The Lady of the Camellias (17 page)

My father, in a dressing gown, was seated in my living room, writing.

I understood at once from the way he looked at me when I entered that there was to be a serious discussion.

Nonetheless, I greeted him as if I had guessed nothing from his expression, and embraced him.

“When did you arrive, Father?”

“Last night.”

“You came to stay at my place, as usual?”

“Yes.”

“I regret very much that I was not here to welcome you.”

I expected to see these words provoke the lecture that my father's frosty expression promised, but he made no answer, sealed the letter he had just written. and gave it to Joseph to take to the post office.

When we were alone, my father rose and said to me, while leaning against the mantel, “We have, my dear Armand, serious matters to discuss.”

“I'm listening, Father.”

“Do you promise to be frank?”

“That is my habit.”

“Is it true that you are living with a woman named Marguerite Gautier?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what this woman was?”

“A kept woman.”

“And it is because of her that you have forgotten to come see us this year, your sister and me?”

“Yes, Father, I admit it.”

“So you love this woman very much?”

“As you see, Father, since she has caused me to neglect a sacred duty, for which I today humbly beg your pardon.”

My father undoubtedly had not expected such categorical responses, for he seemed to reflect for a moment, after which he said, “Surely you have understood that you will not be able to go on living like this?”

“I have feared that, Father, but I have not accepted it.”

“But you must have understood,” my father continued, in a slightly drier tone, “that I myself will not accept it.”

“I told myself that, as I would do nothing to violate the respect I owe to your name and to the traditional integrity of our family, I could continue to live as I do now, which reassured me to some extent about my fears.”

Passion warred with my emotions. I was ready for any fight, even against my father, to keep Marguerite.

“Well, the moment to live differently has come.”

“What? Why, Father?”

“Because you are on the brink of doing things that will injure what you believe to be the respect you have for your family.”

“I can see no sense in these words.”

“I will explain it to you. It is well and good that you should have a mistress—as long as you pay her as a gentleman pays for the love of a kept woman, one can ask no more—but that you should forget the holiest things for her, that you would permit the gossip of your scandalous life to spread deep into my province and stain the honorable name I have given you; that cannot be. That will not be.”

“Permit me to tell you, Father, that those who have instructed you on my affairs were ill informed. I am the lover of Mlle Gautier, I live with her, it's the simplest thing in the world. I do not give to Mlle Gautier the name I received from you, I spend on her only that which my means allow, I have not gotten into debt, and I am not, in short, in any of those positions that might authorize a father to say to his son what you have just said to me.”

“A father is always authorized to remove his son from an evil path he sees his son pursuing. You have not done anything irreparable yet, but you will.”

“Father!”

“Sir, I know more about life than you do. No woman can have entirely pure feelings except women who are entirely chaste. Every Manon can turn a man into Des Grieux, however times and morals may change. It would be pointless for the world to keep turning if we did not learn from our mistakes along the way. You will leave your mistress.”

“It hurts me to disobey you, Father, but it's impossible.”

“I must insist.”

“Unfortunately, Father, there are no more Sainte-Marguerite isles where one can banish courtesans, and if there were, I would follow Mlle Gautier if you sent her there. What do you want from me? Perhaps I'm in the wrong, but I can be happy only if I remain the lover of this woman.”

“Come now, Armand. Open your eyes; recognize your father who has always loved you, and who only wishes your happiness. Is it honorable for you to live conjugally with a girl whom all the world has had?”

“What does it matter, Father, if nobody else can have her anymore! What does it matter, if this girl loves me, if she's been reformed by the love she has for me and by the love I have for her! What does it matter, in the end, since she has reformed!”

“Eh! Do you believe then, sir, that the mission of an honorable man is to rehabilitate courtesans? Do you believe that God would impose such a grotesque purpose on life, and that the heart should have no enthusiasm but that one? What will be the conclusion of this marvelous cure, and what will you think of what you have said today when you are forty? You will laugh at your love, if you're still able to laugh, if it hasn't left too deep a mark on your past. What would you be at this moment, if your father had had notions like yours, and had given over his life to heaving sighs of love instead of fixing unshakably on the course of honor and loyalty? Think, Armand, and speak no more of such foolishness. Come now, you will leave this woman; your father begs you.”

I made no response.

“Armand,” continued my father, “in the name of your sainted mother, believe me, renounce this life that you will forget more quickly than you think, and to which you have attached impossible notions. You are twenty-four years old; think of the future. You cannot always love this woman, and she will not love you forever, either. Both of you exaggerate your love. You will bar yourself from any career. One more step and you will not be able to leave the road you've embarked on, and all your life you will suffer remorse for your youth. Leave; come spend a month or two at your sister's side. Rest and the pious love of your family will heal you quickly of this fever, for it is nothing but that.

“During this time, your mistress will console herself, she will take another lover, and when you see for yourself for whom you would have quarreled with your father and lost his affection, you will tell me that I did well to come find you, and you will bless me.

“Come, you will leave—yes, Armand?”

I felt my father was right about all other women, but I was convinced he was not right about Marguerite. However, the tone in which he had spoken those last words to me was so gentle, so imploring, that I dared not respond.

“Well then?” he said, his voice full of emotion.

“Father, I can't promise you anything,” I said at last. “What you ask of me is beyond my power to give. Believe me,” I continued, as I saw him make an impatient movement, “you exaggerate the consequences of this liaison. Marguerite is not the kind of girl you think she is. This love, far from setting me on an evil path, is on the contrary capable of nurturing the most honorable sentiments in me. True love always makes a man better, whatever the nature of the woman who inspires it. If you knew Marguerite, you would understand that I am not exposing myself to any danger. She is as honorable as the most honorable of women. Greedy as other women may be, she is not motivated by self-interest.”

“Which does not hinder her from accepting your entire fortune; the sixty thousand francs that come to you from your mother, which you are giving to her, are, mark my words, your sole fortune.”

My father had probably saved this peroration and threat for the final blow.

I was stronger in the face of his threats than I had been in the face of his prayers.

“Who told you I was handing over that sum to her?” I resumed.

“My notary. Could any honest man have undertaken such an action without alerting me? Well, it's to prevent your ruin over a girl that I have come to Paris. Your mother left you money when she died for you to live on honorably, not for you to squander on your mistresses.”

“I swear to you, Father, Marguerite did not know about this gift.”

“Then why did you make it?”

“Because Marguerite, this woman you malign and whom you wish me to abandon, is sacrificing everything she possesses to live with me.”

“And you accept this sacrifice? What kind of man are you, sir, to permit Mlle Marguerite to sacrifice anything to you? All right then, I've had enough. You will leave this woman. A while ago I begged you to; now I order you. I do not want such filth in my family. Pack your trunks and prepare to follow me.”

“Pardon me, Father,” I said, “but I will not leave.”

“Because?”

“Because I have already reached the age at which one does not obey an order.”

My father turned pale upon this answer.

“Very good, sir,” he said. “I know what is left for me to do.”

He rang.

Joseph appeared.

“Have my trunks taken to the Hôtel de Paris,” he said to my servant. At the same time he entered his bedroom, and finished dressing.

When he reappeared, I went up to him.

“Do you promise, Father,” I said, “to do nothing that might cause Marguerite pain?”

My father stopped, looked at me with disdain, and contented himself with the reply, “You are mad, I believe.”

After which he left, slamming the door behind him.

I went down soon after, took a cabriolet, and left for Bougival.

Marguerite was waiting for me at the window.

“At last!” she cried, flinging her arms around my neck. “Here you are! You're so pale!”

I told her of the scene with my father.

“Ah! My God! I was afraid of that,” she said. “When Joseph came to announce your father's arrival, I shuddered as if at the news of a tragedy. Poor friend! And to think that I am the one who causes you all this pain. Perhaps you would be better off to leave me than to quarrel with your father. But I haven't done anything to him. We live peacefully; we will live more peacefully still. He knows very well that you must have a mistress, and he should be happy that it is me, since I love you, and seek no more from you than your position permits. Did you tell him of our plans for the future?”

“Yes, and that is what annoyed him most of all, because he saw in that determination the proof of our mutual love.”

“Then what are we to do?”

“Stay together, my good Marguerite, and let this storm pass.”

“Will it pass?”

“It must.”

“But your father doesn't support us?”

“What do you expect him to do?”

“What do I know? A father might do anything to make his son obey him. He will bring up my past, and will perhaps do me the honor of inventing some new story to make you leave me.”

“You know very well that I love you.”

“Yes, but what I also know is that, sooner or later, one must obey one's father, and you will end perhaps by letting him convince you.”

“No. Marguerite, I am the one who will convince him. It's gossip from some of his friends that has made him so angry; but he's a good man, he's fair, and he will retract his first impression. Then again, after all, what does it matter to me!”

“Don't say that, Armand. I would prefer anything than to think that I have got you into trouble with your family. Let this day pass, and tomorrow return to Paris. Your father will have reflected on his end, as you will have on yours, and maybe you will get along better. Don't attack his principles; act as if you are making some concessions to his wishes. Act as if you aren't as set on me, and he will let things stay as they are. Have faith, my friend, and remain assured of one thing, which is that, come what may, your Marguerite will remain yours.”

“Do you swear it to me?”

“Do I need to swear it to you?”

How sweet it is to let oneself be persuaded by a voice one loves! Marguerite and I spent the entire day talking about our plans over and over, as if we understood the need to put them into practice faster. We expected some new turn of events every moment, but luckily the day passed without bringing news.

The next day I left at ten and arrived at the hotel around noon.

My father had already gone out.

I returned to my apartment, where I hoped he might have gone. Nobody came. I went to see my notary. Nobody!

I returned to the hotel and waited until six o'clock. M. Duval did not come back.

I got on the road for Bougival.

I found Marguerite no longer waiting for me as she had the night before, but sitting in the corner by the fire, which the season already made necessary.

She was so deeply lost in her thoughts that I was able to approach her armchair without her hearing me or turning around. When I placed my lips on her forehead, she shuddered as if the kiss had woken her with a start.

“You frightened me,” she said. “And your father?”

“I didn't see him. I don't know what it means. I didn't find him at his hotel, or in any of the places where there was a chance he might be.”

“Well then, we'll have to try again tomorrow.”

“I'd rather wait until he asks for me. I've done, I believe, everything I should do.”

“No, my friend, it's hardly enough. You must return to see your father tomorrow, without fail.”

“Why tomorrow as opposed to some other day?”

“Because,” said Marguerite, who seemed to blush a little at the question. “Because such insistence on your part will seem lively and might help us earn our pardon more promptly.”

The rest of the day Marguerite was preoccupied, distracted, sad. I was forced to repeat anything I said to her twice to get a response. She blamed her preoccupation on the fears that the events of the past two days had provoked in her.

I spent the evening reassuring her, and she made me leave the next day with an anxious insistence that I could not explain to myself.

As on the previous day, my father was not there, but as he had gone out, he had left me this letter:

“If you come back to see me today, wait for me until four o'clock; if I am not back by four o'clock, come back tomorrow to dine with me. I must speak to you.”

I waited until the indicated hour. My father did not reappear. I left.

The day before, I had found Marguerite sad; today I found her feverish and agitated. Upon seeing me enter, she flung herself around my neck, but she wept for a long time in my arms. I questioned her about this sudden sorrow, whose intensity alarmed me. She gave me no definite reason, offering every excuse a woman can make when she does not want to tell the truth.

When she had calmed down a little, I told her the result of my trip; I showed her the letter from my father, observing to her that it might bode good things for us.

Upon the sight of this letter and upon my remark, her tears increased to such a point that I called Nanine, and, fearing a nervous attack, we put the poor girl to bed. She was crying wordlessly, but held my hands and kissed them every moment.

I asked Nanine if, during my absence, her mistress had received a letter or visit that might explain the state I had found her in, but Nanine responded that nobody had come and that nothing had been brought.

However, something must have happened since the previous night, which disturbed me all the more because Marguerite was hiding it from me.

She appeared a little calmer in the evening, and, making me sit at the foot of her bed, she lengthily reassured me of her love. Then she smiled at me, but effortfully, since, despite herself, her eyes were veiled with tears. I used every means to persuade her to tell me the true cause of her sadness, but she persisted in giving me the vague reasons I already told you of.

In the end she fell asleep in my arms, but with the kind of sleep that does not refresh the body but depletes it; from time to time she would cry out, wake with a start, and after being assured I was still beside her, make me swear to love her always. I understood nothing of these intermittent outbursts of sorrow, which continued until morning. At last Marguerite fell into a fitful sleep. For two nights she had not slept.

Her repose was not of long duration.

Toward eleven o'clock Marguerite awoke and, seeing me up and about, looked around her and cried, “Aren't you gone already, then?”

“No,” I said, taking her hands. “I wanted to let you sleep. It's still early.”

“What time are you going to Paris?”

“At four o'clock.”

“So soon? Until then, you will stay with me, won't you?”

“Without a doubt—isn't that what I always do?”

“Such happiness! Are we going to have lunch?” she asked with a distracted air.

“If you like.”

“And then you will be especially sweet with me until the moment you leave?”

“Yes, and I will come back as soon as possible.”

“You will come back?” she said, looking at me with haggard eyes.

“Naturally.”

“That's right, you'll come back tonight, and I—I will wait for you, as I always do, and we will be happy just as we always have been ever since we've known each other.”

All these words were spoken in such a halting way that they seemed to conceal thoughts so uninterruptedly painful that I trembled at every moment for fear that Marguerite would fall into delirium.

“Listen,” I said, “you are sick; I cannot leave you like this. I will write to my father that he should not wait for me.”

“No! No!” she cried abruptly. “Don't do that. Your father will accuse me again of keeping you from going to see him when he wants to see you. No, no, you must go—you must! Anyway, I'm not sick; I'm in excellent health. It's just that I had a bad dream, and I'm not properly awake.”

From that point on Marguerite tried to seem more cheerful. She cried no more.

When the hour came for me to leave, I kissed her and asked if she would like to accompany me to the station; I hoped the walk would distract her and the air would do her good.

Above all I wanted to stay with her as long as possible.

She accepted, put on a coat, and accompanied me with Nanine, so she would not have to return home alone.

Twenty times I was on the verge of not leaving. But the hope of returning quickly and the fear of inflaming my father anew sustained me, and the train carried me off.

“Until tonight,” I said to Marguerite as I left her.

She did not respond.

There was one other time that she had not responded to those very words, and the Comte de G . . . , you will recall, spent that night with her; but that time was so far off that it was if it were erased from my memory, and if I feared anything, it was certainly not that Marguerite might deceive me.

Upon arriving in Paris I hurried to see Prudence and to beg her to go see Marguerite, hoping her vitality and gaiety might distract her.

I walked in without being announced and found Prudence at her toilette.

“Ah!” she said with an anxious air. “Is Marguerite with you?”

“No.”

“How is she?”

“She is not feeling well.”

“Is she not coming?”

“Was she supposed to be coming?”

Mme Duvernoy blushed and responded, with a certain embarrassment, “I meant to say, since you have come to Paris, will she not be coming here to join you?”

“No.”

I looked at Prudence; she lowered her eyes, and in her countenance I thought I read the fear that my visit might be a long one.

“I have actually come to beg you, my dear Prudence, if you have nothing better to do, to go see Marguerite tonight; you can keep her company and you can sleep there. I have never seen her as she was today, and I tremble for fear that she might fall sick.”

“I am dining in town,” Prudence responded, “and I cannot see Marguerite tonight; but I will see her tomorrow.”

I took leave of Mme Duvernoy, who seemed to me almost as preoccupied as Marguerite, and went to see my father, whose first glance attentively sized me up.

He gave me his hand.

“Your two visits pleased me, Armand,” he said. “They gave me hope that you had reflected on your part, as I have reflected on mine.”

“May I be permitted to ask you, Father, what has been the result of your reflections?”

“It has been, my friend, that I have exaggerated the importance of the reports that had been made to me, and that I have promised myself to be less severe with you.”

“What are you saying, Father!” I cried with joy.

“I am saying, my child, that every young man must have a mistress, and, based on new information, I would rather have you be the lover of Mlle Gautier than of another.”

“My excellent father! You make me so happy!”

We spoke in this way for a few moments, then sat down to dine. My father was charming throughout the dinner.

I was anxious to return to Bougival to tell Marguerite of this happy change. At every moment I looked at the clock.

“You are watching the clock,” my father said. “You're impatient to leave me. Oh, young people! You would therefore sacrifice sincere affections for dubious ones?”

“Don't say that, Father! Marguerite loves me; I'm sure of it.”

My father did not respond; he seemed neither to doubt me nor to believe me.

He struggled mightily to persuade me to spend the entire evening with him, and not to leave until the next day; but I had left Marguerite sick at home, I told him, and asked his permission to return to her early, promising to return the next day.

It was a fine day; he wanted to accompany me as far as the station. I had never been so happy. The future appeared to me as I had yearned to see it for a long time.

I loved my father more than I had ever loved him.

At the moment of my departure, he urged me one last time to stay; I refused.

“You really love her a lot, don't you?” he asked.

“Like a fool.”

“Go, then!” And he passed his hand across his forehead as if to chase away a thought, then opened his mouth as if to tell me something, but made do with clasping my hand and left me abruptly, crying, “Till tomorrow, then!”