never seen her the way she is at the minute. She hardly sleeps at all, goes to every ball, eats late suppers and even has too much to drink. Just recently, after a supper party, she was in bed for a week. And when the doctor allowed her up, she started where she'd left off, though she knows it could kill her. Are you going to see her?'
'What's the point? It was you I came to see, because you've always been extremely nice to me, and I knew you before I met Marguerite. It's you I have to thank for having been her lover, just as it's you I must thank for not being her lover any more. Am I right?'
'Well, yes. I did everything I could to make her give you up, and I do believe that, in time, you won't think too badly of me.'
'I owe you a double debt of gratitude, ' I added, getting to my feet, 'because I was getting sick of her when I saw how seriously she took everything I said: '
'Are you going?'
'Yes.'
I had heard enough.
'When shall we see you again?'
'Soon. Goodbye.'
'Goodbye.'
Prudence saw me to the door, and I returned to my apartment with tears of rage in me eyes and a thirst for revenge in my heart.
So Marguerite was really a whore like the rest of them. So this fathomless love she felt for me had not held out for long against her wish to revert to her old life, and her need to have a carriage and indulge her taste for orgies.
This is what I kept telling myself when I could not sleep, whereas, if I had thought about it as coolly as I made out, I would have seen Marguerite's new, wild behaviour as her hope of silencing persistent thoughts and burying recurring memories.
But, alas, I was ruled by sour resentments, and thought only of finding a way of tormenting the poor creature.
Oh, how small, how vile is man when one of his petty passions is wounded!
Olympe, the girl I had seen with Marguerite, was, if not a close friend, then at least the friend she had seen most of since returning to Paris. She was to throw a ball and, since I assumed Marguerite would be there, I set about getting myself an invitation, and got one.
When I arrived, overflowing with painful emotions, the ball was already in full swing. People were dancing, there was a great deal of shouting and, during one of the quadrilles, I saw Marguerite dancing with Count de N who looked inordinately proud to be showing her off, as though he were declaring to the assembled company:
'This woman belongs to me!'
I went and leaned against the mantelpiece, just across from Marguerite, and watched her dance. She grew flustered almost the moment she noticed me. I indicated that I had seen her, and acknowledged her perfunctorily with a wave of the hand and a look of recognition.
When I thought that, after the ball, she would be leaving, not with me, but with that wealthy oaf, when I pictured what would very likely happen after they got back to her apartment, the blood rushed to my face and I felt a need to upset the course of true love.
When the quadrille was over, I went over and said good evening to the hostess who, for the benefit of her guests, was displaying a dazzling pair of shoulders and much of her magnificent breasts.
She was a beautiful girl, more beautiful, in terms of her figure, than Marguerite. This was brought home to me even more forcibly by certain glances which Marguerite cast towards Olympe as I was speaking to her. The man who became this woman's lover could be every bit as pleased with himself as Monsieur de N, and she was beautiful enough to start a passion the equal of the one which Marguerite had inspired in
me.
At that time, she had no lover. It would not be difficult to remedy that. The trick was having enough gold to fling about in order go get oneself noticed.
My mind was made up. This woman would be my mistress.
I took the first steps in my initiation by dancing with Olympe.
Half an hour later, Marguerite, pale as death, put on her fur-lined cape and left the ball.
Chapter 24
IT was something, but it was not enough. I knew what power I had over her, and took cowardly advantage of it.
When I reflect that she is dead now, I wonder if God will ever forgive me for the hurt I caused her.
After supper, which was very rowdy, people began to gamble.
I sat next to Olympe, and bet my money so boldly that she could hardly fail to notice. In a trice, I won a hundred and fifty or two hundred louis which I spread out in front of me; she stared at them with eager eyes.
I was the only person there who was not totally absorbed by the play, and I alone paid her any attention. For the rest of the night, I went on winning, and it was I who gave her money to gamble with, for she had lost everything she had on the table in front of her, and most probably all the money she had in the house.
People started to leave at five in the morning.
I had won three hundred louis.
All the gamblers had gone downstairs. Only I had stayed behind. No one noticed, for none of the other gentlemen were friends of mine.
Olympe herself was lighting them down the staircase, and I was about to go down like everyone else, when, turning back to her, I said:
'I must speak to you.'
'Tomorrow, ' she said.
'No. Now.'
'What is it you want to say?'
'You'll see.'
And I went back into her apartment.
'You lost, ' I said.
'Yes.'
'Everything you had here?'
She hesitated.
'Speak frankly.'
'Oh very well, you're right.'
'I won three hundred louis. They're yours, if you let me stay.'
And, as I spoke, I tossed the gold on to the table.
'Why the offer?'
'Because I love you, dammit!'
'No so. Because you're in love with Marguerite and want to have your revenge by becoming my lover. You can't fool a woman like me, you know. Unfortunately, I'm still too young and too beautiful to accept the role you propose.'
'So you refuse?'
'Yes.'
'Would you rather have me for love than money? If so, I should be the one to refuse. Think, my dear Olympe. If I'd sent somebody or other along to offer you these same three hundred louis on my behalf and on the same terms that I have set out, you would have accepted. I preferred to deal with you directly. Say yes, and don't look for motives behind what I'm doing. Keep telling yourself that you're beautiful, that there's nothing surprising in the fact that I'm in love with you.'
Marguerite was a kept woman like Olympe, and yet the first time I saw her, I would never have dared say to her what I had just said to this woman. The difference was that I loved Marguerite, and had sensed instincts in her which were lacking in this other creature who, for all her very great beauty, even as I put the arrangement to her and prepared to agree terms, sickened me.
In the end she consented, of course, and when I walked out of her apartment at noon, I was her lover. But I slipped from her bed carrying away no memory of the caresses and loving words which she had felt obliged to lavish on me in exchange for the six thousand francs which I left for her.
And yet men had ruined themselves for that woman.
Starting from that day, I subjected Marguerite to constant persecution. Olympe and she stopped seeing each other: you can easily understand why. I gave my new mistress a carriage and jewels, I gambled and, in a word, committed all the follies which a man in love with a woman like Olympe normally commits. Rumours of my new passion spread at once.
Even Prudence was taken in by them and ended up believing that I had completely forgotten Marguerite. Marguerite, either because she guessed the motive which drove me or because she was deceived like everyone else, responded with great dignity to the slights I inflicted on her every day. Yet she appeared to be ill, for everywhere I met her I found her looking paler and paler and increasingly sad. My love for her, exalted to the point where it felt as though it had turned to hate, revelled in the spectacle of her daily sufferings. Several times, in situations where I behaved with unspeakable cruelty, Marguerite looked at me with such imploring eyes that I reddened at the role I had chosen to play, and came near to asking for her forgiveness.
But my repentance never lasted longer than a flash of lightning. Besides, Olympe, who in the end had set aside all thought of self-respect and realized that by hurting Marguerite she could get anything she wanted out of me, constantly set me against her and, whenever she had the chance, insulted her with the relentless cowardice of a woman who has the backing of a man.
Finally, Marguerite stopped going either to the ball or the theatre for fear of meeting Olympe and me. Then the direct insults were replaced by anonymous letters: there was nothing too shameful which I did not urge my mistress to put about nor too despicable which I did not myself spread concerning Marguerite.
I must have taken leave of my senses to allow affairs to come to such a pass. I was like a man who has got fighting drunk and falls into an uncontrollable rage in which his hand is quite capable of committing a crime without involving his mind. In the midst of it all, I went through torment. The way Marguerite reacted to all my attacks? with a calmness that was as free of scorn as her dignity was of contempt? made her my superior even in my eyes, but served only to provoke me further.
One evening, Olympe had gone out somewhere and met Marguerite who, on this occasion, did not spare the stupid girl who insulted her, and things reached the point where Olympe was forced to back down. She came back seething. Marguerite, who had fainted, had to be carried home.
As soon as she came in, Olympe told me what had happened. She said that when Marguerite had seen that she was by herself, she had wanted revenge because Olympe was my mistress. She said that I had to write a letter saying that, whether I was with her or not, the woman I loved was to be respected.
I have no need to tell you that I agreed. I put everything bitter, shameful and cruel I could think of into that missive which I sent to her home address that same day.
This time, the cut went too deep for the unhappy girl to be able to bear it in silence.
I was confident that a reply would be delivered. Accordingly, I was determined not to go out all that day.
Around two o'clock, there was a ring at the door and Prudence was shown in.
I tried to appear unconcerned as I asked her to what I owed her visit. But that day Madame Duvernoy was in no mood for laughter and, sounding terribly upset, she pointed out that since my return, that is for the last three weeks or so, I had not missed an opportunity to hurt Marguerite. It was making her ill. The scene the night before, and the letter I'd sent that morning, had forced her to take to her bed.
