For a moment it seemed to me as if I could forget all that had passed
since I had left Bougival, and I said to Marguerite: "Shall we go away and leave Paris?"
"No, no!" she said, almost with affright; "we should be too unhappy. I
can do no more to make you happy, but while there is a breath of life in
me, I will be the slave of your fancies. At whatever hour of the day or
night you will, come, and I will be yours; but do not link your future
any more with mine, you would be too unhappy and you would make me too
unhappy. I shall still be pretty for a while; make the most of it, but
ask nothing more."
When she had gone, I was frightened at the solitude in which she left
me. Two hours afterward I was still sitting on the side of the bed,
looking at the pillow which kept the imprint of her form, and asking
myself what was to become of me, between my love and my jealousy.
At five o'clock, without knowing what I was going to do, I went to the
Rue d'Antin.
Nanine opened to me.
"Madame can not receive you," she said in an embarrassed way.
"Why?"
"Because M. le Comte de N. is there, and he has given orders to let no
one in."
"Quite so," I stammered; "I forgot."
I went home like a drunken man, and do you know what I did during the
moment of jealous delirium which was long enough for the shameful thing
I was going to do? I said to myself that the woman was laughing at me; I
saw her alone with the count, saying over to him the same words that she
had said to me in the night, and taking a five-hundred-franc note I sent
it to her with these words: "You went away so suddenly that I forgot to pay you. Here is the price
of your night."
Then when the letter was sent I went out as if to free myself from the
instantaneous remorse of this infamous action.
I went to see Olympe, whom I found trying on dresses, and when we were
alone she sang obscene songs to amuse me. She was the very type of the
shameless, heartless, senseless courtesan, for me at least, for perhaps
some men might have dreamed of her as I dreamed of Marguerite. She asked
me for money. I gave it to her, and, free then to go, I returned home.