Chapter 12
At five o'clock in the morning, as the light began to appear
through the curtains, Marguerite said to me: "Forgive me if I
send you away; but I must. The duke comes every morning; they
will tell him, when he comes, that I am asleep, and perhaps he
will wait until I wake."
I took Marguerite's head in my hands; her loosened hair streamed
about her; I gave her a last kiss, saying: "When shall I see you
again?"
"Listen," she said; "take the little gilt key on the mantelpiece,
open that door; bring me back the key and go. In the course of
the day you shall have a letter, and my orders, for you know you
are to obey blindly."
"Yes; but if I should already ask for something?"
"What?"
"Let me have that key."
"What you ask is a thing I have never done for any one."
"Well, do it for me, for I swear to you that I don't love you as
the others have loved you."
"Well, keep it; but it only depends on me to make it useless to
you, after all."
"How?"
"There are bolts on the door."
"Wretch!"
"I will have them taken off."
"You love, then, a little?"
"I don't know how it is, but it seems to me as if I do! Now, go;
I can't keep my eyes open."
I held her in my arms for a few seconds and then went.
The streets were empty, the great city was still asleep, a sweet
freshness circulated in the streets that a few hours later would
be filled with the noise of men. It seemed to me as if this
sleeping city belonged to me; I searched my memory for the names
of those whose happiness I had once envied; and I could not
recall one without finding myself the happier.
To be loved by a pure young girl, to be the first to reveal to
her the strange mystery of love, is indeed a great happiness, but
it is the simplest thing in the world. To take captive a heart
which has had no experience of attack, is to enter an unfortified
and ungarrisoned city. Education, family feeling, the sense of
duty, the family, are strong sentinels, but there are no
sentinels so vigilant as not to be deceived by a girl of sixteen
to whom nature, by the voice of the man she loves, gives the
first counsels of love, all the more ardent because they seem so
pure.
The more a girl believes in goodness, the more easily will she
give way, if not to her lover, at least to love, for being
without mistrust she is without force, and to win her love is a
triumph that can be gained by any young man of five-and-twenty.
See how young girls are watched and guarded! The walls of
convents are not high enough, mothers have no locks strong
enough, religion has no duties constant enough, to shut these
charming birds in their cages, cages not even strewn with
flowers. Then how surely must they desire the world which is
hidden from them, how surely must they find it tempting, how
surely must they listen to the first voice which comes to tell
its secrets through their bars, and bless the hand which is the
first to raise a corner of the mysterious veil!
But to be really loved by a courtesan: that is a victory of
infinitely greater difficulty. With them the body has worn out
the soul, the senses have burned up the heart, dissipation has
blunted the feelings. They have long known the words that we say
to them, the means we use; they have sold the love that they
inspire. They love by profession, and not by instinct. They are
guarded better by their calculations than a virgin by her mother
and her convent; and they have invented the word caprice for that
unbartered love which they allow themselves from time to time,
for a rest, for an excuse, for a consolation, like usurers, who
cheat a thousand, and think they have bought their own redemption
by once lending a sovereign to a poor devil who is dying of
hunger without asking for interest or a receipt.
Then, when God allows love to a courtesan, that love, which at
first seems like a pardon, becomes for her almost without
penitence. When a creature who has all her past to reproach
herself with is taken all at once by a profound, sincere,
irresistible love, of which she had never felt herself capable;
when she has confessed her love, how absolutely the man whom she
loves dominates her! How strong he feels with his cruel right to
say: You do no more for love than you have done for money. They
know not what proof to give. A child, says the fable, having
often amused himself by crying "Help! a wolf!" in order to
disturb the labourers in the field, was one day devoured by a
Wolf, because those whom he had so often deceived no longer
believed in his cries for help. It is the same with these unhappy
women when they love seriously. They have lied so often that no
one will believe them, and in the midst of their remorse they are
devoured by their love.
Hence those great devotions, those austere retreats from the
world, of which some of them have given an example.
But when the man who inspires this redeeming love is great enough
in soul to receive it without remembering the past, when he gives
himself up to it, when, in short, he loves as he is loved, this
man drains at one draught all earthly emotions, and after such a
love his heart will be closed to every other.
I did not make these reflections on the morning when I returned
home. They could but have been the presentiment of what was to
happen to me, and, despite my love for Marguerite, I did not
foresee such consequences. I make these reflections to-day. Now
that all is irrevocably ended, they a rise naturally out of what
has taken place.
But to return to the first day of my liaison. When I reached home
I was in a state of mad gaiety. As I thought of how the barriers
which my imagination had placed between Marguerite and myself had
disappeared, of how she was now mine; of the place I now had in
her thoughts, of the key to her room which I had in my pocket,
and of my right to use this key, I was satisfied with life, proud
of myself, and I loved God because he had let such things be.
One day a young man is passing in the street, he brushes against
a woman, looks at her, turns, goes on his way. He does not know
the woman, and she has pleasures, griefs, loves, in which he has
no part. He does not exist for her, and perhaps, if he spoke to
her, she would only laugh at him, as Marguerite had laughed at
me. Weeks, months, years pass, and all at once, when they have
each followed their fate along a different path, the logic of
chance brings them face to face. The woman becomes the man's
mistress and loves him. How? why? Their two existences are
henceforth one; they have scarcely begun to know one another when
it seems as if they had known one another always, and all that
had gone before is wiped out from the memory of the two lovers.
It is curious, one must admit.
As for me, I no longer remembered how I had lived before that
night. My whole being was exalted into joy at the memory of the
words we had exchanged during that first night. Either Marguerite
was very clever in deception, or she had conceived for me one of
those sudden passions which are revealed in the first kiss, and
which die, often enough, as suddenly as they were born.
The more I reflected the more I said to myself that Marguerite
had no reason for feigning a love which she did not feel, and I
said to myself also that women have two ways of loving, one of
which may arise from the other: they love with the heart or with
the senses. Often a woman takes a lover in obedience to the mere
will of the senses, and learns without expecting it the mystery
of immaterial love, and lives henceforth only through her heart;
often a girl who has sought in marriage only the union of two
pure affections receives the sudden revelation of physical love,
that energetic conclusion of the purest impressions of the soul.
In the midst of these thoughts I fell asleep; I was awakened by a
letter from Marguerite containing these words:
"Here are my orders: To-night at the Vaudeville.
"Come during the third entr'acte."
I put the letter into a drawer, so that I might always have it at
band in case I doubted its reality, as I did from time to time.
She did not tell me to come to see her during the day, and I
dared not go; but I had so great a desire to see her before the
evening that I went to the Champs-Elysees, where I again saw her
pass and repass, as I had on the previous day.
At seven o'clock I was at the Vaudeville. Never had I gone to a
theatre so early. The boxes filled one after another. Only one
remained empty, the stage box. At the beginning of the third act
I heard the door of the box, on which my eyes had been almost
constantly fixed, open, and Marguerite appeared. She came to the
front at once, looked around the stalls, saw me, and thanked me
with a look.
That night she was marvellously beautiful. Was I the cause of
this coquetry? Did she love me enough to believe that the more
beautiful she looked the happier I should be? I did not know, but
if that had been her intention she certainly succeeded, for when
she appeared all heads turned, and the actor who was then on the
stage looked to see who had produced such an effect on the
audience by her mere presence there.
And I had the key of this woman's room, and in three or four
hours she would again be mine!
People blame those who let themselves be ruined by actresses and
kept women; what astonishes me is that twenty times greater
follies are not committed for them. One must have lived that
life, as I have, to know how much the little vanities which they
afford their lovers every day help to fasten deeper into the
heart, since we have no other word for it, the love which he has
for them.
Prudence next took her place in the box, and a man, whom I
recognised as the Comte de G., seated himself at the back. As I
saw him, a cold shiver went through my heart.
Doubtless Marguerite perceived the impression made on me by the
presence of this man, for she smiled to me again, and, turning
her back to the count, appeared to be very attentive to the play.
At the third entr'acte she turned and said two words: the count
left the box, and Marguerite beckoned to me to come to her.
"Good-evening," she said as I entered, holding out her hand.
"Good-evening," I replied to both Marguerite and Prudence.
"Sit down."
"But I am taking some one's place. Isn't the Comte de G. coming
back?"
"Yes; I sent him to fetch some sweets, so that we could talk by
ourselves for a moment. Mme. Duvernoy is in the secret."
"Yes, my children," said she; "have no fear. I shall say
nothing."
"What is the matter with you to-night?" said Marguerite, rising
and coming to the back of the box and kissing me on the forehead.
"I am not very well."
"You should go to bed," she replied, with that ironical air which
went so well with her delicate and witty face.
"Where?"
"At home."
"You know that I shouldn't be able to sleep there."
"Well, then, it won't do for you to come and be pettish here
because you have seen a man in my box."
"It is not for that reason."
"Yes, it is. I know; and you are wrong, so let us say no more
about it. You will go back with Prudence after the theatre, and
you will stay there till I call. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
How could I disobey?
"You still love me?"
"Can you ask?"
"You have thought of me?"
"All day long."
"Do you know that I am really afraid that I shall get very fond
of you? Ask Prudence."
"Ah," said she, "it is amazing!"
"Now, you must go back to your seat. The count will be coming
back, and there is nothing to be gained by his finding you here."
"Because you don't like seeing him."
"No; only if you had told me that you wanted to come to the
Vaudeville to-night I could have got this box for you as well as
he."
"Unfortunately, he got it for me without my asking him, and he
asked me to go with him; you know well enough that I couldn't
refuse. All I could do was to write and tell you where I was
going, so that you could see me, and because I wanted to see you
myself; but since this is the way you thank me, I shall profit by
the lesson."
"I was wrong; forgive me."
"Well and good; and now go back nicely to your place, and, above
all, no more jealousy."
She kissed me again, and I left the box. In the passage I met the
count coming back. I returned to my seat.
After all, the presence of M. de G. in Marguerite's box was the
most natural thing in the world. He had been her lover, he sent
her a box, he accompanied her to the theatre; it was all quite
natural, and if I was to have a mistress like Marguerite I should
have to get used to her ways.
Nonetheless, I was very unhappy all the rest of the evening, and
went away very sadly after having seen Prudence, the count, and
Marguerite get into the carriage, which was waiting for them at
the door.
However, a quarter of an hour later I was at Prudence's. She had
only just got in.
