FIC : of the future

[luxuryflower]

My dear, no, my dearest Armand,

I returned to Paris. Once more, as I did before – in order to escape you, but in vain. Even here, now, a century later, you haunt me when I walk down the Champs-Élysées, a hundred lights lighting up the avenue, harsh motor-driven vehicles passing me by where once our beautiful carriages would drive. Even hanging off Monsieur Duroc’s arm, you remain in my heart and invade my thoughts so very rudely, Armand. Yes, Marguerite Gautier, the woman who vowed never to nurse any regrets in regards to the choices she would have to make to uphold her lifestyle, has been shamed by her own morals. You will never know it, my dear, but I regret everything, except perhaps the night when I gave you my camellia flower as a promise, despite it being a foolish undertaking that a courtesan could never possibly defend. Against others or against herself.

Rest assured, however, that I did my best. They say, there are no winners on the battlefield, but surely I was left the loser in this battle, the one in which I fought so bravely. Was your father, then, the winner? Were you? I can only hope.

But Paris, my dear! She was a bright jewel during my days, yet nothing but a piece of coal in comparison to the true diamond she has become now. In the sharp electric light and in the shadow of the magnificence that is the Eiffel Tower, one could almost be fooled into believing the gutter buried beneath concrete and time, but I saw it there still, the same existences of shade and despair living in it. Flowers, I saw none of – and it was my impression that the people of this age have forgotten the art of company. Becoming very lonely creatures, indeed. As a result.

Did I soothe your loneliness, my dearest Armand? I shan’t make any pretences that you didn’t love me first for the same reasons that everyone else loved me, but neither shall I dismiss the basic flaw in human nature that we can’t stand to be alone. A courtesan is company of the finest quality and your breeding demanded that you should have the best, although you couldn’t afford me and, more importantly, I could never afford you, my dear. Tell me! Did I fulfil my calling, did I soothe your loneliness even just a little – as you soothed mine and provided me with the most tender of reliefs for the pain I felt, inside and out. My very soul hurting. My heart, my lungs…

Ah, your love was sincere (although spoiled, perhaps) where mine was merely selfish. I would say none of this to your face, but for only a word of confirmation that you still loved me so, Armand, I would give up everything, every security, every comfort, down to the very life that has been bestowed on me a second time, here in New Dodge. Because, it seems to me now, months and miles away from Bougival, that life in itself holds no inherent worth when you are bereft of everything, the one thing which gave it meaning.

Instead, I know you must hate me and I have deserved little else. Yes, I have made it so myself, every word of betrayal a lie, not only to your heart, but to my own as well. Don’t worry, my good Monsieur. He will hate me, I told your father when he had pleaded and threatened and begged me into submission. You are one of the few people in this world who knows about Marguerite Gautier’s past, Armand, so surely, surely, you can understand that a part of me is still that poor widow’s daughter, wishing to be like her perfect sister and failing, because it is not in her blood. To be pure and proper. Nevertheless, at that moment, when your father thanked me for my sacrifice (selfless, he called it) and kissed my forehead, then my hand, I felt vindicated! The whore, Marguerite, was no longer, because she had blossomed into a woman deserving of you, my dear. Finally of a nature to become a wife and a mother and live the life that had always escaped her, since the very first time she rolled in the hay with handsome Germain Paquette.

However much a woman, rather than a courtesan I had suddenly become, though, it did not change the reality. That I had sold myself (a last time!) for a Judas’ kiss and given up the very man who had seen me as a woman first. Underserving as I had been. Tainted as I had been. Kept as I had been. Armand, you must understand… My dear, you must…

I fled! I fled from Bougival, back to Paris, then to New Dodge. Further and further away from you, but now I have returned, by a God’s unmerited grace not to the Paris of our time, no, to another Paris where I need not fear meeting you. Again. I have bedecked myself in jewellery and dresses, so that you would hardly recognise me, too – company of a man you do not know, either. Everything has changed, my dear. And even so, nothing has, not beneath these garments that showcase too much skin to be proper, even for someone like me and these heavy pieces of jewellery, weighing me down and keeping me grounded. Beneath all this, my feelings are the same as ever and I would curse them, if it didn’t feel like sacrilege.

I dread the day when you might show up in New Dodge, my dear. Not because I don’t have any camellias to give you, but because I do! Monsieur Duroc is rich enough that I can certainly have all the camellias I could ever desire, but any such riches take priority, my dear. Fear not, I have camellias for you, but they would be red, every single one of them. This time, I would listen and accept: Neither of us is in the position to pursue the kind of relationship that Bougival framed, like a world within the world – but it was only a pretty painting, Armand, and it were not to last forever.

So, unlike the little, innocent flowers bearing my name, my camellias, from this moment onward, will be red. And, I know, there is no colour clearer in its hue, in its message.

Yours truly, eternally,
Marguerite