Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (45 page)

All the women I had known were dancing around my ruin like witches. I did not want to let them have this joy. I tried to deceive them and to deceive myself, and so, with fear in my heart, I led a life of luxury and pleasure.

Lionel had left. He had fought until the last moment; defeated, he

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To the Antipodes

faced his ruin, and, fearing his weak will, he put five thousand leagues between himself and the dust raised by this calamity of lost happiness.

Here are excerpts from his travel diary which, from the start, were his correspondence.1

,   

I do not want to leave Europe without writing you one last time. This morning I could still see the coast of France and did not take my eyes off it until it had disappeared. Adieu dreams, joys, happiness!

Here in London I am waiting for a clipper leaving on the th. My passage is booked. Oh! I feel that I shall never return, but remember, Céleste, all those people you sacrificed me for will have nothing but disdain for you. It will be your turn to be alone, and you will not have one friend left. You can be such a beautiful courtesan when you want to! One who knows how to devour, shred, trample a destiny like mine. Mogador, for whom this poor Lionel sacrificed everything! . . . Well, she must be quite a beauty! Lionel, who overcame his prejudices, who escorted her before all of Paris!

Since I met you, I have not had a single thought for another woman. I will think of nothing else for five months of crossing.

Adieu! I am worn out, I cannot see clearly anymore, I am going to throw myself on my bed, my poor, miserable bed in a tiny dark room. But I shall leave it only just before our departure.

I am sailing off with a group of emigrants, almost all Irish. Not even the captain can speak a word of French.

I had your portrait put in a box frame. When I get to Sydney, I shall write you, if God has granted me life. If en route I can manage to send you a few words by way of another clipper, I shall do it. Once more, adieu; I forgive you. One day it will be your turn to be alone, all alone, without friends, and I shall not be there anymore. May this moment come as late as possible for you.

Adieu, adieu. Accept all my thoughts, as well as all my pain.

—Tomorrow I shall write again to your attorney, Monsieur Picard, to request that he take good care of your interests.

Drop me a note in the mail on Tuesday or Wednesday—send it to the dead letter office—to tell me what the courts have decided about your affairs. Do not tell me about anything else.

,   

I am writing while on board the clipper that in one hour will be taking me away from you forever. I am leaving without illusions or hopes. In London

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To the Antipodes

I had a ring made for you that I am giving to Monsieur Godot, the only human being who has expressed any interest in me.

You were beautiful and splendid at the Champ-de-Mars races. You will see on the ring I am sending you from London the date  May, from Southampton. That is the day everything ended for me. I am dying of sorrow; I am dying without leaving any memories behind me. I am leaving heartbroken and dry-eyed, without a single pound sterling to live on. I paid for my passage. I am going even much farther than Sydney. I shall stay there only a week; then I shall set sail for much more remote islands.

I am intent on obliterating my mental pain with physical suffering. This ring that I am sending you, as well as my portrait, will allow you to increase your value and demand a higher price for your personal assets.

Hurry because your life is ticking away, and my only vengeance, which time will grant me, will seem hideous and terrible to you. Today as I am leaving, I realize it was not you, Mogador, I loved, but a dream.

I forgive you, but God will damn you, you are such a heartless and soulless woman.

No one will know where I am. I hope the motto on your carriage, Forget me not, will not be a subject of jokes about a man who had a fortune, a name, a future, and who is making a living with his hands.

,   

I am off the coast of Africa. I have been spending all my time on the bridge seated in a corner, day and night, thinking about the past that each gust of wind takes farther away from me.

Why did I have to place all that my heart contained into some kind of scourge whose life breathed only destruction and ruin? All who will love you will be destroyed by you; all that is beautiful you hate. Evil is your essence; the more there is of it, the more you smile.

Sunday, you must have gone to Chantilly. For me, the future holds this: work in Sydney with Europe’s refuse, amid the mire of English citizenry and galley slaves!

My only companion on board is a young Pole some twenty years old who can say a few words in French, and who, exiled because of the Hungarian wars, is going to try to make a living over there.

The rest appear to be an assemblage of dreadful riffraff fleeing England to escape the law. The ship is very drab; it is its maiden voyage. They say that first class is more comfortable, but in second, the food is disgraceful.

With the sailors we eat the leftovers from first class. In first class there is a Frenchman, a merchant from Rouen who is running away because he is bankrupt.

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To the Antipodes

We shall reach the Cape of Good Hope around June th. I shall be almost halfway there. Until then, sky and sea.

If the winds are favorable and if there are no accidents as we cross the Indian Ocean, I shall arrive in Sydney between the st and the th of August.

I drank a lot the last days I was in London, not to give me energy, but to drown my sorrows, to forget.

Since I am insane, I cannot get it out of my head that upon leaving Southampton I saw you on the pier! It is mad, but when I close my eyes I see you. I saw a woman crying as she watched the clipper depart. Of course, I must be mad; she could not have been you. Besides, does anyone love me?

Adieu until tomorrow.

,   

I have just spent a horrible night and day. The sea is calmer this morning.

This past night, which I spent on the bridge, did not seem too long. The sky was clear; there was only a burning wind blowing from Africa.

Oh! My poor château! Poor Poinçonnet! You have roses, and I, who took care of you with such pleasure, I, who wanted to turn you into my little paradise. . . .

If the weather does not improve, it will take us four months to get there, and we have been at sea only one week. Four months at sea!

How I would love to see a flower! When I reach Sydney, it will be winter. When it will be midnight in Sydney, it will be noon in Paris; and the month of August is the middle of winter. So it will be a long time before I see greenery and flowers.

,   

A week has gone by. I spent the major part of the night on the bridge; the wind was quite calm and the sky magnificent. I sang those beautiful lines from Musset, which I put to music and sent you from Poinçonnet: ‘If you do not love me, tell me, silly girl.’

I have made a good friend on board: a little terrier, a dog belonging to the captain. He has taken a liking to me and I call him Finoche in remembrance of your little dog, which now nuzzles the lucky man of the day.

We are off the coast of Madeira Island.

Sometimes the captain visits second class and I can see that he wishes he could speak French to find out why I am here. He must think I am either a very unhappy man or a very poor one. I am learning English; that

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To the Antipodes

is my occupation during the day. The food is disgusting, and most of the time I eat only sea biscuits.

 ,   

For four days now we have been ashore at Sao Vincent, a Cape Verde island, a desolate country, a cursed land! To punish me, God is showing me wretchedness and suffering worse than mine. Here the soil is dry, the countryside is a desert. Death is at every door. When the people here go from house to house, it is customary to say adieu as if going on a long journey. Out of the city’s twelve hundred inhabitants, seven hundred have died of yellow fever.

I went to see Lady C

, a great lady, a sainted woman spoken of here only with admiration and respect. She lives amid this disaster seeking out and helping the miserable creatures around her.

After squandering a considerable fortune in England, her husband had to leave. His wife followed him after she had used everything she possessed to pay her husband’s debts. Her two sons live near her; each works independently.

Yesterday I had your name tattooed on my arm; it cannot be removed.

If ever my heart forgets you, God willing, this name will always be there to remind me how mean and cruel you were to me.

,   

We are not even a quarter of the way there, and I am already very tired; second class is very uncomfortable, and we have barely enough water to drink. The captain let me know yesterday that if I wanted to pay a few louis more, I could get a reduction for first class, and he would be happy to help me. I thanked him as best I could, and I told him that since I had started out this way, I would finish the same way, not wanting to offend anyone. The real reason is that I have two francs left, which will have to last me until the day I arrive at the mines.

Listen, Céleste, and remember well what I am going to tell you: if you suffer, if you are miserable, if you finally decide to run away and leave this life that cannot last, send word to Sydney. It takes three months for a letter to arrive. Only one thing can bring me back to Europe and that is to come for you; but this is madness. How could you need me? What can I do for you?

If by chance the things I left with you at Poinçonnet were not sold, I would like to have my clothes and my suits because I have absolutely nothing. Would you be kind enough to crate all my personal effects as well as my father’s portrait?

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To the Antipodes

My cabin neighbors are an Irish couple. I can overhear what they say to each other in anger; I try to let them know I can hear by dragging my chair or coughing, but they continue.

The man must be about twenty-eight. He is tall with broad shoulders; his naturally curly hair is combed back and looks like a lion’s mane. The young woman with him, and who passes for his wife, is blond and delicate like a child. Her eyes are such a soft blue, they seem to have dropped from the heavens some lovely spring day.

Yesterday, after spending part of the night gambling, he came back drunk. She was waiting for him and she must have made a remark because he lost his temper; she softly rebutted each reproach.

I heard her cry a good part of the night. I promised myself that the next day I would offer her my services and protection to help her get free of a man whom I regarded as her tormentor, but when I saw her on the bridge, she was leaning on her lover’s arm, smiling at him, and looking at him with great tenderness.

How she loves this man unworthy of her affection! Well! My heavens! I love you, Céleste!

,   

I found a Frenchman among the crew and we became friends. His name is Jocelyn Moulin. He is barely twenty years old but he looks thirty. He has a sad and worried look. I should write he had, because he is dead as I write these lines.

Yesterday the second-class passengers were complaining that every night someone was robbed. One, it was his tobacco; another, his brandy.

The captain did not listen to them. A young Englishman, who was among those passengers, told them, pointing to Jocelyn who was walking at the front of the ship, ‘ Do not trust this young man and watch him; he stole some money from his master who threw him out. I know, I was taking art lessons from him.’

Jocelyn heard him, and grabbing the Englishman’s throat, he yelled:

‘ You are lying; I am going to strangle you!’’

Before we could separate them, Jocelyn was perfidiously stabbed twice in the chest.

‘ You do not have the right to call me a thief anymore,’ cried Jocelyn as he fell, ‘‘you are a murderer!’’

An English sailor who saw the incident was, like us, stunned by such despicable cowardice. He snatched the knife from the murderer and threw it overboard, telling him, ‘ You are a bad Englishman and I am going to break your jaw!’’

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To the Antipodes

It was as if the signal had been given for a party on board. Jocelyn’s former mate could neither back up nor escape. The circle closing around him looked like a human chain ready to tighten and choke him at his first move. His antagonist had very wide shoulders and the sailor was hitting so hard against the painter’s chest that we could hear a sound like that of a blacksmith striking his anvil. Each blow would draw a roar, a cry, a moan; he fell on the deck, writhed at our feet for a moment, then lay still like a dead man. Blood was oozing out of his mouth, his nose, and his eyes. I am a man, and I almost fainted while some women were clap-ping, congratulating the winner. The loser was just brought to his cabin.

It is believed that all his teeth are broken and several of his ribs smashed.

Several of the stolen items were found in his cabin.

I have just given a bottle of brandy to the sailor who defended Jocelyn so well, because the poor boy will not be able to thank him himself. All is over! He was the only human I could talk to during the long nights. Now he is dead!

I would like to give you an idea of what a burial at sea is like. Four sailors, heads bare, were carrying a sack on a stretcher. A fifth one lifted one of the panels in the ship and put the sack there. After a few quiet words it was time to throw it, but the panel did not close up fast enough to throw Jocelyn’s body out far enough, so he rolled down along the side of the vessel, and the steel ball placed next to the dead man to make him sink was hitting the boards.

I watch the long wake the ship leaves behind. Sometimes the tunes you used to sing come back to me. Then I fall into some sort of trance; my heart returns to Berry, to each corner, each place where I have left a memory.