La dame aux camélias (Novel). English Read online

  Produced by Dianne Bean

  CAMILLE (LA DAME AUX CAMILIAS)

  By Alexandre Dumas, fils

  Chapter 1

  In my opinion, it is impossible to create characters until one has spenta long time in studying men, as it is impossible to speak a languageuntil it has been seriously acquired. Not being old enough to invent, Icontent myself with narrating, and I beg the reader to assure himself ofthe truth of a story in which all the characters, with the exception ofthe heroine, are still alive. Eye-witnesses of the greater part of thefacts which I have collected are to be found in Paris, and I might callupon them to confirm me if my testimony is not enough. And, thanks to aparticular circumstance, I alone can write these things, for I aloneam able to give the final details, without which it would have beenimpossible to make the story at once interesting and complete.

  This is how these details came to my knowledge. On the 12th of March,1847, I saw in the Rue Lafitte a great yellow placard announcing a saleof furniture and curiosities. The sale was to take place on account ofthe death of the owner. The owner's name was not mentioned, but the salewas to be held at 9, Rue d'Antin, on the 16th, from 12 to 5. The placardfurther announced that the rooms and furniture could be seen on the 13thand 14th.

  I have always been very fond of curiosities, and I made up my mind notto miss the occasion, if not of buying some, at all events of seeingthem. Next day I called at 9, Rue d'Antin.

  It was early in the day, and yet there were already a number ofvisitors, both men and women, and the women, though they were dressedin cashmere and velvet, and had their carriages waiting for them at thedoor, gazed with astonishment and admiration at the luxury which theysaw before them.

  I was not long in discovering the reason of this astonishment andadmiration, for, having begun to examine things a little carefully, Idiscovered without difficulty that I was in the house of a kept woman.Now, if there is one thing which women in society would like to see (andthere were society women there), it is the home of those women whosecarriages splash their own carriages day by day, who, like them, side byside with them, have their boxes at the Opera and at the Italiens,and who parade in Paris the opulent insolence of their beauty, theirdiamonds, and their scandal.

  This one was dead, so the most virtuous of women could enter even herbedroom. Death had purified the air of this abode of splendid foulness,and if more excuse were needed, they had the excuse that they had merelycome to a sale, they knew not whose. They had read the placards, theywished to see what the placards had announced, and to make their choicebeforehand. What could be more natural? Yet, all the same, in the midstof all these beautiful things, they could not help looking about forsome traces of this courtesan's life, of which they had heard, no doubt,strange enough stories.

  Unfortunately the mystery had vanished with the goddess, and, forall their endeavours, they discovered only what was on sale sincethe owner's decease, and nothing of what had been on sale during herlifetime. For the rest, there were plenty of things worth buying. Thefurniture was superb; there were rosewood and buhl cabinets and tables,Sevres and Chinese vases, Saxe statuettes, satin, velvet, lace; therewas nothing lacking.

  I sauntered through the rooms, following the inquisitive ladies ofdistinction. They entered a room with Persian hangings, and I was justgoing to enter in turn, when they came out again almost immediately,smiling, and as if ashamed of their own curiosity. I was all the moreeager to see the room. It was the dressing-room, laid out with all thearticles of toilet, in which the dead woman's extravagance seemed to beseen at its height.

  On a large table against the wall, a table three feet in width and sixin length, glittered all the treasures of Aucoc and Odiot. It was amagnificent collection, and there was not one of those thousand littlethings so necessary to the toilet of a woman of the kind which was notin gold or silver. Such a collection could only have been got togetherlittle by little, and the same lover had certainly not begun and endedit.

  Not being shocked at the sight of a kept woman's dressing-room, Iamused myself with examining every detail, and I discovered that thesemagnificently chiselled objects bore different initials and differentcoronets. I looked at one after another, each recalling a separateshame, and I said that God had been merciful to the poor child, in nothaving left her to pay the ordinary penalty, but rather to die inthe midst of her beauty and luxury, before the coming of old age, thecourtesan's first death.

  Is there anything sadder in the world than the old age of vice,especially in woman? She preserves no dignity, she inspires no interest.The everlasting repentance, not of the evil ways followed, but of theplans that have miscarried, the money that has been spent in vain, isas saddening a thing as one can well meet with. I knew an aged woman whohad once been "gay," whose only link with the past was a daughter almostas beautiful as she herself had been. This poor creature to whom hermother had never said, "You are my child," except to bid her nourish herold age as she herself had nourished her youth, was called Louise, and,being obedient to her mother, she abandoned herself without volition,without passion, without pleasure, as she would have worked at any otherprofession that might have been taught her.

  The constant sight of dissipation, precocious dissipation, in additionto her constant sickly state, had extinguished in her mind all theknowledge of good and evil that God had perhaps given her, but that noone had ever thought of developing. I shall always remember her, asshe passed along the boulevards almost every day at the same hour,accompanied by her mother as assiduously as a real mother might haveaccompanied her daughter. I was very young then, and ready to accept formyself the easy morality of the age. I remember, however, thecontempt and disgust which awoke in me at the sight of this scandalouschaperoning. Her face, too, was inexpressibly virginal in its expressionof innocence and of melancholy suffering. She was like a figure ofResignation.

  One day the girl's face was transfigured. In the midst of all thedebauches mapped out by her mother, it seemed to her as if God had leftover for her one happiness. And why indeed should God, who had made herwithout strength, have left her without consolation, under the sorrowfulburden of her life? One day, then, she realized that she was to have achild, and all that remained to her of chastity leaped for joy. The soulhas strange refuges. Louise ran to tell the good news to her mother.It is a shameful thing to speak of, but we are not telling tales ofpleasant sins; we are telling of true facts, which it would be better,no doubt, to pass over in silence, if we did not believe that it isneedful from time to time to reveal the martyrdom of those who arecondemned without bearing, scorned without judging; shameful it is, butthis mother answered the daughter that they had already scarce enoughfor two, and would certainly not have enough for three; that suchchildren are useless, and a lying-in is so much time lost.

  Next day a midwife, of whom all we will say is that she was a friend ofthe mother, visited Louise, who remained in bed for a few days, and thengot up paler and feebler than before.

  Three months afterward a man took pity on her and tried to heal her,morally and physically; but the last shock had been too violent, andLouise died of it. The mother still lives; how? God knows.

  This story returned to my mind while I looked at the silver toiletthings, and a certain space of time must have elapsed during thesereflections, for no one was left in the room but myself and anattendant, who, standing near the door, was carefully watching me to seethat I did not pocket anything.

  I went up to the man, to whom I was causing so much anxiety. "Sir," Isaid, "can you tell me the name of the person who formerly lived here?"

  "Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier."

  I knew her by name and by sight.

  "What
!" I said to the attendant; "Marguerite Gautier is dead?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "When did she die?"

  "Three weeks ago, I believe."

  "And why are the rooms on view?"

  "The creditors believe that it will send up the prices. People can seebeforehand the effect of the things; you see that induces them to buy."

  "She was in debt, then?"

  "To any extent, sir."

  "But the sale will cover it?"

  "And more too."

  "Who will get what remains over?"

  "Her family."

  "She had a family?"

  "It seems so."

  "Thanks."

  The attendant, reassured as to my intentions, touched his hat, and Iwent out.

  "Poor girl!" I said to myself as I returned home; "she must have had asad death, for, in her world, one has friends only when one is perfectlywell." And in spite of myself I began to feel melancholy over the fateof Marguerite Gautier.

  It will seem absurd to many people, but I have an unbounded sympathyfor women of this kind, and I do not think it necessary to apologize forsuch sympathy.

  One day, as I was going to the Prefecture for a passport, I saw in oneof the neighbouring streets a poor girl who was being marched along bytwo policemen. I do not know what was the matter. All I know is that shewas weeping bitterly as she kissed an infant only a few months old, fromwhom her arrest was to separate her. Since that day I have never daredto despise a woman at first sight.