A Chambermaid's Diary

The animal crept along the branch, ventured upon the trunk, and descended carefully, burying its claws in the bark. His body, covered with white fur and marked with pale yellow...

"The doctors assure me that they can save him,--that the disease is not yet deep-seated. They have prescribed a _régime_ from which they expect very good results. Every afternoo...

I went every morning at nine o'clock to open M. Xavier's curtains and carry him his tea. It is queer; I always entered his room with my heart beating and a strong feeling of app...

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 de...

We all were their "dear children." While waiting for the promised good place, each of these dear children was put at some work, according to her faculties. Some did cooking and...

All that the haberdasher told me, Mademoiselle Rose tells me again, with more disagreeable variations. So violent is this woman's passion for chattering that she finally forgets...

I was expecting the attack. I had seen it coming from the depth of his eyes. It does not surprise me. I receive it with a serious and unmoved expression.

Then I thought of my last place, of Monsieur Jean, the valet, so distinguished with his black side-whiskers and his white skin, for which he cared as if he were a woman. Ah! he...

Last Tuesday a very simple old man, father Pantois, brought some sweet-briers that Monsieur had ordered,--of course without Madame's knowledge. It was toward the end of the day....

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...

He looked at me obliquely. There was a sneer on his lips. Ah! how ugly was his look, in that moment of distress; how ugly and hideous was his mouth!

In the first place, I have no confidence. Certainly Madame is nice enough with me. She has seen fit to pay me some compliments on my appearance, and to congratulate herself on t...

Moreover, amid the disorder of her house, amid all the reckless waste she tolerated, Madame showed queer streaks of avarice that were quite unexpected. She higgled with the cook...

"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."

Jean is still first _valet de chambre_ in the house of the Countess Fardin, and at this moment the countess is perhaps the most-talked-of woman in France. To his capacity of _va...

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 h...

Joseph received the shock with extraordinary tranquillity. He simply shrugged his shoulders, swayed back and forth a few seconds, and then, giving a hitch to his pantaloons, whi...

A French chambermaid, who has served in Paris, in the houses of the nobility, the bourgeois, and professional people, finally enters the service of a rich couple living in the c...

Now then, I was going to plan for myself an agreeable life, with easy work and certain profits. Made happy by this prospect, I promised myself that I would correct my caprices,...

Yesterday Madame had gone to market,--for she does her own marketing. Monsieur had been out since dawn, with his gun and his dog. He came back early, having killed three thrushe...

Charrigaud neither ate or drank, and said nothing. Although he was scarcely in the conversation, he nevertheless felt its enormous and forbidding stupidity like a weight upon hi...

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

"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...

I took so much satisfaction in this presentiment that I did not try to put it aside. On the contrary, I felt an intense joy in contemplating the idea. Marianne having left us al...