"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.