Scenes from a Courtesan's Life [177]
you know, and a fine house! And I said to you then, 'How much better to be dead at thirty!'--Well, you thought I was melancholy, and you played all sorts of pranks to amuse me, and between two kisses I said, 'Every day some pretty woman leaves the play before it is over!'--And I do not want to see the last piece; that is all.
"You must think me a great chatterbox; but this is my last effusion. I write as if I were talking to you, and I like to talk cheerfully. I have always had a horror of a dressmaker pitying herself. You know I knew how to die decently once before, on my return from that fatal opera-ball where the men said I had been a prostitute.
"No, no, my dear love, never give this portrait to any one! If you could know with what a gush of love I have sat losing myself in your eyes, looking at them with rapture during a pause I allowed myself, you would feel as you gathered up the affection with which I have tried to overlay the ivory, that the soul of your little pet is indeed there.
"A dead woman craving alms! That is a funny idea.--Come, I must learn to lie quiet in my grave.
"You have no idea how heroic my death would seem to some fools if they could know Nucingen last night offered me two millions of francs if I would love him as I love you. He will be handsomely robbed when he hears that I have kept my word and died of him. I tried all I could still to breathe the air you breathe. I said to the fat scoundrel, 'Do you want me to love you as you wish? To promise even that I will never see Lucien again?'--'What must I do?' he asked.--'Give me the two millions for him.'--You should have seen his face! I could have laughed, if it had not been so tragical for me.
" 'Spare yourself the trouble of refusing,' said I; 'I see you care more for your two millions than for me. A woman is always glad to know at what she is valued!' and I turned my back on him.
"In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was not in jest.
"Who will part your hair as nicely as I do? Pooh!--I will think no more of anything in life; I have but five minutes, I give them to God. Do not be jealous of Him, dear heart; I shall speak to Him of you, beseeching Him for your happiness as the price of my death, and my punishment in the next world. I am vexed enough at having to go to hell. I should have liked to see the angels, to know if they are like you.
"Good-bye, my darling, good-bye! I give you all the blessing of my woes. Even in the grave I am your Esther.
"It is striking eleven. I have said my last prayers. I am going to bed to die. Once more, farewell! I wish that the warmth of my hand could leave my soul there where I press a last kiss--and once more I must call you my dearest love, though you are the cause of the death of your Esther."
A vague feeling of jealousy tightened on the magistrate's heart as he read this letter, the only letter from a suicide he had ever found written with such lightness, though it was a feverish lightness, and the last effort of a blind affection.
"What is there in the man that he should be loved so well?" thought he, saying what every man says who has not the gift of attracting women.
"If you can prove not merely that you are not Jacques Collin and an escaped convict, but that you are in fact Don Carlos Herrera, canon of Toledo, and secret envoy of this Majesty Ferdinand VII.," said he, addressing the prisoner "you will be released; for the impartiality demanded by my office requires me to tell you that I have this moment received a letter, written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which she declares her intention of killing herself, and expresses suspicions as to her servants, which would seem to point to them as the thieves who have made off with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs."
As he spoke Monsieur Camusot was comparing the writing of the letter with that of the will; and it seemed to him self-evident that the same person had written both
"Monsieur, you were in
"You must think me a great chatterbox; but this is my last effusion. I write as if I were talking to you, and I like to talk cheerfully. I have always had a horror of a dressmaker pitying herself. You know I knew how to die decently once before, on my return from that fatal opera-ball where the men said I had been a prostitute.
"No, no, my dear love, never give this portrait to any one! If you could know with what a gush of love I have sat losing myself in your eyes, looking at them with rapture during a pause I allowed myself, you would feel as you gathered up the affection with which I have tried to overlay the ivory, that the soul of your little pet is indeed there.
"A dead woman craving alms! That is a funny idea.--Come, I must learn to lie quiet in my grave.
"You have no idea how heroic my death would seem to some fools if they could know Nucingen last night offered me two millions of francs if I would love him as I love you. He will be handsomely robbed when he hears that I have kept my word and died of him. I tried all I could still to breathe the air you breathe. I said to the fat scoundrel, 'Do you want me to love you as you wish? To promise even that I will never see Lucien again?'--'What must I do?' he asked.--'Give me the two millions for him.'--You should have seen his face! I could have laughed, if it had not been so tragical for me.
" 'Spare yourself the trouble of refusing,' said I; 'I see you care more for your two millions than for me. A woman is always glad to know at what she is valued!' and I turned my back on him.
"In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was not in jest.
"Who will part your hair as nicely as I do? Pooh!--I will think no more of anything in life; I have but five minutes, I give them to God. Do not be jealous of Him, dear heart; I shall speak to Him of you, beseeching Him for your happiness as the price of my death, and my punishment in the next world. I am vexed enough at having to go to hell. I should have liked to see the angels, to know if they are like you.
"Good-bye, my darling, good-bye! I give you all the blessing of my woes. Even in the grave I am your Esther.
"It is striking eleven. I have said my last prayers. I am going to bed to die. Once more, farewell! I wish that the warmth of my hand could leave my soul there where I press a last kiss--and once more I must call you my dearest love, though you are the cause of the death of your Esther."
A vague feeling of jealousy tightened on the magistrate's heart as he read this letter, the only letter from a suicide he had ever found written with such lightness, though it was a feverish lightness, and the last effort of a blind affection.
"What is there in the man that he should be loved so well?" thought he, saying what every man says who has not the gift of attracting women.
"If you can prove not merely that you are not Jacques Collin and an escaped convict, but that you are in fact Don Carlos Herrera, canon of Toledo, and secret envoy of this Majesty Ferdinand VII.," said he, addressing the prisoner "you will be released; for the impartiality demanded by my office requires me to tell you that I have this moment received a letter, written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which she declares her intention of killing herself, and expresses suspicions as to her servants, which would seem to point to them as the thieves who have made off with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs."
As he spoke Monsieur Camusot was comparing the writing of the letter with that of the will; and it seemed to him self-evident that the same person had written both
"Monsieur, you were in