Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris (29 page)

Daddy Longlegs was no longer speaking to me.

This little game of eye and heart because of Lionel was getting tiresome. I went straight up to him and I asked him if he wanted to take me home.

‘‘Yes,’ he said looking at me as if he could read my mind. ‘‘But first, I would like to dance with you.’

A waltz was starting. He had me twirling on the dance floor before I could answer. I was nimble and his arm was tense. I felt a flash of happiness that passed through me quick as lightning, but which I can still remember.



Dinner at the Café Anglais

I came back to Frisette, radiant.

She knew Lionel, or had just asked questions about him, because she said to me, ‘‘You have been dancing with the Count of C

.’ 1

That name was quite lovely, quite removed from me.

‘Are you coming?’’ said Lionel. ‘‘I shall take Frisette home first, then you.’

‘‘I am really sorry to put you through so much trouble.’

‘‘It is a pleasure. I would not have dared ask you. I did not want to be the third one to persecute you.’

He promised he would come over that evening at four. I went home, my head and my heart filled with his image. How foolish of me to have lost hope in life! And I was twenty years old!



18

o

Lionel

‘‘Just who is this Zizi?’’—Deligny Chooses Africa—‘‘Do not let go of this, Céleste!’’—Maids, Too, Have Their Troubles—

Letter of Reason and Death Certificate—For the Heart: Digitalis and the Sound of a Doorbell

 ’ took so long in arriving that, to make the time pass more quickly, I went down to the shop.

A few days earlier I had written to my friend in Holland. He sent me a note for two thousand francs to be cashed at a bank on Rue d’Hauteville.

With these two thousand francs and my three hundred from the night before, I was rich.

I stood in the doorway. A jumble of carriages was obstructing the entrance. A pretty phaeton led by two beautiful black horses was waiting to turn on Rue Geoffroy-Marie. The restless horses reared and one of the servants got out.

‘‘Leave it, leave it,’ said the young man holding on to the reins. It was Lionel.

He appeased his horses and disengaged his carriage with considerable ability. When I saw he was out of danger I crossed the street to go up to my apartment, but he saw me.

‘‘How pale you look!’’

‘‘I got scared when I saw you jammed in with all those carriages on the corner of Faubourg Montmartre.’

He started to laugh and offered his arm to accompany me upstairs.

I was ill at ease next to him. I did not want to lower myself, yet I felt so beneath him that I did not dare stand in front of him. My unease was even more ridiculous because he was unaffected, charming, and gallant.

‘‘I shall never again come with my horses,’ he told me, ‘ since I scared you. I do not know this neighborhood well (I live on Rue Grenelle-Saint-Germain), but, if you will allow me, I shall come often.’

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Lionel

I was reserved in my replies. However much a woman is or has been lost, when she is in love, she can retrieve a trace of modesty and virtue from her past. I loved him.

‘     ?’

I wanted to elevate myself in my own esteem, but that was impossible.

The scene from the night before had reminded me even more forcefully of who I was and what my life was. I had absolutely nothing to give.

‘‘Perhaps I am intruding?’’ he said rising to leave.

‘‘No, no, please stay.’

‘ Céleste, are you aware that I have known you for a long time? I have often seen you at the Hippodrome, and each time I admired your dex-terity and your courage.’

It comforted me to think that he had found some merit in my courage! Yes, I had some, since I was deathly afraid of horses. I did not know then that all my efforts would eventually be rewarded with one word from him.

‘‘Would you like to dine with me this evening?’’

‘ Yes, if you have nothing better to do.’

‘ Be ready at six.’

He came for me in one of his carriages. It was a lovely surrey lined in blue silk, so small that the two of us barely fit in it. I sank back into the cushions.

‘‘You are afraid of being seen?’’ he asked me.

‘ Yes, by you.’

We dined at Deffieux. I was morose. This love seemed like an illusion to me.

He took me home and we spent the evening together. I was uncomfortable. I loved him too much to lie to him. I told him all I had done, all I had been.

‘ Others would have told you,’ I said, ‘ enemies. You might have been sorry. I love you and I shall love you for a long time. A reproach from you would hurt me. I wish I could redo the past, but that is impossible.

Do you want the present?’’

His answer was a kiss. It felt as though another woman had just awakened inside me.

He did not like the neighborhood where I lived. He thought I lived too far away. I decided to rent an apartment at Place de la Madeleine and I gave the shop to my mother. At the risk of making a big dent in my resources, I paid two months in advance so I could move in as soon as my new lodgings were ready.

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Lionel

Sometimes Lionel liked to gamble. He gave a party in an apartment he owned on Rue Bleue. Lagie came with me. The dinner was splendid.

Several times a reference was made to a woman called Zizi.

‘‘Just who is this Zizi?’’ I asked Lagie.

‘ She is his mistress. We are at her apartment. He sent her away to the country.’

There was a buzzing in my head. We had just gotten up from the table. I went straight to Lionel and asked him if what I had just been told was true.

‘ Not exactly,’ he replied. ‘ It is true that a woman I have known for a long time lives here. But you are in my apartment. I intend to leave her, and when I do, I shall let her have all that is here.’

The game had begun, and the stakes were high.

For a long time I remained buried deep in only one thought: he had a mistress! For the last two weeks he had been giving me his spare moments.

Lionel lost a lot of money. I was glad.

One of his friends near me was saying, ‘ That Lionel is crazy. He has a lot of debts and his father is young; he will be ruined before he inherits.’ 1

It pleased me to hear that. A secret presentiment told me that his ruin would bring him closer to me.

The next day there were races in Versailles. We did not even go to bed. At six in the morning, a landau with four horses was at the door along with some other carriages. There was one barouche still empty.

‘‘Do you want to come?’’ asked Lionel.

I felt like refusing, but I did not have the courage.

Once the races were over, he told me farewell. He was leaving for Saint-Germain where he had some business. His friends, who knew quite well what sort of business was drawing him, decided as a joke to invite Lagie and me to dine in Saint-Germain.

We arrived at the Henri IV pavilion. When he saw me, Lionel took off. Those who were with me began to laugh.

‘‘Now why would he leave like that?’’

‘‘Well, it is because he is between two fires. Zizi is here, but it does not matter, you will dine with us. I shall say that you are my mistress.’

I bitterly regretted coming.

Lionel was told that I knew everything. He came over to hold my hand, which remained stiff and cold in his.

We sat down to eat. I was not hungry, but I was dying of thirst. My



Lionel

mirth was turning into cynicism. I let my neighbor kiss my hand and my neck.

He came to stand right in front of me, stared into my eyes, and motioned for me to step outside. I obeyed.

He took me far into the garden, had me sit down, and, taking my hands, said, ‘‘What is the matter, Céleste? You seem to take pleasure in torturing me.’

‘‘Do you not have a mistress? Do you want me to cry in front of her?

I am free, I want to forget you—’’

‘ To forget me! Why? Is it my fault that before meeting you I had a liaison? I cannot abruptly leave her, without a reason. Be patient!’’

During the night I listened for his door to open. Zizi stayed in the country and I brought him back to Paris without taking my eyes off him. I was afraid I had made him angry. I must have been wearying him with my excessive love.

He liked everyone, and he often went dancing or to parties with young men. I resented the fact that he would not sacrifice his pleasures for me.

  

One day Comte de S

invited me to a ball given every year at the Frères Provençaux by the Jockey-Club.2 He made me promise I would go.

It so happened that it was the same day that Lionel had announced he had to attend a friend’s party. I thought he was lying to me. I volunteered to sacrifice my dance invitation if he wanted to stay. He refused.

I waited, hoping that he would change his mind. The doorbell rang.

I went to open the door: it was Comte de S

coming to get me with

one of his friends.

It was my first time being invited to this ball. Not every woman who wanted to go, could. Only actresses and kept women were invited. They all used the occasion to tear each other apart.

If they had been told in advance, ‘‘We have invited Mogador,’ they would have all raised their voices saying, ‘‘Pooh! How horrible! We are not going.’ But they had not been warned. It would be a surprise for them.

When I walked in, widespread clamor erupted. The women retreated to the corners of the room; the men drew near me. It was difficult to find a vis-à-vis for me. If it had not been for a girl called Brochet, who remembered that before her life under gilded ceilings she had been a washerwoman, I would have had to dance facing two men. The other

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Lionel

women had gathered together and were whispering, ‘‘Mogador! A circus rider from the Hippodrome! A woman who has danced in a public dance hall!’’

That was all they knew about me and they found me unworthy of them.

Among them, however, was one who was less patrician. I liked her a lot. She was called Chouchou.

‘‘It pains me to see all these silly geese putting on airs,’ she told me.

‘‘Look at those two sisters. Just a year ago they were only too glad to share the dinner and small iron bed of some poor boy who had picked them up on the docks. They were hired in theater where they were given a letter to wear so they could show off their youth. And this Verveine!

She is grinning from behind her fan to hide her bad teeth. Four years ago she was a servant at the Passage des Panoramas. I can still see her in galoshes washing the outside of the store in the morning.’

Chouchou was ebullient. She went on for a long time and told me about the lives of all these women.

I had hoped to make Lionel jealous by going to this ball, but to no avail. He asked me if I had a good time.

One day I had gone to Enghien with Lionel; we heard a lot of noise coming from upstairs. Geniol, who knew me, came to ask me to leave.

He told me that Deligny was on the second floor with several of his friends, that he had seen me in the garden with Lionel, he had been drinking and partying, and he had just been overcome by a fit of anger and was breaking everything. We left.

The next day I sent for news of him. I was told that he was sick. After having tried very hard to forget me, seeing that he could not, he had enlisted and left for Africa.

When he returned from the campaign, he rushed over to my apartment. I told him honestly about my liaison with Lionel. He did not blame me.

‘‘It is my fault,’ he told me, ‘‘I did not know how to make myself loved. I am getting what I deserve. Many are the poor girls who have loved me and whom I hurt. They would tell me, ‘Your turn will come.’

They were right.’

I had not seen him again until the day Geniol told me, ‘ Leave, he is breaking everything!’’

I often talked about him. Lionel wished he could have torn me away from this memory, which made him jealous. I was aware of it, and, to incite Lionel’s love, I would bring it up repeatedly. The heart is like that.



‘      , !’

I wanted to make myself as big as the world so Lionel would love me. I was investing my life in him. I wanted to erase the past. When I would wait for him, I would worry, I would invent a thousand stories, I would imagine him with another woman. He was amused watching my growing attachment to him. Without actually having a fortune, he spent a lot of money and incurred many debts.

I had no part in his follies.

Early in our acquaintance, he had given me a ring. But it was he I loved. Sometimes we would go out together in the evening. I was proud and happy; I would snuggle up close to him. I loved him too much for him to love me or to notice.

Lionel took advantage of it. Several months went by like this. I loved him more each day.

My botched asphyxiation had left me with a serious bronchial in-flammation.

‘‘You should take care of yourself !’’ he would tell me.

‘‘Pooh!’’ I would reply. ‘‘I shall live longer than your love.’

One morning, his valet came to get him at my apartment.

‘‘M. le Comte must come at once. Monsieur le marquis is very ill.’

‘ Oh, no! My father!’’

Several days went by without news. In the evening, I would go to the door of his house and look; I knew he was there and I would go home calmer.

I wrote to him to tell him how worried I was.

Finally, I received a letter.

My dear child, I thank you for your concern. I have just suffered a terrible loss. Although I had been expecting it for a long time, I did not believe it was so near.

You can understand that certain sorrows need solitude.

It was a farewell. I felt as if life were slipping away.

‘ It is not possible,’ I said to myself. ‘‘It cannot be all over between us. . . .’

I went to see my mother. She had closed the shop and had left with Vincent.

I went to see Frisette. She comforted me, saying that at times like these, with a death in the family still so recent, Lionel could not be with a mistress. He had duties to fulfill.