Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

It was difficult for me to begin the conversation on the subject which

brought her. Marguerite no doubt realized it, for she went on: "I have come to trouble you, Armand, for I have two things to ask:

pardon for what I said yesterday to Mlle. Olympe, and pity for what you

are perhaps still ready to do to me. Intentionally or not, since your

return you have given me so much pain that I should be incapable now of

enduring a fourth part of what I have endured till now. You will have

pity on me, won't you? And you will understand that a man who is not

heartless has other nobler things to do than to take his revenge upon a

sick and sad woman like me. See, take my hand. I am in a fever. I left

my bed to come to you, and ask, not for your friendship, but for your

indifference."

I took Marguerite's hand. It was burning, and the poor woman shivered

under her fur cloak.

I rolled the arm-chair in which she was sitting up to the fire.

"Do you think, then, that I did not suffer," said I, "on that night

when, after waiting for you in the country, I came to look for you in

Paris, and found nothing but the letter which nearly drove me mad? How

could you have deceived me, Marguerite, when I loved you so much?

"Do not speak of that, Armand; I did not come to speak of that. I wanted

to see you only not an enemy, and I wanted to take your hand once more.

You have a mistress; she is young, pretty, you love her they say. Be

happy with her and forget me."

"And you. You are happy, no doubt?"

"Have I the face of a happy woman, Armand? Do not mock my sorrow, you,

who know better than any one what its cause and its depth are."

"It only depended on you not to have been unhappy at all, if you are as

you say."

"No, my friend; circumstances were stronger than my will. I obeyed,

not the instincts of a light woman, as you seem to say, but a serious

necessity, and reasons which you will know one day, and which will make

you forgive me."

"Why do you not tell me those reasons to-day?"

"Because they would not bring about an impossible reunion between us,

and they would separate you perhaps from those from whom you must not be

separated."