Marguerite was a woman in the same position as Olympe, and yet I should
never have dared say to her the first time I met her what I had said to
the other woman. I loved Marguerite. I saw in her instincts which were
lacking in the other, and at the very moment in which I made my bargain,
I felt a disgust toward the woman with whom I was making it.
She accepted, of course, in the end, and at midday I left her house as
her lover; but I quitted her without a recollection of the caresses
and of the words of love which she had felt bound to shower upon me in
return for the six thousand francs which I left with her. And yet there
were men who had ruined themselves for that woman.
From that day I inflicted on Marguerite a continual persecution. Olympe
and she gave up seeing one another, as you might imagine. I gave my
new mistress a carriage and jewels. I gambled, I committed every
extravagance which could be expected of a man in love with such a woman
as Olympe. The report of my new infatuation was immediately spread
abroad.
Prudence herself was taken in, and finally thought that I had completely
forgotten Marguerite. Marguerite herself, whether she guessed my motive
or was deceived like everybody else, preserved a perfect dignity in
response to the insults which I heaped upon her daily. Only, she seemed
to suffer, for whenever I met her she was more and more pale, more
and more sad. My love for her, carried to the point at which it was
transformed into hatred, rejoiced at the sight of her daily sorrow.
Often, when my cruelty toward her became infamous, Marguerite lifted
upon me such appealing eyes that I blushed for the part I was playing,
and was ready to implore her forgiveness.
But my repentance was only of a moment's duration, and Olympe, who had
finally put aside all self-respect, and discovered that by annoying
Marguerite she could get from me whatever she wanted, constantly stirred
up my resentment against her, and insulted her whenever she found an
opportunity, with the cowardly persistence of a woman licensed by the
authority of a man.
At last Marguerite gave up going to balls or theatres, for fear of
meeting Olympe and me. Then direct impertinences gave way to anonymous
letters, and there was not a shameful thing which I did not encourage
my mistress to relate and which I did not myself relate in reference to
Marguerite.
To reach such a point I must have been literally mad. I was like a man
drunk upon bad wine, who falls into one of those nervous exaltations in
which the hand is capable of committing a crime without the head knowing
anything about it. In the midst of it all I endured a martyrdom. The
not disdainful calm, the not contemptuous dignity with which Marguerite
responded to all my attacks, and which raised her above me in my own
eyes, enraged me still more against her.