“What is this sudden fear which weighs me down? Lost, lost! I see the flames rising to me. Lost, lost!”
So, if we repent not we shall surely die.
LA TRAVIATA. (Verdi.)
(THE LOST ONE.)
(“LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS.”)
CHAPTER I.
[The author makes no apology for laying before his readers the tale of this popular opera, for never yet was fester cured by covering it up. Whereby, he means to say that no social wrong will be remedied, if the mention of it be ignored. But “La Dame aux Camelias” does not only rest upon this justification, it has yet another, “morality” itself. Let any unprejudiced man take the younger Alexandre Dumas’s play, (I do not say the novel of the same name, which is terribly inferior,) and read it through, and I think he will admit, if he has read thoughtfully, that it is perhaps one of the best homilies he has ever perused. Let us now consider the subject. The heroine was a notorious woman, rich, handsome, courted. Seen going in her carriage to the opera, seen at balls, at gardens, always courted, always fêted; did she not excite envy in the heart of many a pretty girl, leaning on the arm of a not rich father? Dead—her history before the world, on the stage—let this said pretty girl see the real life of this woman, and her envy will change to pity; surely, a better armor than envy to defend her virtue! Let her look into the depths of that life, with no hope, one brilliant blank, surrounded by selfishness, and almost without a friend, and it will be no worthless lesson. Observe that all through the play the heroine is sad, and even in her poor yearnings after virtue, she does injury. And setting aside this real character, however, the play is a magnificent exposition of the heartlessness of sinful life, which may be read with profit by us all.]
There were many present, great lords and gentlemen, and several women. They were waiting for Marguerite’s return.
What Marguerite was, all knew. The reigning beauty and toast of Paris. The woman for whom men fought duels, and before whom jewellers bowed low. She had more diamonds than the richest lady at court. Her carriages were perfection, her house as sumptuously furnished as a nobleman’s.
And yet how wretched was her life. Not a young mother toiling for her children’s bread, but she envied; and though she had thousands of diamonds, she had not a single friend. To be sure her maid liked her, but she sighed for one nearer and dearer.