Part 7

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 thrushes, and immediately went up to his dressing-room to take a tub and dress, as usual. Oh, for that matter, Monsieur is very clean, and he is not afraid of water. I thought it a favorable opportunity to try something that might at last put him at his ease with me. Leaving my work, I started for the dressing-room, and for a few seconds I stood there listening, with my ear glued to the door. Monsieur was walking back and forth in his room. He was whistling and singing:

Et allez donc, Mam'zelle Suzon!... Et ron, ronron ... petit patapon ...

A habit that he has of mingling a number of refrains when singing.

I heard chairs moving about, cupboards opening and closing, and then the water streaming into the tub, and the "Ahs" and "Ohs" and "Fuuiis" and "Brrrs" which the shock of the cold water wrung from Monsieur. Then, suddenly, I opened the door.

Monsieur stood facing me, shivering, with wet skin, and the sponge in his hands running like a fountain. Oh! his head, his eyes! he seemed to stand transfixed. I think I never saw a man so astounded. Having nothing with which to cover his body, with a gesture instinctively modest and comical he used the sponge as a fig-leaf. It required great strength of will on my part to suppress the laugh which this spectacle loosened within me. I noticed that Monsieur had thick tufts of hair on his shoulders, and that his chest was like a bear's. But my! he is a fine man, all the same.

Naturally, I uttered a cry of alarmed modesty, as was proper, and closed the door again violently. But, once outside the door, I said to myself: "Surely he will call me back; and what is going to happen then?" I waited some minutes. Not a sound,--except the crystalline sound of a drop of water falling, from time to time, into the tub. "He is reflecting," thought I; "he does not dare to come to a decision; but he will call me back." In vain. Soon the water streamed again. Then I heard Monsieur wiping and rubbing himself, and clearing his throat; old slippers dragged over the floor; chairs moved about, and cupboards opened and closed. Finally Monsieur began again to sing:

Et allez donc, Mam'zelle Suzon!... Et ron, ronron ... petit patapon ...

"No, really, he is too stupid!" I murmured, in a low voice, furiously spiteful.

And I went back to the linen-room, firmly resolved to take no further pity on him.

In the afternoon Monsieur kept revolving around me, in an absent-minded way. He joined me in the yard, whither I had gone to throw some refuse on the muck-heap. And as I, for the sake of laughing a little at his embarrassment, apologized for what had happened in the morning, he whispered:

"That is nothing, that is nothing; on the contrary."

He tried to detain me, stammering I know not what. But I dropped him then and there, in the middle of the phrase in which he was floundering; and, in a cutting voice, I said these words:

"I ask Monsieur's pardon. I have no time to talk to Monsieur. Madame is waiting for me."

"_Sapristi!_ Célestine, listen to me a moment."

"No, Monsieur."

When I turned the corner of the path leading to the house, I could see Monsieur. He had not stirred from the spot. With head lowered, and irresolute legs, he was still looking at the muck-heap, scratching his neck.

After dinner, in the _salon_, Monsieur and Madame had a hot quarrel.

Madame said:

"I tell you that you are paying attention to this girl."

Monsieur answered:

"I? Well, indeed, that's an idea! Come, my pet; such a loose creature,--a dirty thing, and possibly diseased. Oh! really, that is too much."

Madame resumed:

"Do you think, then, that I don't know your conduct and your tastes?"

"Permit me; oh! permit me."

"And all the dirty creatures whom you meet in the fields!"

I heard the floor creak under Monsieur's feet, as he walked back and forth in the _salon_, with feverish animation.

"I? Well, indeed, such ideas as you have! Where did you find them all, my pet?"

Madame was obstinate:

"And the little Jézureau? And only fifteen years old, you wretch! And on whose account I had to pay five hundred francs! But for which, to-day you perhaps would be in prison, like your thief of a father."

Monsieur stopped walking. He sank into a chair. He became silent.

The discussion ended with these words from Madame:

"However, it is all one to me. I am not jealous. You can behave as you like with this Célestine. But it must not cost me any money."

Oh, no! Now I have them both.

This evening we remained longer than usual in the kitchen. I helped Marianne to make up her accounts. She did not succeed in getting them straight. I have noticed that, like all trusted persons, she pinches here, and steals there, all that she can. She even has tricks that astonish me; but she has to make her accounts square with them. Sometimes she gets lost in her figures, which embarrasses her greatly with Madame, who is very quick to find out anything wrong in them. Joseph is becoming a little more human with us. Now, from time to time, he condescends to speak to me. This evening, for instance, he did not go as usual to see the sacristan, his intimate friend. And, while Marianne and I were working, he read the "Libre Parole." That is his newspaper. He does not admit that any other is fit to read. I have noticed that several times, while reading, he looked at me with a new expression in his eyes.

The reading finished, Joseph saw fit to tell me what his political opinions are. He is weary of the republic, which is ruining and disgracing him. He wants a sword.

"As long as we do not have a sword, and a very red one, there will be nothing done," said he.

He is for religion ... because ... in short ... well ... he is for religion.

"Until religion shall have been restored in France, as we used to have it; until everybody is obliged to go to mass and to confession,--there will be nothing done, my God!"

He has hung up in his harness-room portraits of the pope and of Drumont; in his chamber, that of Déroulède; in the little seed-room those of Guérin and General Mercier,--terrible fellows, patriots, real Frenchmen! He preciously collects all the anti-Jewish songs, all the colored portraits of the generals, all the caricatures of the circumcised. For Joseph is violently anti-Semitic. He belongs to all the religious, military, and patriotic societies of the department. He is a member of the "Anti-Semitic Youth" of Rouen, a member of the "Anti-Jewish Old Age" of Louviers, and a member also of an infinite number of groups and sub-groups, such as the "National Cudgel," the "Norman Alarm-Bell," the "Bayados du Vexin," etc. When he speaks of the Jews, there are sinister gleams in his eyes, and his gestures show bloodthirsty ferocity. And he never goes to town without a club.

"As long as there is a Jew left in France, there is nothing done."

And he adds:

"Ah! my God! if I were in Paris, I would kill and burn and gut these cursed sheenies. There is no danger that the traitors will come to live at Mesnil-Roy. They know very well what they are about, these mercenaries!"

He joins in one and the same hatred Protestants, Free Masons, freethinkers, all the brigands who never set foot in the churches, and who are, moreover, nothing but Jews in disguise. But he does not belong to the Clerical party; he is for religion, that's all!

As for the ignoble Dreyfus, he had better not think of coming back to France from Devil's Island. Oh, no! And Joseph strongly advises the unclean Zola not to come to Louviers to give a lecture, as it is reported that he intends to do. His hash would be settled, and Joseph himself would settle it. This miserable traitor of a Zola, who, for six hundred thousand francs, has delivered the entire French army, and also the entire Russian army, to the Germans and the English? And this is no humbug, no gossip, no lightly-spoken word; no, Joseph is sure of it. Joseph has it from the sacristan, who has it from the priest, who has it from the bishop, who has it from the pope, who has it from Drumont. Ah! the Jews may visit the Priory. They will find, written by Joseph, in the cellar, in the attic, in the stable, in the coach-house, under the lining of the harnesses, and even on the broom-handles, and everywhere, these words: "Long Live the Army! Death to the Jews!"

From time to time Marianne approves these violent remarks with nods of her head and silent gestures. She, too, undoubtedly is being ruined and disgraced by the republic. She, too, is for the sword, for the priests, and against the Jews,--about whom she knows nothing, by the way, except that they are lacking something somewhere.

And certainly I, too, am for the army, for the country, for religion, and against the Jews. Who, then, among us house-servants, from the lowest to the highest, does not profess these nickel-plated doctrines? Say what you will of the domestics,--it is possible that they have many faults,--but it cannot be denied that they are patriots. Take myself, for instance; politics is not in my line, and it bores me. But, a week before I started for this place, I squarely refused to serve as chambermaid in the house of Labori; and all the comrades who were at the employment-bureau that day refused also.

"Work for that dirty creature? Oh, no, indeed! Never!"

Yet, when I seriously question myself, I do not know why I am against the Jews, for I used to serve in their houses in the days when one could still do so with dignity. I find that at bottom the Jews and the Catholics are very much alike. They are equally vicious, have equally vile characters, equally ugly souls. They all belong to the same world, you see, and the difference in religion counts for nothing. Perhaps the Jews make more show, more noise; perhaps they make a greater display of the money that they spend. But, in spite of what you hear about their management and their avarice, I maintain that it is not bad to be in their houses, where there is even more leakage than in Catholic houses.

But Joseph will hear nothing of all this. He reproached me with being a bogus patriot and a bad Frenchwoman, and, with prophecies of massacre on his lips, and with bloody visions of broken heads and gashed bellies before his eyes, he went off to bed.

Straightway Marianne took the bottle of brandy from the sideboard. We needed to recover ourselves, and we talked of something else. Marianne, who every day becomes more confiding, told me of her childhood, of the hard time that she had in her youth, and how, when in the employ, as a servant, of a woman who kept a tobacco-shop at Caen, she was seduced by a hospital-surgeon,--a delicate, slender, blonde young fellow, who had blue eyes and a pointed, short, and silky beard,--oh! how silky! She became pregnant, and the tobacco merchant, who herself was intimate with any number of people, including all the sub-officers of the garrison, turned her out. So young, on the pavements of a great city, and carrying a child! Ah! the poverty that she experienced, her friend having no money. And surely she would have died of hunger, if the surgeon had not found her a queer place in the medical school.

"My God! yes," she said, "at the Boratory I killed rabbits and guinea-pigs. It was very nice."

And the recollection brought to Marianne's thick lips a smile that seemed to me strangely melancholy.

After a silence, I asked her:

"And the kid! What became of it?"

Marianne made a vague and far-away gesture,--a gesture that seemed to pull aside the heavy veils from the limbos where her child was sleeping. She answered in that harsh voice which alcohol produces:

"Oh! well, you can imagine. What should I have done with it, my God!"

"Like the little guinea-pigs, then?"

"That's it."

And she poured herself out a drink.

We went up to our rooms somewhat intoxicated.

VII

_October 6._

Decidedly, autumn is here. Frosts which were not expected so soon have browned the last flowers of the garden. The dahlias, the poor dahlias, witnesses of Monsieur's amorous timidity, are dried up; dried up also are the big sunflowers that mounted guard at the kitchen-door. There is nothing left in the devastated flower-beds,--nothing but a few sorry-looking geraniums here and there, and five or six clusters of asters, whose blue flowers--the dull blue of rottenness--are bending toward the ground in anticipation of death. The garden-plots of Captain Mauger, whom I saw just now over the hedge, present a scene of veritable disaster, and everything is of the color of tobacco.

The trees, through the fields, are beginning to turn yellow and to lose their foliage, and the sky is funereal. For four days we have been living in a thick fog, a brown fog that smelt of soot and that did not dissipate even in the afternoon. Now it is raining, an icy, beating rain, which a fierce wind, blowing in squalls from the northwest, occasionally intensifies.

Ah! I am not comfortably situated here. In my room it is bitter cold. The wind blows into it, and the water penetrates the cracks in the roof, principally around the two windows which stingily illuminate this dark hole. And the noise of lifting slates, of shocks that shake the roof, of creaking timbers and of squeaking hinges, is deafening. In spite of the urgent need of repairs, I have had all the difficulty in the world in getting Madame to order the plumber to come to-morrow morning. And I do not dare yet to ask for a stove, although, being very chilly, I feel that I shall not be able to live in this mortal room through the winter. This evening, to stop the wind and the rain, I have had to stuff old skirts into the cracks. And this weather-vane above my head, never ceasing to turn on its rusty pivot, at times shrieks out so sharply in the night that one would take it for Madame's voice in the corridors, after a scene.

My first feelings of revolt having quieted down a little, my life proceeds here monotonously and stupidly; and I am gradually getting accustomed to it, without too great moral suffering. No one ever comes here; one would take it for a cursed house. And, outside of the petty domestic incidents that I have related, never does anything happen. All the days are alike, and all the tasks, and all the faces. It is ennui and death. But I am beginning to be so stupid that I am accommodating myself to this ennui, as if it were a natural thing. Even the deprivation of love does not cause me too much embarrassment, and I endure without too painful struggles this chastity to which I am condemned, or to which, rather, I have condemned myself,--for I have abandoned Monsieur, I have dropped Monsieur finally. Monsieur bores me, and I am angry with him for having, out of cowardice, disparaged me so grossly in talking with Madame. Not that he is becoming resigned, or ceasing to pay attention to me. On the contrary, he persists in revolving about me, with eyes that grow rounder and rounder, and a mouth that grows more and more frothy. According to an expression that I have read in I have forgotten what book, it is always toward my trough that he drives the pigs of his desire to drink.

Now that the days are shortening, Monsieur spends the afternoon at his desk, where he does the devil knows what, occupying his time in moving about old papers without reason, in checking off seed-catalogues and medical advertisements, and in distractedly turning the leaves of old hunting-books. You should see him when I go in at night to close the blinds or attend to his fire. Then he rises, coughs, sneezes, clears his throat, runs against the furniture, upsets objects, and tries in all sorts of stupid ways to attract my attention. It is enough to make one twist with laughter. I make a pretence of hearing nothing, of not understanding his puerile tricks; and I go away, silent and haughty, without looking at him any more than if he were not there.

Last evening, however, we exchanged the following brief remarks:

"Célestine!"

"Monsieur desires something?"

"Célestine, you are unkind to me; why are you unkind to me?"

"Why, Monsieur knows very well that I am a loose creature!...."

"Oh! come!"

"A dirty thing!...."

"Oh! come, come!"

"And possibly diseased."

"Oh! heavens! Célestine! Come, Célestine, listen to me!"

"Bah!"

Oh! I have enough of him. It no longer amuses me to upset his head and his heart by my coquetries.

In fact, nothing amuses me here. And the worst of it is that nothing bores me, either. Is it the air of this dirty country, the silence of the fields, the heavy, coarse food that I eat? A feeling of torpor is taking possession of me,--a feeling, moreover, which is not without charm. At any rate, it dulls my sensibility, deadens my dreams, and helps me to endure Madame's insolence and scolding. Thanks to it also, I feel a certain content in chattering, at night, for hours, with Marianne and Joseph,--this strange Joseph who does not go out any more, and seems to find pleasure in remaining with us. The idea that Joseph perhaps is in love with me,--well, that flatters me. Yes, indeed, I have got to that point. And then I read, and read,--novels, novels, and more novels. I have reread Paul Bourget. His books do not excite my enthusiasm as they used to. In fact, they tire me, and I consider them false and superficial. They are conceived in that state of soul which I know well from having experienced it when, dazzled and fascinated, I came in contact with wealth and luxury. I am all over it to-day, and these things no longer astonish me. They still astonish Paul Bourget. Oh! I would not be so silly now as to go to him for psychological explanations, for I know better than he what there is behind a parlor portière and under a lace dress.

A thing to which I cannot get accustomed is the receiving of no letters from Paris. Every morning, when the carrier comes, I feel a sort of laceration in my heart at realizing that I am so abandoned by everybody; and it is in this way that I can best measure the extent of my solitude. In vain have I written to my old comrades, and especially to Monsieur Jean, urgent and disconsolate letters; in vain have I implored them to pay some attention to me, to take me out of my hell, to find me a place in Paris, however humble it may be. Not one of them answers me. I would never have believed in so much indifference, in so much ingratitude.

And this forces me to cling more tightly to what I have left,--my memories and the past. Memories in which, in spite of everything, joy dominates suffering; a past which renews my hope that all is not over with me, and that it is not true that an accidental fall means irreparable ruin. That is why, alone in my room, while, on the other side of my partition, Marianne's snoring represents to me the distressing present, I try to drown this ridiculous sound in the sound of my old-time joys, and I passionately scrutinize this past, in order to reconstruct from its scattered bits the illusion of a future.

This very day, October 6, is a date full of recollections. During the five years that have elapsed since the tragedy which I now desire to relate, all the details have remained deep-rooted within me. There is a dead boy in this tragedy, a poor little dead boy, sweet and pretty, whom I killed by giving him too many caresses and too many joys, by giving him too much of life. And during the five years since he died,--died of me,--this will be the first time that I have not gone, on the sixth of October, to cover his grave with the usual flowers. But of these flowers, which I shall not carry to his grave, I will make a more durable bouquet, which will adorn and perfume his beloved memory better than the graveyard flowers adorn and perfume the bit of earth in which he sleeps. For the flowers of which the bouquet that I shall make will be composed I will gather, one by one, in the garden of my heart,--in the garden of my heart, where not only grow the mortal flowers of debauchery, but where bloom also the great white lilies of love.

I remember that it was on a Saturday. At the employment-bureau in the Rue du Colisée, which I had visited regularly every morning for a week in search of a place, I was introduced to an old lady in mourning. Never had I met a face more engaging, a look more gentle, manners more simple; never had I heard more winning words. She received me with a great politeness that warmed my heart.

"My child," she said to me, "Mme. Paulhat-Durand [that was the name of the woman who kept the employment-bureau] has spoken to me of you in terms of the highest praise. I believe that you deserve it, for you have an intelligent face, frank and gay, which pleases me greatly. I am in need of a person worthy of trust and capable of devotion. Devotion! Ah! I know that I am asking a thing that it is not easy to give; for, after all, you do not know me, and you have no reason to be devoted to me. Let me explain to you my situation. But do not remain standing, my child; come and sit down beside me."

The moment I am spoken to gently, the moment that I am not looked upon as a being outside of others and on the fringe of life, as something between a dog and a parrot, in that moment I am touched, and at once I feel the soul of my childhood reborn within me. All my spite, all my hatred, all my spirit of rebellion, I forget as by a miracle, and toward the people who speak to me in a human fashion I feel no sentiments save those of sacrifice and love. I know also, from experience, that it is only the unfortunate who place the suffering of the humble on a footing with their own. There is always insolence and distance in the kindness of the fortunate.

When I had taken my seat beside this venerable lady in mourning, I already loved her; I really loved her.

She sighed:

"It is not a very gay place that I offer you, my child."

With a sincerity of enthusiasm that did not escape her, I earnestly protested:

"That does not matter, Madame. Anything that Madame may ask of me I will do."

And it was true. I was ready for anything.

She thanked me with a kind and tender look, and continued:

"Well, this is it. I have had many trials in my life. I have lost all of my family, with the exception of a grandson, who now, he also, is threatened with death from the terrible disease of which the others have died."

Fearing to pronounce the name of this terrible disease, she indicated it to me by placing upon her chest her old hand, gloved in black, and then, with a more painful expression, continued:

"Poor little fellow! He is a charming child, an adorable being, in whom I have placed my last hopes. For, when he is gone, I shall be all alone. And, my God! what shall I do upon earth?"

Her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away with her handkerchief, and went on: