Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

"Then, besides that," continued Prudence; "admit that Marguerite loves

you enough to give up the count or the duke, in case one of them were to

discover your liaison and to tell her to choose between him and you,

the sacrifice that she would make for you would be enormous, you can not

deny it. What equal sacrifice could you make for her, on your part, and

when you had got tired of her, what could you do to make up for what you

had taken from her? Nothing. You would have cut her off from the world

in which her fortune and her future were to be found; she would have

given you her best years, and she would be forgotten. Either you would

be an ordinary man, and, casting her past in her teeth, you would leave

her, telling her that you were only doing like her other lovers, and you

would abandon her to certain misery; or you would be an honest man, and,

feeling bound to keep her by you, you would bring inevitable trouble

upon yourself, for a liaison which is excusable in a young man, is no

longer excusable in a man of middle age. It becomes an obstacle to every

thing; it allows neither family nor ambition, man's second and last

loves. Believe me, then, my friend, take things for what they are worth,

and do not give a kept woman the right to call herself your creditor, no

matter in what."

It was well argued, with a logic of which I should have thought Prudence

incapable. I had nothing to reply, except that she was right; I took her

hand and thanked her for her counsels.

"Come, come," said she, "put these foolish theories to flight, and

laugh over them. Life is pleasant, my dear fellow; it all depends on the

colour of the glass through which one sees it. Ask your friend Gaston;

there's a man who seems to me to understand love as I understand it. All

that you need think of, unless you are quite a fool, is that close by

there is a beautiful girl who is waiting impatiently for the man who is

with her to go, thinking of you, keeping the whole night for you, and

who loves you, I am certain. Now, come to the window with me, and let us

watch for the count to go; he won't be long in leaving the coast clear."

Prudence opened the window, and we leaned side by side over the balcony.

She watched the few passers, I reflected. All that she had said buzzed

in my head, and I could not help feeling that she was right; but

the genuine love which I had for Marguerite had some difficulty in

accommodating itself to such a belief. I sighed from time to time, at

which Prudence turned, and shrugged her shoulders like a physician who

has given up his patient.