"Shall I wait for an answer?" asked Joseph (my servant, like all

servants, was called Joseph).

"If they ask whether there is a reply, you will say that you don't know,

and wait."

I buoyed myself up with the hope that she would reply. Poor, feeble

creatures that we are! All the time that my servant was away I was in a

state of extreme agitation. At one moment I would recall how Marguerite

had given herself to me, and ask myself by what right I wrote her an

impertinent letter, when she could reply that it was not M. de G. who

supplanted me, but I who had supplanted M. de G.: a mode of reasoning

which permits many women to have many lovers. At another moment I would

recall her promises, and endeavour to convince myself that my letter was

only too gentle, and that there were not expressions forcible enough to

punish a woman who laughed at a love like mine. Then I said to myself

that I should have done better not to have written to her, but to have

gone to see her, and that then I should have had the pleasure of seeing

the tears that she would shed. Finally, I asked myself what she would

reply to me; already prepared to believe whatever excuse she made.

Joseph returned.

"Well?" I said to him.

"Sir," said he, "madame was not up, and still asleep, but as soon as she

rings the letter will be taken to her, and if there is any reply it will

be sent."

She was asleep!

Twenty times I was on the point of sending to get the letter back, but

every time I said to myself: "Perhaps she will have got it already, and

it would look as if I have repented of sending it."

As the hour at which it seemed likely that she would reply came nearer,

I regretted more and more that I had written. The clock struck, ten,

eleven, twelve. At twelve I was on the point of keeping the appointment

as if nothing had happened. In the end I could see no way out of the

circle of fire which closed upon me.

Then I began to believe, with the superstition which people have when

they are waiting, that if I went out for a little while, I should find

an answer when I got back. I went out under the pretext of going to

lunch.

Instead of lunching at the Cafe Foy, at the corner of the Boulevard, as

I usually did, I preferred to go to the Palais Royal and so pass through

the Rue d'Antin. Every time that I saw a woman at a distance, I fancied

it was Nanine bringing me an answer. I passed through the Rue d'Antin

without even coming across a commissionaire. I went to Very's in the

Palais Royal. The waiter gave me something to eat, or rather served up

to me whatever he liked, for I ate nothing. In spite of myself, my eyes

were constantly fixed on the clock. I returned home, certain that I

should find a letter from Marguerite.




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