①见《圣经·路加福音》第七章，第四十四至四十八节。 .18

我带着赞赏的心情听着和望着玛格丽特。当我想到这个人间尤物，过去我曾渴望吻她的脚，现在她却让我看到了她的思想深处，并让我成为她生活中的一员，而我现在对此却还不满意，我不禁自问，人类的欲望究竟还有没有个尽头。我这样快地实现了我的梦想，可我又在得寸进尺了。

“这是真的，”她接着说，“我们这些受命运摆布的女人，我们有一些古怪的愿望和不可思议的爱情。我们有时为了某一件事，有时候又为了另一件事而委身于人。有些人为我们倾家荡产，却一无所得，也有些人只用一束鲜花就换得了我们。我们凭一时高兴而随心所欲，这是我们仅有的消遣和唯一的借口。我委身于你①比谁都快，这我可以向你起誓，为什么呢？因为你看到我吐血就握住我的手，还流了眼泪，因为你是唯一真正同情我的人。我要告诉你一个笑话：从前我有一只小狗，当我咳嗽的时候，它总是用悲哀的神气瞅着我，它是我唯一喜爱过的动物。

①在法语对话中一般用第二人称复数（您）代替第二人称单数（你），表示客气；但对亲密的人仍用第二人称单数（你）。本书中对称时，“您”、“你”有时换用，视当时讲话者的心情和场合而定。

“它死的时候，我哭得比死了亲娘还要伤心，我的的确确挨了我母亲十二年的打骂。就这样，我一下子就爱上了你，就像爱上了我的狗一样。如果男人们都懂得用眼泪可以换到些什么，他们就会更讨人的喜爱，我们也不会这样挥霍他们的钱财了。

“你的来信暴露了你的真相，这封信告诉我你的心里并不明白，从我对你的爱情来说，不管你对我做了什么事，也没有比这封信给我的伤害更大的了，要说这是嫉妒的结果，这也是真的，但是这种嫉妒是很可笑的，也是很粗暴的。当我收到你来信时，我已经够难受的了，本来我打算到中午去看你，和你一起吃午饭，只有在看到你以后，我才能抹掉始终纠缠在我脑海里的一些想法，而在认识你以前，这些事我是根本不当一回事的。

“而且，”玛格丽特继续说，“我相信也只有在你面前，我才可以推诚相见，无所不谈。那些围着像我一样的姑娘转的人都喜欢对她们的一言一语寻根究底，想在她们无意的行动里找出什么含义来。我们当然没有什么朋友，我们有的都是一些自私自利的情人，他们挥霍钱财并非像他们所说的是为了我们，而是为了他们自己的虚荣心。

“对于这些人，当他们开心的时候，我们必须快乐；当他们要吃夜宵的时候，我们必须精力充沛；当他们疑神疑鬼的时候，我们也要疑神疑鬼。我们这些人是不能有什么良心的，否则就要被嘲骂，就要被诋毁。

“我们已经身不由己了，我们不再是人，而是没有生命的东西。他们要满足自尊心时最先想到的是我们，但他们又把我们看得比谁都不如。我们有一些女朋友，但都是像普律当丝那样的女朋友，她们过去也是妓女，挥霍惯了，但现在人老了，不允许她们这样做了，于是，她们成了我们的朋友，更可以说成了我们的食客。她们的友情甚至到了可供驱使的地步，但从来也到不了无私的程度。她们总是给我们出些怎样捞钱的点子。只要她们能借此赚到一些衣衫和首饰，能经常乘着我们的车子出去逛逛，能坐在我们的包厢里看戏，我们即使有十几个情人也不关她们的事。她们拿去了我们前一天用过的花束，借用我们的开司米披肩。即使是一件芝麻绿豆大的小事，她们也要求我们双倍的谢礼，否则她们是不会为我们效劳的。那天晚上你不是亲眼看见了吗？普律当丝给我拿来了六千法郎，这是我请她到公爵那里替我要来的。她向我借去了五百法郎，这笔钱她是永远不会还我的，要么还我几顶用不着她们破费一个子儿的帽子。

“因此我们，或者不如说我，只能够有一种幸福，这就是找一个地位高的男人。像我这样一个多愁善感、日夜受病痛折磨的苦命人，唯一的幸福也就是找到一个因其超脱而不来过问我的生活的男人，他能成为一个重感情轻肉欲的情人。我过去找到过这个人，就是公爵，但公爵年事已高，既不能保护我又不能安慰我。我原以为能够接受他给我安排的生活，但是你叫我怎么办呢？我真厌烦死了。假如一个人注定要受煎熬而死，跳到大火中去烧死和用煤气来毒死不都是一个样吗！

“那时候，我遇到了你，你年轻、热情、快乐，我想使你成为我在表面热闹实际寂寞的生活中寻找的人。我在你身上所爱的，不是现在的人，而是以后应该变成的人。你不接受这个角色，认为这个角色对你不适合而拒不接受，那么你也不过是一个一般的情人；你就像别人一样付钱给我吧，别再谈这些事了。”

说过这段长长的表白后，玛格丽特很疲乏，她靠在沙发椅背上，为了忍住一阵因虚弱而引起的阵咳，她把手绢按在嘴唇上，甚至把眼睛都蒙上了。

“原谅我，原谅我，”我喃喃地说，“一切我自己也已经明白了，但是我愿意听你把这些说出来，我最最亲爱的玛格丽特，我们只要记住一件事，把其余的丢在脑后吧；那就是我们永不分离，我们年纪还很轻，我们相亲相爱。

“玛格丽特，随便你把我怎样都行，我是你的奴隶，你的狗；但是看在上天的份上，把我写给你的信撕掉吧，明天别让我走，否则我要死的。”

玛格丽特把我给她的信从她衣服的胸口里取出来，还给了我，她带着一种难以形容的微笑对我说：

“看，我把信给你带来了。”

我撕掉了信，含着眼泪吻着她向我伸过来的手。

这时候普律当丝又来了。

“您说，普律当丝，您知道他要求我什么事？”玛格丽特说。

“他要求您原谅。”

“正是这样。”

“您原谅了吗？”

“当然罗，但是他还有一个要求。”

“什么要求？”

“他要和我们一起吃夜宵。”

“您同意了吗？”

“您看呢？”

“我看你们两个都是孩子，都很幼稚，但是我现在肚子已经很饿了，你们早一点讲好，我们就可以早一点吃夜宵。”

“走吧，”玛格丽特说，“我们三个人一齐坐我的车子去好啦。”“喂！”她转身对我说，“纳尼娜就要睡觉了，您拿了我的钥匙去开门，注意别再把它丢了。”

我紧紧地拥抱着玛格丽特，差一点把她给闷死。

这时候约瑟夫进来了。

“先生，”他自鸣得意地说，“行李捆好了。”

“全捆好了吗？”

“是的，先生。”

“那么，打开吧，我不走了。”

Chapter 16

I COULD have told you the start of the affair in a few lines (Armand said to me), but I wanted you to see for yourself the events and stages by which we reached the point where I agreed to everything Marguerite wanted, and Marguerite conceded that she could live only with me.

It was on the day following the evening when she had come seeking me out that I sent her Manon Lescaut.

From that moment on, since I could not alter my mistress's way of life, I altered mine. More than anything, I wanted to leave my mind with no time to dwell on the role I had just accepted, for, despite myself, I should have been very unhappy with it. And thus my life, normally so calm, suddenly took on an air of riot and chaos. You must not imagine that the love of a kept woman, however disinterested, costs nothing. Nothing costs more than the constant capricious requests for flowers, boxes at the theatre, supper parities, outings to the country which can never be denied a mistress.

As I have told you, I had no real money of my own. My father was, and still is, the District Collector of Taxes for C. He has a wide reputation for loyal service, thanks to which he was able to raise the money for the surety he had to find before taking up the post. The Collectorship brings in forty thousand francs a year and, during the ten years he has held it, he has paid off his bond and set about putting a dowry for my sister to one side. My father is the most honourable man you could hope to meet. When my mother died, she left an income of six thousand francs which he divided between my sister and myself the day he acquired the appointment for which he had canvassed; then, when I was twenty-one, he added to this small income an annual allowance of five thousand francs, and assured me that I could be very happy in Paris on eight thousand francs if, beside this income, I could establish myself in a position at the bar or in medicine. Accordingly, I came to Paris, read law, was called to the bar and, like any number of young men, put my diploma in my pocket and rather let myself drift along on the carefree life of Paris. My expenses were very modest. However, I regularly got through my year's income in eight months, and spent the four summer months at my father's place, which in all gave me twelve thousand a year and a reputation as a good son. And, moreover, I didn't owe anyone a penny.

That was how things stood with me when I met Marguerite.

You will appreciate that, in spite of my wishes, my level of expenditure rose. Marguerite's was a most capricious nature, and she was one of those women who never consider that the countless amusements of which their life is made can be a serious financial drain. As a result, since she wanted to spend as much time with me as possible, she would write me a note in the morning to say that she would have dinner with me, not in her apartment, but in some restaurant either in Paris or in the country. I would collect her, we would dine, go on to the theatre, and often have supper together, and I would spend four or five Louis on the evening. Which came to two thousand five hundred or three thousand francs a month. Which shortened my year to three and a half months, and put me in the position of either having to run up debts or to leave Marguerite.

Now I was prepared to agree to anything, except the latter possibility.

Forgive me for telling you all this in such detail, but, as you shall see, these circumstances were the cause of the events which follow. The story I tell is true and simple, and I have allowed the unvarnished facts to stand and the onward march of events to emerge unobstructed.

I realized therefore that, since nothing in the world could weigh heavily enough with me to make me forget my mistress, I should have to find a way of meeting the expense which she forced me to incur. Furthermore, love had run such riot in me that every moment I spent away from Marguerite seemed like a year, and I felt the need to pass those moments through the flame of some passion or other, and to live them so fast so fast that I would not notice that I was living them at all.

I set about borrowing five or six thousand francs against my small capital and began to play the tables, for since the gambling houses were shut down, people have been gambling everywhere. Time was, when you went to Frascati, you stood a chance of winning a fortune: you played against a bank and, if you lost, you had the consolation of telling yourself you might have won. Whereas nowadays, except in the gaming clubs where you still find they are pretty strict about paying up, you can be fairly sure that if you win a large sum you won't see a penny of if. You will readily understand the reasons why.

Gambling is only for young men who have expensive tastes and not enough money to keep up the kind of lives they lead. So they gamble and, in the natural way of things, this is the result: they may win, and then the losers are expected to foot the bill for these gentlemen's horses and mistresses, which is thoroughly disagreeable. Debts are contracted, and friendships begun around the gaming table end in quarrels from which honour and lives invariably emerge somewhat tattered. And if you are a gentleman, you may find you have been ruined by very gentlemanly young men whose only fault was that they did not have two hundred thousand francs a year.

There is no need for me to tell you about the ones who cheat. One day, you learn that they have had to go away and that ?too late ?judgement has been passed on them.

I accordingly threw myself into the fast-moving, bustling, volcanic life which once upon a time had frightened me when I thought of it, and which had now come to be in my eyes the inescapable corollary of my love for Marguerite. What else could I have done?

During the nights I did not spend in the rue d'Antin, I should not have slept if I had spent them alone in my apartment. Jealousy would have kept me awake and heated my thoughts and blood. On the other hand, gambling temporarily beguiled the fever which would otherwise have overrun my heart which was, thereby, diverted towards a passion fascinating enough to absorb me despite myself until the time came for me to go to my mistress. When that hour struck ?and this was how I became aware of how violent my love was ?then, whether I was winning or losing, I would abandon the table without compunction, feeling pity for those I left there who, unlike me, would not find happiness when they came to take their leave.

For most of them, gambling was a necessity; for me, it was a kind of antidote.

When I was cured of Marguerite, I would be cured of gambling.

And so, in the middle of it all, I was able to keep a fairly cool head. I lost only what I could afford, and won only what I could have afforded to lose.

Moreover, luck was on my side. I did not run up debts, and spent three times as much as before I started playing the tables. It was not easy to resist the allurements of a way of life which enabled me to cater for Marguerite's innumerable whims without feeling the pinch. For her part, she still loved me as much, and even more.

As I have told you I began at first by being allowed to stay only between midnight and six in the morning. Then I was allowed into her box at various theatres from time to time. Next, she came and dined with me occasionally. One morning, I did not leave until eight, and there was a day when I did not go until noon.

Pending her moral transformation, a physical transformation had come over Marguerite. I had undertaken to cure her, and the poor girl, guessing what I was about, did everything I told her as a way of showing her gratitude. Without too much trouble or persuasion, I managed to cut her off almost totally from her old habits. My doctor, whom I had arranged for her to meet, had told me that only rest and quiet could keep her in good health, and consequently, for the supper parties and late nights, I succeeded in substituting a healthy diet and regular sleep. Reluctantly at first, Marguerite took to her new life, the beneficial effects of which she could feel. And soon she began to spend odd evenings at home or, if the weather were fine, she would wrap up well in an Indian shawl, cover her face with a veil, and we would set off on foot, like a couple of children, to roam the evening away along the dusky avenues of the Champs-Elysees. She would return weary, take a light supper and retire to bed after playing a little music or reading a few pages, something which had never happened to her before. The coughing fits, which I had found heartrending whenever I heard her racked by them, had almost completely gone.

Within six weeks, there was no further mention of the Count who had been permanently sacrificed. There remained only the Duke to compel me to hide my affair with Marguerite, and even he had often been sent away in my presence on the pretext that Madame was asleep and had left orders that she was not to be disturbed.

As a direct result of the habit of seeing me ?or rather the need to see me ?which Marguerite had contracted, I abandoned gambling at the precise moment when an experienced gambler would also have given up. All in all, with what I had won, I found myself in possession of twelve thousand francs which seemed an inexhaustible capital to me.

The time of year had come round when I normally went off to join my father and my sister, and still I did not go. As a result, I received frequent letters from both of them asking me to come and stay with them.

To all their entreaties, I answered as best I could, repeating that I was well and that I was not short of money, two considerations which, I believed, would go some way to consoling my father for delaying the start of my annual visit.

Meantime, it came about one morning that Marguerite, who had been woken up by bright sunshine, leaped out of bed and asked me if I would like to take her out to the country for the day.

Prudence was sent for and the three of us set out, after Marguerite had left orders with Nanine to tell the Duke that she had wanted to make the most of the weather and had gone to the country with Madame Duvernoy.

Apart from the fact that the presence of la Duvernoy was necessary to set the old Duke's mind at rest, Prudence was the sort of woman who seems expressly cut out for country outings. With her unquenchable high spirits and insatiable appetite, she was quite incapable of allowing anyone she was with to be bored for an instant, and was more than likely to be an old hand at ordering the eggs, cherries, milk, sauted rabbit and all the usual ingredients of the traditional lunch for which the countryside around Paris is known.

All that remained was to decide where we should go.

Once again, it was Prudence who got us out of this difficulty.

'Is it the real country you want to go to?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'Well, let's go to Bougival, to the Point du Jour. It's run by a widow named Arnould. Armand, go and hire a barouche.'

An hour and half later we were in the establishment run by the widow Arnould.

Perhaps you know the inn I mean: it is a hotel during the week and pleasure garden on Sundays. From the garden, which is raised and stands as high as an ordinary first floor, you get a magnificent view. On the left, the Marly aqueduct commands the horizon; on the right, the view unfolds across a never-ending succession of hills; the river, which at this point hardly moves at all, stretches away like a wide ribbon of shimmering white silk between the plain of Les Gabillons and the lle de Croissy, and is rocked ceaselessly by the whisper of its tall poplars and the soughing of its willows.

Far off, picked out in a wide swathe of sunlight, rise small white houses with red roofs, and factories which, shorn by distance of their grim, commercial character, complete the landscape in the most admirable way.

And, far off, Paris shrouded in smoke!

As Prudence had told us, it was really the country and, I must say, it was a real lunch we had.

It is not of gratitude for the happiness I have to thank the place for that I'm saying all this. Bougival, in spite of its unattractive name, is one of the prettiest spots you could possibly imagine. I have travelled a great deal and seen great sights, but none more charming than this tiny village cheerfully nestling at the foot of the hill which shelters it.