Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (22 page)

‘‘Why?’’

‘ To ask her if she wants war or peace.’

After a week, I had so jeered, mocked, and annoyed her that she invited me to dinner.

A son of Albion was showering her with gold. Her dinners were lavish. She surrounded herself with a crowd of freeloaders who praised every stupidity she said or did.

That day there were a lot of people present. While the soup was being served, someone came to the door. She motioned to her guests to be quiet. She was afraid it was her Englishman.

Instead of heeding her request, a few pranksters began to sing at the top of their voices:

War on the tyrants!

Never, never in France

Shall the English rule.3

Reckless Lagie was singing along with them.

We heard a few ‘ goddams!’’ coming from the landing. We laughed about the incident all night long.



Lise’s Yellow Dress

But the next day we did not know how to pay for the dinner: the Englishman had left for good.

  

We kept our promise to M. H

, and we went to spend the evening

at his house. We played a game of lansquenet.4

H

was seated next to me and was giving me advice. He was more interested in me than my cards.

My disdain did not repel him. His love was tirelessly persistent, even though I kept telling him, ‘ I care deeply for you, but you are Jewish, and I could never love a Jew. And besides, you are better than I.’

‘‘I swear, Céleste,’ he replied with a gravity that did not lack wit,

‘ that it is not my fault that I am of Jacob’s race. If we could be born as adults and if we could choose our religion, I would become a Catholic to please you.’

While I was teasing him thus, a new person had come in and was walking up to the man of the house to shake his hand. I lowered my head. The man standing in front of me, looking at me with dull eyes, was my host from Rocher de Cancale.5

He was going to say where he knew me from. All my friends would despise me. I leaned against H

’s shoulder, as if to say, ‘‘Protect me!’’

but, suddenly looking up, I looked the enemy in the eyes. He took a few steps and went to sit a little farther away, seeming not to recognize me.

‘‘You know him?’’ H

asked me.

‘‘No!’’ I replied, so quickly that, to a jealous man, it seemed like a yes.

A few minutes later, he got up and went to speak to his friend. I lost my composure.

A young man came over and sat in H

’s chair.

‘‘You are not very nice. Poor H

is madly in love with you!’’

‘ Oh, you are all alike! In your opinion, to be nice means you have to give yourself to whoever wants you!’’

‘‘But with him, it is different. His heart is wounded. He is so kind!

He has a tender nature!’’

Such is the world. Even the indifferent ones contribute to the encouragement of liaisons and attachments that fancy has formed and boredom will undo, and some will then end up in ruin, others in despair.

My love affair with H

is a sad example of the dangers of passion.

Thinking I was satisfying a whim, I might have altered his life instead.

It was time to part and all the guests had picked up their hats and coats. I remained seated. Lise asked me, ‘‘You are not coming?’’



Lise’s Yellow Dress

‘‘No, I am staying.’

I thought H

was going to go mad with joy. So his guests would leave quicker, he was urging them toward the door.

I was leaning against a large piano covered with music notations. I looked at H

when he came back inside. He wanted to kiss me but I stopped him.

‘‘If you were sensible, you would take me home. . . . If you love me, I am going to make you miserable.’

‘‘I do not care, I shall give my life to have you to myself, even if it is just for one day.’

His hand was burning, his eyes shining.

I pointed to the piano bench. He sat down and kissed my hand.

I stretched out in an armchair next to him; he was playing with so much soul and improvised such beautiful things that my heart melted.

‘‘I am,’ he said, ‘ between the two great passions of my life.’

Little by little, he seemed to have forgotten me. I woke up at dawn in the chair where I had fallen asleep. . . . He was noting on lined paper the music he had composed during the night.

I was grateful for such a sweet and respectful affection. I promised him I would spend the evening with him.

His gentleness and reserve did not last long.

H

’s love grew each day. He followed me everywhere, would spend the night at my door. He stopped working.

‘‘Have pity on me,’ he would repeat constantly, ‘ have pity on me!

Tell me that you hate me, and I shall kill myself.’

Only in front of people was he sensible. Alone with me, he would drive me to despair. His skin was moist and he coughed often. They said he was ill.

When on rare occasions he played music, the music was melancholy and his piano sounded like a church organ.

‘‘If I were not Jewish, you would love me, is that right? If I knew that, I would deny my God for love of you!’’

One day I saw him going in the Church of the Madeleine. He stayed there two hours.

I was advised to break it off. It would be better to cause a great grief that would heal than to let him die slowly.

Lise decided she would tell him of the decision I had made out of affection for him.

A few days later I received a letter in which he told me that his life was not his own and he was putting his trust in God.



Lise’s Yellow Dress

This letter was so lofty that I wanted to see him, to ask his forgiveness! . . . He would not see me. . . . I thought he had a mistress and I felt foolish for being naïve.

      

The duke was back in Paris. He was nothing like H

and did not tire

me with his love.

I was in vogue. . . . He was rich. Novelties were his right. My apartment was so high, his feet so small, that to please him I had to move.

I went to live on the third floor at  Rue de l’Arcade, twelve hundred francs in rent.

In my new apartment there was a living room furnished in velvet, and in this living room, a piano. This piano was the reason I got a tutor.

His name was Pederlini; he was Italian and patient. . . .

The duke came to see me every two or three days. . . . He would not say more than four words to me.

I really do not know why he continued these visits. It might have been because his friends would tell him, ‘‘When you become bored with her, we shall fight over which one of us will succeed you.’ To be contrary, he was making them wait.

Sometimes I went to the Opera where I was always bored. My piano teacher told me that one of his compatriots was making his debut there.

‘ He would like to meet you.’

‘ Oh, yes! And what for?’’

‘‘Well, because he saw you at the Hippodrome! . . . He would like me to introduce you so he can talk to you.’

‘All right!’’ I told him after the lesson. ‘‘Bring me your singer. You can be the interpreter.’

When I woke up, I regretted my consent, but the isolation the duke was leaving me in began to weigh on me. For a long time the duke had an old mistress who was fat and had an ugly figure. I would see her displaying her forty years in a beautiful carriage lined in blue velvet. She would grimace to appear cheerful. The whole apparatus was covered with a veil dotted with black.

Noon and the bell at my door rang at the same time. I went to the door myself.

My entranceway was dark. I saw the shadow of a body taller than my pianist by a head.

I invited them to sit down in my living room and I sat across from them. . . .



Lise’s Yellow Dress

My new admirer was a tall, strong, handsome boy. His hair was jet-black and his eyes dark and shiny.6

He spoke to Pederlini, who translated.

‘‘B

says he finds you even prettier up close. . . .’

I began to play with the ring on my finger, just to keep my composure.

‘‘What? You do not speak any French?’’

‘‘Sì, un poco, Céleste.’

‘ Oh, you can pronounce my name?’’

‘‘I believe he can,’ said Pederlini, ‘ but you intimidate him.’

I wanted to reply that he was the one who intimidated me instead.

B

offered to teach me Italian, unless I would be good enough to teach him French. . . . He promised to be a good student so he could converse with me. I entreated him to hurry up, because we must have appeared rather silly. . . .

As they were leaving, B

held out his hand and pressed mine with such force that it took me a few seconds to part my fingers, numb from the pain.

This B

was quite a handsome man, . . . but the duke flattered my vanity. When his beautiful carriage stopped in front of my door, I was proud of what should have made us both blush.

He arrived just when I was still under the spell of their visit.

‘‘I am bored. I would like to go out a little.’

‘‘Why did you not say that sooner?’’ he told me casually. . . . ‘ Tomorrow, I shall send a carriage over to you.’

    

At four o’clock a lovely carriage with two horses stopped at my door.

The coachman told me he was at my disposal.

I went out and did not come home until the streets were deserted.

I was so tired I could not eat dinner. The fear of not being seen inside the carriage forced me to sit up straight on the edge of the seat, my face toward the window, my head bobbing up and down like a Chinese porcelain Barbary ape.

The next day I went for my ride earlier, and I was very sad to find the Champs-Elysées deserted. If the coachman had not announced that his horses were hungry, I would have stayed out all night.

Two days later this ridiculous and misplaced vanity had disappeared and good sense had returned; I pulled myself down a peg or two repeating to myself that all this pomp was transitory and this carriage did not belong to me.



Lise’s Yellow Dress

One day as I was riding along Boulevard du Temple, I saw a girl I had met at the Théâtre Beaumarchais. I pulled on the carriage rope, called her over, and took her to dinner.

She was about twenty years old, tall, nice figure, pretty with a ruddy complexion. I knew she was not very witty, but she was sweet.

‘‘Well! My dear Joséphine,’ I said, ‘ are you happy?’’

‘ No. I have a passion that is eating up everything. It began with my dresses and ended up with my furniture. I have nothing left, and he will not see me anymore. He says that my large feet and fat hands disgust him.’

‘ Oh, my! Who in the devil are you so enamored of ?’’

‘An actor! I took a job as a walk-on at the Délassements, out of love.’

‘‘Well, you must leave the Délassements, out of reason. Do you want to work at the Hippodrome?’’

We had finished eating. I dressed her from head to foot and I took her to the Opera to see Robert the Devil.7

I introduced her to the duke and to his friends, who took us for ice cream at the Café Anglais.

B

was making his debut.

I was having dinner at a friend’s on that day. I arrived late at the Opera. The sound made when the door to my loge opened made my tenor look up. One of his lines in Lucie was ‘ Celestial Providence!’’ 8

I can still see him. His arms outstretched, he looked toward me and paused on the word ‘ Celestial.’

During intermission Pederlini came to tell me that I was going to unnerve him. I offered to leave.

‘‘No, now it is done. He would look for you, and that would be worse.’

‘‘He is so handsome!’’ said my friend, dazzled by his black velvet suit.

She conveyed her compliments to him about his singing in the first act. He must have thought they were from me, because he seemed to be thanking me as he went on stage.

He tried so hard that he sang off-key.

He tried to make up for it in the third act, but his voice failed.

He was not booed, but there was laughter. He had an accent. They called him Gascon, Auvergnat.9

Being successful meant he could earn forty thousand francs a year!

Pederlini brought him over the next day. He did not seem very disconcerted. I pointed out to him the words he had mispronounced and made him repeat them several times.



Lise’s Yellow Dress

‘ Since you have begun, you must continue,’ said Pederlini laughing.

‘‘I am sure he will make great progress with you.’

B

seemed to agree because he came for as many as two lessons a day.

For his second debut he sang better and, pretending that it was thanks to me, he would not leave me. He gave a big dinner in my honor.

The third debut was a success. B

was on cloud nine.

   

I had Joséphine hired on at the Hippodrome. We were rehearsing together. I was learning a new routine. There would be Roman chariots driven by women. Three of us were racing: Angèle, Louise, and I.

I felt perfectly secure, unaware of the dangers in store for me. José-

phine was a snake I was keeping warm wrapped in my cashmere shawl.

This dear friend could not think of anything better to do than to replace me in the duke’s affection.

One morning she sauntered into my room to adorn herself with a shawl and a hat she borrowed from me and had herself driven to the duke’s residence. At first he refused to see her, but she persisted so that he relented.

What she told him, I never found out. He was smart enough not to report gossip word for word.

She came back to my apartment after making him promise secrecy.

She had probably received a few gold louis for her treason.

The duke came to see me at four o’clock. . . . He talked a lot about the Opera and singers. I understood that I had been on someone’s tongue.

Joséphine did not flinch.

Once he was gone, she told me she had no idea how he could have known all that. However, I had seen her signal to him in the mirror!