Camille ALEXANDRE DUMAS FILS CHAPTER 19 pdf

Camille
ALEXANDRE DUMAS FILS

CHAPTER 19

In his first three letters my father inquired the cause of my silence; in the last he
allowed me to see that he had heard of my change of life, and informed me that
he was about to come and see me.
I have always had a great respect and a sincere affection for my father. I replied
that I had been travelling for a short time, and begged him to let me know
beforehand what day he would arrive, so that I could be there to meet him.
I gave my servant my address in the country, telling him to bring me the first
letter that came with the postmark of C., then I returned to Bougival.
Marguerite was waiting for me at the garden gate. She looked at me anxiously.
Throwing her arms round my neck, she said to me: "Have you seen Prudence?"
"No."
"You were a long time in Paris."
"I found letters from my father to which I had to reply."
A few minutes afterward Nanine entered, all out of breath. Marguerite rose and
talked with her in whispers. When Nanine had gone out Marguerite sat down by
me again and said, taking my hand:
"Why did you deceive me? You went to see Prudence."
"Who told you?"
"Nanine."
"And how did she know?"
"She followed you."
"You told her to follow me?"
"Yes. I thought that you must have had a very strong motive for going to Paris,
after not leaving me for four months. I was afraid that something might happen
to you, or that you were perhaps going to see another woman."
"Child!"

"Now I am relieved. I know what you have done, but I don't yet know what you
have been told."
I showed Marguerite my father's letters.
"That is not what I am asking you about. What I want to know is why you went
to see Prudence."
"To see her."
"That's a lie, my friend."
"Well, I went to ask her if the horse was any better, and if she wanted your
shawl and your jewels any longer."
Marguerite blushed, but did not answer.
"And," I continued, "I learned what you had done with your horses, shawls, and
jewels."
"And you are vexed?"
"I am vexed that it never occurred to you to ask me for what you were in want
of."
"In a liaison like ours, if the woman has any sense of dignity at all, she ought to
make every possible sacrifice rather than ask her lover for money and so give a
venal character to her love. You love me, I am sure, but you do not know on
how slight a thread depends the love one has for a woman like me. Who knows?
Perhaps some day when you were bored or worried you would fancy you saw a
carefully concerted plan in our liaison. Prudence is a chatterbox. What need had
I of the horses? It was an economy to sell them. I don't use them and I don't
spend anything on their keep; if you love me, I ask nothing more, and you will
love me just as much without horses, or shawls, or diamonds."
All that was said so naturally that the tears came to my eyes as I listened.
"But, my good Marguerite," I replied, pressing her hands lovingly, "you knew
that one day I should discover the sacrifice you had made, and that the moment
I discovered it I should allow it no longer."
"But why?"
"Because, my dear child, I can not allow your affection for me to deprive you of

even a trinket. I too should not like you to be able, in a moment when you were
bored or worried, to think that if you were living with somebody else those
moments would not exist; and to repent, if only for a minute, of living with me.
In a few days your horses, your diamonds, and your shawls shall be returned to
you. They are as necessary to you as air is to life, and it may be absurd, but I
like you better showy than simple."
"Then you no longer love me."
"Foolish creature!"
"If you loved me, you would let me love you my own way; on the contrary, you
persist in only seeing in me a woman to whom luxury is indispensable, and
whom you think you are always obliged to pay. You are ashamed to accept the
proof of my love. In spite of yourself, you think of leaving me some day, and
you want to put your disinterestedness beyond risk of suspicion. You are right,
my friend, but I had better hopes."
And Marguerite made a motion to rise; I held her, and said to her:
"I want you to be happy and to have nothing to reproach me for, that is all."
"And we are going to be separated!"
"Why, Marguerite, who can separate us?" I cried.
"You, who will not let me take you on your own level, but insist on taking me
on mine; you, who wish me to keep the luxury in the midst of which I have
lived, and so keep the moral distance which separates us; you, who do not
believe that my affection is sufficiently disinterested to share with me what you
have, though we could live happily enough on it together, and would rather ruin
yourself, because you are still bound by a foolish prejudice. Do you really think
that I could compare a carriage and diamonds with your love? Do you think that
my real happiness lies in the trifles that mean so much when one has nothing to
love, but which become trifling indeed when one has? You will pay my debts,
realize your estate, and then keep me? How long will that last? Two or three
months, and then it will be too late to live the life I propose, for then you will
have to take everything from me, and that is what a man of honour can not do;

while now you have eight or ten thousand francs a year, on which we should be
able to live. I will sell the rest of what I do not want, and with this alone I will
make two thousand francs a year. We will take a nice little flat in which we can
both live. In the summer we will go into the country, not to a house like this, but
to a house just big enough for two people. You are independent, I am free, we
are young; in heaven's name, Armand, do not drive me back into the life I had to
lead once!"
I could not answer. Tears of gratitude and love filled my eyes, and I flung
myself into Marguerite's arms.
"I wanted," she continued, "to arrange everything without telling you, pay all
my debts, and take a new flat. In October we should have been back in Paris,
and all would have come out; but since Prudence has told you all, you will have
to agree beforehand, instead of agreeing afterward. Do you love me enough for
that?"
It was impossible to resist such devotion. I kissed her hands ardently, and said:
"I will do whatever you wish."
It was agreed that we should do as she had planned. Thereupon, she went wild
with delight; danced, sang, amused herself with calling up pictures of her new
flat in all its simplicity, and began to consult me as to its position and
arrangement. I saw how happy and proud she was of this resolution, which
seemed as if it would bring us into closer and closer relationship, and I resolved
to do my own share. In an instant I decided the whole course of my life. I put
my affairs in order, and made over to Marguerite the income which had come to
me from my mother, and which seemed little enough in return for the sacrifice
which I was accepting. There remained the five thousand francs a year from my
father; and, whatever happened, I had always enough to live on. I did not tell
Marguerite what I had done, certain as I was that she would refuse the gift. This
income came from a mortgage of sixty thousand francs on a house that I had
never even seen. All that I knew was that every three months my father's
solicitor, an old friend of the family, handed over to me seven hundred and fifty

francs in return for my receipt.
The day when Marguerite and I came to Paris to look for a flat, I went to this
solicitor and asked him what had to be done in order to make over this income
to another person. The good man imagined I was ruined, and questioned me as
to the cause of my decision. As I knew that I should be obliged, sooner or later,
to say in whose favour I made this transfer, I thought it best to tell him the truth
at once. He made none of the objections that his position as friend and solicitor
authorized him to make, and assured me that he would arrange the whole affair
in the best way possible. Naturally, I begged him to employ the greatest
discretion in regard to my father, and on leaving him I rejoined Marguerite, who
was waiting for me at Julie Duprat's, where she had gone in preference to going
to listen to the moralizings of Prudence.
We began to look out for flats. All those that we saw seemed to Marguerite too
dear, and to me too simple. However, we finally found, in one of the quietest
parts of Paris, a little house, isolated from the main part of the building. Behind
this little house was a charming garden, surrounded by walls high enough to
screen us from our neighbours, and low enough not to shut off our own view. It
was better than our expectations.
While I went to give notice at my own flat, Marguerite went to see a business
agent, who, she told me, had already done for one of her friends exactly what
she wanted him to do for her. She came on to the Rue de Provence in a state of
great delight. The man had promised to pay all her debts, to give her a receipt
for the amount, and to hand over to her twenty thousand francs, in return for the
whole of her furniture. You have seen by the amount taken at the sale that this
honest man would have gained thirty thousand francs out of his client.
We went back joyously to Bougival, talking over our projects for the future,
which, thanks to our heedlessness, and especially to our love, we saw in the
rosiest light.
A week later, as we were having lunch, Nanine came to tell us that my servant
was asking for me. "Let him come in," I said.

"Sir," said he, "your father has arrived in Paris, and begs you to return at once to
your rooms, where he is waiting for you."
This piece of news was the most natural thing in the world, yet, as we heard it,
Marguerite and I looked at one another. We foresaw trouble. Before she had
spoken a word, I replied to her thought, and, taking her hand, I said, "Fear
nothing."
"Come back as soon as possible," whispered Marguerite, embracing me; "I will
wait for you at the window."
I sent on Joseph to tell my father that I was on my way. Two hours later I was at
the Rue de Provence.