Free The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas (fils) Page B

we’ve got nothing to do. I’m going to tell you everything.”
    â€œSince you feel so strongly, I’ll listen.”
    â€œIt’s a very simple story,” he added, “and I will tell it to you in the order that things happened. If you do something with it later, feel free to tell it differently.”
    Here is what he told me, and I have changed hardly a word of this touching narrative.
    Yes, continued Armand, letting his head fall back on his armchair. Yes, it was on an evening like this one! I had spent my day in the country with one of my friends, Gaston R . . . . That night we came back to Paris, and not knowing what to do, we went to the Variétés theater.
    During an intermission we went out, and in the corridor we saw a tall woman pass, and my friend bowed to her.
    â€œWho is that you are you bowing to?” I asked him.
    â€œMarguerite Gautier,” he said.
    â€œIt seems to me she has changed; I wouldn’t have recognized her,” I said with an emotion that you will understand a little later.
    â€œShe’s been sick; the poor girl won’t last long.”
    I recall those words as if they had been spoken yesterday.
    You must know, my friend, that for two years the sight of this girl, whenever I happened to see her, had a strange impression on me.
    Without knowing why, I would become pale, and my heart would beat violently. One of my friends studies the occult sciences, and he would attribute what I experienced to “affinity of fluids”; me, I quite simply believe I was destined to fall in love with Marguerite, and that I had a presentiment of it.
    She always had a powerful effect on me, which many of my friends witnessed, and which they laughed about heartily once they realized who it was that inspired it.
    The first time I had seen her was on the Place de la Bourse, at the doorstep of Susse’s. An open carriage had parked, and a woman dressed in white stepped out. An admiring murmur welcomed her as she entered the shop. As for me, I remained nailed in place from the moment she entered until the moment she left. Through the window I watched her choose in the boutique what she had gone there to buy. I could have gone in, but I didn’t dare. I didn’t know who the woman was, and I didn’t want her to guess the cause of my entry into the shop and possibly take offense. However, I did not believe I would see her again.
    She was elegantly dressed; she wore a muslin dress covered in ruffles, a square Indian shawl whose corners were embroidered with gold and silk flowers, an Italian straw hat, and an unusual bracelet, a thick gold chain that was just coming into fashion.
    She got back into her barouche and drove off.
    One of the boutique’s clerks stood on the doorstep, following with his eyes the carriage of the elegant shopper. I approached him and begged him to tell me the woman’s name.
    â€œThat’s Mlle Marguerite Gautier,” he replied.
    Not daring to ask him for her address, I went away.
    The memory of this vision—because it truly was a vision—did not leave my mind, unlike many other visions I’d had before, and I searched everywhere for this woman in white who was so regally beautiful.
    A few days later a big production took place at the Opéra-Comique. I went, and the first person I saw in a box down by the stage was Marguerite Gautier.
    The young man I was with recognized her too, because he said to me, mentioning her name, “Look at that pretty girl.”
    At that moment Marguerite was looking our way through her opera glasses. She spotted my friend, smiled at him, and signaled for him to come pay her a visit.
    â€œI’m going to go over and say hello,” he said. “I’ll be back in a second.”
    I couldn’t keep myself from saying, “Lucky you!”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œTo get to go visit that woman.”
    â€œAre you in love with her?”
    â€œNo,”