All these suppositions, as you may see, were improbable enough; but
whatever might have been the reason of her consent, one thing was
certain, she had consented.
Now, I was in love with Marguerite. I had nothing more to ask of her.
Nevertheless, though she was only a kept woman, I had so anticipated for
myself, perhaps to poetize it a little, a hopeless love, that the nearer
the moment approached when I should have nothing more to hope, the more
I doubted. I did not close my eyes all night.
I scarcely knew myself. I was half demented. Now, I seemed to myself not
handsome or rich or elegant enough to possess such a woman, now I was
filled with vanity at the thought of it; then I began to fear lest
Marguerite had no more than a few days' caprice for me, and I said to
myself that since we should soon have to part, it would be better not to
keep her appointment, but to write and tell her my fears and leave her.
From that I went on to unlimited hope, unbounded confidence. I dreamed
incredible dreams of the future; I said to myself that she should owe
to me her moral and physical recovery, that I should spend my whole life
with her, and that her love should make me happier than all the maidenly
loves in the world.
But I can not repeat to you the thousand thoughts that rose from my
heart to my head, and that only faded away with the sleep that came to
me at daybreak.
When I awoke it was two o'clock. The weather was superb. I don't think
life ever seemed to me so beautiful and so full of possibilities. The
memories of the night before came to me without shadow or hindrance,
escorted gaily by the hopes of the night to come. From time to time my
heart leaped with love and joy in my breast. A sweet fever thrilled
me. I thought no more of the reasons which had filled my mind before I
slept. I saw only the result, I thought only of the hour when I was to
see Marguerite again.
It was impossible to stay indoors. My room seemed too small to contain
my happiness. I needed the whole of nature to unbosom myself.
I went out. Passing by the Rue d'Antin, I saw Marguerite's coupe'
waiting for her at the door. I went toward the Champs-Elysees. I loved
all the people whom I met. Love gives one a kind of goodness.
After I had been walking for an hour from the Marly horses to the
Rond-Point, I saw Marguerite's carriage in the distance; I divined
rather than recognised it. As it was turning the corner of the
Champs-Elysees it stopped, and a tall young man left a group of people
with whom he was talking and came up to her. They talked for a few
moments; the young man returned to his friends, the horses set out
again, and as I came near the group I recognised the one who had spoken
to Marguerite as the Comte de G., whose portrait I had seen and whom
Prudence had indicated to me as the man to whom Marguerite owed her
position. It was to him that she had closed her doors the night before;
I imagined that she had stopped her carriage in order to explain to him
why she had done so, and I hoped that at the same time she had found
some new pretext for not receiving him on the following night.