Camille — 06 - Chapter 6
I found Armand in bed.
On seeing me he held out a burning hand.
“You are feverish,” I said to him.
“It is nothing, the fatigue of a rapid journey; that is all.
” “You have been to see Marguerite’s sister?
” “Yes; who told you?
” “I knew it.
Did you get what you wanted?
” “Yes; but who told you of my journey, and of my reason for taking it?
” “The gardener of the cemetery.
” “You have seen the tomb?
” I scarcely dared reply, for the tone in which the words were spoken proved to me that the speaker was still possessed by the emotion which I had witnessed before, and that every time his thoughts or speech travelled back to that mournful subject emotion would still, for a long time to come, prove stronger than his will.
I contented myself with a nod of the head.
“He has looked after it well?
” continued Armand.
Two big tears rolled down the cheeks of the sick man, and he turned away his head to hide them from me.
I pretended not to see them, and tried to change the conversation.
“You have been away three weeks,” I said.
Armand passed his hand across his eyes and replied, “Exactly three weeks.
” “You had a long journey.
” “Oh, I was not travelling all the time.
I was ill for a fortnight or I should have returned long ago; but I had scarcely got there when I took this fever, and I was obliged to keep my room.
” “And you started to come back before you were really well?
” “If I had remained in the place for another week, I should have died there.
” “Well, now you are back again, you must take care of yourself; your friends will come and look after you; myself, first of all, if you will allow me.
” “I shall get up in a couple of hours.
” “It would be very unwise.
” “I must.
” “What have you to do in such a great hurry?
” “I must go to the inspector of police.
” “Why do you not get one of your friends to see after the matter?
It is likely to make you worse than you are now.
” “It is my only chance of getting better.
I must see her.
Ever since I heard of her death, especially since I saw her grave, I have not been able to sleep.
I can not realize that this woman, so young and so beautiful when I left her, is really dead.
I must convince myself of it.
I must see what God has done with a being that I have loved so much, and perhaps the horror of the sight will cure me of my despair.
Will you accompany me, if it won’t be troubling you too much?
” “What did her sister say about it?
” “Nothing.
She seemed greatly surprised that a stranger wanted to buy a plot of ground and give Marguerite a new grave, and she immediately signed the authorization that I asked her for.
” “Believe me, it would be better to wait until you are quite well.
” “Have no fear; I shall be quite composed.
Besides, I should simply go out of my mind if I were not to carry out a resolution which I have set myself to carry out.
I swear to you that I shall never be myself again until I have seen Marguerite.
It is perhaps the thirst of the fever, a sleepless night’s dream, a moment’s delirium; but though I were to become a Trappist, like M. de Rance’, after having seen, I will see.
” “I understand,” I said to Armand, “and I am at your service.
Have you seen Julie Duprat?
” “Yes, I saw her the day I returned, for the first time.
” “Did she give you the papers that Marguerite had left for you?
” Armand drew a roll of papers from under his pillow, and immediately put them back.
“I know all that is in these papers by heart,” he said.
“For three weeks I have read them ten times over every day.
You shall read them, too, but later on, when I am calmer, and can make you understand all the love and tenderness hidden away in this confession.
For the moment I want you to do me a service.
” “What is it?
” “Your cab is below?
” “Yes.
“Well, will you take my passport and ask if there are any letters for me at the poste restante?
My father and sister must have written to me at Paris, and I went away in such haste that I did not go and see before leaving.
When you come back we will go together to the inspector of police, and arrange for to-morrow’s ceremony.
” Armand handed me his passport, and I went to Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau.
There were two letters addressed to Duval.
I took them and returned.
When I re-entered the room Armand was dressed and ready to go out.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the letters.
“Yes,” he added, after glancing at the addresses, “they are from my father and sister.
They must have been quite at a loss to understand my silence.
” He opened the letters, guessed at rather than read them, for each was of four pages; and a moment after folded them up.
“Come,” he said, “I will answer tomorrow.
” We went to the police station, and Armand handed in the permission signed by Marguerite’s sister.
He received in return a letter to the keeper of the cemetery, and it was settled that the disinterment was to take place next day, at ten o’clock, that I should call for him an hour before, and that we should go to the cemetery together.
I confess that I was curious to be present, and I did not sleep all night.
Judging from the thoughts which filled my brain, it must have been a long night for Armand.
When I entered his room at nine on the following morning he was frightfully pale, but seemed calm.
He smiled and held out his hand.
His candles were burned out; and before leaving he took a very heavy letter addressed to his father, and no doubt containing an account of that night’s impressions.
Half an hour later we were at Montmartre.
The police inspector was there already.
We walked slowly in the direction of Marguerite’s grave.
The inspector went in front; Armand and I followed a few steps behind.
From time to time I felt my companion’s arm tremble convulsively, as if he shivered from head to feet.
I looked at him.
He understood the look, and smiled at me; we had not exchanged a word since leaving the house.
Just before we reached the grave, Armand stopped to wipe his face, which was covered with great drops of sweat.
I took advantage of the pause to draw in a long breath, for I, too, felt as if I had a weight on my chest.
What is the origin of that mournful pleasure which we find in sights of this kind?
When we reached the grave the gardener had removed all the flower-pots, the iron railing had been taken away, and two men were turning up the soil.
Armand leaned against a tree and watched.
All his life seemed to pass before his eyes.
Suddenly one of the two pickaxes struck against a stone.
At the sound Armand recoiled, as at an electric shock, and seized my hand with such force as to give me pain.
One of the grave-diggers took a shovel and began emptying out the earth; then, when only the stones covering the coffin were left, he threw them out one by one.
I scrutinized Armand, for every moment I was afraid lest the emotions which he was visibly repressing should prove too much for him; but he still watched, his eyes fixed and wide open, like the eyes of a madman, and a slight trembling of the cheeks and lips were the only signs of the violent nervous crisis under which he was suffering.
As for me, all I can say is that I regretted having come.
When the coffin was uncovered the inspector said to the grave-digger: “Open it.
” They obeyed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The coffin was of oak, and they began to unscrew the lid.
The humidity of the earth had rusted the screws, and it was not without some difficulty that the coffin was opened.
A painful odour arose in spite of the aromatic plants with which it was covered.
“O my God, my God!
” murmured Armand, and turned paler than before.
Even the grave-digger drew back.
A great white shroud covered the corpse, closely outlining some of its contours.
This shroud was almost completely eaten away at one end, and left one of the feet visible.
I was nearly fainting, and at the moment of writing these lines I see the whole scene over again in all its imposing reality.
“Quick,” said the inspector.
Thereupon one of the men put out his hand, began to unsew the shroud, and taking hold of it by one end suddenly laid bare the face of Marguerite.
It was terrible to see, it is horrible to relate.
The eyes were nothing but two holes, the lips had disappeared, vanished, and the white teeth were tightly set.
The black hair, long and dry, was pressed tightly about the forehead, and half veiled the green hollows of the cheeks;
and yet I recognised in this face the joyous white and rose face that I had seen so often.
Armand, unable to turn away his eyes, had put the handkerchief to his mouth and bit it.
For my part, it was as if a circle of iron tightened about my head, a veil covered my eyes, a rumbling filled my ears, and all I could do was to unstop a smelling bottle which I happened to have with me, and to draw in long breaths of it.
Through this bewilderment I heard the inspector say to Duval, “Do you identify?
” “Yes,” replied the young man in a dull voice.
“Then fasten it up and take it away,” said the inspector.
The grave-diggers put back the shroud over the face of the corpse, fastened up the coffin, took hold of each end of it, and began to carry it toward the place where they had been told to take it.
Armand did not move.
His eyes were fixed upon the empty grave; he was as white as the corpse which we had just seen.
He looked as if he had been turned to stone.
I saw what was coming as soon as the pain caused by the spectacle should have abated and thus ceased to sustain him.
I went up to the inspector.
“Is this gentleman’s presence still necessary?
” I said, pointing to Armand.
“No,” he replied, “and I should advise you to take him away.
He looks ill.
” “Come,” I said to Armand, taking him by the arm.
“What?
” he said, looking at me as if he did not recognise me.
“It is all over,” I added.
“You must come, my friend; you are quite white; you are cold.
These emotions will be too much for you.
” “You are right.
Let us go,” he answered mechanically, but without moving a step.
I took him by the arm and led him along.
He let himself be guided like a child, only from time to time murmuring, “Did you see her eyes?
” and he turned as if the vision had recalled her.
Nevertheless, his steps became more irregular; he seemed to walk by a series of jerks; his teeth chattered; his hands were cold; a violent agitation ran through his body.
I spoke to him; he did not answer.
He was just able to let himself be led along.
A cab was waiting at the gate.
It was only just in time.
Scarcely had he seated himself, when the shivering became more violent, and he had an actual attack of nerves, in the midst of which his fear of frightening me made him press my hand and whisper: “It is nothing, nothing.
I want to weep.
” His chest laboured, his eyes were injected with blood, but no tears came.
I made him smell the salts which I had with me, and when we reached his house only the shivering remained.
With the help of his servant I put him to bed, lit a big fire in his room, and hurried off to my doctor, to whom I told all that had happened.
He hastened with me.
Armand was flushed and delirious; he stammered out disconnected words, in which only the name of Marguerite could be distinctly heard.
“Well?
” I said to the doctor when he had examined the patient.
“Well, he has neither more nor less than brain fever, and very lucky it is for him, for I firmly believe (God forgive me!
) that he would have gone out of his mind.
Fortunately, the physical malady will kill the mental one, and in a month’s time he will be free from the one and perhaps from the other.
” Chapter VII
Illnesses like Armand’s have one fortunate thing about them: they either kill outright or are very soon overcome.
A fortnight after the events which I have just related Armand was convalescent, and we had already become great friends.
During the whole course of his illness I had hardly left his side.
Spring was profuse in its flowers, its leaves, its birds, its songs;
and my friend’s window opened gaily upon his garden, from which a reviving breath of health seemed to come to him.
The doctor had allowed him to get up, and we often sat talking at the open window, at the hour when the sun is at its height, from twelve to two.
I was careful not to refer to Marguerite, fearing lest the name should awaken sad recollections hidden under the apparent calm of the invalid; but Armand, on the contrary, seemed to delight in speaking of her, not as formerly, with tears in his eyes, but with a sweet smile which reassured me as to the state of his mind.
I had noticed that ever since his last visit to the cemetery, and the sight which had brought on so violent a crisis, sorrow seemed to have been overcome by sickness, and Marguerite’s death no longer appeared to him under its former aspect.
A kind of consolation had sprung from the certainty of which he was now fully persuaded, and in order to banish the sombre picture which often presented itself to him, he returned upon the happy recollections of his liaison with Marguerite, and seemed resolved to think of nothing else.
The body was too much weakened by the attack of fever, and even by the process of its cure, to permit him any violent emotions, and the universal joy of spring which wrapped him round carried his thoughts instinctively to images of joy.
He had always obstinately refused to tell his family of the danger which he had been in, and when he was well again his father did not even know that he had been ill.
One evening we had sat at the window later than usual; the weather had been superb, and the sun sank to sleep in a twilight dazzling with gold and azure.
Though we were in Paris, the verdure which surrounded us seemed to shut us off from the world, and our conversation was only now and again disturbed by the sound of a passing vehicle.
“It was about this time of the year, on the evening of a day like this, that I first met Marguerite,” said Armand to me, as if he were listening to his own thoughts rather than to what I was saying.
I did not answer.
Then turning toward me, he said: “I must tell you the whole story; you will make a book out of it; no one will believe it, but it will perhaps be interesting to do.
” “You will tell me all about it later on, my friend,” I said to him;
“you are not strong enough yet.
” “It is a warm evening, I have eaten my ration of chicken,” he said to me, smiling; “I have no fever, we have nothing to do, I will tell it to you now.
” “Since you really wish it, I will listen.
” This is what he told me, and I have scarcely changed a word of the touching story.
Yes (Armand went on, letting his head sink back on the chair), yes, it was just such an evening as this.
I had spent the day in the country with one of my friends, Gaston R—.
We returned to Paris in the evening, and not knowing what to do we went to the Variétés. We went out during one of the _entr’actes_, and a tall woman passed us in the corridor, to whom my friend bowed.
“Whom are you bowing to?
” I asked.
“Marguerite Gautier,” he said.
“She seems much changed, for I did not recognise her,” I said, with an emotion that you will soon understand.
“She has been ill; the poor girl won’t last long.
” I remember the words as if they had been spoken to me yesterday.
I must tell you, my friend, that for two years the sight of this girl had made a strange impression on me whenever I came across her.
Without knowing why, I turned pale and my heart beat violently.
I have a friend who studies the occult sciences, and he would call what I experienced “the affinity of fluids”; as for me, I only know that I was fated to fall in love with Marguerite, and that I foresaw it.
It is certainly the fact that she made a very definite impression upon me, that many of my friends had noticed it and that they had been much amused when they saw who it was that made this impression upon me.
The first time I ever saw her was in the Place de la Bourse, outside Susse’s; an open carriage was stationed there, and a woman dressed in white got down from it.
A murmur of admiration greeted her as she entered the shop.
As for me, I was rivetted to the spot from the moment she went in till the moment when she came out again.
I could see her through the shop windows selecting what she had come to buy.
I might have gone in, but I dared not.
I did not know who she was, and I was afraid lest she should guess why I had come in and be offended.
Nevertheless, I did not think I should ever see her again.
She was elegantly dressed; she wore a muslin dress with many flounces, an Indian shawl embroidered at the corners with gold and silk flowers, a straw hat, a single bracelet, and a heavy gold chain, such as was just then beginning to be the fashion.
She returned to her carriage and drove away.
One of the shopmen stood at the door looking after his elegant customer’s carriage.
I went up to him and asked him what was the lady’s name.
“Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier,” he replied.
I dared not ask him for her address, and went on my way.
The recollection of this vision, for it was really a vision, would not leave my mind like so many visions I had seen, and I looked everywhere for this royally beautiful woman in white.
A few days later there was a great performance at the Opera Comique.
The first person I saw in one of the boxes was Marguerite Gautier.
The young man whom I was with recognised her immediately, for he said to me, mentioning her name: “Look at that pretty girl.
” At that moment Marguerite turned her opera-glass in our direction and, seeing my friend, smiled and beckoned to him to come to her.
“I will go and say ‘How do you do?
’ to her,” he said, “and will be back in a moment.
” “I could not help saying ‘Happy man!
’” “Why?
” “To go and see that woman.
” “Are you in love with her?
” “No,” I said, flushing, for I really did not know what to say; “but I should very much like to know her.
” “Come with me.
I will introduce you.
” “Ask her if you may.
” “Really, there is no need to be particular with her; come.
” What he said troubled me.
I feared to discover that Marguerite was not worthy of the sentiment which I felt for her.
In a book of Alphonse Karr entitled _Am Rauchen_, there is a man who one evening follows a very elegant woman, with whom he had fallen in love with at first sight on account of her beauty.
Only to kiss her hand he felt that he had the strength to undertake anything, the will to conquer anything, the courage to achieve anything.
He scarcely dares glance at the trim ankle which she shows as she holds her dress out of the mud.
While he is dreaming of all that he would do to possess this woman, she stops at the corner of the street and asks if he will come home with her.
He turns his head, crosses the street, and goes sadly back to his own house.
I recalled the story, and, having longed to suffer for this woman, I was afraid that she would accept me too promptly and give me at once what I fain would have purchased by long waiting or some great sacrifice.
We men are built like that, and it is very fortunate that the imagination lends so much poetry to the senses, and that the desires of the body make thus such concession to the dreams of the soul.
If anyone had said to me, You shall have this woman to-night and be killed tomorrow, I would have accepted.
If anyone had said to me, you can be her lover for ten pounds, I would have refused.
I would have cried like a child who sees the castle he has been dreaming about vanish away as he awakens from sleep.
All the same, I wished to know her; it was my only means of making up my mind about her.
I therefore said to my friend that I insisted on having her permission to be introduced to her, and I wandered to and fro in the corridors, saying to myself that in a moment’s time she was going to see me, and that I should not know which way to look.
I tried (sublime childishness of love!
) to string together the words I should say to her.
A moment after my friend returned.
“She is expecting us,” he said.
“Is she alone?
” I asked.
“With another woman.
” “There are no men?
” “No. ” “Come, then.
” My friend went toward the door of the theatre.
“That is not the way,” I said.
“We must go and get some sweets.
She asked me for some.
” We went into a confectioner’s in the passage de l’Opera.
I would have bought the whole shop, and I was looking about to see what sweets to choose, when my friend asked for a pound of raisins glaces.
“Do you know if she likes them?
” “She eats no other kind of sweets; everybody knows it.
“Ah,” he went on when we had left the shop, “do you know what kind of woman it is that I am going to introduce you to?
Don’t imagine it is a duchess.
It is simply a kept woman, very much kept, my dear fellow;
don’t be shy, say anything that comes into your head.
” “Yes, yes,” I stammered, and I followed him, saying to myself that I should soon cure myself of my passion.
When I entered the box Marguerite was in fits of laughter.
I would rather that she had been sad.
My friend introduced me; Marguerite gave me a little nod, and said, “And my sweets?
” “Here they are.
” She looked at me as she took them.
I dropped my eyes and blushed.
She leaned across to her neighbour and said something in her ear, at which both laughed.
Evidently I was the cause of their mirth, and my embarrassment increased.
At that time I had as mistress a very affectionate and sentimental little person, whose sentiment and whose melancholy letters amused me greatly.
I realized the pain I must have given her by what I now experienced, and for five minutes I loved her as no woman was ever loved.
Marguerite ate her raisins glaces without taking any more notice of me.
The friend who had introduced me did not wish to let me remain in so ridiculous a position.
“Marguerite,” he said, “you must not be surprised if M. Duval says nothing: you overwhelm him to such a degree that he can not find a word to say.
” “I should say, on the contrary, that he has only come with you because it would have bored you to come here by yourself.
” “If that were true,” I said, “I should not have begged Ernest to ask your permission to introduce me.
” “Perhaps that was only in order to put off the fatal moment.
” However little one may have known women like Marguerite, one can not but know the delight they take in pretending to be witty and in teasing the people whom they meet for the first time.
It is no doubt a return for the humiliations which they often have to submit to on the part of those whom they see every day.
To answer them properly, one requires a certain knack, and I had not had the opportunity of acquiring it; besides, the idea that I had formed of Marguerite accentuated the effects of her mockery.
Nothing that came from her was indifferent to me.
I rose to my feet, saying in an altered voice, which I could not entirely control: “If that is what you think of me, madame, I have only to ask your pardon for my indiscretion, and to take leave of you with the assurance that it shall not occur again.
” Thereupon I bowed and quitted the box.
I had scarcely closed the door when I heard a third peal of laughter.
It would not have been well for anybody who had elbowed me at that moment.
I returned to my seat.
The signal for raising the curtain was given.
Ernest came back to his place beside me.
“What a way you behaved!
” he said, as he sat down.
“They will think you are mad.
” “What did Marguerite say after I had gone?
” “She laughed, and said she had never seen anyone so funny.
But don’t look upon it as a lost chance; only do not do these women the honour of taking them seriously.
They do not know what politeness and ceremony are.
It is as if you were to offer perfumes to dogs—they would think it smelled bad, and go and roll in the gutter.
” “After all, what does it matter to me?
” I said, affecting to speak in a nonchalant way.
“I shall never see this woman again, and if I liked her before meeting her, it is quite different now that I know her.
” “Bah!
I don’t despair of seeing you one day at the back of her box, and of hearing that you are ruining yourself for her.
However, you are right, she hasn’t been well brought up; but she would be a charming mistress to have.
” Happily, the curtain rose and my friend was silent.
I could not possibly tell you what they were acting.
All that I remember is that from time to time I raised my eyes to the box I had quitted so abruptly, and that the faces of fresh visitors succeeded one another all the time.
