‘Oh, be quiet, be quiet!’ she shuddered.
And the next day it would be the same old thing all over again … nothing but tears and groans.
‘Oh, Célestine, he never came after all. I was waiting for him all night. I don’t think he’ll ever come.’
I did my best to console her: ‘Oh, I expect he was worn out with work. These scholars, you know what they are … their heads are so full of other things they never have time for love. Have you ever thought of trying him with pictures ma’am? I’ve heard you can get some lovely ones … even the coldest fish couldn’t resist them!’
‘No, no, what’s the use?’
‘Well, suppose you tried changing the menu for dinner, ma’am? If you were to order highly spiced dishes, for instance, lobsters and that sort of thing?’
‘No, no,’ she would say, shaking her head sadly. ‘It’s nothing to do with that. It’s simply that he doesn’t love me any longer.’
Then, shyly, looking at me not with hatred but imploringly, she would ask: ‘Célestine, I want you to be quite frank with me … Has the master ever tried to get you in a corner? Has he ever kissed you? Has he ever …’
‘What an idea!…’
‘But tell me, Célestine, be honest with me.’
‘Certainly not, ma’am,’ I exclaimed. ‘The master has no time for such things! Besides, do you really think, ma’am, that I would do anything to harm you?’
‘But you
must
tell me,’ she begged. ‘You’re so beautiful, your eyes are so full of love, you must have such a lovely body.’
Then she would make me feel her breasts, her arms, her thighs, her legs, comparing every part of our two bodies so completely shamelessly that, blushing with embarrassment, I began to wonder whether this was not just a trick on her part, whether behind the grief of a deserted woman she had not been concealing a desire for me. And all the time she kept on murmuring: ‘Oh God, God, it’s not as though I was an old woman. I’m not ugly, I’m not fat, my flesh is still soft and firm. Oh, if you only knew. I feel so much love. My heart’s full of love!’
Often she would burst into tears, and throwing herself on to the sofa, her head buried in a cushion to stifle her tears, would stammer: ‘Oh, never love anyone, Célestine, never love anyone. It will only bring you unhappiness.’
Once, when she was crying more pitifully than usual, I said to her sharply: ‘If I were in your place, ma’am, I’d go and find myself a lover. Madame is too beautiful to be left like this …’
My words seemed to terrify her:
‘Be quiet, oh, will you be quiet!’ she exclaimed.
I insisted: ‘But all Madame’s friends have lovers …’
‘Will you be quiet. Don’t speak to me of such things.’
‘But if Madame feels so loving …’ and with calm impertinence I mentioned the name of a very elegant young man who often visited her: ‘Oh, he’s a duck of a man! Why you have only to look at him to see how skilful and considerate he’d be with a woman!’
‘No, be quiet. You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘As you wish, ma’am. I was only thinking of your good.’
And persisting in her dream, while the master still sat in the library adding up figures and drawing circles, she would repeat: ‘But maybe tonight he will come.’
Every morning, over breakfast in the servants’ hall, this was the sole subject of conversation. They would ask me for the latest news, and the answer was always the same: ‘Nothing doing!’
You can just imagine what an opportunity it was for all kinds of coarse jokes and obscene allusions. They even used to lay bets as to when the master would pay her a visit.
It was after one of these futile discussions with the mistress, in which I always seemed to be in the wrong, that I gave her notice. I did it in a disgusting way, throwing up in her face, her poor bewildered face, all the poor little stories, all the intimate misfortunes, all the confidences, through which she had exposed her heart to me, her charming, plaintive, babyish little heart, so hungry with desire. Yes, everything. It was like throwing mud at her. Worse than that, I accused her of the filthiest kinds of debauchery, of every sort of ignoble passion. I really behaved horribly.
I don’t know how it is, but there are times when I suddenly feel within myself a kind of need, a mania, to behave outrageously … A perversity, that drives me to turn the simplest things into irreparable wrongs. I can’t help it … even when I am aware that I am acting against my own interests, that I shall only do myself harm. On this occasion I went much further. A few days after leaving Madame’s service, I bought a postcard, and so that everybody in the house would be able to read it I wrote the following charming message. Yes, I actually had the nerve to say: ‘This is to inform you, Madame, that I am returning to you, carriage paid, all the so-called presents that you have given me. I am only a poor woman, but I have too much self-respect, too much regard for decency, to keep all the filthy rags that you got rid of by passing on to me instead of throwing them into the gutter, which is all they were fit for. You need not imagine that, just because I am penniless, I am prepared to wear your disgusting petticoats, all stained with yellow where you’ve pissed yourself. I have the honour to be, Yours faithfully …’
So that was that. But it was stupid, and all the more so because, as I’ve said already, Madame had always been generous to me. In fact, only the next day I was able to sell the clothes she had given me—which, of course, I had never had any intention of returning to her—for 400 francs to a second-hand clothes dealer.
What probably made me do this was that I was furious with myself for having left an unusually agreeable job, the kind that we aren’t often lucky enough to find, in a house that was run on lavish lines and where we were treated like lords. But hang it all, there’s not always time to be fair to our employers. And if the decent ones have to suffer for the bad ones, so much the worse for them.
But, after all this, what am I going to do here? Stuck in the country with an old cat like Madame Lanlaire, it’s no good dreaming of another such windfall, nor hoping for anything as entertaining. Here, it’s going to be nothing but boring housework—and sewing, which I simply can’t stand. Oh, when I think of the places I have had, it makes my position here seem even more dreary, unbearably dreary. I’ve a good mind to clear out, to make my final bow to this country of savages.
Just now I passed Monsieur Lanlaire on the stairs. He was going shooting. He looked at me roguishly and once again wanted to know whether ‘I was settling down all right.’ It’s definitely a mania with him.
I replied: ‘It’s too early to say sir.’ And added, saucily: ‘And what about you sir? Have you settled down?’
He burst out laughing. Really, he’s a good sort and knows how to take a joke.
‘You
must
settle down, Célestine. You simply must settle down.’
Feeling in the mood to take liberties, I answered again: ‘I’ll do my best sir … with your help sir!’
From the sparkle in his eye I think he was on the point of making a pretty cheeky retort. But at that moment Madame Lanlaire appeared at the top of the staircase, so we made off in different directions. Pity!
That evening, through the drawing-room door, I heard Madame saying to him in the tone of voice you would expect: ‘I disapprove of any familiarity with my servants.’
Her
servants, indeed! As if her servants weren’t also his! Oh well, we shall see.
This morning, being Sunday, I went to mass. I have already explained that without being particularly devout I nevertheless believe in religion. For I don’t care what anybody says, religion is always religion. Maybe the rich can do without it, but for people like us it’s an absolute necessity. I know there are some people who make use of it in funny ways, and that there are plenty of priests and holy sisters who do very little credit to it. But that’s not the point. When you are unhappy—and in our job we have more than our share of unhappiness—there’s nothing like it for helping you to forget your troubles … religion and love. Though of course love brings a different kind of consolation. Anyway, even in the most un-Christian houses, I never miss going to mass. For one thing it’s an outing, a distraction, time won from the daily grind of housework. But the main thing is the friends you meet here, all the stories you hear, and the chance of meeting people … Oh, if only, when I used to come away from the chapel of the Assumptionists, I had chosen to listen to the very odd psalms that quite respectable old gentlemen used to whisper in my ear, perhaps I shouldn’t be here now!
Today the weather has improved and the sun is shining, one of those misty suns that make walking a pleasure and help you to forget your troubles. I don’t know why, but this blue and gold morning makes me feel almost light-hearted. It is about a mile to the church, and you get there by a pretty little pathway, with hedges on either side. In the spring there must be lots of flowers, wild cherry trees and hawthorn. I love hawthorn … it has such a lovely scent and it reminds me of the time when I was a little girl. Apart from this, the country round here is much the same as anywhere else … nothing particularly exciting. There’s a broad valley, and further on, at the end of the valley, sloping hills. A river flows through the valley and the slopes are covered with woods, veiled in transparent golden mist, that hides the view too much, though, for my taste.
It’s a funny thing, but I still remain faithful to the countryside in Brittany … it’s in my blood. Nowhere else seems to me so beautiful, nowhere else makes such an appeal to my heart. Even here, in the midst of the richest, most prosperous country in Normandy, I’m homesick for the heathland and the splendid tragic sea of the place I was born in … Just to think of it spreads a cloud of melancholy over the cheerfulness of this lovely morning.
On the way I met lots of other women. Prayerbook in hand, they were on their way to mass: cooks, housemaids and farm girls, coarse, heavy women, slowly dawdling along like cattle. It was a scream to see them all dressed up in their Sunday best, looking just like parcels! They smell strongly of the countryside, and it was obvious they had never been in service in Paris. They looked at me with curiosity; a wary, though not unfriendly curiosity. You could see they were jealous of my hat, my clinging dress, my little beige jacket and my rolled umbrella in its sheath of green silk. They were astonished that I was dressed like a lady, and especially that I wore my clothes in such a smart, coquettish way. With gaping mouths and staring eyes they nudged each other, drawing attention to my extravagance and
chic.
But I just walked on, fluttering and elegant, boldly holding up my dress, which made a swishing noise as it rubbed against my petticoats, high enough to show off my small, pointed boots … After all, any girl likes to be admired.
As they passed me I could hear them whispering to each other:
‘It’s the new maid at The Priory.’
One of them, short, fat, red-faced and asthmatic, with legs spread out like those of a trestle to support her immense belly, approached me with a coarse, slimy smile of someone who likes her drink.
‘So you’re the new maid at The Priory? And your name is Célestine? And you arrived four days ago from Paris?’
She already knew as much about me as I did myself. But what most amused me about this pot-bellied creature, this perambulating wineskin, was her musketeer’s hat, a huge black felt, whose plumes fluttered in the wind. She continued:
‘My name’s Rose, Ma’amselle Rose. I work for Monsieur Mauger next door to you, a retired captain. Perhaps you have seen him?’
‘No, Mademoiselle.’
‘I thought you might have caught sight of him over the hedge that divides our two properties … He’s always working in the garden … He’s still a fine figure of a man, you know.’
We slowed down, for Mademoiselle Rose was almost out of breath. She was whistling like a broken-winded horse, and at each breath her bosom rose and fell, rose and fell.
‘It’s my asthma, you know … Everybody has something wrong with them these days … It’s something awful,’ she went on jerkily, wheezing and spluttering.
‘You must come and see me, my dear … If there’s anything you need, advice or anything … don’t hesitate. I’m fond of young people … We’ll have a little glass of something and a nice chat… A lot of the girls in the neighbourhood come to see me …’
She stopped for a moment to get her breath, and then in a lower voice, speaking confidentially, she said:
‘And look, Mademoiselle Célestine … If you like, it might be advisable to have your letters addressed to us, for I ought to warn you Madame Lanlaire reads other people’s letters, whenever she can lay her hands on them. On one occasion she only just escaped being summonsed for it. So I repeat, don’t you hesitate.’
I thanked her and we started walking again. Though she was rolling and pitching like an old ship in a high sea, Mademoiselle Rose seemed to be breathing more easily and she continued her stream of gossip:
‘Of course, you’ll find it a big change here. In the first place, my dear, they just can’t keep a maid at The Priory … Regular as clockwork … When it’s not Madame who gives them the sack, it’s Monsieur who puts them in the family way. A terrible fellow, that Lanlaire … Pretty or ugly, young or old, it’s all the same to him … and every time, a baby. Oh, that house is well-known … anyone will tell you the same. Not enough to eat, no free time and worked to death … And nothing but scolding and nagging … A hell of a place! But you can see at a glance … a nice, well brought-up girl like you certainly wasn’t made to work for skinflints like them.’
Everything the draper’s wife had told me was now repeated by Mademoiselle Rose, but with even more distressing variations. So overpowering was her need to talk that she forgot all about her illness: ill-nature proved to be stronger than asthma … Her disparagement of The Priory went on and on and on, mixed up with all sorts of intimate details about local affairs. Although I knew most of it already, Rose’s stories were so gruesome, and her way of telling them so discouraging, that I felt my sadness returning, and I wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to leave at once. What was the use of going on, if I knew myself to be defeated in advance?