Chapter 14
When I reached home I began to cry like a child. There is no man
to whom a woman has not been unfaithful, once at least, and who
will not know what I suffered.
I said to myself, under the weight of these feverish resolutions
which one always feels as if one had the force to carry out, that
I must break with my amour at once, and I waited impatiently for
daylight in order to set out forthwith to rejoin my father and my
sister, of whose love at least I was certain, and certain that
that love would never be betrayed.
However, I did not wish to go away without letting Marguerite
know why I went. Only a man who really cares no more for his
mistress leaves her without writing to her. I made and remade
twenty letters in my head. I had had to do with a woman like all
other women of the kind. I had been poetizing too much. She had
treated me like a school-boy, she had used in deceiving me a
trick which was insultingly simple. My self-esteem got the upper
hand. I must leave this woman without giving her the satisfaction
of knowing that she had made me suffer, and this is what I wrote
to her in my most elegant handwriting and with tears of rage and
sorrow in my eyes:
"MY DEAR MARGUERITE: I hope that your indisposition yesterday was
not serious. I came, at eleven at night, to ask after you, and
was told that you had not come in. M. de G. was more fortunate,
for he presented himself shortly afterward, and at four in the
morning he had not left.
"Forgive me for the few tedious hours that I have given you, and
be assured that I shall never forget the happy moments which I
owe to you.
"I should have called to-day to ask after you, but I intend going
back to my father's.
"Good-bye, my dear Marguerite. I am not rich enough to love you
as I would nor poor enough to love you as you would. Let us then
forget, you a name which must be indifferent enough to you, I a
happiness which has become impossible.
"I send back your key, which I have never used, and which might
be useful to you, if you are often ill as you were yesterday."
As you will see, I was unable to end my letter without a touch of
impertinent irony, which proved how much in love I still was.
I read and reread this letter ten times over; then the thought of
the pain it would give to Marguerite calmed me a little. I tried
to persuade myself of the feelings which it professed; and when
my servant came to my room at eight o'clock, I gave it to him and
told him to take it at once.
"Shall I wait for an answer?" asked Joseph (my servant, like all
servants, was called Joseph).
"If they ask whether there is a reply, you will say that you
don't know, and wait."
I buoyed myself up with the hope that she would reply. Poor,
feeble creatures that we are! All the time that my servant was
away I was in a state of extreme agitation. At one moment I would
recall how Marguerite had given herself to me, and ask myself by
what right I wrote her an impertinent letter, when she could
reply that it was not M. de G. who supplanted me, but I who had
supplanted M. de G.: a mode of reasoning which permits many women
to have many lovers. At another moment I would recall her
promises, and endeavour to convince myself that my letter was
only too gentle, and that there were not expressions forcible
enough to punish a woman who laughed at a love like mine. Then I
said to myself that I should have done better not to have written
to her, but to have gone to see her, and that then I should have
had the pleasure of seeing the tears that she would shed.
Finally, I asked myself what she would reply to me; already
prepared to believe whatever excuse she made.
Joseph returned.
"Well?" I said to him.
"Sir," said he, "madame was not up, and still asleep, but as soon
as she rings the letter will be taken to her, and if there is any
reply it will be sent."
She was asleep!
Twenty times I was on the point of sending to get the letter
back, but every time I said to myself: "Perhaps she will have got
it already, and it would look as if I have repented of sending
it."
As the hour at which it seemed likely that she would reply came
nearer, I regretted more and more that I had written. The clock
struck, ten, eleven, twelve. At twelve I was on the point of
keeping the appointment as if nothing had happened. In the end I
could see no way out of the circle of fire which closed upon me.
Then I began to believe, with the superstition which people have
when they are waiting, that if I went out for a little while, I
should find an answer when I got back. I went out under the
pretext of going to lunch.
Instead of lunching at the Cafe Foy, at the corner of the
Boulevard, as I usually did, I preferred to go to the Palais
Royal and so pass through the Rue d'Antin. Every time that I saw
a woman at a distance, I fancied it was Nanine bringing me an
answer. I passed through the Rue d'Antin without even coming
across a commissionaire. I went to Very's in the Palais Royal.
The waiter gave me something to eat, or rather served up to me
whatever he liked, for I ate nothing. In spite of myself, my eyes
were constantly fixed on the clock. I returned home, certain that
I should find a letter from Marguerite.
The porter had received nothing, but I still hoped in my servant.
He had seen no one since I went out.
If Marguerite had been going to answer me she would have answered
long before.
Then I began to regret the terms of my letter; I should have said
absolutely nothing, and that would undoubtedly have aroused her
suspicions, for, finding that I did not keep my appointment, she
would have inquired the reason of my absence, and only then I
should have given it to her. Thus, she would have had to
exculpate herself, and what I wanted was for her to exculpate
herself. I already realized that I should have believed whatever
reasons she had given me, and anything was better than not to see
her again.
At last I began to believe that she would come to see me herself;
but hour followed hour, and she did not come.
Decidedly Marguerite was not like other women, for there are few
who would have received such a letter as I had just written
without answering it at all.
At five, I hastened to the Champs-Elysees. "If I meet her," I
thought, "I will put on an indifferent air, and she will be
convinced that I no longer think about her."
As I turned the corner of the Rue Royale, I saw her pass in her
carriage. The meeting was so sudden that I turned pale. I do not
know if she saw my emotion; as for me, I was so agitated that I
saw nothing but the carriage.
I did not go any farther in the direction of the Champs-Elysees.
I looked at the advertisements of the theatres, for I had still a
chance of seeing her. There was a first night at the Palais
Royal. Marguerite was sure to be there. I was at the theatre by
seven. The boxes filled one after another, but Marguerite was not
there. I left the Palais Royal and went to all the theatres where
she was most often to be seen: to the Vaudeville, the Varietes,
the Opera Comique. She was nowhere.
Either my letter had troubled her too much for her to care to go
to the theatre, or she feared to come across me, and so wished to
avoid an explanation. So my vanity was whispering to me on the
boulevards, when I met Gaston, who asked me where I had been.
"At the Palais Royal."
"And I at the Opera," said he; "I expected to see you there."
"Why?"
"Because Marguerite was there."
"Ah, she was there?"
"Yes.
"Alone?"
"No; with another woman."
"That all?"
"The Comte de G. came to her box for an instant; but she went off
with the duke. I expected to see you every moment, for there was
a stall at my side which remained empty the whole evening, and I
was sure you had taken it."
"But why should I go where Marguerite goes?"
"Because you are her lover, surely!"
"Who told you that?"
"Prudence, whom I met yesterday. I give you my congratulations,
my dear fellow; she is a charming mistress, and it isn't
everybody who has the chance. Stick to her; she will do you
credit."
These simple reflections of Gaston showed me how absurd had been
my susceptibilities. If I had only met him the night before and
he had spoken to me like that, I should certainly not have
written the foolish letter which I had written.
I was on the point of calling on Prudence, and of sending her to
tell Marguerite that I wanted to speak to her; but I feared that
she would revenge herself on me by saying that she could not see
me, and I returned home, after passing through the Rue d'Antin.
Again I asked my porter if there was a letter for me. Nothing!
She is waiting to see if I shall take some fresh step, and if I
retract my letter of to-day, I said to myself as I went to bed;
but, seeing that I do not write, she will write to me to-morrow.
That night, more than ever, I reproached myself for what I had
done. I was alone, unable to sleep, devoured by restlessness and
jealousy, when by simply letting things take their natural course
I should have been with Marguerite, hearing the delicious words
which I had heard only twice, and which made my ears burn in my
solitude.
The most frightful part of the situation was that my judgment was
against me; as a matter of fact, everything went to prove that
Marguerite loved me. First, her proposal to spend the summer with
me in the country, then the certainty that there was no reason
why she should be my mistress, since my income was insufficient
for her needs and even for her caprices. There could not then
have been on her part anything but the hope of finding in me a
sincere affection, able to give her rest from the mercenary loves
in whose midst she lived; and on the very second day I had
destroyed this hope, and paid by impertinent irony for the love
which I had accepted during two nights. What I had done was
therefore not merely ridiculous, it was indelicate. I had not
even paid the woman, that I might have some right to find fault
with her; withdrawing after two days, was I not like a parasite
of love, afraid of having to pay the bill of the banquet? What! I
had only known Marguerite for thirty-six hours; I had been her
lover for only twenty-four; and instead of being too happy that
she should grant me all that she did, I wanted to have her all to
myself, and to make her sever at one stroke all her past
relations which were the revenue of her future. What had I to
reproach in her? Nothing. She had written to say she was unwell,
when she might have said to me quite crudely, with the hideous
frankness of certain women, that she had to see a lover; and,
instead of believing her letter, instead of going to any street
in Paris except the Rue d'Antin, instead of spending the evening
with my friends, and presenting myself next day at the appointed
hour, I was acting the Othello, spying upon her, and thinking to
punish her by seeing her no more. But, on the contrary, she ought
to be enchanted at this separation. She ought to find me
supremely foolish, and her silence was not even that of rancour;
it was contempt.
I might have made Marguerite a present which would leave no doubt
as to my generosity and permit me to feel properly quits of her,
as of a kept woman, but I should have felt that I was offending
by the least appearance of trafficking, if not the love which she
had for me, at all events the love which I had for her, and since
this love was so pure that it could admit no division, it could
not pay by a present, however generous, the happiness that it had
received, however short that happiness had been.
That is what I said to myself all night long, and what I was
every moment prepared to go and say to Marguerite. When the day
dawned I was still sleepless. I was in a fever. I could think of
nothing but Marguerite.
As you can imagine, it was time to take a decided step, and
finish either with the woman or with one's scruples, if, that is,
she would still be willing to see me. But you know well, one is
always slow in taking a decided step; so, unable to remain within
doors and not daring to call on Marguerite, I made one attempt in
her direction, an attempt that I could always look upon as a mere
chance if it succeeded.
It was nine o'clock, and I went at once to call upon Prudence,
who asked to what she owed this early visit. I dared not tell her
frankly what brought me. I replied that I had gone out early in
order to reserve a place in the diligence for C., where my father
lived.
"You are fortunate," she said, "in being able to get away from
Paris in this fine weather."
I looked at Prudence, asking myself whether she was laughing at
me, but her face was quite serious.
"Shall you go and say good-bye to Marguerite?" she continued, as
seriously as before.
"No."
"You are quite right."
"You think so?"
"Naturally. Since you have broken with her, why should you see
her again?"
"You know it is broken off?"
"She showed me your letter."
"What did she say about it?"
"She said: 'My dear Prudence, your protege is not polite; one
thinks such letters, one does not write them."'
"In what tone did she say that?"
"Laughingly, and she added: "He has had supper with me twice, and
hasn't even called."'
That, then, was the effect produced by my letter and my jealousy.
I was cruelly humiliated in the vanity of my affection.
"What did she do last night?"
"She went to the opera."
"I know. And afterward?"
"She had supper at home."
"Alone?"
"With the Comte de G., I believe."
So my breaking with her had not changed one of her habits. It is
for such reasons as this that certain people say to you: Don't
have anything more to do with the woman; she cares nothing about
you.
"Well, I am very glad to find that Marguerite does not put
herself out for me," I said with a forced smile.
"She has very good reason not to. You have done what you were
bound to do. You have been more reasonable than she, for she was
really in love with you; she did nothing but talk of you. I don't
know what she would not have been capable of doing."
"Why hasn't she answered me, if she was in love with me?"
"Because she realizes she was mistaken in letting herself love
you. Women sometimes allow you to be unfaithful to their love;
they never allow you to wound their self-esteem; and one always
wounds the self-esteem of a woman when, two days after one has
become her lover, one leaves her, no matter for what reason. I
know Marguerite; she would die sooner than reply."
"What can I do, then?"
"Nothing. She will forget you, you will forget her, and neither
will have any reproach to make against the other."
"But if I write and ask her forgiveness?"
"Don't do that, for she would forgive you."
I could have flung my arms round Prudence's neck.
A quarter of an hour later I was once more in my own quarters,
and I wrote to Marguerite:
"Some one, who repents of a letter that he wrote yesterday and
who will leave Paris to-morrow if you do not forgive him, wishes
to know at what hour he might lay his repentance at your feet.
"When can he find you alone? for, you know, confessions must be
made without witnesses."
I folded this kind of madrigal in prose, and sent it by Joseph,
who handed it to Marguerite herself; she replied that she would
send the answer later.
I only went out to have a hasty dinner, and at eleven in the
evening no reply had come. I made up my mind to endure it no
longer, and to set out next day. In consequence of this
resolution, and convinced that I should not sleep if I went to
bed, I began to pack up my things.
