Since I am not yet of an age to invent, I must make do with telling a tale.
I therefore invite the reader to believe that this story is true. All the characters who appear in it, with the exception of the heroine, are still living.
I would further add that there are reliable witnesses in Paris for most of the particulars which I bring together here, and they could vouch for their accuracy should my word not be enough. By a singular turn of events, I alone was able to write them down since I alone was privy to the very last details without which it would have been quite impossible to piece together a full and satisfying account.
It was in this way that these particulars came to my knowledge.
On the 12th day of March 1847, in the rue Laffitte, I happened upon a large yellow notice announcing a sale of furniture and valuable curios. An estate was to be disposed of, the owner having died. The notice did not name the dead person, but the sale was to be held at 9 rue d'Antin on the 16th, between noon and five o'clock.
The notice also stated that the apartments and contents could be viewed on the 13th and 14th.
I have always been interested in curios. I promised myself I would not miss this opportunity, if not of actually buying, then at least of looking.
The following day, I directed my steps towards 9 rue d'Antin.
It was early, and yet a good crowd of visitors had already gathered in the apartment — men for the most part, but also a number of ladies who, though dressed in velvet and wearing Indian shawls, and all with their own elegant broughams standing at the door, were examining the riches set out before them with astonished, even admiring eyes.
After a while, I quite saw the reason for their admiration and astonishment, for having begun myself to look around I had no difficulty in recognizing that I was in the apartment of a kept woman. Now if there is one thing that ladies of fashion desire to see above all else — and there were society ladies present — it is the rooms occupied by those women who have carriages which spatter their own with mud every day of the week, who have their boxes at the Opera or the Theatre-Italien just as they do, and indeed next to theirs, and who display for all Paris to see the insolent opulence of their beauty, diamonds and shameless conduct.
The woman in whose apartments I now found myself was dead: the most virtuous of ladies were thus able to go everywhere, even into the bedroom. Death had purified the air of this glittering den of iniquity, and in any case they could always say, if they needed the excuse, that they had done no more than come to a sale without knowing whose rooms these were. I had read the notices, they had wanted to view what the notices advertised and mark out their selections in advance. It could not have been simpler — though this did not prevent them from looking through these splendid things for traces of the secret life of a courtesan of which they had doubtless been given very strange accounts.
Unfortunately, the mysteries had died with the goddess, and in spite of their best endeavours these good ladies found only what had been put up for sale since the time of death, and could detect nothing of what had been sold while the occupant had been alive.
But there was certainly rich booty to be had. The furniture was superb. Rosewood and Buhl-work pieces, Severs vases and blue china porcelain, Dresden figurines, satins, velvet and lace, everything in fact.
I wandered from room to room in the wake of these inquisitive aristocratic ladies who had arrived before me. They went into a bedroom hung with Persian fabrics and I was about to go in after them, when they came out again almost immediately, smiling and as it were put to shame by this latest revelation. The effect was to make me even keener to see inside. It was the dressing-room, complete down to the very last details, in which the dead woman's profligacy had seemingly reached its height.
On a large table standing against one wall — it measured a good six feet by three — shone the finest treasures of Aucoc and Odiot. It was a magnificent collection, and among the countless objects each so essential to the appearance of the kind of woman in whose home we had gathered, there was not one that was not made of gold or silver. But it was a collection that could only have been assembled piece by piece, and clearly more than one love had gone into its making.
I, who was not the least put out by the sight of the dressing-room of a kept woman, spent some time aGREeably inspecting its contents, neglecting none of them, and I noticed that all these magnificently wrought implements bore different initials and all manner of coronets.
As I contemplated all these things, each to my mind standing for a separate prostitution of the poor girl, I reflected that God had been merciful to her since He had not suffered her to live long enough to undergo the usual punishment but had allowed her to die at the height of her wealth and beauty, long before the coming of old age, that first death of courtesans.
Indeed, what sadder sight is there than vice in old age, especially in a woman? It has no dignity and is singularly unattractive. Those everlasting regrets, not for wrong turnings taken but for wrong calculations made and money foolishly spent, are among the most harrowing things that can be heard. I once knew a former woman of easy virtue of whose past life there remained only a daughter who was almost as beautiful as the mother had once been, or so her contemporaries said. This poor child, to whom her mother never said 'You are my daughter' except to order her to keep her now that she was old just as she had been kept when she was young, this wretched creature was called Louise and, in obedience to her mother, she sold herself without inclination or passion or pleasure, rather as she might have followed an honest trade had it ever entered anyone's head to teach her one.
The continual spectacle of debauchery, at so tender an age, compounded by her continuing ill- health, had extinguished in the girl the knowledge of good and evil which God had perhaps given her but which no one had ever thought to nurture.
I shall always remember that young girl who walked along the boulevards almost every day at the same hour. Her mother was always with her, escorting her as assiduously as a true mother might have accompanied her daughter. I was very young in those days and ready enough to fall in with the easy morality of the times. Yet I recall that the sight of such scandalous chaperoning filled me with contempt and disgust.
Add to all this that no virgin's face ever conveyed such a feeling of innocence nor any comparable expression of sadness and suffering.
You would have said it was the image of Resignation itself.
And then one day, the young girl's face lit up. In the midst of the debauches which her mother organized for her, it suddenly seemed to this sinful creature that God had granted her one happiness. And after all why should God, who had made her weak and helpless, abandon her without consolation to struggle on beneath the oppressive burden of her life? One day, then, she perceived that she was with child, and that part of her which remained pure trembled with joy. The soul finds refuge in the strangest sanctuaries. Louise ran to her mother to tell her the news that had filled her with such happiness. It is a shameful thing to have to say — but we do not write gratuitously of immorality here, we relate a true incident and one perhaps which we would be better advised to leave untold if we did not believe that it is essential from time to time to make public the martyrdom of these creatures who are ordinarily condemned without a hearing and despised without trial — it is, we say, a matter for shame, but the mother answered her daughter saying that as things stood they scarcely had enough for two, and that they would certainly not have enough for three; that such children serve no useful purpose; and that a pregnancy is so much time wasted.
The very next day, a midwife (of whom we shall say no more than that she was a friend of the mother)called to see Louise, who remained for a few days in her bed from which she rose paler and weaker than before.
Three months later, some man took pity on her and undertook her moral and physical salvation. But this latest blow had been too great and Louise died of the after effects of the miscarriage she had suffered.
The mother still lives. How? God alone knows.
This story had come back to me as I stood examining the sets of silver toilet accessories, and I must have been lost in thought for quite some time. For by now the apartment was empty save for myself and a porter who, from the doorway, was eyeing me carefully lest I should try to steal anything.
I went up to this good man in whom I inspired such grave anxieties.
'Excuse me, ' I said, 'I wonder if you could tell me the name of the person who lived here?'
'Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier.'
I knew this young woman by name and by sight.
'What!' I said to the porter. 'Marguerite Gautier is dead?'
'Yes, sir.'
'When did it happen?'
'Three weeks ago, I think.'
'But why are people being allowed to view her apartment?'
'The creditors thought it would be good for trade. People can get the effect of the hangings and the furniture in advance. Encourages people to buy, you understand.'
'So she had debts, then?'
'Oh yes, sir! Lots of'em.'
'But I imagine the sale will cover them?'
'Over and above.'
'And who stands to get the balance?'
'The family.'
'She had a family?'
'Seems she did.'
'Thank you very much.'
The porter, now reassured as to my intentions, touched his cap and I left.
'Poor girl, ' I said to myself as I returned home, 'she must have died a sad death, for in her world, people only keep their friends as long as they stay fit and well.' And in spite of myself, I lamented the fate of Marguerite Gautier.
All this will perhaps seem absurd to many people, but I have a boundless forbearance towards courtesans which I shall not even trouble to enlarge upon here.
One day, as I was on my way to collect a passport from the prefecture, I saw down one of the adjacent streets, a young woman being taken away by two policemen. Now I have no idea what she had done. All I can say is that she was weeping bitterly and clasping to her a child only a few months old from which she was about to be separated by her arrest. From that day until this, I have been incapable of spurning any woman on sight.
Chapter 2
THE sale was due to be held on the 16th.
An interval of one day had been left between the viewing and the sale in order to give the upholsterers enough time to take down the hangings, curtains and so forth.
I was at that time recently returned from my travels. It was quite natural that no one had told me about Marguerite's death, for it was hardly one of those momentous news-items which friends always rush to tell anybody who has just got back to the capital city of News. Marguerite had been pretty, but the greater the commotion that attends the sensational lives of these women, the smaller the stir once they are dead. They are like those dull suns which set as they have risen: they are unremarkable. News of their death, when they die young, reaches all their lovers at the same instant, for in Paris the lovers of any celebrated courtesan see each other every day. A few reminiscences are exchanged about her, and the lives of all and sundry continue as before without so much as a tear.
For a young man of twenty-five nowadays, tears have become so rare a thing that they are not to be wasted on the first girl who comes along. The most that may be expected is that the parents and relatives who pay for the privilege of being wept for are indeed mourned to the extent of their investment.
For my own part, though my monogram figured on none of Marguerite's dressing-cases, the instinctive forbearance and natural pity to which I have just admitted led me to dwell on her death for much longer than it perhaps warranted.
I recalled having come across Marguerite very frequently on the Champs-Elysees, where she appeared assiduously each day in a small blue brougham drawn by two magnificent bays, and I remembered having also remarked in her at that time an air of distinction rare in women of her kind and which was further enhanced by her truly exceptional beauty.
When these unfortunate creatures appear in public, they are invariably escorted by some companion or other.
Since no man would ever consent to flaunt by day the predilection he has for them by night, and because they abhor solitude, they are usually attended either by less fortunate associates who have no carriages of their own, or else by elderly ladies of refinement who are not the least refined and to whom an interested party may apply without fear, should any information be required concerning the woman they are escorting.
It was not so with Marguerite. She always appeared alone on the Champs- Elysees, riding in her own carriage where she sat as unobtrusively as possible, enveloped on winter days in a large Indian shawl and, in summer, wearing the simplest dresses. And though there were many she knew along her favourite route, when she chanced to smile at them, her smile was visible to them alone. A Duchess could have smiled no differently.
She did not ride from the Rond- Point down to the entrance, to the Champs-Elysees as do — and did — all her sort. Her two horses whisked her off smartly to the Bois de Boulogne. There she alighted, walked for an hour, rejoined her brougham and returned home at a fast trot.
These circumstances, which I had occasionally observed for myself, now came back to me and I sorrowed for this girl's death much as one might regret the total destruction of a beautiful work of art.
For it was impossible to behold beauty more captivating than Marguerite's.
Tall and slender almost to a fault, she possessed in the highest degree the art of concealing this oversight of nature simply by the way she arranged the clothes she wore. Her Indian shawl, with its point reaching down to the ground, gave free movement on either side to the flounced panels of her silk dress, while the thick muff, which hid her hands and which she kept pressed to her bosom, was encompassed by folds so skillfully managed that even the most demanding eye would have found nothing wanting in the lines of her figure.
Her face, a marvel, was the object of her most fastidious attentions. It was quite small and, as Musset might have said, her mother had surely made it so to ensure it was fashioned with care.
Upon an oval of indescribable loveliness, place two dark eyes beneath brows so cleanly arched that they might have been painted on; veil those eyes with lashes so long that, when lowered, they cast shadows over the pink flush of the cheeks; sketch a delicate, straight, spirited nose and nostrils slightly flared in a passionate aspiration towards sensuality; draw a regular mouth with lips parting gracefully over teeth as white as milk; tint the skin with the bloom of peaches which no hand has touched — and you will have a comprehensive picture of her entrancing face.
Her jet-black hair, naturally or artfully waved, was parted over her forehead in two thick coils which vanished behind her head, just exposing the lobes of her ears from which hung two diamonds each worth four or five thousand francs.
Exactly how the torrid life she led could possibly have left on Marguerite's face the virginal, even childlike expression which made it distinctive, is something which we are forced to record as a fact which we cannot comprehend.
Marguerite possessed a marvelous portrait of herself by Vidal, the only man whose pencil strokes could capture her to the life. After her death, this portrait came into my keeping for a few days and the likeness was so striking that it has helped me to furnish details for which memory alone might not have sufficed.
Some of the particulars contained in the present chapter did not become known to me until some time later, but I set them down here so as not to have to return to them once the narrative account of this woman's life has begun.
Marguerite was present at all first nights and spent each evening in the theatre or at the ball. Whenever a new play was performed, you could be sure of seeing her there with three things which she always had with her and which always occupied the ledge of her box in the stalls: her opera- glasses, a box of sweets and a bunch of camellias.
For twenty-five days in every month the camellias were white, and for five they were red. No one ever knew the reason for this variation in colour which I mention but cannot explain, and which those who frequented the theatres where she was seen most often, and her friends too, had noticed as I had.
Marguerite had never been seen with any flowers but camellias. Because of this, her florist, Madame Barjon, had finally taken to calling her the Lady of the Camellias, and the name had remained with her.
Like all who move in certain social circles in Paris, I knew further that Marguerite had been the mistress of the most fashionable young men, that she admitted the fact openly, and that they themselves boasted of it. Which only went to show that loves and mistress were well pleased with each other.
However, for some three years previously, ever since a visit she had made to Bagneres, she was said to be living with just one man, an elderly foreign duke who was fabulously wealthy and had attempted to detach her as far as possible form her old life. This she seems to have been happy enough to go along with.
Here is what I have been told of the matter.
In the spring of 1842, Marguerite was so weak, so altered in her looks, that the doctors had ordered her to take the waters. She accordingly set out for Bagneres.
Among the other sufferers there, was the Duke's daughter who not only had the same complaint but a face so like Marguerite's that they could have been taken for sisters. The fact was that the young Duchess was in the tertiary stage of consumption and, only days after Marguerite's arrival, she succumbed.
One morning the Duke, who had remained at Bagneres just as people will remain on ground where a piece of their heart lies buried, caught sight of Marguerite as she turned a corner of a gravel walk.
It seemed as though he was seeing the spirit of his dead child and, going up to her, he took both her hands, embraced her tearfully and, without asking who she was, begged leave to call on her and to love in her person the living image of his dead daughter.
Marguerite, alone at Bagneres with her maid, and in any case having nothing to lose by compromising herself, granted the Duke what he asked.
Now there were a number of people at Bagneres who knew her, and they made a point of calling on the Duke to inform him of Mademoiselle Gautier's true situation. It was a terrible blow for the old man, for any resemblance with his daughter stopped there. But it was too late. The young woman had become an emotional necessity, his only pretext and his sole reason for living.
He did not reproach her, he had no right to, but he did ask her if she felt that she could change her way of life, and, in exchange for this sacrifice, offered all the compensations she could want. She agreed.
It should be said that at this juncture Marguerite, who was by nature somewhat highly strung, was seriously ill. Her past appeared to her to be one of the major causes of her illness, and a kind of superstition led her to hope that God would allow her to keep her beauty and her health in exchange for her repentance and conversion.
And indeed the waters, the walks, healthy fatigue and sleep had almost restored her fully by the end of that summer.
The Duke accompanied Marguerite to Paris, where he continued to call on her as at Bagneres.
This liaison, of which the true origin and true motive were known to no one, gave rise here to a great deal of talk, since the Duke, known hitherto as an enormously wealthy man, now began to acquire a name for the prodigality.
The relationship between the old Duke and the young woman was put down to the salacity which is frequently found in rich old men. People imagined all manner of things, except the truth.
The truth was that the affection of this father for Marguerite was a feeling so chaste, that anything more than a closeness of hearts would have seemed incestuous in his eyes. Never once had he said a single word to her that his daughter could not have heard.
The last thing we wish is to make our heroine seem anything other than what she was. We shall say therefore that, as long as she remained at Bagneres, the promise given to the Duke had not been difficult to keep, and she had kept it. But once she was back in Paris, it seemed to her, accustomed as she was to a life of dissipation, balls and even orgies, that her new-found solitude, broken only by the periodic visits of the Duke, would make her die of boredom, and the scorching winds of her former life blew hot on both her head and her heart.
Add to this that Marguerite had returned from her travels more beautiful than she had ever been, that she was twenty years old and that her illness, subdued but far from conquered, continued to stir in her those feverish desires which are almost invariably a result of consumptive disorders.
The Duke was therefore sadly grieved the day his friends, constantly on the watch for scandalous indiscretions on the part of the young woman with whom he was, they said, compromising himself, called to inform him, indeed to prove to him that at those times when she could count on his not appearing, she was in the habit of receiving other visitors, and that these visitors often stayed until the following morning.
When the Duke questioned her, Marguerite admitted everything, and, without a second thought, advised him not to concern himself with her any more, saying she did not have the strength to keep faith with the pledges she had given, and adding that she had no wish to go on receiving the liberalities of a man whom she was deceiving.
The Duke stayed away for a week, but this was as long as he could manage. One week later to the day, he came and implored Marguerite to take him back, promising to accept her as she was, provided that he could see her, and swearing that he would die before he uttered a single word of reproach.
This was how things stood three months after Marguerite's return, that is, in November or December 1842.
Chapter 3
ON the 16th, at one o'clock, I made my way to the rue d'Antin.
The raised voices of the auctioneers could be heard from the carriage entrance.
The apartment was filled with inquisitive spectators.
All the famous names from the world of fashionable vice were there. They were being slyly observed by a number of society ladies who had again used the sale as a pretext for claiming the right to see, at close quarters, women in whose company they would not otherwise have had occasion to find themselves, and whose easy pleasures they perhaps secretly envied.
The Duchesse de F rubbed shoulders with Mademoiselle A, one of sorriest specimens of our modern courtesans; the Marquise de T shrank from buying an item of furniture for which the bidding was led by Madame D, the most elegant and most celebrated adulteress of our age; the Duc d'Y, who is believed in Madrid to be ruining himself in Paris, and in Paris to be ruining himself in Madrid, and who, when all is said and done, cannot even spend all his income, while continuing to chat with Madame M, one of our wittiest tale-tellers, who occasionally agrees to write down what she says and to sign what she writes, was exchanging confidential glances with Madame de N, the beauty who may be regularly seen driving on the Champs-Elysees, dressed almost invariably in pink or blue, in a carriage drawn by two large black horses sold to her by Tony for ten thousand francs…and paid for in full; lastly, Mademoiselle R, who by sheer talent makes twice what ladies of fashion make with their dowries, and three times as much as what the rest make out of their love affairs, had come in spite of the cold to make a few purchases, and it was not she who attracted the fewest eyes.
We could go on quoting the initials of many of those who had gathered in that drawing room and who were not a little astonished at the company they kept; but we should, we fear, weary the reader.
Suffice it to say that everyone was in the highest spirits and that, of all the women there, many had known the dead girl and gave no sign that they remembered her.
There was much loud laughter; the auctioneers shouted at the tops of their voices; the dealers who had crowded on to the benches placed in front of the auction tables called vainly for silence in which to conduct their business in peace. Never was a gathering more varied and more uproarious.
I slipped unobtrusively into the middle of the distressing tumult, saddened to think that all this was taking place next to the very room where the unfortunate creature whose furniture was being sold up to pay her debts, had breathed her last. Having come to observe rather than to buy, I watched the faces of the tradesmen who had forced the sale and whose features lit up each time an item reached a price they had never dared hope for.
Honest, men all, who had speculated in the prostitution of this woman, had obtained a one hundred per cent return on her, had dogged the last moments of her life with writs, and came after she was dead to claim both the fruits of their honourable calculations and the interest accruing on the shameful credit they had given her.
How right were the Ancients who had one God for merchants and thieves!
Dresses, Indian shawls, jewels, came under the hammer at an unbelievable rate. None of it took my fancy, and I waited on.
Suddenly I heard a voice shout:
'A book fully bound, gilt-edges, entitled: Manon Lescaut. There's something written on the first page: ten francs. '
'Twelve, ' said a voice, after a longish silence.
'Fifteen, ' I said.
Why? I had no idea. No doubt for that 'something written'.
'Fifteen, ' repeated the auctioneer.
'Thirty, ' said the first bidder, in a tone which seemed to defy anybody to go higher.
It was becoming a fight.
'Thirty-five!' I cried, in the same tone of voice.
'Forty.'
'Fifty.'
'Sixty.'
'A hundred.'
I confess that if I had set out to cause a stir, I would have succeeded completely, for my last bid was followed by a great silence, and people stared at me to see who this man was who seemed so intent on possessing the volume.
Apparently the tone in which I had made my latest bid was enough for my opponent: he chose therefore to abandon a struggle which would have served only to cost me ten times what the book was worth and, with a bow, he said very graciously but a little late:
'It's yours, sir.'
No other bids were forthcoming, and the book was knocked down to me.
Since I feared a new onset of obstinacy which my vanity might conceivably have borne but which would have assuredly proved too much for my purse, I gave my name, asked for the volume to be put aside and left by the stairs. I must have greatly intrigued the onlookers who, having witnessed this scene, doubtless wondered why on earth I had gone there to pay a hundred francs for a book that I could have got anywhere for ten or fifteen at most.
An hour later, I had sent round for my purchase.
On the first page, written in ink in an elegant hand, was the dedication of the person who had given the book. This dedication consisted simply of these words:
'Manon to Marguerite,
Humility.'
It was signed: Armand Duval.
What did this word 'Humility' mean?
Was it that Manon, in the opinion of this Monsieur Armand Duval, acknowledged Marguerite as her superior in debauchery or in true love?
The second interpretation seemed the more likely, for the first was impertinently frank, and Marguerite could never have accepted it, whatever opinion she had of herself.
I went out again and thought no more of the book until that night, when I retired to bed.
Manon Lescaut is a truly touching story every detail of which is familiar to me and yet, whenever I hold a copy in my hand, an instinctive feeling for it draws me on. I open it and for the hundredth time I live again with the abbe Prevost's heroine. Now, his heroine is so lifelike that I feel that I have met her. In my new circumstances, the kind of comparison drawn between her and Marguerite added an unexpected edge to my reading, and my forbearance was swelled with pity, almost love, for the poor girl, the disposal of whose estate I could thank for possessing the volume. Manon died in a desert, it is true, but in the terms of the man who loved her with all the strength of his soul and who, when she was dead, dug a grave for her, watered it with his tears and buried his heart with her; whereas Marguerite, a sinner like Manon, and perhaps as truly converted as she, had died surrounded by fabulous luxury, if I could believe what I had seen, on the bed of her own past, but no less lost in the desert of the heart which is much more arid, much vaster and far more pitiless than the one in which Manon had been interred.
Indeed Marguerite, as I had learned from friends informed of the circumstances of her final moments, had seen no true consolation settle at her bedside during the two months when she lay slowly and painfully dying.
Then, from Manon and Marguerite, my thoughts turned to those women whom I knew and whom I could see rushing gaily towards the same almost invariable death.
Poor creatures! If it is wrong to love them, the least one can do is to pity them. You pity the blind man who has never seen the light of day, the deaf man who has never heard the harmonies of nature, the mute who has never found a voice for his soul, and yet, under the specious pretext of decency, you will not pity that blindness of heart, deafness of soul and dumbness of conscience which turn the brains of poor, desperate women and prevent them, despite themselves, from seeing goodness, hearing the Lord and speaking the pure language of love and religion.
Hugo wrote Marion Delorme, Musset wrote Bernerette, Alexandre Dumas wrote Fernande. Thinkers and poets throughout the ages have offered the courtesan the oblation of their mercy and, on occasion, some great man has brought them back to the fold through the gift of his love and even his name. If I dwell on this point, it is because among those who will read these pages, many may already be about to throw down a book in which they fear they will see nothing but an apology for vice and prostitution, and doubtless the youth of the present author is a contributing factor in providing grounds for their fears. Let those who are of such a mind be undeceived. Let them read on, if such fears alone gave them pause.
I am quite simply persuaded of a principle which states that: To any woman whose education has not imparted knowledge of goodness, God almost invariably opens up two paths which will lead her back to it; these paths are suffering and love. They are rocky paths; women who follow them will cut their feet and graze their hands, but will at the same time leave the gaudy rags of vice hanging on the briars which line the road, and shall reach their journey's end in that naked state for which no one need feel shame in the sight of the Lord.
Any who encounter these brave wayfarers are duty bound to comfort them and to say to all the world that they have encountered them, for by proclaiming the news they show the way.
It is not a simple matter of erecting two signposts at the gateway to life, one bearing the inscription: 'The Way of Goodness' and the other carrying this warning: ' The way of evil', and of saying to those who come: 'Choose! ' Each of us, like Christ himself, must point to those paths which will redirect from the second way to the first the steps of those who have allowed themselves to be tempted by the approach roads; and above all let not the beginning of these paths be too painful, nor appear too difficult of access.
Christianity is ever-present, with its wonderful parable of the prodigal son, to urge us to counsels of forbearance and forgiveness. Jesus was full of love for souls of women wounded by the passions of men, and He loved to bind their wounds, drawing from those same wounds the balm which would heal them. Thus he said to Mary Magdalene: ' Your sins, which are many, shall be forgiven, because you loved much' — a sublime pardon which was to awaken a sublime faith.
Why should we judge more strictly than Christ? Why, clinging stubbornly to the opinions of the world which waxes hard so that we shall think it strong, why should we too turn away souls that bleed from wounds oozing with the evil of their past, like infected blood from a sick body, as they wait only for a friendly hand to bind them up and restore them to a convalescent heart?
It is to my generation that I speak, to those for whom the theories of Monsieur de Voltaire are, happily, defunct, to those who, like myself, can see that humanity has, these fifteen years past, been engaged in one of its boldest leaps forward. The knowledge of good and evil is ours forever; religion is rebuilding, the respect for holy things has been restored to us, and, if the world is not yet wholly good, then at least it is becoming better. The efforts of all intelligent men tend to the same goal, and all those firm in purpose are yoked to the same principle: let us be good, let us be young, let us be true! Evil is but vanity: let us take pride in Goodness and, above all, let us not despair. Let us not scorn the woman who is neither mother nor sister nor daughter nor wife. Let us not limit respect to the family alone nor reduce forbearance to mere egoism. Since there is more rejoicing in heaven for the repentance of one sinner than for a hundred just men who have never sinned, let us try to give heaven cause to rejoice. Heaven may repay us with interest. Let us leave along our way the charity of our forgiveness for those whom earthly desires have brought low, who shall perhaps be saved by hope in heaven and, as wise old dames say when they prescribe remedies of their own making, if it dies no good then at least it can do no harm.
In truth, it must seem very forward of me to seek to derive such great results from the slender subject which I treat; but I am of those who believe that the whole is in the part. The child is small, and yet he is father to the man; the brain is cramped, and yet it is the seat of thought; the eye is but a point, yet it encompasses leagues of space.
Chapter 4
TWO days later, the sale was completely over. It had realized one hundred and fifty thousand francs.
The creditors had divided two thirds among themselves and the family — a sister and a young nephew — had inherited the rest.
The sister's eyes had opened wide when the agent had written telling her that she had come into fifty thousand francs.
It was six or seven years since this young woman had set eyes on her sister who had disappeared one day without anyone ever discovering, either from her or through other people, anything whatsoever about her life from the time of her disappearance.
So she had now arrived post-haste in Paris, and great was the astonishment of those who had known Marguerite when they saw that her sole heir was a hearty, good-looking country girl who, up to that moment, had never set foot outside her village.
Her fortune had been made at a stroke, without her having the least idea of the source from which it had so unexpectedly materialized.
She returned, I have since been told, to her part of the country, bearing away from her sister's death a deep sadness which was, however, eased by an investment at four and a half per cent which she had just made.
All these happenings, which had gone the rounds of Paris, the mother town of scandal, were beginning to be forgotten, and I myself was forgetting quite what my part in events had been, when something occurred which led to my becoming acquainted with the whole of Marguerite's life, and put in my way particulars so affecting that I was seized with an urge to write this story and now do so.
The apartment, empty now of the furniture which had all been auctioned off, had been to let for three or four days when one morning there was a ring at my door.
My servant, or rather the porter who acted as my servant, went to see who it was and brought me a visiting card saying that the person who had handed it to him wished to speak to me.
I glanced at the card and there I saw these two words: Armand Duval.
I tried to recall where I had seen the name, and then I remembered the fly-leaf of the copy of Manon Lescaut.
What could the person who had given the book to Marguerite want with me? I said that the gentleman who was waiting should be shown in at once.
The next moment I saw a young man with fair hair, tall, pale, wearing travelling clothes which looked as though hey had not been off his back for several days and which, on his arrival in Paris, he had not even taken the trouble to brush down, for he was covered in dust.
Monsieur Duval, deeply agitated, made no attempt to hide his feelings, and it was with tears in his eyes and a trembling in his voice that he said:
'Please excuse my visit and these clothes; not simply because young men do not stand much on ceremony with each other, but because I wanted to see you so badly today that I have not even taken time to stop off at the hotel where I set my luggage, and have rushed straight here, dreading even so, early as it is, that I should miss you.'
I begged Monsieur Duval to sit down by the fire, which he did, taking from his pocket a handkerchief with which he momentarily hid his face.
'You must be wondering, ' he resumed with a melancholy sigh, 'what a stranger can want with you at such an hour, dressed in such clothes and weeping like this. I have come quite simply, to ask you a great favour.'
'Say on. I am at your service.'
'Were you present at the Marguerite Gautier auction?'
As he said this, the emotion which the young man had held in check was for an instant stronger than he, and he was obliged to put his hands to his eyes.
'I must appear very ridiculous to you, ' he added, 'forgive me this too, and please believe that I shall never forget the patience with which you are good enough to listen.'
'Well, ' I replied, 'if a service which it seems I can do for you will in some small way ease the pain that you feel, tell me at once in what way I can help, and you will find in me a man happy to oblige.'
Monsieur Duval's grief was affecting and, even had I felt differently, I should still have wished to be agreeable to him.
He then said:
'Did you buy anything at Marguerite's sale?'
'Yes. A book.'
'Manon Lescaut?'
'That's right.'
'Do you still have it?'
'It' s in my bedroom.'
At this, Armand Duval looked as though a great weight had been taken from his shoulders, and he thanked me as though I had already begun to render him a service simply by holding on to the volume.
I got up, went to fetch the book from my bedroom and handed it to him.
'This is it, ' said he, glancing at the dedication on the first page and riffling through the rest, 'this is it.'
And two large tears fell on to the open pages.
'May I ask, ' he said, raising his eyes to me and making no effort now to hide the fact that he had wept and was near to tears once more, 'if you are greatly attached to this book?'
'Why do you ask?'
'Because I have come to ask you to surrender it to me.'
'Forgive my curiosity, ' I said next, 'but it was you, then, who gave it to Marguerite Gautier?'
'It was I.'
'The book is yours. Take it. I am happy to be able to restore it to you.'
'But, ' continued Monsieur Duval with embarrassment, 'the least I can do is to give you what you paid for it.'
'Please take it as a gift. The price fetched by a single volume in a sale like that is a trifle, and I can't even remember how much I gave for it.'
'You gave a hundred francs for it.'
'You are quite right, ' said I, embarrassed in my turn, 'how did you know?'
'Quite simple. I hoped to reach Paris in time for Marguerite's sale, but got back only this morning. I was absolutely determined to have something that had been hers, and I went directly to the auctioneer's to ask if I might inspect the list of items sold and of the buyers' names. I saw that this volume had been bought by you, and I resolved to beg you to let me have it, though the price you paid for it did make me fear that you yourself associated some memory with possession of the book.'
In speaking thus, Armand clearly seemed to be afraid that I had known Marguerite in the way that he had known her.
I hastened to reassure him.
'I knew Mademoiselle Gautier by sight only, ' I said. 'Her death made the sort of impression on me that the death of any pretty woman he has had pleasure in meeting makes on any young man. I wished to buy something at her sale, and took it into my head to bid for this volume, I don't know why, for the satisfaction of annoying a man who was bent on getting it and seemed determined to prevent it going to me. I repeat, the book is yours, and I beg you once more to accept it. This way it won' t come to you as it came to me, from an auctioneer, and it will be between us the pledge of a more durable acquaintance and closer bonds.'
'Very well, ' said Armand, extending his hand and grasping mine, 'I accept and shall be grateful to you for the rest of my life.'
I very much wanted to question Armand about Marguerite, for the dedication in the book, the young man's journey, his desire to possess the volume, all excited my curiosity; but I feared that by questioning my visitor, I should appear to have refused his money simply to have the right to pry into his business.
It was as though he sensed my wishes, for he said:
'Have you read the book?'
'Every word.'
'What did you make of the two lines I wrote?'
'I saw straightaway that, in your eyes, the poor girl to whom you had given the book did not belong in the usual category, for I could not bring myself to see the lines simply as a conventional compliment.'
'And you were right. That girl was an angel. Here, ' he said, 'read this letter.'
And he handed me a sheet of paper which, by the look of it, had been read many times over.
I opened it. This is what it said:
'My dear Armand, I have received your letter. You are still good, and I thank God for it. Yes, my dear, I am ill, and mine is the sort of illness which spares no one; but the concern which you are generous enough still to show for me greatly eases my sufferings. I expect I shall doubtless not live long enough to have the happiness of grasping the hand which wrote the kindly letter I have just received; its words would cure me, if anything could. I shall not see you, for I am very close to death, and hundreds of leagues separate you from me. My poor friend! the Marguerite you knew is sadly altered, and it is perhaps better that you do not see her again than see her as she is. You ask if I forgive you; oh! with all my heart, my dear, for the hurt you sought to do me was but a token of the love you bore me. I have kept my bed now for a month, and so precious to me is your good opinion, that each day I write a little more of a journal of my life from the moment we parted until the moment when I shall be no longer able to hold my pen.
If the interest you take in me is real, Armand, then on your return, go and see Julie Duprat. She will place this journal in your keeping. In it you will find the reasons and the excuse for what has passed between us. Julie is very good to me. We often talk about you. She was here when your letter came, and we wept together as we read it.
Should I not hear from you, she has been entrusted with seeing that you get these papers on your return to France. Do not be grateful to me. Returning each day to the only happy moments of my life does me enormous good and if, as you read, you find the past exonerated in my words, I for my part find in them a never-ending solace.
I would like to leave you something by which you would always remember me, but everything I own has been seized, and nothing belongs to me.
Do you understand, my dear? I am going to die, and from my bedroom I can hear the footsteps of the watchman my creditors have placed in the drawing-room to see that nothing is removed and to ensure that if I do not die, I shall be left with nothing. We must hope that they will wait for the end before they sell me up.
Oh! how pitiless men are! or rather, for I am wrong, it is God who is just and unbending.
And so, my love, you will have to come to my sale and buy something, for if I were to put aside the smallest item for you and they heard of it, they would be quite capable of prosecuting you for misappropriating distrained goods.
How sad the life I now leave!
How good God would be if He granted that I should see you again before I die! Since the chances are remote, adieu, my dear; forgive me if I do not write more, for those who say they will cure me bleed me to exhaustion, and my hand refuses to write another line.
Marguerite Gautier.'
And indeed, the last few words were scarcely legible.
I gave the letter back to Armand who had doubtless read it over in his thoughts while I had been reading it on the paper, for as he took it he said:
'Who would ever believe that a kept woman wrote that!' And deeply affected by his memories, he stared for some time at the writing of the letter before finally putting it to his lips.
'And when I think, ' he went on, 'that she died before I saw her again, and that I shall see her no more; when I think that she did for me what no sister could ever have done — I cannot forgive myself for having let her die like that.
Dead! dead! thinking of me, writing and saying my name, poor dear Marguerite!'
And Armand, giving free expression to his thoughts and tears, held out his hand to me and continued:
'People would think me very childish if they saw me grieving like this for the death of such a woman; but people could not know what I made that woman suffer, how cruel I was, how good and uncomplaining she was. I belived that it was for me to forgive her, and today I find myself unworthy of the pardon she bestows on me. Oh! I would gladly give ten years of my life to be able to spend one hour weeping at her feet.'
It is always difficult to comfort a grief that one does not share, and yet so keenly did I feel for this young man who confided his sorrows with such frankness, that I felt that a few words of mine would not be unwelcome to him, and I said:
'Have you no relatives, no friends? Take hope. Go and see them for they will comfort you, whereas I can only pity you.'
'You are right, ' he said, rising to his feet and striding around my bedroom, 'I am boring you. Forgive me, I was forgetting that my grief must mean little to you, and that I trespass upon your patience with a matter which neither can nor should concern you in the slightest.'
'No, you misunderstand me. I am entirely at your disposal; only I regret I am unable to calm your sorrow. If the company of myself and my friends can beguile your thoughts, if you need me in any way, I would like you to know how very happy I would be to help.'
'Forgive me, forgive me, ' he said, 'grief magnifies the feelings. Allow me to stay a few minutes more, long enough to dry my eyes so that idlers in the street shall not stare to see a grown man weeping as though he were a freak. You've made me very happy by giving me this book; I'll never know how to repay the debt I owe you.'
'By granting me a little of your friendship, ' I told Armand, 'and by telling me the cause of your sorrow. There is consolation in speaking of one's suffering.'
'You are right. But today my need for tears is too great, and what I said would make no sense. Some day I shall acquaint you with the story, and you shall judge whether I am right to mourn the poor girl. And now, ' he added, rubbing his eyes one last time and looking at himself in mirror, 'tell me that you do not think me too foolish, and say you give me leave to call on you again.'
The look in the eyes of this young man was good and gentle; I was almost tempted to embrace him.
For his part, his eyes began again to cloud with tears; he saw that I noticed them and he turned his glance away from me.
'Come now, ' I told him, 'take heart.'
'Goodbye, ' he said.
And, making an extraordinary effort not to weep, he fled rather than left my apartment.
I lifted the curtain at my window and saw him get into the cab which was waiting at the door; but he was hardly inside when he burst into tears and buried his face in his handkerchief.
Chapter 5
A CONSIDERABLE time elapsed without my hearing a word about Armand, but on the other hand the subject of Marguerite had come up a great deal.
I do not know if you have noticed, but it only takes the name of someone who should in all likelihood have remained unknown or at least of no particular interest to you, to be pronounced once in your hearing, for all sorts of details to collect round that name, and for you then to have all your friends speak about a subject of which they had never spoken to you before. Next thing, you discover that the person in question was there, just out of range, all the while. You realize that your paths have crossed many times without your noticing, and you find in the events which others recount some tangible link or affinity with certain events in your own past. I had not quite reached that point with Marguerite, since I had seen her, met her, knew her by her face and habits. Yet ever since the auction, her name had cropped up so frequently in my hearing and, in the circumstances which I have related in the previous chapter, her name had become associated with sorrow so profound, that my surprise had gone on growing and my curiosity had increased.
The result was that now I never approached any friends, with whom I had never spoken of Marguerite, without saying:
'Did you know someone called Marguerite Gautier?'
'The Lady of the Camellias?'
'That's her.'
'Rather!'
These 'Rather!'sometimes came with smiles which left no possible doubt as to their meaning.
'Well, what kind of girl was she?' I would go on.
'A very decent sort. '
'Is that all? '
'Heavens! I should hope so. A few more brains and perhaps a bit more heart than the rest of them. '
'But you know nothing particular about her? '
'She ruined Baron de G.'
'Anyone else?'
'She was the mistress of the old Duke de.'
'Was she really his mistress?'
'That's what they say: at any rate, he gave her a great deal of money.'
Always the same general details.
But I would have been interested to learn a little about the affair between Marguerite and Armand.
One day, I chanced upon one of those men who live habitually on intimate terms with the most notorious courtesans. I questioned him.
'Did you know Marguerite Gautier?'
The answer was that same 'Rather!'
'What sort of girl was she?'
'A fine-looking, good-hearted type. Her death was a great sadness to me.'
'She had a lover called Armand Duval, didn't she?'
'Tall chap with fair hair?'
'That's him.'
'Yes, she did.'
'And what was this Armand like?'
'A young fellow who threw away the little he had on her, I believe, and was forced to give her up. They say it affected his reason.'
'What about her?'
'She loved him very much too, they also say, but as girls of her sort love. You should never ask more of them than they can give.'
'What became of Armand?'
'Couldn't say. We didn't know him all that well. He stayed five or six months with Marguerite, in the country. When she came back to town, he went off somewhere.'
'And you haven't seen him since?'
'Never.'
I had not seen Armand again either. I had begun to wonder if, the day he called on me, the recent news of Marguerite's death had not exaggerated the love he had once felt for her and therefore his grief, and I told myself that perhaps, in forgetting the dead girl, he had also forgotten his promise to return to see me.
Such a hypotheses would have been plausible enough with anybody else, but in Armand's despair there had been a note of real sincerity and, moving from one extreme to the other, I imagined that his grief could well have turned into sickness and that, if I had not heard from him, then it was because he was ill, dead even.
Despite myself, I still felt an interest in this young man. It may be that my interest was not without an element of selfishness; perhaps I had glimpsed a touching love story behind his grief, perhaps, in short, my desire to be acquainted with it loomed large in the concern I felt about Armand's silence.
Since Monsieur Duval did not return to see me, I resolved to go to him. A pretext was not difficult to find. Unfortunately, I did not know his address, and of all those I had questioned, no one had been able to tell me what it was.
I went to the rue d'Antin. Perhaps Marguerite's porter knew where Armand lived. There had been a change of porter. He did not know any more than I did. I then asked in which cemetery Mademoiselle Gautier had been buried. It was Montmartre cemetery.
April had come round again, the weather was fine, the graves would no longer have the mournful, desolate look which winter gives them; in a word, it was already warm enough for the living to remember the dead and visit them. I went to the cemetery, telling myself: 'One quick look at Marguerite's grave, and I shall know whether Armand is still grieving and perhaps discover what has become of him.'
I entered the keeper's lodge and asked him if, on the 22nd of the month of February, a woman named Marguerite Gautier had not been buried in Montmartre cemetery.
The man looked through a fat ledger in which the names of all those who come to their final place of rest are entered and given a number, and he answered that on 22 February, at noon, a woman of that name had indeed been interred.
I asked if he could get someone to take me to the grave for, without a guide, there is no way of finding one's way around this city of the dead which has its streets like the cities of the living. The keeper called a gardener, to whom he gave the necessary details but who cut him short, saying: 'I know, I know…Oh! that grave is easy enough to pick out, ' he went on, turning to me.
'Why?' I said.
'Because it's got different flowers from all the others.'
'Are you the person who looks after it?'
'Yes, sir, and I could only wish all relatives took as good care of the departed as the young man who asked me to look after that one.'
Several turnings later, the gardener stopped and said:
'Here we are.'
And indeed, before my eyes, were flowers arranged in a square which no one would ever have taken for a grave if a white marble stone with a name on it had not proclaimed it to be so.
This marble block was set upright, iron railings marked the boundary of the plot that had been bought, and every inch of ground was covered with white camellias.
'What do you say to that?' said the gardener.
'It's very beautiful.'
'And every time a camellia withers, my orders are to put another one in its place.'
'And who gave you your orders?'
'A young chap who cried a lot the first time he came. An old gentleman friend of the departed, I'll be bound, because they do say she was a bit of a one, you know. I hear tell she was very bonny. Did you know her, sir?'
'Yes.'
'Like the other chap, ' the gardener said with a knowing grin.
'No, I never spike to her.'
'But you've come to see her here; that's very nice of you, because people who come to see the poor girl don't exactly clutter up the cemetery.'
'So no one comes?'
'Nobody, except that young chap who came once.'
'Just once?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And he never returned?'
'No, but he'll come as soon as he gets back.'
'He's away travelling, then?'
'Yes.'
'And do you know where he is?'
'I do believe he's gone to see Mademoiselle Gautier's sister.'
'What's he doing there?'
'He's going to ask authorization to exhume the body and have it put somewhere else.'
'Why shouldn't he leave her here?'
'You know, sir, people get queer ideas about the departed. See it all the time, we do. This plot was bought for five years only, and that young chap wants a plot in perpetuity and a larger bit of ground: in the new part would be best.'
'What do you call the new part?'
'The new plots that are being sold just now, to your left. If the cemetery had always been kept like it is nowadays, there wouldn't have been another like it in the world; but there's still a lot to do before it's just like it should be. And then, folk are so queer.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean that there's people who even bring their pride in here. Take this Mademoiselle Gautier. Seems she'd been around a bit, if you'll pardon the expression. She's dead now, is that poor young woman; there's as much left of her as of other women you couldn't say a word against whose resting places we keep watering every day. Well now, when the relatives of them as are buried next to her found out who she was, blow me if they didn't up and say they was against putting her here, and that there ought to be ground set apart for women of her sort, like there is for the poor. Ever hear the like of it? I told them straight, I did; very well-to-do folks who can't even come four times a year to pay their respects to their departed. They bring their own flowers and some flowers they are too, are very particular about arranging upkeep for them as they say they mourn, inscribe on their tombstones the tears they never shed, and are very fussy about who is buried next door. Believe me if you like, sir, I didn't know this young lady, I've no idea what she got up to. But I tell you, I love that poor little girl and I take good care of her, and I let her have the camellias at a very fair price. Of all the departed, she's my favourite. Here, sir, we're obliged to love the dead, for we're kept so busy that we hardly have time to love anything else.'
I looked at this man, and some of my readers will understand, without my having to explain it to them, what I felt as I heard his words.
He sensed my feelings, no doubt, for he went on:
'They say there were gents who ruined themselves for that girl, and that she had lovers who worshipped her; well, when I think that there's not one comes and buys her a single flower, then I say that it's peculiar and sad. Though this one can't complain. She's got a grave, and if there's only one as remembers her, he does right by the others as well. But we've got poor girls here of the same sort and the same age that get thrown into a pauper's grave, and it breaks my heart when I hear their poor bodies drop into the earth. And not a soul looks out for them once they're dead! It's not always very cheery, this job of ours, especially when you've got a bit of feeling left in you. But what do you expect? I can't help it. I got a fine- looking grown-up daughter of twenty, and whenever some dead girl her age is brought in, I think of her, and be it some great lady or a trollop, I can't help being upset.
But I expect I'm wearying you with all this talk, and you didn't come here to listen to me going on. I was told to take you to Mademoiselle Gautier's grave and here you are. Is there anything else I can do for you?'
'Do you know Monsieuer Duval's address?' I asked the man.
'Yes, he lives in the rue de, or at least that's where I went to get paid for all the flowers you see here.'
'Thank you, my man.'
I cast a final glance at the flower- strewn grave whose depths, despite myself, I would have gladly plumbed for a sight of what the earth had done with the beautiful creature who had been lowered into it, and then I came away, feeling very sad.
'Do you want to see Monsieur Duval, sir?' continued the gardener, who walked at my side.
'Yes.'
'The thing is, I'm pretty near certain that he's not back yet. Otherwise I'd have seen him here already.'
'So you are convinced that he hasn't forgotten Marguerite?'
'Not just convinced, I'd bet anything that this wanting to move her to another grave is his way of wanting to see her again.'
'How do you mean?'
'The first thing he said when he came to the cemetery was: "What do I have to do to see her again?" That can only happen if the body is shifted to another grave, and I told him all about the formalities that have to be gone through to secure a transfer, because, you know, before bodies can be moved from one grave to another, they must be identified, and only the family can authorize the operation which has to be supervised by a police superintendent. It was to get this authorization that Monsieur Duval went to see Mademoiselle Gautier's sister, and his first call will obviously be on us.'
We had arrived at the cemetery gates; I thanked the gardener again, slipping a few coins into his hand, and I went round to the address he had given me.
Armand was not back.
I left a note for him, asking him to come and see me as soon as he arrived, or to let me know where I might find him.
The following morning, I received a letter from Duval which informed me of his return and asked me to drop by, adding that, being worn out by fatigue, it was impossible for him to go out.
Chapter 6
I FOUND Armand in bed.
When he saw me, he held out his hand. It was hot.
'You have a temperature, ' I said.
'It won't come to anything — the fatigue of a hurried journey, nothing more.'
'Have you come from Marguerite's sister's?'
'Yes, who told you?'
'I just know. And did you get what you wanted?'
'Yes, again. But who told you about my journey and my reasons for making it?'
'The gardener at the cemetery.'
'You saw the grave?'
I scarcely dared answer, for the tone of these words convinced me that the person who had said them was still in the grip of the same distress I had already witnessed, and that every time his thoughts or something that someone said brought him back to this painful subject, then for a long time to come, his emotions would go on getting the better of his will.
I settled therefore for answering with a nod.
'Has he taken good care of it?' continued Armand.
Two large tears rolled down the sick man's cheeks, and he turned his head away to hide them from me. I pretended not to notice and tried to change the subject.
'You've been away three weeks, ' I said.
Armand passed his hand over his eyes and answered:
'Three weeks exactly.'
'It was a long journey, then.'
'Oh! I wasn't travelling a
