Octave Mirbeau Archive
Written: 1900.
Source: Text from RevoltLib.com.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Joseph puzzles me. His ways are really mysterious, and I do not know what goes on in this silent and furious soul. But surely something extraordinary. His look sometimes is difficult to endure,—so difficult that mine avoids its intimidating fixity. He has a slow and gliding gait, that frightens me. One would say that he was dragging a ball riveted to his ankle, or, rather, the recollection of a ball. Is this a relic of a prison or of a convent? Both, perhaps. His back, too, frightens me, and also his large, powerful neck, tanned by the sun till it looks like old leather, and stiffened with sinews that stretch and strain like ropes. I have noticed on the back of his neck a collection of hard muscles that stand out in an exaggerated fashion, like those of wolves and wild beasts which have to carry heavy prey in their jaws.
Apart from his anti-Semitic craze, which indicates in Joseph a great violence and a thirst for blood, he is rather reserved concerning all matters. It is even impossible to know what he thinks. He has none of the swagger, and none of the professional humility, by which true domestics are to be recognized. Never a word of complaint, never the slightest disparagement of his masters. He respects his masters, without servility, and seems to be devoted to them, without ostentation. He does not sulk at his work, even when it is most repulsive. He is ingenious; he knows how to do everything, even the most difficult and different things, not a part of his regular work. He treats the Priory as if it were his own, watches it, guards it jealously, defends it. He drives away the poor, the vagrant, and the unfortunate, sniffing and threatening like a bull-dog. He is a type of the old-time servant, of the domestic of the days before the revolution. Of Joseph they say in the neighborhood: “There is nobody like him. A pearl!” I know that they try to get him away from the Lanlaires. From Louviers, from Elbeuf, from Rouen, he receives the most flattering offers. He refuses them, and does not boast of having refused them. Oh, no, indeed! He has been here for fifteen years, and he considers this house as his own. As long as they want him, he will stay. Madame, suspicious as she is, and seeing evil everywhere, places a blind confidence in him. She, who believes in nobody, believes in Joseph, in Joseph’s honesty, in Joseph’s devotion.
“A pearl! He would throw himself into the fire for us,” she says.
And, in spite of her avarice, she overwhelms him with petty generosities and little gifts.
Nevertheless, I distrust this man. He disturbs me, and at the same time he interests me prodigiously. Often I have seen frightful things passing in the troubled water, in the dead water of his eyes. Since I have been observing him, I have changed the opinion that I formed of him when I first entered this house,—the opinion that he is a gross, stupid, and clumsy peasant. I ought to have examined him more attentively. Now I think him singularly shrewd and crafty, and even better than shrewd, worse than clever; I know not how to express myself concerning him. And then—is it because I am in the habit of seeing him every day?—I no longer find him so ugly or so old. Habit, like a fog, tends to palliate things and beings. Little by little it obscures the features of a face and rubs down deformities; if you live with a humpback day in and day out, after a time he loses his hump. But there is something else; I am discovering something new and profound in Joseph, which upsets me. It is not harmony of features or purity of lines that makes a man beautiful to a woman. It is something less apparent, less defined, a sort of affinity, and, if I dare say so, a sort of sexual atmosphere, pungent, terrible, or intoxicating, to the haunting influence of which certain women are susceptible, even in spite of themselves. Well, such an atmosphere emanates from Joseph. The other day I admired him as he was lifting a cask of wine. He played with it like a child with its rubber ball. His exceptional strength, his supple skill, the terrible leverage of his loins, the athletic push of his shoulders, all combined to make me dreamy. The strange and unhealthy curiosity, prompted by fear as much as by attraction, which is excited in me by the riddle of these suspicious manners, of this closed mouth, of this impressing look, is doubled by this muscular power, this bull’s back. Without being able to explain it to myself further, I feel that there is a secret correspondence between Joseph and me,—a physical and moral tie that is becoming a little more binding every day.
From the window of the linen-room where I work, I sometimes follow him with my eyes in the garden. There he is, bending over his work, his face almost touching the ground, or else kneeling against the wall where the espaliers stand in line. And suddenly he disappears, he vanishes. Lower your head, and, before you can raise it again, he is gone. Does he bury himself in the ground? Does he pass through the walls? From time to time I have occasion to go to the garden to give him an order from Madame. I do not see him anywhere, and I call him:
“Joseph! Joseph! where are you?”
Suddenly, without a sound, Joseph arises before me, from behind a tree, from behind a vegetable-bed. He rises before me in the sunlight, with his severe and impenetrable mask, his hair glued to his skull, and his open shirt revealing his hairy chest. Where does he come from? From what hole does he spring? From what height has he fallen?
“Oh! Joseph, how you frightened me!”
And over Joseph’s lips, and in his eyes, there plays a terrifying smile, which really has the swift, short flashes of a knife. I believe that this man is the devil.
The murder of the little Claire continues to be the all-absorbing topic, and to excite the curiosity of the town. They fight for the local and Paris newspapers that give the news. The “Libre Parole” accuses the Jews squarely and by wholesale, and declares that it was a “ritual murder.” The magistrates have visited the spot, made inquiries and examinations, and questioned many people. Nobody knows a thing. Rose’s charge, which has been circulating, has been met everywhere with an incredulous shrug of the shoulders. Yesterday the police arrested a poor peddler, who had no trouble in proving that he was not in the vicinity at the time of the crime. The father, to whom public rumor pointed, has been exonerated. Moreover, he bears an excellent reputation. So nowhere is there any clue to put justice on the track of the guilty. It seems that this crime excites the admiration of the magistrates, and was committed with a surprising skill,—undoubtedly by professionals, by Parisians. It seems also that the prosecuting attorney is pushing the affair in a very tame fashion and for the sake of form. The murder of a poor little girl is not a very interesting matter. So there is every reason to believe that no clue will ever be found, and that the case will soon be pigeon-holed, like so many others that have not told their secret.
I should not wonder if Madame believed her husband guilty. That is really comical, and she ought to know him better. She has behaved very queerly ever since the news. She has ways of looking at Monsieur that are not natural. I have noticed that during meals, whenever the bell rings, she gives a little start.
After breakfast to-day, as Monsieur manifested an intention of going out, she prevented him.
“Really, you may as well remain here. Why do you need to be always going out?”
She even walked with Monsieur for a full hour in the garden. Naturally Monsieur perceives nothing; he does not lose a mouthful of food or a puff of tobacco-smoke. What a stupid blockhead!
I had a great desire to know what they could be saying to each other when they were alone,—the two of them. Last night, for more than twenty minutes, I listened at the door of the salon. I heard Monsieur crumpling a newspaper. Madame, seated at her little desk, was casting up her accounts.
“What did I give you yesterday?” Madame asked.
“Two francs,” answered Monsieur.
“You are sure?”
“Why, yes, my pet.”
“Well, I am short thirty-eight sous.”
“It was not I who took them.”
“No, it was the cat.”
Of the other matter they said not a word.
In the kitchen Joseph does not like to have us talk about the little Claire. When Marianne or I broach the subject, he immediately changes it, or else takes no part in the conversation. It annoys him. I do not know why, but the idea has come to me—and it is burying itself deeper and deeper in my mind—that it was Joseph who did it. I have no proofs, no clues to warrant my suspicion,—no other clues than his eyes, no other proofs than the slight movement of surprise that escaped him when, on my return from the grocer’s, I suddenly, in the harness-room, threw in his face for the first time the name of the little Claire murdered and outraged. And yet this purely intuitive suspicion has grown, first into a possibility, and then into a certainty. Undoubtedly I am mistaken. I try to convince myself that Joseph is a “pearl.” I say to myself over and over again that my imagination takes mad flights, obedient to the influence of the romantic perversity that is in me. But all in vain; the impression remains, in spite of myself, never leaves me for a moment, and is assuming the tormenting and grimacing form of a fixed idea. And I have an irresistible desire to ask Joseph:
“Say, Joseph, was it you who outraged the little Claire in the woods? Was it you, old pig?”
The crime was committed on a Saturday. I remember that Joseph, at about that date, went to the forest of Raillon to get some heath mold. He was absent all day, and did not return to the Priory with his load till late in the evening. Of that I am sure. And—an extraordinary coincidence—I remember certain restless movements, certain troubled looks, that he had that evening, when he came back. I took no notice of them then. Why should I have done so? But to-day these facial details come back to me forcibly. But was it on the Saturday of the crime that Joseph went to the forest of Raillon? I seek in vain to fix the date of his absence. And then, had he really the restless movements, the accusing looks, that I attribute to him, and which denounce him to me? Is it not I who am bent upon suggesting to myself the unusual strangeness of those movements and those looks? Am I not determined, without reason and against all probability, that it shall be Joseph—a pearl—who did it? It irritates me, and at the same time confirms me in my apprehensions, that I cannot reconstruct before my eyes the tragedy of the forest. If only the judicial examination had revealed fresh tracks of a cart on the dead leaves and on the heather in the neighborhood? But no; the examination revealed nothing of the kind; it revealed the outrage and murder of a little girl, and that is all. Well, it is precisely that which so excites me. This cleverness of the assassin in leaving not the slightest trace of his crime behind him, this diabolical invisibility,—I feel in it and see in it the presence of Joseph. Enervated, I make bold suddenly, after a silence, to ask him this question:
“Joseph, what day was it that you went to the forest of Raillon to get heath mold? Do you remember?”
Without haste, without a start, Joseph puts down the newspaper that he was reading. Now his soul is steeled against surprises.
“Why do you ask?” he says.
“Because I want to know.”
Joseph looks at me with his heavy, searching gaze. Then, without affectation, he seems to be ransacking his memory in search of recollections that are already old. And he answers:
“Indeed, I do not remember exactly; I think, though, that it was on a Saturday.”
“The Saturday when the body of the little Claire was found in the woods?” I go on, giving to this inquiry, too quickly uttered, an aggressive tone.
Joseph does not take his eyes from mine. His look has become so sharp and so terrible that, in spite of my customary effrontery, I am obliged to turn away my head.
“Possibly,” he says again; “indeed, I really think that it was that Saturday.”
And he adds:
“Oh! these confounded women! You would do much better to think of something else. If you read the newspaper, you would see that they have been killing Jews again in Algeria. That at least is something worth while.”
Apart from his look, he is calm, natural, almost good-natured. His gestures are easy; his voice no longer trembles. I become silent, and Joseph, picking up the newspaper that he had laid on the table, begins to read again, in the most tranquil fashion in the world.
For my part, I have begun to dream again. Now that I am about it, I should like to find in Joseph’s life some act of real ferocity. His hatred of the Jews, his continual threats to torture, kill, and burn them,—all this, perhaps, is nothing but swagger, and political swagger at that. I am looking for something more precise and formal, some unmistakable evidence of Joseph’s criminal temperament. And I find nothing but vague and moral impressions, hypotheses to which my desire or my fear that they may be undeniable realities gives an importance and a significance which undoubtedly they do not possess. My desire or my fear? I do not know which of these two sentiments it is that moves me.
But yes. Here is a fact, a real fact, a horrible fact, a revealing fact. I do not invent it; I do not exaggerate it; I did not dream it; it is exactly as I state it. It is one of Joseph’s duties to kill the chickens, rabbits, and ducks. He kills the ducks by the old Norman method of burying a pin in their head. He could kill them with a blow, without giving them pain. But he loves to prolong their suffering by skillful refinements of torture. He loves to feel their flesh quiver and their heart beat in his hands; he loves to follow, to count, to hold in his hands, their suffering, their convulsions, their death. Once I saw Joseph kill a duck. He held it between his knees. With one hand he grasped it by the neck, with the other he buried a pin in its head; and then he turned and turned the pin in the head, with a slow and regular movement. One would have thought he was grinding coffee. And, as he turned the pin, Joseph said, with savage joy:
“It is necessary to make it suffer. The more it suffers, the better its blood will taste.”
The animal had freed its wings from Joseph’s knees; they were beating, beating. Its neck, in spite of Joseph’s grasp, twisted into a frightful spiral, and beneath its feathers its flesh heaved. Then Joseph threw the animal upon the stone floor of the kitchen, and, with elbows on his knees and chin in his joined palms, he began to follow, with a look of hideous satisfaction, its bounds, its convulsions, the mad scratching of its yellow claws upon the floor.
“Stop then, Joseph,” I cried. “Kill it at once; it is horrible to make animals suffer.”
And Joseph answered:
“That amuses me. I like to see that.”
I recall this memory; I evoke all its sinister details; I hear all the words that were spoken. And I have a desire, a still more violent desire, to cry to Joseph:
“It was you who outraged the little Claire in the woods. Yes, yes; I am sure of it now; it was you, you, you, old pig.”
There is no longer any doubt of it; Joseph must be a tremendous scoundrel. And this opinion that I have of his moral personality, instead of driving me from him, far from placing a wall of horror between us, causes me, not to love him perhaps, but to take an enormous interest in him. It is queer, but I have always had a weakness for scoundrels. There is something unexpected about them that lashes the blood,—a special odor that intoxicates you,—something strong and bitter that attracts you sexually. However infamous scoundrels may be, they are never as infamous as the respectable people. What annoys me about Joseph is that he has the reputation, and, to one who does not know his eyes, the manners, of an honest man. I should like him better if he were a frank and impudent scoundrel. It is true that he would lose that halo of mystery, that prestige of the unknown, which moves and troubles and attracts me—yes, really, attracts me—toward this old monster.
Now I am calmer, because I am certain, and because nothing henceforth can remove the certainty from my mind, that it was he who outraged the little Claire in the woods.
For some time I have noticed that I have made a considerable impression upon Joseph’s heart. His bad reception of me is at an end; his silence toward me is no longer hostile or contemptuous, and there is something approaching tenderness in his nudges. His looks have no more hatred in them,—did they ever have any, however?—and, if they are still so terrible at times, it is because he is seeking to know me better, always better, and wishes to try me. Like most peasants, he is extremely distrustful, and avoids trusting himself to others, for he thinks that they are planning to “take him in.” He must be in possession of numerous secrets, but he hides them jealously, under a severe, scowling, and brutal mask, as one locks treasures in a strong-box equipped with solid bars and mysterious bolts. However, his distrust of me is lessening. He is charming toward me, in his way. He does all that he can to show his friendship for me, and to please me. He relieves me of my most painful duties; takes upon himself the heavy work that is given me to do; and all without roguishness, without any underlying gallantry, without seeking to provoke my gratitude, without trying to get any profit from it whatsoever. On my side, I keep his affairs in order, mend his stockings and his pantaloons, patch his shirts, and arrange his closet with much more care and coquetry than I do Madame’s. And he says to me, with a look of satisfaction:
“That is very well, Célestine. You are a good woman,—an orderly woman. Order, you see, means fortune. And, when one is pretty besides,—when one is a beautiful woman, there is nothing better.”
Hitherto we have talked together only for brief moments. At night, in the kitchen, with Marianne, the conversation has to be general. No intimacy is permissible between us two. And, when I see him alone, nothing is more difficult than to make him talk. He refuses all long conversations, fearing, undoubtedly, to compromise himself. A word here, a word there, amiable or crusty, and that is all. But his eyes speak, though his lips are silent. And they prowl around me, and they envelop me, and they descend into me, into my very depths, in order to turn my soul inside out and see what is in it.
For the first time we had a long talk yesterday. It was at night. The masters had gone to bed; Marianne had gone to her room earlier than usual. Not feeling disposed to read or write, it was tiresome for me to remain alone. Still obsessed by the image of the little Claire, I went to find Joseph in the harness-room, where, seated at a little white-wood table, he was sorting seeds by the light of a dark lantern. His friend, the sacristan, was there, standing near him, holding under his two arms packages of little pamphlets, red, green, blue, tricolor. With big round eyes surpassing the arch of the eyebrows, flattened skull, and wrinkled, yellow, and cross-grained skin, he looked like a toad. He had also the bounding heaviness of a toad. Under the table the two dogs, rolled into a ball, were sleeping, with their heads buried in their shaggy skins.
“Ah! it is you, Célestine?” exclaimed Joseph.
The sacristan tried to hide his pamphlets, but Joseph reassured him.
“We can talk before Mademoiselle. She is an orderly woman.”
And he gave him directions.
“So, old man, it is understood, isn’t it? At Bazoches, at Courtain, at Fleur-sur-Tille. And let them be distributed to-morrow, in the day-time. And try to get subscriptions. And let me tell you again; go everywhere, into all the houses,—even the houses of republicans. Perhaps they will show you the door, but that makes no difference. Keep right on. If you win one of these dirty pigs, it is always so much gained. And then, remember that you get five francs for every republican.”
The sacristan nodded his head approvingly. Having tucked the pamphlets under his arms, he started off, Joseph accompanying him as far as the iron fence. When the latter returned, he noticed my curious face, my inquisitive eyes.
“Yes,” he said, carelessly, “some songs, and some pictures, and some pamphlets against the Jews, which are being distributed for propagandism. I have made an arrangement with the priests; I work for them. It is in the line of my own ideas, surely; but I must say also that I am well paid.”
He sat down again at the little table where he was sorting his seeds. The two dogs, awakened, took a turn about the room, and went to lie down again farther off.
“Yes, yes,” he repeated, “I get good pay. Oh! the priests have money enough.”
And, as if fearing that he had said too much, he added:
“I tell you this, Célestine, because you are a good woman and an orderly woman, and because I have confidence in you. It is between ourselves, you know.”
After a silence:
“What a good idea it was of yours to come out here to-night!” he thanked me; “it is very nice of you; it flatters me.”
Never had I seen him so amiable, so talkative. I bent over the little table very near him, and, stirring the sorted seeds in the plate, I answered coquettishly:
“It is true, too; you went away directly after dinner; we had no time to gossip. Shall I help you sort your seeds?”
“Thank you, Célestine, I have finished.”
He scratched his head.
“Sacristi!” he exclaimed, with annoyance, “I ought to go and see to my garden-frames. The field-mice do not leave me a salad, the vermin! But then, no, indeed, I must talk with you, Célestine.”
Joseph rose, closed the door, which had been left half open, and led me to the back of the harness-room. For a minute I was frightened. The little Claire, whom I had forgotten, appeared before my eyes on the forest heath, frightfully pale and bleeding. But there was nothing wicked in Joseph’s looks; they were timid, rather. We could scarcely see each other in this dark room, lighted by the dull and hazy gleams of the lantern. Up to this point Joseph’s voice had trembled. Now it suddenly took on assurance, almost gravity.
“For some days I have been wanting to confide this to you, Célestine,” he began; “well, here it is. I have a feeling of friendship for you. You are a good woman, an orderly woman. Now I know you very well.”
I thought it my duty to assume an archly mischievous smile, and I replied:
“You must admit that it has taken you some time. And why were you so disagreeable with me? You never spoke to me; you were always rough with me. You remember the scenes that you made me when I went through the paths that you had just raked? Oh! how crusty you were!”
Joseph began to laugh, and shrugged his shoulders:
“Oh! yes; why, you know, one cannot get acquainted with people at the very start. And women especially,—it takes the devil to know them. And you came from Paris! Now I know you very well.”
“Since you know me so well, Joseph, tell me, then, what I am.”
With set lips and serious eyes, he said:
“What you are, Célestine? You are like me.”
“I am like you, I?”
“Oh! not in your features, of course. But you and I, in the very depths of the soul, are the same thing. Yes, yes, I know what I say.”
Again there was a moment of silence. Then he resumed, in a voice that was less stern:
“I have a feeling of friendship for you, Célestine. And then....”
“And then?...”
“I have some money, too,—a little money.”
“Ah?”
“Yes, a little money. Why, one does not serve forty years in good houses without saving something. Is it not so?”
“Surely,” I answered, more and more astonished by Joseph’s words and manner. “And you have much money?”
“Oh! only a little.”
“How much? Let me see.”
Joseph gave a slight chuckle.
“You may know well that it is not here. It is in a place where it is making little ones.”
“Yes, but how much?”
Then in a low voice, almost a whisper:
“Perhaps fifteen thousand francs; perhaps more.”
“My! but you are well fixed, you are!”
“Oh! perhaps less, too. One cannot tell.”
Suddenly the two dogs lifted their heads simultaneously, bounded to the door, and began to bark. I made a movement of fright.
“That’s nothing,” said Joseph, reassuringly, giving each of them a kick in the side; “simply people passing in the road. Why, it is Rose, going home. I know her step.”
And, in fact, a few seconds later I heard a sound of dragging steps in the road, and then a more distant sound of a closing gate. The dogs became silent again.
I had sat down on a stool in a corner of the harness-room. Joseph, with his hands in his pockets, walked back and forth in the narrow room, his elbows hitting against the pine wainscoting from which leather straps were hanging. We did not speak, I being horribly embarrassed and regretting that I had come, and Joseph being plainly tormented by what he had still to say to me.
After some minutes he made up his mind.
“There is another thing that I must confide to you, Célestine. I am from Cherbourg. And Cherbourg is a tough town, full of sailors and soldiers, of jolly lascars who do not deny themselves pleasure; business is good there. Well, I know a fine opportunity just now at Cherbourg. It is a matter of a little café near the water. A little café in a first-rate location. The army is drinking a great deal these days; all the patriots are in the street; they shout and bawl and get thirsty. Now is the time to get it. One could make hundreds and thousands, I promise you. Only, you see, there must be a woman there,—an orderly woman, a pretty woman, well equipped, and not afraid of slang and smut. The sailors and soldiers are good-natured and gay and full of fun. They get drunk on the slightest provocation, and they are fond of women, and spend much for them. What do you think about it, Célestine?”
“I?” I exclaimed, stupefied.
“Yes; just suppose the case. Would you like it?”
“I?”
I did not know what he was coming at. I trembled from surprise to surprise. Utterly upset, I could think of no answer to make. He insisted:
“You, of course. And who, then, do you expect to come to the little café? You are a good woman; you are orderly; you are not one of those affected creatures who do not know even how to take a joke; and you are patriotic! And then you are pretty, very nice to look at; you have eyes to drive the whole Cherbourg garrison crazy. Just the cheese! Now that I know you well, now that I know all that you can do, this idea keeps continually running through my head.”
“Well? And you?”
“I, too, of course! We would marry, like good friends.”
“Then,” cried I, with sudden indignation, “you want me to prostitute myself to make money for you?”
Joseph shrugged his shoulders, and said tranquilly:
“All depends on the intention, Célestine. That is understood, is it not?”
Then he came to me, took my hands, pressed them so tightly that I screamed with pain, and stammered:
“I dream of you, Célestine; I dream of you in the little café. I am crazy over you.”
And, as I stood in amazement, a little frightened by this confession, and without a gesture or a word, he continued:
“And then, perhaps there are more than fifteen thousand francs. Perhaps more than eighteen thousand francs. One never knows how many little ones this money makes. And then, things ... things ... jewels ... you would be tremendously happy in the little café.”
He held my waist clasped in the powerful vise of his arms. And I felt his whole body against me, trembling with desire. If he had wished, he could have taken me and stifled me without the slightest resistance on my part. And he continued to unfold his dream:
“A little café, very pretty, very clean, very shining. And then, at the bar, before a large mirror, a beautiful woman, dressed in the costume of Alsace-Lorraine, with a beautiful silk waist and broad velvet ribbons. Hey, Célestine? Think of that! I will talk with you about it again one of these days; I will talk with you about it again.”
I found nothing to say,—nothing, nothing, nothing. I was stupefied by this thing, of which I had never dreamed; but I was also without hatred, without horror, of this man’s cynicism. Clasping me with the same hands that had clasped, stifled, strangled, murdered the little Claire in the woods, Joseph repeated:
“I will talk with you about it again. I am old; I am ugly. Possibly. But to fix a woman, Célestine,—mark this well,—there is nobody like me. I will talk with you about it again.”
To fix a woman! How he fills one with forebodings! Is it a threat? Is it a promise?
To-day Joseph has resumed his customary silence. One would think nothing had happened last night between us. He goes, he comes, he works, he eats, he reads his paper, just as usual. I look at him, and I should like to detest him. I wish that his ugliness would fill me with such immense disgust as to separate me from him forever. Well, no. Ah! how queer it is! This man sends shivers through me, and I feel no disgust. And it is a frightful thing that I feel no disgust, since it was he who killed and outraged the little Claire in the woods.