MADAME MARGOT 
 
.MADAME MARGOT, 
 
 A Grotesque Legend 
 of Old Charleston 
 
 BY 
 JOHN BENNETT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1921 
 
Copyright, 1921, by 
 BEXNETT 
 
 Printed in U. S. A. 
 
TO 
 
 . . . You, and you, and you, 
 
 . . . who have gone greatly here 
 
 In friendship, making some delight, some true 
 
 Song in the dark, some story against fear. 
 
 . . . Lovers yet shall tell the nightingale 
 Sometimes a song that we of old time made, 
 And gossips gathered at the twilight ale 
 Shall say, "Those two were friends," or "Unafraid 
 Of bitter thoughts were those because they loved 
 Better than most." 
 
 . . . There in the midst of all those words shall be 
 Our names, our ghosts, our immortality. 
 
 JOHN DRINK WATER. 
 
 The above is reprinted by permission of the publishers. 
 
 463981 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 In an age so glorious, so rich and 
 fine, and so be-starred with splendor 
 that one almost forgets the bottomless 
 abyss into which it plunged at last, 
 there lived a woman in Charleston of 
 whom a very odd story is told. 
 
 The languid, lovely, tired old town 
 was then a city brave and gay, with 
 Mediterranean manners and Caribbean 
 ways. 
 
 The perfume of ten thousand flowers 
 drifted upon the winds, which came and 
 went over a thousand gardens, ebbing 
 and flowing like the tide. 
 
 Clouds of snowy gold and roses rolled 
 3 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 across ike sky, .likfe. the vast rotundas 
 of a city builded of colored ivory. 
 Slowly rising overhead, in windy and 
 ethereal masses, they stood, carvings of 
 pale porphyry upon a turquoise wall. 
 The earth was transfigured with beauty. 
 
 It was a golden age, when all things 
 were fair; nothing had grown old; even 
 the tragic and the terrible were comely 
 then. Wonder lay on everything. 
 Merely to exist was to be happy. It 
 was a world of unextinguished youth; 
 life was brimful to the lips with delight. 
 
 In the gardens rare flowers bloomed, 
 and rare fruits ripened, pomegranates, 
 oranges, medlars, figs, jujubes, and the 
 purple Indian peach; and among the 
 flowers, like winged flames, small and 
 bright, sped the harlequins, the painted 
 nonpareils, delicately beating the soft 
 wind with their pied wings; while in 
 4 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 the pomegranate-tree, among the dull 
 bronze fruit, the mocking-bird sang his 
 love and rapture. Through the green- 
 hedged close, women, beautiful and 
 stately, paced the shade, with men be 
 side them, slender and straight, passion 
 ate and haughty, with fierce, bright 
 eyes as ardent as the goshawk s and as 
 bold; and lovely girls, with dark hair 
 and skins of alabaster, as graceful and 
 as timid as fawns, and with fawn s eyes, 
 slipped among the green leaves like 
 flowers alive. 
 
 Those were charmed days indeed. 
 The town has changed since then. The 
 world seems to have grown weary and 
 gray, and the hearts of men bitter. The 
 young were younger then ; the old not 
 so sorry for everything as they have 
 been since. Then, somehow, it seemed 
 to be always summer morning, morn- 
 5 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 ing before the sun had burned the world 
 to a dun crisp with his meridian heat, 
 scorching bitter and blinding bright; 
 before the advent of gasping afternoon 
 with its languid leafage and evapor 
 ated sap. The calendar seemed to have 
 paused among the daffodils, between 
 the jessamine and the June, in that 
 paradise of the year. The delicate and 
 virginal camellia bloomed then, untar 
 nished by rough wind or rain; its petals 
 were sweet, which since then have grown 
 ,so bitter. The elm-trees did not then 
 I bloom thrice for one green coat. And 
 ; no one ever paused to think that no 
 1 good and lovely thing exists on earth 
 without its corresponding shadow. 
 
 The world was full of the sound of 
 sweet, flute-like voices of young women 
 calling after their lovers ; and the sing 
 ing of small birds made slender, pleas- 
 6 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 ant melodies among the cool myrtles. 
 Life was simpler; perhaps more child 
 like though more passionate. Two who 
 loved each other might walk together, 
 hand in hand, along the path, singing 
 their happiness, without reproach, save, 
 perchance, from some lugubrious, gray- 
 bearded presbyter mourning, among 
 mossy tombstones, life s evanescence. 
 
 And happy youth was without a 
 fault, unless it were a trivial one, some 
 peche mignon, a guileless, guiltless, girl 
 ish sin, like kissing oneself in the look 
 ing-glass for lack of another lover. 
 
 In all the town there were none so 
 pretty, none so graceful or so sweet, as 
 the golden girls of San Domingo. 
 They flowed along the windy streets, 
 their turbans nodding, like a stream of 
 tulips. They fluttered down the byways 
 in their white muslin dresses like bevies 
 7 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 of butterflies. The loveliness of their 
 slender bodies and the beauty of their 
 youthful faces were far beyond all dull 
 description; they were a bed of tiger- 
 lilies in the sun. The earth loved the 
 tread of their flying feet, which seemed 
 to be forever dancing pastourelles ; and 
 the narrow lanes of the city laughed 
 with the lilt of their Creole tongue. 
 
 Among the golden San Domingans 
 the loveliest of all admittedly was Mar 
 guerite Lagoux, the milliner, by her 
 patronage called Rita, by her familiars 
 Margoton, by envious rivalry Madame 
 Margot; and, after all was over and 
 done, known merely as Old Mother Go- 
 go. 
 
 Hers was glorious physical loveliness 
 in its fullest maturity. It was in an 
 8 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 hour of inspiration the indolent god of 
 beauty drew the lines on which her body 
 was built. 
 
 Her passionate, rich-colored, hand 
 some face was like a line from an old 
 enchantment which took men s souls 
 captive, then cast them away without 
 the least regret, or with a Circean spell 
 turned them into beasts. Her neck was 
 a deep-colored, ivory tower poised per 
 fectly over her breast. The dazzling,N 
 orange-tawny skin of her broad bust 
 turned to golden-russet before it 
 reached her cheeks, and was there 
 flushed to dusky rose, like the skin of a 
 ruddy-gold peach. In the burnt splen 
 dor of her cheek the darkly eloquent 
 blood in her veins made its golden proc 
 lamation. Her mouth was long and 
 strangely curved like a retroverted 
 bow; the lips of a queer fruit-color, not 
 9 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 r crimson, carmine, nor magenta, but a 
 Jittle of all three. The upper lip was 
 brief to a fault, and curled back on it 
 self like a rich-pulped fruit which has 
 parted in ripening. The full under-lip 
 cast a heavier shade than the lips the old 
 masters chose, when they painted a pic- 
 Jture of the Madonna. Her hair, like 
 a dark, uncertain cloud, fell down in 
 heavy coils, gathered and knotted at 
 the nape of the neck, bound there in a 
 golden net; or lay in an unfilleted 
 band across the broad, low brow, drawn 
 back into braids over her ears, or col 
 lected into a turban tied with peculiar 
 dexterity. Her body was cast in a glo 
 rious mould : she was tall ; in figure per 
 fect, and full of a stately, tiger-like 
 grace, the envy of other women. She. 
 moved, when she walked, as an empress 
 might if heaven but gave her grace, with 
 10 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 an exquisite, perfect motion, devoid of 
 every appearance of effort, not strid 
 ing, but seeming to glide like a swan 
 swimming on untroubled water. In the 
 sluggish grace of her heavy lips and 
 deep-lidded, brooding eyes, she was as 
 full of an indolent, sleepy beauty as 
 midsummer afternoon. Dressed in 
 bright merino, crimson, orange, and 
 blue, with a kerchief of blood-colored 
 silk around her head bound in oriental 
 fashion, beads of amber around her 
 neck, and in each ear a hoop of gold, 
 she looked like a great golden lily dustecf 
 with sang-dieu. 
 
 One day she was the lily; the next a 
 yellow rose; and the next she was a 
 tulip, gold, crimson, purple and black. 
 She was a Caribbean summer incarnate," 
 of flower-blooms, thunder and gold. The 
 passing traveler, seeing her, stopped 
 11 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 while he caught his breath. There was 
 something about her commanded atten 
 tion besides her remarkable beauty. One 
 spoke of Ducie Poincignon casually; 
 but one spoke of Rita Lagoux with an 
 accent. 
 
 Of all the milliners of her day Margot 
 was first beyond compare. Her taste 
 was perfect; her instinct for color was 
 never at fault; her choice of fabrics ex 
 quisite. None equaled her in dexterity; 
 she was like a marvelous spider weav 
 ing webs of gossamer. Those who 
 sought beauty found it; her patrons 
 were patrician; all of the very best em 
 ployed her art; she had no successful 
 competitor ; beside her Eloise Couesnon 
 was esteemed but maladroit. 
 
 Margot s shop was in King street, 
 12 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 near Mignot s Garden, a little above 
 the Bend. She lived in a little alley 
 known as Lilac lane, a narrow, crooked, 
 private path between two large es 
 tates, which rambled into the inter 
 space like a brown brook into a wood. 
 Beneath high green hedges it wandered 
 into the solitude, growing narrower as 
 it went, until the hedge boughs, meet 
 ing, knit themselves together, interlac 
 ing their elastic, leafy twigs. There the 
 baffled foot-path seemed to lose its way 
 and to abandon every purpose for which 
 foot-paths are designed, ran on a little, 
 hesitated, crept on again uncertainly, 
 then gave up hope and disappeared in a 
 green perplexity. The unfamiliar trav 
 eler paused here, bewildered, and 
 turned back to find a bolder thorough 
 fare; familiar feet alone pressed on 
 through Lilac lane. 
 13 
 
 - 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 Where the strait way vanished into 
 the wilderness stood Margot s cottage, 
 tucked snug as a plum stone in a plum. 
 Around it was a garden hedged by box 
 and bay. Of all the hedges in Lilac 
 lane the highest were Margot s. They 
 rose around her garden in an impene 
 trable thicket, tall, dark-tangled, dense 
 and old, their green tops tossing against 
 the blue beyond the reach of the hedg- 
 er s bill. Within lay a little tranquil 
 space, withdrawn alike from curious 
 gaze and the town s brawl, and over 
 shadowed by the wide boughs of two 
 great magnolias, whose drowsy shade 
 fell heavily on the sleepy oleanders and 
 over the rows of tulips below, that lifted 
 up their golden cups and filled the air 
 with odor. Here day and night flowed 
 by in undisturbed serenity ; all noise was 
 hushed and tumult quelled; the shyest 
 14 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 wild birds nested here in perfect confi 
 dence, fear cast away and foes forgot. 
 No place in all the town seemed more se 
 cure from rude intrusion. No appari 
 tion came by night, no terror by day; so 
 quiet it was, so full of peace, it seemed 
 a sanctuary withdrawn from the inter 
 rupting clash and rude alarms of the 
 troubled world, its tranquillity that of 
 a convent close, with little, distant, ring 
 ing bells, recurrent chimes and subdued 
 voices, muffled by distance, as of nuns 
 chanting an office in the peaceful choir 
 of a green-nooked nunnery. 
 
 Margot Lagoux had a daughter; her 
 name was Gabrielle. 
 
 Though Margot was lovely, Gabrielle 
 was lovelier. They differed in beauty 
 as pompadour-pink differs from brier- 
 15 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 rose. Margot s was a golden beauty; 
 Gabrielle s an ivory loveliness. Mar- 
 got was a pottery figurine moulded 
 with marvelous skill; Gabrielle a statu 
 ette of exquisite porcelain. Margot was 
 like the summer sun, dazzling, opulent, 
 sumptuous; Gabrielle like the young 
 spring moon in her slender loveliness; 
 the lines of her flowed one into the other 
 like the lines of a song. Her hands 
 were delicate and fine, their touch as 
 light as flowers blown by the wind, 
 which drift like a whisper across the 
 face of the passer-by. Her feet were 
 arched like a Spanish girl s; her an 
 kles were the loveliest things that ever 
 sandal-ribbon bound; she walked like 
 the wind of an April morning through 
 meadows after rain. 
 
 Her face, with its delicate high cheek 
 bones, was like the fair flower of Nor- 
 16 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 mandy ; but her beauty was not West 
 ern, twas Eastern; it was like the pale 
 Persian roses which blow by the gray- 
 marbled waterways among the fallen 
 pillars of the forgotten gardens of 
 Istakhr, roses of yesterday, full of 
 yesterday s unbearable loveliness, yes 
 terday s happiness, yesterday s tragedy, 
 fragrant with passionate, heart-break 
 ing perfume, piercingly sweet, with the 
 pathos of swift-passing beauty, far 
 keener than that of ruins and age. She 
 was of a loveliness such as sometimes 
 comes out of India unburned by the In 
 dian sun, of which dreamers make 
 dreams of unforgettable beauty. 
 
 Her slender young body was like a 
 piece of perfect ivory laid away to be 
 carved. Her long, dark, tangled eye 
 lashes fell upon her cheeks like sudden 
 gusts of darkening rain ; her cheeks were 
 17 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 japonica-color; her lips pale pomegran 
 ate-red; her hair ebony; her temples 
 were traced with crocus-blue. 
 
 Her cheeks japonica-color? They 
 were the hue of peach flowers at dusk: 
 God who gave them knew whence came 
 both peach flower color and dusk. 
 
 At every breath there came and went 
 
 beneath her transparent skin a shadowy 
 
 =- crimson under-dusk, ebbing and flowing 
 
 with the beat of her heart like a somber, 
 
 twilit tide, San Domingo s sang de 
 
 ^crepuscule; and through her fingers the 
 
 sunlight shone with a golden radiance 
 
 like the glow of a rose through a glass 
 
 ^ of madeira. 
 
 She might have been sister to Sche 
 herazade in her exquisite, aquiline, high 
 born loveliness, a patrician beauty 
 strangely like that of old French ro 
 mance. Far and away beyond compare 
 18 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 she was the loveliest girl in St. Finbar s 
 parish ; and the faces of the young girls 
 in St. Finbar s made that ancient, dim, 
 gray parish bloom like the gardens of 
 Paradise. 
 
 God, who knows everything, knows 
 whence she had her exquisite, slender 
 body, her aristocratic face, the dusky 
 crimson tide, the touch of fantasy which 
 made her lovely as a strain of wild, pas- / 
 sionate music played on the deep strings 
 of a gipsy violin. 
 
 For, as the rarest beauty remains im- 1 . 
 perfect without a touch of strangeness, j 
 without something to haunt and to fret 
 the mind, forbidding it to forget, there 
 was a something almost, if not quite, 
 fantastic, in Gabrielle s loveliness a 
 touch of irregularity difficult to define 
 making her beauty more significant 
 through being peculiar, more poignant 
 19 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 through being strange. Something in 
 definite and conjectural tinged her be 
 ing; the ghost of a vaguely intricate and 
 tragical implication beneath her bright 
 young innocence lurked shadowy and 
 inalign. Had her beauty been less per 
 fect this, perhaps, had been less notable. 
 Revealed in a casual attitude, for a mo 
 ment startling in vividness, now for a 
 moment it was lost, and now stole forth 
 again in the stress of unstudied emotion 
 to accent a passing mood. 
 
 As one who, looking into her mirror, 
 sees a face there not her own, Margot 
 perceived in her daughter s face an in 
 tricately blended likeness, to banish 
 which into forgetfulness she strove des 
 perately in vain, the recollection of a 
 wild, sweet, irrevocable hour whose 
 memory was fear. Gabrielle s beauty 
 made her tremble. 
 
 20 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 It is a perilous privilege for a girl to 
 possess loveliness rising above her sta 
 tion in life; there is a price always to be 
 paid for it, sorrow the common fee ; such 
 a heritage of beauty often proves but a 
 legacy of shame, a beauty built for de 
 struction, a loveliness for scorn; hag 
 gard wisdom reaps in tears what inno 
 cence sowed with laughter. 
 
 There was a thought from which 
 Margot shrank as from a draught of 
 poison: Gabrielle degraded and deso 
 late. There was nothing to her more^ 
 precious than her daughter s innocence;, 
 nothing so important as her earthly 
 happiness ; these seemed to Margot even 
 more necessary than her eternal peace. 
 Yet ever a shadow hung over her 
 child, from cradle to grave; her delicate 
 grace and refinement were signatures 
 of dread. Margot s eyes hunted from 
 21 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 side to side as do a deer s hard pressed 
 by the dogs can one elude destiny? 
 
 Where were the lovely and the fair 
 she had known in her own youth? Dead, 
 long ago; the graveyard sand lay cold 
 upon their lips; their passion and their 
 sweetness were forgotten long ago. 
 Margot knew that youth and summer 
 night are made for ecstasy. She knew, 
 too, that in forgotten graveyards are 
 many unmarked graves of hapless 
 beauty. Looking into the mirror where 
 life is stripped of its illusions, and truth 
 stands stark and bare in its unmitigated 
 ugliness, panic terror seized Margot. 
 
 Was there no refuge, no escape, nor 
 safety anywhere; no retreat, nor har 
 bor, but in hopeless longing; always 
 the far-off lightning and threatening of 
 storm? Peering into the future she 
 was filled with apprehension. In 
 22 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 dreams she saw Gabrielle s innocence 
 hanging over a black abyss; in dreams 
 saw, a fawn torn by ravening wolves v 
 She awoke, starting up, crying out! 
 There was nothing but the night. 
 Yet she arose from her bed, and, 
 crouched by her crucifix, prayed for her 
 daughter as she never had prayed for 
 herself. 
 
 At adolescence Gabrielle was a vision^ 
 of delight. In temperament she was 
 ardent as is a summer shower, which 
 gives, when it gives, all that it has to 
 give, in a rush of wind and rain. Un 
 spoiled by knowledge, unruined by 
 folly, too innocent to be perplexed by 
 life s anxieties, her soul mistook Earth 
 for the pathway to Paradise, and noth 
 ing as yet had discovered her error. 
 23 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 With her each hour began afresh the 
 tale of life, a long, sweet, glad surprise. 
 
 Rose-winged days and golden nights 
 were come to Gabrielle, whose feet stood 
 at the smiling gate of the Primrose 
 Way. But M argot s days and nights 
 were filled with passionate anxiety, as 
 with increasing doubts and fears she 
 confronted destiny. 
 
 The inner house-door gave upon a 
 little paved court, where two twisted 
 old fig-trees grew, many-branched can 
 delabra, tipped in spring with green- 
 leaved lights. Green-leaved shadows 
 wavered below on a duck-pool s marble 
 bowl, stained green from the copper 
 tenons which tied its stones together. 
 Here ducks praised Jove with yellow 
 bills, and splashed viridian wings. In 
 the pool, glimmering, one saw the stuc 
 coed cottage-wall, on the irregular sur- 
 24 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 face of which old colors showed in 
 broken chequers through the new until 
 the wall was patched with unpremedi 
 tated beauty. Across the pool the sil 
 very sunlight glimmered like a streak 
 of flame. But the fairest thing reflected 
 there was Gabrielle, dancing on the old 
 stones which paved the court, dances 
 fantastic as her mood ; sarabands to the 
 stately rhythm of odd old songs, delib 
 erately slow ; canzons whose pathos was 
 lost in a pirouette; minuets which mi 
 micked the swallows overhead with their 
 swift glissades among the trees and un 
 dulating sweeps among the flowers, 
 snatching the poppies as she passed, and 
 thrusting them in her hair, and pausing 
 at last like a wind-blown flower above 
 her reflection in the pool, Gabrielle, 
 singing old songs by the world forgot 
 ten, strains of wild beauty, that by 
 25 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 wayward loveliness have a peculiar 
 power to please, with old melodies, 
 alluring and sweet; songs such as 
 long ago stole the souls of saints de 
 termined upon salvation, and ga^ 
 themes for many troubadour lays, < f 
 which, though all are lovely, the greater 
 part are sad, being memories of love 1 !- 
 ness departed into the dust : one of lif j s 
 paradoxes, that the memory of bea ity 
 vshould be bitter. 
 
 Here, remote from the curious world, 
 preserved by the cloistral hedges from 
 prying indiscretion, flowed her secluded 
 existence. Few ever saw her. Sujh as 
 by chance observed her through some 
 green interstice, dazzled by her beauty, 
 hurried off to spread the tale of an en 
 chanted princess in an enchanted wood ; 
 hedge-balked and bewildered, few had 
 ever seen her twice; by which she had 
 26 
 
MADAME MAKGOT 
 
 been the more thought of through being 
 the less seen. 
 
 Many had sought the courtyard; but 
 none had found the way. Margot kept 
 " a solitude lest Gabrielle suffer cor- 
 r^ption, and around her maintained a 
 v ritable nunnery of care, hovered over 
 hqr, and kept her as close withdrawn as 
 a i -ovice in a convent-garth. 
 
 , "ut beauty cannot be sequestered al 
 ways safely anywhere. Cloistral life is 
 very, well for souls of cloistral nature 
 and f f the convent sort ; but youth and 
 spring hate convents, and will have 
 life s^ novitiate, or none. There is a crev 
 ice in every hedge, no matter how tall 
 or how thick it may be, and through it, 
 ever, Gabrielle peeps. 
 
 Spring followed winter ; May s warm 
 
 27 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 slow, yellow, moonlit nights were come. 
 
 Then Gabrielle grew tired and white. 
 Her hand became tremulous; her light 
 foot stumbled; she left off dancing in 
 the garden. She sighed wistfully; her 
 song ceased ; her mouth showed scarcely 
 a smile s wasted ghost. Her eyes, like 
 those of a wounded creature, followed 
 everywhere; her tears flowed at noth 
 ing. She grew as languid as a wither 
 ing flower. The light of her seemed 
 going out. The pallor of her face and 
 the feverish luster of her eyes startled 
 and frightened Margot. 
 
 Days dragged a laggard length; 
 night still more oppressed her. She lay 
 awake, whispering with dry lips she 
 knew not what; calling she knew not 
 whom; her trembling hands pressed 
 against her breast. Fancies for which 
 she found no name, thoughts for which 
 28 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 she had no words, and visions inexpres 
 sible, would not let her sleep. Night 
 after night she lay awake, consuming 
 the hours with wonder; or, if she slept, 
 awoke in tears, fell asleep to tears 
 again, and waking, tear-wet, trem 
 bling, with darkened lids and drawn 
 face, grew daily worse. 
 
 Vague, moody wants annoyed her; 
 the night was harassed by melancholy 
 dreams; the day vexed with formless 
 fancies. 
 
 Walking alone in the garden, answer- 
 less questionings beset and frightened 
 her; she listened where there was noth 
 ing to be heard ; stared where there was 
 nothing to be seen; found peace no 
 where. 
 
 Her heart ached with unreasoning 
 pain; she grew as gusty as a storm; the 
 speechless, inexplicable wonder within 
 29 
 
MADAME MABGOT 
 
 her breast throbbed like a festered 
 thorn. 
 
 Margot too well knew) the cause: 
 there was but one alleviation. 
 
 Spring, with its universal song, from 
 grove and garden lifted up its deathless 
 melody of bloomy verdure and warm- 
 breathed sweetness. All living crea 
 tures voiced the universal theme: 
 "Rejoice with the partner of thine heart 
 in the happy days of thy youth!" 
 
 The blue dove moaned out his heart s 
 desire ; the copper beetle wooed and won 
 his lady in the dust; butterflies and 
 dragon-flies glittered in the wind, happy 
 in their airy ecstasy they fluttered 
 among the hedges ; they sported among 
 the flowers and all the earth rejoiced 
 in having its heart s desire. Thrush and 
 30 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 mocker sang, "Passion, passion . . . 
 heart-breaking passion!" to their pretty 
 feathered paramours. From every 
 spray the vireo cried shrill, in shreds of 
 melody, "Heart s desire! Heart s de 
 sire!" In the fragrant green-bay the 
 painted bunting s love-call rang inces 
 santly; while from the tufted grove 
 arose the stirring chant of earth s uni 
 versal choir, the canticle, all passionate 
 and shrill, of "Love, love, love!" and yet 
 again of "Love!" 
 
 How can one keep it from the heart 
 of youth, that, all unknowing, yet numb 
 with longing, breathlessly awaits its 
 coming, and trembles like a leaf with 
 the wordless yearning of unrecognized 
 desire. 
 
 Gabrielle was intoxicated with the 
 passion of her own heart, without an 
 object or an aim; her throat was almost 
 31 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 choked with youth s sweet, innocent de 
 sire; and, ever, within her shaking 
 heart, the questioning wonder grew. 
 
 "Mother," she said wistfully, "what 
 is it fills the world with music day and 
 night? What is it makes the whole 
 world sing?" 
 
 "Happiness," replied Margot, "and 
 joy of the spring." 
 
 "Happiness?" rejoined Gabrielle. 
 "If it be happiness, why does it make 
 my heart ache? Why does spring hurt 
 me so?" 
 
 Margot, startled, sat staring, wrung 
 with sudden fear. 
 
 "And what is this love of which every 
 one sings we women most of all?" 
 
 "The source of all wretchedness. 
 Leave it alone!" cried Margot. She 
 looked at her daughter in terror. 
 
 "But," replied Gabrielle, wondering, 
 32 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 "if love be the source of all wretched 
 ness, why is its song so sweet?" 
 
 "Because fools have their folly!" 
 cried Margot. "Love-songs are sweet 
 to a lover, as folly is dear to a fool. 
 Worship thy God," she said harshly, 
 "and leave foolishness to the fool!" 
 
 "Love foolishness?" said Gabrielle, 
 puzzled. "You told me that God is 
 love!" She turned the riddle over and 
 over in her mind. 
 
 "What ails you?" asked Margot. 
 
 "Nothing," said Gabrielle. But a 
 flush stole up her cheeks. "How does 
 a woman know, Mother, that she loves, 
 so that she may say certainly, This is 
 love ?" 
 
 "By the utter despair that tears her 
 heart in two." 
 
 "But, Mother," protested Gabrielle, 
 "they tell me that love is sweet!" 
 33 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 "Sweet? As wormwood!" said Mar- 
 got hoarsely. "It is nothing but fever 
 and fret." 
 
 "Many I see who have it; but none 
 who fret. Might I not know for myself 
 a little of this pretty play of lovers and 
 beloved?" besought Gabrielle. 
 
 Margot looked at Gabrielle and 
 trembled, seeing the shadow upon her, 
 foreseeing the fate of her loveliness, 
 perceiving indiscretion s lips at the rim 
 of the cup of terror. "What man has 
 snared your silly heart?" she asked. 
 
 Gabrielle stared at her. "Why should 
 any man snare my heart?" she asked in 
 pitiful wonder. "I have never harmed 
 any man, nor any living thing." She 
 caught her breath. "Oh, Mother, feel 
 my heart beating! It beats as if it 
 would burst. Why does my heart beat 
 so? Am I dying? Do you think that 
 34 
 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 I must die? Yet, Mother, my heart is 
 aching so that I would that I could die! 
 Is not what God made good . . . you 
 told me that God was love . . . was not 
 mankind made by God ... and is not 
 love the world s delight?" 
 
 "It is its direst misery," said Margot 
 bitterly. "God keep you from it. Two 
 parts are pain, two sorrow, and the 
 other two parts are death." 
 
 "I don t fear death," said Gabrielle. 
 "Then why should I fear love?" 
 
 "Because it is a lie," cried Margot, 
 beside herself. "I conjure you, by 
 God s sorrow, close your ears against 
 it." 
 
 "How can I close my ears against it 
 when I hear it in my sleep?" 
 
 Margot s delight in her daughter s 
 beauty was turned into bitterness. 
 "Peace!" she cried. "And leave me. 
 35 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 All this will pass away." But, deep 
 within, her heart said, "Never!" Inno 
 cence will be indiscreet. Sin alone is 
 always tclever 1 . And in youth great 
 things are lightly asked and lightly 
 given. "Go!" she cried to Gabrielle. 
 
 Gabrielle left the room. Margot 
 buried her face in her hands. 
 
 It is hard for woman to stand alone 
 and to resist temptation forever. Soon 
 or late the black moment comes ; reason 
 is off guard; prudence abandons her; 
 caution is thrown to the winds : passion 
 betrays. Here is an irremediable dis 
 ease which baffles the skill of the phy 
 sicians. Margot recoiled as she faced 
 the future. Time had become a terror. 
 Burning tears flowed down her cheeks. 
 There is no woe so sickening as the 
 monotone of fear, the shuddering, in 
 terior sense of impending catastrophe. 
 36 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 Nor is it eased by the strange apathy 
 which is granted to the doomed. Mar- 
 got groaned in an agony, half remorse, 
 half apprehension. Could God set so 
 foul a seal upon so fair a thing? 
 
 Again on a day Gabrielle came in 
 from the garden, her eyes dry-burning 
 and famine-bright. "Mother, give me 
 a lover!" she cried. "Nietta Pascault 
 has one!" 
 
 "Then alas and alack for Nietta Pas 
 cault!" cried Margot. 
 
 "But, Mother, he called her his 
 heart s delight; she did not speak, but 
 she kissed him; and he kissed her until 
 he must have bruised her lips; yet she 
 did not seem to care . . . rather she 
 seemed to like it. And all he said was 
 Love me! Love me! and all she said 
 was Yes, and Yes! And when he 
 kissed her she grew pale; I thought that 
 37 
 
MADAME MAKGOT 
 
 she was dead, . . . but he held her in 
 his arms, Mother, and kissed her again 
 and again, as though he would kiss her 
 back to life. Will kisses bring one back 
 from the dead? For, Mother, suddenly 
 she opened her eyes as if she lived only 
 for love; and then all he said was Love 
 me! and all she said was Yes! 
 
 Margot s heart fainted. 
 f Day after day Gabrielle knelt in the 
 garden and plead for her heart s desire. 
 Night after night Margot crouched on 
 her floor and prayed, in despair and 
 agony, that it might not be given her. 
 Heaven s custodian mingled their pray 
 ers in fatal entanglement; one was an 
 swered, and one was not: he is respon- 
 ^sible. 
 
 Sunset lay on Margot s garden. The 
 paths still shimmered with the day s 
 38 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 heat, though the lax grass lifted in the 
 shadows. Nameless perfumes wan 
 dered among the drowsily-bending 
 flowers; the odor of warm boxwood 
 rose from the hedge. The hedge stood 
 black against the sky; in its glistening, 
 fragrant deeps small birds moved swift 
 ly to and fro in curious agitation. 
 
 Gabrielle, puzzling upon life s un 
 answered riddle, stood listening to 
 sounds beyond the hedge. Everywhere 
 was the patter of hurrying feet, and the 
 whisper of wordless laughter, mocking 
 ly borne on the evening wind. The air 
 was full of the golden vision of light- 
 footed maidens with fluttering gar 
 ments, flying through Lilac lane, 
 pursued by ardent and breathless lovers, 
 eagerly following where they fled. The 
 sound of laughter floated back along 
 the narrow way, and the little faint echo 
 39 
 
MADAME M ARGOT 
 
 of flying feet. It was that time of the 
 year when all maids are sweet as 
 freshly gathered flowers, and all men 
 are a little mad. Even the earth, drab 
 clod, was astir with the ecstasy of ap 
 proaching night. 
 
 Beneath the broad-boughed mag 
 nolia grew a pomegranate-tree whose 
 branches shrouded the greater tree s 
 bole. The scarlet pomegranate flowers 
 hung over Gabrielle; the green leaves 
 folded her in. Faint color came fit 
 fully over her cheek; her eyes roamed 
 restlessly through the garden, but found 
 no solace there. As she stood thus, 
 brooding on life s inexplicable theme, 
 she was aware of a sudden shadow which 
 fell on the grass beside her, and turned 
 in voiceless terror. 
 
 There was a face in the green hedge, 
 smiling, two butterflies hovering over 
 40 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 it, a lad s face, laughing and debonair, 
 with yellow hair curling around it like 
 crisp little golden flames; his cheeks 
 were as ruddy and smooth as a child s; 
 his eyes were blue as the morning, swift 
 and bright ; the leaves stirred all around 
 him as if to the beat of wings; there 
 was confidence in his bearing, easy 
 lordship and high pride. 
 
 Gabrielle, startled and terrified, 
 shrank back against the magnolia s 
 black bole, one trembling, hesitant hand 
 extended in doubt. Speechless she 
 stared at that bright, boyish face with 
 its nimbus of sunlit, yellow hair, until 
 her dry eyes gushed tears, dimming her 
 sight, stared in wonder and adoration. 
 
 His eyes were audaciously bright as 
 
 wild stars, incessantly roving, and 
 
 alight with golden fire. He was tall, 
 
 well-set and slender, with a beautiful, 
 
 41 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 straight body; there was something 
 godlike in his air as he leaned through 
 the matted hedge, eagerly scanning her, 
 her pale rose cheeks, snowy gown, 
 moth-green kerchief, her lips, her neck 
 matching the ivory of the blossoms in 
 her hair, half -veiled by a screen of 
 leafy green, dull gold and pomegranate 
 flowers. 
 
 She had bound her hair with a bit of 
 gold braid which shone like an aureole 
 round her brow, and in it had thrust two 
 butterfly lilies, whiter than ivory; her 
 eyes were wide open, round and un 
 winking, their frightened depths full of 
 tears; her lips had fallen slightly apart 
 to free her fluttering breath ; she sighed, 
 a little, shuddering sigh, and crossed her 
 hands upon her breast. Her beauty 
 startled him: delicate- frail, almost 
 translucent in the golden sun, she 
 42 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 seemed a being not of flesh and gross 
 mortality, but a spirit by enchantment 
 made visible, a dryad out of the ancient 
 wood, a maiden saint stepped out of a 
 missal or fled from a chapel window, 
 with a halo around her brow. With her 
 head poised like a flower; her little, per 
 fect hands and feet; her ankles slim 
 and beautiful; each line aristocratic; 
 everything proclaiming patrician blood ; 
 nothing asserting a baser thing: saint, 
 maid, dryad, nymph, or sprite, who 
 could tell which? 
 
 Silently drinking her loveliness he 
 leaned through the hedge. Among the 
 fire-colored flowers and green, her color 
 was exquisite as the violet sky is, seen 
 through yellow leaves. 
 
 Again she sighed softly ; stared at his 
 face, and shivered a little. Was it a 
 god or a man in the hedge? Had he 
 43 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 sprouted out of the boxwood, or fallen 
 from the clouds? 
 
 The perfect beauty of her figure, out 
 lined on green by her thin white gown, 
 charmed and enchanted him. He stared 
 at her, trying to focus her face more 
 clearly upon his sight; her loveliness 
 struck him dumb. She seemed a statue 
 of ivory, hung with garlands of gold, 
 crimson and green, half -hidden by a 
 ^rood-screen of shimmering emerald. It 
 seemed to him that he looked on more 
 than mortal beauty. 
 
 Leaning forward a little, one hand 
 outstretched, one clasping her throat, 
 she watched his face with its golden hair 
 aglow in the last red sunlight. How 
 could she tell if it were a god or a man, 
 that face with its shimmering locks 
 like living fire around it, a gleaming 
 nimbus whose dancing flames were f ash- 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 ioned of burnished gold, a face like a 
 blazing seraph s, or Ariel s? She 
 looked at that proud young countenance 
 in wordless adoration. 
 
 Her own face was now intensely 
 bright with the sunset s declining glory. 
 Into the crevice between her lips the 
 sunshine had slipped; her lips were 
 translucent ; her mouth was aglow as if 
 she breathed ethereal fire. 
 
 Suddenly he drew his breath with a 
 sharply audible sound ; for, as he gazed, 
 longing seized the boy s heart and 
 wrung it bitterly. 
 
 The flame which blazed in his bright 
 eyes put an answering glow in her 
 own. She was aware that her beauty 
 had startled him. For the first time in 
 her life she was awake to her own love 
 liness, a sense wonderful and sweet. A 
 delicate, throbbing fire came fluttering 
 45 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 up through her breast ; a flush stole into 
 her cheeks and warmed their ashy 
 pallor. Her eyes met his: in his eyes 
 were joy, surprise, and longing. His 
 eyes met hers: and all her doubts went 
 out in wordless joy. For, when she 
 perceived that look in his face, she, too, 
 was thrilled with longing; the silence 
 sang; fire thrilled her heart; suddenly 
 neck and cheeks flamed red. 
 
 She answered his look with glorious 
 eyes, humid, terrified, alight. Then her 
 frightened eyes fell and her shy face. 
 But, like a wave which breaks along a 
 beach in a passionate surge, her heart 
 rushed out to greet him. 
 
 He saw her neck and her cheeks flame 
 red; passion struck him to the heart. 
 With a gesture of haughty but boyish 
 humility he pushed through the hedge, 
 seized the sheltering pomegranate 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 branches, and swept them aside. She 
 stood uncurtained before him. He 
 gazed at her. "St. Jacques!" he cried. 
 "Are you a living creature ?" 
 
 She regarded him for an instant with 
 a look of undisguised terror, catching 
 her breath with a sobbing sound right 
 pitiful to hear; then her quivering, 
 piteous face was made exquisite by 
 tears. 
 
 A back-wash of timidity held him si 
 lently staring at her, a boy, hot and 
 hasty, sure of himself, impulsively 
 bold, but abashed, admiration and 
 longing ablaze in his eyes. Gabri- 
 elle stammered, but could not find 
 words; her breast heaved and sank; she 
 could not control it. Overwhelmed by 
 the sudden strange rush of emotion, she 
 swayed giddily, dizzily put out one hand 
 to steady herself, and laid it upon his 
 47 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 arm: a tremulous smile came over her 
 face; her tears, like an April shower, 
 were gone. 
 
 His hand sought her other hand; 
 found it; held it; thus their hands met. 
 Half a step timidly they approached 
 each other; than stood at a halt as if 
 turned to stone. Her frightened breath 
 was the only sound save the stirring of 
 the night -wind in the dark boughs over 
 head. 
 
 Shaking like a wind-blown leaf, ff Que 
 desirez-vous de moi?" she gasped. 
 
 His voice, too, was trembling. "That 
 you should love me a little, for pity s 
 sake, . . . and quite forget to fear!" 
 
 His voice seemed to Gabrielle god 
 like. 
 
 "See, then ... I fear nothing . . . 
 I should as soon think of fearing the air 
 we breathe!" she said, adoring her slen- 
 48 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 der young demigod out of the hedge. 
 Then suddenly she raised her hand and 
 laid it caressingly on his cheek; her 
 trembling fingers felt like flowers 
 trailed across his face. 
 
 He laughed. There was an infec 
 tious sweetness and merriment in his 
 laughter. Then they laughed together, 
 softly, first love and joy are silent 
 things. 
 
 "You are the god of love," she said, 
 with infinite simplicity. "Else, how 
 could you fly over the hedge?" 
 
 Her flute-like voice was like the music 
 of a half-awakened song, and exquisite 
 ly moving; her words trailed slowly like 
 speech asleep. 
 
 Again he laughed. "The god of 
 love? Bien! Then what shall I have 
 that is godlike?" 
 
 "What you will," she said. "You 
 49 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 may ask." For the innocent are trust 
 ful as doves, helpless as the least crea 
 tures, weak as the small birds among 
 the little branches. 
 
 He drew a quick breath. "Most of 
 all things on earth I would have a kiss 
 from your mouth. Shall I have it?" 
 
 "Yes," she said. "Take it!" and put 
 up her lips. So their mouths met. A 
 thousand tingling darts of fire pierced 
 through her as his lips touched hers. 
 
 Her heart was wrung by that first 
 kiss; for an instant it stood still; the 
 blood had left it, and had fled through 
 her like flame ; she almost swooned. For 
 first passion is like the wind in the blos 
 soming locust-tree, too sweet to be 
 easily breathed or borne; youth s first 
 caress is almost an agony. Gabrielle 
 gasped; his lips had burned on hers 
 like a celestial fire. Both shook as love s 
 50 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 consuming flame rushed through them. 
 As he to her was first, so she to him-/ 
 each gave the other life s immaculate 
 gift, the unmeasured, unmeasurable fire 
 of love s first embrace, that passionate 
 anguish of delicate, uncalculated de% 
 light, ardent and boundless. 
 
 Their lips hurried to the meeting. 
 How could they delay? Youth and 
 love brook no delays. Yet, as she felt 
 his lips upon her own, she regarded him 
 with a writhen countenance of unquali 
 fied terror. Love comes to the maiden 
 spirit with sudden tumult, and strikes 
 it, not as a blithe discovery, or an all- 
 Ely sian joy, but as a birth and an 
 agony, from which, if the soul survives, 
 comes unspeakable happiness. His lips 
 sought hers and seeking, met; in the 
 meeting her soul flew out at her mouth. 
 
 The world seemed suddenly remote, 
 51 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 withdrawn into the depths of uncalcu- 
 lated space. There remained but these 
 two young, love-stunned souls, groping 
 to each other in the garden under the 
 shadow of the great magnolia-trees. 
 
 The enchantment of love was upon 
 them. The happy girl lay close upon 
 his heart, and all she said was, "Love 
 me ! Love me !" and, "If ever I cease to 
 love you perdition take my soul!" he 
 said. With utter confidence her eyes 
 looked up into his, glowing with a pas 
 sion that knows no change ; and all she 
 said, as she lay against his heart, was, 
 "Love me! Only love me!" That is all 
 a woman asks. Her fingers stroked his 
 yellow hair ; the mere touch thrilled her 
 with unspeakable happiness. 
 r Night came, and darkness voyaged 
 dhe uncharted sky. Overhead the blue 
 dome blazed with the innumerable stars 
 52 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 - 
 
 and golden planets heaving up heaven s 
 arch; the tremulous green lamps of the 
 fireflies filled the earth with twinkling 
 constellations all around them. But the 
 heavens and the earth were as nothing 
 to them : love was there, and he, and she, 
 and the utterly forgotten starlight. 
 AnxL where youth 
 
 death, good or ill, the bright stars or 
 the black mould, or better or worse, are 
 nothing, and_wisdom is of little, worth. 
 
 They gazed into each other s eyes 
 teith wordless tenderness. Youth has 
 mot words, nor waits to find them; age 
 finds words, and nothing else. 
 
 Across the city boomed the hour, 
 at last. 
 
 "Oh! I must go!" 
 
 "Not yet! Not yet!" 
 
 "But I must go. Good-night!" 
 
 "Not yet!" 
 
 53 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 "But I must go! Good-night! Good 
 night! I pray you, leave me go . . . 
 for truly I must go!" 
 
 "You 11 come again?" 
 
 "To-morrow." 
 
 "Show me the way into the garden," 
 he said. She showed him the quickest 
 way in, kissed him, and was gone 
 through the garden; for him the night 
 was darkened, and the stars put out. 
 Her breath was still upon his face, the 
 smell of the flowers in his nostrils ; and 
 in his ears was the sound of her voice, 
 calling after him, low and sweet, like a 
 half-awakened song, or was it but a 
 bird which called, that softly-fluting, 
 lonely note. 
 
 And when he was gone the garden to 
 Gabrielle was emptied of delight; but 
 all her soul was singing. 
 
 Her lips stung; her cheeks were on 
 54 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 fire. Into the house she came, one little 
 slipper upon its little foot, one slipper 
 gone, what became of that lost little 
 slipper God knows! and her stock 
 inged foot was damp with the dew which 
 had dripped from the leaves overhead. 
 A flame was in her eyes which is in a 
 maiden s eyes but once, when love first 
 lays his hands upon her heart. So 
 transfigured was she, she seemed a 
 winged creature. She loved; she was 
 beloved; inarticulate ecstasy! Hands, 
 feet, neck, and face told but one story. 
 Her eyes shone like blazing stars; the 
 roses had returned to her pale lips, the 
 freshness to her wan cheeks. 
 
 Margot watched her with narrowed 
 eyes. 
 
 "Mother, I am happy; so happy that 
 I do not want to die; I want to live for 
 ever!" 
 
 55 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 Margot eyed her narrowly. "What 
 has changed your mind?" 
 
 "I was walking in the garden," re 
 joined Gabrielle, "and the god of love 
 was there. He kissed me on my mouth, 
 Mother; and oh, Mother, love is sweet!" 
 
 Margot s heart stopped beating. 
 "Are you quite mad?" she said. 
 
 Then the truth dawned upon her. 
 She lost all sense of balance in the 
 crossed tides of dismay. She strained 
 her daughter to her heart, then thrust 
 her away; dropped speech unuttered; 
 gave a choked cry of despair, while her 
 face went gray as ashes. 
 
 She clutched Gabrielle by the arms, 
 steadying herself, for she could scarcely 
 have stood alone. She blinked like a 
 person purblind, and peered into the 
 gnTs wondering eyes. The lines of her 
 face became furrows. "Oh, my God!" 
 56 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 she whispered, "I should have known! 
 I should have known!" 
 
 Margot cowered as if to avoid a blow; 
 her eyes dilated; yet she seemed in 
 capable of seeing; her mouth fell open, 
 she seemed to scream, yet made no sound 
 but that of the whistling breath through 
 her nostrils, as one who sustains the tor 
 ture of the rack. 
 
 She thrust Gabrielle from her. "Go !" 
 she gasped, and struck herself on head 
 and breast, crying out, "Mother of 
 God! I should have known! Fool, 
 fool, fool!" Then, as if stunned, her 
 head fell down upon her breast. 
 
 In the dark and breathless stillness 
 
 of the night there was a stern, strange 
 
 loveliness; and now something akin to 
 
 terror, the terror of a child that dreams, 
 
 57 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 and, waking in the darkness, cries out 
 from dread of unknown things. 
 
 An ill wind, which had been blowing 
 since sunset with a far-off, moaning 
 sound, had arisen to a melancholy, 
 screaming note, with an extraordinary 
 rumbling in the chimney. Clouds of 
 soot and ashes, blown from the fireplace, 
 whirled in drifts around the floor. The 
 sound of distant thunder, the velocity 
 of the wind, the increasing turmoil and 
 confusion, filled the night with keen 
 disease. A bird sped round the house 
 with a shrill cry; the wind bellowed 
 hoarsely in the chimney; the house 
 shook with the blast ; over the housetops 
 could be heard the coming of the rain; 
 the light of the flickering candles served 
 only to increase the gloom; the draft 
 from the window swelled out the print 
 curtain and floated it half-way across 
 58 
 
MADAME M ARGOT 
 
 the room, straining and whipping at its 
 pole; the black magnolias bent, and 
 rose, and bent again, as if beneath the 
 beating of gigantic wings: it was close 
 upon midnight. 
 
 Before her crucifix Margot knelt, re 
 gardless of the storm, praying in 
 anguish for the safety of her child. 
 Ever before her imagining was Gabri- 
 elle, dishonored and betrayed, aban 
 doned to scorn and poverty. Her hands 
 twisted in desperate appeal. 
 
 "Blessed St. Dominique, lover of 
 souls, preserve my daughter!" she 
 plead. She listened motionless; all that 
 she heard was the roar of the wind. 
 
 "Mary, Mother, great in grace, de 
 fend and preserve my child! Mary, 
 Mother of Sorrows, have mercy upon 
 my daughter!" 
 
 59 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 Again she listened; but for the howl 
 of the gale the silence was profound. 
 
 "All ye Holy Virgins, intercede for 
 us I" Her panting voice broke. "Lord 
 of Compassion, hear me! Lord of In 
 finite Mercy, hear me! Have mercy 
 upon my child! O Thou, Most Pitiful 
 Lord of the Innocent, answer my 
 prayer!" 
 
 Again she listened. There was no 
 sound but the roar of the storm, the 
 creak of the house, and the gnawing of 
 the great rats in the timbers of the wall. 
 She cringed and shivered, and in ex 
 treme entreaty cried, "Lard, Seigneur 
 Dieu, preserve and spare my child! 
 You see her young and fair, her soul as 
 pure as the flowers that bloom in Para 
 dise! You breathed into her life; by 
 your law she was made; but for you she 
 60 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 never had been; dare you then let her 
 fall?" 
 
 But all was still. Heaven, to mortal 
 anguish, seems intolerably serene, so far 
 beyond comprehension is the inscrutable 
 leisure of God. It was taking too long 
 for her sorrow to reach the foot of the 
 throne. She was seeking her daugh 
 ter s safety, though it should be at the 
 hazard of her soul; but all she had was 
 the bitterness of unanswered supplica 
 tion. To hearts dismayed there is noth 
 ing so appallingly still as God. The 
 confident faithful may await the ulti 
 mate reply; but the desperate storm 
 heaven, they have not time to wait. 
 
 She beat her breast; her hair was 
 moist; her garments disarrayed; her 
 voice grew sharp; by vicars, saints and 
 intercessors, by all intermediaries, she 
 plead with Almighty God to listen and 
 61 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 to reply. There was no answer. "Mary, 
 Mother of Sorrows!" she gasped. 
 "Does God not understand?" 
 
 Her appeal arose piercing shrill: 
 "Dieu, Dieu, Eternel Dieu, ecoute 
 mes cris! Hdte-toi de ma secourir! 
 Hate-toi d elle delivrer! O Toi, qui 
 ecoutes la priere, aie pitie de nous! Ne 
 tarde-pas! Ecoute, mes cris!" She 
 waited; there was no answer; and sud 
 denly her voice went up like the cry of 
 delirium: 
 
 ff O Dieu Tres-haut, reveille-toi! 
 Reveille-toi, mon Dieu!" Then in a 
 tone of amazement and pathos, "Mary, 
 Mother of Sorrows," she said, "do I 
 have to explain to God?" 
 
 She paused a moment while despair 
 
 rose like a swelling flood ; then through 
 
 the darkness and the night went up a 
 
 bitter cry: " Seigneur Dieu! Tout- 
 
 62 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 puissant Dieu! sois attentif a ma priere: 
 tu m arrosarez avec I hysope, et je 
 serai purifiee; vous me laveras, et je 
 deviendrai plus blanche que la neige! 
 Plus blanche que la neige, mon Dieu! 
 Plus blanche que la neige! Gabriclle, 
 ma fille, mon Dieu! plus blanche que la 
 neige! Forgive in her my transgres 
 sions; pardon in her my sins; deliver 
 her from her inheritance . . . O my 
 God! . . . let her be white !" 
 
 A tremendous gust blew through the 
 house; the wind sucked in the chimney 
 with a sound like awful laughter; the 
 blinds recoiled with thunderous shock; 
 but from Heaven there was no answer. 
 
 At this she cried out pitifully as He 
 who long ago cried out the cry, which 
 through unending ages shall stand 
 archetype of despair: "Mon Dieu, mon 
 Dieu! pourquoi m as-tu abandonne?" 
 63 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 The wind screamed round about her 
 with the sound of many voices; far off 
 arose a tumult as of many people run 
 ning ; borne on the wind came a torrent 
 of hideous sound, not mad music, 
 but awful dissonance, swiftly nearing, 
 suddenly checked: after the clamor a 
 silence like death ; the room was fantas 
 tically still. Margot clung to the foot 
 of the crucifix. "Pourquoi, O Dieu, 
 rejettes-tu?" she asked in a voice grown 
 shriveled and thin. She crouched a 
 moment, motionless, her head on one 
 side, listening. There was no reply. 
 Heaven maintained its brassy silence. 
 Her face went gray; her eyes were hard 
 as stones; she turned her back on the 
 crucifix, saying, "I will call upon You 
 no more!" 
 
 There was a queer shuffling sound as 
 of footsteps in the entry. The candles 
 64 
 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 sank to dull blue sparks devoid of radi 
 ance; yet, instead of darkness there was 
 light. Outside was darkness, vast, pit- 
 mirk; inside, appalling light. All the 
 place was stunned and blinded by an 
 overwhelming light which cast no 
 shadows anywhere, but, vehemently 
 streaming, searched crack and cranny; 
 not a crevice escaped. It lapped and 
 flowed like waves, and penetrated 
 everything; even the gross material of 
 the walls, saturated by that flame, gave 
 back a superfluous glow, a white excess 
 of light, and every pointed thing with 
 in the room was peaked and capped 
 with flame. Round and round the room 
 a bewildered host of moths in little 
 wavering flights and drops went flutter 
 ing, with a light rustle of powdery 
 wings, and, among them, bats splashed 
 through the light with a low, continu- 
 65 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 ous whirr. Round and round, like 
 froth-clots on flood-water swinging 
 around a vortex, whirled slantbat and 
 moth in a dizzy, irregular ring, in the 
 midst of which, crouched in a high- 
 backed chair, sat a shriveled, dead- 
 alive, mummy-like figure, as thin and 
 fleshless as a skeleton, an apparition, 
 sinister, white, and wasted as a corpse 
 new-risen from the grave. 
 
 Its chin upon its folded hands, its 
 hands about one knee, the knee upheld 
 by the heel crooked at the chair-seat s 
 edge, the other gaunt leg dangling 
 across the upraised foot, the specter 
 smiled on Margot a bleak, Saturnine 
 smile. Its face was greatly wasted ; all 
 the life of it seemed gathered into the 
 brilliant, terrible eyes, which blazed 
 with infernal light, in splendid scorn, 
 without remorse, sardonical; a coun- 
 66 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 tenance such as God alone endures to 
 look upon unmoved; a figure terrible 
 . . . Deity, deformed, might look like 
 this, grotesquely majestical, hideous, 
 baleful, glorious, accursed, malign; an 
 archangel, fallen, outcast, depraved: 
 Satan, god of the discontent. 
 
 A twisted smile wreathing his evil 
 lips, with his chin hooked over his hands, 
 a smile of cool confidence mingled 
 with nonchalance, "Why not try me?" 
 he said. 
 
 Staring into the abyss of blinding 
 terror and light which encircled that 
 thunder-scarred visage, with its thin, 
 sleepless eyelids and twisted, ironic 
 smile, Margot shrank against the wall, 
 shivering as with cold ; one hand shield- 
 67 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 ing her blinded eyes, one groping along 
 the wall, she listened, breathlessly. 
 
 In a voice whose deep and hollow 
 sound seemed part of the midnight 
 storm, Satan spoke. 
 
 "God has forgotten you; that is 
 plain," he said. "Then why not pray 
 unto me? I remember when God for 
 gets. 
 
 "What did ye hope? That He who 
 left Jesus to die on the cross, would 
 stoop to succor you? Nay, then; you 
 have been cajoled. He has never so 
 much as kept one man from the wither 
 ing breath of time, but leaves a thou 
 sand ills on earth to work their wills 
 upon him. Yet you thought He would 
 harken to you? Fi done! Neither for 
 life nor death, nor angels, nor princi 
 palities, nor for all the powers that ever 
 68 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 were, or shall forever be, will He alter 
 for you, or for any, one iota of His law. 
 
 "Nay, though your heart break with 
 its burden, not a jot of His law shall 
 be altered to ease your load. 
 
 "I have seen all the piety under the 
 sun; and its wages are vanity. What 
 profit have you of all your labor; what 
 recompense of your toil? Heaven 
 hath sent you sorrow; it hath not sent 
 a cure, nor had compassion upon you. 
 
 "If this be loving-kindness, why not 
 try damnation awhile; not forfeit 
 riches, power, and place, for a fool s 
 hope of treasures in heaven? 
 
 "Doubtless the priest hath said unto 
 you, What shall it profit a man if he 
 gain the whole world, and lose his own 
 soul? Faw! I say unto you, What 
 profit hath a man, though he save his 
 own soul, if he lose his heart s desire? 
 69 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 "When you are dead and done for, 
 and lie sleeping in the dust; when 
 worms destroy your body, when your 
 days upon earth are become as shad 
 ows, and you have no more a portion 
 forever in anything under the sun, 
 what shall it profit you to have saved 
 your soul at the cost of your heart s 
 desire? Nay; ye have been cajoled! 
 Your way is without hope. 
 
 "But come unto me, ye anxious, 
 whose hearts are bowed with care, and 
 I will give you your hearts desire ! No 
 man calls on me in vain; I turn none 
 empty away; the world is full of my 
 mercies upon those who trust in me; 
 and my benefits fall like the summer 
 rain on all who covenant with me. 
 Ask, and ye shall receive, whatsoever 
 your hearts may wish; yea, though it 
 lie at the ends of the earth it shall be 
 70 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 given unto you; your house shall be 
 full of good things, riches, and place, 
 and power; ye shall heap up gold like 
 dust from the streets; ye shall have 
 your hearts desire! 
 
 "Come unto me, ye weary, whose 
 hearts are bent with trouble ; lay down 
 your burden, and follow me; I will give 
 you your heart s desire!" 
 
 Margot s hand went up the wall a 
 little way toward the crucifix, then 
 slipped back with fumbling fingers. 
 
 "Lord . . . Lord!" she whispered 
 hoarsely, "give me my heart s desire!" 
 
 "And what is your heart s desire?" 
 
 "That my daughter, Gabrielle, should 
 be white to all eternity! All that I 
 have, and all that I am, will I give, . . . 
 yea, for this would I give my soul." 
 
 Satan smiled. 
 
 "Then lay down your burden, my 
 71 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 daughter; you shall have your heart s 
 desire!" 
 
 Margot, with a sobbing cry, laid 
 down her life s unbearable burden at the 
 feet of the Prince of the Powers of 
 Darkness. 
 
 By his eternal damnation he swore 
 she should have her heart s desire; by 
 her rejected salvation she swore to abide 
 by the covenant. 
 
 ff Con^u^matum e$t!" he said, and 
 was gone on the black blast. 
 
 The candles sent up a thin flare of 
 flame and smoke, and went out in 
 utter darkness. Crouched on the floor 
 against the wall Margot still knelt in 
 a stupor. A rat came out of a hole in 
 the wall and gnawed at her rosary. 
 Dawn came in at the windows; the 
 twilit gray grew pink. The walls were 
 blotched and spotted; everything ex- 
 72 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 haled an odor of mildew; Margot still 
 huddled upon the floor beneath the 
 crucifix; over her head the crucified 
 Christ hung mute in His agony. 
 
 The flight of hours, the decline of 
 day, the season s turn, all things which 
 preface change are presages of parting, 
 and, like the proximity of the tomb, 
 though wreathed in bloomy myrtle, are 
 subtly fraught with sadness and regret. 
 All love s farewells are so oppressed. 
 Though with absolute confidence in 
 themselves and in each other, sure of 
 the imperishable structure of their love, 
 a nameless apprehension fills the hearts 
 of all who part, and casts a melancholy 
 shade on partings. "Until to-morrow !" 
 Ah, to-morrow! "To-morrow I will 
 come again!" she says. They go, with 
 73 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 trembling hands, each, shaken by de 
 parture, saying, "Shall we meet again?" 
 
 "To-morrow!" Gabrielle had said, as 
 she took her lips away. "To-morrow I 
 will come again!" and was gone. 
 
 In the warm heart of the midsum 
 mer night he dreamed again among the 
 hedges, a boy s dream, a dream of joy, 
 a dream of heart s delight. Her lips 
 were pomegranate blossoms ; her cheeks 
 were wild peach flowers ; it was a boy s 
 dream, a dream of joy, a dream of 
 heart s delight! Her waist was as a 
 willow-withe, her voice a bird in the 
 deep wood calling; her feet danced fan 
 tasies in his heart. He came all in the 
 daze of a boy s dream, a dream of joy, 
 a dream of heart s desire. With every 
 eager breath he drew in the hyacinthine 
 fragrance of the night. 
 
 All day long, like a sullen army, a 
 74 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 great cloud heaved and gloomed along 
 the west, with wind-blown vapors 
 streaming around its thunderous 
 heights. All day long, in awe of it, men 
 put off going here and there, gave over 
 plans, and stood oppressed by its tre 
 mendous imminence. The day was 
 darkened by the dominion of the cloud. 
 At evening it rolled off across the plain, 
 obliterating leagues of lesser storms, 
 with fire stabbing at its breast, and dis 
 tant bellowings of tremendous sound. 
 Heaving slowly against the twilight 
 stars, rolling in sullen majesty upon the 
 gale, pale moonlight falling on its 
 peaks, and the gray rain trailing down 
 below, in its heart innumerable light 
 nings, thunder grumbling in its front, it 
 left the drenched field to the moon. 
 Beyond the edge of the world it hung, 
 75 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 gloomily brooding upon the splendor of 
 the night. 
 
 In the magic of the moonlight Lilac 
 lane lay ghostly as a dream, hushed, 
 alluring, unfamiliar. The strange, 
 white light of the immense full moon 
 lay dead on everything; the hedge-rows 
 were hung with the shadows and dark 
 ness of strange delight; the cicada chit- 
 tered in the almond tree; the great 
 moths flapped heavily among the wet 
 moon-flowers; a slow, scarcely per 
 ceptible wind blew, languid-sweet, 
 hardly moving the heavy leaves of the 
 magnolias; a gray bird pitched a wild 
 song somewhere deep within a hedge. 
 
 In Margot s garden everything was 
 wrapped in night s singular fantasy. In 
 the pallor of the moonlight the garden 
 lay like an enchanted realm of goblin 
 loveliness. The lilies stood as pale and 
 76 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 chill as flowers carved of marble ; among 
 the drowsy poppies hung garlands of 
 nocturnal vine whose folded blooms in 
 chaplets clustered colorless in the pallid 
 moonshine. The whole place trembled 
 in a pale, strange beauty which the 
 silence made lovelier still. Like an 
 island in a silvery mist Margot s house 
 stood blind asleep, its little windows 
 curtained deep with shadows, dim, blue, 
 and dark, and on the woodwork of the 
 door, like petals of dismantled flowers, 
 wax-wet, wind-blown, walked moths 
 thrown there by the whining wind, 
 slowly blowing across leagues of lonelyl 
 marsh ; and, among the moths, the glow- 
 worms, faintly lighted and phosphor- 
 green, crawled up and down, up and 
 down, to nowhere: it looked like the 
 door of the way to oblivion, so lonely 
 it seemed and so still. The garden was 
 77 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 utterly empty; the house yard was de 
 serted. 
 
 He looked ; he listened ; and his heart 
 stood still; save for the glow-worin and 
 the moth there was nothing alive there 
 but him. Like the chill which creeps 
 across the matted grass of evening in 
 the last fair days of autumn, full of the 
 faded fragrance and haunted dusk of 
 fall, a wordless dread stole over him. 
 The moonlight gleamed on the cottage 
 wall with a singular, mournful splen 
 dor; a heavy wind began to stir the 
 trees; immensely mournful, faint and 
 far-away, there came a boom of thun 
 der from beyond the rim of the world; 
 joy all at once was gone from the mid 
 summer night; the haunting strange 
 ness crept into his heart. The place was 
 full of the heavy fragrance of dead 
 flowers. Here and there a palsied rose, 
 78 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 its faded leaves relaxed, broke, and fell 
 without a sound. 
 
 Under the fig-trees he paused a mo 
 ment, undecided, to listen, shivering a 
 little, and peering along the wall. 
 There was no sound of human life. 
 Though the wind had set the great 
 leaves stirring, all was ghostly as a 
 dream. One white star above the roof- 
 peak sailed among the broken clouds; 
 the moon, desolate, splendid, hung in 
 the magnolia, mournfully gleaming 
 through the black boughs; in the still 
 air the moonlight stood; the shadows 
 lay like solid things upon the cottage 
 wall. 
 
 At the corner of the house he paused 
 and listened again. In the strange, un- 
 answering silence a sense of disaster 
 gripped him. There was no sound any 
 where; his heart almost ceased beating. 
 79 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 With premonition of catastrophe he 
 ran along the wall: nothing, but win 
 dows, battened or curtained, blank as a 
 blindman s eyes; not a sign of humanity. 
 
 Where he had dreamed to stand 
 speechless with happiness, he stood 
 shaken by nameless fear. 
 
 Deep within the house he heard a re 
 laxed beam "pung" with a sound like a 
 viol string softly struck by a hand in 
 passing: the deep, slow sound rever 
 berated through the hollow house, and 
 died away in vacant whispering. 
 
 Through the crevice of the shutter he 
 saw the cold moonlight fall along the 
 deserted floor. The house was abso 
 lutely empty. 
 
 There is a convent-school for or 
 phaned girls kept by the nuns in New 
 80 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 Orleans. The loveliest girl seen there 
 in years was Gabrielle Lagoux, carried 
 there between two nights, lest young 
 love, like death, insist. 
 
 Dawn and departure. She had trem 
 bled like a leaf, half comprehending 
 only; her mother kissed her twice, in 
 feverish haste, with lips like dry leaves: 
 that was their parting. Some one called 
 "Gabrielle!" at the door. The coach 
 was at the gate. She stopped at the 
 wicket, looked down the lane, said a few 
 words to the coachboy who guarded her 
 gown from the wheels: "Tell him," she 
 said, "that I love him. Tell him re 
 member me." She paused again at the 
 door of the coach, her foot on the step, 
 a dazed look in her eyes, saying, "Tell 
 him not to forget me. I love him!" 
 The wheels rumbled over the cobbles. 
 She never came back. When she en- 
 81 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 tered the coach young love was done for 
 forever: she never saw her golden lad 
 again. Love beat his rose-red wings in 
 vain; he could not overtake the coach; 
 for the coach was fate ; all was over ; his 
 dusty feet halted in the heat of the dusty 
 road; "Good-by! . . . Good-by, for 
 ever!" 
 
 Days became weeks, weeks months, 
 months grew into years ; she never came 
 again. She passed through the con 
 vent s sheltering door, was safe from 
 mischance and folly; passed into a 
 world remote of unfamiliar faces, and 
 forgot. 
 
 God made memory cruel, that men 
 might know remorse; but the Devil de 
 vised f orgetfulness, anodyne of regret. 
 
 Reputed heiress to vast estates, pro 
 vided with boundless means and gifted 
 with great beauty, coming to marriage- 
 82 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 able age in all the freshness of her 
 youthful loveliness, she was wedded to 
 a wealthy planter s only son whose love 
 for her was very great. 
 
 Pure happiness was theirs prolonged 
 far beyond the honeymoon. Sur 
 rounded by every creature comfort 
 wealth could procure or affection de 
 vise, secure in a faithful man s unalter- 
 ing love, she dwelt serene, in a country 
 where the fruits of the earth and the 
 flowers of the forest spread natural 
 loveliness about fields of unsurpassed 
 fertility. 
 
 She never knew winter, want, nor 
 war; her years were filled with peace; 
 her estates increased to vast propor 
 tions ; a thousand slaves were happy, be 
 ing hers. Admired for her beauty, 
 greatly loved, she returned an adoring 
 husband s devotion, and bore him child- 
 83 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 dren with eyes like the morning and hair 
 like wreathed flames. Her daughters 
 married and were fruitful, bearing chil 
 dren fair as an April day, with eyes like 
 the sky of the morning. For them, for 
 her, the world rolled on in unperturbed 
 peace. 
 
 But she never saw her golden lad 
 again. 
 
 Something inscrutable, deeper than 
 whim, had come over Margot Lagoux. 
 Her work was oddly altered: it had 
 more air, less ease; more spell, less 
 charm; more force, and less dexterity. 
 The stuffs she chose no longer were 
 notable for the exquisite, wan delicacy 
 which so becomes the pallor of high 
 bred beauty; she took an incomprehen 
 sible joy in vivid color; but what was 
 84 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 gained in vividness was lost in harmony. 
 Her work retained distinction, but of a 
 queer sort; reserve gave way to novelty; 
 simple beauty was replaced by mere 
 tricious charm; her taste, which had 
 been perfect, seemed suffering gradual 
 corruption; her craft was marred by 
 crudities. Her turbans began to look 
 as if there were only barbaric plumes in 
 the world, of parrakeets and cockatoos, 
 trogons and flamingos, gay toucan 
 wings, and extraordinary quills; florid 
 colors and distempered stains were 
 mingled in inharmonious contrast; 
 mango-yellow, peacock-green, Egyp 
 tian blue, and Congo scarlet, flaunted 
 their discordant tones together. 
 
 Style she had ; but it was style malade 
 du rouvieux; her trade-mark had be 
 come gaucherie, her art artifice; good 
 taste had departed. Her work no more 
 85 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 was garnished, but bedizened with ex 
 cess, nowhere restrained, but having 
 unrestricted vent in tawdry fripperies. 
 Her handicraft was stamped by power 
 and energy misapplied ; the sole distinc 
 tion it had left was whimsical device. 
 Everything she did was like sweet wine 
 soured, the worse for having been so 
 much better. Her bonnets were like 
 songs in forced falsetto, every line 
 slurred by subtle default, every sweet 
 note out; always too much or too little, 
 never the happy mean. Even the pearls 
 or marguerites, which she had formerly 
 employed in bordures as trade-marks 
 of her craft, had become cheap beads of 
 colored pottery and glass. In tarnished 
 bowls, in corners of obscure pawnshop 
 windows, among the dead flies and the 
 dust, are still occasionally to be found 
 beads, often called "margots" or "mar- 
 86 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 gotons," like those employed by Margot 
 Lagoux in her practice of millinery, but 
 said to be thread-plummets employed 
 by makers of lace. One, a Greek dealer 
 in old gold and stolen silver, tells the 
 enquiring traveler that these are Dead 
 Sea pebbles, worn to their peculiar 
 shapes by the ceaseless fret of that 
 gloomy sea. But beads like them, gro 
 tesques, baroques, were laced on toques 
 and turbans of her make, and now and 
 then were found among the laces on 
 bonnets which had no need of them: 
 men, seeing them, narrowed their 
 glances, and took new note of the 
 wearer. Those aware permitted none 
 near or dear to adorn her person with 
 them. 
 
 A queerly degenerated taste marked 
 everything that Margot did. With 
 singular obliquity she set everything 
 87 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 awry; from rich goods produced un 
 speakably poor results; and with cheap 
 cunning vexed priceless stuffs beyond 
 recovery or repair. 
 
 Her custom fell from vendre cher to 
 bon marche. With the diminishing 
 stream of patronage the material in her 
 shop went down from velours ras, 
 velours faponne, and velours de sole, to 
 velours de colon and colon croise, 
 from velvet to velveteens. The air of 
 distinction which attracted gentility 
 utterly faded away; the coarse, crude 
 stuffs and rude handiwork repelled the 
 aristocratic. Calls for her work became 
 infrequent; more infrequent; came no 
 more. One morning the milliner s 
 shop was shut. It never was opened 
 again. The stuffs on the dusty shelves 
 grew faded, discolored, and stained; 
 cobwebs hung from the mouldy walls; 
 88 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 the trade which had known and fre 
 quented the place knew it no more. 
 
 But out of this end, like a paradox, 
 above the apparent wreck Margot arose 
 in prosperity: the Devil was good as 
 his word. 
 
 She dwelt in a massive great house, a 
 mansion, handsome, stately, and som 
 ber, by a courtyard paved in marble, 
 approached through a vaulted tunnel lit 
 by a dull-flaming torch and closed by 
 an iron gate. From the side of the court 
 a staircase of marble rose to her private 
 door, ornate as a public office s entry 
 and massively carved in flowers; stairs 
 within, of blue-veined marble, went 
 up through wide corridors heavily 
 panelled in dark Spanish wood. Be 
 neath the house vast cellars boomed and 
 89 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 echoed; the chimneys rose like turrets 
 grouped against the darkling sky. The 
 house throughout was furnished with 
 every luxury befitting persons of cir 
 cumstance: broad hearths for the burn 
 ing of long wood in winter, vaulted cor 
 ridors, burnished fittings of latten, and 
 jalousies of saffron- wood with retaining 
 rosettes of porcelain; mahogany tables 
 of rare design, deep-carved, and 
 adorned with brass. Curtains of saf 
 fron-colored silk cinctured with gold 
 braid hung from the ceiling to the floor 
 in heavy golden folds. Day was made 
 night, night day by many subterfuges, 
 with blinds and saffron jalousies ironed 
 fast against the noon. By night the 
 light shone out to the red stars, and the 
 house was full of the swift, rich sweep 
 ing of heavy silk curtains waved by the 
 wind, and the glow of the wax candles 
 90 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 chequered the courtyard below with 
 gold. In the middle of the courtyard, 
 at the foot of the staircase, a fountain 
 played in a yellow basin, with a pleas 
 ant, incessant noise of whispering green 
 water, falling perpetually with a deli 
 cate patter over seven brown stone dol 
 phins, spouting from whose pouted 
 mouths went up contending streams; 
 the waters gushed, white-laced, bab 
 bling, from the green-coppered vents in 
 the dolphins mouths, and descended in 
 spray to the bowl below ; and under the 
 bowl the drain-pipe murmured subter 
 ranean cool. About the courtyard 
 stood a row of crimson-flowered pome 
 granate-trees : through the split brown 
 rinds the garnet pulp and silver seeds 
 showed, clotted thick as crystals in a 
 stone; and purple fruits in heavy clus 
 ters, of myriad, uncounted drupes, hung 
 91 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 from the superior privets ranged along 
 the courtyard wal! 1 dropping green 
 shadows, like vast laces, over the blind- 
 arched bricks below. A garden lay be 
 yond the court, its gate hung thick and 
 deep with yellow roses, clinging to the 
 iron lantern, drooping and swaying in 
 unconstrained festoons. Beyond the 
 garden the place debouched into a for 
 gotten graveyard. 
 
 By night alive, by day the place was 
 sunk in dreams, with lavish beauty 
 everywhere composed to sleep in sunlit 
 sloth, luxurious and deep. The place 
 seemed fallen in a trance. The pigeons 
 dozed along the eaves ; and on the grass 
 below, where the garden stretched, the 
 peacock slowly danced his stiff and 
 stately dance, an iris feather bubble, 
 green as jade, purple as wine, blue as 
 lazuli. The courtyard seemed the very 
 92 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 home of sleep. The sun lay stupid on 
 the silent walls and drowsily beat on the 
 blue-doored cellars shut with cautious 
 bars, closed fast and locked beneath the 
 arcaded porch ; the shadows of the slim 
 pillars slept in the graceful galleries. 
 All was hushed but the peacock s cry, 
 while that iridescent bubble, on toes 
 black as ebony, danced, here and there, 
 there and here, his slow "pavone" 
 among the yellow roses. 
 
 By night beneath the windows an 
 cient tombs bared their sculptured 
 breasts to the stars and stared up at 
 the golden arches; and dank, black, 
 cracked sarcophagi, chequered with 
 light, laid broad their time-worn, sculp 
 tured emblems and tragical inscriptions, 
 skulls with wings, and urns, and 
 hour-glasses whose un-refluent, palsied 
 sands meet measure of eternity kept 
 93 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 with motionless registry, and stony gar 
 lands of stone flowers which never 
 bloomed, nor ever were sweet, as that 
 beneath them had been sweet to man s 
 all quivering sense. Here lay the long 
 dead, day and night, communicant in 
 death; and wraiths of old unhappiness 
 rose sighing with regret, or dreamed, 
 beneath the stones, of love as futile as 
 regret. The wind among the tomb 
 stones, like a stream from a windy foun 
 tain, murmured among the pomegran 
 ate-trees, stirred the shadows under the 
 privets, rustled between the silken cur 
 tains, whispering, much as dead men 
 do, chill, wordless, fluttering breaths of 
 unsolved mystery. And when the wind 
 from the graveyard whispered, all the 
 place stood listening, hushed. The wind 
 from the graveyard whispered among 
 the saffron curtains ; the ceaseless f oun- 
 94 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 tain waters fell; else all was still but the 
 peacock s wild night-cry, sounding 
 through the unfathomable silence like 
 the rending of an illusion, deep and 
 singular and strange, by a harsh 
 trumpet s blast. Heh! The Devil 
 keeps his promises in the way that suits 
 him best. 
 
 N 
 
 M argot s existence here was a thing 
 apart from everything plebeian: she 
 was immensely wealthy ; had riches such 
 as are won by few, though sought by 
 many, plantations in the country, 
 houses in town, money on call in quan 
 tity that made great bankers bow; 
 women to wait upon her, deferential 
 men, boys to run at her beck, maid 
 servants, bond and free, to go before 
 her; her cellar was famous for its wines, 
 95 
 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 her dress for its wild and extravagant 
 beauty; all that she touched she took; 
 all that she took she kept; everything 
 that she kept increased beyond the 
 bounds of reason; she was spoken to 
 with deference and referred to with 
 finesse. She had her carriage, lined 
 with silk, with yellow hammer-cloths 
 and bands ; in the license of her beauty 
 she laughed at sumptuary laws, and in 
 her illegal equipage rolled insolently 
 on; in amber gown and canary turban 
 fastened with a golden brooch, despite 
 the law, she rode the streets like a 
 charioted queen ; or, dressed in wild, un 
 studied colors such as are used in 
 Barbary, she wandered in her garden in 
 the after-hours of the day, making 
 wreaths of the saffron roses, a cockatoo 
 upon her arm the color of a wild peach 
 flower. 
 
 96 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 A shapely, splendid creature, with 
 her handsome, heavy hands, neck like a 
 tower, glorious hair hanging rich be 
 neath its turban, her embroidered robe 
 but carelessly worn and recklessly ad- 
 justed^ oddly, the coarser the more 
 becoming, a goddess made of beauti 
 ful earth, but coarse as the cotton- 
 flower, with confident face and insolent 
 mien she took her way through the 
 streets with a supple stride which was 
 the despair of envious rivalry; hers was 
 a regal beauty like the tiger s loveli 
 ness. 
 
 With her face like beauty seen in 
 dreams, incredible and untrue, she went 
 through the community like a lovely 
 malady: even wise men s souls were 
 troubled; sturdy hearts that had 
 laughed at passion shook with the fair 
 ness of her face; piety was troubled by 
 97 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 her golden loveliness. More than one 
 sermon from Solomon s Song was in 
 spired by Rita Lagoux ; she was known 
 as the woman with a face like a beauti 
 ful blasphemy. 
 
 Time but increased the wildness and 
 singularity of her beauty: it was gos 
 siped about in the market-stalls ; it was 
 babbled about in the streets. 
 
 Then a torpor fell on her loveliness, 
 a dull and leaden look; her beauty grew 
 sullen and lowering as the flame of a 
 fallen fire. Though not much altered 
 in appearance she was somehow greatly 
 changed. Her looks had lost some 
 thing, no one could say what, gained 
 something none could define. It was 
 not that she was less the unforgettable 
 being she had been, or that her sullen 
 beauty made less mark on memory, but 
 that the ecstasy of beauty was replaced 
 98 
 
MADAME MAEGOT 
 
 by a queer unrest. Though as never 
 before she was possessed of a singular 
 comeliness, men began to regard her 
 with an odd uneasiness: there was a 
 foreignness in her face, and the look of 
 alien things. 
 
 She looked like a portrait of herself 
 painted in irony. 
 
 On the day that her daughter was 
 married in far-away New Orleans, 
 Margot stood motionless by her mirror, 
 staring at her own reflection. The day 
 seemed oddly overcast. Suddenly she 
 burst into wild, shrill laughter, cheer 
 less and tragic, her body shaking, her 
 hands wrung together, turned away 
 with an epithet, reversed the glass, and 
 never looked into a mirror again. 
 Something had passed across her face 
 like a strange, ambiguous stain. 
 
 A shadow had fallen upon her like 
 99 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 an unexpected dusk, or the dimness un 
 der a passing cloud, and had overcast 
 her beauty. 
 
 Not time with his pinching seam, nor 
 age with its ugliness, but a subtle and 
 more peculiar change had come over 
 Margot Lagoux. 
 
 There is a half-light in the hour of 
 an eclipse which casts a weird spell on 
 the world, when the sun is but a narrow 
 crescent at high noon and the earth 
 grows oddly dim in an untimely dusk. 
 Such a dusk was fallen upon Margot 
 Lagoux. 
 
 Sultry beauty such as hers has ever 
 an early afternoon ;* but this was more 
 than sultry beauty s early afternoon. 
 Not day, not darkness yet, but dusk 
 went with her everywhere like twilight 
 in the woods. The sun shone brightly 
 everywhere along a sparkling world, 
 100 
 
MADAME 
 
 but on Margot lay a shadow, strange 
 and sinister. As unbleached muslin 
 sallows to dingy isabella, as metal tar 
 nishes from neglect, as white paper 
 dulls in the sun, as the spot on bruised 
 fruit turns brown, Margot Lagoux was 
 changing; she was becoming tawny, 
 swart, bisblanc as the Creoles say. Her 
 golden-ruddy cheeks had turned a mor 
 bid olive-brown as if a somber fountain 
 were playing in her blood. 
 
 There were many women at that day 
 on whom fate laid dreadful hands: 
 Louise Briaud, who was blinded by 
 smallpox; Fanchette Bourie, whom 
 God pitied with death; Helene Riche- 
 mont, the leper; Floride Biez, Doucie 
 Baramont, Francesca Villeponteaux, 
 wrecked by disfiguring maladies. God 
 give them peace ! But on none was laid 
 101 
 
MARGOT 
 
 so ruthless, unrelenting, deliberate a 
 hand as fell upon Rita Lagoux. 
 
 She changed like a portrait whose 
 shadows, painted in bitumen, have 
 struck through and distempered the 
 rest. Like a strange, nocturnal crea 
 ture she seemed to absorb the gloom. 
 Her glorious eyes grew jaundiced; her 
 rose-brown lips grew dun; the delicate 
 webs that joined her fingers grew yel 
 low as bakers saffron. Malice laughed 
 at her thickening lips. 
 
 Weeks turned months, months years ; 
 swarthy she grew and ugly. She put 
 aside beauty as a worn, bright garment, 
 and took on grotesquery stark and 
 medieval as a Chinese teak-wood carv 
 ing. She became both grotesque and 
 contorted, gross, misshapen, sullied 
 and debased. The old enchantment was 
 gone like a necromancer s spell. The 
 102 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 perfect gait had faltered down to a 
 lurching trot, a hurrying waddle with 
 an irregular, unsure motion, hesitating 
 a moment, then hastening on with vague 
 uncertainty. Her soft, sleepy laugh 
 had grown violent, her melodious voice 
 coarse; of her fair face there was noth 
 ing left, no, not remembrance even. 
 
 A young man came to her threshold 
 one morning and looked in eagerly; he 
 would speak with Margot Lagoux : but 
 "Is that Margot Lagoux?" he asked, a 
 curious look coming over his face, that 
 woman, obese, with low brows, huge fat 
 eyelids, round bare forehead, short, 
 strained and corded neck enormously 
 thick, yellowed teeth irregularly shown 
 between thick, sallowed lips, cheeks 
 wrinkled, flecked and blotched with 
 brown like spotted peaches. "No!" he 
 said, hastily, shrinking away. "That is 
 103 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 not the woman I mean. The woman I 
 meant was comely . . . and had a beau 
 tiful daughter named Gabrielle!" He 
 turned away, shuddering. 
 
 She wore old rags for robes, an old 
 freloche upon her head, in nowise re 
 straining the unkempt coils of her hair 
 hanging matted upon her neck. Her 
 cheeks hung slack and dark and dingy; 
 her lusterless locks were felted into a 
 tangled web that had grown gray with 
 lint; her frowsy chin was stained as 
 with walnut hulls. She wis falling 
 apart like an old house with nobody liv 
 ing in it, swore black oaths with a foul 
 mouth, cursed all who crossed her path, 
 ate like a beast food fit for beasts, her 
 fevered sun of glory set, gone, gone, 
 gone. Down she went, like the stuffs 
 in her shop, from velours ras to colon 
 croise, down, down to oblivion, down to 
 104 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 the dusty corner of death. She spat in 
 the dirt : ff Je m en fiche!" she said. 
 
 She hated a priest, and never knelt 
 at a confessional again. 
 
 She did not die in the great house 
 where she had passed the days of her 
 power; every place she dwelt in sank 
 into decay, the swifter where its integ 
 rity seemed permanent and secure; 
 nothing purged the ambiguous spell 
 which dragged them down together to 
 the dust. The great house stood a ruin 
 above a ruined court, a wreck of its for 
 mer pride and splendor, black and foul ; 
 the fountain had fallen long ago, its 
 pipes strangled and eaten away to 
 crusts of lead and thready ribs of iron 
 in the sand. Lilac lane was gone; there 
 was no lane there any more, and had 
 105 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 been none for years ; there was no trace 
 of where it ran, its hedge-rows or its 
 gardens, or of Margot s cottage other 
 than a mouldering heap of broken 
 brick, bleak rafters of the fallen roof, 
 and one stark, fallen gable; of Gabri- 
 elle s garden nothing remained. 
 
 Margot died in a dirty hovel in an 
 unkempt alleyway, in the midst of a 
 negro quarter, where, if one beat a 
 drum or caused an instrument of an or 
 chestra to sound, the people swarmed 
 from the tenements like ants out of a 
 hill. The place was fallen and foul, and 
 rilled with beggary; and that is the end 
 of a tenement; for beggars are like dis 
 temper, the place where they have lived 
 is hard to cure. All the houses in the 
 alley were filthy; but none was filthy 
 as hers. 
 
 There was a tremendous storm that 
 106 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 night. Her house was ablaze with light ; 
 the little tailor who lived next door said, 
 "Aha! Mother Go-go has company!" 
 But the only person seen was one of 
 the religious sort, a tall man, with a 
 face like an unpleasant taste. 
 
 The thunder was terrific; the storm 
 wild beyond compare. The wind blew 
 with a sound like wild, gigantic laugh 
 ter. "Ff-ff-ff!" went the gale; the 
 gusts howled through the tailor s house ; 
 the whole place shook; the blinds 
 banged and crashed; the wind wailed, 
 and sucked down the chimney with a 
 sound like awful weeping; the little 
 tailor s soul was filled with a sense of 
 enormous terror. 
 
 All night long the thunder rolled like 
 the laughter of an angry god. Dis 
 lodged by the tremendous concussions 
 the cockroaches flew out of the walls; 
 107 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 and, in the morning, after the storm, 
 the parrakeets which lived in the trees 
 were all turned gray as ashes. 
 
 The windows and doors of Old 
 Mother Go-go s house were standing 
 open wide. It was plain that they had 
 stood open all night, and that the rain 
 had beaten into the house unopposed. 
 
 This, however, occasioned but brief 
 surprise. When they peered in at the 
 door the rats were playing around the 
 floor with the beads of a broken rosary. 
 
 A priest came, hurrying in. He did 
 not stay in long. When he came out 
 his face was white as a sheet and his 
 lips were drawn and gray. 
 
 Those who prepare the dead came. 
 They stood on the threshold peeping 
 and queerly looking in at the door. 
 
 A gray mist filled the place like a 
 cloud, through which things were visible. 
 108 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 The rooms were damp as an old vault, 
 and full of a death-like smell; the walls 
 were covered with green mould; the 
 woodwork was rotten. The candles had 
 guttered and dripped and gone out ; the 
 floor was bespattered with tallow. All 
 around the rooms were coffers of linen 
 and lace, "coffres tres beaux, coffres 
 mignons, de dressouer compagnons; 
 coffres de boys qui point n empire; 
 madres et jaunes comme cire" All the 
 coffers were open, and everything that 
 was in them was tossed wildly about the 
 floor; not one piece of the lovely old 
 stuffs, as yellow as wax, but was black 
 ened by showers of soot and trampled 
 under foot by the neighbor s goat, the 
 print of whose hoofs was everywhere. 
 
 And Madame Margot? 
 
 Heh! God had designed her for 
 tragedy; but here was comedy. Mar- 
 109 
 
MADAME MARGOT 
 
 got lay stretched out on the floor, as 
 black as ebony; dead, among the ashes 
 and soot, charred like a fallen star. 
 
 The coroner found that the woman 
 had died of the visitation of God; but 
 Doe Gou, the tailor, said simply, "Has 
 God feet like a goat?" 
 
 The bishop refused to have masses 
 said for the repose of her pitiful soul; 
 and they would not allow her to be 
 buried in St. Sebastian s graveyard. 
 The potter s field was the place for her; 
 her color was too peculiar. 
 
 Too black to be buried among the 
 white, too white to lie down with the 
 black, she was buried, in secret, in her 
 own garden, under the magnolia-trees. 
 
 And that was the end of Madame 
 Margot. 
 
 110 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL PINOP 25 CENTS 
 
 LD 21-100w-7, 33 
 
YA 08779 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY