Part 18

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 grey 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 grey, 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 moulded 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 pretence 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!"