In my opinion, it is impossible to create characters until one
has spent a long time in studying men, as it is impossible to speak
a language until it has been seriously acquired. Not being old
enough to invent, I content myself with narrating, and I beg the
reader to assure himself of the truth of a story in which all the
characters, with the exception of the heroine, are still alive.
Eye-witnesses of the greater part of the facts which I have
collected are to be found in Paris, and I might call upon them to
confirm me if my testimony is not enough. And, thanks to a
particular circumstance, I alone can write these things, for I
alone am able to give the final details, without which it would
have been impossible to make the story at once interesting and
complete.
This is how these details came to my knowledge. On the 12th of
March, 1847, I saw in the Rue Lafitte a great yellow placard
announcing a sale of furniture and curiosities. The sale was to
take place on account of the death of the owner. The owner's name
was not mentioned, but the sale was to be held at 9, Rue d'Antin,
on the 16th, from 12 to 5. The placard further announced that the
rooms and furniture could be seen on the 13th and 14th.
I have always been very fond of curiosities, and I made up my
mind not to miss the occasion, if not of buying some, at all events
of seeing them. Next day I called at 9, Rue d'Antin.
It was early in the day, and yet there were already a number of
visitors, both men and women, and the women, though they were
dressed in cashmere and velvet, and had their carriages waiting for
them at the door, gazed with astonishment and admiration at the
luxury which they saw before them.
I was not long in discovering the reason of this astonishment
and admiration, for, having begun to examine things a little
carefully, I discovered without difficulty that I was in the house
of a kept woman. Now, if there is one thing which women in society
would like to see (and there were society women there), it is the
home of those women whose carriages splash their own carriages day
by day, who, like them, side by side with them, have their boxes at
the Opera and at the Italiens, and who parade in Paris the opulent
insolence of their beauty, their diamonds, and their scandal.
This one was dead, so the most virtuous of women could enter
even her bedroom. Death had purified the air of this abode of
splendid foulness, and if more excuse were needed, they had the
excuse that they had merely come to a sale, they knew not whose.
They had read the placards, they wished to see what the placards
had announced, and to make their choice beforehand. What could be
more natural? Yet, all the same, in the midst of all these
beautiful things, they could not help looking about for some traces
of this courtesan's life, of which they had heard, no doubt,
strange enough stories.
Unfortunately the mystery had vanished with the goddess, and,
for all their endeavours, they discovered only what was on sale
since the owner's decease, and nothing of what had been on sale
during her lifetime. For the rest, there were plenty of things
worth buying. The furniture was superb; there were rosewood and
buhl cabinets and tables, Sevres and Chinese vases, Saxe
statuettes, satin, velvet, lace; there was nothing lacking.
I sauntered through the rooms, following the inquisitive ladies
of distinction. They entered a room with Persian hangings, and I
was just going to enter in turn, when they came out again almost
immediately, smiling, and as if ashamed of their own curiosity. I
was all the more eager to see the room. It was the dressing-room,
laid out with all the articles of toilet, in which the dead woman's
extravagance seemed to be seen at its height.
On a large table against the wall, a table three feet in width
and six in length, glittered all the treasures of Aucoc and Odiot.
It was a magnificent collection, and there was not one of those
thousand little things so necessary to the toilet of a woman of the
kind which was not in gold or silver. Such a collection could only
have been got together little by little, and the same lover had
certainly not begun and ended it.
Not being shocked at the sight of a kept woman's dressing-room,
I amused myself with examining every detail, and I discovered that
these magnificently chiselled objects bore different initials and
different coronets. I looked at one after another, each recalling a
separate shame, and I said that God had been merciful to the poor
child, in not having left her to pay the ordinary penalty, but
rather to die in the midst of her beauty and luxury, before the
coming of old age, the courtesan's first death.
Is there anything sadder in the world than the old age of vice,
especially in woman? She preserves no dignity, she inspires no
interest. The everlasting repentance, not of the evil ways
followed, but of the plans that have miscarried, the money that has
been spent in vain, is as saddening a thing as one can well meet
with. I knew an aged woman who had once been "gay," whose only link
with the past was a daughter almost as beautiful as she herself had
been. This poor creature to whom her mother had never said, "You
are my child," except to bid her nourish her old age as she herself
had nourished her youth, was called Louise, and, being obedient to
her mother, she abandoned herself without volition, without
passion, without pleasure, as she would have worked at any other
profession that might have been taught her.
The constant sight of dissipation, precocious dissipation, in
addition to her constant sickly state, had extinguished in her mind
all the knowledge of good and evil that God had perhaps given her,
but that no one had ever thought of developing. I shall always
remember her, as she passed along the boulevards almost every day
at the same hour, accompanied by her mother as assiduously as a
real mother might have accompanied her daughter. I was very young
then, and ready to accept for myself the easy morality of the age.
I remember, however, the contempt and disgust which awoke in me at
the sight of this scandalous chaperoning. Her face, too, was
inexpressibly virginal in its expression of innocence and of
melancholy suffering. She was like a figure of Resignation.
One day the girl's face was transfigured. In the midst of all
the debauches mapped out by her mother, it seemed to her as if God
had left over for her one happiness. And why indeed should God, who
had made her without strength, have left her without consolation,
under the sorrowful burden of her life? One day, then, she realized
that she was to have a child, and all that remained to her of
chastity leaped for joy. The soul has strange refuges. Louise ran
to tell the good news to her mother. It is a shameful thing to
speak of, but we are not telling tales of pleasant sins; we are
telling of true facts, which it would be better, no doubt, to pass
over in silence, if we did not believe that it is needful from time
to time to reveal the martyrdom of those who are condemned without
bearing, scorned without judging; shameful it is, but this mother
answered the daughter that they had already scarce enough for two,
and would certainly not have enough for three; that such children
are useless, and a lying-in is so much time lost.
Next day a midwife, of whom all we will say is that she was a
friend of the mother, visited Louise, who remained in bed for a few
days, and then got up paler and feebler than before.
Three months afterward a man took pity on her and tried to heal
her, morally and physically; but the last shock had been too
violent, and Louise died of it. The mother still lives; how? God
knows.
This story returned to my mind while I looked at the silver
toilet things, and a certain space of time must have elapsed during
these reflections, for no one was left in the room but myself and
an attendant, who, standing near the door, was carefully watching
me to see that I did not pocket anything.
I went up to the man, to whom I was causing so much anxiety.
"Sir," I said, "can you tell me the name of the person who formerly
lived here?"
"Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier."
I knew her by name and by sight.
"What!" I said to the attendant; "Marguerite Gautier is
dead?"
"Yes, sir."
"When did she die?"
"Three weeks ago, I believe."
"And why are the rooms on view?"
"The creditors believe that it will send up the prices. People
can see beforehand the effect of the things; you see that induces
them to buy."
"She was in debt, then?"
"To any extent, sir."
"But the sale will cover it?"
"And more too."
"Who will get what remains over?"
"Her family."
"She had a family?"
"It seems so."
"Thanks."
The attendant, reassured as to my intentions, touched his hat,
and I went out.
"Poor girl!" I said to myself as I returned home; "she must have
had a sad death, for, in her world, one has friends only when one
is perfectly well." And in spite of myself I began to feel
melancholy over the fate of Marguerite Gautier.
It will seem absurd to many people, but I have an unbounded
sympathy for women of this kind, and I do not think it necessary to
apologize for such sympathy.
One day, as I was going to the Prefecture for a passport, I saw
in one of the neighbouring streets a poor girl who was being
marched along by two policemen. I do not know what was the matter.
All I know is that she was weeping bitterly as she kissed an infant
only a few months old, from whom her arrest was to separate her.
Since that day I have never dared to despise a woman at first
sight.