Chapter 13
"You have come almost as quickly as we," said Prudence.
"Yes," I answered mechanically. "Where is Marguerite?"
"At home."
"Alone?"
"With M. de G."
I walked to and fro in the room.
"Well, what is the matter?"
"Do you think it amuses me to wait here till M. de G. leaves
Marguerite's?"
"How unreasonable you are! Don't you see that Marguerite can't
turn the count out of doors? M. de G. has been with her for a
long time; he has always given her a lot of money; he still does.
Marguerite spends more than a hundred thousand francs a year; she
has heaps of debts. The duke gives her all that she asks for, but
she does not always venture to ask him for all that she is in
want of. It would never do for her to quarrel with the count, who
is worth to her at least ten thousand francs a year. Marguerite
is very fond of you, my dear fellow, but your liaison with her,
in her interests and in yours, ought not to be serious. You with
your seven or eight thousand francs a year, what could you do
toward supplying all the luxuries which a girl like that is in
need of? It would not be enough to keep her carriage. Take
Marguerite for what she is, for a good, bright, pretty girl; be
her lover for a month, two months; give her flowers, sweets,
boxes at the theatre; but don't get any other ideas into your
head, and don't make absurd scenes of jealousy. You know whom you
have to do with; Marguerite isn't a saint. She likes you, you are
very fond of her; let the rest alone. You amaze me when I see you
so touchy; you have the most charming mistress in Paris. She
receives you in the greatest style, she is covered with diamonds,
she needn't cost you a penny, unless you like, and you are not
satisfied. My dear fellow, you ask too much!"
"You are right, but I can't help it; the idea that that man is
her lover hurts me horribly."
"In the first place," replied Prudence; "is he still her lover?
He is a man who is useful to her, nothing more. She has closed
her doors to him for two days; he came this morning--she could
not but accept the box and let him accompany her. He saw her
home; he has gone in for a moment, he is not staying, because you
are waiting here. All that, it seems to me, is quite natural.
Besides, you don't mind the duke."
"Yes; but he is an old man, and I am sure that Marguerite is not
his mistress. Then, it is all very well to accept one liaison,
but not two. Such easiness in the matter is very like
calculation, and puts the man who consents to it, even out of
love, very much in the category of those who, in a lower stage of
society, make a trade of their connivance, and a profit of their
trade."
"Ah, my dear fellow, how old-fashioned you are! How many of the
richest and most fashionable men of the best families I have seen
quite ready to do what I advise you to do, and without an effort,
without shame, without remorse, Why, one sees it every day. How
do you suppose the kept women in Paris could live in the style
they do, if they had not three or four lovers at once? No single
fortune, however large, could suffice for the expenses of a woman
like Marguerite. A fortune of five hundred thousand francs a year
is, in France, an enormous fortune; well, my dear friend, five
hundred thousand francs a year would still be too little, and for
this reason: a man with such an income has a large house, horses,
servants, carriages; he shoots, has friends, often he is married,
he has children, he races, gambles, travels, and what not. All
these habits are so much a part of his position that he can not
forego them without appearing to have lost all his money, and
without causing scandal. Taking it all round, with five hundred
thousand francs a year he can not give a woman more than forty or
fifty thousand francs in the year, and that is already a good
deal. Well, other lovers make up for the rest of her expenses.
With Marguerite, it is still more convenient; she has chanced by
a miracle on an old man worth ten millions, whose wife and
daughter are dead; who has only some nephews, themselves rich,
and who gives her all she wants without asking anything in
return. But she can not ask him for more than seventy thousand
francs a year; and I am sure that if she did ask for more,
despite his health and the affection he has for her he would not
give it to her.
"All the young men of twenty or thirty thousand francs a year at
Paris, that is to say, men who have only just enough to live on
in the society in which they mix, know perfectly well, when they
are the lovers of a woman like Marguerite, that she could not so
much as pay for the rooms she lives in and the servants who wait
upon her with what they give her. They do not say to her that
they know it; they pretend not to see anything, and when they
have had enough of it they go their way. If they have the vanity
to wish to pay for everything they get ruined, like the fools
they are, and go and get killed in Africa, after leaving a
hundred thousand francs of debt in Paris. Do you think a woman is
grateful to them for it? Far from it. She declares that she has
sacrificed her position for them, and that while she was with
them she was losing money. These details seem to you shocking?
Well, they are true. You are a very nice fellow; I like you very
much. I have lived with these women for twenty years; I know what
they are worth, and I don't want to see you take the caprice that
a pretty girl has for you too seriously.
"Then, besides that," continued Prudence; "admit that Marguerite
loves you enough to give up the count or the duke, in case one of
them were to discover your liaison and to tell her to choose
between him and you, the sacrifice that she would make for you
would be enormous, you can not deny it. What equal sacrifice
could you make for her, on your part, and when you had got tired
of her, what could you do to make up for what you had taken from
her? Nothing. You would have cut her off from the world in which
her fortune and her future were to be found; she would have given
you her best years, and she would be forgotten. Either you would
be an ordinary man, and, casting her past in her teeth, you would
leave her, telling her that you were only doing like her other
lovers, and you would abandon her to certain misery; or you would
be an honest man, and, feeling bound to keep her by you, you
would bring inevitable trouble upon yourself, for a liaison which
is excusable in a young man, is no longer excusable in a man of
middle age. It becomes an obstacle to every thing; it allows
neither family nor ambition, man's second and last loves. Believe
me, then, my friend, take things for what they are worth, and do
not give a kept woman the right to call herself your creditor, no
matter in what."
It was well argued, with a logic of which I should have thought
Prudence incapable. I had nothing to reply, except that she was
right; I took her hand and thanked her for her counsels.
"Come, come," said she, "put these foolish theories to flight,
and laugh over them. Life is pleasant, my dear fellow; it all
depends on the colour of the glass through which one sees it. Ask
your friend Gaston; there's a man who seems to me to understand
love as I understand it. All that you need think of, unless you
are quite a fool, is that close by there is a beautiful girl who
is waiting impatiently for the man who is with her to go,
thinking of you, keeping the whole night for you, and who loves
you, I am certain. Now, come to the window with me, and let us
watch for the count to go; he won't be long in leaving the coast
clear."
Prudence opened the window, and we leaned side by side over the
balcony. She watched the few passers, I reflected. All that she
had said buzzed in my head, and I could not help feeling that she
was right; but the genuine love which I had for Marguerite had
some difficulty in accommodating itself to such a belief. I
sighed from time to time, at which Prudence turned, and shrugged
her shoulders like a physician who has given up his patient.
"How one realizes the shortness of life," I said to myself, "by
the rapidity of sensations! I have only known Marguerite for two
days, she has only been my mistress since yesterday, and she has
already so completely absorbed my thoughts, my heart, and my life
that the visit of the Comte de G. is a misfortune for me."
At last the count came out, got into his carriage and
disappeared. Prudence closed the window. At the same instant
Marguerite called to us:
"Come at once," she said; "they are laying the table, and we'll
have supper."
When I entered, Marguerite ran to me, threw her arms around my
neck and kissed me with all her might.
"Are we still sulky?" she said to me.
"No, it is all over," replied Prudence. "I have given him a
talking to, and he has promised to be reasonable."
"Well and good."
In spite of myself I glanced at the bed; it was not unmade. As
for Marguerite, she was already in her white dressing-gown. We
sat down to table.
Charm, sweetness, spontaneity, Marguerite had them all, and I was
forced from time to time to admit that I had no right to ask of
her anything else; that many people would be very happy to be in
my place; and that, like Virgil's shepherd, I had only to enjoy
the pleasures that a god, or rather a goddess, set before me.
I tried to put in practice the theories of Prudence, and to be as
gay as my two companions; but what was natural in them was on my
part an effort, and the nervous laughter, whose source they did
not detect, was nearer to tears than to mirth.
At last the supper was over and I was alone with Marguerite. She
sat down as usual on the hearthrug before the fire and gazed
sadly into the flames. What was she thinking of? I know not. As
for me, I looked at her with a mingling of love and terror, as I
thought of all that I was ready to suffer for her sake.
"Do you know what I am thinking of?"
"No."
"Of a plan that has come into my head."
"And what is this plan?"
"I can't tell you yet, but I can tell you what the result would
be. The result would be that in a month I should be free, I
should have no more debts, and we could go and spend the summer
in the country."
"And you can't tell me by what means?"
"No, only love me as I love you, and all will succeed."
"And have you made this plan all by yourself?"
"Yes. "And you will carry it out all by yourself?"
"I alone shall have the trouble of it," said Marguerite, with a
smile which I shall never forget, "but we shall both partake its
benefits."
I could not help flushing at the word benefits; I thought of
Manon Lescaut squandering with Desgrieux the money of M. de B.
I replied in a hard voice, rising from my seat:
"You must permit me, my dear Marguerite, to share only the
benefits of those enterprises which I have conceived and carried
out myself."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that I have a strong suspicion that M. de G. is to be
your associate in this pretty plan, of which I can accept neither
the cost nor the benefits
"What a child you are! I thought you loved me. I was mistaken;
all right."
She rose, opened the piano and began to play the Invitation a la
Valse, as far as the famous passage in the major which always
stopped her. Was it through force of habit, or was it to remind
me of the day when we first met? All I know is that the melody
brought back that recollection, and, coming up to her, I took her
head between my hands and kissed her. "You forgive me?" I said.
"You see I do," she answered; "but observe that we are only at
our second day, and already I have had to forgive you something.
Is this how you keep your promise of blind obedience?"
"What can I do, Marguerite? I love you too much and I am jealous
of the least of your thoughts. What you proposed to me just now
made me frantic with delight, but the mystery in its carrying out
hurts me dreadfully."
"Come, let us reason it out," she said, taking both my hands and
looking at me with a charming smile which it was impossible to
resist, "You love me, do you not? and you would gladly spend two
or three months alone with me in the country? I too should be
glad of this solitude a deux, and not only glad of it, but my
health requires it. I can not leave Paris for such a length of
time without putting my affairs in order, and the affairs of a
woman like me are always in great confusion; well, I have found a
way to reconcile everything, my money affairs and my love for
you; yes, for you, don't laugh; I am silly enough to love you!
And here you are taking lordly airs and talking big words. Child,
thrice child, only remember that I love you, and don't let
anything disturb you. Now, is it agreed?"
"I agree to all you wish, as you know."
"Then, in less than a month's time we shall be in some village,
walking by the river side, and drinking milk. Does it seem
strange that Marguerite Gautier should speak to you like that?
The fact is, my friend, that when this Paris life, which seems to
make me so happy, doesn't burn me, it wearies me, and then I have
sudden aspirations toward a calmer existence which might recall
my childhood. One has always had a childhood, whatever one
becomes. Don't be alarmed; I am not going to tell you that I am
the daughter of a colonel on half-pay, and that I was brought up
at Saint-Denis. I am a poor country girl, and six years ago I
could not write my own name. You are relieved, aren't you? Why is
it you are the first whom I have ever asked to share the joy of
this desire of mine? I suppose because I feel that you love me
for myself and not for yourself, while all the others have only
loved me for themselves.
"I have often been in the country, but never as I should like to
go there. I count on you for this easy happiness; do not be
unkind, let me have it. Say this to yourself: 'She will never
live to be old, and I should some day be sorry for not having
done for her the first thing she asked of me, such an easy thing
to do!'"
What could I reply to such words, especially with the memory of a
first night of love, and in the expectation of a second?
An hour later I held Marguerite in my arms, and, if she had asked
me to commit a crime, I would have obeyed her.
At six in the morning I left her, and before leaving her I said:
"Till to-night!" She kissed me more warmly than ever, but said
nothing.
During the day I received a note containing these words:
"DEAR CHILD: I am not very well, and the doctor has ordered
quiet. I shall go to bed early to-night and shall not see you.
But, to make up, I shall expect you to-morrow at twelve. I love
you."
My first thought was: She is deceiving me!
A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, for I already loved this
woman too much not to be overwhelmed by the suspicion. And yet, I
was bound to expect such a thing almost any day with Marguerite,
and it had happened to me often enough with my other mistresses,
without my taking much notice of it. What was the meaning of the
hold which this woman had taken upon my life?
Then it occurred to me, since I had the key, to go and see her as
usual. In this way I should soon know the truth, and if I found a
man there I would strike him in the face.
Meanwhile I went to the Champs-Elysees. I waited there four
hours. She did not appear. At night I went into all the theatres
where she was accustomed to go. She was in none of them.
At eleven o'clock I went to the Rue d'Antin. There was no light
in Marguerite's windows. All the same, I rang. The porter asked
me where I was going.
"To Mlle. Gautier's," I said.
"She has not come in."
"I will go up and wait for her."
"There is no one there."
Evidently I could get in, since I had the key, but, fearing
foolish scandal, I went away. Only I did not return home; I could
not leave the street, and I never took my eyes off Marguerite's
house. It seemed to me that there was still something to be found
out, or at least that my suspicions were about to be confirmed.
About midnight a carriage that I knew well stopped before No. 9.
The Comte de G. got down and entered the house, after sending
away the carriage. For a moment I hoped that the same answer
would be given to him as to me, and that I should see him come
out; but at four o'clock in the morning I was still awaiting him.
I have suffered deeply during these last three weeks, but that is
nothing, I think, in comparison with what I suffered that night.
