Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

"You will do better never to say it."

"Why?"

"Because only one of two things can come of it."

"What?"

"Either I shall not accept: then you will have a grudge against me; or

I shall accept: then you will have a sorry mistress; a woman who is

nervous, ill, sad, or gay with a gaiety sadder than grief, a woman who

spits blood and spends a hundred thousand francs a year. That is all

very well for a rich old man like the duke, but it is very bad for a

young man like you, and the proof of it is that all the young lovers

I have had have very soon left me." I did not answer; I listened. This

frankness, which was almost a kind of confession, the sad life, of which

I caught some glimpse through the golden veil which covered it, and

whose reality the poor girl sought to escape in dissipation, drink,

and wakefulness, impressed me so deeply that I could not utter a single

word.

"Come," continued Marguerite, "we are talking mere childishness. Give me

your arm and let us go back to the dining-room. They won't know what we

mean by our absence."

"Go in, if you like, but allow me to stay here."

"Why?"

"Because your mirth hurts me."

"Well, I will be sad."

"Marguerite, let me say to you something which you have no doubt often

heard, so often that the habit of hearing it has made you believe it no

longer, but which is none the less real, and which I will never repeat."

"And that is...?" she said, with the smile of a young mother listening

to some foolish notion of her child.

"It is this, that ever since I have seen you, I know not why, you have

taken a place in my life; that, if I drive the thought of you out of my

mind, it always comes back; that when I met you to-day, after not having

seen you for two years, you made a deeper impression on my heart and

mind than ever; that, now that you have let me come to see you, now that

I know you, now that I know all that is strange in you, you have become

a necessity of my life, and you will drive me mad, not only if you will

not love me, but if you will not let me love you."

"But, foolish creature that you are, I shall say to you, like Mme. D.,

'You must be very rich, then!' Why, you don't know that I spend six or

seven thousand francs a month, and that I could not live without it; you

don't know, my poor friend, that I should ruin you in no time, and that

your family would cast you off if you were to live with a woman like me.

Let us be friends, good friends, but no more. Come and see me, we will

laugh and talk, but don't exaggerate what I am worth, for I am worth

very little. You have a good heart, you want some one to love you, you

are too young and too sensitive to live in a world like mine. Take a

married woman. You see, I speak to you frankly, like a friend."