OCTAVE MIRBEAU (continued 2)

"Well, what are you about? You do not hear, then? Are you deaf? I have been ringing for three hours. It is getting to be very provoking."

And this is what generally happens.

"Drinn!... drinn!... drinn!..."

That throws you from your chair, as if impelled by a spring.

"Bring me a needle."

I go for the needle.

"All right! Bring me some thread."

I go for the thread.

"Very good! Bring me a button."

I go for the button.

"What is this button? I did not ask for this button. You never understand anything. A white button, number four. And be quick about it."

And I go for the white button, number four.

You can imagine how I storm, and rage, and abuse Madame, within myself. During these goings and comings, these ascents and descents, Madame has changed her mind. She wants something else, or she wants nothing at all.

"No, take away the needle and the button. I have no time."

My back is broken, my knees absolutely stiff, I can do no more. That suffices for Madame; she is satisfied. And to think that there is a society for the protection of animals!

In the evening, when making her examination of the linen-room, she storms:

"What! you have done nothing? What do you do all day long, then? I do not pay you to be idle from morning till night."

I reply rather curtly, for this injustice fills me with rebellion:

"Why, Madame has been interrupting me all day."

"I have been interrupting you, I? In the first place, I forbid you to answer me. I want no remarks, do you understand? I know what I am talking about."

And she goes away, slamming the door, and grumbling as if she would never stop. In the corridors, in the kitchen, in the garden, her shrill voice can be heard for hours. Oh! how tiresome she is!

Really one knows not how to take her. What can she have in her body that keeps her always in such a state of irritation? And how quickly I would drop her, if I were sure of finding a place directly!

Just now I was suffering even more than usual. I felt so sharp a pain that it seemed as if a beast were tearing the interior of my body with its teeth and claws. Already, in the morning, on rising, I had fainted because of loss of blood. How have I had the courage to keep up, and drag myself about, and do my work? I do not know. Occasionally, on the stairs, I was obliged to stop, and cling to the banister, in order to get my breath and keep from falling. I was green, with cold sweats that wet my hair. It was enough to make one scream, but I am good at bearing pain, and it is a matter of pride with me never to complain in presence of my masters. Madame surprised me at a moment when I thought that I was about to faint. Everything was revolving about me,—the banister, the stairs, and the walls.

"What is the matter with you?" she said to me, rudely.

"Nothing."

And I tried to straighten up.

"If there is nothing the matter with you," rejoined Madame, "why these manners? I do not like to see funereal faces. You have a very disagreeable way of doing your work."

In spite of my pain, I could have boxed her ears.

Amid these trials, I am always thinking of my former places. To-day it is my place in the Rue Lincoln that I most regret. There I was second chambermaid, and had, so to speak, nothing to do. We passed the day in the linen-room, a magnificent linen-room, with a red felt carpet, and lined from ceiling to floor with great mahogany cupboards, with gilded locks. And we laughed, and we amused ourselves in talking nonsense, in reading, in mimicking Madame's receptions, all under the eye of an English governess, who made tea for us,—the good tea that Madame bought in England for her little morning breakfasts. Sometimes, from the servants' hall, the butler—one who was up to date—brought us cakes, caviare on toast, slices of ham, and a heap of good things.

I remember that one afternoon they obliged me to put on a very swell costume belonging to Monsieur,—to Coco, as we called him among ourselves. Naturally we played at all sorts of risqués games; we even went very far in our fun-making.

Ah! that was a place!

I am beginning to know Monsieur well. They were right in saying that he is an excellent and generous man, for, if he were not, there would not be in the world a worse rascal, a more perfect sharper. The need, the passion that he feels for being charitable, impel him to do things that are not very admirable. His intention is praiseworthy, but the result upon others is often disastrous, all the same. It must be confessed that his kindness has been the cause of dirty little tricks, like the following:

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. I had come down for some hot water for a belated bath. Madame, who had gone to town, had not yet returned. And I was chattering in the kitchen with Marianne, when Monsieur, cordial, joyous, unreserved, and noisy, brought in father Pantois. He immediately had him served with bread, cheese, and cider. And then he began to talk with him.

The good man excited my pity, so worn, thin, and dirtily clad was he. His pantaloons were in rags; his cap was a mass of filth. And his open shirt revealed a part of his bare breast, chapped, crimped, seasoned like old leather. He ate greedily.

"Well, father Pantois," cried Monsieur, rubbing his hands, "that goes better, eh?"

The old man, with his mouth full, thanked him.

"You are very good, Monsieur Lanlaire. Because, you see, since this morning, at four o'clock, when I left home, I have put nothing in my stomach,—nothing at all."

"Well, eat away, father Pantois. Regale yourself, while you are about it."

"You are very good, Monsieur Lanlaire. Pray excuse me."

The old man cut off enormous pieces of bread, which he was a long time in chewing, for he had no teeth left. When he was partially satisfied, Monsieur asked him:

"And the sweet-briers, father Pantois? They are fine this year, eh?"

"There are some that are fine; there are some that are not so fine; there are almost all sorts, Monsieur Lanlaire. Indeed, one can scarcely choose. And they are hard to pull up, you can believe. And besides, Monsieur Porcellet will not let us take them from his woods any more. We have to go a long way now to find them, a very long way. If I were to tell you that I come from the forest of Raillon,—more than three leagues from here? Yes, indeed, Monsieur Lanlaire."

While the good man was talking, Monsieur had taken a seat at the table beside him. Gay, almost uproarious, he slapped him on the shoulder, and exclaimed:

"Five leagues! you are a jolly good one, father Pantois. Always strong, always young."

"Not so much as that, Monsieur Lanlaire; not so much as that."

"Nonsense!" insisted Monsieur, "strong as an old Turk,—and good-humored, yes, indeed! They don't make any more like you these days, father Pantois. You are of the old school, you are."

The old man shook his head, his gaunt head, of the color of old wood, and repeated:

"Not so much as that. My legs are weakening, Monsieur Lanlaire; my arms are getting soft. And then my back. Oh! my confounded back! My strength is almost gone. And then the wife, who is sick, and who never leaves her bed,—what a bill for medicines! One has little luck, one has little luck. If at least one did not grow old? That, you see, Monsieur Lanlaire, that is the worst of the matter."

Monsieur sighed, made a vague gesture, and then, summing up the question philosophically, said:

"Oh! yes, but what do you expect, father Pantois? Such is life. One cannot be and have been. That's the way it is."

"To be sure; one must be reasonable."

"That's it."

"We live while we can, isn't it so, Monsieur Lanlaire?"

"Indeed it is."

And, after a pause, he added in a voice that had become melancholy:

"Besides, everybody has his sorrows, father Pantois."

"No doubt of it."

There was a silence. Marianne was cutting up herbs. It was growing dark in the garden. The two big sunflowers, which could be seen in the perspective of the open door, were losing their color and disappearing in the shade. And father Pantois kept on eating. His glass had remained empty. Monsieur filled it, and then, suddenly abandoning his metaphysical heights, he asked:

"And what are sweet-briers worth this year?"

"Sweet-briers, Monsieur Lanlaire? Well, this year, taking them as they come, sweet-briers are worth twenty-two francs a hundred. It is a little dear, I know; but I cannot get them for less; really I cannot."

Like a generous man, who despises considerations of money, Monsieur interrupted the old man, who was getting ready to justify himself by explanations.

"It is all right, father Pantois. It is agreed. Do I ever haggle with you? In fact, instead of twenty-two francs, I will pay you twenty-five for your sweet-briers."

"Ah! Monsieur Lanlaire, you are too good!"

"No, no; I am just. I am for the people, I am; for labor, don't you know?"

And, with a blow on the table, he went higher still.

"No, not twenty-five,—thirty, father Pantois. I will pay you thirty francs, do you hear that?"

The good man lifted his poor eyes to Monsieur, in astonishment and gratitude, and stammered:

"I hear very well. It is a pleasure to work for you, Monsieur Lanlaire. You know what work is, you do."

Monsieur put an end to these effusions.

"And I will go to pay you,—let us see; to-day is Tuesday,—I will go to pay you on Sunday. Does that suit you? And at the same time I will take my gun. Is it agreed?"

The gleam of gratitude which had been shining in the eyes of father Pantois faded out. He was embarrassed, troubled; he stopped eating.

"You see," said he, timidly,—"well, in short, if you could pay it to-night, that would oblige me greatly, Monsieur Lanlaire. Twenty-two francs, that's all; pray excuse me."

"You are joking, father Pantois," replied Monsieur, with superb assurance; "certainly; I will pay you that directly. I proposed that only for the purpose of making a little trip and paying you a little visit."

He fumbled in the pockets of his pantaloons, then in those of his vest and waistcoat, and, assuming an air of surprise, he cried:

"Well, there! here I am again without change! I have nothing but confounded thousand-franc bills."

With a forced and really sinister laugh, he asked:

"I will bet that you have not change for a thousand francs, father Pantois?"

Seeing Monsieur laugh, father Pantois thought that it was proper for him to laugh too, and he answered, jovially:

"Ha! ha! ha! I have never even seen these confounded bills."

"Well, on Sunday then," concluded Monsieur.

Monsieur had poured out a glass of cider for himself, and was drinking with father Pantois, when Madame, whom they had not heard coming, suddenly entered the kitchen, like a gust of wind.

Ah! her eye, when she saw that! when she saw Monsieur sitting at table beside the poor old man, and drinking with him!

"What's this?" she exclaimed, her lips all white.

Monsieur stammered, and hemmed and hawed.

"It is some sweet-briers; you know very well, my pet; some sweet-briers. Father Pantois has brought me some sweet-briers. All the rose-bushes were frozen this winter."

"I have ordered no sweet-briers. We need no sweet-briers here."

This was said in a cutting tone. Then she made a half-circuit of the room, and went out, slamming the door and showering insults. In her anger she had not noticed me.

Monsieur and the poor old puller of sweet-briers had risen. Embarrassed, they looked at the door through which Madame had just disappeared. Then they looked at each other, without daring to say a word. Monsieur was the first to break this painful silence.

"Well, then, on Sunday, father Pantois."

"On Sunday, Monsieur Lanlaire."

"And take good care of yourself, father Pantois."

"You also, Monsieur Lanlaire."

"And thirty francs, mind you. I do not take back what I said."

"You are very good."

And the old man, trembling on his legs, and with back bent, went away, and disappeared in the darkness.

Poor Monsieur! he must have received his lecture! And, as for father Pantois, if ever he gets his thirty francs,—well, he will be lucky.

I do not wish to justify Madame, but I think that Monsieur is wrong in talking familiarly with people that are too far beneath him. It is not dignified.

I know very well that he doesn't lead a gay life, to be sure, and that he takes such opportunities as offer. That is not always convenient. When he comes back late from a hunt, dirty and wet, and singing to keep up his courage, Madame gives him a warm reception.

"Ah! it is very nice of you to leave me alone all day!"

"But you know very well, my pet...."

"Be still."

She sulks for hours and hours, her forehead stern, her mouth ugly. He follows her about everywhere, trembling and stammering excuses.

"But, my pet, you know very well...."

"Let me alone; you make me tired."

The next day, naturally, Monsieur does not go out, and Madame exclaims:

"Why do you wander about thus in the house, like a soul in torment?"

"But, my pet...."

"You would do much better to go out, to go hunting, the devil knows where! You annoy me; you unnerve me. Go away."

So that he never knows what to do, whether to go or stay, to be here or elsewhere. A difficult problem. But, as in either case Madame scolds, Monsieur has taken the course of going away as often as possible. In that way he does not hear her scold.

Ah! it is really pitiful.

The other morning, as I was going to spread a little linen on the hedge, I saw him in the garden. Monsieur was gardening. The wind having blown down some dahlias during the night, he was refastening them to their props.

Very often, when he does not go out before lunch, Monsieur works in the garden; at least, he pretends to be occupying himself with something or other in his platbands. It is always time gained from the ennui of the household. During these moments there are no scenes. Away from Madame, he is no longer the same man. His face lightens up, his eyes shine. Naturally gay, his gaiety comes to the surface. Really, he is not disagreeable. In the house, indeed, he rarely speaks to me now, and, though still bent on his idea, seems to pay no attention to me. But outside he never fails to address me a pleasant little word, after making sure, however, that Madame cannot be spying him. When he does not dare to speak to me, he looks at me, and his look is more eloquent than his words. Moreover, I amuse myself in exciting him in all ways, although I have taken no resolution concerning him.

In passing by him, in the path where he was working, bent over his dahlias, with bits of string between his teeth, I said to him, without slackening my pace:

"Oh! how hard Monsieur is working this morning!"

"Yes, indeed," he answered; "these confounded dahlias! You see...."

He invited me to stop a minute.

"Well, Célestine, I hope you are getting accustomed to the place, now?"

Always his mania! Always the same difficulty in engaging in conversation! To please him, I replied with a smile:

"Why, yes, Monsieur, certainly; I am getting accustomed here."

"I am glad to hear it. It is not bad here; really, it is not bad."

He quite straightened up, gave me a very tender look, and repeated: "It is not bad," thus giving himself time to think of something ingenious to say to me.

He took from his teeth the bits of string, tied them at the top of the prop, and, with legs spread apart, and his two palms resting on his hips, with a knowing look, and frankly obscene eyes, he cried:

"I'll bet, Célestine, that you led a gay life in Paris? Say, now, didn't you?"

I was not expecting this. And I had a great desire to laugh. But I lowered my eyes modestly, with an offended air, and, trying to blush, as was proper under the circumstances, I exclaimed, in a tone of reproach:

"Oh! Monsieur!"

"Well, what?" he insisted; "a pretty girl like you,—with such eyes! Oh! yes, you must have had a gay time. And so much the better. For my part, I am for amusement; yes, I am for love."

Monsieur was becoming strangely animated. And, on his robust, muscular person I recognized the most evident signs of amorous exaltation. He was on fire; desire was flaming in his eyes. I deemed it my duty to pour a good shower of cold water on this fire. In a very dry tone, and at the same time very loftily, I said:

"Monsieur is mistaken. Monsieur thinks that he is speaking to his other chambermaids. Monsieur must know, however, that I am a good girl."

And with great dignity, to show exactly to what extent this outrage had offended me, I added:

"It will serve Monsieur right, if I go to complain to Madame directly."

And I made a pretence of starting. Monsieur quickly grasped me by the arm.

"No, no," he stammered.

How did I ever say all that without bursting? How did I ever succeed in burying in my throat the laugh that was ringing there? Really, I don't know.

Monsieur was prodigiously ridiculous. Livid now, with mouth wide open, his whole person bearing a two-fold expression of annoyance and fear, he remained silent, digging into his neck with his nails.

Near us an old pear tree twisted its pyramid of branches, eaten by lichens and mosses. A few pears hung within reach of his hand. A magpie was chattering ironically at the top of a neighboring chestnut tree. Crouching behind the border of box, the cat was pawing at a bumble-bee. The silence was becoming more and more painful for Monsieur. At last, after efforts that were almost sorrowful,—efforts that brought grotesque grimaces to his lips,—Monsieur asked:

"Do you like pears, Célestine?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

I did not disarm; I answered in a tone of lofty indifference.

In the fear of being surprised by his wife, he hesitated a few seconds. And suddenly, like a thieving child, he took a pear from the tree, and gave it to me,—oh! how piteously! His knees bent, his hand trembled.

"There, Célestine, hide that in your apron. You never have any in the kitchen, do you?"

"No, Monsieur."

"Well, I will give you some occasionally, because ... because ... I wish you to be happy."

The sincerity and ardor of his desire, his awkwardness, his clumsy gestures, his bewildered words, and also his masculine power, all had a softening effect upon me. I relaxed my face a little, veiled the severity of my look with a sort of smile, and, half ironically, half coaxingly, I said to him:

"Oh! Monsieur, if Madame were to see you?"

Again he became troubled, but, as we were separated from the house by a thick curtain of chestnut trees, he quickly recovered himself, and, growing more defiant as I became less severe, he exclaimed, with easy gestures:

"Well, what? Madame? And what of her? I care nothing for Madame. I do not intend that she shall annoy me. I have enough of her. I am over my head in Madame."

I declared gravely:

"Monsieur is wrong. Monsieur is not just. Madame is a very amiable woman."

He gave a start.

"Very amiable? She? Ah! Great God! But you do not know, then, what she has done? She has spoiled my life. I am no longer a man; I am nothing at all. I am the laughing-stock of the neighborhood. And all on account of my wife. My wife? She ... she ... she is a hussy,—yes, Célestine, a hussy ... a hussy ... a hussy."

I gave him a moral lecture. I talked to him gently, hypocritically boasting of Madame's energy and order and all her domestic virtues. At each of my phrases he became more exasperated.

"No, no. A hussy! A hussy!"

However, I succeeded in calming him a little. Poor Monsieur! I played with him with marvelous ease. With a simple look I made him pass from anger to emotion. Then he stammered:

"Oh! you are so gentle, you are! You are so pretty! You must be so good! Whereas that hussy"...

"Oh! come, Monsieur! come! come!"

He continued:

"You are so gentle! And yet, what?... you are only a chambermaid."

For a moment he drew nearer to me, and in a low voice said:

"If you would, Célestine?"

"If I would what?"

"If you would ... you know very well; yes, you know very well."

"Monsieur wishes me perhaps to betray Madame with Monsieur?"

He misunderstood the expression of my face; and, with eyes standing out of his head, the veins in his neck swollen, his lips moist and frothy, he answered, in a smothered voice:

"Yes; yes, indeed."

"Monsieur doesn't think of such a thing?"

"I think of nothing else, Célestine."

He was very red, his face congested.

"Ah! Monsieur is going to begin again?"

He tried to grasp my hand, to draw me to him.

"Well, yes," he stammered, "I am going to begin again; I am going to begin again, because ... because ... I am mad over you, Célestine; because I think of nothing else; because I cannot sleep; because I feel really sick. And don't be afraid of me; have no fears! I am not a brute. No, indeed; I swear it. I ... I...."

"Another word, Monsieur, and this time I tell everything to Madame. Suppose some one were to see you in the garden in this condition?"

He stopped short. Distressed, ashamed, thoroughly stupid, he knew not what to do with his hands, with his eyes, with his whole person. And he looked, without seeing them, at the ground beneath his feet, at the old pear tree, at the garden. Conquered at last, he untied the bits of string at the top of the prop, bent again over the fallen dahlias, and sad, infinitely so, and supplicating, he groaned:

"Just now, Célestine, I said to you ... I said that to you ... as I would have said anything else to you,—as I would have said no matter what. I am an old fool. You must not be angry with me. And, above all, you must not say anything to Madame. You are right, though; suppose some one had seen us in the garden?"

I ran away, to keep from laughing.

Yes, I wanted to laugh. And, nevertheless, there was an emotion singing in my heart, something—what shall I call it?—something maternal. And, besides, it would have been amusing, because of Madame. We shall see, later.

Monsieur did not go away all day. He straightened his dahlias, and during the afternoon he did not leave the wood-house, where he split wood furiously for more than four hours. From the linen-room I listened, with a sort of pride, to the blows of the axe.

Yesterday Monsieur and Madame spent the entire afternoon at Louviers. Monsieur had an appointment with his lawyer, Madame with her dressmaker. Her dressmaker!

I took advantage of this moment of rest to pay a visit to Rose, whom I had not seen since that famous Sunday. And I was not averse to making the acquaintance of Captain Mauger.

A true type of an old sea-dog, this man, and such as you seldom see, I assure you. Fancy a carp's head, with a moustache and a long gray tuft of beard. Very dry, very nervous, very restless, he cannot stay in one place for any length of time, and is always at work, either in his garden, or in a little room where he does carpentering, humming military airs or imitating the bugle of the regiment.

The garden is very pretty,—an old garden divided into square beds in which old-fashioned flowers are cultivated,—those very old flowers that are found now only in very old fields and in the gardens of very old priests.

When I arrived, Rose, comfortably seated in the shade of an acacia, beside a rustic table, on which lay her work-basket, was mending stockings, and the captain, squatting on the grass, and wearing an old foraging-cap on his head, was stopping the leaks in a garden-hose which had burst the night before.

They welcomed me enthusiastically, and Rose ordered the little servant, who was weeding a bed of marguerites, to go for the bottle of peach brandy and some glasses.

The first courtesies exchanged, the captain asked:

"Well, he has not yet croaked, then, your Lanlaire? Oh! you can boast of serving in a famous den! I really pity you, my dear young woman."

He explained to me that formerly Monsieur and he had lived as good neighbors, as inseparable friends. A discussion apropos of Rose had brought on a deadly quarrel. Monsieur, it seems, reproached the captain with not maintaining his dignity with his servant,—with admitting her to his table.

Interrupting his story, the captain forced my testimony:

"To my table! Well, have I not the right? Is it any of his business?"

"Certainly not, captain."

Rose, in a modest voice, sighed:

"A man living all alone; it is very natural isn't it?"

Since this famous discussion, which had come near ending in blows, the two old friends had passed their time in lawsuits and tricks. They hated each other savagely.

"As for me," declared the captain, "when I find any stones in my garden, I throw them over the hedge into Lanlaire's. So much the worse if they fall on his bell-glasses and on his garden-frames! Or, rather, so much the better! Oh! the pig! Wait now, let me show you."

Having noticed a stone in the path, he rushed to pick it up, approached the hedge cautiously, creeping like a trapper, and threw the stone into our garden with all his might. We heard a noise of breaking glass. Then, returning to us triumphantly, shaking, stifled, twisted with laughter, he exclaimed:

"Another square broken! The glazier will have to come again."

Rose looked at him with a sort of maternal admiration, and said:

"Is he not droll? What a child! And how young, for his age!"

After we had sipped a little glass of brandy, Captain Mauger desired to do me the honors of the garden. Rose excused herself for her inability to accompany us, because of her asthma, and counselled us not to stay too long.

"Besides," said she, jokingly, "I am watching you."

The captain took me through the paths, among the beds bordered with box and filled with flowers. He told me the names of the prettiest ones, remarking each time that there were no such to be seen in the garden of that pig of a Lanlaire. Suddenly he plucked a little orange-colored flower, odd and charming, twirled the stem gently in his fingers, and asked me:

"Did you ever eat any of these?"

I was so surprised by this preposterous question that I stood with mouth closed. The captain declared:

"Well, I have eaten them. They are perfect to the taste. I have eaten all the flowers that are here. Some are good; some are not so good; and some don't amount to much. But, as for me, I eat everything."

He winked, clacked his tongue, tapped his belly, and repeated in a louder voice, in which an accent of defiance was uppermost:

"I eat everything, I do."

The way in which the captain had just proclaimed this strange confession of faith revealed to me that his vanity in life was to eat everything. I amused myself in humoring his mania.

"And you are right, Captain."

"Surely," he answered, not without pride. "And it is not only plants that I eat; I eat animals also,—animals that nobody else has eaten,—animals that are not known. I eat everything, I do."

We continued our walk among the flower-beds, through the narrow paths where pretty corollas, blue, yellow, and red, were swaying in the breeze. And, as he looked at the flowers, it seemed to me that the captain's belly gave little starts of joy. His tongue passed over his chapped lips with a slight smack.

He said to me further:

"And I am going to confess to you. There are no insects, no birds, no earth-worms that I have not eaten. I have eaten skunks and snakes, rats and crickets and caterpillars. I have eaten everything. It is well known in the neighborhood. When they find a beast, dead or alive, a beast unknown to anybody, they say to themselves: 'I must take it to Captain Mauger.' They bring it to me, and I eat it. In winter especially, when it is very cold, unknown birds pass this way, coming from America, or from a greater distance perhaps. They bring them to me, and I eat them. I will bet that there is not a man in the world who has eaten as many things as I have. I eat everything."

The walk over, we returned to sit down under the acacia. And I was getting ready to leave, when the captain cried:

"Oh! I must show you something curious,—something that you have never seen, I am sure."

And he called in a loud voice:

"Kléber! Kléber!"

Between two calls he explained to me:

"Kléber is my ferret. A phenomenon!"

And he called again:

"Kléber! Kléber!"

Then, on a branch above us, between green and golden leaves, there appeared a pink snout and two little black, sharp, bright eyes.

"Oh! I knew well that he was not far away. Come, come here, Kléber! Psstt!"

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 spots, had the supple movements, the graceful undulations, of a serpent. He touched ground, and in two bounds was on the knees of the captain, who began to caress him joyfully.

"Oh! the good Kléber! Oh! the charming little Kléber!"

He turned to me:

"Did you ever see a ferret as tame as that? He follows me about the garden everywhere, like a little dog. I have only to call him, and he is there directly, his tail frisking, his head lifted. He eats with us, sleeps with us. Indeed, I love the little beast as if he were a person. Why, Mademoiselle Célestine, I have refused three hundred francs for him. I would not sell him for a thousand francs,—no, not for two thousand francs. Here, Kléber."

The animal lifted its head toward its master; then it climbed upon him, mounted his shoulders, and, after a thousand caresses and a thousand pretty tricks, rolled itself around the captain's neck, like a handkerchief. Rose said nothing. She seemed vexed.

Then an infernal idea flashed into my mind.

"I will bet you," I said, suddenly,—"I will bet you, Captain, that you would not eat your ferret."

The captain looked at me with profound astonishment, and then with infinite sadness. His eyes became round, his lips quivered.

"Kléber?" he stammered; "eat Kléber?"

Evidently this question had never occurred to him, who had eaten everything. A sort of new world, strangely comestible, appeared before him.

"I will bet," I repeated, ferociously, "that you would not eat your ferret."

Bewildered, distressed, moved by a mysterious and invincible shock, the old captain had risen from his bench. He was extraordinarily agitated.

"Just say that again, and see!" he stammered.

For the third time, violently, separating each word, I said:

"I will bet that you would not eat your ferret."

"I would not eat my ferret? What's that you say? You say that I would not eat it? Yes, you say that? Well, you shall see. I tell you that I eat everything."

He seized the ferret. As one breaks a loaf of bread, he broke the little beast's back with a snap, and threw it, dead without a shock, without a spasm, on the sandy path, shouting to Rose:

"Make me a stew out of that for dinner!"

And, madly gesticulating, he ran to shut himself up in the house.

For some minutes I felt a real and unspeakable horror. Still completely dazed by the abominable action that I had just committed, I rose to go. I was very pale. Rose accompanied me. With a smile she confided to me:

"I am not sorry for what has just happened. He was too fond of his ferret. I do not wish him to love anything. He loves his flowers already too much to suit me."

After a short silence, she added:

"But he will never forgive you for that. He is not a man to be defied. An old soldier, you know!"

Then, a few steps farther on:

"Pay attention, my little one. They are beginning to gossip about you in the neighborhood. It seems that you were seen the other day, in the garden, with Monsieur Lanlaire. It is very imprudent, believe me. He will get you into trouble, if he hasn't already done so. You want to look out for yourself."

And, as she closed the gate behind me:

"Well, au revoir! Now I must go to make my stew."

All day long I saw before my eyes the body of the poor little ferret, lying there on the sandy path.

This evening, at dinner, when dessert was being served, Madame said to me, very severely:

"If you like prunes, you have only to ask me for them; I will see if I can give you any; but I forbid you to take them."

I answered:

"I am not a thief, Madame, and I do not like prunes."

Madame insisted:

"I tell you that you have taken some prunes."

I replied:

"If Madame thinks me a thief, Madame has only to pay me and let me go."

Madame snatched the plate of prunes from my hand.

"Monsieur ate five this morning; there were thirty-two; now there are but twenty-five; then you have taken two. Don't let that happen again."

It was true. I had eaten two of them. She had counted them!

Did you ever in your life?

V

September 28.

My mother is dead. I received the news this morning, in a letter from home. Although I have never had anything but blows from her, the news has given me pain, and I have cried, and cried, and cried. Seeing me crying, Madame said:

"Again these manners?"

I answered:

"My mother, my poor mother, is dead!"

Then Madame, in her ordinary voice:

"It is a pity, but I can do nothing about it. At any rate, the work must not suffer."

And that was all. Oh! indeed, Madame's kindness will never kill her.

What has made me most unhappy is the fact that I have seen a coincidence between my mother's death and the murder of the little ferret. It seems to me like a punishment from heaven, and that perhaps my mother would not be dead if I had not obliged the captain to kill poor Kléber. In vain have I repeated to myself that my mother died before the ferret. That had no effect; the idea has pursued me all day long, like a remorse.

I should have liked to go home. But Audierne is so far away,—at the end of the world, it seems. And I have no money. When I shall receive my first month's wages, I shall have to pay the employment-bureau. I shall not have enough to even pay the few little debts contracted during the days when I was on the pavement.

And then, of what use would it be to go? My brother is in the naval service, and his vessel is in China, I believe, for it is a very long time since we had any news from him. And my sister Louise? Where is she now? I do not know. Since she left us to follow Jean le Duff to Concarneau, nothing has been heard from her. She must have rolled hither and thither, the devil knows where! Perhaps she is in a public house; perhaps she, too, is dead. And perhaps, also, my brother is dead.

Yes, why should I go there? In what way would it help me? There is no one there now who interests me, and surely my mother has left nothing. Her rags and the little furniture that she had certainly will not pay her brandy bill.

It is queer, all the same; as long as she was living, I almost never thought of her; I felt no desire to see her again. I wrote to her only when I changed my place, and then simply to give her my address. She has beaten me so much! I was so unhappy with her, she being always drunk. And yet, on learning suddenly that she is dead, my soul is plunged in mourning, and I feel more alone than ever.

And I remember my childhood with singular clearness. I see again all the things and beings among whom I began the stern apprenticeship of life. There is really too much sorrow on one side, too much happiness on the other. The world is not just.

One night, I remember,—I was very small, moreover,—I remember that we were awakened with a start by the whistle of the life-saving boat. Oh! those calls in the tempest and in the darkness,—how lugubrious they are! Since the night before, the wind had been blowing a gale. The harbor bar was white and furious. Only a few sloops had been able to get back. The others, the poor others, were surely in danger.

Knowing that my father was fishing in the vicinity of the Ile de Sein, my mother was not too anxious. She hoped that he had put into the island harbor, as he had done so often before. Nevertheless, on hearing the whistle of the life-saving boat, she arose, trembling and very pale, wrapped me hurriedly in a thick woolen shawl, and started for the breakwater. My sister Louise, who was already grown, and my younger brother, followed her, crying:

"Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!"

And she, too, cried:

"Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!"

The narrow streets were full of people,—women, old men, children. A crowd of frightened shadows were hastening to the pier, where the groaning of the boats could be heard. But they could not stay on the breakwater because of the strong wind, and especially because of the waves, which, beating against the stone embankment, swept it from end to end, with the noise of a cannonade. My mother took the path ... "Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!...." took the path that winds around the estuary to the light-house. Everything was black on land, and on the sea, which was black also, could be seen, from time to time, in the distance, by the rays from the light-house, the white breaking of enormous waves. In spite of the shocks ... "Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!...." in spite of the shocks and in a way lulled by them, in spite of the wind and in a way stunned by it, I went to sleep in my mother's arms. I awoke in a low room, and I saw, among sombre backs, gloomy faces, and waving arms,—I saw, on a camp bed, lighted by two tallow candles, a great corpse ... "Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!...." a frightful corpse, long and naked, perfectly rigid, the face crushed, the limbs streaked with bleeding gashes and covered with black and blue spots. It was my father.

I see him still. His hair was glued to his skull, and filled with a mass of sea-weed that made a sort of crown. Men were bending over him, rubbing his skin with warm flannels and forcing air into his mouth. There was the mayor; there was the rector; there was the captain of customs; there was the marine policeman. I was frightened; I freed myself from my shawl, and, running between the legs of these men, over the wet stone floor, I began to cry,—to call papa,—to call mamma. A neighbor took me away.

From that moment my mother took to drinking furiously. At first she really tried to work in the sardine-packing establishments, but, as she was always drunk, none of her employers would keep her. Then she stayed at home to intoxicate herself, quarrelsome and gloomy; and, when she was full of brandy, she beat us. How does it happen that she did not kill me?

I avoided the house as much as I could. I spent my days in playing on the pier, in thieving in the gardens, and in paddling in the puddles when the tide was low. Or else, on the Plogoff road, at the bottom of a grassy decline, sheltered from the sea wind and covered with thick bushes, I misbehaved with the little boys, among the hawthorns. On returning at night, I generally found my mother stretched on the tile floor across the threshold, inert, her mouth covered with vomit, and a broken bottle in her hands. Often I had to step over her body. Her awakenings were terrible. She was seized with a passion for destruction. Without listening to my prayers or my cries, she tore me from the bed, pursued me, kicked me, and knocked me against the furniture, crying:

"I'll have your hide! I'll have your hide!"

Many times I thought I should die.

And then she debauched herself, to get money with which to buy liquor. At night, every night, low knocks were heard at the door of our house. A sailor entered, filling the room with a strong odor of sea-salt and fish. He lay down, remained an hour, and went away. And another came, after him, lay down also, remained another hour, and went away. There were struggles and terrifying uproars in the darkness of these abominable nights, and several times the police interfered.

Thus years rolled by. I was not wanted anywhere; nor was my sister, or my brother. They avoided us in the streets. The respectable people drove us with stones from their houses, to which we went, sometimes to steal, sometimes to beg. One day my sister Louise, who also had got into bad ways with the sailors, ran away. And then my brother enlisted as a cabin-boy. I was left alone with my mother.

At the age of ten I was no longer chaste. Made familiar with love by the sad example of mamma, perverted by the little boys with whom I associated, my physical development had been very rapid. In spite of deprivations and blows, living continually in the open sea air, free and strong, I had grown so fast that at the age of eleven I experienced the first awakenings of womanhood. Beneath my girlish exterior, I was almost a woman.

At the age of twelve I was a woman quite, and no longer a virgin. Raped? No, not exactly. Consenting? Yes, almost,—at least in the degree in which the artlessness of my vice and the candor of my depravity were consistent with consent. The thing occurred one Sunday, after high mass, near the beach, on the Saint Jean side, in a recess in the cliff, in a dark hole among the rocks where the sea-gulls came to build their nests, and where the sailors sometimes hid the wreckage which they found at sea. The man was the foreman of a sardine-packing establishment,—an old, hairy, ill-smelling man, whose face was nothing but a dirty mass of beard and hair. He gave me an orange. He had a funny name,—M. Cléophas Biscouille.

And here is an incomprehensible thing, of which I have found no explanation in any novel. Ugly, brutal, and repulsive though M. Biscouille was, when I think of him now,—and I often do,—how happens it that it is never with a feeling of detestation for him, never with a disposition to curse him? At this recollection, which I call up with satisfaction, I feel a sort of great gratitude, a sort of great tenderness, and also a sort of real regret at having to say to myself that never shall I see this disgusting personage again.

In this connection may I be permitted to offer here, humble though I am, my personal contribution to the biography of great men.

M. Paul Bourget was the intimate friend and spiritual guide of the Countess Fardin, in whose house last year I served as chambermaid. I had always heard it said that he alone knew, even to its subsoil, the complex soul of woman. And many times I had had the idea of writing to him, in order to submit to him this case of passional psychology. I had not dared. Do not be too much astonished at the gravity of such preoccupations. They are not usual among domestics, I admit. But in the salons of the countess they never talked of anything but psychology. It is an admitted fact that our mind is modeled on that of our masters, and that what is said in the salon is said also in the servants' hall. Unhappily we had not in the servants' hall a Paul Bourget, capable of elucidating and solving the cases of feminism that we discussed there. The explanations of Monsieur Jean himself were not satisfactory to me.

One day my mistress sent me to carry an "urgent" letter to the illustrious master. He handed me the reply himself. Then I made bold to put to him the question that tormented me, pretending, however, that the heroine of this ticklish and obscure story was a friend of mine. M. Paul Bourget asked:

"What is your friend? A woman of the people? A poor woman, undoubtedly?"

"A chambermaid, like myself, illustrious master."

A superior grimace, a look of disdain, appeared on M. Bourget's face. Ah! sapristi! he does not like the poor.

"I do not occupy myself with these souls," said he. "These are too little souls. They are not even souls. They are outside the province of my psychology."

I understood that, in this province, one begins to be a soul only with an income of a hundred thousand francs.

Not so M. Jules Lemaitre, also a familiar of the house. When I asked him the same question, he answered, prettily catching me about the waist:

"Well, charming Célestine, your friend is a good girl, that is all. And, if she resembles you, I would say a couple of words to her, you know,—hey! hey! hey!"

He, at least, with his face of a little humpbacked and merry-making faun, put on no airs; and he was good-natured. What a pity that he has fallen among the priests!

With all that, I know not what would have become of me in that hell of an Audierne, if the Little Sisters of Pont-Croix, finding me intelligent and pretty, had not taken me in, out of pity. They did not take advantage of my age, of my ignorance, of my trying and despised situation, to make use of me, to secrete me for their benefit, as often happens in such establishments, which carry human exploitation to the point of crime. They were poor, candid, timid, charitable little beings, who were not rich, and who did not even dare to extend their hands to passers-by or to beg at the doors of houses. There was sometimes much poverty among them, but they got along as best they could. And, amid all the difficulties of living, they continued none the less to be gay, and to sing continually like larks. Their ignorance of life had something touching about it, something which brings the tears to my eyes to-day, now that I can better understand their infinite and pure kindness.

They taught me to read, to write, to sew, to do housework; and, when I had become almost expert in these necessary things, they got me a place as a little housemaid in the house of a retired colonel, who came every summer, with his wife and his two daughters, to occupy a sort of dilapidated little château near Comfort. Worthy people, certainly, but so sad, so sad! And maniacs, too! Never a smile on their faces, never a sign of joy in their garments, which were always black. The colonel had had a lathe put in at the top of the house, and there, all day long, he turned egg cups out of box-wood, or else those oval balls, called "eggs," which housewives use in mending stockings. Madame drew up petition after petition, in order to obtain a tobacco-shop. And the two daughters, saying nothing, doing nothing, one with a duck's beak, the other with a rabbit's face, yellow and thin, angular and faded, dried up on the spot, like two plants lacking everything,—soil, water, sunshine. They bored me enormously. At the end of eight months I left them, in a moment of rashness which I have regretted.

But then! I heard Paris breathing and living around me. Its breath filled my heart with new desires. Although I did not go out often, I had admired with a prodigious astonishment the streets, the shop-windows, the crowds, the palaces, the brilliant equipages, the jeweled women. And, when, at night, I went to bed in the sixth story, I envied the other domestics of the house, and their pranks which I found charming, and their stories which left me in a state of marvelous surprise. Though I remained in the house but a short time, I saw there, at night, in the sixth story, all sorts of debaucheries, and took my part in them with the enthusiasm and emulation of a novice. Oh! the vague hopes and the uncertain ambitions that I cherished there, in that fallacious ideal of pleasure and vice!

Alas! yes, one is young, one knows nothing of life, one entertains imaginations and dreams. Oh! the dreams! Stupidities! I have supped on them, in the words of M. Xavier, a prettily perverted boy, of whom I shall have something to say later.

And I have rolled. Oh! how I have rolled! It is frightful when I think of it.

Yet I am not old, but I have had a very close view of things; I have seen people naked. And I have sniffed the odor of their linen, of their skin, of their soul. In spite of perfumes, they do not smell good. All that a respected interior, all that a respectable family, can hide in the way of filth, shameful vices, and base crimes, beneath the appearance of virtue,—ah! I know it well. It makes no difference if they are rich, if they have rags of silk and velvet and gilded furniture; it makes no difference if they wash in silver tubs and make a great show,—I know them. They are not clean. And their heart is more disgusting than was my mother's bed.

Oh! how a poor domestic is to be pitied, and how lonely she is! She may live in houses full of joyous and noisy people, but how lonely she is always! Solitude does not consist in living alone; it consists in living with others, with people who take no interest in you, with whom you count for less than a dog gorged with goodies, or than a flower cared for as tenderly as a rich man's child,—people of whom you have nothing but their cast-off garments or the spoiled remains of their table.

"You may eat this pear; it is rotten. Finish this chicken in the kitchen; it smells bad."

Every word is contemptuous of you, every gesture disparaging of you, placing you on a level lower than that of the beasts. And you must say nothing; you must smile and give thanks; unless you would pass for an ingrate or a wicked heart. Sometimes, when doing my mistresses' hair, I have had a mad desire to tear their neck, to scratch their bosom with my nails.

Fortunately one is not always under the influence of these gloomy ideas. One shakes them off, and arranges matters to get all the fun one can, by himself.

This evening, after dinner, Marianne, seeing that I was utterly sad, was moved to pity, and tried to console me. She went to get a bottle of brandy from the depths of the sideboard, where it stood among a heap of old papers and dirty rags.

"You must not grieve like that," she said to me; "you must shake yourself a little, my poor little one; you must console yourself."

And, having poured me out a drink, she sat for an hour, with elbows on the table, and, in a drawling and lamenting voice, told me gloomy stories of sickness, of child-birth, of the death of her mother, of her father, and of her sister. With every minute her voice became thicker; her eyes moistened; and she repeated, as she licked her glass:

"You must not grieve like that. The death of your mamma,—oh! it is a great misfortune! But what do you expect? We are all mortal. Oh! my God! Oh! my poor little one!"

Then she suddenly began to weep and weep, and, while she wept and wept, she did not cease to wail:

"You must not grieve; you must not grieve."

At first it was a plaint; but soon it became a sort of frightful bray, which grew louder and louder. And her big belly, and her big breasts, and her triple chin, shaken by her sobs, heaved in enormous surges.

"Be still, then, Marianne," I said to her; "Madame might hear you, and come."

But she did not listen to me, and, crying louder than ever, exclaimed:

"Ah! what a misfortune! what a great misfortune!"

So that I too, my stomach turned by drink, and my heart moved by Marianne's tears, began to sob like a Madeleine. All the same, she is not a bad girl.

But I am getting tired here; I am getting tired; I am getting tired. I should like to get a place in the house of some member of the demi-monde, or else in America.

VI

October 1.

Poor Monsieur! I believe that I was too sharp with him the other day, in the garden. Perhaps I went further than I should. He is such a simpleton that he imagines that he has given me serious offence, and that my virtue is impregnable. Oh! his humiliated, imploring looks, which never cease to ask my pardon!

Although I have become more teasing and agreeable, he says no more to me about the matter, and cannot make up his mind to try a new direct attack,—not even the classic device of a button to be sewed on a pair of pantaloons. A clumsy device, but one that does not often fail of its effect. My God! how many such buttons have I sewed on!

And yet it is plain that he desires me,—that he is dying of desire, more and more. The least of his words betrays a confession, an indirect confession of his desire; and what a confession! But he is also more and more timid; he is afraid to come to a decision. He fears that it might bring about a definite rupture, and he no longer trusts in my encouraging looks.

On one occasion, approaching me with a strange expression, with a sort of haggard look in his eyes, he said to me:

"Célestine ... you ... you ... black ... my shoes ... very well ... very ... very ... well ... Never ... have ... my ... shoes ... been blacked ... like that."

Then I expected the button trick. But no! Monsieur gasped and slobbered as if he had eaten a pear that was too big and juicy.

Then he whistled for his dog, and started off.

But here is something stronger.

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:

"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 afternoon Georges must take a sea-bath, or, rather, he must dip himself for a second in the sea. Then his whole body must be rubbed vigorously with a hair-glove, to stimulate the circulation; then he must be obliged to drink a glass of old port; and then he must lie stretched for at least an hour in a very warm bed. That is what I want of you in the first place, my child. But understand me well; what I specially want is youth, grace, gaiety, life. In my house it is these things that are most lacking. I have two very devoted servants, but they are old and sad, and possessed of manias. Georges cannot endure them. And I myself, with my old white head and my perpetual wearing of mourning,—I feel that I am an affliction to him. And, what is worse still, I feel also that I often am unable to hide from him my apprehensions. Oh! I know that this, perhaps, is not exactly the role for a young girl like you, beside so young a boy as Georges; for he is only nineteen! The world undoubtedly will find something to say about it. But I care not for the world; I care only for my sick grandchild, and I have confidence in you. You are a good woman, I suppose?"

"Oh! yes, Madame," I cried, certain in advance of being the sort of saint of whom this disconsolate grandmother was in search, for the salvation of her child.

"And he, the poor little one, my God! In his condition! In his condition, you see, he needs, more than sea-baths perhaps, the continual companionship of a pretty face, a fresh young laugh, something to drive from his mind the idea of death, some one to give him confidence in life. Will you undertake it?"

"I accept, Madame," I answered, moved to the depths of my being. "And Madame may be sure that I will take good care of M. Georges."

It was agreed that I should enter upon my duties that very evening, and that we should start on the next day but one for Houlgate, where the lady in mourning had rented a beautiful villa near the beach.

The grandmother had not lied. M. Georges was a charming, an adorable child. His beardless face had the loveliness of that of a beautiful woman; womanly also were his indolent movements, and his long, white, supple hands, through which could be seen the network of his veins. But what ardent eyes! Pupils consumed by a dull fire, beneath eyelids ringed with blue, and seemingly burned by the flaming gaze! What an intense focus of thought, of passion, of sensibility, of intelligence, of inner life! And to what an extent already had the red flowers of death invaded his cheeks! It seemed as if it were not of disease, as if it were not of death, that he was dying, but of an excess of life, of the fever of life that was in him, gnawing at his organs and withering his flesh. Oh! how pretty and how painful a spectacle! When his grandmother took me to him, he was stretched on a long chair, and holding in his long white hands an odorless rose. He received me, not as a servant, but almost as a friend whom he expected. And from the first moment I became attached to him with all the strength of my soul.

Our establishment at Houlgate was effected without incident, as our journey had been also. Everything was ready, when we arrived. We had only to take possession of the villa,—a roomy, elegant villa, full of life and gaiety, and separated from the beach by a broad terrace covered with wicker-chairs and tents of many colors. A stone stairway, cut in the embankment, led to the sea, and against its lower steps sounded the music of the waves when the tide was coming in. M. Georges's room, on the ground floor, commanded an admirable view of the sea from large bay-windows. My own room—not the room of a servant, but that of a master—was opposite M. Georges's, across a passage-way, and was hung with light cretonne. From its windows one looked out into a little garden, where were growing some sorry-looking spindle-trees and some sorrier-looking rose-bushes. To express in words my joy, my pride, my emotion, and the pure and new elevation of mind that I felt at being thus treated and petted, admitted, like a lady, to comfort, to luxury, and to a share in that thing so vainly coveted which is called the family; to explain how, by a simple wave of the wand of that miraculous fairy, kindness, there came instantly an end to the recollection of my past humiliations and a conception of all the duties laid upon me by the dignity that belongs to a human being, and at last vouchsafed to me,—is quite beyond me. But I can say at least that I really perceived the magic of the transfiguration. Not only did the mirror testify that I had suddenly become more beautiful, but my heart assured me that I was really better. I discovered within me sources, sources, sources,—inexhaustible sources, ever-flowing sources, of devotion, of sacrifice, of heroism; and I had but one thought,—to save, by intelligent care, by watchful fidelity, and by marvellous skill,—to save M. Georges from death.

With a robust faith in my power of cure, I said in positive tones to the poor grandmother, who was in a state of perpetual despair, and often spent her days in weeping in the adjoining room:

"Do not weep, Madame. We will save him. I swear to you that we will save him."

And, in fact, at the end of a fortnight's time, M. Georges was much improved. A great change in his condition had taken place. The fits of coughing had diminished in number and intensity; his sleep and appetite were becoming more regular. He no longer had, in the night, those copious and terrible sweats that left him gasping and exhausted in the morning. His strength was so far recovered that we could take long drives and short walks, without serious fatigue. It was a sort of resurrection. As the weather was very fine, and the air very warm, but tempered by the sea-breeze, on days when we did not leave the premises we spent most of the time on the terrace, in the shelter of the tents, awaiting the bathing hour,—the hour of "the little dip in the sea," as M. Georges gaily called it. For he was gay, always gay; never did he speak of his illness, never of death. I really believe that in all those days he never once uttered the terrible word death. On the other hand, he was much amused by my chatter, provoking it if necessary; and I, confiding in his eyes, reassured by his heart, won by his indulgence and his grace, told him everything that came into my mind,—farces, follies, and songs. My little childhood, my little desires, my little misfortunes, and my dreams, and my rebellions, and my various experiences with ludicrous or infamous masters,—I told him all, without much masking of the truth, for, young though he was, and separated from the world, and shut up as he had always been, he nevertheless, by a sort of prescience, by a marvelous divination which the sick possess, understood life thoroughly. A real friendship, that his nature surely facilitated, and that his solitude caused him to desire, and, above all, that the intimate and constant care with which I delighted his poor moribund flesh brought about, so to speak, automatically, sprang up between us. I was happy to a degree that I cannot picture, and my mind gained in refinement by incessant contact with his.

M. Georges adored poetry. For entire hours, on the terrace, to the music of the waves, or else at night in his room, he asked me to read him the poems of Victor Hugo, of Baudelaire, of Verlaine, of Mæterlinck. Often he closed his eyes, and lay motionless, with his hands folded on his breast, and I, thinking that he was asleep, stopped reading; but he smiled, and said:

"Go on, little one; I am not asleep. I can listen better so. I hear your voice better. And your voice is charming."

Sometimes it was he who interrupted me. After concentrating his thoughts, he slowly recited, with a prolongation of the rhythms, the lines that had excited in him the greatest enthusiasm, and he tried—oh! how I loved him for that!—to make me understand them, to make me feel their beauty. One day he said to me,—and I have kept these words as a relic:

"The sublimity of poetry, you see, lies in the fact that it does not take an educated person to understand it and to love it. On the contrary. The educated do not understand it, and generally they despise it, because they have too much pride. To love poetry it is enough to have a soul,—a little soul, naked, like a flower. Poets speak to the souls of the simple, of the sad, of the sick. And that is why they are eternal. Do you know that, when one has sensibility, one is always something of a poet? And you yourself, little Célestine, have often said to me things that are as beautiful as poetry."

"Oh! Monsieur Georges, you are making fun of me."

"Not in the least. And you are unaware that you have said these beautiful things. And that is the delightful part of it."

For me those were unique hours; whatever destiny may bring me, they will sing in my heart as long as I may live. I felt that indescribably sweet sensation of becoming a new being, of witnessing, so to speak, from minute to minute, the revelation of something unknown in me, and which yet was I. And to-day, in spite of worse falls, thoroughly reconquered as I am by all that is bad and embittered in me, if I have kept this passionate fondness for reading, and sometimes that impulse toward things superior to my social environment and to myself; if, trying to regain confidence in the spontaneity of my nature, I have dared—I who am so ignorant—to write this diary,—it is to M. Georges that I owe it.

Oh! yes, I was happy,—happy especially at seeing the pretty patient gradually reborn, his flesh swelling out and his face blooming again, through the flow of a new sap; happy at the joy, and the hopes, and the certainties, that the rapidity of this resurrection gave to the entire house, of which I was now the queen and the fairy. They attributed to me, they attributed to the intelligence of my care, to the vigilance of my devotion, and, more still perhaps, to my constant gaiety, to my youth so full of charm, to my surprising influence over Georges, this incomparable miracle. And the poor grandmother thanked me, overwhelmed me with gratitude and blessings, and also with presents, like a nurse to whom has been confided a baby almost dead, and who, with her pure and healthy milk, reconstructs his organs, brings back his smile, and restores him to life.

Sometimes, forgetful of her station, she took my hands, caressed them, kissed them, and, with tears of joy, said to me:

"I knew very well ... I ... when I saw you ... I knew very well!"

And already projects were being formed,—journeys to the land of sunshine, fields full of roses!

"You shall never leave us; never more, my child."

Her enthusiasm often embarrassed me, but I finally came to believe that I deserved it. If, as many others would have done in my place, I had chosen to abuse her generosity ... Oh, misfortune!

And what was to happen happened.

On the day of which I speak, the weather had been very warm, very heavy, and very threatening. Across the sky, above the leaden and perfectly flat sea, rolled stifling clouds, thick red clouds, through which the storm could not break. M. Georges had not gone out, even to the terrace, and we had remained in his room. More nervous than usual, a nervousness due undoubtedly to the electricity in the atmosphere, he had even refused to let me read poetry to him.

"That would tire me," he said. "And, besides, I feel that you would read very badly to-day."

He had gone into the salon, where he had tried to play a little on the piano. The piano having plagued him, he had at once come back into the room, where he had sought to divert himself for a moment by drawing, as it seemed to me, some feminine profiles. But he had not been slow in abandoning paper and pencil, fuming with some impatience:

"I cannot; I am not in the mood. My hand trembles. I don't know what is the matter with me. And you,—there is something the matter with you, too. You are restless."

Finally he had stretched himself on his long chair, near the large bay-window, through which one could see a vast expanse of water. Fishing-boats in the distance, fleeing from the ever-threatening storm, were re-entering the port of Trouville. With a distracted look he followed their manoeuvres and their grey sails.

As M. Georges had said, I was restless; I could not keep still; I was continually moving about, to find something with which to occupy his mind. Of course I found nothing, and my agitation did not have a quieting influence on his.

"Why do you move about so? Why do you enervate yourself? Stay beside me."