At this point Armand stopped.
"Would you close the window for me?" he said. "I am beginning to feel cold. Meanwhile, I will get into bed."I closed the window. Armand, who was still very weak, took off his dressing-gown and lay down in bed, resting his head for a few moments on the pillow, like a man who is tired by much talking or disturbed by painful memories.
"Perhaps you have been talking too much," I said to him. "Would you rather for me to go and leave you to sleep? You can tell me the rest of the story another day.""Are you tired of listening to it?"
"Quite the contrary."
"Then I will go on. If you left me alone, I should not sleep."When I returned home (he continued, without needing to pause and recollect himself, so fresh were all the details in his mind), Idid not go to bed, but began to reflect over the day's adventure.
The meeting, the introduction, the promise of Marguerite, had followed one another so rapidly, and so unexpectedly, that there were moments when it seemed to me I had been dreaming.
Nevertheless, it was not the first time that a girl like Marguerite had promised herself to a man on the morrow of the day on which he had asked for the promise.
Though, indeed, I made this reflection, the first impression produced on me by my future mistress was so strong that it still persisted. I refused obstinately to see in her a woman like other women, and, with the vanity so common to all men, I was ready to believe that she could not but share the attraction which drew me to her.
Yet, I had before me plenty of instances to the contrary, and Ihad often heard that the affection of Marguerite was a thing to be had more or less dear, according to the season.
But, on the other hand, how was I to reconcile this reputation with her constant refusal of the young count whom we had found at her house? You may say that he was unattractive to her, and that, as she was splendidly kept by the duke, she would be more likely to choose a man who was attractive to her, if she were to take another lover. If so, why did she not choose Gaston, who was rich, witty, and charming, and why did she care for me, whom she had thought so ridiculous the first time she had seen me?
It is true that there are events of a moment which tell more than the courtship of a year. Of those who were at the supper, I was the only one who had been concerned at her leaving the table. Ihad followed her, I had been so affected as to be unable to hide it from her, I had wept as I kissed her hand. This circumstance, added to my daily visits during the two months of her illness, might have shown her that I was somewhat different from the other men she knew, and perhaps she had said to herself that for a love which could thus manifest itself she might well do what she had done so often that it had no more consequence for her.
All these suppositions, as you may see, were improbable enough;but whatever might have been the reason of her consent, one thing was certain, she had consented.
Now, I was in love with Marguerite. I had nothing more to ask of her. Nevertheless, though she was only a kept woman, I had so anticipated for myself, perhaps to poetize it a little, a hopeless love, that the nearer the moment approached when Ishould have nothing more to hope, the more I doubted. I did not close my eyes all night.
I scarcely knew myself. I was half demented. Now, I seemed to myself not handsome or rich or elegant enough to possess such a woman, now I was filled with vanity at the thought of it; then Ibegan to fear lest Marguerite had no more than a few days'
caprice for me, and I said to myself that since we should soon have to part, it would be better not to keep her appointment, but to write and tell her my fears and leave her. From that I went on to unlimited hope, unbounded confidence. I dreamed incredible dreams of the future; I said to myself that she should owe to me her moral and physical recovery, that I should spend my whole life with her, and that her love should make me happier than all the maidenly loves in the world.
But I can not repeat to you the thousand thoughts that rose from my heart to my head, and that only faded away with the sleep that came to me at daybreak.
When I awoke it was two o'clock. The weather was superb. I don't think life ever seemed to me so beautiful and so full of possibilities. The memories of the night before came to me without shadow or hindrance, escorted gaily by the hopes of the night to come. From time to time my heart leaped with love and joy in my breast. A sweet fever thrilled me. I thought no more of the reasons which had filled my mind before I slept. I saw only the result, I thought only of the hour when I was to see Marguerite again.
It was impossible to stay indoors. My room seemed too small to contain my happiness. I needed the whole of nature to unbosom myself.
I went out. Passing by the Rue d'Antin, I saw Marguerite's coupe'
waiting for her at the door. I went toward the Champs-Elysees. Iloved all the people whom I met. Love gives one a kind of goodness.
After I had been walking for an hour from the Marly horses to the Rond-Point, I saw Marguerite's carriage in the distance; Idivined rather than recognised it. As it was turning the corner of the Champs-Elysees it stopped, and a tall young man left a group of people with whom he was talking and came up to her. They talked for a few moments; the young man returned to his friends, the horses set out again, and as I came near the group Irecognised the one who had spoken to Marguerite as the Comte de G., whose portrait I had seen and whom Prudence had indicated to me as the man to whom Marguerite owed her position. It was to him that she had closed her doors the night before; I imagined that she had stopped her carriage in order to explain to him why she had done so, and I hoped that at the same time she had found some new pretext for not receiving him on the following night.
How I spent the rest of the day I do not know; I walked, smoked, talked, but what I said, whom I met, I had utterly forgotten by ten o'clock in the evening.
