Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

Alas, we made haste to be happy, as if we knew that we were not to be

happy long.

For two months we had not even been to Paris. No one came to see us,

except Prudence and Julie Duprat, of whom I have spoken to you, and to

whom Marguerite was afterward to give the touching narrative that I have

there.

I passed whole days at the feet of my mistress. We opened the windows

upon the garden, and, as we watched the summer ripening in its flowers

and under the shadow of the trees, we breathed together that true life

which neither Marguerite nor I had ever known before.

Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There were

days when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterfly

or a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets than

would have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on the

grass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore.

It was at this time that she read Manon Lescaut, over and over again.

I found her several times making notes in the book, and she always

declared that when a woman loves, she can not do as Manon did.

The duke wrote to her two or three times. She recognised the writing and

gave me the letters without reading them. Sometimes the terms of these

letters brought tears to my eyes. He had imagined that by closing his

purse to Marguerite, he would bring her back to him; but when he had

perceived the uselessness of these means, he could hold out no longer;

he wrote and asked that he might see her again, as before, no matter on

what conditions.

I read these urgent and repeated letters, and tore them in pieces,

without telling Marguerite what they contained and without advising her

to see the old man again, though I was half inclined to, so much did I

pity him, but I was afraid lest, if I so advised her she should think

that I wished the duke, not merely to come and see her again, but to

take over the expenses of the house; I feared, above all, that she might

think me capable of shirking the responsibilities of every consequence

to which her love for me might lead her.

It thus came about that the duke, receiving no reply, ceased to write,

and that Marguerite and I continued to live together without giving a

thought to the future.