Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

The more I reflected the more I said to myself that Marguerite had no

reason for feigning a love which she did not feel, and I said to myself

also that women have two ways of loving, one of which may arise from the

other: they love with the heart or with the senses. Often a woman takes

a lover in obedience to the mere will of the senses, and learns without

expecting it the mystery of immaterial love, and lives henceforth only

through her heart; often a girl who has sought in marriage only the

union of two pure affections receives the sudden revelation of physical

love, that energetic conclusion of the purest impressions of the soul.

In the midst of these thoughts I fell asleep; I was awakened by a letter

from Marguerite containing these words: "Here are my orders: To-night at the Vaudeville.

"Come during the third entr'acte."

I put the letter into a drawer, so that I might always have it at band

in case I doubted its reality, as I did from time to time.

She did not tell me to come to see her during the day, and I dared not

go; but I had so great a desire to see her before the evening that I

went to the Champs-Elysees, where I again saw her pass and repass, as I

had on the previous day.

At seven o'clock I was at the Vaudeville. Never had I gone to a theatre

so early. The boxes filled one after another. Only one remained empty,

the stage box. At the beginning of the third act I heard the door of

the box, on which my eyes had been almost constantly fixed, open, and

Marguerite appeared. She came to the front at once, looked around the

stalls, saw me, and thanked me with a look.

That night she was marvellously beautiful. Was I the cause of this

coquetry? Did she love me enough to believe that the more beautiful she

looked the happier I should be? I did not know, but if that had been

her intention she certainly succeeded, for when she appeared all heads

turned, and the actor who was then on the stage looked to see who had

produced such an effect on the audience by her mere presence there.

And I had the key of this woman's room, and in three or four hours she

would again be mine!

People blame those who let themselves be ruined by actresses and kept

women; what astonishes me is that twenty times greater follies are not

committed for them. One must have lived that life, as I have, to know

how much the little vanities which they afford their lovers every day

help to fasten deeper into the heart, since we have no other word for

it, the love which he has for them.