Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

Armand, tired by this long narrative, often interrupted by his tears,

put his two hands over his forehead and closed his eyes to think, or

to try to sleep, after giving me the pages written by the hand of

Marguerite. A few minutes after, a more rapid breathing told me that

Armand slept, but that light sleep which the least sound banishes.

This is what I read; I copy it without adding or omitting a syllable: To-day is the 15th December. I have been ill three or four days. This

morning I stayed in bed. The weather is dark, I am sad; there is no one

by me. I think of you, Armand. And you, where are you, while I write

these lines? Far from Paris, far, far, they tell me, and perhaps you

have already forgotten Marguerite. Well, be happy; I owe you the only

happy moments in my life.

I can not help wanting to explain all my conduct to you, and I have

written you a letter; but, written by a girl like me, such a letter

might seem to be a lie, unless death had sanctified it by its authority,

and, instead of a letter, it were a confession.

To-day I am ill; I may die of this illness, for I have always had the

presentiment that I shall die young. My mother died of consumption, and

the way I have always lived could but increase the only heritage she

ever left me. But I do not want to die without clearing up for you

everything about me; that is, if, when you come back, you will still

trouble yourself about the poor girl whom you loved before you went

away.

This is what the letter contained; I shall like writing it over again,

so as to give myself another proof of my own justification.

You remember, Armand, how the arrival of your father surprised us at

Bougival; you remember the involuntary fright that his arrival caused

me, and the scene which took place between you and him, which you told

me of in the evening.

Next day, when you were at Paris, waiting for your father, and he did

not return, a man came to the door and handed in a letter from M. Duval.

His letter, which I inclose with this, begged me, in the most serious

terms, to keep you away on the following day, on some excuse or

other, and to see your father, who wished to speak to me, and asked me

particularly not to say anything to you about it.

You know how I insisted on your returning to Paris next day.