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A Chambermaid's Diary

by Octave Mirbeau · English · Gutenberg #44303 · 583,529 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Chambermaid's Diary

Author: Octave Mirbeau

Translator: Benjamin Ricketson Tucker


        
Release date: November 28, 2013 [eBook #44303]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHAMBERMAID'S DIARY ***
A CHAMBERMAID'S DIARY

BY

OCTAVE MIRBEAU


Translated from the French by

BENJ. R. TUCKER


NEW YORK:

BENJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER

1900




        A French chambermaid, who has served in Paris, in the houses of
        the nobility, the bourgeois, and professional people, finally
        enters the service of a rich couple living in the country,
        and there begins to keep a diary. In describing the events of
        her daily life and the people about her, she is frequently
        reminded of episodes in her past, and digresses to relate them.
        Thus her diary becomes a piquant panorama of social life and
        institutions. It is a terrific social exposure, a grim social
        satire, crammed with humor, bitterness, and truth. It has been
        described by a French critic as "an attempt to show that nearly
        all the masters are low-lived wretches, and that nearly all the
        servants are as near like them as they know how to be."





To

MONSIEUR OCTAVE MIRBEAU.


I offer you my sincere apology for mutilating your brave and admirable
work. In publishing it in English, I have omitted certain portions,
much against my inclination. Perhaps you, who live in a land that
enjoys a greater freedom of the press than we know in the United
States, will wonder why I was forced to do this. Let me, then, explain
to you that the men whose ugly souls your Célestine does not hesitate
to lay bare are types, to a greater or less extent, of most of the men
whom we place in our halls of legislation to make our laws, in our
halls of administration to execute them, and in our halls of so-called
justice to interpret and enforce them, and that among the laws which
they have made are some, aimed ostensibly at the suppression of obscene
literature, that are really intended to protect from exposure their own
obscene lives and those of others of their ilk, and to protect from
attack the social evils and political institutions upon which they
thrive. These lawless law-givers hope, by obscuring the sufficiently
sharp line that divides the vulgar appeal to eroticism from the
earnest narrative of the honest thinker and the truthful picture of
the conscientious artist, to brand both with the same condemnation,
and thus secure immunity for those who, by all the various forms of
exploitation, deal, as Célestine bluntly says, in human meat. This is
why it is unsafe to publish in the English language those portions of
her diary which I have omitted. But, if, as I hope and believe, the
portions that are here printed shall do something to change the public
opinion that sanctions the claim of these law-givers to legislative
power, I am sure that you will excuse a liberty which under other
circumstances would be an inexcusable act of vandalism.

BENJ. R. TUCKER.





To

MONSIEUR JULES HURET.


My dear friend:

For two reasons, very strong and very precise, it is my wish to
inscribe your name at the head of these pages. First, that you may know
how dear your name is to me. Second,--and I say it with a tranquil
pride,--because you will like this book. And you will like it, in spite
of all its faults, because it is a book free from hypocrisy, because
it portrays life, life as you and I understand it. I have always in my
mind's eye, my dear Huret, many of the faces, so strangely human, which
you have arrayed in procession in a long series of social and literary
studies. They haunt me. It is because no one better than you, and more
profoundly than you, has felt, when surveying these human masqueraders,
how sad and how comical a thing it is to be a man. May you find again
in these pages that sadness which makes lofty souls laugh, that
comicality which makes them weep.

OCTAVE MIRBEAU.

May, 1900.





_The book that I publish under this title, "A Chambermaid's Diary,"
was really written by Mlle. Célestine R------, chambermaid. When I
was asked to revise the manuscript, to correct it, and to rewrite
some parts of it, I refused at first, thinking, not without reason,
that, just as it was, in all its disorder, this diary had a certain
originality, a special savor, and that I could only render it
commonplace by putting into it anything of myself. But Mlle. Célestine
R------ was very pretty. She insisted. I finally yielded, for, after
all, I am a man._

_I confess that I was wrong. In doing this work which she asked of
me,--that is, in adding here and there some accents to this book,--I
am very much afraid that I have impaired its somewhat corrosive grace,
diminished its sad power, and, above all, substituted simple literature
for the emotion and life which these pages contained._

_I say this to answer in advance the objections which certain grave and
learned, and how noble, critics will not fail to raise._

_O. M._




A CHAMBERMAID'S DIARY




I


_September 14._

To-day, September 14, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in mild, gray,
and rainy weather, I have entered upon my new place. It is the twelfth
in two years. Of course I say nothing of the places which I held in
previous years. It would be impossible for me to count them. Ah! I can
boast of having seen interiors and faces, and dirty souls. And the
end is not yet. Judging from the really extraordinary and dizzy way
in which I have rolled, here and there, successively, from houses to
employment-bureaus, and from employment-bureaus to houses, from the
Bois de Boulogne to the Bastille, from the Observatory to Montmartre,
from the Ternes to the Gobelins, everywhere, without ever succeeding in
establishing myself anywhere, the masters in these days must be hard to
please. It is incredible.

The affair was arranged through an advertisement in the "Figaro," and
without any interview with Madame. We wrote letters to each other,
that is all; a risky method, often resulting in surprises on both
sides. Madame's letters are well written, it is true. But they reveal
a meddlesome and fastidious character. Ah! the explanations and the
commentaries that she insisted upon, the whys and the becauses. I do
not know whether Madame is stingy; at any rate she is hardly ruining
herself with her letter-paper. It is bought at the Louvre. I am not
rich, but I have more elegance than that. I write on paper perfumed _à
la peau d'Espagne_, beautiful paper, some of it pink, some light blue,
which I have collected from my former mistresses. Some of it even bears
a countess's coronet engraved upon it. That must have been a crusher
for her.

Well, at last, here I am in Normandy, at Mesnil-Roy. Madame's estate,
which is not far from the country, is called the Priory. This is almost
all that I know of the spot where henceforth I am to live.



I am not without anxiety, or without regret, at having come, in
consequence of a moment's rashness, to bury myself in the depths of the
country. What I have seen of it frightens me a little, and I ask myself
what further is going to happen to me here. Doubtless nothing good,
and the usual worries. To worry is the clearest of our privileges. For
every one who succeeds,--that is, for every one who marries a worthy
young fellow or forms an alliance with an old man,--how many of us are
destined to ill-luck, swept away in the great whirlwind of poverty?
After all, I had no choice, and this is better than nothing.



This is not the first time that I have had a place in the country.
Four years ago I had one. Oh! not for long, and in really exceptional
circumstances. I remember this adventure as if it had occurred
yesterday. Although the details are slightly indecorous, and even
horrible, I wish to relate it. Moreover, I charitably warn my readers
that it is my intention, in writing this diary, to keep nothing back,
in relation either to myself or to others. On the contrary, I intend
to put into it all the frankness that is in me, and, when necessary,
all the brutality that is in life. It is not my fault if the souls from
which we tear the veils, and which then appear in all their nakedness,
exhale so strong an odor of rottenness.

Well, here it is.

I was engaged in an employment-bureau, by a sort of fat governess, to
be a chambermaid in the house of a certain M. Rabour, in Touraine. The
conditions accepted, it was agreed that I should take the train on such
a day, at such an hour, for such a station; which was done, according
to the programme.

As soon as I had given up my ticket at the exit, I found, outside, a
sort of coachman with a rubicund and churlish face, who asked me:

"Are you M. Rabour's new chambermaid?"

"Yes."

"Have you a trunk?"

"Yes, I have a trunk."

"Give me your baggage ticket, and wait for me here."

He made his way to the platform. The employees hastened about him. They
called him "Monsieur Louis" in a tone of friendly respect. Louis looked
for my trunk in the pile of baggage, and had it placed in an English
cart that stood near the exit.

"Well, will you get in?"

I took my seat beside him, and we started. The coachman looked at me
out of the corner of his eye. I examined him similarly. I saw at once
that I had to do with a countryman, an unpolished peasant, an untrained
domestic who had never served in grand establishments. That annoyed me.
For my part, I like handsome liveries. I dote on nothing so much as on
white leather knee-breeches tightly fitting nervous thighs. And how
lacking in elegance he was, this Louis, without driving-gloves, with
a full suit of grayish-blue drugget that was too big for him, and a
flat cap of glazed leather, ornamented with a double row of gold lace.
No, indeed, they are slow in this region. And, with all, a scowling,
brutal air, but not a bad fellow at bottom. I know these types. At
first they assume a knowing air with the new people, and later a more
friendly footing is arrived at. Often more friendly than one would like.

We sat a long time without saying a word. He assumed the manners of
a grand coachman, holding the reins high and swinging his whip with
rounded gestures. Oh! how ridiculous he was! For my part, with much
dignity I surveyed the landscape, which had no special feature; simply
fields, trees, and houses, just as everywhere else. He brought his
horse down to a walk in order to ascend a hill, and then, suddenly,
with a quizzing smile, he asked:

"I suppose that at least you have brought a good supply of shoes?"

"Undoubtedly," said I, astonished at this question, which rhymed with
nothing, and still more at the singular tone in which he put it to me.
"Why do you ask me that? It is a rather stupid question, don't you
know, my old man?"

He nudged me slightly with his elbow, and, gliding over me a strange
look whose two-fold expression of keen irony and, indeed, of jovial
obscenity was unintelligible to me, he said, with a chuckle:

"Oh! yes, pretend that you know nothing. You are a good one, you
are,--a jolly good one!"

Then he clacked his tongue, and the horse resumed its rapid gait.

I was puzzled. What could be the meaning of this? Perhaps nothing at
all. I concluded that the good man was a little silly, that he did not
know how to talk with women, and that he had been able to think of no
other way to start a conversation which, however, I did not see fit to
continue.

M. Rabour's estate was sufficiently large and beautiful. A pretty
house, painted light green, and surrounded by broad lawns adorned with
flowers and by a pine forest which gave forth an odor of turpentine.
I adore the country, but, oddly enough, it makes me sad and sleepy. I
was utterly stupid when I entered the vestibule where the governess was
awaiting me,--she who had engaged me at the Paris employment-bureau,
God knows after how many indiscreet questions as to my private habits
and tastes, which ought to have made me distrustful. But in vain does
one see and endure things stronger and stronger; they never teach you
anything. The governess had not pleased me at the employment-bureau;
here she instantly disgusted me. She seemed to me to have the air
of an old procuress. She was a fat woman, and short, with puffed-up
yellowish flesh, hair brushed flat and turning gray, huge and rolling
breasts, and soft, damp hands as transparent as gelatine. Her grey eyes
indicated wickedness, a cold, calculating, vicious wickedness. The
tranquil and cruel way in which she looked at you, searching soul and
flesh, was almost enough to make you blush.

She escorted me into a little reception-room, and at once left me,
saying that she was going to notify Monsieur, that Monsieur wished to
see me before I should begin my service.

"For Monsieur has not seen you," she added. "I have taken you, it is
true, but then it is necessary that you please Monsieur."

I inspected the room. It was extremely clean and orderly. The brasses,
the furniture, the floor, the doors, thoroughly polished, waxed,
varnished, shone like mirrors. No clap-trap, no heavy hangings, no
embroidered stuffs, such as are seen in certain Paris houses; but
serious comfort, an air of rich decency, of substantial country life,
regular and calm. But my! how tiresome it must be to live here!

Monsieur entered. Oh! the queer man, and how he amused me! Fancy a
little old man, looking as if he had just stepped out of a band-box,
freshly shaven, and as pink as a doll. Very erect, very sprightly,
very inviting, in fact, he hopped about, in walking, like a little
grasshopper in the fields. He saluted me, and then asked, with infinite
politeness:

"What is your name, my child?"

"Célestine, Monsieur."

"Célestine!" he exclaimed. "Célestine? The devil! It is a pretty
name,--that I do not deny,--but too long, my child, much too long. I
will call you Marie, if you are willing. That is a very nice name, too,
and it is short. And besides, I have called all my chambermaids Marie.
It is a habit which it would distress me to abandon. I would rather
abandon the person."

They all have this queer mania of never calling you by your real name.
I was not too much astonished, having already borne all the names of
all the saints in the calendar. He persisted:

"So it will not displease you if I call you Marie? That is agreed, is
it?"

"Why, certainly, Monsieur."

"A pretty girl; good character; very well, very well."

He had said all this to me in a sprightly and extremely respectful way,
and without staring at me, without seeming to undress me with his eyes,
after the fashion of men generally. Scarcely had he looked at me. From
the moment that he entered the room, his eyes had remained obstinately
fixed upon my shoes.

"You have others?" he asked, after a short silence, during which it
seemed to me that his eyes became strangely brilliant.

"Other names, Monsieur?"

"No, my child, other shoes."

And with a slender tongue he licked his lips, after the manner of cats.

I did not answer at once. This word shoes, reminding me of the
coachman's salacious joke, had astounded me. Then that had a meaning?
On a more pressing interrogation I finally answered, but in a voice
somewhat hoarse and thick, as if I were, confessing a sin of gallantry:

"Yes, Monsieur, I have others."

"Glazed?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Highly, highly glazed?"

"Why, yes, Monsieur."

"Good, good! And of yellow leather?"

"I have none of that kind, Monsieur."

"You will have to have some; I will give you some."

"Thank you, Monsieur."

"Good, good! Be still!"

I was frightened, for dull gleams had just passed over his eyes, and
drops of sweat were rolling down his forehead. Thinking that he was
about to faint, I was on the point of shouting, of calling for help.
But the crisis quieted down, and, after a few minutes, he continued in
a calmer voice, though a little saliva still foamed at the corner of
his lips.

"It is nothing. It is over. Understand me, my child. I am a little
of a maniac. At my age that is allowed, is it not? For instance, I do
not think it proper that a woman should black her own shoes, much less
mine. I have a great respect for women, Marie, and cannot endure that.
So I will black your shoes, your little shoes, your dear little shoes.
I will take care of them. Listen to me. Every evening, before going to
bed, you will carry your shoes into my room; you will place them near
the bed, on a little table, and every morning, on coming to open my
windows, you will take them away again."

And, as I manifested a prodigious astonishment, he added:

"Oh! now, it is nothing enormous that I ask of you; it is a very
natural thing, after all. And if you are very nice...."

Quickly he took from his pocket two louis, which he handed to me.

"If you are very nice, very obedient, I will often make you little
presents. The governess will pay you your wages every month. But
between ourselves, Marie, I shall often make you little presents. And
what is it that I ask of you? Come, now, it is not extraordinary. Is
it, then, indeed, so extraordinary?"

Monsieur was getting excited again. As he spoke his eyelids rapidly
rose and fell, like leaves in a tempest.

"Why do you say nothing, Marie? Say something. Why do you not
walk? Walk a little, that I may see them move, that I may see them
live,--your little shoes."

He knelt down, kissed my shoes, kneaded them with his feverish and
caressing fingers, unlaced them. And, while kissing, kneading, and
caressing them, he said, in a supplicating voice, in the voice of a
weeping child:

"Oh! Marie, Marie, your little shoes; give them to me directly,
directly, directly. I want them directly. Give them to me."

I was powerless. Astonishment had paralyzed me. I did not know whether
I was really living or dreaming. Of Monsieur's eyes I saw nothing but
two little white globes streaked with red. And his mouth was all daubed
with a sort of soapy foam.

At last he took my shoes away and shut himself up with them in his room
for two hours.

"Monsieur is much pleased with you," said the governess to me, in
showing me over the house. "Try to continue to please him. The place is
a good one."

Four days later, in the morning, on going at the usual hour to open the
windows, I came near fainting with horror in the chamber. Monsieur was
dead. Stretched on his back in the middle of the bed, he lay with all
the rigidity of a corpse. He had not struggled. The bed-clothing was
not disarranged. There was not the slightest trace of shock, of agony,
of clinched hands striving to strangle Death. And I should have thought
him asleep, if his face had not been violet, frightfully violet, the
sinister violet of the egg-plant. And,--terrifying spectacle, which,
still more than this face, caused me to quake with fear,--Monsieur
held, pressed between his teeth, one of my shoes, so firmly pressed
between his teeth that, after useless and horrible efforts, I was
obliged to cut the leather with a razor, in order to tear it from him.

I am no saint; I have known many men, and I know, by experience, all
the madness, all the vileness, of which they are capable. But a man
like Monsieur? Oh! indeed, is it not ridiculous all the same that such
types exist? And where do they go in search of all their conceits,
when it is so simple and so good to love each other prettily, as other
people do?



I do not think that anything of that kind will happen to me here. Here,
evidently, they are of another sort. But is it better? Is it worse? As
to that, I know nothing.

There is one thing that torments me. I ought, perhaps, to have
finished, once for all, with all these dirty places, and squarely taken
the step from domesticity into gallantry, like so many others that I
have known, and who--I say it without pride--had fewer "advantages"
than I. Though I am not what is called pretty, I am better; without
conceit I may say that I have an atmosphere, a style, which many
society women and many women of the _demi-monde_ have often envied me.
A little tall, perhaps, but supple, slender, and well-formed, with very
beautiful blonde hair, very beautiful deep-blue eyes, an audacious
mouth, and, finally, an original manner and a turn of mind, very lively
and languishing at once, that pleases men. I might have succeeded.
But, in addition to the fact that, by my own fault, I have missed some
astonishing opportunities, which probably will never come to me again,
I have been afraid. I have been afraid, for one never knows where that
will lead you. I have rubbed against so many miseries in that sphere of
life; I have received so many distressing confidences. And those tragic
calvaries from the Depot to the Hospital, which one does not always
escape! And, for a background to the picture, the hell of Saint-Lazare!
Such things cause one to reflect and shudder. Who knows, too, whether
I should have had, as woman, the same success that I have had as
chambermaid? The particular charm which we exercise over men does not
lie solely in ourselves, however pretty we may be. It depends largely,
as I have had occasion to know, on our environment, on the luxury and
vice of our surroundings, on our mistresses themselves and on the
desire which they excite. In loving us, it is a little of them and much
of their mystery that men love in us.

But there is something else. In spite of my dissolute life, I have
luckily preserved, in the depths of my being, a very sincere religious
feeling, which saves me from definitive falls and holds me back at
the edge of the worst abysses. Ah! if there were no religion; if, on
evenings of gloom and moral distress, there were no prayer in the
churches; if it were not for the Holy Virgin, and Saint Anthony of
Padua, and all the rest of the outfit,--we should be much more unhappy,
that is sure. And what would become of us, and how far we should go,
the devil only knows!

Finally,--and this is more serious,--I have not the least defence
against men. I should be the constant victim of my disinterestedness
and their pleasure. I am too amorous,--yes, I am too much in love with
love, to draw any profit whatever out of love. It is stronger than I; I
cannot ask money of one who gives me happiness and sets ajar for me the
radiant gates of Ecstasy.

So here I am, then, at the Priory, awaiting what? Indeed, I do not
know. The wisest way would be not to think about it, and trust
everything to luck. Perhaps it is thus that things go best. Provided
that to-morrow, and pursued even here by that pitiless mischance which
never leaves me, I am not forced once more to quit my place. That
would annoy me. For some time I have had pains in my loins, a feeling
of weariness in my whole body; my stomach is becoming impaired, my
memory is weakening; I am growing more irritable and nervous. Just now,
when looking in the glass, I discovered that my face had a really tired
look, and that my complexion--that amber complexion of which I was so
proud--had taken on an almost ashen hue. Can I be growing old already?
I do not wish to grow old yet. In Paris it is difficult to take care of
one's self. There is no time for anything. Life there is too feverish,
too tumultuous; one comes continually in contact with too many people,
too many things, too many pleasures, too much of the unexpected. But
you have to go on, just the same. Here it is calm. And what silence!
The air that one breathes must be healthy and good. Ah! if, at the risk
of being bored, I could but rest a little.

In the first place, I have no confidence. Certainly Madame is nice
enough with me. She has seen fit to pay me some compliments on my
appearance, and to congratulate herself on the reports that she has
received concerning me. Oh! her head, if she knew that these reports
are false, or at least that they were given simply to oblige! What
especially astonishes her is my elegance. And then, as a rule, they
are nice the first day, these camels. While all is new, all is
beautiful. That is a well-known song. Yes, and the next day the air
changes into another one equally well known. Especially as Madame has
very cold, hard eyes, which do not please me,--the eyes of a miser,
full of keen suspicion and spying inquiry. Nor do I like her dry and
too thin lips, which seem to be covered with a whitish crust, or her
curt, cutting speech, which turns an amiable word almost into an
insult or a humiliation. When, in questioning me concerning this or
that, concerning my aptitudes and my past, she looked at me with that
tranquil and sly impudence of an old customs official which they all
have, I said to myself:

"There is no mistake about it. Here is another one who is bound to put
everything under lock and key, to count every evening her grapes and
her lumps of sugar, and to put marks on the bottles. Oh! yes, indeed,
we change and change, but we find always the same thing."

Nevertheless, it will be necessary to see, and not rely on this first
impression. Among so many mouths that have spoken to me, among so many
looks that have searched my soul, I shall find perhaps, some day,--who
knows?--a friendly mouth, a sympathetic look. It costs me nothing to
hope.

As soon as I had arrived, still under the deadening influence of four
hours in a third-class railway carriage, and before any one in the
kitchen had even thought of offering me a slice of bread, Madame took
me over the house, from cellar to garret, in order to immediately
familiarize me with my duties. Oh! she does not waste her time, or
mine. How big this house is! And how many things and corners it
contains! Oh! no, thank you, to keep it in order as it should be, four
servants would not suffice. Besides the ground floor, which in itself
is very important,--for there are two little pavilions, in the form
of a terrace, which constitute additions and continuations,--it has
two stories, in which I shall have to be forever going up and down,
since Madame, who stays in a little room near the dining-room, has had
the ingenious idea of placing the linen-room, where I am to work, at
the top of the house, by the side of our chambers. And cupboards, and
bureaus, and drawers, and store-rooms, and litters of all sorts,--if
you like these things, there are plenty of them. Never shall I find
myself in all this.

At every minute, in showing me something, Madame said to me:

"You will have to be careful about this, my girl. This is very pretty,
my girl. This is very rare, my girl. This is very expensive, my girl."

She could not, then, call me by my name, instead of saying all the
time, "My girl," this, "My girl," that, in that tone of wounding
domination which discourages the best wills and straightway puts such
a distance, so much hatred, between our mistresses and us? Do I call
her "little mother"? And then Madame has always on her lips the words
"very expensive." It is provoking. Everything that belongs to her, even
paltry articles that cost four sous, are "very expensive." One has no
idea where the vanity of the mistress of a house can hide itself. It is
really pitiful. In explaining to me the working of an oil lamp, which
in no way differed from all other lamps, she said to me:

"My girl, you know that this lamp is very expensive, and that it can be
repaired only in England. Take care of it, as if it were the apple of
your eye."

Oh! the cheek that they have, and the fuss that they make about
nothing! And when I think that it is all done just to humiliate you, to
astonish you!

And the house is not so much after all. There is really no reason to
be so proud of it. The exterior, to be sure, with the great clusters
of trees that sumptuously frame it and the gardens that descend to the
river in gentle slopes, ornamented with broad rectangular lawns, gives
an impression of some importance. But within it is sad, old, rickety,
and has a musty smell. I do not understand how they can live in it.
Nothing but rats' nests, break-neck wooden stairways, whose warped
steps tremble and creak beneath your feet; low and dark passage-ways,
whose floors, instead of being covered with soft carpets, consist of
badly-laid tiles, of a faded red color, and glazed, glazed, slippery,
slippery. The too thin partitions, made of too dry planks, make the
chambers as sonorous as the inside of a violin. Oh! it is all hollow
and provincial. It surely is not furnished in the Paris fashion. In
all the rooms old mahogany, old worm-eaten stuffs, old worn-out faded
rugs, and arm-chairs and sofas, ridiculously stiff, without springs,
worm-eaten, and rickety. How they must grind one's shoulders! Really,
I, who am so fond of light-colored hangings, broad elastic divans,
where one can stretch voluptuously on heaps of cushions, and all these
pretty modern furnishings, so luxurious, so rich, and so gay,--I feel
utterly saddened by the gloomy sadness of these. And I am afraid that
I shall never get accustomed to such an absence of comfort, to such a
lack of elegance, to so much old dust and so many dead forms.



Nor is Madame dressed in Parisian fashion. She is lacking in style,
and is unacquainted with the great dressmakers. She is somewhat of a
fright, as they say. Although she shows a certain pretension in her
costumes, she is at least ten years behind the fashion. And what a
fashion! Still, she would not be bad-looking, if she chose not to be;
at least, she would not be too bad-looking. Her worst fault is that
she awakens in you no sympathy,--that she is a woman in nothing. But
she has regular features, pretty hair naturally blonde, and a beautiful
skin; in fact, she has too much color, as if she were suffering from
some internal malady. I know this type of woman, and I am not to be
deceived by the brilliancy of their complexion. They are pink on
the surface, yes, but within they are rotten. They cannot stand up
straight, they cannot walk, they cannot live, except by the aid of
girdles, trusses, pessaries, and a whole collection of secret horrors
and complex mechanisms. Which does not prevent them from making a show
in society. Yes, indeed, they are coquettish, if you please; they flirt
in the corners, they exhibit their painted flesh, they ogle, they
wiggle; and yet they are fit for nothing but preservation in alcohol.
Oh! misfortune! One has but little satisfaction with them, I assure
you, and it is not always agreeable to be in their service.

I do not know whether it is from temperament or from organic
indisposition, but, judging from the expression of Madame's face, her
severe gestures, and the stiff bending of her body, she cares nothing
at all for love. She has the sharpness and sourness of an old maid,
and her whole person seems dried up and mummified,--a rare thing with
blondes. Not such women as Madame does beautiful music, like that of
"Faust",--oh! that "Faust"!--cause to fall with languor and swoon
voluptuously in the arms of a handsome man. Oh, no indeed! She does
not belong to that class of very ugly women into whose faces the ardor
of sex sometimes puts so much of radiant life, so much of seductive
beauty. After all, though, one cannot trust too securely in airs like
those of Madame. I have known women of the most severe and crabbed
type, who drove away all thought of desire and love, and who yet were
famous rovers.

Although Madame forces herself to be amiable, she surely is not up to
date, like some that I have seen. I believe her to be very wicked, very
spying, very fault-finding,--a dirty character and a wicked heart. She
must be continually at people's heels, pestering them in all ways.
"Do you know how to do this?" and "Do you know how to do that?" or
again: "Are you in the habit of breaking things? Are you careful? Have
you a good memory? Are you orderly?" There is no end to it. And also:
"Are you clean? I am very particular about cleanliness; I pass over
many things, but I insist upon cleanliness." Does she take me for a
farm girl, a peasant, a country servant? Cleanliness? Oh! I know that
chestnut. They all say that. And often, when one goes to the bottom
of things, when one turns up their skirts and examines their linen,
how filthy they are! Sometimes it is disgusting enough to turn one's
stomach.

Consequently I distrust Madame's cleanliness. When she showed me her
dressing-room, I did not notice any bath, or any of the things that
are necessary to a woman who takes proper care of herself. And what a
scant supply she has of _bibelots_, bottles, and all those private and
perfumed articles with which I am so fond of messing! I long, for the
sake of amusement, to see Madame naked. She must be a pretty sight.

In the evening, as I was setting the table, Monsieur entered the
dining-room. He had just returned from a hunt. He is a very tall man,
with broad shoulders, a heavy black moustache, and a dull complexion.
His manners are a little heavy and awkward, but he seems good-natured.
Evidently he is not a man of genius, like M. Jules Lemaître, whom
I have so often served in the Rue Christophe-Colomb, or a man of
elegance, like M. de Janzé. Ah, M. de Janzé! There was a man for
you! Yet he is sympathetic. His thick and curly hair, his bull neck,
his calves that look like a wrestler's, his thick, intensely red,
and smiling lips, testify to his strength and good humor. He is not
indifferent. That I saw directly from his mobile, sniffing, sensual
nose, and from his extremely brilliant eyes, which are at once gentle
and fun-loving. Never, I think, have I met a human being with such
eyebrows, thick to the point of obscenity, and with so hairy hands.
Like most men of little intelligence and great muscular development, he
is very timid.

He surveyed me with a very queer air, an air in which there was
kindness, surprise, and satisfaction,--something also of salaciousness,
but without impudence, something of an undressing look, but without
brutality. It is evident that Monsieur is not accustomed to such
chambermaids as I, that I astonish him, and that I have made a
great impression on him at the start. He said to me, with a little
embarrassment:

"Ah! Ah! So you are the new chambermaid?"

I bent forward, slightly lowered my eyes, and then, modest and mutinous
at once, I answered simply, in my gentlest voice:

"Why, yes, Monsieur."

Then he stammered:

"So you have come? That's very good, that's very good."

He would have liked to say something further,--was trying, indeed, to
think of something to say,--but, being neither eloquent or at his ease,
he did not find anything. I was greatly amused at his embarrassment.
But, after a short silence, he asked:

"You come from Paris, like that?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"That's very good, that's very good."

And growing bolder:

"What is your name?"

"Célestine, Monsieur."

He rubbed his hands,--a mannerism of his,--and went on:

"Célestine. Ah! Ah! that's very good. Not a common name; in fact, a
pretty name. Provided Madame does not oblige you to change it. She has
that mania."

I answered, in a tone of dignified submission:

"I am at Madame's disposition."

"Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. But it is a pretty name."

I almost burst out laughing. Monsieur began to walk up and down the
room; then, suddenly, he sat down in a chair, stretched out his legs,
and, putting into his look something like an apology, and into his
voice something like a prayer, he asked:

"Well, Célestine,--for my part, I shall always call you
Célestine,--will you help me to take off my boots? That does not annoy
you, I hope."

"Certainly not, Monsieur."

"Because, you see, these confounded boots are very difficult to manage;
they come off very hard."

With a movement that I tried to make harmonious and supple, and even
provocative, I knelt before him, and, while I was helping him to take
off his boots, which were damp and covered with mud, I was perfectly
conscious that the perfumes of my neck were exciting his nose, and that
his eyes were following with increasing interest the outlines of my
form as seen through my gown. Suddenly he murmured:

"Great heavens! Célestine, but you smell good."

Without raising my eyes, I assumed an air of innocence:

"I, Monsieur?"

"Surely, you; it can hardly be my feet."

"Oh! Monsieur!"

And this "Oh! Monsieur!" at the same time that it was a protest in
favor of his feet, was also a sort of friendly reprimand,--friendly to
the point of encouragement,--for his familiarity. Did he understand? I
think so, for again, with more force, and even with a sort of amorous
trembling, he repeated:

"Célestine, you smell awfully good,--awfully good."

Ah! but the old gentleman is making free. I appeared as if slightly
scandalized by his insistence, and kept silence. Timid as he is, and
knowing nothing of the tricks of women, Monsieur was disturbed. He
feared undoubtedly that he had gone too far, and, suddenly changing his
idea, he asked:

"Are you getting accustomed to the place, Célestine?"

That question? Was I getting accustomed to the place? And I had been
there but three hours. I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing. The
old gentleman has queer ways; and, really, he is a little stupid.

But that makes no difference. He does not displease me. In his very
vulgarity he reveals a certain power and masculinity which are not
disagreeable to me.

When his boots had been taken off, and to leave him with a good
impression of me, I asked him, in my turn:

"I see Monsieur is a hunter. Has Monsieur had a good hunt to-day?"

"I never have good hunts, Célestine," he answered, shaking his head. "I
hunt for the sake of walking,--for the sake of riding,--that I may not
be here, where I find it tiresome."

"Ah! Monsieur finds it tiresome here?"

After a pause, he gallantly corrected himself.

"That is to say, I did find it tiresome. For now, you see, it is
different."

Then, with a stupid and moving smile:

"Célestine?"

"Monsieur."

"Will you get me my slippers? I ask your pardon."

"But, Monsieur, it is my business."

"Yes, to be sure; they are under the stairs, in a little dark closet,
at the left."

I believe that I shall get all that I want of this type. He is not
shrewd; he surrenders at the start. Ah! one could lead him far.



The dinner, not very luxurious, consisting of the leavings from the
day before, passed off without incident, almost silently. Monsieur
devours, and Madame picks fastidiously at the dishes with sullen
gestures and disdainful mouthings. But she absorbs powders, syrups,
drops, pills, an entire pharmacy which you have to be very careful
to place on the table, at every meal, beside her plate. They talked
very little, and what they did say concerned local matters and people
of little or no interest to me. But I gathered that they have very
little company. Moreover, it was plain that their thoughts were not on
what they were saying. They were watching me, each according to the
ideas that prompted him or her, each moved by a different curiosity;
Madame, severe and stiff, contemptuous even, more and more hostile,
and dreaming already of all the dirty tricks that she would play me;
Monsieur, slyly, with very significant winks, and, although he tried to
conceal them, with strange looks at my hands. Really, I don't know what
there is about my hands that so excites men. For my part, I seemed
to be taking no notice of their game. I went and came with dignity,
reserved, adroit, and distant. Ah! if they could have seen my soul, if
they could have heard my soul, as I saw and heard theirs!

I adore waiting on table. It is there that one surprises one's masters
in all the filthiness, in all the baseness of their inner natures.
Prudent at first, and watchful of each other, little by little they
reveal themselves, exhibit themselves as they are, without paint and
without veils, forgetting that some one is hovering around them,
listening and noting their defects, their moral humps, the secret sores
of their existence, and all the infamies and ignoble dreams that can be
contained in the respectable brains of respectable people. To collect
these confessions, to classify them, to label them in our memory, for
use as a terrible weapon on the day of settlement, is one of the great
and intense joys of our calling, and the most precious revenge for our
humiliations.

From this first contact with my new masters I have obtained no precise
and formal indications. But I feel that things do not go well here,
that Monsieur is nothing in the house, that Madame is everything, that
Monsieur trembles before Madame like a little child. Oh! he hasn't a
merry time of it, the poor man! Surely he sees, hears, and suffers all
sorts of things. I fancy that I shall get some amusement out of it, at
times. At dessert, Madame, who, during the meal, had been continually
sniffing at my hands, my arms, and my waist, said, in a clear and
cutting tone:

"I do not like the use of perfumes."

As I did not answer, pretending to ignore the fact that the remark was
addressed to me, she added:

"Do you hear, Célestine?"

"Very well, Madame."

Then I looked stealthily at poor Monsieur, who likes perfumes, or who
at least likes my perfume. With his elbows on the table, apparently
indifferent, but really humiliated and distressed, he was following
the flight of a wasp which had been lingering over a plate of fruit.
And there was now a dismal silence in this dining-room, which the
twilight had just invaded, and something inexpressibly sad, something
unspeakably heavy, fell from the ceiling on these two beings,
concerning whom I really asked myself of what use they are and what
they are doing on earth.

"The lamp, Célestine."

It was Madame's voice, sharper than ever in the silence and the shade.
It made me start.

"Do you not see that it is dark? I should not have to ask you for the
lamp. Let it be the last time."

While lighting the lamp,--this lamp which can be repaired only in
England,--I had a strong desire to cry out to poor Monsieur:

"Just wait a little, my old man, and fear nothing, and don't distress
yourself. You shall eat and drink the perfumes that you so love, and of
which you are so deprived. You shall breathe them, I promise you; you
shall breathe them in my hair, on my lips, on my neck. And the two of
us will lead this blockhead a merry dance, I answer for it."

And, to emphasize this silent invocation, I took care, as I placed the
lamp upon the table, to slightly brush against Monsieur's arm, and I
went out.



The servants' hall is not gay. Besides myself, there are only two
domestics,--a cook, who is always scolding, and a gardener-coachman,
who never says a word. The cook's name is Marianne; that of the
gardener-coachman, Joseph. Stupid peasants. And what heads they have!
She, fat, soft, flabby, sprawling, a neck emerging in a triple cushion
from a dirty neckkerchief which looks as if she wiped her kettles with
it, two enormous and shapeless breasts rolling beneath a sort of blue
cotton camisole covered with grease, her too short dress disclosing
thick ankles and big feet encased in grey woolen; he, in shirt-sleeves,
work-apron, and wooden shoes, shaven, dry, nervous, with an evil
grimace on his lips which stretch from ear to ear, and a devious gait,
the sly movements of a sacristan. Such are my two companions.

No dining-room for the servants. We take our meals in the kitchen, at
the same table where, during the day, the cook does her dirty work,
carves her meats, cleans her fish, and cuts up her vegetables, with
fingers fat and round as sausages. Really, that is scarcely proper. The
fire in the stove renders the atmosphere of the room stifling; odors of
old grease, of rancid sauces, of continual fryings, circulate in the
air. While we eat, a kettle in which the dogs' soup is boiling exhales
a fetid vapor that attacks your throat and makes you cough. One almost
vomits. More respect is shown for prisoners in their cells and dogs in
their kennels.

We had bacon and cabbage, and stinking cheese; for drink, sour cider.
Nothing else. Earthen plates, with cracked enamel, and which smell of
burnt grease, and tin forks, complete this pretty service.

Being too new in the house, I did not wish to complain. But neither did
I wish to eat. Do further damage to my stomach, no, thank you!

"Why don't you eat?" asked the cook.

"I am not hungry."

I uttered this in a very dignified tone; then Marianne grunted:
"Perhaps Mademoiselle must have truffles?"

Without showing anger, but with a stiff and haughty air, I replied:

"Why, you know, I have eaten truffles. Not everybody here can say as
much."

That shut her up.

Meantime the gardener-coachman was filling his mouth with big pieces of
bacon and examining me stealthily. I cannot say why, but this man has
an embarrassing look, and his silence troubles me. Although he is no
longer young, I am astonished at the suppleness and elasticity of his
movements; the undulations of his loins are reptilian. Let me describe
him in greater detail. His stiff, grizzled hair, his low forehead,
his oblique eyes, his prominent cheek-bones, his broad, strong jaw,
and his long, fleshy, turned-up chin, give him a strange character
that I cannot define. Is he a simpleton? Is he a rascal? I cannot
tell. Yet it is curious that this man holds my attention as he does.
After a time this obsession lessens and disappears. And I realize that
this is simply another of the thousands and thousands of tricks of my
excessive, magnifying, and romantic imagination, which causes me to see
things and people as too beautiful or as too ugly, and which compels
me to make of this miserable Joseph a being superior to the stupid
countryman, to the heavy peasant that he really is.

Towards the end of the dinner, Joseph, still without saying a word,
took from his apron-pocket the "Libre Parole," and began to read it
attentively, and Marianne, softened by having drunk two full decanters
of cider, became more amiable. Sprawling on her chair, her sleeves
rolled up and revealing bare arms, her cap set a little awry upon her
uncombed hair, she asked me where I came from, where I had been, if
I had had good places, and if I was against the Jews. And we talked
for some time, in an almost friendly way. In my turn I asked her for
information concerning the house, whether many people came and what
sort of people, whether Monsieur was attentive to the chambermaids,
whether Madame had a lover.

Oh! but you should have seen her head, and that of Joseph, too, whose
reading was suddenly interrupted, now and then, by my questions.
How scandalized and ridiculous they were! You have no idea how far
behind the times they are in the country. They know nothing, they see
nothing, they understand nothing; the most natural thing abashes them.
And yet, he with his awkward respectability, she with her virtuous
disorder,--nothing will get it out of my mind that they are intimate.
Oh! indeed, one must really be in a bad way to be satisfied with a type
like that.

"It is easy to see that you come from Paris, from I know not where,"
remarked the cook, in a tone of bitter reproach.

Whereupon Joseph, with a toss of his head, curtly added:

"Sure."

And he began to read the "Libre Parole" again. Marianne rose heavily,
and took the kettle from the fire. We talked no more.

Then I thought of my last place, of Monsieur Jean, the valet, so
distinguished with his black side-whiskers and his white skin, for
which he cared as if he were a woman. Ah! he was such a handsome
fellow, Monsieur Jean, so gay, so nice, so delicate, so artful, when
at night he read aloud to us from the "Fin de Siècle" or told us
salacious and touching stories, or familiarized us with the contents of
Monsieur's letters. Things have changed to-day. How did I ever come to
get stranded here, among such people, and far from everything that I
like?

I almost want to cry.



And I am writing these lines in my chamber, a dirty little chamber, at
the top of the house, open to all winds, to the winter's cold, to the
summer's burning heat. No other furniture than a paltry iron bed and a
paltry white-wood wardrobe which does not close and where I have not
room enough to arrange my things. No other light than a tallow candle
that smokes and runs down into a brass candlestick. It is pitiful. If I
wish to continue to write this diary, or even to read the novels that I
have brought, or to tell my fortune with the cards, I shall have to buy
wax candles with my own money, for, as for Madame's wax candles,--nit!
as Monsieur Jean would say,--they are under lock and key.

To-morrow I will try to get a little settled. Over my bed I will nail
my little gilt crucifix, and on the mantel I will place my painted
porcelain virgin, together with my little boxes, my bric-à-brac, and
the photographs of Monsieur Jean, so as to penetrate this hole with a
ray of privacy and joy.

Marianne's room is next to mine. A thin partition separates us, and you
can hear everything that goes on. I thought that Joseph, who sleeps in
the out-buildings, might visit Marianne to-night. But no. For a long
time Marianne turned about in her room, coughing, hawking, dragging
chairs, moving a heap of things. Now she is snoring. It is doubtless in
the day-time that they have their clandestine meetings.

A dog barks, far away, in the country. It is nearly two o'clock, and my
light is going out. I, too, am obliged to go to bed. But I feel that I
shall not sleep.

Ah! how old I shall grow in this hovel! Yes, indeed!




II


_September 15._

I have not yet written a single time the name of my masters. It is a
ridiculous and comical name: Lanlaire; Monsieur and Madame Lanlaire.
You see at once the plays that can be made on such a name, and the
jokes to which it is bound to give rise. As for their Christian names,
they are, perhaps, more ridiculous than their surname, and, if I may
say so, they complete it. That of Monsieur is Isidore; that of Madame,
Euphrasie. Euphrasie! Think of it!

I have just been to the haberdasher's to match some silk. And the woman
who keeps the shop has given me some information as to the house. It
is not delightful. But, to be just, I must say that I have never met
such a chattering jade. If the dealers of whom my masters buy speak in
this way of them, what must be said of them by those whom they do not
patronize? My! but they have good tongues in the country.

Monsieur's father was a manufacturer of cloths, and a banker, at
Louviers. He went into a fraudulent bankruptcy that emptied all
the little purses of the region, and was condemned to ten years'
imprisonment, which, in view of the forgeries, abuses of confidence,
thefts, and crimes of all sorts, that he had committed, was deemed a
very light sentence. While he was serving his time at Gaillon, he died.
But he had taken care to put aside, and in a safe place, it seems, four
hundred and fifty thousand francs, which, artfully withheld from the
ruined creditors, constitute Monsieur's entire personal fortune. Ah!
you see, it is no trick at all to be rich.

Madame's father was much worse, although he was never sentenced to
imprisonment, and departed this life respected by all the respectable
people. He was a dealer in men. The haberdasher explained to me that,
under Napoleon III, when everybody was not obliged to serve in the
army, as is the case to-day, the rich young men who were drawn by lot
for service had the right to send a substitute. They applied to an
agency or to a Monsieur who, in consideration of a premium varying from
one to two thousand francs, according to the risks at the time, found
them a poor devil, who consented to take their place in the regiment
for seven years, and, in case of war, to die for them. Thus was carried
on in France the trade in whites, as in Africa the trade in blacks.
There were men-markets, like cattle-markets, but for a more horrible
butchery. That does not greatly astonish me. Are there, then, none
to-day? What, I should like to know, are the employment-bureaus and the
public houses, if not slave-fairs, butcher-shops for the sale of human
meat?

According to the haberdasher, it was a very lucrative business, and
Madame's father, who had a monopoly of it for the entire department,
showed great skill in it,--that is to say, he kept for himself and
put in his pocket the larger part of the premium. Ten years ago
he died, mayor of Mesnil-Roy, substitute justice of the peace,
councillor-general, president of the board of vestrymen, treasurer of
the charity bureau, decorated, and leaving, in addition to the Priory,
which he had bought for nothing, twelve hundred thousand francs, of
which six hundred thousand went to Madame,--for Madame has a brother
who has gone to the bad, and they do not know what has become of him.
Well, say what you will, that is money that can hardly be called clean,
if, indeed, there be any clean money. For my part, it is very simple; I
have seen nothing but dirty money and wicked wealth.

The Lanlaires--is it not enough to disgust you?--have, then, more
then a million. They do nothing but economize, and they spend hardly
a third of their income. Curtailing everything, depriving others
and themselves, haggling bitterly over bills, denying their words,
recognizing no agreements save those that are written and signed, one
must keep an eye on them, and in business affairs never open the door
for any dispute whatever. They immediately take advantage of it, to
avoid payment, especially with the little dealers who cannot afford the
costs of a lawsuit, and the poor devils who are defenceless. Naturally,
they never give anything, except from time to time to the church, for
they are very pious. As for the poor, they may die of hunger before
the door of the Priory, imploring and wailing. The door remains always
closed.

"I even believe," said the haberdasher, "that, if they could take
something from the beggar's sack, they would do it remorselessly, with
a savage joy."

And she added, by way of a monstrous example:

"All of us here who earn our living with difficulty, when giving
hallowed bread, buy cake for the purpose. It is a point of propriety
and pride. They, the dirty misers, they distribute,--what? Bread, my
dear young woman. And not first-class bread at that, not even white
bread. No, workman's bread. Is it not shameful,--people as rich as
they are? Why, one day the wife of Paumier, the cooper, heard Madame
Lanlaire say to the priest, who was mildly reproaching her for this
avarice: 'Monsieur le curé, that is always good enough for these
people.'"

One must be just, even with his masters. Though there is only one voice
in regard to Madame, they have nothing against Monsieur. They do not
detest Monsieur. All agree in declaring that Monsieur is not proud,
that he would be generous to people, and would do much good, if he
could. The trouble is that he cannot. Monsieur is nothing in his own
house,--less than the servants, badly treated as they are, less than
the cat, to whom everything is allowed. Little by little, and for the
sake of tranquillity, he has abrogated all his authority as master
of the house, all his dignity as a man, into the hands of his wife.
Madame directs, regulates, organizes, administers everything. Madame
attends to the stable, to the yard, to the garden, to the cellar, and
to the wood-house, and is sure to find something amiss everywhere.
Never do things go to her liking, and she continually pretends that
they are being robbed. What an eye she has! It is inconceivable. They
play her no tricks, be sure, for she knows them all. She pays the
bills, collects the dividends and rents, and makes the bargains. She
has the devices of an old bookkeeper, the indelicacies of a corrupt
process-server, the ingenious strategy of a usurer. It is incredible.
Of course, she holds the purse, and ferociously; and she never loosens
the strings, except to let in more money. She leaves Monsieur without
a sou; the poor man has hardly enough to buy his tobacco. In the midst
of his wealth, he is even more destitute than the rest of us here.
However, he does not balk; he never balks. He obeys like the comrades.
Oh! how queer he is at times, with his air of a tired and submissive
dog! When, Madame being out, there comes a dealer with a bill, a
poor man with his poverty, a messenger who wants a tip, you ought to
see Monsieur. Monsieur is really a comical sight. He fumbles in his
pockets, gropes about, blushes, apologizes, and says, with a sorrowful
face:

"Why, I have no change about me. I have only thousand-franc bills. Have
you change for a thousand francs? No? Then you will have to call again."

Thousand-franc bills, he, who never has a hundred sous about him. Even
his letter-paper Madame keeps locked in a closet, of which she holds
the key, and she gives it out to him sheet by sheet, grumbling:

"Thank you, but you use a tremendous amount of paper. To whom, then,
can you be writing that you use so much?"

The only thing that they reproach him with, the only thing that they
do not understand, is the undignified weakness in consequence of which
he allows himself to be led in this way by such a shrew. For no one is
ignorant of the fact--indeed, Madame shouts it from the house-top--that
Monsieur and Madame are no longer anything to each other. Madame, who
has some internal disease and can have no children, will not allow him
to approach her.

"Then," asked the haberdasher, in finishing her conversation, "why is
Monsieur so good and so cowardly toward a woman who denies him not only
money, but pleasure? I would bring him to his senses, and rudely, too."

And this is what happens. When Monsieur, who is a vigorous man, and who
is also a kindly man, wishes to enjoy himself away from home, or to
bestow a little charity upon a poor man, he is reduced to ridiculous
expedients, to clumsy excuses, to not very dignified loans, the
discovery of which by Madame brings on terrible scenes,--quarrels that
often last for months. Then Monsieur is seen going off through the
fields, walking, walking, like a madman, making furious and threatening
gestures, crushing the turf beneath his feet, talking to himself, in
the wind, in the rain, in the snow; and then coming back at night more
timid, more bowed, more trembling, more conquered than ever.

The curious, and also the melancholy, part of the matter is that, amid
the worst recriminations of the haberdasher, among these unveiled
infamies, this shameful vileness, which is hawked from mouth to mouth,
from shop to shop, from house to house, it is evident that the jealousy
of the town's-people toward the Lanlaires is even greater than their
contempt for them. In spite of their criminal uselessness, of their
social wrong-doing, in spite of all that they crush under the weight
of their hideous million, this million none the less surrounds them
with a halo of respectability, and almost of glory. The people bow
lower to them than to others, and receive them more warmly than others.
They call--with what fawning civility!--the dirty hovel in which they
live in the filth of their soul, the château. To strangers coming to
inquire concerning the curiosities of the region I am sure that the
haberdasher herself, hateful though she is, would answer:

"We have a beautiful church, a beautiful fountain, and, above all,
we have something else very beautiful,--the Lanlaires, who possess a
million and live in a château. They are frightful people, and we are
very proud of them."

The worship of the million! It is a low sentiment, common not only
to the _bourgeois_, but to most of us also,--the little, the humble,
the penniless of this world. And I myself, with my frank ways and my
threats to break everything, even I am not free from this. I, whom
wealth oppresses; I, who owe to it my sorrows, my vices, my hatreds,
the bitterest of my humiliations, and my impossible dreams, and
the perpetual torment of my life,--well, as soon as I find myself
in presence of a rich man, I cannot help looking upon him as an
exceptional and beautiful being, as a sort of marvellous divinity, and,
in spite of myself, surmounting my will and my reason, I feel rising,
from the depths of my being, toward this rich man, who is very often
an imbecile, and sometimes a murderer, something like an incense of
admiration. Is it not stupid? And why? Why?

On leaving this dirty haberdasher, and this strange shop, where, by
the way, it was impossible for me to match my silk, I reflected with
discouragement upon all that this woman had told me about my masters.
It was drizzling. The sky was as dirty as the soul of this dealer in
pinchbeck. I slipped along the slimy pavement of the street, and,
furious against the haberdasher and against my masters, and against
myself, furious against this country sky, against this mud, in which my
heart and my feet were splashing, against the incurable sadness of the
little town, I kept on repeating to myself:

"Well, here is a clean place for you! I had seen everything but this. A
nice hole I have fallen into!"



Ah! yes, a nice hole indeed! And here is something more.

Madame dresses herself all alone, and does her own hair. She locks
herself securely in her dressing-room, and it is with difficulty that
I can obtain an entrance. God knows what she does in there for hours
and hours! This evening, unable to restrain myself, I knocked at the
door squarely. And here is the little conversation that ensued between
Madame and myself:

"Tac, tac!"

"Who is there?"

Ah! that sharp, shrill voice, which one would like to force back into
her throat with one's fist!

"It is I, Madame."

"What do you want?"

"I come to do the dressing-room."

"It is done. Go away. And come only when I ring for you."

That is to say that I am not even the chambermaid here. I do not know
what I am here, and what my duties are. And yet, to dress and undress
my mistresses and to do their hair is the only part of my work that
I like. I like to play with night-gowns, with dresses and ribbons,
to dabble among the linens, the hats, the laces, the furs, to rub my
mistresses after the bath, to powder them, to rub their feet with
pumice-stone, to perfume their breasts, to oxygenize their hair, to
know them, in short, from the tips of their slippers to the peak of
their chignon, to see them all naked. In this way they become for you
something else than a mistress, almost a friend or an accomplice, often
a slave. One inevitably becomes the confidant of a heap of things, of
their pains, of their vices, of their disappointments in love, of the
inner secrets of the household, of their diseases. To say nothing of
the fact that, when one is adroit, one holds them by a multitude of
details which they do not even suspect. One gets much more out of them.
It is at once profitable and amusing. That is how I understand the work
of a chambermaid.

You cannot imagine how many there are--how shall I say that?--how many
there are who are indecent and lewd in their privacy, even among those
who, in society, pass for the most reserved and the most strict, and
whose virtue is supposed to be unassailable. Ah! in the dressing-rooms
how the masks fall! How the proudest fronts crack and crumble!



Well, what am I going to do here? In this country hole, with an
impertinent minx like my new mistress, I have no favors to dream of,
no distractions to hope for. I shall do stupid housework, wearisome
sewing, and nothing else. Ah! when I remember the places where I have
served, that makes my situation still sadder, more intolerably sad. And
I have a great desire to go away,--to make my bow once for all to this
country of savages.



Just now I met Monsieur on the stairs. He was starting for a hunt.
Monsieur looked at me with a salacious air. Again he asked me:

"Well, Célestine, are you getting accustomed to the place?"

Decidedly, it is a mania with him. I answered:

"I do not know yet, Monsieur."

Then, with effrontery:

"And Monsieur, is he getting accustomed here?"

Monsieur burst out laughing. Monsieur takes a joke well. Monsieur is
really good-natured.

"You must get accustomed, Célestine. You must get accustomed.
_Sapristi!_"

I was in a humor for boldness. Again I answered:

"I will try, Monsieur,--with Monsieur's aid."

I think that Monsieur was going to say something very stiff to me.
His eyes shone like two coals. But Madame appeared at the top of the
stairs. Monsieur was off in his direction, I in mine. It was a pity.

This evening, through the door of the _salon_, I heard Madame saying to
Monsieur, in the amiable tone that you can imagine:

"I wish no familiarity with my servants."

Her servants? Are not Madame's servants Monsieur's servants? Well,
indeed!




III


_September 18._

This morning (Sunday) I went to mass.

I have already declared that, without being pious, I have religion all
the same. Say and do what you like, religion is always religion. The
rich, perhaps, can get along without it, but it is necessary for people
like us. I know very well that there are individuals who make use of it
in a rather queer fashion,--that many priests and good sisters scarcely
do it honor. But never mind. When one is unhappy,--and, in our calling,
we get more than our share of unhappiness,--it is the only thing that
will soothe you. Only that, and love. Yes, but love, that is another
sort of consolation. Consequently, even in impious houses, I never
missed mass. In the first place, mass is an excursion, a distraction,
time gained from the daily ennui of the household. And, above all, we
meet comrades, hear stories, and form acquaintances. Ah! if, on going
out of the chapel of the Assumptionists, I had wished to listen to the
good-looking old gentlemen who whispered psalms of a curious sort in my
ears, perhaps I should not be here to-day.

To-day the weather is improved. There is a beautiful sun,--one of those
misty suns that make walking agreeable and sadness less burdensome. I
know not why, but, under the influence of this blue and gold morning, I
have something like gaiety in my heart.

We are about a mile from the church. The way leading to it is a
pleasant one,--a little path winding between hedges. In spring it must
be full of flowers, wild cherry trees, and the hawthorns that smell
so good. I love the hawthorns. They remind me of things when I was a
little girl. Otherwise the country is like the country everywhere else;
there is nothing astonishing about it. It is a very wide valley, and
then, yonder, at the end of the valley, there are hills. In the valley
there is a river, on the hills there is a forest; all covered with a
veil of fog, transparent and gilded, which hides the landscape too much
to suit me.

Oddly enough, I keep my fidelity to nature as it is in Brittany. I have
it in my blood. Nowhere else does it seem to me as beautiful; nowhere
else does it speak better to my soul. Even among the richest and most
fertile fields of Normandy I am homesick for the moors, and for that
tragic and splendid sea where I was born. And this recollection,
suddenly called up, casts a cloud of melancholy into the gaiety of this
delightful morning.

On the way I meet women and women. With prayer-books under their arms,
they, too, are going to mass,--cooks, chambermaids, and barn-yard
scullions, thick-set and clumsy, and with the slow and swaying
gait of animals. How queerly they are rigged out, in their holiday
garb,--perfect mops. They smell powerfully of the country, and it
is easy to see that they have not served in Paris. They look at me
with curiosity,--a curiosity at once distrustful and sympathetic.
They note enviously, in detail, my hat, my closely-fitting gown, my
little baize jacket, and my umbrella rolled in its green silk cover.
My costume--that of a lady--astonishes them, and especially, I think,
my coquettish and smart way of wearing it. They nudge each other with
their elbows, make enormous eyes, and open their mouths immoderately,
to show each other my luxury and my style. And I go tripping along,
nimbly and lightly, with my pointed shoes, and boldly lifting up my
dress, which makes a sound of rustling silk against the skirts beneath.
What can you expect? For my part, I am glad to be admired.

As they pass by me, I hear them say to each other, in a whisper:

"That is the new chambermaid at the Priory."

One of them, short, fat, red-faced, asthmatic, and who seems to have
great difficulty in carrying an immense paunch on legs widely spread
apart, undoubtedly to the better steady it, approaches me with a smile,
a thick, glutinous smile on her gluttonous lips:

"You are the new chambermaid at the Priory? Your name is Célestine? You
arrived from Paris four days ago?"

She knows everything already. She is familiar with everything, and with
me. And there is nothing about this paunchy body, about this walking
goatskin, that so amuses me as the musketeer hat,--a large, black, felt
hat, whose plumes sway in the breeze.

She continues:

"My name is Rose, Mam'zelle Rose; I am at M. Mauger's, the next place
to yours; he is a former captain. Perhaps you have already seen him?"

"No, Mademoiselle."

"You might have seen him over the hedge that separates the two estates.
He is always working in the garden. He is still a fine man, you know."

We walk more slowly, for Mam'zelle Rose is almost stifling. She
wheezes like a foundered mare. With every breath her chest expands and
contracts, then to expand again. She says, chopping her words:

"I have one of my attacks. Oh! how people suffer these days! It is
incredible."

Then, between wheezes and hiccoughs, she encourages me:

"You must come and see me, my little one. If you need anything, good
advice, no matter what, do not hesitate. I am fond of young people.
We will drink a little glass of peach brandy as we talk. Many of these
young women come to our house."

She stops a moment, takes breath, and then, in a lower voice and a
confidential tone, continues:

"And, say, Mademoiselle Célestine, if you wish to have your letters
addressed in our care, it would be more prudent. A bit of good advice
that I give you. Madame Lanlaire reads the letters, all the letters.
Once she came very near being sentenced for it by the justice of the
peace. I repeat, do not hesitate."

I thank her, and we continue to walk. Although her body pitches and
rolls like an old vessel in a heavy sea, Mademoiselle Rose seems now to
breathe more easily. And we go on, gossiping:

"Oh! it will be a change for you here, surely. In the first place, my
little one, at the Priory they never keep a chambermaid for any length
of time. That is a settled matter. When Madame does not discharge them,
Monsieur gets them into trouble. A terrible man, Monsieur Lanlaire. The
pretty, the ugly, the young, the old,--all are alike to him. Oh! the
house is well known. And everybody will tell you what I tell you. You
are ill-fed there; you have no liberty; you are crushed with work. And
chiding and scolding all the time. A real hell! One needs only to see
you, pretty and well brought up as you are, to know, beyond a doubt,
that you are not made to stay with such curmudgeons."

All that the haberdasher told me, Mademoiselle Rose tells me again,
with more disagreeable variations. So violent is this woman's passion
for chattering that she finally forgets her suffering. Her malice gets
the better of her asthma. And the scandal of the house goes its course,
mingled with the private affairs of the neighborhood. Although already
I know them all, Rose's stories are so black, and her words are so
discouraging, that again I am thoroughly saddened. I ask myself if I
had not better go away at once. Why try an experiment in which I am
conquered in advance?

Other women have overtaken us, curious, nosy, accompanying with an
energetic "For sure" each of the revelations of Rose, who, less and
less winded, continues to jabber:

"M. Mauger is a very good man, and all alone, my little one. As much as
to say that I am the mistress. Why! a former captain; it is natural,
isn't it? He is no manager; he knows nothing of household affairs; he
likes to be taken care of and coddled, have his linen well kept, his
caprices respected, nice dishes prepared for him. If he had not beside
him a person in whom he had confidence, he would be plundered right and
left. My God, there is no lack of thieves here!"

The intonation of her spasmodic utterances, and her winks, clearly
revealed to me her exact situation in Captain Mauger's house.

"Why, you know, a man all alone, and who still has ideas. And besides,
there is work to do all the same. And we are going to hire a boy to
assist."

This Rose is lucky, I, too, have often dreamed of entering an old man's
service. It is disgusting. But at least one is tranquil, and has a
future.

We traverse the entire district. Oh! indeed, it is not pretty. It in
no way resembles the Boulevard Malesherbes. Dirty, narrow, winding
streets, and houses that stand neither square or straight,--dark
houses, of old, rotten wood, with high, tottering gables, and bulging
stories that project one past the other, in the olden fashion. The
people who pass are ugly, ugly, and I have not seen a single handsome
fellow. The industry of the neighborhood is the manufacture of
list-shoes. Most of the shoemakers, having been unable to deliver
a week's product at the factory, are still at work. And behind the
window-panes I see poor sickly faces, bent backs, and black hands
hammering leather soles.

That adds still further to the dismal sadness of the place. It seems
like a prison.

But here is the haberdasher, who, standing at her threshold, smiles at
us and bows.

"You are going to eight o'clock mass? I went to seven o'clock mass. You
have plenty of time. Will you not come in, a moment?"

Rose thanks her. She warns me against the haberdasher, who is a
malicious woman and speaks ill of everybody, a real pest! Then she
begins again to boast of her master's virtues and of her easy place. I
ask her:

"Then the captain has no family?"

"No family?" she cries, scandalized. "Well, my little one, you are not
on. Oh! yes, there is a family, and a nice one, indeed! Heaps of nieces
and cousins,--loafers, penniless people, hangers-on, all of whom were
plundering him and robbing him. You should have seen that. It was an
abomination. So you can imagine whether I set that right,---whether I
cleared the house of all this vermin. Why, my dear young woman, but for
me, the captain now would be on his uppers. Ah! the poor man! He is
well satisfied with the way things are now."

I insist with an ironical intention, which, however, she does not
understand:

"And, undoubtedly, Mademoiselle Rose, he will remember you in his will?"

Prudently, she replies:

"Monsieur will do as he likes. He is free. Surely I do not influence
him. I ask nothing of him. I do not ask him even to pay me wages. I
stay with him out of devotion. But he knows life. He knows those who
love him, who care for him with disinterestedness, who coddle him. No
one need think that he is stupid as certain persons pretend,--Madame
Lanlaire at the head, who says things about us. It is she, on the
contrary, who is evil-minded, Mademoiselle Célestine, and who has a
will of her own. Depend upon it!"

Upon this eloquent apology for the captain, we arrive at the church.

The fat Rose does not leave me. She obliges me to take a chair near
hers, and begins to mumble prayers, to make genuflections and signs of
the cross. Oh! this church! With its rough timbers that cross it and
sustain the staggering vault, it resembles a barn; with the people in
it, coughing, hawking, running against benches, and dragging chairs
around, it seems also like a village wine-shop. I see nothing but faces
stupefied by ignorance, bitter mouths contracted by hatred. There are
none here but wretched creatures who come to ask God to do something
against somebody. It is impossible for me to concentrate my thoughts,
and I feel a sort of cold penetrating me and surrounding me. Perhaps
it is because there is not even an organ in this church. Queer, isn't
it? but I cannot pray without an organ. An anthem on the organ fills
my chest, and then my stomach; it completely restores me, like love.
If I could always hear the strains of an organ, I really believe that
I should never sin. Here, instead of an organ, there is an old woman,
in the choir, with blue spectacles, and a poor little black shawl over
her shoulders, who painfully drums on a sort of piano, wheezy and out
of tune. And the people are always coughing and hawking, the droning of
the priest and the responses of the choristers being drowned by a sound
of catarrh. And how bad it all smells,--mingled odors of the muck-heap,
of the stable, of the soil, of sour straw, of wet leather, of damaged
incense. Really, they are very ill-bred in the country.

The mass drags along, and I grow weary. I am especially vexed at
finding myself among people so ordinary and so ugly, and who pay so
little attention to me. Not a pretty spectacle, not a pretty costume
with which to rest my thought or cheer my eyes. Never did I better
understand that I am made for the joy of elegance and style. Instead
of being lifted up, as at mass in Paris, all my senses take offence,
and rebel at once. For distraction, I follow attentively the movements
of the officiating priest. Oh! thank you! he is a sort of tall,
jovial fellow, very young, with an ordinary face, and a brick-red
complexion. With his dishevelled hair, his greedy jaw, his gluttonous
lips, his obscene little eyes, and his eyelids circled with black, I
have sized him up at once. How he must enjoy himself at the table! And
at the confessional, too,--the dirty things that he must say! Rose,
perceiving that I am watching him, bends toward me, and says, in a very
low voice:

"That is the new vicar. I recommend him to you. There is no one like
him to confess the women. The curate is a holy man, certainly, but he
is looked upon as too strict. Whereas the new vicar...."

She clacks her tongue, and goes back to her prayer, her head bent over
the prie-Dieu.

Well, he would not please me, the new vicar; he has a dirty and brutal
air; he looks more like a ploughman than a priest. For my part, I
require delicacy, poetry, the beyond, and white hands. I like men to be
gentle and _chic_, as Monsieur Jean was.

After mass Rose drags me to the grocery store. With a few mysterious
words she explains to me that it is necessary to be on good terms with
the woman who keeps it, and that all the domestics pay her assiduous
court.

Another little dump,--decidedly, this is the country of fat women. Her
face is covered with freckles, and, through her thin, light, flaxen
hair, which is lacking in gloss, can be seen portions of her skull, on
top of which a chignon stands up in a ridiculous fashion, like a little
broom. At the slightest movement her breast, beneath her brown cloth
waist, shakes like a liquid in a bottle. Her eyes, bordered with red
circles, are bloodshot, and her ignoble mouth makes of her every smile
a grimace. Rose introduces me:

"Madame Gouin, I bring you the new chambermaid at the Priory."

The grocer observes me attentively, and I notice that her eyes fasten
themselves upon my waist with an embarrassing obstinacy. She says in a
meaningless voice:

"Mademoiselle is at home here. Mademoiselle is a pretty girl.
Mademoiselle is a Parisienne, undoubtedly?"

"It is true, Madame Gouin, I come from Paris."

"That is to be seen; that is to be seen directly. One need not look at
you twice. I am very fond of the Parisiennes; they know what it is to
live. I too served in Paris, when I was young. I served in the house of
a midwife in the Rue Guénégaud,--Madame Tripier. Perhaps you know her?"

"No."

"That makes no difference. Oh! it was a long time ago. But come in,
Mademoiselle Célestine."

She escorts us, with ceremony, into the back shop, where four other
domestics are already gathered about a round table.

"Oh! you will have an anxious time of it, my poor young woman," groaned
the grocer, as she offered me a chair. "It is not because they do not
patronize me at the château; but I can truly say that it is an infernal
house, infernal! Is it not so, Mesdemoiselles?"

"For sure!" answer in chorus, with like gestures and like grimaces, the
four domestics thus appealed to.

Madame Gouin continues:

"Oh! thank you, I would not like to sell to people who are continually
haggling, and crying out, like pole-cats, that they are being robbed,
that they are being injured. They may go where they like."

The chorus of servants responds:

"Surely they may go where they like."

To which Madame Gouin, addressing Rose more particularly, adds, in a
firm tone:

"They do not run after them, do they, Mam'zelle Rose? Thank God! we
have no need of them, do we?"

Rose contents herself with a shrug of her shoulders, putting into this
gesture all the concentrated gall, spite, and contempt at her command.
And the huge musketeer hat emphasizes the energy of these violent
sentiments by the disorderly swaying of its black plumes.

Then, after a silence:

"Oh! well, let us talk no more about these people. Every time that I
speak of them it turns my stomach."

Thereupon the stories and gossip begin again. An uninterrupted flow of
filth is vomited from these sad mouths, as from a sewer. The back-shop
seems infected with it. The impression is the more disagreeable because
the room is rather dark and the faces take on fantastic deformities.
It is lighted only by a narrow window opening on a damp and filthy
court,--a sort of shaft formed by moss-eaten walls. An odor of pickle,
of rotting vegetables, of red herring, persists around us, impregnating
our garments. It is intolerable. Then each of these creatures, heaped
up on their chairs like bundles of dirty linen, plunges into the
narration of some dirty action, some scandal, some crime. Coward that
I am, I try to smile with them, to applaud with them; but I feel
something insurmountable, something like frightful disgust. A nausea
turns my stomach, forces its way to my throat, leaves a bad taste in my
mouth, and presses my temples. I should like to go away. I cannot, and
I remain there, like an idiot, heaped up like them on my chair, making
the same gestures that they make,--I remain there, stupidly listening
to these shrill voices that sound to me like dish-water gurgling and
dripping through sinks and pipes.

I know very well that we have to defend ourselves against our masters,
and I am not the last to do it, I assure you. But no; here, all the
same, that passes imagination. These women are odious to me. I detest
them, and I say to myself, in a low voice, that I have nothing in
common with them. Education, contact with stylish people, the habit
of seeing beautiful things, the reading of Paul Bourget's novels,
have saved me from these turpitudes. Ah! the pretty and amusing
monkey-tricks of the servants' halls in Paris,--they are far away!

As we are leaving, the grocer says to me, with an amiable smile:

"Pay no attention to the fact that your masters do not patronize me;
you must come and see me again."

I go back with Rose, who finishes familiarizing me with the daily
doings of the neighborhood. I had supposed that her stock of infamies
was exhausted. Not at all. She discovers and invents new and more
frightful ones. In the matter of calumny her resources are infinite.
And her tongue goes on forever, without stopping. It does not forget
anybody or anything. It is astonishing how, in a few minutes, one can
dishonor people, in the country. Thus she escorts me back to the Priory
gate. Even there she cannot make up her mind to leave me; talks on,
talks incessantly, tries to envelop and stun me with her friendship and
devotion. As for me, my head is broken by all that I have heard, and
the sight of the Priory fills me with a feeling of discouragement. Ah!
these broad, flowerless lawns! And this immense building, that has the
air of a barrack or a prison, and where, from behind each window, a
pair of eyes seems to be spying you.

The sun is warmer, the fog has disappeared, and the view of the
landscape has become clearer. Beyond the plain, on the hills, I
perceive little villages, gilded by the light, and enlivened by red
roofs. The river running through the plain, yellow and green, shines
here and there in silvery curves. And a few clouds decorate the sky
with their light and charming frescoes. But I take no pleasure in the
contemplation of all this. I have now but one desire, one will, one
obsession,--to flee from this sun, from this plain, from these hills,
from this house, and from this fat woman, whose malicious voice hurts
and tortures me.

At last she gets ready to leave me, takes my hand, and presses it
affectionately in her fat fingers gloved with mittens. She says to me:

"And then, my little one, Madame Gouin, you know, is a very amiable and
very clever woman. You must go to see her often."

She lingers longer, and adds more mysteriously:

"She has relieved many young girls. As soon as they are in any trouble,
they go to her. Neither seen or known. One can trust her, take my word
for it. She is a very, very expert woman."

With eyes more brilliant, and fastening her gaze on me with a strange
tenacity, she repeats:

"Very expert, and clever, and discreet. She is the Providence of the
neighborhood. Now, my little one, do not forget to come to see us when
you can. And go often to Madame Gouin's. You will not regret it. We
will see each other soon again."

She has gone. I see her, with her rolling gait, moving away, skirting
first the wall and then the hedge with her enormous person, and
suddenly burying herself in a road, where she disappears.



I pass by Joseph, the gardener-coachman, who is raking the paths. I
think that he is going to speak to me; he does not speak to me. He
simply looks at me obliquely, with a singular expression that almost
frightens me.

"Fine weather this morning, Monsieur Joseph."

Joseph grunts I know not what between his teeth. He is furious that I
have allowed myself to walk in the path that he is raking.

What a queer man he is, and how ill-bred! And why does he never say a
word to me? And why does he never answer when I speak to him?



In the house I find Madame by no means contented. She gives me a very
disagreeable reception, treats me very roughly:

"I beg you not to stay out so long in future."

I desire to reply, for I am vexed, irritated, unnerved. But fortunately
I restrain myself. I confine myself to muttering a little.

"What's that you say?"

"I say nothing."

"It is lucky. And furthermore, I forbid you to walk with M. Mauger's
servant. She is very bad company for you. See, everything is late this
morning, because of you."

I say to myself:

"_Zut! zut!_ and _zut!_ You make me tired. I will speak to whom I like.
I will see anyone that it pleases me to see. You shall lay down no law
for me, camel!"

I need only to see once more her wicked eyes, and hear her shrill
voice and her tyrannical orders, in order to lose at once the bad
impression, the impression of disgust, that I brought back from the
mass, from the grocer, and from Rose. Rose and the grocer are right;
the haberdasher also is right; all of them are right. And I promise
myself that I will see Rose; that I will see her often; that I will
return to the grocer's; that I will make this dirty haberdasher my best
friend,--since Madame forbids me to do so. And I repeat internally,
with savage energy:

"Camel! Camel! Camel!"

But I would have been much more relieved if I had had the courage to
hurl and shout this insult full in her face.



During the day, after lunch, Monsieur and Madame went out driving.
The dressing-room, the chambers, Monsieur's desk, all the closets, all
the cupboards, all the sideboards, were locked. What did I tell you?
Ah, well, thank you! no means of reading a letter, or of making up any
little packages.

So I have remained in my room. I have written to my mother and to
Monsieur Jean, and I have read "En Famille." What a delightful book!
And how well written! It is queer, all the same; I am very fond of
hearing dirty things, but I do not like to read them. I like only the
books that make me cry.



For dinner they had boiled beef and broth. It seemed to me that
Monsieur and Madame were very cool toward each other. Monsieur read
the "Petit Journal" with provoking ostentation. He crumpled the paper,
rolling all the time his kind, comical, gentle eyes. Even when he is
in anger, Monsieur's eyes remain gentle and timid. At last, doubtless
to start the conversation, Monsieur, with his nose still buried in his
paper, exclaimed:

"Hello! another woman cut to pieces!"

Madame made no answer. Very stiff, very straight, austere in her black
silk dress, her forehead wrinkled, her look stern, she did not cease
her dreaming. About what?

It is, perhaps, because of me that Madame is sulky with Monsieur.




IV


_September 26._

For a week I have been unable to write a single line in my diary. When
it comes night, I am tired, exhausted, at the end of my strength. I
think of nothing but going to bed and to sleep. To sleep! If I could
always sleep!

Oh! what a shabby place, My God! You can have no idea of it!

For a yes, for a no, Madame makes you run up and down the two cursed
flights of stairs. One has not even time to sit down in the linen-room
and breathe a little, when ... drinn!... drinn!... drinn!... one
has to get up and start again. It makes no difference if one is not
feeling well, drinn!... drinn!... drinn! In these days I have pains
in my loins that bend me in two, and gripe my stomach, and almost make
me cry out. That cuts no figure; drinn!... drinn!... drinn!... One
has no time to be sick; one has not the right to suffer. Suffering
is a master's luxury. We, we must walk, and fast, and forever; walk
at the risk of falling. Drinn!... drinn!... drinn!... And if one
is a little slow in coming at the sound of the bell, then there are
reproaches and angry scenes.

"Well, what are you about? You do not hear, then? Are you deaf? I have
been ringing for three hours. It is getting to be very provoking."

And this is what generally happens.

"Drinn!... drinn!... drinn!..."

That throws you from your chair, as if impelled by a spring.

"Bring me a needle."

I go for the needle.

"All right! Bring me some thread."

I go for the thread.

"Very good! Bring me a button."

I go for the button.

"What is this button? I did not ask for this button. You never
understand anything. A white button, number four. And be quick about
it."

And I go for the white button, number four.

You can imagine how I storm, and rage, and abuse Madame, within myself.
During these goings and comings, these ascents and descents, Madame has
changed her mind. She wants something else, or she wants nothing at all.

"No, take away the needle and the button. I have no time."

My back is broken, my knees absolutely stiff, I can do no more. That
suffices for Madame; she is satisfied. And to think that there is a
society for the protection of animals!

In the evening, when making her examination of the linen-room, she
storms:

"What! you have done nothing? What do you do all day long, then? I do
not pay you to be idle from morning till night."

I reply rather curtly, for this injustice fills me with rebellion:

"Why, Madame has been interrupting me all day."

"I have been interrupting you, I? In the first place, I forbid you
to answer me. I want no remarks, do you understand? I know what I am
talking about."

And she goes away, slamming the door, and grumbling as if she would
never stop. In the corridors, in the kitchen, in the garden, her shrill
voice can be heard for hours. Oh! how tiresome she is!

Really one knows not how to take her. What can she have in her body
that keeps her always in such a state of irritation? And how quickly I
would drop her, if I were sure of finding a place directly!

Just now I was suffering even more than usual. I felt so sharp a pain
that it seemed as if a beast were tearing the interior of my body with
its teeth and claws. Already, in the morning, on rising, I had fainted
because of loss of blood. How have I had the courage to keep up, and
drag myself about, and do my work? I do not know. Occasionally, on the
stairs, I was obliged to stop, and cling to the banister, in order to
get my breath and keep from falling. I was green, with cold sweats that
wet my hair. It was enough to make one scream, but I am good at bearing
pain, and it is a matter of pride with me never to complain in presence
of my masters. Madame surprised me at a moment when I thought that I
was about to faint. Everything was revolving about me,--the banister,
the stairs, and the walls.

"What is the matter with you?" she said to me, rudely.

"Nothing."

And I tried to straighten up.

"If there is nothing the matter with you," rejoined Madame, "why
these manners? I do not like to see funereal faces. You have a very
disagreeable way of doing your work."

In spite of my pain, I could have boxed her ears.



Amid these trials, I am always thinking of my former places. To-day it
is my place in the Rue Lincoln that I most regret. There I was second
chambermaid, and had, so to speak, nothing to do. We passed the day in
the linen-room, a magnificent linen-room, with a red felt carpet, and
lined from ceiling to floor with great mahogany cupboards, with gilded
locks. And we laughed, and we amused ourselves in talking nonsense,
in reading, in mimicking Madame's receptions, all under the eye of
an English governess, who made tea for us,--the good tea that Madame
bought in England for her little morning breakfasts. Sometimes, from
the servants' hall, the butler--one who was up to date--brought us
cakes, caviare on toast, slices of ham, and a heap of good things.

I remember that one afternoon they obliged me to put on a very swell
costume belonging to Monsieur,--to Coco, as we called him among
ourselves. Naturally we played at all sorts of _risqués_ games; we even
went very far in our fun-making.

Ah! that was a place!



I am beginning to know Monsieur well. They were right in saying that he
is an excellent and generous man, for, if he were not, there would not
be in the world a worse rascal, a more perfect sharper. The need, the
passion that he feels for being charitable, impel him to do things that
are not very admirable. His intention is praiseworthy, but the result
upon others is often disastrous, all the same. It must be confessed
that his kindness has been the cause of dirty little tricks, like the
following:



Last Tuesday a very simple old man, father Pantois, brought some
sweet-briers that Monsieur had ordered,--of course without Madame's
knowledge. It was toward the end of the day. I had come down for some
hot water for a belated bath. Madame, who had gone to town, had not
yet returned. And I was chattering in the kitchen with Marianne, when
Monsieur, cordial, joyous, unreserved, and noisy, brought in father
Pantois. He immediately had him served with bread, cheese, and cider.
And then he began to talk with him.

The good man excited my pity, so worn, thin, and dirtily clad was he.
His pantaloons were in rags; his cap was a mass of filth. And his open
shirt revealed a part of his bare breast, chapped, crimped, seasoned
like old leather. He ate greedily.

"Well, father Pantois," cried Monsieur, rubbing his hands, "that goes
better, eh?"

The old man, with his mouth full, thanked him.

"You are very good, Monsieur Lanlaire. Because, you see, since this
morning, at four o'clock, when I left home, I have put nothing in my
stomach,--nothing at all."

"Well, eat away, father Pantois. Regale yourself, while you are about
it."

"You are very good, Monsieur Lanlaire. Pray excuse me."

The old man cut off enormous pieces of bread, which he was a long time
in chewing, for he had no teeth left. When he was partially satisfied,
Monsieur asked him:

"And the sweet-briers, father Pantois? They are fine this year, eh?"

"There are some that are fine; there are some that are not so fine;
there are almost all sorts, Monsieur Lanlaire. Indeed, one can scarcely
choose. And they are hard to pull up, you can believe. And besides,
Monsieur Porcellet will not let us take them from his woods any more.
We have to go a long way now to find them, a very long way. If I were
to tell you that I come from the forest of Raillon,--more than three
leagues from here? Yes, indeed, Monsieur Lanlaire."

While the good man was talking, Monsieur had taken a seat at the table
beside him. Gay, almost uproarious, he slapped him on the shoulder, and
exclaimed:

"Five leagues! you are a jolly good one, father Pantois. Always strong,
always young."

"Not so much as that, Monsieur Lanlaire; not so much as that."

"Nonsense!" insisted Monsieur, "strong as an old Turk,--and
good-humored, yes, indeed! They don't make any more like you these
days, father Pantois. You are of the old school, you are."

The old man shook his head, his gaunt head, of the color of old wood,
and repeated:

"Not so much as that. My legs are weakening, Monsieur Lanlaire; my
arms are getting soft. And then my back. Oh! my confounded back! My
strength is almost gone. And then the wife, who is sick, and who never
leaves her bed,--what a bill for medicines! One has little luck, one
has little luck. If at least one did not grow old? That, you see,
Monsieur Lanlaire, that is the worst of the matter."

Monsieur sighed, made a vague gesture, and then, summing up the
question philosophically, said:

"Oh! yes, but what do you expect, father Pantois? Such is life. One
cannot be and have been. That's the way it is."

"To be sure; one must be reasonable."

"That's it."

"We live while we can, isn't it so, Monsieur Lanlaire?"

"Indeed it is."

And, after a pause, he added in a voice that had become melancholy:

"Besides, everybody has his sorrows, father Pantois."

"No doubt of it."

There was a silence. Marianne was cutting up herbs. It was growing
dark in the garden. The two big sunflowers, which could be seen in the
perspective of the open door, were losing their color and disappearing
in the shade. And father Pantois kept on eating. His glass had
remained empty. Monsieur filled it, and then, suddenly abandoning his
metaphysical heights, he asked:

"And what are sweet-briers worth this year?"

"Sweet-briers, Monsieur Lanlaire? Well, this year, taking them as they
come, sweet-briers are worth twenty-two francs a hundred. It is a
little dear, I know; but I cannot get them for less; really I cannot."

Like a generous man, who despises considerations of money, Monsieur
interrupted the old man, who was getting ready to justify himself by
explanations.

"It is all right, father Pantois. It is agreed. Do I ever haggle with
you? In fact, instead of twenty-two francs, I will pay you twenty-five
for your sweet-briers."

"Ah! Monsieur Lanlaire, you are too good!"

"No, no; I am just. I am for the people, I am; for labor, don't you
know?"

And, with a blow on the table, he went higher still.

"No, not twenty-five,--thirty, father Pantois. I will pay you thirty
francs, do you hear that?"

The good man lifted his poor eyes to Monsieur, in astonishment and
gratitude, and stammered:

"I hear very well. It is a pleasure to work for you, Monsieur Lanlaire.
You know what work is, you do."

Monsieur put an end to these effusions.

"And I will go to pay you,--let us see; to-day is Tuesday,--I will go
to pay you on Sunday. Does that suit you? And at the same time I will
take my gun. Is it agreed?"

The gleam of gratitude which had been shining in the eyes of father
Pantois faded out. He was embarrassed, troubled; he stopped eating.

"You see," said he, timidly,--"well, in short, if you could pay it
to-night, that would oblige me greatly, Monsieur Lanlaire. Twenty-two
francs, that's all; pray excuse me."

"You are joking, father Pantois," replied Monsieur, with superb
assurance; "certainly; I will pay you that directly. I proposed that
only for the purpose of making a little trip and paying you a little
visit."

He fumbled in the pockets of his pantaloons, then in those of his vest
and waistcoat, and, assuming an air of surprise, he cried:

"Well, there! here I am again without change! I have nothing but
confounded thousand-franc bills."

With a forced and really sinister laugh, he asked:

"I will bet that you have not change for a thousand francs, father
Pantois?"

Seeing Monsieur laugh, father Pantois thought that it was proper for
him to laugh too, and he answered, jovially:

"Ha! ha! ha! I have never even seen these confounded bills."

"Well, on Sunday then," concluded Monsieur.

Monsieur had poured out a glass of cider for himself, and was drinking
with father Pantois, when Madame, whom they had not heard coming,
suddenly entered the kitchen, like a gust of wind.

Ah! her eye, when she saw that! when she saw Monsieur sitting at table
beside the poor old man, and drinking with him!

"What's this?" she exclaimed, her lips all white.

Monsieur stammered, and hemmed and hawed.

"It is some sweet-briers; you know very well, my pet; some
sweet-briers. Father Pantois has brought me some sweet-briers. All the
rose-bushes were frozen this winter."

"I have ordered no sweet-briers. We need no sweet-briers here."

This was said in a cutting tone. Then she made a half-circuit of the
room, and went out, slamming the door and showering insults. In her
anger she had not noticed me.

Monsieur and the poor old puller of sweet-briers had risen.
Embarrassed, they looked at the door through which Madame had just
disappeared. Then they looked at each other, without daring to say a
word. Monsieur was the first to break this painful silence.

"Well, then, on Sunday, father Pantois."

"On Sunday, Monsieur Lanlaire."

"And take good care of yourself, father Pantois."

"You also, Monsieur Lanlaire."

"And thirty francs, mind you. I do not take back what I said."

"You are very good."

And the old man, trembling on his legs, and with back bent, went away,
and disappeared in the darkness.



Poor Monsieur! he must have received his lecture! And, as for father
Pantois, if ever he gets his thirty francs,--well, he will be lucky.

I do not wish to justify Madame, but I think that Monsieur is wrong in
talking familiarly with people that are too far beneath him. It is not
dignified.

I know very well that he doesn't lead a gay life, to be sure, and that
he takes such opportunities as offer. That is not always convenient.
When he comes back late from a hunt, dirty and wet, and singing to keep
up his courage, Madame gives him a warm reception.

"Ah! it is very nice of you to leave me alone all day!"

"But you know very well, my pet...."

"Be still."

She sulks for hours and hours, her forehead stern, her mouth ugly. He
follows her about everywhere, trembling and stammering excuses.

"But, my pet, you know very well...."

"Let me alone; you make me tired."

The next day, naturally, Monsieur does not go out, and Madame exclaims:

"Why do you wander about thus in the house, like a soul in torment?"

"But, my pet...."

"You would do much better to go out, to go hunting, the devil knows
where! You annoy me; you unnerve me. Go away."

So that he never knows what to do, whether to go or stay, to be here or
elsewhere. A difficult problem. But, as in either case Madame scolds,
Monsieur has taken the course of going away as often as possible. In
that way he does not hear her scold.

Ah! it is really pitiful.



The other morning, as I was going to spread a little linen on the
hedge, I saw him in the garden. Monsieur was gardening. The wind having
blown down some dahlias during the night, he was refastening them to
their props.

Very often, when he does not go out before lunch, Monsieur works in the
garden; at least, he pretends to be occupying himself with something
or other in his platbands. It is always time gained from the ennui of
the household. During these moments there are no scenes. Away from
Madame, he is no longer the same man. His face lightens up, his eyes
shine. Naturally gay, his gaiety comes to the surface. Really, he is
not disagreeable. In the house, indeed, he rarely speaks to me now,
and, though still bent on his idea, seems to pay no attention to me.
But outside he never fails to address me a pleasant little word, after
making sure, however, that Madame cannot be spying him. When he does
not dare to speak to me, he looks at me, and his look is more eloquent
than his words. Moreover, I amuse myself in exciting him in all ways,
although I have taken no resolution concerning him.

In passing by him, in the path where he was working, bent over his
dahlias, with bits of string between his teeth, I said to him, without
slackening my pace:

"Oh! how hard Monsieur is working this morning!"

"Yes, indeed," he answered; "these confounded dahlias! You see...."

He invited me to stop a minute.

"Well, Célestine, I hope you are getting accustomed to the place, now?"

Always his mania! Always the same difficulty in engaging in
conversation! To please him, I replied with a smile:

"Why, yes, Monsieur, certainly; I am getting accustomed here."

"I am glad to hear it. It is not bad here; really, it is not bad."

He quite straightened up, gave me a very tender look, and repeated: "It
is not bad," thus giving himself time to think of something ingenious
to say to me.

He took from his teeth the bits of string, tied them at the top of the
prop, and, with legs spread apart, and his two palms resting on his
hips, with a knowing look, and frankly obscene eyes, he cried:

"I'll bet, Célestine, that you led a gay life in Paris? Say, now,
didn't you?"

I was not expecting this. And I had a great desire to laugh. But I
lowered my eyes modestly, with an offended air, and, trying to blush,
as was proper under the circumstances, I exclaimed, in a tone of
reproach:

"Oh! Monsieur!"

"Well, what?" he insisted; "a pretty girl like you,--with such eyes!
Oh! yes, you must have had a gay time. And so much the better. For my
part, I am for amusement; yes, I am for love."

Monsieur was becoming strangely animated. And, on his robust, muscular
person I recognized the most evident signs of amorous exaltation. He
was on fire; desire was flaming in his eyes. I deemed it my duty to
pour a good shower of cold water on this fire. In a very dry tone, and
at the same time very loftily, I said:

"Monsieur is mistaken. Monsieur thinks that he is speaking to his other
chambermaids. Monsieur must know, however, that I am a good girl."

And with great dignity, to show exactly to what extent this outrage had
offended me, I added:

"It will serve Monsieur right, if I go to complain to Madame directly."

And I made a pretence of starting. Monsieur quickly grasped me by the
arm.

"No, no," he stammered.

How did I ever say all that without bursting? How did I ever succeed in
burying in my throat the laugh that was ringing there? Really, I don't
know.

Monsieur was prodigiously ridiculous. Livid now, with mouth wide open,
his whole person bearing a two-fold expression of annoyance and fear,
he remained silent, digging into his neck with his nails.

Near us an old pear tree twisted its pyramid of branches, eaten by
lichens and mosses. A few pears hung within reach of his hand. A magpie
was chattering ironically at the top of a neighboring chestnut tree.
Crouching behind the border of box, the cat was pawing at a bumble-bee.
The silence was becoming more and more painful for Monsieur. At
last, after efforts that were almost sorrowful,--efforts that brought
grotesque grimaces to his lips,--Monsieur asked:

"Do you like pears, Célestine?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

I did not disarm; I answered in a tone of lofty indifference.

In the fear of being surprised by his wife, he hesitated a few seconds.
And suddenly, like a thieving child, he took a pear from the tree, and
gave it to me,--oh! how piteously! His knees bent, his hand trembled.

"There, Célestine, hide that in your apron. You never have any in the
kitchen, do you?"

"No, Monsieur."

"Well, I will give you some occasionally, because ... because ... I
wish you to be happy."

The sincerity and ardor of his desire, his awkwardness, his clumsy
gestures, his bewildered words, and also his masculine power, all had
a softening effect upon me. I relaxed my face a little, veiled the
severity of my look with a sort of smile, and, half ironically, half
coaxingly, I said to him:

"Oh! Monsieur, if Madame were to see you?"

Again he became troubled, but, as we were separated from the house by
a thick curtain of chestnut trees, he quickly recovered himself, and,
growing more defiant as I became less severe, he exclaimed, with easy
gestures:

"Well, what? Madame? And what of her? I care nothing for Madame. I do
not intend that she shall annoy me. I have enough of her. I am over my
head in Madame."

I declared gravely:

"Monsieur is wrong. Monsieur is not just. Madame is a very amiable
woman."

He gave a start.

"Very amiable? She? Ah! Great God! But you do not know, then, what she
has done? She has spoiled my life. I am no longer a man; I am nothing
at all. I am the laughing-stock of the neighborhood. And all on account
of my wife. My wife? She ... she ... she is a hussy,--yes, Célestine, a
hussy ... a hussy ... a hussy."

I gave him a moral lecture. I talked to him gently, hypocritically
boasting of Madame's energy and order and all her domestic virtues. At
each of my phrases he became more exasperated.

"No, no. A hussy! A hussy!"

However, I succeeded in calming him a little. Poor Monsieur! I played
with him with marvelous ease. With a simple look I made him pass from
anger to emotion. Then he stammered:

"Oh! you are so gentle, you are! You are so pretty! You must be so
good! Whereas that hussy"...

"Oh! come, Monsieur! come! come!"

He continued:

"You are so gentle! And yet, what?... you are only a chambermaid."

For a moment he drew nearer to me, and in a low voice said:

"If you would, Célestine?"

"If I would what?"

"If you would ... you know very well; yes, you know very well."

"Monsieur wishes me perhaps to betray Madame with Monsieur?"

He misunderstood the expression of my face; and, with eyes standing out
of his head, the veins in his neck swollen, his lips moist and frothy,
he answered, in a smothered voice:

"Yes; yes, indeed."

"Monsieur doesn't think of such a thing?"

"I think of nothing else, Célestine."

He was very red, his face congested.

"Ah! Monsieur is going to begin again?"

He tried to grasp my hand, to draw me to him.

"Well, yes," he stammered, "I am going to begin again; I am going to
begin again, because ... because ... I am mad over you, Célestine;
because I think of nothing else; because I cannot sleep; because I feel
really sick. And don't be afraid of me; have no fears! I am not a
brute. No, indeed; I swear it. I ... I...."

"Another word, Monsieur, and this time I tell everything to Madame.
Suppose some one were to see you in the garden in this condition?"

He stopped short. Distressed, ashamed, thoroughly stupid, he knew not
what to do with his hands, with his eyes, with his whole person. And
he looked, without seeing them, at the ground beneath his feet, at the
old pear tree, at the garden. Conquered at last, he untied the bits of
string at the top of the prop, bent again over the fallen dahlias, and
sad, infinitely so, and supplicating, he groaned:

"Just now, Célestine, I said to you ... I said that to you ... as I
would have said anything else to you,--as I would have said no matter
what. I am an old fool. You must not be angry with me. And, above all,
you must not say anything to Madame. You are right, though; suppose
some one had seen us in the garden?"

I ran away, to keep from laughing.

Yes, I wanted to laugh. And, nevertheless, there was an emotion singing
in my heart, something--what shall I call it?--something maternal. And,
besides, it would have been amusing, because of Madame. We shall see,
later.

Monsieur did not go away all day. He straightened his dahlias, and
during the afternoon he did not leave the wood-house, where he
split wood furiously for more than four hours. From the linen-room I
listened, with a sort of pride, to the blows of the axe.



Yesterday Monsieur and Madame spent the entire afternoon at Louviers.
Monsieur had an appointment with his lawyer, Madame with her
dressmaker. Her dressmaker!

I took advantage of this moment of rest to pay a visit to Rose, whom I
had not seen since that famous Sunday. And I was not averse to making
the acquaintance of Captain Mauger.

A true type of an old sea-dog, this man, and such as you seldom see,
I assure you. Fancy a carp's head, with a moustache and a long gray
tuft of beard. Very dry, very nervous, very restless, he cannot stay
in one place for any length of time, and is always at work, either in
his garden, or in a little room where he does carpentering, humming
military airs or imitating the bugle of the regiment.

The garden is very pretty,--an old garden divided into square beds in
which old-fashioned flowers are cultivated,--those very old flowers
that are found now only in very old fields and in the gardens of very
old priests.

When I arrived, Rose, comfortably seated in the shade of an acacia,
beside a rustic table, on which lay her work-basket, was mending
stockings, and the captain, squatting on the grass, and wearing an old
foraging-cap on his head, was stopping the leaks in a garden-hose which
had burst the night before.

They welcomed me enthusiastically, and Rose ordered the little servant,
who was weeding a bed of marguerites, to go for the bottle of peach
brandy and some glasses.

The first courtesies exchanged, the captain asked:

"Well, he has not yet croaked, then, your Lanlaire? Oh! you can boast
of serving in a famous den! I really pity you, my dear young woman."

He explained to me that formerly Monsieur and he had lived as good
neighbors, as inseparable friends. A discussion apropos of Rose had
brought on a deadly quarrel. Monsieur, it seems, reproached the captain
with not maintaining his dignity with his servant,--with admitting her
to his table.

Interrupting his story, the captain forced my testimony:

"To my table! Well, have I not the right? Is it any of his business?"

"Certainly not, captain."

Rose, in a modest voice, sighed:

"A man living all alone; it is very natural isn't it?"

Since this famous discussion, which had come near ending in blows, the
two old friends had passed their time in lawsuits and tricks. They
hated each other savagely.

"As for me," declared the captain, "when I find any stones in my
garden, I throw them over the hedge into Lanlaire's. So much the worse
if they fall on his bell-glasses and on his garden-frames! Or, rather,
so much the better! Oh! the pig! Wait now, let me show you."

Having noticed a stone in the path, he rushed to pick it up, approached
the hedge cautiously, creeping like a trapper, and threw the stone into
our garden with all his might. We heard a noise of breaking glass.
Then, returning to us triumphantly, shaking, stifled, twisted with
laughter, he exclaimed:

"Another square broken! The glazier will have to come again."

Rose looked at him with a sort of maternal admiration, and said:

"Is he not droll? What a child! And how young, for his age!"

After we had sipped a little glass of brandy, Captain Mauger desired to
do me the honors of the garden. Rose excused herself for her inability
to accompany us, because of her asthma, and counselled us not to stay
too long.

"Besides," said she, jokingly, "I am watching you."

The captain took me through the paths, among the beds bordered with box
and filled with flowers. He told me the names of the prettiest ones,
remarking each time that there were no such to be seen in the garden
of that pig of a Lanlaire. Suddenly he plucked a little orange-colored
flower, odd and charming, twirled the stem gently in his fingers, and
asked me:

"Did you ever eat any of these?"

I was so surprised by this preposterous question that I stood with
mouth closed. The captain declared:

"Well, I have eaten them. They are perfect to the taste. I have eaten
all the flowers that are here. Some are good; some are not so good; and
some don't amount to much. But, as for me, I eat everything."

He winked, clacked his tongue, tapped his belly, and repeated in a
louder voice, in which an accent of defiance was uppermost:

"I eat everything, I do."

The way in which the captain had just proclaimed this strange
confession of faith revealed to me that his vanity in life was to eat
everything. I amused myself in humoring his mania.

"And you are right, Captain."

"Surely," he answered, not without pride. "And it is not only plants
that I eat; I eat animals also,--animals that nobody else has
eaten,--animals that are not known. I eat everything, I do."

We continued our walk among the flower-beds, through the narrow paths
where pretty corollas, blue, yellow, and red, were swaying in the
breeze. And, as he looked at the flowers, it seemed to me that the
captain's belly gave little starts of joy. His tongue passed over his
chapped lips with a slight smack.

He said to me further:

"And I am going to confess to you. There are no insects, no birds, no
earth-worms that I have not eaten. I have eaten skunks and snakes,
rats and crickets and caterpillars. I have eaten everything. It is
well known in the neighborhood. When they find a beast, dead or alive,
a beast unknown to anybody, they say to themselves: 'I must take it
to Captain Mauger.' They bring it to me, and I eat it. In winter
especially, when it is very cold, unknown birds pass this way, coming
from America, or from a greater distance perhaps. They bring them to
me, and I eat them. I will bet that there is not a man in the world who
has eaten as many things as I have. I eat everything."

The walk over, we returned to sit down under the acacia. And I was
getting ready to leave, when the captain cried:

"Oh! I must show you something curious,--something that you have never
seen, I am sure."

And he called in a loud voice:

"Kléber! Kléber!"

Between two calls he explained to me:

"Kléber is my ferret. A phenomenon!"

And he called again:

"Kléber! Kléber!"

Then, on a branch above us, between green and golden leaves, there
appeared a pink snout and two little black, sharp, bright eyes.

"Oh! I knew well that he was not far away. Come, come here, Kléber!
Psstt!"

The animal crept along the branch, ventured upon the trunk, and
descended carefully, burying its claws in the bark. His body, covered
with white fur and marked with pale yellow spots, had the supple
movements, the graceful undulations, of a serpent. He touched ground,
and in two bounds was on the knees of the captain, who began to caress
him joyfully.

"Oh! the good Kléber! Oh! the charming little Kléber!"

He turned to me:

"Did you ever see a ferret as tame as that? He follows me about the
garden everywhere, like a little dog. I have only to call him, and he
is there directly, his tail frisking, his head lifted. He eats with us,
sleeps with us. Indeed, I love the little beast as if he were a person.
Why, Mademoiselle Célestine, I have refused three hundred francs for
him. I would not sell him for a thousand francs,--no, not for two
thousand francs. Here, Kléber."

The animal lifted its head toward its master; then it climbed upon
him, mounted his shoulders, and, after a thousand caresses and a
thousand pretty tricks, rolled itself around the captain's neck, like a
handkerchief. Rose said nothing. She seemed vexed.

Then an infernal idea flashed into my mind.

"I will bet you," I said, suddenly,--"I will bet you, Captain, that you
would not eat your ferret."

The captain looked at me with profound astonishment, and then with
infinite sadness. His eyes became round, his lips quivered.

"Kléber?" he stammered; "eat Kléber?"

Evidently this question had never occurred to him, who had eaten
everything. A sort of new world, strangely comestible, appeared before
him.

"I will bet," I repeated, ferociously, "that you would not eat your
ferret."

Bewildered, distressed, moved by a mysterious and invincible shock, the
old captain had risen from his bench. He was extraordinarily agitated.

"Just say that again, and see!" he stammered.

For the third time, violently, separating each word, I said:

"I will bet that you would not eat your ferret."

"I would not eat my ferret? What's that you say? You say that I would
not eat it? Yes, you say that? Well, you shall see. I tell you that I
eat everything."

He seized the ferret. As one breaks a loaf of bread, he broke the
little beast's back with a snap, and threw it, dead without a shock,
without a spasm, on the sandy path, shouting to Rose:

"Make me a stew out of that for dinner!"

And, madly gesticulating, he ran to shut himself up in the house.

For some minutes I felt a real and unspeakable horror. Still completely
dazed by the abominable action that I had just committed, I rose to go.
I was very pale. Rose accompanied me. With a smile she confided to me:

"I am not sorry for what has just happened. He was too fond of his
ferret. I do not wish him to love anything. He loves his flowers
already too much to suit me."

After a short silence, she added:

"But he will never forgive you for that. He is not a man to be defied.
An old soldier, you know!"

Then, a few steps farther on:

"Pay attention, my little one. They are beginning to gossip about you
in the neighborhood. It seems that you were seen the other day, in the
garden, with Monsieur Lanlaire. It is very imprudent, believe me. He
will get you into trouble, if he hasn't already done so. You want to
look out for yourself."

And, as she closed the gate behind me:

"Well, _au revoir!_ Now I must go to make my stew."

All day long I saw before my eyes the body of the poor little ferret,
lying there on the sandy path.



This evening, at dinner, when dessert was being served, Madame said to
me, very severely:

"If you like prunes, you have only to ask me for them; I will see if I
can give you any; but I forbid you to take them."

I answered:

"I am not a thief, Madame, and I do not like prunes."

Madame insisted:

"I tell you that you have taken some prunes."

I replied:

"If Madame thinks me a thief, Madame has only to pay me and let me go."

Madame snatched the plate of prunes from my hand.

"Monsieur ate five this morning; there were thirty-two; now there are
but twenty-five; then you have taken two. Don't let that happen again."

It was true. I had eaten two of them. She had counted them!

Did you ever in your life?




V


_September 28._

My mother is dead. I received the news this morning, in a letter from
home. Although I have never had anything but blows from her, the news
has given me pain, and I have cried, and cried, and cried. Seeing me
crying, Madame said:

"Again these manners?"

I answered:

"My mother, my poor mother, is dead!"

Then Madame, in her ordinary voice:

"It is a pity, but I can do nothing about it. At any rate, the work
must not suffer."

And that was all. Oh! indeed, Madame's kindness will never kill her.

What has made me most unhappy is the fact that I have seen a
coincidence between my mother's death and the murder of the little
ferret. It seems to me like a punishment from heaven, and that perhaps
my mother would not be dead if I had not obliged the captain to kill
poor Kléber. In vain have I repeated to myself that my mother died
before the ferret. That had no effect; the idea has pursued me all day
long, like a remorse.

I should have liked to go home. But Audierne is so far away,--at the
end of the world, it seems. And I have no money. When I shall receive
my first month's wages, I shall have to pay the employment-bureau.
I shall not have enough to even pay the few little debts contracted
during the days when I was on the pavement.

And then, of what use would it be to go? My brother is in the naval
service, and his vessel is in China, I believe, for it is a very long
time since we had any news from him. And my sister Louise? Where is
she now? I do not know. Since she left us to follow Jean le Duff to
Concarneau, nothing has been heard from her. She must have rolled
hither and thither, the devil knows where! Perhaps she is in a public
house; perhaps she, too, is dead. And perhaps, also, my brother is dead.

Yes, why should I go there? In what way would it help me? There is no
one there now who interests me, and surely my mother has left nothing.
Her rags and the little furniture that she had certainly will not pay
her brandy bill.

It is queer, all the same; as long as she was living, I almost never
thought of her; I felt no desire to see her again. I wrote to her only
when I changed my place, and then simply to give her my address. She
has beaten me so much! I was so unhappy with her, she being always
drunk. And yet, on learning suddenly that she is dead, my soul is
plunged in mourning, and I feel more alone than ever.

And I remember my childhood with singular clearness. I see again all
the things and beings among whom I began the stern apprenticeship of
life. There is really too much sorrow on one side, too much happiness
on the other. The world is not just.

One night, I remember,--I was very small, moreover,--I remember that
we were awakened with a start by the whistle of the life-saving boat.
Oh! those calls in the tempest and in the darkness,--how lugubrious
they are! Since the night before, the wind had been blowing a gale. The
harbor bar was white and furious. Only a few sloops had been able to
get back. The others, the poor others, were surely in danger.

Knowing that my father was fishing in the vicinity of the Ile de Sein,
my mother was not too anxious. She hoped that he had put into the
island harbor, as he had done so often before. Nevertheless, on hearing
the whistle of the life-saving boat, she arose, trembling and very
pale, wrapped me hurriedly in a thick woolen shawl, and started for the
breakwater. My sister Louise, who was already grown, and my younger
brother, followed her, crying:

"Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!"

And she, too, cried:

"Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!"

The narrow streets were full of people,--women, old men, children. A
crowd of frightened shadows were hastening to the pier, where the
groaning of the boats could be heard. But they could not stay on the
breakwater because of the strong wind, and especially because of the
waves, which, beating against the stone embankment, swept it from end
to end, with the noise of a cannonade. My mother took the path ...
"Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!...." took the path that winds around
the estuary to the light-house. Everything was black on land, and on
the sea, which was black also, could be seen, from time to time, in
the distance, by the rays from the light-house, the white breaking
of enormous waves. In spite of the shocks ... "Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh!
Our Jesus!...." in spite of the shocks and in a way lulled by them,
in spite of the wind and in a way stunned by it, I went to sleep in
my mother's arms. I awoke in a low room, and I saw, among sombre
backs, gloomy faces, and waving arms,--I saw, on a camp bed, lighted
by two tallow candles, a great corpse ... "Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our
Jesus!...." a frightful corpse, long and naked, perfectly rigid, the
face crushed, the limbs streaked with bleeding gashes and covered with
black and blue spots. It was my father.

I see him still. His hair was glued to his skull, and filled with a
mass of sea-weed that made a sort of crown. Men were bending over him,
rubbing his skin with warm flannels and forcing air into his mouth.
There was the mayor; there was the rector; there was the captain of
customs; there was the marine policeman. I was frightened; I freed
myself from my shawl, and, running between the legs of these men, over
the wet stone floor, I began to cry,--to call papa,--to call mamma. A
neighbor took me away.



From that moment my mother took to drinking furiously. At first she
really tried to work in the sardine-packing establishments, but, as she
was always drunk, none of her employers would keep her. Then she stayed
at home to intoxicate herself, quarrelsome and gloomy; and, when she
was full of brandy, she beat us. How does it happen that she did not
kill me?

I avoided the house as much as I could. I spent my days in playing on
the pier, in thieving in the gardens, and in paddling in the puddles
when the tide was low. Or else, on the Plogoff road, at the bottom
of a grassy decline, sheltered from the sea wind and covered with
thick bushes, I misbehaved with the little boys, among the hawthorns.
On returning at night, I generally found my mother stretched on the
tile floor across the threshold, inert, her mouth covered with vomit,
and a broken bottle in her hands. Often I had to step over her body.
Her awakenings were terrible. She was seized with a passion for
destruction. Without listening to my prayers or my cries, she tore
me from the bed, pursued me, kicked me, and knocked me against the
furniture, crying:

"I'll have your hide! I'll have your hide!"

Many times I thought I should die.

And then she debauched herself, to get money with which to buy liquor.
At night, every night, low knocks were heard at the door of our house.
A sailor entered, filling the room with a strong odor of sea-salt
and fish. He lay down, remained an hour, and went away. And another
came, after him, lay down also, remained another hour, and went away.
There were struggles and terrifying uproars in the darkness of these
abominable nights, and several times the police interfered.



Thus years rolled by. I was not wanted anywhere; nor was my sister,
or my brother. They avoided us in the streets. The respectable people
drove us with stones from their houses, to which we went, sometimes to
steal, sometimes to beg. One day my sister Louise, who also had got
into bad ways with the sailors, ran away. And then my brother enlisted
as a cabin-boy. I was left alone with my mother.



At the age of ten I was no longer chaste. Made familiar with love by
the sad example of mamma, perverted by the little boys with whom I
associated, my physical development had been very rapid. In spite of
deprivations and blows, living continually in the open sea air, free
and strong, I had grown so fast that at the age of eleven I experienced
the first awakenings of womanhood. Beneath my girlish exterior, I was
almost a woman.

At the age of twelve I was a woman quite, and no longer a virgin.
Raped? No, not exactly. Consenting? Yes, almost,--at least in the
degree in which the artlessness of my vice and the candor of my
depravity were consistent with consent. The thing occurred one Sunday,
after high mass, near the beach, on the Saint Jean side, in a recess
in the cliff, in a dark hole among the rocks where the sea-gulls came
to build their nests, and where the sailors sometimes hid the wreckage
which they found at sea. The man was the foreman of a sardine-packing
establishment,--an old, hairy, ill-smelling man, whose face was nothing
but a dirty mass of beard and hair. He gave me an orange. He had a
funny name,--M. Cléophas Biscouille.

And here is an incomprehensible thing, of which I have found no
explanation in any novel. Ugly, brutal, and repulsive though M.
Biscouille was, when I think of him now,--and I often do,--how happens
it that it is never with a feeling of detestation for him, never with
a disposition to curse him? At this recollection, which I call up
with satisfaction, I feel a sort of great gratitude, a sort of great
tenderness, and also a sort of real regret at having to say to myself
that never shall I see this disgusting personage again.

In this connection may I be permitted to offer here, humble though I
am, my personal contribution to the biography of great men.



M. Paul Bourget was the intimate friend and spiritual guide of the
Countess Fardin, in whose house last year I served as chambermaid. I
had always heard it said that he alone knew, even to its subsoil, the
complex soul of woman. And many times I had had the idea of writing
to him, in order to submit to him this case of passional psychology.
I had not dared. Do not be too much astonished at the gravity of such
preoccupations. They are not usual among domestics, I admit. But
in the _salons_ of the countess they never talked of anything but
psychology. It is an admitted fact that our mind is modeled on that
of our masters, and that what is said in the _salon_ is said also in
the servants' hall. Unhappily we had not in the servants' hall a Paul
Bourget, capable of elucidating and solving the cases of feminism that
we discussed there. The explanations of Monsieur Jean himself were not
satisfactory to me.

One day my mistress sent me to carry an "urgent" letter to the
illustrious master. He handed me the reply himself. Then I made bold
to put to him the question that tormented me, pretending, however, that
the heroine of this ticklish and obscure story was a friend of mine. M.
Paul Bourget asked:

"What is your friend? A woman of the people? A poor woman, undoubtedly?"

"A chambermaid, like myself, illustrious master."

A superior grimace, a look of disdain, appeared on M. Bourget's face.
Ah! _sapristi!_ he does not like the poor.

"I do not occupy myself with these souls," said he. "These are too
little souls. They are not even souls. They are outside the province of
my psychology."

I understood that, in this province, one begins to be a soul only with
an income of a hundred thousand francs.

Not so M. Jules Lemaitre, also a familiar of the house. When I asked
him the same question, he answered, prettily catching me about the
waist:

"Well, charming Célestine, your friend is a good girl, that is all.
And, if she resembles you, I would say a couple of words to her, you
know,--hey! hey! hey!"

He, at least, with his face of a little humpbacked and merry-making
faun, put on no airs; and he was good-natured. What a pity that he has
fallen among the priests!



With all that, I know not what would have become of me in that hell
of an Audierne, if the Little Sisters of Pont-Croix, finding me
intelligent and pretty, had not taken me in, out of pity. They did not
take advantage of my age, of my ignorance, of my trying and despised
situation, to make use of me, to secrete me for their benefit, as
often happens in such establishments, which carry human exploitation
to the point of crime. They were poor, candid, timid, charitable
little beings, who were not rich, and who did not even dare to extend
their hands to passers-by or to beg at the doors of houses. There was
sometimes much poverty among them, but they got along as best they
could. And, amid all the difficulties of living, they continued none
the less to be gay, and to sing continually like larks. Their ignorance
of life had something touching about it, something which brings the
tears to my eyes to-day, now that I can better understand their
infinite and pure kindness.

They taught me to read, to write, to sew, to do housework; and, when
I had become almost expert in these necessary things, they got me a
place as a little housemaid in the house of a retired colonel, who came
every summer, with his wife and his two daughters, to occupy a sort of
dilapidated little château near Comfort. Worthy people, certainly, but
so sad, so sad! And maniacs, too! Never a smile on their faces, never
a sign of joy in their garments, which were always black. The colonel
had had a lathe put in at the top of the house, and there, all day
long, he turned egg cups out of box-wood, or else those oval balls,
called "eggs," which housewives use in mending stockings. Madame drew
up petition after petition, in order to obtain a tobacco-shop. And the
two daughters, saying nothing, doing nothing, one with a duck's beak,
the other with a rabbit's face, yellow and thin, angular and faded,
dried up on the spot, like two plants lacking everything,--soil, water,
sunshine. They bored me enormously. At the end of eight months I left
them, in a moment of rashness which I have regretted.

But then! I heard Paris breathing and living around me. Its breath
filled my heart with new desires. Although I did not go out often,
I had admired with a prodigious astonishment the streets, the
shop-windows, the crowds, the palaces, the brilliant equipages, the
jeweled women. And, when, at night, I went to bed in the sixth story,
I envied the other domestics of the house, and their pranks which I
found charming, and their stories which left me in a state of marvelous
surprise. Though I remained in the house but a short time, I saw there,
at night, in the sixth story, all sorts of debaucheries, and took my
part in them with the enthusiasm and emulation of a novice. Oh! the
vague hopes and the uncertain ambitions that I cherished there, in that
fallacious ideal of pleasure and vice!

Alas! yes, one is young, one knows nothing of life, one entertains
imaginations and dreams. Oh! the dreams! Stupidities! I have supped on
them, in the words of M. Xavier, a prettily perverted boy, of whom I
shall have something to say later.

And I have rolled. Oh! how I have rolled! It is frightful when I think
of it.

Yet I am not old, but I have had a very close view of things; I have
seen people naked. And I have sniffed the odor of their linen, of
their skin, of their soul. In spite of perfumes, they do not smell
good. All that a respected interior, all that a respectable family,
can hide in the way of filth, shameful vices, and base crimes, beneath
the appearance of virtue,--ah! I know it well. It makes no difference
if they are rich, if they have rags of silk and velvet and gilded
furniture; it makes no difference if they wash in silver tubs and make
a great show,--I know them. They are not clean. And their heart is more
disgusting than was my mother's bed.

Oh! how a poor domestic is to be pitied, and how lonely she is! She
may live in houses full of joyous and noisy people, but how lonely she
is always! Solitude does not consist in living alone; it consists in
living with others, with people who take no interest in you, with whom
you count for less than a dog gorged with goodies, or than a flower
cared for as tenderly as a rich man's child,--people of whom you have
nothing but their cast-off garments or the spoiled remains of their
table.

"You may eat this pear; it is rotten. Finish this chicken in the
kitchen; it smells bad."

Every word is contemptuous of you, every gesture disparaging of you,
placing you on a level lower than that of the beasts. And you must say
nothing; you must smile and give thanks; unless you would pass for an
ingrate or a wicked heart. Sometimes, when doing my mistresses' hair, I
have had a mad desire to tear their neck, to scratch their bosom with
my nails.

Fortunately one is not always under the influence of these gloomy
ideas. One shakes them off, and arranges matters to get all the fun one
can, by himself.



This evening, after dinner, Marianne, seeing that I was utterly sad,
was moved to pity, and tried to console me. She went to get a bottle of
brandy from the depths of the sideboard, where it stood among a heap of
old papers and dirty rags.

"You must not grieve like that," she said to me; "you must shake
yourself a little, my poor little one; you must console yourself."

And, having poured me out a drink, she sat for an hour, with elbows
on the table, and, in a drawling and lamenting voice, told me gloomy
stories of sickness, of child-birth, of the death of her mother, of her
father, and of her sister. With every minute her voice became thicker;
her eyes moistened; and she repeated, as she licked her glass:

"You must not grieve like that. The death of your mamma,--oh! it is a
great misfortune! But what do you expect? We are all mortal. Oh! my
God! Oh! my poor little one!"

Then she suddenly began to weep and weep, and, while she wept and wept,
she did not cease to wail:

"You must not grieve; you must not grieve."

At first it was a plaint; but soon it became a sort of frightful bray,
which grew louder and louder. And her big belly, and her big breasts,
and her triple chin, shaken by her sobs, heaved in enormous surges.

"Be still, then, Marianne," I said to her; "Madame might hear you, and
come."

But she did not listen to me, and, crying louder than ever, exclaimed:

"Ah! what a misfortune! what a great misfortune!"

So that I too, my stomach turned by drink, and my heart moved by
Marianne's tears, began to sob like a Madeleine. All the same, she is
not a bad girl.

But I am getting tired here; I am getting tired; I am getting tired.
I should like to get a place in the house of some member of the
_demi-monde,_ or else in America.




VI


_October 1._

Poor Monsieur! I believe that I was too sharp with him the other day,
in the garden. Perhaps I went further than I should. He is such a
simpleton that he imagines that he has given me serious offence, and
that my virtue is impregnable. Oh! his humiliated, imploring looks,
which never cease to ask my pardon!

Although I have become more teasing and agreeable, he says no more to
me about the matter, and cannot make up his mind to try a new direct
attack,--not even the classic device of a button to be sewed on a pair
of pantaloons. A clumsy device, but one that does not often fail of its
effect. My God! how many such buttons have I sewed on!

And yet it is plain that he desires me,--that he is dying of desire,
more and more. The least of his words betrays a confession, an indirect
confession of his desire; and what a confession! But he is also more
and more timid; he is afraid to come to a decision. He fears that it
might bring about a definite rupture, and he no longer trusts in my
encouraging looks.

On one occasion, approaching me with a strange expression, with a sort
of haggard look in his eyes, he said to me:

"Célestine ... you ... you ... black ... my shoes ... very well ...
very ... very ... well ... Never ... have ... my ... shoes ... been
blacked ... like that."

Then I expected the button trick. But no! Monsieur gasped and slobbered
as if he had eaten a pear that was too big and juicy.

Then he whistled for his dog, and started off.

But here is something stronger.

Yesterday Madame had gone to market,--for she does her own marketing.
Monsieur had been out since dawn, with his gun and his dog. He came
back early, having killed three thrushes, and immediately went up to
his dressing-room to take a tub and dress, as usual. Oh, for that
matter, Monsieur is very clean, and he is not afraid of water. I
thought it a favorable opportunity to try something that might at
last put him at his ease with me. Leaving my work, I started for the
dressing-room, and for a few seconds I stood there listening, with my
ear glued to the door. Monsieur was walking back and forth in his room.
He was whistling and singing:

  Et allez donc, Mam'zelle Suzon!...
  Et ron, ronron ... petit patapon ...

A habit that he has of mingling a number of refrains when singing.

I heard chairs moving about, cupboards opening and closing, and then
the water streaming into the tub, and the "Ahs" and "Ohs" and "Fuuiis"
and "Brrrs" which the shock of the cold water wrung from Monsieur.
Then, suddenly, I opened the door.

Monsieur stood facing me, shivering, with wet skin, and the sponge in
his hands running like a fountain. Oh! his head, his eyes! he seemed
to stand transfixed. I think I never saw a man so astounded. Having
nothing with which to cover his body, with a gesture instinctively
modest and comical he used the sponge as a fig-leaf. It required great
strength of will on my part to suppress the laugh which this spectacle
loosened within me. I noticed that Monsieur had thick tufts of hair on
his shoulders, and that his chest was like a bear's. But my! he is a
fine man, all the same.

Naturally, I uttered a cry of alarmed modesty, as was proper, and
closed the door again violently. But, once outside the door, I said
to myself: "Surely he will call me back; and what is going to happen
then?" I waited some minutes. Not a sound,--except the crystalline
sound of a drop of water falling, from time to time, into the tub. "He
is reflecting," thought I; "he does not dare to come to a decision; but
he will call me back." In vain. Soon the water streamed again. Then I
heard Monsieur wiping and rubbing himself, and clearing his throat; old
slippers dragged over the floor; chairs moved about, and cupboards
opened and closed. Finally Monsieur began again to sing:

  Et allez donc, Mam'zelle Suzon!...
  Et ron, ronron ... petit patapon ...

"No, really, he is too stupid!" I murmured, in a low voice, furiously
spiteful.

And I went back to the linen-room, firmly resolved to take no further
pity on him.

In the afternoon Monsieur kept revolving around me, in an absent-minded
way. He joined me in the yard, whither I had gone to throw some refuse
on the muck-heap. And as I, for the sake of laughing a little at his
embarrassment, apologized for what had happened in the morning, he
whispered:

"That is nothing, that is nothing; on the contrary."

He tried to detain me, stammering I know not what. But I dropped
him then and there, in the middle of the phrase in which he was
floundering; and, in a cutting voice, I said these words:

"I ask Monsieur's pardon. I have no time to talk to Monsieur. Madame is
waiting for me."

"_Sapristi!_ Célestine, listen to me a moment."

"No, Monsieur."

When I turned the corner of the path leading to the house, I could see
Monsieur. He had not stirred from the spot. With head lowered, and
irresolute legs, he was still looking at the muck-heap, scratching his
neck.



After dinner, in the _salon_, Monsieur and Madame had a hot quarrel.

Madame said:

"I tell you that you are paying attention to this girl."

Monsieur answered:

"I? Well, indeed, that's an idea! Come, my pet; such a loose
creature,--a dirty thing, and possibly diseased. Oh! really, that is
too much."

Madame resumed:

"Do you think, then, that I don't know your conduct and your tastes?"

"Permit me; oh! permit me."

"And all the dirty creatures whom you meet in the fields!"

I heard the floor creak under Monsieur's feet, as he walked back and
forth in the _salon_, with feverish animation.

"I? Well, indeed, such ideas as you have! Where did you find them all,
my pet?"

Madame was obstinate:

"And the little Jézureau? And only fifteen years old, you wretch! And
on whose account I had to pay five hundred francs! But for which,
to-day you perhaps would be in prison, like your thief of a father."

Monsieur stopped walking. He sank into a chair. He became silent.

The discussion ended with these words from Madame:

"However, it is all one to me. I am not jealous. You can behave as you
like with this Célestine. But it must not cost me any money."

Oh, no! Now I have them both.



This evening we remained longer than usual in the kitchen. I helped
Marianne to make up her accounts. She did not succeed in getting
them straight. I have noticed that, like all trusted persons, she
pinches here, and steals there, all that she can. She even has tricks
that astonish me; but she has to make her accounts square with them.
Sometimes she gets lost in her figures, which embarrasses her greatly
with Madame, who is very quick to find out anything wrong in them.
Joseph is becoming a little more human with us. Now, from time to
time, he condescends to speak to me. This evening, for instance, he
did not go as usual to see the sacristan, his intimate friend. And,
while Marianne and I were working, he read the "Libre Parole." That is
his newspaper. He does not admit that any other is fit to read. I have
noticed that several times, while reading, he looked at me with a new
expression in his eyes.

The reading finished, Joseph saw fit to tell me what his political
opinions are. He is weary of the republic, which is ruining and
disgracing him. He wants a sword.

"As long as we do not have a sword, and a very red one, there will be
nothing done," said he.

He is for religion ... because ... in short ... well ... he is for
religion.

"Until religion shall have been restored in France, as we used to have
it; until everybody is obliged to go to mass and to confession,--there
will be nothing done, my God!"

He has hung up in his harness-room portraits of the pope and of
Drumont; in his chamber, that of Déroulède; in the little seed-room
those of Guérin and General Mercier,--terrible fellows, patriots,
real Frenchmen! He preciously collects all the anti-Jewish songs, all
the colored portraits of the generals, all the caricatures of the
circumcised. For Joseph is violently anti-Semitic. He belongs to all
the religious, military, and patriotic societies of the department.
He is a member of the "Anti-Semitic Youth" of Rouen, a member of the
"Anti-Jewish Old Age" of Louviers, and a member also of an infinite
number of groups and sub-groups, such as the "National Cudgel," the
"Norman Alarm-Bell," the "Bayados du Vexin," etc. When he speaks of
the Jews, there are sinister gleams in his eyes, and his gestures show
bloodthirsty ferocity. And he never goes to town without a club.

"As long as there is a Jew left in France, there is nothing done."

And he adds:

"Ah! my God! if I were in Paris, I would kill and burn and gut these
cursed sheenies. There is no danger that the traitors will come to
live at Mesnil-Roy. They know very well what they are about, these
mercenaries!"

He joins in one and the same hatred Protestants, Free Masons,
freethinkers, all the brigands who never set foot in the churches, and
who are, moreover, nothing but Jews in disguise. But he does not belong
to the Clerical party; he is for religion, that's all!

As for the ignoble Dreyfus, he had better not think of coming back
to France from Devil's Island. Oh, no! And Joseph strongly advises
the unclean Zola not to come to Louviers to give a lecture, as it is
reported that he intends to do. His hash would be settled, and Joseph
himself would settle it. This miserable traitor of a Zola, who, for six
hundred thousand francs, has delivered the entire French army, and also
the entire Russian army, to the Germans and the English? And this is no
humbug, no gossip, no lightly-spoken word; no, Joseph is sure of it.
Joseph has it from the sacristan, who has it from the priest, who has
it from the bishop, who has it from the pope, who has it from Drumont.
Ah! the Jews may visit the Priory. They will find, written by Joseph,
in the cellar, in the attic, in the stable, in the coach-house,
under the lining of the harnesses, and even on the broom-handles, and
everywhere, these words: "Long Live the Army! Death to the Jews!"

From time to time Marianne approves these violent remarks with nods of
her head and silent gestures. She, too, undoubtedly is being ruined and
disgraced by the republic. She, too, is for the sword, for the priests,
and against the Jews,--about whom she knows nothing, by the way, except
that they are lacking something somewhere.

And certainly I, too, am for the army, for the country, for religion,
and against the Jews. Who, then, among us house-servants, from the
lowest to the highest, does not profess these nickel-plated doctrines?
Say what you will of the domestics,--it is possible that they have many
faults,--but it cannot be denied that they are patriots. Take myself,
for instance; politics is not in my line, and it bores me. But, a
week before I started for this place, I squarely refused to serve as
chambermaid in the house of Labori; and all the comrades who were at
the employment-bureau that day refused also.

"Work for that dirty creature? Oh, no, indeed! Never!"

Yet, when I seriously question myself, I do not know why I am against
the Jews, for I used to serve in their houses in the days when one
could still do so with dignity. I find that at bottom the Jews and the
Catholics are very much alike. They are equally vicious, have equally
vile characters, equally ugly souls. They all belong to the same world,
you see, and the difference in religion counts for nothing. Perhaps the
Jews make more show, more noise; perhaps they make a greater display of
the money that they spend. But, in spite of what you hear about their
management and their avarice, I maintain that it is not bad to be in
their houses, where there is even more leakage than in Catholic houses.

But Joseph will hear nothing of all this. He reproached me with being a
bogus patriot and a bad Frenchwoman, and, with prophecies of massacre
on his lips, and with bloody visions of broken heads and gashed bellies
before his eyes, he went off to bed.

Straightway Marianne took the bottle of brandy from the sideboard. We
needed to recover ourselves, and we talked of something else. Marianne,
who every day becomes more confiding, told me of her childhood, of the
hard time that she had in her youth, and how, when in the employ, as a
servant, of a woman who kept a tobacco-shop at Caen, she was seduced by
a hospital-surgeon,--a delicate, slender, blonde young fellow, who had
blue eyes and a pointed, short, and silky beard,--oh! how silky! She
became pregnant, and the tobacco merchant, who herself was intimate
with any number of people, including all the sub-officers of the
garrison, turned her out. So young, on the pavements of a great city,
and carrying a child! Ah! the poverty that she experienced, her friend
having no money. And surely she would have died of hunger, if the
surgeon had not found her a queer place in the medical school.

"My God! yes," she said, "at the Boratory I killed rabbits and
guinea-pigs. It was very nice."

And the recollection brought to Marianne's thick lips a smile that
seemed to me strangely melancholy.

After a silence, I asked her:

"And the kid! What became of it?"

Marianne made a vague and far-away gesture,--a gesture that seemed
to pull aside the heavy veils from the limbos where her child was
sleeping. She answered in that harsh voice which alcohol produces:

"Oh! well, you can imagine. What should I have done with it, my God!"

"Like the little guinea-pigs, then?"

"That's it."

And she poured herself out a drink.

We went up to our rooms somewhat intoxicated.




VII


_October 6._

Decidedly, autumn is here. Frosts which were not expected so soon have
browned the last flowers of the garden. The dahlias, the poor dahlias,
witnesses of Monsieur's amorous timidity, are dried up; dried up also
are the big sunflowers that mounted guard at the kitchen-door. There
is nothing left in the devastated flower-beds,--nothing but a few
sorry-looking geraniums here and there, and five or six clusters of
asters, whose blue flowers--the dull blue of rottenness--are bending
toward the ground in anticipation of death. The garden-plots of
Captain Mauger, whom I saw just now over the hedge, present a scene of
veritable disaster, and everything is of the color of tobacco.

The trees, through the fields, are beginning to turn yellow and to lose
their foliage, and the sky is funereal. For four days we have been
living in a thick fog, a brown fog that smelt of soot and that did not
dissipate even in the afternoon. Now it is raining, an icy, beating
rain, which a fierce wind, blowing in squalls from the northwest,
occasionally intensifies.

Ah! I am not comfortably situated here. In my room it is bitter cold.
The wind blows into it, and the water penetrates the cracks in the
roof, principally around the two windows which stingily illuminate
this dark hole. And the noise of lifting slates, of shocks that shake
the roof, of creaking timbers and of squeaking hinges, is deafening.
In spite of the urgent need of repairs, I have had all the difficulty
in the world in getting Madame to order the plumber to come to-morrow
morning. And I do not dare yet to ask for a stove, although, being very
chilly, I feel that I shall not be able to live in this mortal room
through the winter. This evening, to stop the wind and the rain, I have
had to stuff old skirts into the cracks. And this weather-vane above my
head, never ceasing to turn on its rusty pivot, at times shrieks out so
sharply in the night that one would take it for Madame's voice in the
corridors, after a scene.

My first feelings of revolt having quieted down a little, my life
proceeds here monotonously and stupidly; and I am gradually getting
accustomed to it, without too great moral suffering. No one ever
comes here; one would take it for a cursed house. And, outside of the
petty domestic incidents that I have related, never does anything
happen. All the days are alike, and all the tasks, and all the faces.
It is ennui and death. But I am beginning to be so stupid that I am
accommodating myself to this ennui, as if it were a natural thing. Even
the deprivation of love does not cause me too much embarrassment, and
I endure without too painful struggles this chastity to which I am
condemned, or to which, rather, I have condemned myself,--for I have
abandoned Monsieur, I have dropped Monsieur finally. Monsieur bores me,
and I am angry with him for having, out of cowardice, disparaged me
so grossly in talking with Madame. Not that he is becoming resigned,
or ceasing to pay attention to me. On the contrary, he persists in
revolving about me, with eyes that grow rounder and rounder, and a
mouth that grows more and more frothy. According to an expression that
I have read in I have forgotten what book, it is always toward my
trough that he drives the pigs of his desire to drink.

Now that the days are shortening, Monsieur spends the afternoon at his
desk, where he does the devil knows what, occupying his time in moving
about old papers without reason, in checking off seed-catalogues and
medical advertisements, and in distractedly turning the leaves of old
hunting-books. You should see him when I go in at night to close the
blinds or attend to his fire. Then he rises, coughs, sneezes, clears
his throat, runs against the furniture, upsets objects, and tries in
all sorts of stupid ways to attract my attention. It is enough to make
one twist with laughter. I make a pretence of hearing nothing, of not
understanding his puerile tricks; and I go away, silent and haughty,
without looking at him any more than if he were not there.

Last evening, however, we exchanged the following brief remarks:

"Célestine!"

"Monsieur desires something?"

"Célestine, you are unkind to me; why are you unkind to me?"

"Why, Monsieur knows very well that I am a loose creature!...."

"Oh! come!"

"A dirty thing!...."

"Oh! come, come!"

"And possibly diseased."

"Oh! heavens! Célestine! Come, Célestine, listen to me!"

"Bah!"

Oh! I have enough of him. It no longer amuses me to upset his head and
his heart by my coquetries.



In fact, nothing amuses me here. And the worst of it is that nothing
bores me, either. Is it the air of this dirty country, the silence of
the fields, the heavy, coarse food that I eat? A feeling of torpor is
taking possession of me,--a feeling, moreover, which is not without
charm. At any rate, it dulls my sensibility, deadens my dreams, and
helps me to endure Madame's insolence and scolding. Thanks to it also,
I feel a certain content in chattering, at night, for hours, with
Marianne and Joseph,--this strange Joseph who does not go out any more,
and seems to find pleasure in remaining with us. The idea that Joseph
perhaps is in love with me,--well, that flatters me. Yes, indeed, I
have got to that point. And then I read, and read,--novels, novels, and
more novels. I have reread Paul Bourget. His books do not excite my
enthusiasm as they used to. In fact, they tire me, and I consider them
false and superficial. They are conceived in that state of soul which
I know well from having experienced it when, dazzled and fascinated, I
came in contact with wealth and luxury. I am all over it to-day, and
these things no longer astonish me. They still astonish Paul Bourget.
Oh! I would not be so silly now as to go to him for psychological
explanations, for I know better than he what there is behind a parlor
portière and under a lace dress.



A thing to which I cannot get accustomed is the receiving of no
letters from Paris. Every morning, when the carrier comes, I feel a
sort of laceration in my heart at realizing that I am so abandoned by
everybody; and it is in this way that I can best measure the extent of
my solitude. In vain have I written to my old comrades, and especially
to Monsieur Jean, urgent and disconsolate letters; in vain have I
implored them to pay some attention to me, to take me out of my hell,
to find me a place in Paris, however humble it may be. Not one of them
answers me. I would never have believed in so much indifference, in so
much ingratitude.

And this forces me to cling more tightly to what I have left,--my
memories and the past. Memories in which, in spite of everything,
joy dominates suffering; a past which renews my hope that all is
not over with me, and that it is not true that an accidental fall
means irreparable ruin. That is why, alone in my room, while, on the
other side of my partition, Marianne's snoring represents to me the
distressing present, I try to drown this ridiculous sound in the sound
of my old-time joys, and I passionately scrutinize this past, in order
to reconstruct from its scattered bits the illusion of a future.

This very day, October 6, is a date full of recollections. During the
five years that have elapsed since the tragedy which I now desire to
relate, all the details have remained deep-rooted within me. There is
a dead boy in this tragedy, a poor little dead boy, sweet and pretty,
whom I killed by giving him too many caresses and too many joys,
by giving him too much of life. And during the five years since he
died,--died of me,--this will be the first time that I have not gone,
on the sixth of October, to cover his grave with the usual flowers.
But of these flowers, which I shall not carry to his grave, I will
make a more durable bouquet, which will adorn and perfume his beloved
memory better than the graveyard flowers adorn and perfume the bit of
earth in which he sleeps. For the flowers of which the bouquet that I
shall make will be composed I will gather, one by one, in the garden of
my heart,--in the garden of my heart, where not only grow the mortal
flowers of debauchery, but where bloom also the great white lilies of
love.



I remember that it was on a Saturday. At the employment-bureau in the
Rue du Colisée, which I had visited regularly every morning for a week
in search of a place, I was introduced to an old lady in mourning.
Never had I met a face more engaging, a look more gentle, manners more
simple; never had I heard more winning words. She received me with a
great politeness that warmed my heart.

"My child," she said to me, "Mme. Paulhat-Durand [that was the name of
the woman who kept the employment-bureau] has spoken to me of you in
terms of the highest praise. I believe that you deserve it, for you
have an intelligent face, frank and gay, which pleases me greatly. I am
in need of a person worthy of trust and capable of devotion. Devotion!
Ah! I know that I am asking a thing that it is not easy to give; for,
after all, you do not know me, and you have no reason to be devoted to
me. Let me explain to you my situation. But do not remain standing, my
child; come and sit down beside me."

The moment I am spoken to gently, the moment that I am not looked
upon as a being outside of others and on the fringe of life, as
something between a dog and a parrot, in that moment I am touched,
and at once I feel the soul of my childhood reborn within me. All my
spite, all my hatred, all my spirit of rebellion, I forget as by a
miracle, and toward the people who speak to me in a human fashion I
feel no sentiments save those of sacrifice and love. I know also, from
experience, that it is only the unfortunate who place the suffering of
the humble on a footing with their own. There is always insolence and
distance in the kindness of the fortunate.

When I had taken my seat beside this venerable lady in mourning, I
already loved her; I really loved her.

She sighed:

"It is not a very gay place that I offer you, my child."

With a sincerity of enthusiasm that did not escape her, I earnestly
protested:

"That does not matter, Madame. Anything that Madame may ask of me I
will do."

And it was true. I was ready for anything.

She thanked me with a kind and tender look, and continued:

"Well, this is it. I have had many trials in my life. I have lost all
of my family, with the exception of a grandson, who now, he also, is
threatened with death from the terrible disease of which the others
have died."

Fearing to pronounce the name of this terrible disease, she indicated
it to me by placing upon her chest her old hand, gloved in black, and
then, with a more painful expression, continued:

"Poor little fellow! He is a charming child, an adorable being, in
whom I have placed my last hopes. For, when he is gone, I shall be all
alone. And, my God! what shall I do upon earth?"

Her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away with her handkerchief,
and went on:

"The doctors assure me that they can save him,--that the disease is
not yet deep-seated. They have prescribed a _régime_ from which they
expect very good results. Every afternoon Georges must take a sea-bath,
or, rather, he must dip himself for a second in the sea. Then his
whole body must be rubbed vigorously with a hair-glove, to stimulate
the circulation; then he must be obliged to drink a glass of old port;
and then he must lie stretched for at least an hour in a very warm
bed. That is what I want of you in the first place, my child. But
understand me well; what I specially want is youth, grace, gaiety,
life. In my house it is these things that are most lacking. I have
two very devoted servants, but they are old and sad, and possessed
of manias. Georges cannot endure them. And I myself, with my old
white head and my perpetual wearing of mourning,--I feel that I am an
affliction to him. And, what is worse still, I feel also that I often
am unable to hide from him my apprehensions. Oh! I know that this,
perhaps, is not exactly the _role_ for a young girl like you, beside so
young a boy as Georges; for he is only nineteen! The world undoubtedly
will find something to say about it. But I care not for the world; I
care only for my sick grandchild, and I have confidence in you. You are
a good woman, I suppose?"

"Oh! yes, Madame," I cried, certain in advance of being the sort of
saint of whom this disconsolate grandmother was in search, for the
salvation of her child.

"And he, the poor little one, my God! In his condition! In his
condition, you see, he needs, more than sea-baths perhaps, the
continual companionship of a pretty face, a fresh young laugh,
something to drive from his mind the idea of death, some one to give
him confidence in life. Will you undertake it?"

"I accept, Madame," I answered, moved to the depths of my being. "And
Madame may be sure that I will take good care of M. Georges."

It was agreed that I should enter upon my duties that very evening, and
that we should start on the next day but one for Houlgate, where the
lady in mourning had rented a beautiful villa near the beach.

The grandmother had not lied. M. Georges was a charming, an adorable
child. His beardless face had the loveliness of that of a beautiful
woman; womanly also were his indolent movements, and his long, white,
supple hands, through which could be seen the network of his veins.
But what ardent eyes! Pupils consumed by a dull fire, beneath eyelids
ringed with blue, and seemingly burned by the flaming gaze! What an
intense focus of thought, of passion, of sensibility, of intelligence,
of inner life! And to what an extent already had the red flowers of
death invaded his cheeks! It seemed as if it were not of disease,
as if it were not of death, that he was dying, but of an excess of
life, of the fever of life that was in him, gnawing at his organs and
withering his flesh. Oh! how pretty and how painful a spectacle! When
his grandmother took me to him, he was stretched on a long chair, and
holding in his long white hands an odorless rose. He received me, not
as a servant, but almost as a friend whom he expected. And from the
first moment I became attached to him with all the strength of my soul.

Our establishment at Houlgate was effected without incident, as our
journey had been also. Everything was ready, when we arrived. We
had only to take possession of the villa,--a roomy, elegant villa,
full of life and gaiety, and separated from the beach by a broad
terrace covered with wicker-chairs and tents of many colors. A stone
stairway, cut in the embankment, led to the sea, and against its lower
steps sounded the music of the waves when the tide was coming in. M.
Georges's room, on the ground floor, commanded an admirable view of the
sea from large bay-windows. My own room--not the room of a servant, but
that of a master--was opposite M. Georges's, across a passage-way, and
was hung with light cretonne. From its windows one looked out into a
little garden, where were growing some sorry-looking spindle-trees and
some sorrier-looking rose-bushes. To express in words my joy, my pride,
my emotion, and the pure and new elevation of mind that I felt at being
thus treated and petted, admitted, like a lady, to comfort, to luxury,
and to a share in that thing so vainly coveted which is called the
family; to explain how, by a simple wave of the wand of that miraculous
fairy, kindness, there came instantly an end to the recollection of
my past humiliations and a conception of all the duties laid upon me
by the dignity that belongs to a human being, and at last vouchsafed
to me,--is quite beyond me. But I can say at least that I really
perceived the magic of the transfiguration. Not only did the mirror
testify that I had suddenly become more beautiful, but my heart assured
me that I was really better. I discovered within me sources, sources,
sources,--inexhaustible sources, ever-flowing sources, of devotion,
of sacrifice, of heroism; and I had but one thought,--to save, by
intelligent care, by watchful fidelity, and by marvellous skill,--to
save M. Georges from death.

With a robust faith in my power of cure, I said in positive tones to
the poor grandmother, who was in a state of perpetual despair, and
often spent her days in weeping in the adjoining room:

"Do not weep, Madame. We will save him. I swear to you that we will
save him."

And, in fact, at the end of a fortnight's time, M. Georges was much
improved. A great change in his condition had taken place. The fits
of coughing had diminished in number and intensity; his sleep and
appetite were becoming more regular. He no longer had, in the night,
those copious and terrible sweats that left him gasping and exhausted
in the morning. His strength was so far recovered that we could take
long drives and short walks, without serious fatigue. It was a sort
of resurrection. As the weather was very fine, and the air very warm,
but tempered by the sea-breeze, on days when we did not leave the
premises we spent most of the time on the terrace, in the shelter of
the tents, awaiting the bathing hour,--the hour of "the little dip in
the sea," as M. Georges gaily called it. For he was gay, always gay;
never did he speak of his illness, never of death. I really believe
that in all those days he never once uttered the terrible word death.
On the other hand, he was much amused by my chatter, provoking it if
necessary; and I, confiding in his eyes, reassured by his heart, won
by his indulgence and his grace, told him everything that came into
my mind,--farces, follies, and songs. My little childhood, my little
desires, my little misfortunes, and my dreams, and my rebellions,
and my various experiences with ludicrous or infamous masters,--I
told him all, without much masking of the truth, for, young though he
was, and separated from the world, and shut up as he had always been,
he nevertheless, by a sort of prescience, by a marvelous divination
which the sick possess, understood life thoroughly. A real friendship,
that his nature surely facilitated, and that his solitude caused him
to desire, and, above all, that the intimate and constant care with
which I delighted his poor moribund flesh brought about, so to speak,
automatically, sprang up between us. I was happy to a degree that I
cannot picture, and my mind gained in refinement by incessant contact
with his.

M. Georges adored poetry. For entire hours, on the terrace, to the
music of the waves, or else at night in his room, he asked me to
read him the poems of Victor Hugo, of Baudelaire, of Verlaine, of
Mæterlinck. Often he closed his eyes, and lay motionless, with his
hands folded on his breast, and I, thinking that he was asleep, stopped
reading; but he smiled, and said:

"Go on, little one; I am not asleep. I can listen better so. I hear
your voice better. And your voice is charming."

Sometimes it was he who interrupted me. After concentrating his
thoughts, he slowly recited, with a prolongation of the rhythms,
the lines that had excited in him the greatest enthusiasm, and he
tried--oh! how I loved him for that!--to make me understand them, to
make me feel their beauty. One day he said to me,--and I have kept
these words as a relic:

"The sublimity of poetry, you see, lies in the fact that it does
not take an educated person to understand it and to love it. On the
contrary. The educated do not understand it, and generally they despise
it, because they have too much pride. To love poetry it is enough to
have a soul,--a little soul, naked, like a flower. Poets speak to the
souls of the simple, of the sad, of the sick. And that is why they are
eternal. Do you know that, when one has sensibility, one is always
something of a poet? And you yourself, little Célestine, have often
said to me things that are as beautiful as poetry."

"Oh! Monsieur Georges, you are making fun of me."

"Not in the least. And you are unaware that you have said these
beautiful things. And that is the delightful part of it."

For me those were unique hours; whatever destiny may bring me, they
will sing in my heart as long as I may live. I felt that indescribably
sweet sensation of becoming a new being, of witnessing, so to speak,
from minute to minute, the revelation of something unknown in me,
and which yet was I. And to-day, in spite of worse falls, thoroughly
reconquered as I am by all that is bad and embittered in me, if I have
kept this passionate fondness for reading, and sometimes that impulse
toward things superior to my social environment and to myself; if,
trying to regain confidence in the spontaneity of my nature, I have
dared--I who am so ignorant--to write this diary,--it is to M. Georges
that I owe it.

Oh! yes, I was happy,--happy especially at seeing the pretty patient
gradually reborn, his flesh swelling out and his face blooming again,
through the flow of a new sap; happy at the joy, and the hopes, and the
certainties, that the rapidity of this resurrection gave to the entire
house, of which I was now the queen and the fairy. They attributed to
me, they attributed to the intelligence of my care, to the vigilance
of my devotion, and, more still perhaps, to my constant gaiety, to my
youth so full of charm, to my surprising influence over Georges, this
incomparable miracle. And the poor grandmother thanked me, overwhelmed
me with gratitude and blessings, and also with presents, like a nurse
to whom has been confided a baby almost dead, and who, with her pure
and healthy milk, reconstructs his organs, brings back his smile, and
restores him to life.

Sometimes, forgetful of her station, she took my hands, caressed them,
kissed them, and, with tears of joy, said to me:

"I knew very well ... I ... when I saw you ... I knew very well!"

And already projects were being formed,--journeys to the land of
sunshine, fields full of roses!

"You shall never leave us; never more, my child."

Her enthusiasm often embarrassed me, but I finally came to believe that
I deserved it. If, as many others would have done in my place, I had
chosen to abuse her generosity ... Oh, misfortune!

And what was to happen happened.

On the day of which I speak, the weather had been very warm, very
heavy, and very threatening. Across the sky, above the leaden and
perfectly flat sea, rolled stifling clouds, thick red clouds, through
which the storm could not break. M. Georges had not gone out, even to
the terrace, and we had remained in his room. More nervous than usual,
a nervousness due undoubtedly to the electricity in the atmosphere, he
had even refused to let me read poetry to him.

"That would tire me," he said. "And, besides, I feel that you would
read very badly to-day."

He had gone into the _salon_, where he had tried to play a little on
the piano. The piano having plagued him, he had at once come back
into the room, where he had sought to divert himself for a moment by
drawing, as it seemed to me, some feminine profiles. But he had not
been slow in abandoning paper and pencil, fuming with some impatience:

"I cannot; I am not in the mood. My hand trembles. I don't know what is
the matter with me. And you,--there is something the matter with you,
too. You are restless."

Finally he had stretched himself on his long chair, near the large
bay-window, through which one could see a vast expanse of water.
Fishing-boats in the distance, fleeing from the ever-threatening storm,
were re-entering the port of Trouville. With a distracted look he
followed their manoeuvres and their grey sails.

As M. Georges had said, I was restless; I could not keep still; I
was continually moving about, to find something with which to occupy
his mind. Of course I found nothing, and my agitation did not have a
quieting influence on his.

"Why do you move about so? Why do you enervate yourself? Stay beside
me."

I had asked him:

"Would you not like to be on one of those little boats yonder? I would."

"Oh! do not talk for the sake of talking. Why say useless things? Stay
beside me."

Scarcely had I taken my seat beside him, when, the sight of the sea
becoming utterly unendurable to him, he asked me to lower the blind.

"This bad light exasperates me; this sea is horrible. I do not wish
to look at it. Everything is horrible to-day. I do not wish to see
anything; I wish to see you only."

I had gently chided him.

"Oh! Monsieur Georges, you are not good. You are not behaving well. If
your grandmother were to come in and see you in this condition, you
would make her cry again."

Having raised himself a little on the cushions:

"In the first place, why do you call me 'Monsieur Georges'? You know
that I do not like it."

"But I cannot call you 'Monsieur Gaston'!"

"Call me 'Georges' for short, naughty girl."

"Oh! I could not; I could never do that!"

Then he had sighed:

"Is it not curious? Are you, then, still a poor little slave?"

Then he had lapsed into silence. And the rest of the day passed off,
half in enervation, half in silence, which was also an enervation, and
more painful.

In the evening, after dinner, the storm at last broke out. The wind
began to blow violently, the waves to beat against the embankment with
a heavy sullen sound. M. Georges would not go to bed. He felt that it
would be impossible for him to sleep, and in a bed sleepless nights
are so long! He on his long chair, I sitting near a little table on
which, veiled by a shade, was burning a lamp that shed a soft, pink
light about us, we said nothing. Although his eyes were more brilliant
than usual, M. Georges seemed calmer, and the pink reflection from the
lamp heightened his color, and outlined more clearly in the light the
features of his delicate and charming face. I was engaged in sewing.

Suddenly he said to me:

"Leave your work for a little while, Célestine, and sit beside me."

I always obeyed his desires, his caprices. At times he manifested an
effusive and enthusiastic friendship, which I attributed to gratitude.
This time I obeyed as usual.

"Nearer, still nearer," he exclaimed.

Then:

"Now give me your hand."

Without the slightest mistrust I allowed him to take my hand, which he
caressed.

"How pretty your hand is! And how pretty your eyes are! And how pretty
you are, altogether, altogether, altogether!"

He had often spoken to me of my kindness, but never had he told me
that I was pretty; at least, he had never told me so with such an air.
Surprised and, in reality, charmed by these words, which he uttered in
a grave and somewhat gasping voice, I instinctively drew back.

"No, no, do not go away; stay near me, close to me. You cannot know how
much good it does me to have you near me, how it warms me. See, I am
no longer nervous, agitated; I am no longer sick; I am content, happy,
very happy."

And, having chastely placed his arm about my waist, he obliged me to
sit down beside him on the long chair. And he asked:

"Are you uncomfortable so?"

I was not reassured. In his eyes burned a fire more ardent than ever.
His voice trembled more--with that trembling which I know,--oh! yes,
how I know it!--that trembling which is given to the voice of all men
by the violent desire of love. I was very much moved, and I was very
cowardly; my head was whirling a little. But, firmly resolved to defend
myself against him, and especially to energetically defend him against
himself, I answered in a childish way:

"Yes, Monsieur Georges, I am very uncomfortable; let me get up."

His arm did not leave my waist.

"No, no, I beg of you, be nice."

And in a tone the coaxing gentleness of which I cannot describe, he
added:

"You are very timid. What are you afraid of, then?"

At the same time he approached his face to mine, and I felt his warm
breath with its insipid odor,--something like an incense of death.

My heart seized with an inexpressible anguish, I cried:

"Monsieur Georges! Oh! Monsieur Georges, let me go. You will make
yourself sick. I beg of you! Let me go."

I did not dare to struggle, because of his weakness, out of respect for
the fragility of his members. I simply tried--and how carefully!--to
put away his hand, which, awkward, timid, trembling, was trying to
unhook my waist. And I repeated:

"Let me go! You are behaving very badly, Monsieur Georges. Let me go!"

His effort to hold me against him had tired him. His embrace soon
weakened. For a few seconds he breathed with greater difficulty, and
then a dry cough shook his chest.

"You see, Monsieur Georges," I said to him, with all the gentleness of
a maternal reproach, "you are wilfully making yourself sick. You will
listen to nothing. And all will have to be begun over again. Great
progress we shall make in this way! Be good, I beg of you! And, if you
were very nice, do you know what you would do? You would go to bed
directly."

He withdrew his hand, stretched out on the long chair, and, as I
replaced beneath his head the cushions that had slipped down, he sadly
sighed:

"After all, you are right; I ask your pardon."

"You have not to ask my pardon, Monsieur Georges; you have to be quiet."

"Yes, yes," he exclaimed, his eyes fixed on the spot in the ceiling
where the lamp made a circle of moving light. "I was a little mad ...
to have dreamed for a moment that you could love me,--me who have never
had love,--me who have never had anything but suffering. Why should
you love me? It would cure me to love you. Since you have been here
beside me, and since the beginning of my desire for you; since you have
been here with your youth, and your freshness, and your eyes, and your
hands,--your little silky hands, whose attentions are the gentlest of
caresses; since the time I began to dream of you alone,--I have felt
boiling within me, in my soul and in my body, new vigor, a wholly
unknown life. That is to say, I did feel that,--for now ... In short,
what do you expect? I was mad! And you, you are right."

I was greatly embarrassed. I knew not what to say; I knew not what
to do. Powerful and opposite feelings pulled me in all directions.
An impulse rushed me toward him, a sacred duty held me back. And in
a silly fashion, because I was not sincere, because I could not be
sincere in a struggle where these desires and this duty combatted with
equal force, I stammered:

"Monsieur Georges, be good. Do not think of these ugly things. It makes
you sick. Come, Monsieur Georges, be very nice."

But he repeated:

"Why should you love me? Truly, you are right in not loving me. You
think me ill. You fear to poison your mouth with the poisons of mine;
you are afraid of contracting my disease--the disease of which I am
dying, am I not?--from one of my kisses. You are right."

The cruel injustice of these words struck me to the heart.

"Do not say that, Monsieur Georges," I cried, wildly; "what you say is
horrible and wicked. And you really give me too much pain, too much
pain."

I seized his hands; they were moist and burning. I bent over him; his
breath had the raucous ardor of a forge.

"It is horrible, horrible!"

He continued:

"A kiss from you,---why! that meant my resurrection, my complete
restoration to life. Oh! you have believed seriously in your baths, in
your port wine, in your hair-glove. Poor little one! It is in your love
that I have bathed, it is the wine of your love that I have drunk, it
is the revulsion of your life that has set a new blood flowing beneath
my skin. It is because I have so hoped and longed and waited for your
kiss that I have begun to live again, to be strong,--for I am strong
now. But I am not angry with you for refusing me; you are right in
refusing. I understand; I understand. You are a timid little soul,
without courage; a little bird that sings on one branch, and then on
another, and flies away at the slightest noise ... frroutt!"

"These are frightful things which you are saying, Monsieur Georges."

He still went on, while I wrung my hands:

"Why are they frightful? No, indeed, they are not frightful; they
are true. You think me sick. You think that one is sick when one has
love. You do not know that love is life,--eternal life. Yes, yes, I
understand, since your kiss, which is life for me, might, you fancy, be
death for you. Let us say no more about it."

I could not listen further. Was it pity? Was it the bleeding reproach
and bitter challenge that these atrocious and sacrilegious words
conveyed? Was it simply the impulsive and savage love that suddenly
took possession of me? I do not know. Perhaps it was all of these
together. What I know is that I allowed myself to fall, like a mass,
on the long chair, and that, lifting in my hands the child's adorable
head, I wildly cried:

"There, naughty boy, see how afraid I am of you! See, then, how afraid
I am of you!"

I glued my lips to his lips, I pressed my teeth against his, with such
quivering fury that my tongue seemed to penetrate the deepest sores of
his chest, to lick them, to drink from them, to draw out of them all
the poisoned blood and all the mortal pus. His arms opened, and closed
again about me, in an embrace.

And what was to happen happened.

Well, no. The more I think about it, the surer I am that what threw
me into Georges's arms, what fastened my lips to his, was, first and
only, an imperative, spontaneous movement of protest against the base
sentiments that Georges--through strategy, perhaps--attributed to my
refusal. It was, above all, an act of fervent, disinterested, and very
pure piety, which meant to say:

"No, I do not think that you are sick; no, you are not sick. And
the proof is that I do not hesitate to mingle my breath with yours,
to breathe it, to drink it in, to impregnate my lungs with it, to
saturate with it all my flesh. And, even though you were really
sick, even though your disease were contagious and fatal to any one
approaching it, I do not wish you to entertain concerning me this
monstrous idea that I am afraid of contracting it, of suffering from
it, and of dying from it."

Nor had I foreseen and calculated the inevitable result of this kiss,
and that I would not have the strength, once in my friend's arms, once
my lips on his, to tear myself from this embrace and put away this
kiss. But there it is, you see! When a man holds me in his arms, my
skin at once begins to burn, and my head to turn and turn. I become
drunk; I become mad; I become savage. I have no other will than that of
my desire. I see only him; I think only of him; and I suffer myself to
be led by him, docile and terrible, even to crime!

Oh! that first kiss of M. Georges, his awkward and delicious caresses,
the passionate artlessness of all his movements, and the wondering
expression of his eyes in presence of the mystery, at last unveiled,
of woman and of love! But, the intoxication passed, when I saw the
poor and fragile child, panting, almost swooning in my arms, I felt a
frightful remorse,--at least the terrifying sensation that I had just
committed a murder.

"Monsieur Georges! Monsieur Georges! I have made you ill. Oh! poor
little one!"

But he,--with what feline, tender, and trusting grace, with what
dazzled gratitude, he rolled against me, as if in search of protection.
And he said to me, his eyes filled with ecstasy:

"I am happy. Now I can die."

And, as I cursed my weakness in my despair, he repeated:

"I am happy. Oh! stay with me; do not leave me. It seems to me, you
see, that, if I were left alone, I could not endure the violence of my
happiness, although it is so sweet."

While I was helping him to go to bed, he had a fit of coughing.
Fortunately it was short. But, short though it was, it lacerated my
soul. After having relieved and cured him, was I going to kill him
now? I thought that I should be unable to keep the tears back. And I
detested myself.

"It is nothing; it is nothing," he exclaimed, with a smile; "you must
not grieve, since I am so happy. And besides, I am not sick, I am not
sick. You will see how soundly I shall sleep against you. For I wish to
sleep upon your breast, as if I were your little child,--my head upon
your breast."

"And if your grandmother should ring for me to-night, Monsieur Georges?"

"Oh no! Oh no! Grandmother will not ring. I wish to sleep against you."

During the fortnight that followed that memorable night, that delicious
and tragic night, a sort of fury took possession of us, mingling our
kisses, our bodies, our souls, in an embrace, in an endless possession.
We were in haste to enjoy, in compensation for the lost past; we
desired to live, almost without rest, the love of which we felt that
death, now near at hand, was to be the climax.

A sudden change had taken place in me. In my kiss there was something
sinister and madly criminal. Knowing that I was killing Georges, I
was furiously bent upon killing myself also, of the same joy and of
the same disease. Deliberately I sacrificed his life and mine. With
a wild and bitter exaltation I breathed and drank in death, all the
death, from his mouth; and I besmeared my lips with his poison. Once,
when he was coughing, seized, in my arms, with a more violent attack
than usual, I saw, foaming on his lips, a huge and unclean clot of
blood-streaked phlegm.

"Give! give! give!"

And I swallowed the phlegm with murderous avidity, as I would have
swallowed a life-giving cordial.

Monsieur Georges was not slow in wasting away. His crises became
more frequent, more painful. He spat blood, and had long periods
of swooning, during which he was thought to be dead. His body grew
thin, hollow, and emaciated, until it really resembled an anatomical
specimen. And the joy that had regained possession of the house
changed very speedily into dismal sorrow. The grandmother began again
to pass her days in the _salon_, crying, praying, on the alert for
sounds, and, with her ear glued to the door that separated her from
her child, undergoing the frightful and continual anguish of hearing
a cry,--a rattle,--a sigh, the last,--the end of everything dear and
still living that was left to her here below. When I went out of the
room, she followed me, step by step, about the house, wailing:

"Why, my God, why? And what then has happened?"

She said to me also:

"You are killing yourself, my poor little one. But you cannot pass all
your nights by Georges's side. I am going to send for a sister to take
your place."

But I refused. And she cherished me all the more for this refusal,
seeming to think that, having already worked one miracle, I could now
work another. Is it not frightful? I was her last hope.

As for the doctors, summoned from Paris, they were astonished at the
progress of the disease, and that it had worked such ravages in so
short a time. Not for a moment did they or anyone suspect the terrible
truth. Their intervention was confined to the prescribing of quieting
potions.

Monsieur Georges alone remained gay, happy,--steadily gay, unalterably
happy. Not only did he never complain, but his soul continually poured
itself out in effusions of gratitude. He spoke only to express his joy.
Sometimes, at night, in his room, after terrible crises, he said to me:

"I am happy. Why grieve and weep? Your tears do something to spoil my
joy, the ardent joy with which I am filled. Oh! I assure you that death
is not a high price to pay for the superhuman happiness which you have
given me. I was lost; death was in me; nothing could prevent it from
being in me. You have rendered it radiant and pleasant. Then do not
weep, dear little one. I adore you, and I thank you."

My fever of destruction had entirely vanished now. I lived in a
condition of frightful disgust with myself, in an unspeakable horror
of my crime, of my murder. There was nothing left me but the hope, the
consolation, or the excuse that I had contracted my friend's disease,
and would die with him, and at the same time.

And what was to happen happened.

We were then in the month of October, precisely the sixth of October.
The autumn having remained mild and warm that year, the doctors had
counselled a prolongation of the patient's stay at the seaside, pending
the time when he could be taken to the south. All day long, on that
sixth of October, Monsieur Georges had been quieter. I had opened wide
the large bay-window in his room, and there, lying on his long chair,
beside the window, protected from the air by warm coverings, he had
breathed for at least four hours, and deliciously, the iodic emanations
from the offing. The life-giving sun, the good sea odors, the deserted
beach, now occupied again by the shell-fishermen, delighted him. Never
had I seen him gayer. And this gaiety on his emaciated face, where
the skin, growing thinner from week to week, covered the bones like a
transparent film, had something funereal about it, and so painful to
witness that several times I had to leave the room in order to weep
freely. He refused to let me read poetry to him. When I opened the
book, he said:

"No; you are my poem; you are all my poems, and far the most beautiful
of all."

He was forbidden to talk. The slightest conversation fatigued him, and
often brought on a fit of coughing. Moreover, he had hardly strength
enough to talk. What was left to him of life, of thought, of will to
express, of sensibility, was concentrated in his gaze, which had become
a glowing fireplace, in which the soul continually kindled a flame of
surprising and supernatural intensity. That evening, the evening of
the sixth of October, he seemed no longer to be suffering. Oh! I see
him still, stretched upon his bed, his head high upon his pillow, his
long thin hands playing tranquilly with the blue fringe of the curtain,
his lips smiling at me, and his eyes, which, in the shade of the bed,
shone and burned like a lamp, following all my goings and comings.

They had placed a couch in the room for me, a nurse's couch and--oh!
irony, in order doubtless to spare his modesty and mine--a screen
behind which I could, undress. But often I did not lie upon the
couch; Monsieur Georges wanted me always by his side. He was really
comfortable, really happy, only when I was near him.

After having slept two hours, almost peacefully, he awoke toward
midnight. He was a little feverish; the spots at the points of his
cheek-bones were a little redder. Seeing me sitting at the head of his
bed, my cheeks damp with tears, he said to me, in a tone of gentle
reproach:

"What, weeping again? You wish, then, to make me sad, and to give me
pain? Why do you not lie down? Come and lie down beside me."

I cried, shaken by sobs:

"Ah! Monsieur Georges, do you wish me, then, to kill you? Do you wish
me to suffer all my life from remorse at having killed you?"

All my life! I had already forgotten that I wanted to die with him, to
die of him, to die as he died.

"Monsieur Georges! Monsieur Georges! Have pity on me, I implore you!"

But his lips were on my lips. Death was on my lips.

"Be still!" he exclaimed, gasping. "I have never loved you so much as
to-night."

Suddenly his arms relaxed and fell back, inert, upon the bed; his lips
abandoned mine. And from his mouth, turned upward, there came a cry of
distress, and then a flow of hot blood that spattered my face. With a
bound I was out of bed. A mirror opposite revealed my image, red and
bloody. I was mad, and, running about the room in bewilderment, it was
my impulse to call for aid. But the instinct of self-preservation, the
fear of responsibilities, of the revelation of my crime, and I know not
what else that was cowardly and calculating, closed my mouth, and held
me back at the edge of the abyss over which my reason was tottering.
Very clearly and very speedily I realized that it would not do for any
one to enter the room in its present condition.

O human misery! There was something more spontaneous than my grief,
more powerful than my fear; it was my ignoble prudence and my base
calculations. In my terror I had the presence of mind to open the door
of the _salon_, and then the door of the ante-room, and listen. Not
a sound. Everybody in the house was asleep. Then I returned to the
bedside. I raised Georges's body, as light as a feather, in my arms. I
lifted up his head, maintaining it in an upright position in my hands.
The blood continued to flow from his mouth in pitchy filaments; I
heard his chest discharging itself through his throat, with the sound
of an emptying bottle. His eyes, turned up, showed nothing but their
reddish globes between the swollen eyelids.

"Georges! Georges! Georges!"

Georges did not answer these calls and cries. He did not hear them. He
heard nothing more of the cries and calls of earth.

"Georges! Georges! Georges!"

I let go his body; his body sank upon the bed. I let go his head; his
head fell back heavily upon the pillow. I placed my hand upon his
heart; his heart had ceased to beat.

"Georges! Georges! Georges!"

The horror of this silence, of these mute lips, of this corpse red
and motionless, and of myself, was too much for me. And, crushed with
grief, crushed with the frightfu

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