Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (31 page)

He looked at Martin, thinking that he might have been indiscreet.

The poor man’s eyes replied, ‘‘I swear I have not said anything!’’ Lionel said that since he had arrived at night, and not really being man of the house, he would go to his own domicile. I did not argue anymore, but I had the feeling I loved him less. The slightest annoyance gave me palpitations and caused me to spit up blood! My doctor came the next day.

Lionel asked him what I had.

‘ What she has is a stubborn head. She does the exact opposite of what she is told to do. I am not coming back.’

The doctor also said that if I could be taken away from Paris and away from this bustling life I was leading, he was sure that my health would return.

Lionel and Martin conferred with each other. They seemed to be struggling with an idea. Lionel delayed his departure by a few days.

‘All right,’ said Lionel, ‘‘I do not want to be coaxed to be made happy.

Céleste, pack a trunk, I am taking you to the country. I shall hide you the best way I can. If you are spotted, people will assume you came for Martin.’

I could not believe my ears. I understood nothing except that I was the happiest of women and that never had illness caused so much joy.

I threw my things haphazardly in my trunk, putting high-top shoes on top of flowered bonnets. I left my apartment in Marie’s care. She began to cry. I thought she was silly.

I left, happy as a lark. If Lionel was taking me with him only out of pity, I actually gave him a great opportunity to change his mind, because joy had already cured me.

Martin would offer his arm to help me down at the stations. He was gallant. Lionel would approach us from time to time to make sure Martin was not taking his role too seriously!

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In the Country

In those days the railroad went only as far as Vierzon.1 Magnet was still twenty-five leagues away, so Lionel had left his highway carriage at the hotel. His valet had ordered two post horses. Lionel and I climbed in the surrey. Martin, probably so as not to intrude on us, took a seat in the back with Joseph, the valet.

It had snowed the night before. The evening was cold and dark.

Lionel closed the windows. Our breath formed a curtain against the curious. The postilion cracked his whip and the eight-spring carriage clattered off.

Night was descending. The lanterns were lit.

The postilion was cursing for having to be out in this weather. The roads were bad. I pressed Lionel’s hands and then fell asleep on his shoulder. Suddenly I woke up. He was yelling, ‘‘What is the matter with you, postilion? You are going to make us tip over!’’

The replies to this call were protests. Lionel jumped on the horses the moment they were about to go into a hole. Martin, comfortably tucked away in the hood, had fallen asleep with Joseph. Both of them got out and walked over to the postilion, who was lying in the snow, twenty feet away. The poor man had fallen off with the porter. The carriage had run over his legs. We were near the post house. Lionel unhitched the horses and went for help. He came back with a makeshift stretcher and a doctor. He gave a few gold coins to the injured man, and we left with another postilion.

 

We had left the highway and were now on a bad road and our carriage was bouncing over enormous bumps. The night was pitch black. I could see huge trees that met over the road forming arcades. I felt a jolt and at the same time I heard a shout: ‘ The door please!’’

The moon had just emerged from behind the clouds, illuminating a beautiful château. The towers were majestically and somberly silhou-etted against a gray backdrop. The ground was covered with snow.

A door opened and a man came toward us with a lantern. The horses’

breath was wrapping us in a cloud.

I was led into a large room where the fireplace must have been eight feet tall. Martin was taken to his room in the right wing. I followed Lionel. He went up a stone staircase in a large tower on the left.

We entered a large room where a servant was lighting a fire. There were four lighted candles. This room, which must have been thirty feet square, with red brocade curtains, was adorned at the top, below, and in each corner with carved wooden gilded columns.

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In the Country

There were beveled mirrors in magnificent frames, paintings on the doors and on the fireplaces; there was a gilded bed trimmed in silk to match the drapes. On the ceiling was a gilded flower basket made of wood draped with silk gold-fringed curtains; lacquered rosewood furniture adorned the room. Large red and gold wingback chairs completed the furnishings. The bed faced the fireplace.

Terrifying shrieks drew me out of my gaping wonderment. Lionel started to laugh. He told me that at the tower’s peak was a nest of owls.

I replied that I was sorry about that because they bring bad luck!

A fire was crackling in the hearth; the resinous fir was cracking. The owls were quiet the rest of the night, and in the morning, when I woke up, it took me a long time to recognize myself. A bell sounded to announce lunch. Martin came to get me. We walked through the large room I had seen the night before, then a billiard room, an enormous living room, a small living room, and finally we arrived in the dining room. After lunch Martin made me visit everything. A vine was en-twined around the towers, and the green trees in the park brightened a little the dreariness of the winter. The château stood above an enormous valley stretching out in the distance. The snow was partly melted.

The stables were magnificent. The first one held ten horses. Each stall contained a horse worth at least three to four thousand francs. All had hoods emblazoned with Lionel’s coat of arms. Six splendid carriages were parked under the shed. We went out into another courtyard. The hounds, hearing the master approach, came to stand at the fence. I had never seen any so beautiful. They were light orange.

I picked loads of violets. I was dazzled by all this. I had met so many people: coachmen, stableboys, cooks, a gardener, stablehands, a valet, farmhands, grooms, hounds, stewards, keepers, that I was thinking,

‘‘My goodness! What a fortune it must take to pay for all this!’’ I had not been there more than four days when I realized the truth of it all.

Lionel could not maintain this style of life if he did not marry a rich woman. He had lived in a home where four hundred thousand pounds were coming in. This was split six ways. This land, which was his whole fortune, was not worth more than twenty-five thousand pounds in income, and, well administered, would barely bring in two percent.

He had fallen into the clutches of Jews and usurers who had brought him very little, but to whom he had given a lot. Rather than break off with these people who were duping him, he was letting himself be taken in by new offers.

The Jews from the Champs-Elysées always had an excellent horse ar-



In the Country

riving from London for him. Some pursued him all the way to his châ-

teau. During my stay I saw an antique dealer who had made a special trip to Berry from Belgium.

Lionel did not know how to get rid of all these leeches. He had seventeen horses. . . . He loved hunting . . . , another very expensive recreation.

He was blindly rushing toward his ruin. His was too generous at heart to keep count of his money. He was kind, and yet he had moments of cruelty. He would say unkind things to me, which I could have avoided had I not replied.

 

The first day, I was not pleased to have some tall butler following me.

It was not so bad when he was behind me, but when he would stand in front of me, I would not dare eat. He would take my plate at the same time as the others. When dinner was over, I was still very hungry.

We would spend two hours at the table. One time, I started to get up. Lionel told me sharply, ‘‘Where are you going? The general rule is, no one gets up from the table until the master of the house does.’ I was livid! When a farmer or a peasant came to discuss business, he would send me away, saying, ‘ Go to your room, I do not need to have everyone see you.’

I received a letter from Marie that read: Madame should come back. Everyone is saying that she is dead. Several of her friends have dropped by to see if it was true.

I mentioned it to Lionel, who was in a bad mood. He replied, ‘‘Who in the devil do you think will take care of you? Your friends from Mabille?

I would like to think you care very little for them.’

‘ That is where you are wrong. It does not matter whether my friends are from Mabille or elsewhere, they are thinking about me and I am grateful to them for that. . . . You see, you brought me here and you regret it. Well! I shall leave tomorrow.’

Deep in my soul I was hoping he would say no. He did not. The next day I just knew he would tell me to stay. The next day, he dolefully said,

‘‘I do not regret bringing you here, Céleste, since you are feeling better.

I love you very much, but I must get married. One of my relatives wrote to me on that subject. That is why I am letting you leave.’

My heart was heavy, but I had to concede that he was right. The next day he took me to Châteauroux with my trunk. When the carriage went through the gate, all my courage left. I wanted to ask for his forgive-

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In the Country

ness, beg him to reconsider. When I arrived in town, I bought a ticket on a coach going to Vierzon. Lionel kissed me and left abruptly, but quick as his turning around was, I still had a chance to see that his eyes were damp.

What a contrast between my return and the journey I had made a few weeks earlier! The delights of happy love and gratified vanity were followed by the coldest, bitterest, deepest disappointment. With a thud I had fallen back into the mediocre reality of my bohemian life. Instead of the splendid carriage, in which I rode so softly on fluffy cushions next to him, I was alone, being jostled in a rickety coach. At the same time I had lost the cause of my happiness and the cause of my pride.

Today, many years after these feelings, I am glad I experienced them.

When such abrupt transitions do not completely unnerve the heart, they lift it and strengthen it. They give you a mastery over yourself that you later learn to use over others.

My anguish was doubly painful because I could see my situation clearly. I had not lost my head; I still had my common sense. I did not blame Lionel, but the thought that a woman would take her place near him burned me like a hot poker.

    

All over Paris there was a rumor that I was dead. Adolphe, back from Metz, where he had been living since our separation, had gone to my apartment, pale and in disarray!

‘‘I really loved her, you know! And I love her still,’ he told Marie.

‘‘Monsieur is right,’ said Marie, ‘ but Madame is fine. She is in the country and wrote to me yesterday.’

He kissed her he was so happy and departed leaving his address.

I had barely gotten settled when a policeman from the Madeleine district came around asking for me. He was told I was not in. He left saying he would eventually find me. Marie warned me. I immediately made up my mind.

I decided to go on a trip. I went to the police chief of my neighborhood. I got a passport witnessed by two people, and I had Jean informed that I wanted to go to Le Havre. I asked him if he would accompany me.

He agreed. My passport, with a visa for Le Havre, was a guaranty I would not be punished if I was caught. I could prove that I had been away. We left that evening.

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20

o GustofWindatLeHavreand

Masked Ball at the Opera

The Old Man, His Son, and the Sea—‘‘Mogador? Do not know!’’—

Golden Youth—One Plucky Girl—The Panther Hits the Mark Every Time

   , I figured out that I had been unaware of one of my reasons for leaving Paris. It was a pretext for writing to him. Post-marked Le Havre, and motivated by a journey, my letter would appear more natural.

My dear Lionel, the reasons for our separation are so good that you saw I was resigned to it. However, one must not require of human nature what it cannot achieve! I think of you more than ever. Thanks to your good care, I have regained my health. I have reclaimed Jean’s friendship. I shall be here for a few days. If you were to have something to tell me, you could write to me. Keep me in your thoughts.

Céleste

Jean asked me if I wanted to go for a boat ride with some other travelers.

‘‘No,’ I said pulling my coat tighter around me with a nervous gesture of apprehension. ‘‘I would rather walk.’

I took hold of his arm and we walked outside.

I bought a ton of trinkets. A gust of wind hit us so hard, my purchases and I were almost lifted in the air like balloons.

The sky got so dark that it looked like nighttime at two in the afternoon. We returned to the hotel without incident. I displayed the little knickknacks I had just bought on a chest of drawers. Whistling furiously, the wind was beating against the walls and the window.

‘‘What weather!’’ I told Jean. ‘‘I was right not to go for a boat ride!

What will those poor people who went do in such a squall?’’

‘ Oh! They are not in danger. . . . They must not be far away!’



  ,  ,   

The waves were rushing in like mountains, then breaking on the beach.

Others came after them, seemed to crush them, and then receded with a roar.

At times I thought I could see the poor little skiff and it was no more than a black speck.

‘ There they are!’’ I would say. . . . ‘ They are going down!’’

‘‘No,’ Jean would say, ‘‘it is just the waves!’’

Ignoring the cold, we opened the window. There were many people at the entrance below us. Each one, neck craned, was trying to spot the boaters. In the crowd, an old man was moaning, ‘‘My God! Why did I allow my son to go? They are lost!’’

I was the first one to see them. I was so shaken that I almost fell off the balcony to tell the poor father, ‘ There they are!’’ I invited him to come up near me so he could see better. We had gotten some opera glasses, but they were of no use to him; his eyesight was too poor to recognize anything.