Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

Two days after, the sale was ended. It had produced 3.50,000 francs. The

creditors divided among them two thirds, and the family, a sister and a

grand-nephew, received the remainder.

The sister opened her eyes very wide when the lawyer wrote to her that

she had inherited 50,000 francs. The girl had not seen her sister for

six or seven years, and did not know what had become of her from the

moment when she had disappeared from home. She came up to Paris in

haste, and great was the astonishment of those who had known Marguerite

when they saw as her only heir a fine, fat country girl, who until then

had never left her village. She had made the fortune at a single stroke,

without even knowing the source of that fortune. She went back, I heard

afterward, to her countryside, greatly saddened by her sister's death,

but with a sadness which was somewhat lightened by the investment at

four and a half per cent which she had been able to make.

All these circumstances, often repeated in Paris, the mother city of

scandal, had begun to be forgotten, and I was even little by little

forgetting the part I had taken in them, when a new incident brought to

my knowledge the whole of Marguerite's life, and acquainted me with

such pathetic details that I was taken with the idea of writing down the

story which I now write.

The rooms, now emptied of all their furniture, had been to let for three

or four days when one morning there was a ring at my door.

My servant, or, rather, my porter, who acted as my servant, went to the

door and brought me a card, saying that the person who had given it to

him wished to see me.

I glanced at the card and there read these two words: Armand Duval.

I tried to think where I had seen the name, and remembered the first

leaf of the copy of Manon Lescaut. What could the person who had given

the book to Marguerite want of me? I gave orders to ask him in at once.

I saw a young man, blond, tall, pale, dressed in a travelling suit which

looked as if he had not changed it for some days, and had not even taken

the trouble to brush it on arriving at Paris, for it was covered with

dust.

M. Duval was deeply agitated; he made no attempt to conceal his

agitation, and it was with tears in his eyes and a trembling voice that

he said to me: "Sir, I beg you to excuse my visit and my costume; but young people are

not very ceremonious with one another, and I was so anxious to see you

to-day that I have not even gone to the hotel to which I have sent my

luggage, and have rushed straight here, fearing that, after all, I might

miss you, early as it is."