Octave Mirbeau Archive
Written: 1900.
Source: Text from RevoltLib.com.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Joseph started for Cherbourg yesterday morning, as had been agreed. On coming down stairs, I find him already gone. Marianne, half awake, with swollen eyes and hawking throat, is pumping water. The plate from which Joseph has just eaten his soup, and the empty cider-pitcher, are still on the kitchen table. I am anxious, and at the same time I am content, for I feel that, starting from to-day, a new life is at last preparing for me. The sun has scarcely risen; the air is cold. Beyond the garden the country is still sleeping under a curtain of fog, and in the distance, coming from an invisible valley, I hear the very feeble sound of a locomotive whistle. It is the train that bears Joseph and my destiny. I can eat no breakfast; it seems to me that something huge and heavy fills my stomach. I no longer hear the whistle. The fog is thickening; it has entered the garden.
And if Joseph were never to come back?
All day long I have been distracted, nervous, extremely agitated. Never did the house weigh more heavily upon me; never did the long corridors seem more dismal, more icily silent; never have I so much detested the crabbed face and shrill voice of Madame. Impossible to work. I have had with Madame a very violent scene, in consequence of which I really thought that I should be obliged to go. And I ask myself what I am going to do during these six days, without Joseph. I dread the ennui of being alone, at meals, with Marianne. I really need somebody to talk to.
As a rule, as soon as it comes night, Marianne, under the influence of drink, falls into a state of complete stupefaction. Her brain becomes torpid; her tongue becomes thick; her lips hang and shine like the worn brink of an old well; and she is sad, sad to the point of weeping. I can get nothing out of her but little plaints, little cries, something like the puling of a child. Nevertheless, last night, less drunk than usual, she confided to me, amid never-ending groans, that she is afraid she is in trouble. Well, that caps the climax! My first impulse is to laugh. But soon I feel a keen sorrow,—something like the cutting of a lash in the pit of my stomach. Suppose it were through Joseph? I remember that, on the day of my arrival here, I at once suspected them. But since then nothing has happened to justify this stupid suspicion. On the contrary. No, no, it is impossible. It cannot be. I ask:
“You are sure, Marianne?”
“Sure? No,” she says; “I am only afraid.”
“And through whom?”
She hesitates to answer; then, suddenly, with a sort of pride, she declares:
“Through Monsieur.”
This time I came near bursting with laughter. Marianne, mistaking my laugh for one of admiration, begins to laugh, too.
“Yes, yes, through Monsieur,” she repeats. “I am going to see Madame Gouin to-morrow.”
I feel a real pity for this poor woman whose brain is so dark and whose ideas are so obscure. Oh! how melancholy and lamentable she is! And what is going to happen to her now? An extraordinary thing,—love has given her no radiance, no grace. She has not that halo of light with which voluptuousness surrounds the ugliest faces. She has remained the same,—heavy, flabby, lumpy.
I left her with a somewhat heavy heart. Now I laugh no more; I will never laugh at Marianne again, and the pity that I feel for her turns into a real and almost painful emotion.
But I feel that my emotion especially concerns myself. On returning to my room, I am seized with a sort of shame and great discouragement. One should never reflect upon love. How sad love is at bottom! And what does it leave behind? Ridicule, bitterness, or nothing at all. What remains to me now of Monsieur Jean, whose photograph is on parade on the mantel, in its red plush frame? Nothing, except my disappointment at having loved a vain and heartless imbecile. Can I really have loved this insipid beauty, with his white and unhealthy face, his regulation black mutton-chops, and his hair parted down the middle? This photograph irritates me. I can no longer have continually before me those two stupid eyes that look at me with the unchangeable look of an insolent and servile flunky. Oh! no, let it go to keep company with the others, at the bottom of my trunk, pending the time when I shall make of my more and more detested past a fire of joy and ashes.
And I think of Joseph. Where is he at the present moment? What is he doing? Is he even thinking of me? Undoubtedly he is in the little café. He is looking, discussing, measuring; he is picturing to himself the effect that I shall produce at the bar, before the mirror, amid the dazzling of the glasses and the multi-colored bottles. I wish that I knew Cherbourg, its streets, its squares, its harbor, that I might represent Joseph to myself going and coming, conquering the city as he has conquered me. I turn and turn again in my bed, a little feverish. My thought goes from the forest of Raillon to Cherbourg, from the body of Claire to the little café. And, after a painful period of insomnia, I finally go off to sleep with the stern and severe image of Joseph before my eyes, the motionless image of Joseph outlining itself in the distance against a dark and choppy background, traversed by white masts and red yards.
To-day, Sunday, I paid a visit in the afternoon to Joseph’s room. The two dogs follow me eagerly. They seem to be asking me where Joseph is. A little iron bed, a large cupboard, a sort of low commode, a table, two chairs, all in white-wood, and a porte-manteau, which a green lustering curtain, running on a rod, protects from the dust,—these constitute the furnishings. Though the room is not luxurious, it is extremely orderly and clean. It has something of the rigidity and austerity of a monk’s cell in a convent. On the white-washed walls, between the portraits of Déroulède and General Mercier, holy pictures unframed,—Virgins, an Adoration of the Magi, a Massacre of the Innocents, a view of Paradise. Above the bed a large crucifix of dark wood, serving as a holy-water basin, and barred with a branch of consecrated box.
It is not very delicate, to be sure, but I could not resist my violent desire to search everywhere, in the hope, vague though it were, of discovering some of Joseph’s secrets. Nothing is mysterious in this room, nothing is hidden. It is the naked chamber of a man who has no secrets, whose life is pure, exempt from complications and events. The keys are in the furniture and in the cupboards; not a drawer is locked. On the table some packages of seeds and a book, “The Good Gardener.” On the mantel a prayer-book, whose pages are yellow, and a little note-book, in which have been copied various receipts for preparing encaustic, Bordelaise stew, and mixtures of nicotine and sulfate of iron. Not a letter anywhere; not even an account-book. Nowhere the slightest trace of any correspondence, either on business, politics, family matters, or love. In the commode, beside worn-out shoes and old hose-nozzles, piles of pamphlets, numerous numbers of the “Libre Parole.” Under the bed, mouse-traps and rat-traps. I have felt of everything, turned everything upside down, emptied everything,—coats, mattress, linen, and drawers. There is nothing else. In the cupboard nothing has been changed. It is just as I left it a week ago, when I put it in order in Joseph’s presence. Is it possible that Joseph has nothing? Is it possible that he is so lacking in those thousand little intimate and familiar things whereby a man reveals his tastes, his passions, his thoughts, a little of that which dominates his life? Ah! yes, here! From the back of the table-drawer I take a cigar-box, wrapped in paper and strongly tied with string running four times round. With great difficulty I untie the knots, I open the box, and on a bed of wadding I see five consecrated medals, a little silver crucifix, and a rosary of red beads. Always religion!
My search concluded, I leave the room, filled with nervous irritation at having found nothing of what I was searching for, and having learned nothing of what I wanted to know. Decidedly, Joseph communicates his impenetrability to everything that he touches. The articles that he possesses are as silent as his lips, as unfathomable as his eyes and brow. The rest of the day I have had before me, really before me, Joseph’s face, enigmatical, sneering, and crusty, by turns. And it has seemed to me that I could hear him saying to me:
“And much farther you have got, my awkward little one, in consequence of your curiosity. Ah! you can look again, you can search my linen, my trunks, my soul; you will never find anything out.”
I do not wish to think of all this any more; I do not wish to think of Joseph any more. My head aches too hard, and I believe that I should go mad. Let us return to my memories.
Scarcely had I left the good sisters of Neuilly, when I fell again into the hell of the employment-bureaus. And yet I had firmly resolved never to apply to them again. But, when one is on the pavements, without money enough to buy even a bit of bread, what is one to do? Friends, old comrades? Bah! They do not even answer you. Advertisements in the newspapers? They cost a great deal, and involve interminable correspondence,—a great lot of trouble for nothing. And besides, they are very risky. At any rate, one must have something ahead, and Cléclé’s twenty francs had quickly melted in my hands. Prostitution? Street-walking? To take men home with you who are often more destitute than yourself? Oh! no, indeed. For pleasure,—yes, as much as you like. But for money? I cannot; I do not know how; I am always victimized. I was even obliged to hang up some little jewels that I had, in order to pay for my board and lodging. Inevitably, hard luck brings you back to the agencies of usury and human exploitation.
Oh! the employment-bureaus, what dirty traps they are! In the first place, one must give ten sous to have her name entered; and then there is the risk of getting a bad place. In these frightful dens there is no lack of bad places; and, really, one has only the embarrassment of choice between one-eyed hussies and blind hussies. Nowadays, women with nothing at all, keepers of little fourpenny grocery stores, pretend to have servants and to play the role of countess. What a pity! If, after discussions, and humiliating examinations, and still more humiliating haggling, you succeed in coming to terms with one of these rapacious bourgeoises, you owe to the keeper of the employment-bureau three per cent. of your first year’s wages. So much the worse, if you remain but ten days in the place she has procured for you. That does not concern her; her account is good, and the entire commission is exacted. Oh! they know the trick; they know where they send you, and that you will come back to them soon. Once, for instance, I had seven places in four months and a half. A run on the black; impossible houses, worse than prisons. Well, I had to pay the employment-bureau three per cent. of seven years’ wages,—that is, including the ten sous required for each fresh entrance of my name, more than ninety francs. And nothing had been accomplished, and all had to be begun over again. Is that just, I want to know? Is it not abominable robbery?
Robbery? In whatever direction one turns, one sees nothing but robbery anywhere. Of course it is always those who have nothing who are the most robbed, and robbed by those who have all. But what is one to do? One rages and rebels, and then ends by concluding that it is better to be robbed than to die like a dog in the street. Oh! the world is arranged on a fine plan, that’s sure! What a pity it is that General Boulanger did not succeed! At least he, it seems, loved domestics.
The employment-bureau in which I was stupid enough to have my name entered is situated in the Rue du Colisée, at the back of a court-yard, on the third floor of a dark and very old house,—almost a house for working-people. At the very entrance the narrow and steep staircase, with its filthy steps that stick to your shoes and its damp banister that sticks to your hands, blows into your face an infected air, an odor of sinks and closets, and fills your heart with discouragement. I do not pretend to be fastidious, but the very sight of this staircase turns my stomach and cuts off my legs, and I am seized with a mad desire to run away. The hope which, on the way, has been singing in your head is at once silenced, stifled by this thick and sticky atmosphere, by these vile steps, and these sweating walls that seem to be frequented by glutinous larvæ and cold toads. Really, I do not understand how fine ladies dare to venture into this unhealthy hovel. Frankly, they are not disgusted. But what is there to-day that disgusts fine ladies? They would not go into such a house to help a poor person, but to worry a domestic they would go the devil knows where!
This bureau was run by Mme. Paulhat-Durand, a tall woman of almost forty-five years, who, underneath her very black and slightly wavy hair, and in spite of soft flesh crammed into a terrible corset, still preserved remnants of beauty, a majestic deportment,... and such an eye! My! but she must have had fun in her day! With her austere elegance, always wearing a black watered-silk dress, a long gold chain falling in loops over her prominent bosom, a brown velvet cravat around her neck, and with very pale hands, she seemed the perfection of dignity and even a little haughty. She lived, outside of marriage, with a city employee, M. Louis. We knew him only by his Christian name. He was a queer type, extremely near-sighted, with mincing movements, always silent, and presenting a very awkward appearance in a gray jacket that was too short for him. Sad, timid, bent, although young, he seemed, not happy, but resigned. He never dared to speak to us, or even to look at us, for the madame was very jealous. When he came in, with his bag of papers under his arm, he contented himself with slightly lifting his hat in our direction, without turning his head toward us, and, with a dragging step, glided into the hall, like a shadow. And how tired the poor fellow was! At night M. Louis attended to the correspondence, kept the books,... and did the rest.
Mme. Paulhat-Durand was named neither Paulhat or Durand; these two names, which go so well together, she acquired, it seems, from two gentlemen, dead to-day, with whom she had lived, and who had supplied her with funds to open her employment-bureau. Her real name was Josephine Carp. Like many keepers of employment-bureaus, she was an old chambermaid. That was to be seen, moreover, in her pretentious bearing, in her manners, modeled upon those of the great ladies in whose service she had been, and beneath which, in spite of her gold chain and black silk dress, one could see the filth of her inferior origin. She showed all the insolence of an old domestic, but she reserved this insolence for us exclusively, showing her customers, on the contrary, a servile obsequiousness, proportioned to their wealth and social rank.
“Oh! what a set of people, Madame the Countess,” said she, with an air of affectation. “Chambermaids de luxe,—that is, wenches who are unwilling to do anything, who do not work, and whose honesty and morality I do not guarantee,—as many of those as you want! But women who work, who sew, who know their trade,—there are no more of them; I have no more of them; nobody has any more of them. That’s the way it is.”
Yet her bureau was well patronized. She had the custom especially of the people in the Champs-Elysées quarter, consisting largely of foreigners and Jewesses. Ah! the scandals that I know about them!
The door opens into a hall leading to the salon, where Mme. Paulhat-Durand is enthroned in her perpetual black silk dress. At the left of the hall is a sort of dark hole, a vast ante-room with circular benches, and in the middle a table recovered with faded red serge. Nothing else. The ante-room is lighted only by a narrow strip of glass set in the upper part of the partition which separates the room from the employment-bureau, and running its entire length. A bad light, a light more gloomy than darkness, comes through this glass, coating objects and faces with something less than a twilight glimmer.
We came there every morning and every afternoon, heaps of us,—cooks and chambermaids, gardeners and valets, coachmen and butlers,—and we spent our time in telling each other of our misfortunes, in running down the masters, and in wishing for extraordinary, fairy-like, liberating places. Some brought books and newspapers, which they read passionately; others wrote letters. Now gay, now sad, our buzzing conversations were often interrupted by the sudden irruption of Mme. Paulhat-Durand, like a gust of wind.
“Be silent, young women,” she cried. “It is impossible to hear ourselves in the salon.”
Or else she called in a curt, shrill voice:
“Mademoiselle Jeanne!”
Mlle. Jeanne rose, arranged her hair a little, followed the madame into the bureau, from which she returned a few moments later, with a grimace of disdain upon her lips. Her recommendations had not been found sufficient. What did they require then? The Monthyon prize? A maiden’s diploma?
Or else they had been unable to agree upon wages.
“Oh! no, the mean things! A dirty dance hall ... nothing to pinch. She does her own marketing. Oh! la! la! Four children in the house! Think of it!”
The whole punctuated by furious or obscene gestures.
We all passed into the bureau by turns, summoned by Mme. Paulhat-Durand, whose voice grew shriller and shriller, and whose shining flesh at last became green with anger. For my part, I saw directly with whom I had to deal, and that the place did not suit me. Then, to amuse myself, instead of submitting to their stupid questions, I questioned the fine ladies themselves.
“Madame is married?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Ah! And Madame has children?”
“Certainly.”
“Dogs?”
“Yes.”
“Madame makes the chambermaid sit up?”
“When I go out in the evening ... evidently.”
“And Madame often goes out in the evening?”
Pursing up her lips, she was about to answer; but I, casting a contemptuous glance at her hat, her costume, and her entire person, said, in a curt and disdainful voice:
“I regret it, but Madame’s place does not please me. I do not go into houses like Madame’s.”
And I sailed out triumphantly.
One day a little woman, with hair outrageously dyed, with lips painted with minium, with enameled cheeks, as insolent as a guinea-hen, and perfumed like a bidet, after asking me thirty-six questions, put a thirty-seventh:
“Are you well behaved? Do you receive lovers?”
“And Madame?” I answered very quietly, showing no astonishment.
Some, less difficult to please, or more weary or more timid, accepted infected places. They were hooted.
“Bon voyage! We shall see you soon again.”
At the sight of us thus piled up on our benches, with legs spread apart, dreamy, stupid, or chattering, and listening to the successive calls of the madame: “Mademoiselle Victoire!... Mademoiselle Irène!... Mademoiselle Zulma!” it sometimes seemed to me as if we were in a public house, awaiting the next caller. That seemed to me funny or sad, I don’t know which; and one day I remarked upon it aloud. There was a general outburst of laughter. Each one immediately delivered herself of all the exact and marvelous information of which she was in possession concerning establishments of that character. A fat and puffy creature, who was peeling an orange, said:
“Surely that would be better. They are sure of a living in those places. And champagne, you know, young women; and chemises with silver stars; and no corsets!”
I remember that that day I thought of my sister Louise, undoubtedly shut up in one of those houses. I pictured to myself her life, possibly happy, at least tranquil, in any case exempt from the danger of poverty and hunger. And, more than ever disgusted with my dismal and beaten youth, with my wandering existence, with my dread of the morrow, I too dreamed:
“Yes, perhaps that would be better.”
And evening came, and then night,—a night hardly darker than the day. We became silent, fatigued from having talked too much, from having waited too long. A gas jet was lighted in the hall, and regularly, at five o’clock, through the glass in the door, we could see the slightly-bent outline of M. Louis passing very quickly, and then vanishing. It was the signal for our departure.
Often old women, runners for public houses, pimps with a respectable air, and quite like the good sisters in their honeyed sweetness, awaited us at the exit on the sidewalk. They followed us discreetly, and, in some darker corner of the street, behind the groups of trees in the Champs-Elysées, out of sight of the police, they approached us.
“Come, then, to my house, instead of dragging out your poor life from anxiety to anxiety, and from poverty to poverty. In my house you will find pleasure, luxury, money; you will find liberty.”
Dazzled by the marvelous promises, several of my little comrades listened to these love-brokers. With sadness I saw them start. Where are they now?
One evening one of these prowlers, fat and flabby, whom I had already brutally dismissed, succeeded in getting me to go with her to a café in the Rond-Point, where she offered me a glass of chartreuse. I see her still, with her hair turning gray, her severe costume of a bourgeoise widow, her plump and sticky hands, loaded with rings. She reeled off her story with more spirit and conviction than usual, and, as I remained indifferent to all her humbug inducements, she cried:
“Oh! if you only would, my little one. I do not need to look at you twice to see how beautiful you are in all respects. And it is a real crime to let such beauty go to waste, and be squandered in the company of house-servants. With your beauty, you would quickly make a fortune. Oh! you would have a bag of money in a very little time. You see, I have a wonderful set of customers,—old gentlemen, very influential, and very, very generous. All that is best in Paris comes to my house,—famous generals, powerful magistrates, foreign ambassadors.”
She drew nearer to me, lowering her voice.
“And if I were to tell you that the president of the republic himself ... why, yes, my little one! That gives you an idea of what my house is. There is not one like it in the world. Rabineau’s is nothing side of my house. And stay! yesterday at five o’clock the president was so well pleased that he promised me the academic palms ... for my son, who is chief auditor in a religious educational institution at Auteuil.”
She looked at me a long time, searching me body and soul, and repeated:
“Oh! if you would! What a success!”
I offered a heap of objections, my lack of fine linen, of costumes, of jewels. The old woman reassured me.
“Oh! if that’s all,” said she, “you need not worry, because in my house, you understand, natural beauty is the chief adornment.”
“Yes, yes, I know, but still....”
“I assure you that you need not worry,” she insisted, with benevolence. “Listen, sign a contract with me for three months, and I will give you an outfit of the best, such as no soubrette of the Théâtre-Français ever had. My word for it!”
I asked time to reflect.
“Well, all right! reflect,” counseled this dealer in human flesh. “Let me give you my address, at any rate. When your heart speaks,—well, you will have only to come. Oh! I am perfectly confident. And to-morrow I am going to announce you to the president of the republic.”
We had finished drinking. The old woman settled for the two glasses, and took from a little black pocket-book a card, which she slyly slipped into my hand. When she had gone, I looked at the card, and I read:
MADAME REBECCA RANVET
Millinery
At Mme. Paulhat-Durand’s I witnessed some extraordinary scenes. As I cannot describe them all, unfortunately, I select one to serve as an example of what goes on daily in this house.
I have said that the upper part of the partition separating the ante-room from the bureau consists of a strip of glass covered with transparent curtains. In the middle of the strip is a casement-window, ordinarily closed. One day I noticed that, by some oversight, of which I resolved to take advantage, it had been left partly open. Putting a small stool upon the bench, I stood upon it, and thus succeeded in touching with my chin the frame of the casement-window, which I softly pushed. I was thus enabled to look into the room, and here is what I saw.
A lady was seated in an arm-chair; a chambermaid was standing in front of her; in the corner Mme. Paulhat-Durand was distributing some cards among the compartments of a drawer. The lady had come from Fontainebleau in search of a servant. She may have been fifty years old. In appearance a rich and rough bourgeoise, dressed soberly, provincial in her austerity. The maid, puny and sickly, with a complexion that had been made livid by poor food and lack of food, had nevertheless a sympathetic face, which, under more fortunate circumstances, would perhaps have been pretty. She was very clean and trim in a black skirt. A black jersey molded her thin form, and on her head she wore a linen cap, prettily set back, revealing her brow and her curly brown hair.
After a detailed, sustained, offensive, aggressive examination, the lady at last made up her mind to speak.
“Then,” said she, “you offer yourself as ... what? As a chambermaid?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“You do not look like one. What is your name?”
“Jeanne Le Godec.”
“What did you say?”
“Jeanne Le Godec, Madame.”
The lady shrugged her shoulders.
“Jeanne,” she exclaimed. “That is not a servant’s name; that is a name for a young girl. If you enter my service, you do not expect, I suppose, to keep this name Jeanne?”
“As Madame likes.”
Jeanne had lowered her head, and was leaning with her two hands on the handle of her umbrella.
“Raise your head,” ordered the lady; “stand up straight. Don’t you see you are making a hole in the carpet with the point of your umbrella? Where do you come from?”
“From Saint-Brieuc.”
“From Saint-Brieuc!”
And she gave a pout of disdain that quickly turned into a frightful grimace. The corners of her mouth and eyes contracted, as if she had swallowed a glass of vinegar.
“From Saint-Brieuc!” she repeated. “Then you are a Breton? Oh! I do not like the Bretons. They are obstinate and dirty.”
“I am very clean, Madame,” protested the poor Jeanne.
“You say so. However, we haven’t reached that yet. How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Twenty-six? Not counting the nursing months, no doubt? You look much older. It is not worth while to deceive me.”
“I am not deceiving Madame. I assure Madame I am only twenty-six. If I look older, it is because I have been sick a long time.”
“Oh! you have been sick?” replied the bourgeoise, in a voice of sneering severity. “Oh! you have been sick a long time? I warn you, my girl, that the place, though not a very hard one, is of some importance, and that I must have a woman of very good health.”
Jeanne tried to repair her imprudent words. She declared:
“Oh! I am cured, quite cured.”
“That is your affair. Moreover, we haven’t reached that yet. You are married or single, which? What are you?”
“I am a widow, Madame.”
“Ah! You have no child, I suppose?”
And, as Jeanne did not answer directly, the lady insisted, more sharply:
“Say, have you children, yes or no?”
“I have a little girl,” she confessed, timidly.
Then, making grimaces and gestures as if she were scattering a lot of flies, she cried:
“Oh! no child in the house; no child in the house; not under any consideration. Where is your little girl?”
“She is with my husband’s aunt.”
“And what is this aunt?”
“She keeps a wine-shop in Rouen.”
“A deplorable calling. Drunkenness and debauchery,—that is a pretty example for a little girl! However, that concerns you, that is your affair. How old is your little girl?”
“Eighteen months, Madame.”
Madame gave a start, and turned violently in her arm-chair. This was too much for her; she was scandalized. A sort of growl escaped from her lips.
“Children! Think of it! Children, when one cannot bring them up, or have them at home! These people are incorrigible; the devil is in their bodies!”
Becoming more and more aggressive, and even ferocious, she addressed herself to Jeanne again, who stood trembling before her gaze.
“I warn you,” said she, enunciating each word separately, “I warn you that, if you enter my service, I will not allow you to bring your little girl to my house. No goings and comings in the house; I want no goings and comings in the house. No, no. No strangers, no vagabonds, no unknown people. One is exposed quite enough with the ordinary run of callers. Oh! no, thank you!”
In spite of this declaration, which was not very prepossessing, the little servant dared to ask, nevertheless:
“In that case, Madame surely will permit me to go and see my little girl, once a year,—just once a year!”
“No.”
Such was the reply of the implacable bourgeoise. And she added:
“My servants never go out. It is the principle of the house,—a principle on which I am not willing to compromise. I do not pay domestics that they may make the round of doubtful resorts, under pretense of going to see their daughters. That would be really too convenient. No, no. You have recommendations?”
“Yes, Madame.”
She drew from her pocket a paper in which were wrapped some recommendations, yellow, crumpled, and soiled; and she silently handed them to Madame, with a trembling hand. Madame, with the tips of her fingers, as if to avoid soiling them, and with grimaces of disgust, unfolded one, which she began to read aloud:
“‘I certify that the girl J’....”
Suddenly interrupting herself, she cast an atrocious look at Jeanne, who was growing more anxious and troubled.
“‘The girl’? It plainly says ‘girl.’ Then you are not married? You have a child, and you are not married? What does that mean?”
The servant explained.
“I ask Madame’s pardon. I have been married for three years, and this recommendation was written six years ago. Madame can see the date for herself.”
“Well, that is your affair.”
And she resumed her reading of the recommendation.
“... ‘that the girl Jeanne Le Godec has been in my service for thirteen months, and that I have no cause of complaint against her, on the score of work, behavior, and honesty.’ Yes, it is always the same thing. Recommendations that say nothing, that prove nothing. They give one no information. Where can one write to this lady?”
“She is dead.”
“She is dead. To be sure, evidently she is dead. So you have a recommendation, and the very person who gave it to you is dead. You will confess that has a somewhat doubtful look.”
All this was said with a very humiliating expression of suspicion, and in a tone of gross irony. She took another recommendation.
“And this person? She is dead, too, no doubt?”
“No, Madame. Mme. Robert is in Algeria with her husband, who is a colonel.”
“In Algeria!” exclaimed the lady. “Naturally. How do you expect anybody to write to Algeria? Some are dead, others are in Algeria. The idea of seeking information in Algeria! This is all very extraordinary.”
“But I have others, Madame,” implored the unfortunate Jeanne Le Godec. “Madame can see for herself. Madame can inform herself.”
“Yes, yes! I see you have many others. I see that you have been in many places,—much too many places. At your age, that is not very prepossessing! Well, leave me your recommendations, and I will see. Now something else. What can you do?”
“I can do housework, sew, wait on table.”
“Are you good at mending?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Do you know how to fatten poultry?”
“No, Madame. That is not my business.”
“Your business, my girl,” declared the lady, severely, “is to do what your masters tell you to do. You must have a detestable character.”
“Why, no, Madame. I am not at all inclined to talk back.”
“Naturally. You say so; they all say so; and they are not to be touched with a pair of tongs. Well, let me see, I believe I have already told you that the place, while not particularly hard, is of some importance. The servants rise at five o’clock.”
“In winter too?”
“In winter too. Yes, certainly. And why do you say: ‘In winter too’? Is there less work to be done in winter? What a ridiculous question!, The chambermaid does the stairs, the salon, Monsieur’s study, the chamber of course, and attends to all the fires. The cook does the ante-chamber, the halls, and the dining-room. I am very particular on the score of cleanliness. I cannot bear to see a speck of dust in the house. The door-knobs must be well polished, the furniture must shine, and the mirrors must be thoroughly cleaned. The chambermaid has charge of the poultry-yard.”
“But, Madame, I know nothing about poultry-yards.”
“Well, you will learn. The chambermaid soaps, washes, and irons, except Monsieur’s shirts; she does the sewing,—I have no sewing done outside, except the making of my costumes; she waits on table, helps the cook to wipe the dishes, and does the polishing. There must be order, perfect order. I am a stickler for order and cleanliness, and especially for honesty. Moreover, everything is under lock and key. If anything is wanted, I must be asked for it. I have a horror of waste. What are you accustomed to take in the morning?”
“Coffee with milk, Madame.”
“Coffee with milk? You do not stint yourself. Yes, in these days they all take coffee with milk. Well, that is not the custom in my house. You will take soup; it is better for the stomach. What did you say?”
Jeanne had said nothing. But it was evident she was making an effort to say something. At last she made up her mind.
“I ask Madame’s pardon, but what does Madame give us to drink?”
“Six quarts of cider a week.”
“I cannot drink cider, Madame. The doctor has forbidden me to.”
“Ah! the doctor has forbidden you to. Well, I will give you six quarts of cider. If you want wine, you will buy it. That concerns you. What pay do you expect?”
She hesitated, looked at the carpet, the clock, and the ceiling, rolled her umbrella in her hands, and said, timidly:
“Forty francs.”
“Forty francs!” exclaimed Madame. “Why don’t you say ten thousand francs, and done with it? You must be crazy. Forty francs! Why, it is unheard of! We used to pay fifteen francs, and got much better service. Forty francs! And you do not even know how to fatten poultry! You do not know how to do anything! I pay thirty francs, and I think that altogether too much. You have no expenses in my house. I am not exacting as to what you wear. And you are washed and fed. God knows how well you are fed! I give out the portions myself.”
Jeanne insisted:
“I have had forty francs in all the places where I have worked.”
But the lady had risen. And, in a dry and ugly voice, she exclaimed:
“Well, you had better go back to them. Forty francs! Such impudence! Here are your recommendations—your recommendations from dead people. Be off with you!”
Jeanne carefully wrapped up her recommendations, put them back into the pocket of her dress, and then said, imploringly, in a timid and sorrowful voice:
“If Madame will go as high as thirty-five francs, we could come to terms.”
“Not a sou. Be off with you! Go to Algeria to find again your Mme. Robert. Go where you like. There is no lack of vagabonds like you; there are heaps of them. Be off with you.”
With sad face and slow step Jeanne left the bureau, after curtsying twice. I saw from her eyes and lips that she was on the point of crying.
Left alone, the lady shouted furiously: “Ah! these domestics, what a plague! It is impossible to be served these days.”
To which Mme. Paulhat-Durand, who had finished sorting her cards, answered, majestic, crushed, and severe:
“I had warned you, Madame; they are all like that. They are unwilling to do anything, and expect to earn hundreds and thousands. I have nothing else to-day. All the others are worse. To-morrow I will try to find you something. Oh! it is very distressing, I assure you.”
I got down from my post of observation the very moment that Jeanne Le Godec was reentering the ante-room, amid an uproar.
“Well?” they asked her.
She went and sat down on her bench at the rear of the room, and there, with lowered head, folded arms, heavy heart, and empty stomach, she remained in silence, her two little feet twitching nervously under her gown.
But I saw things sadder still.
Among the girls who came daily to Mme. Paulhat-Durand’s I had noticed one especially, in the first place because she wore a Breton cap, and then because the very sight of her filled me with unconquerable melancholy. A peasant girl astray in Paris, in this frightful, jostling, feverish Paris,—I know nothing more lamentable. Involuntarily it invites me to a survey of my own past, and moves me infinitely. Where is she going? Where does she come from? Why did she leave her home? What madness, what tragedy, what tempest has pushed her forth, and stranded her, a sorrowful waif, in this roaring human sea? These questions I asked myself every day, as I examined this poor girl sitting in her corner, so frightfully isolated.
She was ugly with that definitive ugliness which excludes all idea of pity and makes people ferocious, because it is really an offense to them. However disgraced she may be by nature, a woman rarely reaches the point of total and absolute ugliness, utter degeneracy from the human estate. Generally she has something, no matter what,—eyes, a mouth, an undulation of the body, a bending of the hips, or less than that, a movement of the arms, a coupling of the wrist, a freshness of skin, upon which others may rest their eyes without being offended. Even in the very old a certain grace almost always survives the deformations of the body, the death of sex, and the seamy flesh betrays some souvenir of what they formerly were. The Breton had nothing of the kind, and she was very young. Little, long-waisted, angular, with flat hips, and legs so short that it seemed as if she really called to mind those barbarian virgins, those snub-nosed saints, shapeless blocks of granite that have been leaning for centuries, in loneliness, on the inclined arms of Armorican Calvaries. And her face? Ah! the unfortunate! An overhanging brow; pupils so dim in outline that they seemed to have been rubbed with a rag; a horrible nose, flat at the start, gashed with a furrow down the middle, and suddenly turning up at its tip, and opening into two black, round, deep, enormous holes, fringed with stiff hair. And over all this a gray and scaly skin,—the skin of a dead adder, a skin that, in the light, looked as if it had been sprinkled with flour. Yet the unspeakable creature had one beauty that many beautiful women would have envied,—her hair, magnificent, heavy, thick hair, of a resplendent red reflecting gold and purple. But, far from being a palliation of her ugliness, this hair only aggravated it, making it more striking, fulgurating, irreparable.
This is not all. Every movement that she made was clumsy. She could not take a step without running against something; everything she took into her hands she was sure to let fall; her arms hit against the furniture, and swept off everything that was lying on it. When walking, she stepped on your toes and dug her elbows into your breast; then she excused herself with a harsh and sullen voice, a voice that breathed into your face a tainted, corpse-like odor. As soon as she entered the ante-room there at once arose among us a sort of irritated complaint, which quickly changed into insulting recriminations and ended in growls. The wretched creature was hooted as she crossed the room, rolling along on her short legs, passed on from one to another like a ball, until she reached her bench at the end of the room. And every one pretended to draw away from her, with significant gestures of disgust, and grimaces that were accompanied with a lifting of handkerchiefs. Then, in the empty space instantaneously formed behind the sanitary cordon that isolated her from us, the dismal girl sat leaning against the wall, silent and detested, without a complaint, without revolt, without seeming to understand that all this contempt was meant for her.
Although, not to be unlike the others, I sometimes took part in this cruel sport, I could not help feeling a sort of pity for the little Breton. I understood that here was a being predestined to misfortune,—one of those beings who, whatever they may do and wherever they may go, will be eternally repulsed by men, and also by beasts,—for there is a certain height of ugliness, a certain form of infirmity, that the beasts themselves do not tolerate.
One day, overcoming my disgust, I approached her, and asked:
“What is your name?”
“Louise Randon.”
“I am a Breton ... from Audierne. And you, too, are a Breton, are you not?”
Astonished that anyone was willing to speak to her, and fearing some insult or practical joke, she did not answer directly. She buried her thumb in the deep caverns of her nose. I repeated my question.
“From what part of Brittany do you come?”
Then she looked at me, and, seeing undoubtedly that there was no unkindness in my eyes, she decided to answer:
“I am from Saint-Michel-en-Grève, near Lannion.”
I knew not what further to say to her. Her voice was repulsive to me. It was not a voice; it was something hoarse and broken, like a hiccup,—a sort of gurgle. This voice drove away my pity. However, I went on.
“You have relatives living?”
“Yes; my father, my mother, two brothers, four sisters. I am the oldest.”
“And your father? What does he do?”
“He is a blacksmith.”
“You are poor.”
“My father has three fields, three houses, three threshing-machines....”
“Then he is rich?”
“Surely he is rich. He cultivates his fields and rents his houses, and goes about the country with his threshing-machines and threshes the peasants’ wheat. And my brother shoes the horses.”
“And your sisters?”
“They have beautiful lace caps and embroidered gowns.”
“And you?”
“I have nothing.”
I drew further away, that I might not get the mortal odor of this voice.
“Why are you a domestic?” I resumed.
“Because....”
“Why did you leave home?”
“Because....”
“You were not happy?”
She spoke very quickly, in a voice that rushed and rolled the words out, like pebbles.
“My father whipped me; my mother whipped me; my sisters whipped me; everybody whipped me; they made me do everything. I brought up my sisters.”
“Why did they whip you?”
“I do not know; just to whip me. In all families there is some one who is whipped ... because ... well, one does not know.”
My questions no longer annoyed her. She was gaining confidence.
“And you?” she said to me, “did not your parents whip you?”
“Oh! yes.”
“Of course; that is how things are.”
Louise was no longer exploring her nose; her two hands, with their close-clipped nails, lay flat upon her thighs. Whispering was going on around us. Laughs, quarrels, and lamentations prevented the others from hearing our conversation.
“But how did you happen to come to Paris?” I asked, after a silence.
“Last year,” answered Louise, “there was a lady from Paris at Saint-Michel-en-Grève, who was taking the sea-baths with her children. She had discharged her domestic for stealing, and I offered to go to work for her. And so she took me with her to Paris, to take care of her father, an old invalid whose legs were paralyzed.”
“And you did not stay in your place? In Paris it is not the same thing.”
“No,” she exclaimed, energetically. “I could have remained; it was not that. But I was not treated right.”
Her dull eyes lighted up strangely. Something like a gleam of pride passed over them. And her body straightened up, and became almost transfigured.
“I was not treated right,” she repeated. “The old man made advances to me.”
For a moment I was stunned by this revelation. Was it possible? Then a desire, even that of a low and nasty old man, had been felt for this bundle of shapeless flesh, this monstrous irony of nature? A kiss had wished to place itself upon these decaying teeth and mingle with this rotten breath? Ah! what filthy things men are! What a frightful madness, then, is love! I looked at Louise. But the flame had gone out of her eyes. Once more her pupils looked like dead gray spots.
“That was some time ago?” I asked.
“Three months.”
“And since then you have found no place?”
“Nobody wants me. I do not know why. When I enter the bureau, all the ladies cry out at the sight of me: ‘No, no; I don’t want her.’ There must surely be some spell over me. For, you know, I am not ugly; I am very strong; I know my work; and my will is good. If I am too small, it is not my fault. Surely, some one has thrown a spell over me.”
“How do you live?”
“In a lodging-house. I do all the chambers, and I mend the linen. They give me a mattress in the garret, and a meal in the morning.”
There were some, then, that were more unfortunate than myself! This egoistic thought brought back the pity that had vanished from my heart.
“Listen, my little Louise,” I said, in a voice which I tried to make as tender and convincing as possible. “Places in Paris are very hard. One has to know many things, and the masters are more exacting than elsewhere. I am much afraid for you. If I were you, I would go home again.”
But Louise became frightened.
“No, no,” she exclaimed, “never! I do not want to go home. They would say that I had not succeeded, that nobody wanted me; they would laugh at me too much. No, no, it is impossible; I would rather die!”
Just then the door of the ante-room opened. The shrill voice of Mme. Paulhat-Durand called:
“Mademoiselle Louise Randon!”
“Are they calling me?” asked Louise, frightened and trembling.
“Why, yes, it is you. Go quickly, and try to succeed this time.”
She arose, gave me a dig in the ribs with her outstretched elbows, stepped on my feet, ran against the table, and, rolling along on her too short legs, disappeared, followed by hoots.
I mounted my stool, and pushed open the casement-window, to watch the scene that was about to take place. Never did Mme. Paulhat-Durand’s salon seem to me gloomier; yet God knows whether it had frozen my soul, every time I had entered it. Oh! that furniture upholstered in blue rep, turned yellow by wear; that huge book of record spread like the split carcass of a beast, on the table, also covered with blue rep spotted with ink. And that desk, where M. Louis’s elbows had left bright and shining spots on the dark wood. And the sideboard at the rear, upon which stood foreign glassware, and table-ware handed down from ancestors. And on the mantel, between two lamps which had lost their bronze, between photographs that had lost their color, that tiresome clock, whose enervating tic-tac made the hours longer. And that dome-shaped cage in which two homesick canaries swelled their damaged plumage. And that mahogany case of pigeon-holes, scratched by greedy nails. But I had not taken my post of observation for the purpose of taking an inventory of this room, which I knew, alas! too well,—this lugubrious interior, so tragic, in spite of its bourgeois obscurity, that many times my maddened imagination transformed it into a gloomy butcher-shop for the sale of human meat. No; I wanted to see Louise Randon, in the clutches of the slave-traders.
There she was, near the window, in a false light, standing motionless, with hanging arms. A hard shadow, like a thick veil, added confusion to the ugliness of her face, and made still more of a heap of the short and massive deformity of her body. A hard light illuminated the lower locks of her hair, enhanced the shapelessness of her arms and breast, and lost itself in the dark folds of her deplorable skirt. An old lady was examining her. She was sitting in a chair with her back toward me,—a hostile back, a ferocious neck. Of this old lady I saw nothing but her black cap, with its ridiculous plumes, her black cape, whose lining turned up at the bottom in gray fur, and her black gown, which made rings upon the carpet. I saw especially, lying upon one of her knees, her hand gloved with black floss-silk, a knotty and gouty hand that moved slowly about, the fingers stretching out and drawing back, clutching the material of her dress, as talons fasten upon living prey. Standing near the table, very erect and dignified, Mme. Paulhat-Durand was waiting.
It seems a small matter, does it not? the meeting of these three commonplace beings, in this commonplace setting. In this very ordinary fact there was nothing to cause one to stop, nothing to move one. Nevertheless it seemed to me an enormous drama, these three persons, silently gazing at one another. I felt that I was witnessing a social tragedy, terrible, agonizing, worse than a murder! My throat was dry. My heart beat violently.
“I do not get a good view of you, my little one,” said the old lady, suddenly. “Do not stay there; I do not get a good view of you. Go to the rear of the room, that I may see you better.”
And she cried, in an astonished voice:
“My God! how little you are!”
In saying these words, she had moved her chair, and now I had a sight of her profile. I expected to see a hooked nose, long teeth protruding from the mouth, and the round and yellow eye of a hawk. Not at all; her face was calm, rather amiable. In truth, there was no expression at all in her eyes, either kind or unkind. She must have been an old shop-keeper, retired from business. Merchants have this faculty of acquiring a special physiognomy, revealing nothing of their inner nature. In proportion as they grow hardened in their business, and as the habit of unjust and rapid gains develops low instincts and ferocious ambitions, the expression of their face softens, or, rather, becomes neutralized. That in them which is bad, that which might inspire distrust in their customers, hides itself in the privacies of their being, or takes refuge on corporeal surfaces that are ordinarily destitute of any expression whatever. In this old lady the hardness of her soul, invisible in her eyes, in her mouth, in her forehead, in all the relaxed muscles of her flabby face, was exhibited prominently in her neck. Her neck was her real face, and this face was terrible.
Louise, obeying the old lady’s command, had gone to the rear of the room. The desire to please gave her a really monstrous look and a discouraging attitude. Scarcely had she placed herself in the light, when the lady cried:
“Oh! how ugly you are, my little one!”
And calling Mme. Paulhat-Durand to witness:
“Can there really be creatures on earth as ugly as this little one?”
Ever solemn and dignified, Mme. Paulhat-Durand answered:
“Undoubtedly she is not a beauty, but Mademoiselle is very honest.”
“Possibly,” replied the lady. “But she is too ugly. Such ugliness is in the last degree disagreeable. What? What did you say?”
Louise had not uttered a word. She had simply blushed a little, and lowered her head. Her dull eyes were surrounded with a red streak. I thought she was going to cry.
“Well, let us look into this,” resumed the lady, whose fingers at this moment, furiously agitated, were tearing the material of her gown, with the movements of a cruel beast.
She questioned Louise regarding her family, her previous places, and her capacities for cooking, sewing, and doing housework. Louise answered, “Yes, indeed,” or “No, indeed,” hoarsely and spasmodically. The examination, fastidious, unkind, criminal, lasted twenty minutes.
“Well, my little one,” concluded the old lady, “the clearest thing about you is that you do not know how to do anything. I shall have to teach you everything. For four or five months you will be of no use to me. And besides, such ugliness is not prepossessing. That gash in your nose? Have you received a blow?”
“No, Madame, it has always been there.”
“Well, it is not very attractive. What pay do you expect?”
“Thirty francs, washing, and wine,” declared Louise, resolutely.
The old woman started.
“Thirty francs! Have you never, then, looked at yourself? It is senseless! What? Nobody wants you; nobody will ever want you. If I take you, it is because I am kind, it is because I really pity you. And you ask me thirty francs! Well, you have audacity, my little one. Undoubtedly your comrades have been giving you bad advice. You do wrong to listen to them.”
“Surely,” said Mme. Paulhat-Durand, approvingly. “When they get together, they get very big ideas.”
“Well,” offered the old lady, in a tone of conciliation, “I will give you fifteen francs. And you will pay for your wine. It is too much. But I do not wish to take advantage of your ugliness and distress.”
She softened. Her voice became almost caressing.
“You see, my little one, this is a unique opportunity, such as you will not find again. I am not like the others; I am alone, I have no family, I have no one. My servant is my family. And what do I ask of my servant? To love me a little, that is all. My servant lives with me, eats with me ... apart from the wine. Oh! I am indulgent to her. And then, when I die,—for I am very old and often sick,—when I die, surely I shall not forget the girl who has been devoted to me, served me well, and taken care of me. You are ugly, very ugly, too ugly. Well, I shall get used to your ugliness, to your face. There are some pretty women who are very ill-disposed, and who rob you beyond question. Ugliness is sometimes a guarantee of morality in the house. Of course, you will bring no men to my house? You see, I know how to do you justice. Under these conditions, and as kind as I am, what I offer you, my little one,—why, it is a fortune; better than a fortune, it is a family!”
Louise was shaken. Certainly, the old lady’s words caused unknown hopes to sing in her head. With her peasant’s rapacity, she had visions of strong-boxes filled with gold, and fabulous wills. And life in common, with this good mistress, the table shared, frequent trips to the squares and the suburban woods,—these things seemed marvelous to her. And they frightened her also, for doubts, an unconquerable and native mistrust, dimmed the brilliancy of these promises. She knew not what to say or do; she knew not what course to take. I felt a desire to cry out to her: “Do not accept.” For I could see this hermit-like life, the exhausting tasks, the bitter reproaches, the disputed food, and the stripped bones and spoiled meat thrown to her hunger, and the eternal, patient, torturing exploitation of a poor, defenseless being. “No, do not listen to her; go away!” But I repressed this cry, which was on my lips.
“Come a little nearer, my little one,” ordered the old lady. “One would think that you were afraid of me. Come, do not be afraid of me; come nearer. How curious it is! Already you seem less ugly. Already I am getting used to your face.”
Louise approached slowly, with stiffened members, trying hard not to run against the chairs and furniture, endeavoring to walk with elegance, the poor creature! But she had scarcely placed herself beside the old lady, when the latter repulsed her with a grimace.
“My God!” she cried, “what is the matter with you? Why do you smell so bad? Is your body rotten? It is frightful! It is incredible! Never did any one smell as you smell. Have you, then, a cancer in your nose, or perhaps in your stomach?”
Mme. Paulhat-Durand made a noble gesture.
“I had warned you, Madame,” she said. “That is her great fault. It is that which keeps her from finding a place.”
The old lady continued to groan.
“My God! My God! is it possible? Why, you will taint the whole house; you cannot stay near me. This changes the case entirely. And when I was beginning to feel sympathy for you! No, no; in spite of all my kindness, it is not possible, it is no longer possible!”
She had pulled out her handkerchief, and was trying to dissipate the putrid air, as she repeated:
“No, really, it is no longer possible!”
“Come, Madame,” intervened Mme. Paulhat-Durand, “make an effort. I am sure that this unhappy girl will always be grateful to you.”
“Grateful? That is all well enough. But gratitude will not cure her of this frightful infirmity. Well, so be it! But I can give her only ten francs. Ten francs, no more! She can take it or leave it.”
Louise, who had so far kept back her tears, was choking.
“No ... I will not ... I will not ... I will not.”
“Listen, Mademoiselle,” said Mme. Paulhat-Durand, dryly. “You will accept this place. If you don’t, I will not undertake to get another for you. You can go and ask for places at the other bureaus. I have had enough. And you are doing injury to my house.”
“It is evident,” insisted the old lady. “And you ought to thank me for these ten francs. It is out of pity, out of charity, that I offer them to you. How is it that you do not see that I am doing a good work, of which no doubt I shall repent, as I have repented of others?”
Then, addressing Mme. Paulhat-Durand, she added:
“What do you expect? I am so constituted. I cannot bear to see people suffer. In the presence of misfortune I become utterly stupid. And at my age one does not change, you know. Come, my little one, I take you with me.”
Just then a sudden cramp forced me to descend from my post of observation. I never saw Louise again.
The next day but one Mme. Paulhat-Durand had me ceremoniously ushered into the bureau, and, after having examined me in rather an embarrassing fashion, she said to me:
“Mademoiselle Célestine, I have a good place for you, a very good place. Only you have to go into the country,—oh! not very far.”
“Into the country? I do not go there, you know.”
She insisted.
“You do not know the country. There are excellent places in the country.”
“Oh! excellent places! What a humbug!” I said. “In the first place, there are no good places anywhere.”
Mme. Paulhat-Durand smiled amiably and affectedly. Never had I seen such a smile on her face.
“I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle Célestine, there are no bad places.”
“Indeed, I know it well. There are only bad masters.”
“No, only bad servants. See, I offer you all the best houses; it is not my fault, if you do not stay in them.”
She looked at me in a way that was almost friendly.
“Especially as you are very intelligent. You have a pretty face, a pretty figure, charming hands not at all ruined by work, and eyes that are not in your pockets. Good fortune might easily come to you. One does not know what good fortune could come to you ... with conduct.”
“With misconduct, you mean.”
“That depends on how you look at it. For my part, I call it conduct.”
She was melting. Little by little, her mask of dignity fell. I was now confronted simply with the former chambermaid, expert at all rascalities. Now she had the piggish eye, the fat and flabby movements, the sort of ritual lapping of the mouth characteristic of the procuress, and which I had observed on the lips of “Madame Rebecca Ranvet, Millinery.” She repeated:
“For my part, I call it conduct.”
“It! What?” I exclaimed.
“Come, Mademoiselle, you are not a beginner, and you are acquainted with life. One can talk with you. It is a question of a single gentleman, already old, not extremely far from Paris, and very rich,—yes, in fact, rich enough. You will keep his house,—something like a governess, do you understand? Such places are very delicate, much in demand, and highly profitable. This one offers a certain future for a woman like you, as intelligent as you are, as pretty as you are,—especially, I repeat, with conduct.”
This was my ambition. Many times I had built marvelous futures on an old man’s fancy, and now this paradise that I had dreamed of was before me, smiling, calling me. By an inexplicable irony of life, by an imbecile contradiction, the cause of which I cannot understand, I squarely refused this good fortune which I had wished for so many times, and which at last presented itself.
“An old rake! Oh! no! Besides, men are too disgusting to me,—the old, the young, all of them.”
For a few seconds Mme. Paulhat-Durand stood in amazement. She had not expected this sally. Resuming her severe and dignified air, which placed so great a distance between the correct bourgeoise that she wished to be and the bohemian girl that I am, she said:
“Ah! Mademoiselle, what do you think, then? What do you take me for? What are you imagining?”
“I imagine nothing. Only I repeat that I have had enough of men.”
“Do you really know of whom you are speaking? This gentleman, Mademoiselle, is a very respectable man. He is a member of the Society of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. He has been a royalist deputy.”
I burst out laughing.
“Yes, yes, of course. I know your Saint-Vincent-de-Pauls, and all the devil’s saints, and all the deputies. No, thank you!”
Then, suddenly, without transition, I asked:
“Just what is your old man? To be sure, one more or less will make no difference. It is not a matter of great consequence, after all.”
But Mme. Paulhat-Durand did not unbend. She declared, in a firm voice:
“It is useless, Mademoiselle. You are not the serious woman, the trusty person, that this gentleman needs. I thought you were more suitable. With you, one cannot be sure of anything.”
I insisted a long time, but she was inflexible. And I went back to the ante-room in a very uncertain state of mind. Oh! that ante-room, so sad and dark, always the same! These girls sprawling and crushed upon the benches, this market for human meat to tempt bourgeois voracity, this flux of filth and this reflux of poverty that bring you back there, mournful waifs, wreckage from the sea, eternally tossed hither and thither.
“What a queer type I am!” thought I. “I desire things ... things ... things ... when I think them unrealizable, and, so soon as they promise realization, so soon as they present themselves to me in clearer outline, I no longer want them.”
There was something of this, certainly, in my refusal; but there was also a childish desire to humiliate Mme. Paulhat-Durand a little, and to take a sort of vengeance upon her by catching the contemptuous and haughty creature in the very act of catering to lust.
I regretted this old man, who now exercised over me all the seductions of the unknown, all the charms of an inaccessible ideal. And I found pleasure in picturing him to my fancy,—a spruce old man, with soft hands, a pretty smile, a pink and shaven face, and gay, and generous, and good-natured, not so much a maniac as M. Rabour, allowing himself to be led by me, like a little dog.
“Come here. Come, come here.”
And he came, caressing, frisking about, with a kind and submissive look.
“Now sit up.”
And he sat up, in such a funny way, with his forepaws beating the air.
“Oh! the good bow-wow!”
I gave him sugar; I stroked his silky skin. He no longer disgusted me. And again I reflected:
“How stupid I am, all the same! A good doggy, a fine garden, a fine house, money, tranquility, an assured future,—to think that I have refused all these, and without knowing why. And never to know what I want, and never to will what I desire! At bottom I am afraid of man,—worse than that, I have a disgust for man,—when he is far away. When he is near me, I am capable of anything. I have no power of resistance save against things that are not to happen and men whom I shall never know. I really believe that I shall never be happy.”
The ante-room was oppressive to me. This obscurity, this dim light, these sprawling creatures, made my ideas more and more lugubrious. Something heavy and irremediable hovered over me. Without waiting for the bureau to close, I went away, with heavy heart and choking throat. On the stairs I met M. Louis. Clinging to the banister, he was ascending the steps, slowly and painfully. We looked at each other for a second. He did not say anything, and I too found no word; but our looks said all. Ah! he, as well as I, was not happy. I listened to him a moment, as he went up the steps; then I plunged down the stairway. Poor little wretch!
In the street I stood for a moment as if stunned. I looked about for love’s recruiting-agents, for the round back and black costume of “Mme. Rebecca Ranvet, Millinery.” Ah! if I had seen her, I would have gone to her, I would have delivered myself to her. But there was no such person there. The people passing were busy and indifferent, and paid no attention to my distress. Then I stopped at a wine-shop, where I bought a bottle of brandy, and, after strolling about for a while, still stupid and with heavy head, I went back to my hotel.
Toward evening, late, I heard a knock at my door. I lay stretched upon my bed, half naked, stupefied by drink.
“Who is there?” I cried.
“It is I.”
“Who are you?”
“The waiter.”
I rose, with my loosened hair falling from my shoulders, and opened the door.
“What do you want?”
The waiter smiled. He was a tall fellow with red hair, whom I had met several times on the stairs, and who always looked at me strangely.
“What do you want?” I repeated.
The waiter smiled again, apparently embarrassed, and, rolling in his fat fingers the bottom of his blue apron, covered with grease spots, he stammered:
“Mam’zelle ... I....”
He surveyed my person with a sort of dismal desire.
“Well, come in, you brute,” I cried, suddenly.
And pushing him into my room, I closed the door again, violently.
Oh! misery me!
The waiter was discharged. I never knew his name!
I should not like to leave the subject of Mme. Paulhat-Durand’s employment-bureau, without giving my recollection of a poor devil whom I met there. He was a gardener, who had been a widower for four months, and who was looking for a place. Among the many lamentable faces that passed through the bureau I saw none as sad as his, none that seemed to me more overwhelmed by life. His wife had died of a miscarriage ... of a miscarriage?... the night before the day when, after two months of poverty, they were at last to take positions on an estate,—he in charge of the garden, she in charge of the barn-yard. Whether from ill-luck, or from weariness and from disgust of life, he had found nothing since this great misfortune; he had not even looked for anything. And during this period of idleness his little savings had quickly melted away. Although he was very suspicious, I succeeded in taming him a little. I put into the form of an impersonal narrative the simple and poignant tragedy that he related to me one day when I, greatly moved by his misfortune, had shown more interest and pity than usual. Here it is.
When they had examined the gardens, the terraces, the conservatories, and the gardener’s house at the park entrance, sumptuously clothed with ivies, climbing plants, and wild vines, they came back slowly, without speaking to each other, their souls in anguish and suspense, toward the lawn where the countess was following with a loving gaze her three children, who, with their light hair, their bright trinkets, and their pink and prosperous flesh, were playing in the grass, under the care of the governess. At a distance of twenty steps they halted respectfully, the man with uncovered head and holding his cap in his hand, the woman, timid under her black straw hat, embarrassed in her dark woolen sack, and twisting the chain of a little leather bag, to give herself confidence. The undulating greensward of the park rolled away in the distance, between thick clusters of trees.
“Come nearer,” said the countess, in a voice of kind encouragement.
The man had a brown face, skin tanned by the sun, large knotty hands of the color of earth, the tips of the fingers deformed and polished by the continual handling of tools. The woman was a little pale, with a gray pallor underlying the freckles that besprinkled her face,—a little awkward, too, and very clean. She did not dare to lift her eyes to this fine lady, who was about to examine her inconsiderately, overwhelm her with torturing questions, and turn her inside out, body and soul, as others had done before. And she looked intently at the pretty picture of the three babies playing in the grass, already showing manners well under control and studied graces.
They advanced a few steps, slowly, and both of them, with a mechanical and simultaneous movement, folded their hands over their stomachs.
“Well,” asked the countess, “you have seen everything?”
“Madame the Countess is very good,” answered the man. “It is very grand and very beautiful. Oh! it is a superb estate. There must be plenty of work, indeed!”
“And I am very exacting, I warn you,—very just, but very exacting. I love to have everything perfectly kept. And flowers, flowers, flowers, always and everywhere. However, you have two assistants in summer, and one in winter. That is sufficient.”
“Oh!” replied the man, “the work does not worry me; the more there is, the better I like it. I love my calling, and I know it thoroughly,—trees, early vegetables, mosaics, and everything. As for flowers, with good arms, taste, water, good straw coverings, and—saving your presence, Madame the Countess—an abundance of manure, one can have as many as one wants.”
After a pause, he continued:
“My wife, too, is very active, very skillful, and a good manager. She does not look strong, but she is courageous, and never sick, and nobody understands animals as she does. In the place where we last worked there were three cows and two hundred hens.”
The countess nodded approvingly.
“How do you like your lodge?”
“The lodge, too, is very fine. It is almost too grand for little people like us, and we have not enough furniture for it. But one need not occupy the whole of it. And besides, it is far from the château, and it ought to be. Masters do not like to have the gardeners too near them. And we, on the other hand, are afraid of being embarrassed. Here each is by himself. That is better for all. Only....”
The man hesitated, seized with a sudden timidity, in view of what he had to say.
“Only what?” asked the countess, after a silence that increased the man’s embarrassment.
The latter gripped his cap more tightly, turned it in his fat fingers, rested more heavily on the ground, and, making a bold plunge, exclaimed:
“Well, it is this. I wanted to say to Madame the Countess that the wages do not correspond with the place. They are too low. With the best will in the world it would be impossible to make ends meet. Madame the Countess ought to give a little more.”
“You forget, my friend, that you are lodged, heated, lighted; that you have vegetables and fruits; that I give a dozen eggs a week and a quart of milk a day. It is enormous.”
“Ah, Madame the Countess gives milk and eggs? And she furnishes light?”
And he looked at his wife as if to ask her advice, at the same time murmuring:
“Indeed, that is something! One cannot deny it. That is not bad.”
The woman stammered:
“Surely that helps out a little.”
Then, trembling and embarrassed:
“Madame the Countess no doubt gives presents also in the month of January and on Saint Fiacre’s day?”
“No, nothing.”
“It is the custom, however.”
“It is not mine.”
In his turn the man asked:
“And for the weasels and pole-cats?”
“No, nothing for those either; you can have the skins.”
This was said in a dry, decisive tone, that forbade further discussion. And suddenly:
“Ah! I warn you, once for all, that I forbid the gardener to sell or give vegetables to any one whomsoever. I know very well that it is necessary to raise too many in order to have enough, and that three-fourths of them are wasted. So much the worse! I intend to allow them to be wasted.”
“Of course, the same as everywhere else!”
“So it is agreed? How long have you been married?”
“Six years,” answered the woman.
“You have no children?”
“We had a little girl. She is dead.”
“Ah! that is well; that is very well,” approved the countess, in an indifferent tone. “But you are both young; you may have others yet.”
“They are hardly to be desired, Madame the Countess, but they are more easily obtained than an income of three hundred francs.”
The countess’s eyes took on a severe expression.
“I must further warn you that I will have no children on the premises, absolutely none. If you were to have another child, I should be obliged to discharge you at once. Oh! no children! They cry, they are in the way, they ruin everything, they frighten the horses and spread diseases. No, no, not for anything in the world would I tolerate a child on my premises. So you are warned. Govern yourselves accordingly; take your precautions.”
Just then one of the children, who had fallen, came, crying, to take refuge in his mother’s gown. She took him in her arms, lulled him with soothing words, caressed him, kissed him tenderly, and sent him back to rejoin the two others, pacified and smiling. The woman suddenly felt her heart growing heavy. She thought that she would not be able to keep back her tears. Joy, tenderness, love, motherhood, then, were for the rich only? The children had begun to play again on the lawn. She hated them with a savage hatred; she felt a desire to insult them, to beat them, to kill them; to insult and kill also this insolent and cruel woman, this egoistic mother, who had just uttered abominable words, words that condemned not to be born the future humanity that lay sleeping in her womb. But she restrained herself, and said simply, in response to a new warning, more imperative than the other:
“We will be careful, Madame the Countess; we will try.”
“That’s right; for I cannot too often repeat it to you,—this is a principle here, a principle upon which I cannot compromise.”
And she added, with an inflection in her voice that was almost caressing:
“Moreover, believe me, when one is not rich, it is better to have no children.”
The man, to please his future mistress, said, by way of conclusion:
“Surely, surely. Madame the Countess speaks truly.”
But there was hatred within him. The somber and fierce gleam that passed over his eyes like a flash gave the lie to the forced servility of these last words. The countess did not see this murderous gleam, for she had fixed her eyes instinctively on the person of the woman whom she had just condemned to sterility or infanticide.
The bargain was quickly concluded. She gave her orders, detailed minutely the services that she expected of her new gardeners, and, as she dismissed them with a haughty smile, she said, in a tone that admitted of no reply:
“I think that you have religious sentiments, do you not? Here everybody goes to mass on Sunday, and receives the sacrament at Easter. I insist upon it absolutely.”
They went away without speaking to each other, very serious, very sober. The road was dusty and the heat oppressive, and the poor woman walked painfully, dragging her legs after her. As she was stifling a little, she stopped, placed her bag upon the ground, and unlaced her corsets.
“Ouf!” she exclaimed, taking in deep breaths of air.
And her figure, which had been long compressed, now swelled out, revealing the characteristic roundness, the stain of motherhood, the crime. They continued on their way.
A few steps further on they entered an inn by the roadside, and ordered a quart of wine.
“Why didn’t you say I was pregnant?” asked the woman.
The man answered:
“What? That she might show us the door, as the three others have done?”
“To-day or to-morrow makes but little difference.”
Then the man murmured between his teeth:
“If you were a woman,—well, you would go this very evening to Mother Hurlot. She has herbs.”
But the woman began to weep. And in her tears she groaned:
“Don’t say that; don’t say that! That brings bad luck.”
The man pounded the table, and cried:
“Must we, then, die, my God!”
The bad luck came. Four days later the woman had a miscarriage ... a miscarriage?... and died in the frightful pains of peritonitis.
And, when the man had finished his story, he said to me:
“So now here I am, all alone. No wife, no child, nothing. I really thought of revenging myself; yes, for a long time I thought of killing those three children that were playing on the lawn, although I am not wicked, I assure you. But that woman’s three children, I swear to you, I could have strangled with joy, with real joy! Oh! yes. But then, I did not dare. What do you expect? We are afraid; we are cowards; we have courage only to suffer!”