And so, without framing a single reproach, Marguerite had sent to ask for mercy, informing me that she no longer had either the emotional nor physical strength to endure what I was doing to her.
'If Mademoiselle Gautier, ' I told Prudence, 'wishes to close her door to me, then she is perfectly entitled to do so. But that she should insult a woman I love on the ground that the woman is my mistress, is something which I shall never tolerate.'
'My dear, ' said Prudence, 'you're being ruled by the influence of a heartless, thoughtless, common girl. You love her, it's true, but that's no reason for tormenting a woman who can't defend herself.'
'Let Mademoiselle Gautier send her Count de N to me and the game will be even.'
'You know very well she'll never do that. So let her be, dear Armand. If you saw her, you'd be ashamed of the way you're behaving towards her. She's got no colour, and she's coughing. She's not long for this world now.'
Prudence held out her hand to me and added:
'Come and see her. A visit from you will make her very happy.'
'I have no wish to meet Monsieur de N.'
'Monsieur de N is never there. She can't stand him.'
'If Marguerite really wants to see me, she knows where I live. She can come here. But I shall never set foot in the rue d'Antin.'
'And you'd be nice to her?'
'I'd behave perfectly.'
'Well, I'm sure she'll come.'
'Let her.'
'Are you going out today?'
'I shall be home all evening.'
'I'll go and tell her.'
Prudence left.
I did not even bother to write and let Olympe know that I should not be going to see her. I behaved pretty much as I liked towards her. I hardly spent one night a week with her now. She found consolation with, I believe, an actor from one or other of the Boulevard theatres.
I went out for dinner and came back almost immediately. I had fires lit in every room and told Joseph he would not be needed.
I could not give you any sort of account of the various thoughts which troubled my mind during the hour I waited. But when I heard the doorbell, at around nine o'clock, they all came together in one emotion so powerful that, as I went to open the door, I was obliged to lean against the wall to prevent myself falling.
Fortunately, the hallway was only half-lit, so that the change in my features was less noticeable.
Marguerite came in.
She was dressed entirely in black and wore a veil. I could only just make out her face beneath the lace.
She walked on into the drawing- room and lifted her veil.
She was as pale as marble.
'Here I am, Armand, ' she said. 'You wanted to see me. I came.'
And, lowering her head which she took in both hands, she burst into tears.
I went up to her.
'What is it?' I said falteringly.
She pressed my hand without replying, for the tears still dimmed her voice. But a few moments later, having regained something of her composure, she said:
'You have hurt me a great deal, Armand, and I never did anything to you.'
'Never did anything?' I replied, with a bitter smile.
'Nothing, except what circumstances forced me to do to you.'
I do not know if you have ever experienced in your life, or ever will, what I went through as I looked at Marguerite.
The last time she had come to my apartment, she had sat in the same chair where she was now sitting. But since those days, she had been another man's mistress; other kisses than mine had brushed those lips towards which my own were now involuntarily drawn. And yet I felt that I loved her no less, and perhaps even more, than I had ever loved her.
However, it was difficult for me to broach the subject which had brought her. Most likely Marguerite understood this, for she went on:
'My coming here will be tiresome for you, Armand, for I have two requests to make: your forgiveness for what I said to Mademoiselle Olympe yesterday, and your mercy for what you may still be thinking of doing to me. Whether you wanted to or not, you have hurt me so much since your return that I should not now be able to stand a quarter of the emotions which I have borne up to this morning. You will have pity on me, won't you? And you will remember that there are nobler things for a good man to do than to take his revenge against a woman as ill and as wretched as I am. Come. Take my hand. I am feverish: I left my bed to come here to ask, not for your friendship, but for your indifference.'
As she asked, I took Marguerite's hand. It was hot, and the poor woman was shivering beneath her velvet cloak.
I rolled the armchair in which she was sitting nearer the fire.
'Do you imagine that I didn't suffer, ' I resumed, 'that night when, after waiting for you in the country, I came looking for you in Paris where all I found was that letter which almost drove me out of my mind?
'How could you have deceived me, Marguerite? I loved you so much!'
'Let's not speak of that, Armand, I did not come here to speak of that. I wanted to see you other than as an enemy, that's all, and I wanted to hold your hand once more. You have a young, pretty mistress whom you love, so they say be happy with her and forget me.'
'And what of you? I suppose you're happy?'
'Have I the face of a happy woman, Armand? Don't mock my sorrows, for you should know their cause and extent better than anyone.'
'It was entirely up to you never to be unhappy, if, that is, you are as unhappy as you say.'
'No, my friend, circumstances were too strong for my will. I did not follow my immoral instincts as you seem to be saying, but obeyed a solemn injunction and yielded to arguments which, when some day you know what they were, will make you forgive me.'
'Why not tell me now what these arguments are?'
'Because they would not bring us together again, for we can never be together again, and because they might alienate you from those from whom you must not be alienated.'
'Who are these people?'
'I cannot tell you.'
'Then you're lying.'
Marguerite stood up and walked to the door.
I could not stand by and watch such silent, expressive grief without being moved by it, when my mind's eye I compared this white-faced, weeping woman with the high-spirited girl who had laughed at me at the Opera-Comique.
'You shall not go, ' I said, thrusting myself against the door.
'Why not?'
'Because in spite of all you've done to me, I still love you and want to keep you here.'
'So that you can throw me out tomorrow, is that it? No, it's out of the question! Our destinies are separate, let's not try to unite them, for them you might despise me, whereas now you have no choice but hate.'
'No, Marguerite, ' I exclaimed, feeling all my love, all my desires awaken with her nearness, 'No, I shall forget all that is past, and we will be happy, as we promised we would.'
Marguerite shook her head uncertainly, then said:
'Am I not your slave, your dog? Do with me what you will. Take me, I am yours.'
And removing her coat and her hat which she flung on to the sofa, she began feverishly unloosing the bodice of her dress, for, her condition deterioriating suddenly, as often happened in her illness, and with the blood rushing from her heart to her head, she was having difficulty breathing.
There followed a bout of dry, hoarse coughing.
'Have my coachman told, ' she went on, 'to drive my carriage home.'
I went down myself to dismiss the man.
When I returned, Marguerite was lying in front of the fire, and her teeth were chattering with cold.
I took her in my arms, undressed her where she lay without stirring, and carried her icy body to my bed.
Then I sat by her side and tried to warm her with my caresses. She did not speak, but she smiled at me.
Oh! How strange was the night that followed! The whole of Marguerite's life seemed to be concentrated in the kisses she lavished on me. I loved her so intensely that, in the transports of my loving frenzy, I wondered whether I should not kill her so that she would never belong to anyone else.
A month of such loving, body and soul, would be enough to bury most people.
Day found us both awake.
Marguerite was ghastly pale. She did not utter a word. From time to time, large tears flowed from her eyes and halted on her cheeks where they glistened like diamonds. Her weary arms opened now and then to hold me fast to her, and then fell back lifelessly on to the bed.
For a moment, I thought I could forget everything that had happened since the moment I had left Bougival, and I said to Marguerite:
'Would you like us to go away, to leave Paris?'
'No, no!' she said, near to panic, 'we should be too wretched. There's nothing I can do now to make you happy, but as long as I have breath in my body, I will be the slave of your every whim. Whatever time of day or night you want me, come to me: I shall be yours. But you mustn't go on trying to link your future with mine. You'd only be too unhappy, and you would make me very wretched.
'I'll keep my looks for a little while longer. Make the most of them, but don't ask any more of me.'
When she had gone, I felt frightened by the loneliness to which she had abandoned me. Two hours after her departure, I was still sitting on the bed she had just left, staring at the pillow which bore the imprint of her head, and wondering what should become of me, torn as I was between love and jealousy.
At five o'clock, without having any clear idea of what I would do when I got there, I went round to the rue d'Antin.
It was Nanine who opened the door.
'Madame cannot see you now, ' she said, with some embarrassment.
'Why not?'
'Because Count de N is with her, and he doesn't want me to let anyone in.'
'Oh, of course, ' I stammered, 'I'd forgotten.'
I returned home like a man drunk, and do you know what I did in that moment of jealous frenzy which lasted only long enough for the disgraceful action which I was about to commit, can you guess what I did? I told myself that this woman was making a fool of me, I pictured her locked in inviolable intimacies with the Count, repeating to him the same words she had said to me that night, and, taking a five hundred franc note, I sent it to her with this message:
'You left so quickly this morning that I forgot to pay you. The enclosed is your rate for a night.'
Then, when the letter had gone, I went out as though to escape from the instant remorse which followed this unspeakable deed.
I called on Olympe and I found her trying on dresses. When we were alone, she sang obscene songs for my amusement.
She was the archetypal courtesan who has neither shame nor heart nor wit? or at least she appeared so to me, for perhaps another man had shared with her the idyll I had shared with Marguerite.
She asked me for money. I gave it her. Then, free to go, I went home.
Marguerite had not sent a reply.
There is no point in my telling you in what state of agitation I spent the whole of the following day.
At half past six, a messenger brought an envelope containing my letter and the five hundred franc note, but nothing else.
'Who gave you this?' I said to the man.
'A lady who was leaving on the Boulogne mail coach with her maid. She gave me orders not to bring it until the coach was clear of the depot.'
I ran all the way to Marguerite's apartment.
'Madame left for England today at six o'clock, ' said the porter in answer to my question.
There was nothing now to keep me in Paris, neither love nor hate. I was exhausted by the turmoil of these events. One of my friends was about to set off on a tour of the Middle East. I went to see my father and said I wished to go with him. My father gave me bills of exchange and letters of introduction, and a week or ten days later I boarded ship at Marseilles.
It was at Alexandria, through an Embassy attache whom I had occasionally seen at Marguerite's, that I learnt about the poor girl's illness.
It was then that I sent her the letter to which she wrote the reply you have read for yourself. I got it when I reached Toulon.
I set out immediately and you know the rest.
All that remains now is for you to read the papers which Julie Duprat kept for me. They are the necessary complement of the story I have just told you.
Chapter 25
ARMAND, wearied by the telling of his long tale which had been frequently interrupted by his tears, placed both hands on his forehead and closed his eyes? either to think or to try to sleep? after giving me the pages written in Marguerite's hand.
Moments later, a slight quickening in his breathing told me that Armand had been overcome by sleep, but sleep of that shallow kind which the least sound will scatter.
This is what I read. I transcribe it without adding or deleting a single syllable:
'Today is the 15th December. I have been ill for three or four days. This morning, I took to my bed; the weather is dull and I feel low. There is no one with me here. I think of you, Armand. And you, where are you now as I write these lines? Far from Paris, far away, I've heard, and perhaps you have already forgotten Marguerite. But be happy, for I owe you the only moments of joy I have known in my life.
I could not resist the temptation of wanting to explain why I behaved as I did, and I wrote you a letter. But, coming from a loose woman like me, any such letter may be regarded as a tissue of lies unless it is sanctified by the authority of death, in which case it becomes a confession rather than a letter.
Today I am ill. I may die of my illness, for I always had a feeling that I would die young. My mother died of consumption, and the way I have lived up to now can only have aggravated a complaint which was the only legacy she left me. But I do not want do die without your knowing how you stand with me ?if, that is, when you get back, you still feel anything for the sorry creature you loved before you went away.
Here is what was in that letter which I shall be happy to write out again, for in so doing I shall convince myself anew that I am vindicated.
