"No," I said, flushing, for I really did not know what to say;"but I should very much like to know her.""Come with me. I will introduce you."
"Ask her if you may."
"Really, there is no need to be particular with her; come."What he said troubled me. I feared to discover that Marguerite was not worthy of the sentiment which I felt for her.
In a book of Alphonse Karr entitles Am Rauchen, there is a man who one evening follows a very elegant woman, with whom he had fallen in love with at first sight on account of her beauty. Only to kiss her hand he felt that he had the strength to undertake anything, the will to conquer anything, the courage to achieve anything. He scarcely dares glance at the trim ankle which she shows as she holds her dress out of the mud. While he is dreaming of all that he would do to possess this woman, she stops at the corner of the street and asks if he will come home with her. He turns his head, crosses the street, and goes sadly back to his own house.
I recalled the story, and, having longed to suffer for this woman, I was afraid that she would accept me too promptly and give me at once what I fain would have purchased by long waiting or some great sacrifice. We men are built like that, and it is very fortunate that the imagination lends so much poetry to the senses, and that the desires of the body make thus such concession to the dreams of the soul. If any one had said to me, You shall have this woman to-night and be killed tomorrow, Iwould have accepted. If any one had said to me, you can be her lover for ten pounds, I would have refused. I would have cried like a child who sees the castle he has been dreaming about vanish away as he awakens from sleep.
All the same, I wished to know her; it was my only means of making up my mind about her. I therefore said to my friend that Iinsisted on having her permission to be introduced to her, and Iwandered to and fro in the corridors, saying to myself that in a moment's time she was going to see me, and that I should not know which way to look. I tried (sublime childishness of love!) to string together the words I should say to her.
A moment after my friend returned. "She is expecting us," he said.
"Is she alone?" I asked.
"With another woman."
"There are no men?"
"No."
"Come, then."
My friend went toward the door of the theatre.
"That is not the way," I said.
"We must go and get some sweets. She asked me for some."We went into a confectioner's in the passage de l'Opera. I would have bought the whole shop, and I was looking about to see what sweets to choose, when my friend asked for a pound of raisins glaces.
"Do you know if she likes them?"
"She eats no other kind of sweets; everybody knows it.
"Ah," he went on when we had left the shop, "do you know what kind of woman it is that I am going to introduce you to? Don't imagine it is a duchess. It is simply a kept woman, very much kept, my dear fellow; don't be shy, say anything that comes into your head.""Yes, yes," I stammered, and I followed him, saying to myself that I should soon cure myself of my passion.
When I entered the box Marguerite was in fits of laughter. Iwould rather that she had been sad. My friend introduced me;Marguerite gave me a little nod, and said, "And my sweets?""Here they are."
She looked at me as she took them. I dropped my eyes and blushed.
She leaned across to her neighbour and said something in her ear, at which both laughed. Evidently I was the cause of their mirth, and my embarrassment increased. At that time I had as mistress a very affectionate and sentimental little person, whose sentiment and whose melancholy letters amused me greatly. I realized the pain I must have given her by what I now experienced, and for five minutes I loved her as no woman was ever loved.
Marguerite ate her raisins glaces without taking any more notice of me. The friend who had introduced me did not wish to let me remain in so ridiculous a position.
"Marguerite," he said, "you must not be surprised if M. Duval says nothing: you overwhelm him to such a degree that he can not find a word to say.""I should say, on the contrary, that he has only come with you because it would have bored you to come here by yourself.""If that were true," I said, "I should not have begged Ernest to ask your permission to introduce me.""Perhaps that was only in order to put off the fatal moment."However little one may have known women like Marguerite, one can not but know the delight they take in pretending to be witty and in teasing the people whom they meet for the first time. It is no doubt a return for the humiliations which they often have to submit to on the part of those whom they see every day.
