Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

Thus, in the midst of all that, I preserved a considerable amount of

self-possession; I lost only what I was able to pay, and gained only

what I should have been able to lose.

For the rest, chance was on my side. I made no debts, and I spent three

times as much money as when I did not gamble. It was impossible to

resist an existence which gave me an easy means of satisfying the

thousand caprices of Marguerite. As for her, she continued to love me as

much, or even more than ever.

As I told you, I began by being allowed to stay only from midnight to

six o'clock, then I was asked sometimes to a box in the theatre, then

she sometimes came to dine with me. One morning I did not go till eight,

and there came a day when I did not go till twelve.

But, sooner than the moral metamorphosis, a physical metamorphosis came

about in Marguerite. I had taken her cure in hand, and the poor

girl, seeing my aim, obeyed me in order to prove her gratitude. I had

succeeded without effort or trouble in almost isolating her from her

former habits. My doctor, whom I had made her meet, had told me that

only rest and calm could preserve her health, so that in place of supper

and sleepless nights, I succeeded in substituting a hygienic regime and

regular sleep. In spite of herself, Marguerite got accustomed to this

new existence, whose salutary effects she already realized. She began

to spend some of her evenings at home, or, if the weather was fine, she

wrapped herself in a shawl, put on a veil, and we went on foot, like

two children, in the dim alleys of the Champs-Elysees. She would come

in tired, take a light supper, and go to bed after a little music or

reading, which she had never been used to do. The cough, which

every time that I heard it seemed to go through my chest, had almost

completely disappeared.

At the end of six weeks the count was entirely given up, and only the

duke obliged me to conceal my liaison with Marguerite, and even he was

sent away when I was there, under the pretext that she was asleep and

had given orders that she was not to be awakened.

The habit or the need of seeing me which Marguerite had now contracted

had this good result: that it forced me to leave the gaming-table just

at the moment when an adroit gambler would have left it. Settling one

thing against another, I found myself in possession of some ten thousand

francs, which seemed to me an inexhaustible capital.