OCTAVE MIRBEAU (continued 4)

"In vain do I cover myself with velvets, silks, and satin; I always look like a boor. There is always something that is not natural."

As for Madame Charrigaud, who previously had dressed very simply and with discreet taste, she, too, sported showy and stunning costumes, with hair too red, jewels too big, silks too rich, giving her the air of a laundry queen, the majesty of a Mardi-Gras empress. They made a great deal of sport of her, sometimes cruelly. Old comrades, at once humiliated and delighted by so much luxury and so much bad taste, avenged themselves by saying jestingly of this poor Victor Charrigaud:

"Really, for an ironist, he has no luck."

Thanks to fortunate manoeuvres, incessant diplomacy, and more incessant platitudes, they were received into what they called—they too—real society, in the houses of Jewish bankers, Venezuelan dukes, and vagrant arch-dukes, and in the houses of very old ladies, crazed over literature, panderism, and the Academy. They thought of nothing but cultivating and developing these new relations, and of acquiring others more desirable and more difficult of attainment,—others, others, and always others.

One day, to free himself from an obligation which he had stupidly assumed by accepting an invitation to the house of a friend who was not a conspicuous personage, but whom he was not yet ready to drop, Charrigaud wrote him the following letter:

My Dear Old Friend:

We are disconsolate. Excuse us for not keeping our promise for Monday. But we have just received, for that very day, an invitation to dine at the Rothschilds. It is the first. You understand that we cannot refuse. It would be disastrous. Fortunately, I know your heart. Far from being angry with us, I am sure that you will share our joy and our pride.

Another day he was telling of the purchase that he had just made of a villa at Deauville:

"I really don't know for whom these people took us. They undoubtedly took us for journalists, for Bohemians. But I quickly let them see that I had a notary."

Gradually he eliminated all that remained of the friends of his youth,—those friends whose simple presence in his house was a constant and disagreeable reminder of the past, and a confession of that stain, of that social inferiority,—literature and labor. And he contrived also to extinguish the flames that sometimes kindled in his brain, and to finally stifle that cursed wit whose sudden revival on certain occasions it frightened him to feel, supposing it to be dead forever. Then, it was no longer enough for him to be received in the houses of others; he desired, in turn, to receive others in his own house. His occupancy of a residence of some pretension, which he had just bought in Auteuil, was made the pretext for a dinner.

I entered their service at the time when the Charrigauds had at last resolved to give this dinner. Not one of those private dinners, gay and without pose, such as they had been in the habit of giving, and which for some years had made their house so charming, but a really elegant, really solemn dinner, a stiff and chilly dinner, a select dinner, to which should be ceremoniously invited, together with some correct celebrities of literature and art, some society personalities, not too difficult to reach, not too regularly established, but sufficiently decorative to shed a little of their brilliancy upon their hosts.

"For the difficult thing," said Victor Charrigaud, "is not to dine in the city, but to give a dinner at home."

After thinking over the plan for a long time, Victor Charrigaud made this proposition:

"Well, I have it. I think that at first we can have only divorced women—with their lovers. We must begin somewhere. There are some who are very suitable, and whom the most Catholic newspapers speak of with admiration. Later, when our connections shall have become more extensive, and at the same time more select,—why, we can let the divorced people slide."

"You are right," approved Mme. Charrigaud. "For the moment, the important thing is to get the best people among those who are divorced. Say what you will, the time has come when a divorce gives a person a certain position."

"It has at least the merit of abolishing adultery," chuckled Charrigaud. "Adultery is now very old-fashioned. Nobody but friend Bourget now believes in adultery,—Christian adultery,—and in English furniture."

To which Mme. Charrigaud replied, in a tone of nervous vexation:

"How you tire me, with your maliciously wicked remarks! You will see, you will see that, because of them, we shall never be able to establish a desirable salon."

And she added:

"If you really wish to become a man of society, you must learn first either to be an imbecile or to hold your tongue."

They made, unmade, and remade a list of guests, which, after laborious combinations, was finally settled upon as follows:

The Countess Fergus, divorced, and her friend, the economist and deputy, Joseph Brigard.

The Baroness Henri Gogsthein, divorced, and her friend, the poet, Théo Crampp.

The Baroness Otto Butzinghen, and her friend, the Viscount Lahyrais, clubman, sportsman, gambler, and trickster.

Mme. de Rambure, divorced, and her friend, Mme. Tiercelet, suing for divorce.

Sir Harry Kimberly, symbolist musician, and his young friend, Lucien Sartorys, as beautiful as a woman, as supple as a peau de Suède glove, as slender and blonde as a cigar.

The two academicians, Joseph Dupont de la Brie, collector of obscene coins, and Isidore Durand de la Marne, author of gallant memoirs in private and severe student of Chinese at the Institute.

The portrait-painter, Jacques Rigaud.

The psychological novelist, Maurice Fernancourt.

The society reporter, Poult d'Essoy.

The invitations were sent out, and, thanks to the mediation of influential persons, all were accepted.

The Countess Fergus alone hesitated:

"The Charrigauds?" said she. "Is theirs really a proper house? Has he not been engaged in all sorts of pursuits on Montmartre, in the past? Do they not say that he sold obscene photographs, for which he had posed, with an artificial bust? And are there not some disagreeable stories afloat regarding her? Did she not have some rather vulgar experiences before her marriage? Is it not said that she has been a model,—that she has posed for the altogether? What a horror! A woman who stripped before men who are not even her lovers?"

Finally she accepted the invitation, on being assured that Mme. Charrigaud had posed only for the head, that Charrigaud, who was very vindictive, would be quite capable of disgracing her in one of his books, and that Kimberly would come to this dinner. Oh! if Kimberly had promised to come! Kimberly, such a perfect gentleman, and so delicate and so charming, really charming!

The Charrigauds were informed of these negotiations and these scruples. Far from taking offence, they congratulated themselves that they had successfully conducted the former and overcome the latter. It was now a matter only of watching themselves, and, as Mme. Charrigaud said, of behaving themselves like real society people. This dinner, so marvelously prepared and planned, so skilfully negotiated, was really their first manifestation in the new avatar of their elegant destiny, of their social ambitions. It must, then, be an astonishing affair.

For a week beforehand everything was topsy-turvy in the house. It was necessary that the apartments should be made to look like new, and that there should be no hitch. They tried various lighting arrangements and table decorations, that they might not be embarrassed at the last moment. Over these matters M. and Mme. Charrigaud quarreled like porters, for they had not the same ideas, and their æsthetic views differed on all points, she inclining to sentimental arrangements, he preferring the severe and "artistic."

"It is idiotic," cried Charrigaud. "They will think that they are in a grisette's apartments. Ah! what a laughing-stock we shall be!"

"You had better not talk," replied Mme. Charrigaud, her nervousness reaching the point of paroxysm. "You are still what you used to be, a dirty tavern bum. And besides, I have enough of it; my back is broken with it."

"Well, that's it; let us have a divorce, my little wolf, let us have a divorce. By that means we at least shall complete the series, and cast no reflection on our guests."

They perceived also that there would not be enough silverware, glassware, and plates. They must rent some, and also rent some chairs, for they had only fifteen, and even these were not perfect. Finally, the menu was ordered of one of the grand caterers of the Boulevard.

"Let everything be ultra-stylish," ordered Mme. Charrigaud, "and let no one be able to recognize the dishes that are served. Shrimp hash, goose-liver cutlets, game that looks like ham, ham that looks like cake, truffles in whipped cream, and mashed potatoes in branches,—cherries in squares and peaches twisted into spirals. In short, have everything as stylish as possible."

"Rest easy," declared the caterer. "I know so well how to disguise things that I defy anybody to know what he is eating. It is a specialty of the house."

At last the great day arrived.

Monsieur rose early,—anxious, nervous, agitated. Madame, who had been unable to sleep all night, and weary from the errands of the day before and the preparations of all sorts, could not keep still. Five or six times, with wrinkled brow, out of breath, trembling and so weary that, as she said, she felt her belly in her heels, she made a final examination of the house, upset and rearranged bric-à-brac and furniture without reason, and went from one room to another without knowing why and as if she were mad. She trembled lest the cooks might not come, lest the florist might fail them, and lest the guests might not be placed at table in accordance with strict etiquette. Monsieur followed her everywhere, clad only in pink silk drawers, approving here, criticising there.

"Now that I think about it again," said he, "what a queer idea that was of yours to order centauries for the table decoration! I assure you that blue becomes black in the light. And then, after all, centauries are nothing but simple corn-flowers. It will look as if we had been to the fields to gather corn-flowers."

"Oh! corn-flowers! how provoking you are!"

"Yes, indeed, corn-flowers. And the corn-flower, as Kimberly said very truly the other evening at the Rothschilds, is not a society flower. Why not also corn poppies?"

"Let me alone," answered Madame. "You drive me crazy with all your stupid observations. A nice time to offer them, indeed!"

But Monsieur was obstinate:

"All right, all right; you will see, you will see. Provided, my God, that everything goes off tolerably well, without too many accidents, without too many delays. I did not know that to be society people was so difficult, so fatiguing, and so complicated a matter. Perhaps we ought to have remained simple boors."

And Madame growled:

"Oh! for that matter, I see clearly that nothing will change you. You scarcely do honor to a woman."

As they thought me pretty, and very elegant to look at, my masters had allotted to me also an important role in this comedy. First I was to preside over the cloak-room, and then to aid, or rather superintend, the four butlers, four tall lascars, with immense side-whiskers, selected from several employment-bureaus to serve this extraordinary dinner.

At first all went well. Nevertheless, there was a moment of alarm. At quarter before nine the Countess Fergus had not yet arrived. Suppose she had changed her mind, and resolved at the last moment not to come? What a humiliation! What a disaster! The Charrigauds were in a state of consternation. Joseph Brigard reassured them. It was the day when the countess had to preside over her admirable "Society for the Collection of Cigar-Stumps for the Army and Navy." The sessions sometimes did not end till very late.

"What a charming woman!" said Mme. Charrigaud, ecstatically, as if this eulogy had the magic power to hasten the coming of "this dirty countess," whom, at the bottom of her soul, she cursed.

"And what a brain!" said Charrigaud, going her one better, though really entertaining the same feeling. "The other day at the Rothschilds I felt that it would be necessary to go back to the last century to find such perfect grace and such superiority."

"And even then!" said Joseph Brigard, capping the climax. "You see, my dear Monsieur Charrigaud, in democratic societies based upon equality...."

He was about to deliver one of those semi-gallant, semi-sociological discourses which he was fond of retailing in the salons, when the Countess Fergus entered, imposing and majestic, in a black gown embroidered with jet and steel that showed off the fat whiteness and soft beauty of her shoulders. And it was amid murmurs and whispers of admiration that they made their way ceremoniously to the dining-room.

The beginning of the dinner was rather cold. In spite of her success, perhaps even because of her success, the Countess Fergus was a little haughty, or, at least, too reserved. She seemed to wear an air of condescension at having honored with her presence the humble house of "these little people." Charrigaud thought he noticed that she examined with a discreetly but visibly contemptuous pout the rented silverware, the table decoration, Mme. Charrigaud's green costume, and the four butlers whose too long side-whiskers dipped into the dishes. He was filled with vague terrors and agonizing doubts as to the proper appearance of his table and his wife. It was a horrible minute!

After some commonplace and laborious replies, exchanged apropos of trivial topics then current, the conversation gradually became general, and finally settled down upon the subject of correctness in society life.

All these poor devils, all these poor wretches, male and female, forgetting their own social irregularities, showed a strangely implacable severity toward persons whom it was allowable to suspect, not even of stains or blemishes, but simply of some formal lack of respect for society laws,—the only ones that ought to be obeyed. Living, in a certain sense, outside of their social ideal, thrown back, so to speak, to the margin of that existence whose disgraced correctness and regularity they honored as a religion, they undoubtedly hoped to get into it again by driving out others. The comicality of this was really intense and savory. They divided the universe into two great parts: on the one side, that which is regular; on the other, that which is not; here the people that one may receive; there the people that one may not receive. And these two great parts soon became pieces, and the pieces became thin slices, the subdivision going on ad infinitum. There were those in whose houses one may dine, and also those to whose houses one may go only for the evening. Those in whose houses one may not dine, but to which one may go for the evening. Those whom one may receive at his table, and those to whom one may accord only admission to his salon,—and even then only under certain circumstances, clearly defined. There were also those in whose houses one may not dine and whom one should not receive at one's house, and those whom one may receive at one's house and in whose houses one may not dine; those whom one may receive at breakfast, and never at dinner; and those in whose country houses one may dine, but never in their Paris residences, etc. The whole being supported with demonstrative and peremptory examples, well-known names being cited by way of illustration.

"Shades," said the Viscount Lahyrais, sportsman, clubman, gambler, and trickster. "The whole thing lies there. It is by the strict observance of shades that a man is really in society, or is not."

I believe that I never heard such dreary things. As I listened to them, I really felt a pity for these unfortunates.

Charrigaud neither ate or drank, and said nothing. Although he was scarcely in the conversation, he nevertheless felt its enormous and forbidding stupidity like a weight upon his skull. Impatient, feverish, very pale, he watched the service, tried to catch favorable or ironical impressions of the faces of his guests, and mechanically, with movements more and more accelerated, and in spite of the warnings of his wife, rolled big pellets of bread-crumb between his fingers. When a question was put to him, he answered in a bewildered, distracted, far-away voice:

"Certainly ... certainly ... certainly."

Opposite him, very stiff in her green gown, upon which spangles of green steel glittered with a phosphorescent brilliancy, and wearing an aigrette of red feathers in her hair, Mme. Charrigaud bent to right and to left, and smiled, without ever a word,—a smile so eternally motionless that it seemed painted on her lips.

"What a goose!" said Charrigaud to himself; "what a stupid and ridiculous woman! And what a carnival costume! To-morrow, because of her, we shall be the laughing-stock of Parisian society."

And on her side Mme. Charrigaud, beneath the fixity of her smile, was thinking:

"What an idiot this Victor is! And what a bad appearance he makes! To-morrow we shall catch it on account of his pellets."

The topic of correctness in society being exhausted, there followed an embarrassing lull in the conversation, which Kimberly broke by telling of his last trip to London.

"Yes," said he, "I spent in London an intoxicating week; and, ladies, I witnessed a unique thing. I attended a ritual dinner which the great poet, John-Giotto Farfadetti, gave to some friends to celebrate his betrothal to the wife of his dear Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton."

"How exquisite that must have been!" minced the Countess Fergus.

"You cannot imagine," answered Kimberly, whose look and gestures, and even the orchid that adorned the button-hole of his coat, expressed the most ardent ecstasy.

And he continued:

"Fancy, my dear friends, in a large hall, whose blue walls, though scarcely blue, are decorated with white peacocks and gold peacocks,—fancy a table of jade, inconceivably and delightfully oval. On the table some cups, in which mauve and yellow bonbons harmonized, and in the centre a basin of pink crystal, filled with kanaka preserves ... and nothing more. Draped in long white robes, we slowly passed in turn before the table, and we took, upon the points of our golden knives, a little of these mysterious preserves, which then we carried to our lips ... and nothing more."

"Oh! I find that moving," sighed the countess, "so moving!"

"You cannot imagine. But the most moving thing—a thing that really transformed this emotion into a painful laceration of our souls—was when Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton sang the poem of the betrothal of his wife and his friend. I know nothing more tragically, more superhumanly beautiful."

"Oh! I beg of you," implored the Countess Fergus, "repeat this prodigious poem for our benefit, Kimberly."

"The poem, alas! I cannot. I can give you only its essence."

"That's it, that's it! The essence."

In spite of his morals, in which they cut no figure, Kimberly filled women with mad enthusiasm, for his specialty was subtle stories of transgression and of extraordinary sensations. Suddenly a thrill ran round the table, and the flowers themselves, and the jewels on their beds of flesh, and the glasses on the table-cloth, took attitudes in harmony with the state of souls. Charrigaud felt his reason departing. He thought that he had suddenly fallen into a mad-house. Yet, by force of will, he was still able to smile, and say:

"Why, certainly ... certainly."

The butlers finished passing something that resembled a ham, from which, in a flood of yellow cream, cherries poured like red larvæ. As for the Countess Fergus, half swooning, she had already started for extra-terrestrial regions.

Kimberly began:

"Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton and his friend, John-Giotto Farfadetti, were finishing their daily tasks in the studio which they occupied in common. One was the great painter, the other the great poet; the former short and stout, the latter tall and thin; both alike clad in drugget robes, their heads alike adorned with Florentine BONNETS, both alike neurasthenics, for they had, in different bodies, like souls and lily-twin spirits. John-Giotto Farfadetti sang in his verses the marvelous symbols that his friend, Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton, painted on his canvases, so that the glory of the poet was inseparable from that of the painter, and that their works and their immortal geniuses had come to be confounded in one and the same adoration."

Kimberly stopped for a moment. The silence was religious. Something sacred hovered over the table. He continued:

"The day was nearing its end. A very soft twilight was enveloping the studio in a pallor of fluid and lunar shade. Scarcely could one still distinguish on the mauve walls the long, supple, waving, golden algæ that seemed to move in obedience to the vibration of some deep and magic water. John-Giotto Farfadetti closed the sort of antiphonary on the vellum of which, with a Persian reed, he wrote, or rather engraved, his eternal poems; Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton turned his lyre-shaped easel against a piece of drapery, placed his heart-shaped palette upon a fragile piece of furniture, and the two, facing one another, stretched themselves, with august poses of fatigue, upon a triple row of cushions, of the color of sea-weed."

"Hum!" said Mme. Tiercelet, with a slightly warning cough.

"No, not at all," said Kimberly, reassuringly; "it is not what you think."

And he continued:

"In the centre of the studio, from a marble basin in which the petals of roses were bathing, a violent perfume was rising. And on a little table long-stemmed narcissuses were dying, like souls, in a narrow vase whose neck opened into the calyx of a lily, strangely green and distorted."

"Impossible to forget," said the countess, in a quivering voice, so low that it could scarcely be heard.

And Kimberly, without stopping, went on with his narration:

"Outside, the street became more silent, because deserted. From the Thames came, muffled by the distance, the distracted voices of sirens, the gasping voices of marine boilers. It was the hour when the two friends, giving themselves over to dreaming, preserved an ineffable silence."

"Oh! I see them so clearly!" said Madame Tiercelet, in a tone of admiration.

"And that 'ineffable,' how evocative it is!" applauded the Countess Fergus, "and so pure!"

Kimberly profited by these flattering interruptions to take a swallow of champagne. Then, feeling that he was listened to with more passionate attention than before, he repeated:

"Preserved an ineffable silence. But on this special evening John-Giotto Farfadetti murmured: 'I have a poisoned flower in my heart.' To which Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton answered: 'This evening a sorrowful bird has been singing in my heart.' The studio seemed moved by this unusual colloquy. On the mauve wall, which was gradually losing its color, the gold algæ seemed to spread and contract, and to spread and contract again, in harmony with the new rhythms of an unusual undulation, for it is certain that the soul of man communicates to the soul of things its troubles, its passions, its fervors, its transgressions, its life."

"How true that is!"

This cry, coming from several mouths at once, did not prevent Kimberly from going on with the recital, which thenceforth was to unfold itself amid the silent emotion of his hearers. His voice became even more mysterious.

"This minute of silence was poignant and tragic. 'Oh! my friend!' implored John-Giotto Farfadetti, 'you who have given me everything, you whose soul is so marvelously twin with mine, you must give me something of yourself that I have not yet had, and from the lack of which I am dying.' 'Is it, then, my life that you ask?' said the painter; 'it is yours; you can take it.' 'No, it is not your life; it is more than your life; it is your wife!' 'Botticellina!' cried the poet. 'Yes, Botticellina; Botticellinetta; flesh of your flesh, the soul of your soul, the dream of your dream, the magic sleep of your sorrows!' 'Botticellina! Alas! Alas! It was to be. You have drowned yourself in her, she has drowned herself in you, as in a bottomless lake, beneath the light of the moon. Alas! Alas! It was to be.' Two tears, phosphorescent in the penumbra, rolled from the eyes of the painter. The poet answered: 'Listen to me, oh! my friend! I love Botticellina, and Botticellina loves me, and we shall both die of loving one another, and of not daring to tell one another, and of not daring to unite. She and I are two fragments, long ago separated, of one and the same living being, which for perhaps two thousand years have been seeking and calling one another, and which meet at last to-day. Oh! my dear Pinggleton, unknown life has these strange, terrible, and delicious fatalities. Was there ever a more splendid poem than that which we are living to-night?' But the painter kept on repeating, in a voice more and more sorrowful, this cry: 'Botticellina! Botticellina!' He rose from the triple row of cushions upon which he was lying, and walked back and forth in the studio, feverishly. After some minutes of anxious agitation, he said: 'Botticellina was Mine. Henceforth must she be Thine?' 'She shall be Ours!' replied the poet, imperiously; 'for God has chosen you to be the point of suture for this severed soul which is She and which is I! If not, Botticellina possesses the magic pearl that dissipates dreams, I the dagger that delivers from corporeal chains. If you refuse, we shall love each other in death.' And he added, in a deep tone that resounded through the studio like a voice from the abyss: 'Perhaps it would be better so.' 'No,' cried the painter, 'you shall live. Botticellina shall be Thine, as she has been Mine. I will tear my flesh to shreds, I will tear my heart from my breast, I will break my head against the wall, but my friend shall be happy. I can suffer. Suffering, too, is voluptuousness, in another form!' 'And a voluptuousness more powerful, more bitter, more fierce than any other!' exclaimed John-Giotto Farfadetti, ecstatically; 'I envy your fate, do you know? As for me, I really believe that I shall die either of the joy of my love or of the sorrow of my friend. The hour has come. Adieu!' He rose, like an archangel. At that moment the drapery moved, opening and closing again on an illuminating apparition. It was Botticellina, draped in a flowing robe, of the color of the moonlight. Her floating hair shone around her like artificial fire. In her hand she held a golden key. An ecstasy was on her lips, and the night-sky in her eyes. John-Giotto rushed forward, and disappeared behind the drapery. Then Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton lay down again on the triple row of cushions, of the color of sea-weed. And, while he buried his nails in his flesh, and while the blood streamed from him as from a fountain, the golden algæ, now scarcely visible, gently quivered upon the wall, which was gradually taking on a coating of darkness. And the heart-shaped palette and the lyre-shaped easel resounded long and long, in nuptial songs."

For some moments Kimberly was silent; then, while the emotion that prevailed around the table was choking throats and compressing hearts, he concluded:

"And this is why I have dipped the point of my golden knife in the preserves prepared by kanaka virgins in honor of a betrothal more magnificent than any that our century, in its ignorance of beauty, has ever known."

The dinner was over. They rose from the table in religious silence, but thrilled through and through. In the salon Kimberly was closely surrounded and warmly congratulated. The looks of all the women converged radiantly upon his painted face, surrounding it with a halo of ecstasies.

"Ah! I should so like to have my portrait painted by Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton," cried Mme. de Rambure; "I would give anything to enjoy such happiness."

"Alas! Madame," answered Kimberly, "since the sorrowful and sublime event which I have related, Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton has been unwilling to paint human faces, however charming they may be; he paints only souls."

"And he is right! I should so like to be painted as a soul!"

"Of what sex?" asked Maurice Fernancourt, in a slightly sarcastic tone, visibly jealous of Kimberly's success.

The latter said, simply:

"Souls have no sex, my dear Maurice. They have...."

"Hair on their paws," said Victor Charrigaud, in a very low voice, so as to be heard only by the psychological novelist, to whom he was just then offering a cigar.

And, dragging him into the smoking-room, he whispered:

"Ah! old man! I wish I could shout the most filthy things, at the top of my voice, in the faces of all these people. I have enough of their souls, of their green and perverse loves, of their magic preserves. Yes, yes, to say the coarsest things, to besmear one's self with good black fetid mud for a quarter of an hour,—oh! how exquisite that would be, and how restful! And how it would relieve me of all these nauseating lilies that they have put into my heart! And you?"

But the shock had been too great, and the impression of Kimberly's recital remained. They could no longer interest themselves in the vulgar things of earth,—in topics of society, art, and passion. The Viscount Lahyrais himself, clubman, sportsman, gambler, and trickster, felt wings sprouting all over him. Each one felt the need of collecting his thoughts, of being alone, of prolonging the dream, of realizing it. In spite of the efforts of Kimberly, who went from one to another, asking: "Did you ever drink sable's milk? Ah! then, drink sable's milk; it is ravishing!" the conversation could not be resumed; so that, one after another, the guests excused themselves, and slipped away. At eleven o'clock all had gone.

When they found themselves face to face, alone, Monsieur and Madame looked at each other for a long time, steadily and with hostility, before exchanging their impressions.

"For a pretty fizzle, you know, it is a pretty fizzle," declared Monsieur.

"It is your fault," said Madame, in a tone of bitter reproach.

"Well, that's a good one!"

"Yes, your fault. You paid no attention to anything; you did nothing but roll dirty pellets of bread in your fat fingers. Nobody could get a word out of you. How ridiculous you were! It is shameful."

"Well, you needn't talk," rejoined Monsieur. "And your green gown, and your smiles, and your blunders. It was I perhaps, it was I undoubtedly, who told of Pinggleton's sorrow, who ate kanaka preserves, who painted souls,—I doubtless am the lily-worshipper."

"You are not even capable of being," cried Madame, at the height of her exasperation.

For a long time they hurled insults at one another. And Madame, after having arranged the silverware and the opened bottles in the sideboard, took herself off to her room, and shut herself up.

Monsieur continued to roam about the house in a state of extreme agitation. Suddenly noticing me in the dining-room, where I was putting things a little to rights, he came to me, and, taking me about the waist, he said:

"Ah, Célestine, you do not know the immense delight that you give me. To see a woman who is not a soul! To touch a woman who is not a lily! Kiss me."

You may judge whether I was expecting that.

But the next day, when they read in the "Figaro" an article in which their dinner, their elegance, their taste, their wit, and their social connections were pompously celebrated, they forgot everything, and talked of nothing but their great success. And their soul set sail for more illustrious conquests and more sumptuous snobberies.

"What a charming woman is the Countess Fergus!" said Madame, at lunch, as they were finishing the leavings of the dinner.

"And what a soul!" said Monsieur, in confirmation.

"And Kimberly, would you believe it? There's an astonishing talker for you! And so exquisite in his manners!"

"It is a mistake to make sport of him. After all, his vice concerns no one but himself; it is none of our business."

"Certainly not."

And she added, indulgently:

"Ah! if it were necessary to pick everybody to pieces!"

All day long, in the linen-room, I have amused myself in calling up the queer things that happened in that house,—the passion for notoriety with which, from that time, Madame was so filled that she would prostitute herself to all the dirty journalists who would promise her an article on her husband's books or a word about her costumes and her salon, and Monsieur's complacency in letting this vile conduct go on, though perfectly aware of it. With admirable cynicism he said: "At any rate—it is less expensive than paying by the line at the newspaper offices." Monsieur, on his side, fell to the lowest depths of baseness and unscrupulousness. He called that the politics of the salon, and society diplomacy.

I am going to write to Paris to have them send me my old master's new book. But how rotten it must be at bottom!

XI

November 10.

Now all talk of the little Claire has ceased. As was expected, the case has been abandoned. So Joseph and the forest of Raillon will keep their secret forever. Of that poor little human creature no more will be said henceforth than of the body of a blackbird that dies in the woods, in a thicket. The father continues to break stone on the highway, as if nothing had happened, and the town, stirred and roused for a moment by this crime, resumes its usual aspect,—an aspect still more dismal because of the winter. The very bitter cold keeps people shut up in their houses. One can scarcely get a glimpse of their pale and sleepy faces behind the frosty windows, and in the streets one seldom meets anybody except ragged vagabonds and shivering dogs.

To-day Madame sent me on an errand to the butcher's shop, and I took the dogs with me. While I was there, an old woman timidly entered the shop, and asked for meat,—"a little meat to make a little soup for my sick boy." The butcher selected, from the débris piled up in a large copper pan, a dirty bit, half bone, half fat, and, after carefully weighing it, announced:

"Fifteen sous."

"Fifteen sous!" exclaimed the old woman; "but that is impossible! And how do you expect me to make soup out of that?"

"As you like," said the butcher, throwing the piece back into the pan. "Only, you know, I am going to send you your bill to-day. If it is not paid by to-morrow, then the process-server!"

"Give it to me," said the old woman, then, with resignation.

When she had gone, the butcher explained to me:

"Nevertheless, if we did not have the poor to buy the inferior parts, we really should not make enough out of an animal. But these wretches are getting to be very exacting nowadays."

And, cutting off two long slices of good red meat, he threw them to the dogs.

The dogs of the rich,—indeed! they are not poor.

At the Priory events succeed one another. From the tragic they pass to the comical, for one cannot always shudder. Tired of the captain's mischief-making, and acting on Madame's advice, Monsieur has at last brought suit before a justice of the peace. He claims damages and interest for the breaking of his bell-glasses and his frames, and for the devastation of the garden. It seems that the meeting of the two enemies in the office of the justice was really something epic. They blackguarded one another like rag-pickers. Of course, the captain denies, with many oaths, that he has ever thrown stones or anything else into Lanlaire's garden; it is Lanlaire who throws stones into his.

"Have you witnesses? Where are your witnesses? Dare to produce witnesses," screams the captain.

"Witnesses?" rejoins Monsieur; "there are the stones, and all the dirty things with which you have been continually covering my land. There are the old hats, and the old slippers, that I pick up every day, and that everybody recognizes as having belonged to you."

"You lie."

"You are a scoundrel, a drunken rake."

But, it being impossible for Monsieur to bring admissible and conclusive testimony, the justice of the peace, who, moreover, is the captain's friend, invites Monsieur to withdraw his complaint.

"And for that matter, permit me to say to you," concluded the magistrate, "it is highly improbable, it is quite inadmissible, that a valiant soldier, an intrepid officer, who has won all his stripes on fields of battle, amuses himself in throwing stones and old hats upon your land, like a small boy."

"Egad!" vociferates the captain, "this man is an infamous Dreyfusard. He insults the army."

"I?"

"Yes, you! What you are trying to do, you dirty Jew, is to disgrace the army. Long live the army!"

They came near taking each other by the hair, and the justice had much difficulty in separating them. Since then Monsieur has stationed permanently in the garden two invisible witnesses, behind a sort of board shelter, in which are pierced, at the height of a man, four round holes, for the eyes. But the captain, being warned, is lying low, and Monsieur is out the cost of his watchers.

I have seen the captain two or three times, over the hedge. In spite of the frost, he stays in his garden all day long, working furiously at all sorts of things. For the moment he is putting oil-paper caps on his rose-bushes. He tells me of his misfortunes. Rose is suffering from an attack of influenza, and then—with her asthma!... Bourbaki is dead. He died of a congestion of the lungs, from drinking too much cognac. Really, the captain has no luck. And surely that bandit of a Lanlaire has cast a spell over him. He wishes to get the upper hand of him, to rid the country of him, and he submits to me an astonishing plan of campaign.

"Here is what you ought to do, Mademoiselle Célestine. You ought to lodge with the prosecuting attorney at Louviers a complaint against Lanlaire for outrages on morals and an assault on modesty. Ah! that's an idea!"

"But, captain, Monsieur has never outraged my morals or assaulted my modesty."

"Well, what difference does that make?"

"I cannot."

"What! you cannot? But there is nothing simpler. Lodge your complaint, and summon Rose and me. We will come to declare, to certify in a court of justice, that we have seen everything, everything, everything. A soldier's word amounts to something, especially just now, thunder of God! And remember that, after that, it will be easy to rake up the case of little Claire, and involve Lanlaire in it. Ah! that's an idea! Think it over, Mademoiselle Célestine; think it over."

Ah! I have many things, much too many things, to think over just now. Joseph is pressing me for a decision; the matter cannot be postponed. He has heard from Cherbourg that the little café is to be sold next week. But I am anxious, troubled. I want to, and I don't want to. One day the idea pleases me, and the next it doesn't. I really believe that I am afraid that Joseph wants to drag me into terrible things. I cannot come to a decision. He is not brutal in his method of persuasion; he advances arguments, and tempts me with promises of liberty, of handsome costumes, of secure, happy, triumphant life.

"But I must buy the little café," he says to me. "I cannot let such an opportunity go by. And if the Revolution comes? Think of it, Célestine; that means fortune right away. And who knows? The Revolution—ah! bear that in mind—is the best thing possible for the cafés."

"Buy it, at any rate. If it is not I, it will be somebody else."

"No, no, it must be you. Nobody else will do. I am crazy over you. But you distrust me."

"No, Joseph, I assure you."

"Yes, yes; you have bad ideas about me."

I do not know, no, really, I do not know, where, at that moment, I found the courage to ask him:

"Well, Joseph, tell me that it was you who outraged the little Claire in the woods."

Joseph received the shock with extraordinary tranquillity. He simply shrugged his shoulders, swayed back and forth a few seconds, and then, giving a hitch to his pantaloons, which had slipped a little, he answered, simply:

"You see? Did I not tell you so? I know your thoughts; I know everything that goes on in your mind."

His voice was softer, but his look had become so terrifying that it was impossible for me to articulate a word.

"It is not a question of the little Claire; it is a question of you."

He took me in his arms, as he did the other evening.

"Will you come with me to the little café?"

Shuddering and trembling, I found strength to answer:

"I am afraid; I am afraid of you, Joseph. Why am I afraid of you?"

He held me cradled in his arms. And, disdaining to justify himself, happy perhaps at increasing my terrors, he said to me, in a paternal tone:

"Well, well, since that is the case, I will talk with you again about it to-morrow."

A Rouen newspaper is circulating in town, in which there is an article that is creating a scandal among the pious. It is a true story, very droll, and somewhat risqué, which happened lately at Port-Lançon, a pretty place situated three leagues from here. And it gains in piquancy from the fact that everybody knows the personages. Here again is something for people to talk about, for a few days. The newspaper was brought to Marianne yesterday, and at night, after dinner, I read the famous article aloud. At the first phrases Joseph rose, with much dignity, very severe and even a little angry. He declared that he does not like dirty stories, and that he cannot sit and listen to attacks on religion.

"You are not behaving well in reading that, Célestine; you are not behaving well."

And he went off to bed.

To-day, November 10, it took us all day to clean the silver service. That is an event in the house,—a traditional epoch, like the preserve-canning season. The Lanlaires possess a magnificent silver service, containing old pieces, rare and very beautiful. It comes from Madame's father, who took it, some say on deposit, others say as security for money lent to a neighboring member of the nobility. Young people for military service were not all that this blusterer bought. Everything was fish that came to his net, and one swindle more or less made no difference to him. If the grocer is to be believed, the story of this silver service is one of the most doubtful, or one of the clearest, as you choose to look at it. It is said that Madame's father got his money back, and then, thanks to some circumstance the nature of which I do not know, succeeded in keeping the silver service in the bargain. An astonishing piece of sharp practice!

Of course, the Lanlaires never use it. It remains locked up at the back of a closet in the servants' hall, in three great boxes lined with red velvet and fastened to the wall by solid iron clamps. Every year, on the tenth of November, it is taken from the boxes, and cleaned under Madame's supervision. And it is never seen again until the following year. Oh! Madame's eyes in presence of her silver service,—her silver service in our hands! Never have I seen in a woman's eyes such aggressive cupidity.

Are they not curious,—these people who hide everything, who bury their silver, their jewels, all their wealth, all their happiness, and who, being able to live in luxury and joy, persist in living a life of ennui bordering on deprivation?

The work done, the silver service locked up for a year in its boxes, and Madame having gone away after satisfying herself that none of it has stuck to our fingers, Joseph said to me, with a queer air:

"That is a very beautiful silver service, you know, Célestine. Especially 'the cruet of Louis XVI.' Ah! sacristi! and how heavy it is! The whole business is worth perhaps twenty-five thousand francs, Célestine; perhaps more. One does not know what it is worth."

And, looking at me steadily and heavily, piercing the very depths of my soul, he asked:

"Will you come with me to the little café?"

What relation can there be between Madame's silver service and the little café at Cherbourg? Really, I don't know why, but Joseph's slightest words make me tremble.

XII

November 12.

I have said that I would speak of M. Xavier. The memory of this boy pursues me, runs continually through my head. Among so many faces his is one of those that come back most frequently to my mind. Sometimes with regret, sometimes with anger. All the same, he was prettily droll and prettily vicious, M. Xavier, with his irregular features and his blonde and brazen face. Ah! the little rascal! Really one may say of him that he belonged to his epoch.

One day I was engaged as chambermaid by Mme. de Tarves, in the Rue de Varennes. A nickel-plated establishment, an elegant retinue, and handsome wages. A hundred francs a month, with washing, and wine, and everything, included. The morning that I arrived at the house, in a highly satisfied state of mind, Madame had me shown into her dressing-room. An astonishing room, hung with cream silk, and Madame, a tall woman, extremely made up, her skin too white, her lips too red, her hair too blonde, but nevertheless pretty, rustling,—with an imposing presence, and style! So much was not to be gainsaid.

I already possessed a very keen eye. Even from rapidly passing through a Parisian interior, I was able to judge of its habits and morals, and, although furniture lies as well as faces, I was rarely mistaken. In spite of the sumptuous and decent appearance of this establishment, I felt at once the disorganization that prevailed there, the broken ties, the intrigue, the haste, the feverish life, the private and hidden filth,—not sufficiently hidden, however, to prevent me from detecting the odor, always the same! Moreover, in the first looks exchanged between new and old servants there is a sort of masonic sign, generally spontaneous and involuntary, which immediately informs you regarding the general spirit of the establishment. As in all other professions, servants are very jealous of each other, and they defend themselves ferociously against new-comers. Even I, who am so easy in my ways, have suffered from these jealousies and hatreds, especially on the part of women who were enraged at my beauty. But, for the contrary reason, men—I must do them this justice—have always welcomed me cordially.

In the look of the valet de chambre who had opened the door for me at the house of Mme. de Tarves I had clearly read these words: "This is a queer box ... with ups and downs ... nothing like security ... but plenty of fun, all the same. You can come in, my little one." So, in making my way to the dressing-room, I was prepared, to the extent of these uncertain and summary impressions, for something peculiar. But I must confess that I had no idea of that which really awaited me.

Madame was writing letters at a little jewel of a desk. A large skin of white astrachan served as a carpet for the room. On the cream silk walls I was astonished to see engravings of the eighteenth century, more than licentious, almost obscene, not very far from the very old enamels representing religious scenes. In a glass cabinet a quantity of old jewels, ivories, miniature snuff-boxes, and gallant little Saxon porcelains, deliciously fragile. On a table, toilet articles, very rich, of gold and silver. A little yellow dog, a ball of silky and shiny hair, was asleep on a long chair, between two mauve silk cushions.

Madame said to me:

"Célestine, is it not? Ah! I do not like that name at all. I will call you Mary, in English. Mary, you will remember? Mary, yes; that is more suitable."

That is in the order of things. We servants have not a right even to a name of our own, because in all the houses there are daughters, cousins, dogs, and parrots that have the same name that we have.

"Very well, Madame," I answered.

"Do you know English, Mary?" "No, Madame. I have already told Madame so."

"Ah! to be sure. I regret it. Turn a little, Mary, that I may look at you."

She examined me from every point of view, front, back, and profile, murmuring from time to time:

"Well, she is not bad; she is rather good-looking."

And suddenly:

"Tell me, Mary, have you a good figure ... a very good figure?"

This question surprised and disturbed me. I did not grasp the connection between my service in the house and the shape of my body. But, without waiting for my reply, Madame said, talking to herself, and surveying my entire person from head to foot, through her face-à-main:

"Yes, she seems to have a good figure enough."

Then, addressing me directly, she exclaimed, with a satisfied smile:

"You see, Mary, I like to have about me only women with good figures. It is more suitable."

I was not at the end of my surprises. Continuing to examine me minutely, she cried, suddenly:

"Oh! your hair! I desire you to do your hair otherwise. Your hair is not done with elegance. You have beautiful hair; you should make the most of it. A fine head of hair is a very important matter. See, like that; something in that style."

She dishevelled a little the hair on my forehead, repeating:

"Something in that style. She is charming. See, Mary, you are charming. It is more suitable."

And, while she was patting my hair, I asked myself if Madame was not a little off.

When she had finished, being satisfied with my hair, she asked:

"Is that your prettiest gown?"

"Yes, Madame."

"It is not much, your prettiest gown. I will give you some of mine which you can make over. And your underwear?"

She raised my skirt, and turned it up slightly.

"Yes, I see," said she; "that will not do at all. And your linen, is it suitable?"

Vexed by this invasive inspection, I answered, in a dry voice:

"I do not know what Madame means by suitable."

"Show me your linen; go and get me your linen. And walk a little ... again ... come back ... turn round ... she walks well, she has style."

As soon as she saw my linen, she made a face:

"Oh, this cotton cloth, these stockings, these chemises,—horrible! And this corset! I do not wish to see that in my house. I do not wish you to wear that in my house. Wait, Mary; help me."

She opened a pink lacker wardrobe, pulled out a large drawer full of fragrant garments, and emptied its contents, pell-mell, on the carpet.

"Take that, Mary; take it all. You will see there are some stitches to be taken, some repairs to be made, some little places to be mended. You will attend to that. Take it all; there is a little of everything; there is enough there to fit you out with a pretty wardrobe, a suitable trousseau. Take it all."

Indeed, there was everything,—silk corsets, silk stockings, silk and fine linen chemises, loves of drawers, delicious ruffs, and ornamented petticoats. A strong odor, an odor of peau d'Espagne, of jasmine, of well-groomed woman, in short, an odor of love, rose from these piled-up garments whose soft, faded, or violent colors glistened on the carpet like a basket of flowers in a garden. I could not get over it; I stood thoroughly stupefied, contented and embarrassed at once, before this pile of pink, mauve, yellow, and red stuffs, in which there still were ribbons of brighter shades and delicate bits of lace. And Madame stirred up these old things that were still so pretty, these undergarments that were scarcely worn, showed them to me, selected for me, and advised me, indicating her preferences.

"I like the women in my service to be coquettish, elegant; I like to have them smell good. You are a brunette; here is a red skirt that will become you marvelously. Moreover, all these things will become you very well. Take them all."

I was in a state of profound stupefaction. I knew not what to do; I knew not what to say. Mechanically, I repeated:

"Thank you, Madame. How good Madame is! Thank you, Madame."

But Madame did not leave me time to get a clear idea of my own thoughts. She talked and talked, by turns familiar, shameless, maternal, pandering, and so strange!

"It is like cleanliness, Mary, care of the body, private toilets. Oh! I insist upon that, above all things. On this point I am exacting,—exacting to the point of mania."

She entered into intimate details, insisting always on this word "suitable," that came back continually to her lips apropos of things that were scarcely so,—at least, to my thinking. As we finished our sorting of the garments, she said to me:

"A woman, no matter what woman, should always be well kept. For the rest, Mary, you will do as I do; this is a point of capital importance. You-will take a bath to-morrow. I will show you."

Then Madame took me to her room, showed me her closets, her hangings, the place for everything, familiarized me with the service, all the time making remarks that seemed to me queer and not natural.

"Now," said she, "let us go to M. Xavier's room. That, too, will be in your charge. M. Xavier is my son, Mary."

"Very well, Madame."

M. Xavier's room was situated at the other end of the vast apartment. A coquettish room, hung in blue cloth with yellow trimmings. On the walls colored English engravings representing hunting and racing scenes, teams, châteaux. A cane-holder stood in front of a panel,—a real panoply of canes, with a hunting-horn in the middle, flanked by two mail-coach trumpets crossed. On the mantel, among many bibelots, cigar-boxes, and pipes, a photograph of a pretty boy, very young and still beardless, with the insolent face of a precocious dude and the uncertain grace of a girl,—the whole producing an effect that pleased me.

"That is M. Xavier," said Madame.

I could not help exclaiming, undoubtedly with too much warmth:

"Oh! what a handsome boy!"

"Well, well, Mary!" exclaimed Madame.

I saw that my exclamation had not offended her, for she had smiled.

"M. Xavier is like all young people," she said to me. "He is not very orderly. You must be orderly for him; and his room must be perfectly kept. You will enter the room every morning at nine o'clock; you will bring him his tea; at nine o'clock, you understand, Mary? Sometimes M. Xavier comes home late. Perhaps he will not receive you well in the morning, but that makes no difference. A young man should be awakened at nine o'clock."

She showed me where M. Xavier kept his linen, his cravats, his shoes, accompanying each detail with some remark like this:

"My son is a little sharp, but he is a charming child."

Or else:

"Do you know how to fold pantaloons? Oh! M. Xavier is especially particular about his pantaloons."

As for the hats, it was agreed that I need pay no attention to them, the glory of their daily ironing belonging to the valet de chambre.

I found it extremely odd that, in a house where there was a valet de chambre, Madame should select me to serve M. Xavier.

"It is funny, but perhaps it is not very suitable," I said to myself, parodying the word which my mistress was constantly repeating apropos of no matter what.

It is true that everything seemed odd to me in this odd house.

In the evening, in the servants' hall, I learned many things.

"An extraordinary box," they explained to me. "It is very astonishing at first, and then you get used to it. Sometimes there isn't a sou in the whole house. Then Madame goes, comes, runs, goes away and comes back again, nervous, tired, her mouth filled with high words. As for Monsieur, he never leaves the telephone. He shouts, threatens, begs, and raises the devil through the instrument. And the process-servers! It has often happened that the butler had to give something out of his own pocket, on account, to furious tradesmen who were unwilling to supply anything more. On one reception day the electricity and gas were cut off. And then, suddenly, there comes a rain of gold. The house is overflowing with wealth. Where does it come from? That nobody knows exactly. As for the servants, they wait months and months for their wages. But they are always paid at last; only after what scenes, after what insults, after what squabbles! It is incredible."

Well, indeed, a nice place I had tumbled into! And such was my luck, for the one time in my life when I had good wages.

"M. Xavier has not yet come in to-night," said the valet de chambre.

"Oh!" exclaimed the cook, looking at me persistently, "perhaps he will return now."

And the valet de chambre related that that very morning a creditor of M. Xavier had come again to raise a row. It must have been a very dirty matter, for Monsieur had sung small, and had been obliged to pay a heavy sum,—at least four thousand francs.

"Monsieur was in a pretty rage," he added; "I heard him say to Madame: 'This cannot last; he will disgrace us; he will disgrace us.'"

The cook, who seemed very philosophical, shrugged her shoulders.

"Disgrace them?" said she, with a chuckle; "little they care about that. It is the having to pay that bothers them."

This conversation made me ill at ease. I understood vaguely that there might be some relation between Madame's garments, Madame's words, and M. Xavier. But exactly what?

"It is having to pay that bothers them!"

I did not sleep at all well that night, haunted by strange dreams and impatient to see M. Xavier.

The valet de chambre had not lied. A queer box, indeed!

Monsieur was in the pilgrimages,—I don't know exactly what,—president, director, or something of that sort. He picked up pilgrims where he could, among the Jews, the Protestants, the vagabonds, even among the Catholics; and once a year he took these people to Rome, to Lourdes, to Paray-le-Monial, not without gaining notoriety and profit, of course. The pope didn't see through it, and religion triumphed. Monsieur occupied himself also with charitable and political works: "The League against Secular Education," "The League against Obscene Publications," "The Society of Amusing and Christian Libraries," "The Society for the Collection of Congreganist Sucking-Bottles for the Nursing of Working People's Children." And any number of others. He presided over orphan asylums, alumnæ, convents, clubs, employment-bureaus. He presided over everything. Oh! the trades that he had! He was a plump little man, very lively, very neat, very clean-shaven, whose manners, at the same time sugary and cynical, were those of a shrewd priest full of the devil. Sometimes the newspapers contained references to him and his works. Naturally, some of them extolled his humanitarian virtues and his high apostolic sanctity; others treated him as an old rascal and a dirty scoundrel. In the servants' hall we were much amused over these quarrels, although it is rather chic and flattering to be in the service of masters who are talked about in the newspapers. Every week Monsieur gave a grand dinner, followed by a grand reception, which were attended by celebrities of all sorts, academicians, reactionary senators, Catholic deputies, recalcitrant priests, intriguing monks, and archbishops. There was one especially to whom they paid especial attention, a very old Assumptionist, Father something or other, a sanctimonious and venomous man, who was always saying spiteful things with a contrite and pious air. And everywhere, in every room, there were portraits of the pope. Ah! he must have seen some tall things in that house, the Holy Father.

For my part, Monsieur was not to my liking. He did too many things, he loved too many people. And yet nobody knew half the things that he did and half the people that he loved. Surely he was a sly old dog.

On the day after my arrival, as I was helping him to put on his overcoat in the ante-chamber, he asked me:

"Do you belong to my society,—the Society of the Servants of Jesus?"

"No, Monsieur."

"You must join it. It is indispensable. I am going to enter your name."

"Thank you, Monsieur. May I ask Monsieur what this society is?"

"An admirable society, which takes in girl mothers and gives them a Christian education."

"But, Monsieur, I am not a girl mother."

"That makes no difference. There are also women just out of prison; there are repentant prostitutes; there is a little of everything. I am going to enter your name."

He took from his pocket some carefully-folded newspapers, and handed them to me.

"Hide these; read them when you are alone. They are very curious."

And he chucked me under the chin, saying with a slight clack of his tongue:

"Ah! she is a queer little one,—yes, indeed, a very queer little one!"

When Monsieur had gone, I looked at the newspapers that he had left with me. They were the "Fin de Siècle," the "Rigolo," the "Petites Femmes de Paris." Dirty sheets, indeed!

Oh! the bourgeois! What an eternal farce! I have seen many of them, and of the most different kinds. They are all alike. For instance, I was once a domestic in the house of a republican deputy. He spent his time in railing at the priests. A blower, indeed! you should have seen him. He would not hear a word about religion, or the pope, or the good sisters. If people had listened to him, they would have overturned all the churches and blown up all the convents. Well, on Sunday he went to mass, secretly, in far-away parishes. At the slightest ailment he sent for the priests, and all his children were brought up by the Jesuits. He would never consent to meet his brother after the latter's refusal to marry in church. All hypocrites, all cowards, all disgusting, each in his own way.

Madame de Tarves was also in the charity line: she too presided over religious committees and benevolent societies, and organized charity sales. That is to say, she was never at home, and things in the house went on as they could. Very often Madame returned late, coming from the devil knows where. Oh! I know these returns; they directly acquainted me with the sort of works in which Madame was engaged, and with the queer capers that were cut in her committees. But she was nice with me. Never an abrupt word, never a reproach. On the contrary, she treated me familiarly, almost like a comrade; and so far did she carry this that sometimes, she forgetting her dignity and I my respect, we talked nonsense together and said risqués things. She gave me advice as to the arrangement of my little affairs, encouraged my coquettish tastes, deluged me with glycerine and peau d'Espagne, covered my arms with cold cream, and sprinkled me with powder. And during these operations she was continually saying:

"You see, Mary, a woman must be well groomed. Her skin must be white and soft. You have a pretty face; you must learn how to set it off. You have a very fine bust; you must give it its full value. Your legs are superb; you must be able to show them. It is more suitable."

I was content. Yet within I still was not free from anxiety and obscure suspicions. I could not forget the surprising stories that they told me in the servants' hall. There, when I praised Madame and enumerated her kindnesses toward me, the cook said:

"Yes, yes, that's all right; but wait and see what follows. What she wants of you is to be intimate with her son, that he may be kept in the house more, and thus may cost these curmudgeons less money. She has already tried that with others. She has even induced friends of hers to come here,—married women,—young girls,—yes, young girls, the trollop! But M. Xavier does not fall in with this. He prefers to roam elsewhere. You will see; you will see."

And she added, with a sort of hateful regret:

"If I were in your place, how I would blackmail them! I would not hesitate, be sure."

These words made me slightly ashamed of my comrades in the servants' hall. But, to reassure myself, I preferred to believe that the cook was jealous of Madame's evident preference for me.

I went every morning at nine o'clock to open M. Xavier's curtains and carry him his tea. It is queer; I always entered his room with my heart beating and a strong feeling of apprehension. It was a long time before he paid any attention to me. I turned this way and that, prepared his things for him, arranged his garments, trying to look pretty and show myself off to advantage. He spoke to me only to complain, in the growling voice of one who is half awake, of being disturbed too early. I was put out by this indifference, and I redoubled the silent tricks of coquetry which I had carefully planned. I was expecting every day something that did not happen; and this silence on the part of M. Xavier, this disdain for my person, irritated me to the last degree. What should I have done, if that which I expected had happened? I did not ask myself. I simply wanted it to happen.

M. Xavier was really a very pretty boy, even prettier than his photograph. A light blonde moustache—two little arcs of gold—set off his lips better than in his portrait, their red and fleshy pulp inviting a kiss. His light blue eyes, dusted with yellow, were strangely fascinating, and his movements were characterized by the indolence, the weary and cruel grace, of a girl or young deer. He was tall, slender, very supple, ultra-modern in his elegance, and wonderfully seductive through his evident cynicism and corruption. In addition to the fact that he had pleased me from the first, his resistance, or, rather, his indifference, caused my desire to quickly ripen into love.

One morning I found M. Xavier awake, and sitting on the edge of the bed. I remember that he wore a white silk shirt with blue dots. I modestly started to withdraw, but he called me back:

"Oh! what is the matter? Come in. You are not afraid of me, are you?"

With his two hands clasped over his leg, and his body swaying to and fro, he surveyed me for a long time with the utmost effrontery, while I, with slow and graceful movements, and blushing a little, placed a tray on the little table near the mantel. And, as if he then really saw me for the first time, he said:

"Why, you are a very stylish girl. How long, then, have you been here?"

"Three weeks, Monsieur."

"Well, that's astonishing!"

"What is astonishing, Monsieur?"

"That I have never noticed that you were so beautiful. Come here!" said he.

I approached, trembling a little. Without a word he took me by the waist, and forced me to sit down beside him.

"Oh! Monsieur Xavier," I sighed, struggling, but not very vigorously. "Stop, I beg of you. If your parents were to see you?"

But he began to laugh:

"My parents! Oh! my parents, you know,—I have supped on them."

This was a phrase that he was continually using. When one asked him anything, he answered: "I have supped on that." And he had supped on everything.

To gain a little time I asked him:

"There is one thing that puzzles me, Monsieur Xavier. How does it happen that one never sees you at Madame's dinners?"

"You certainly don't expect me, my dear ... oh! no, you know, Madame's dinners tire me too much."

"And how is it," I insisted, "that your room is the only one in the house in which there is not a picture of the pope?"

This observation flattered him. He answered:

"Why, my little baby, I am an Anarchist, I am. Religion, the Jesuits, the priests,—oh! no, I have enough of them. I have supped on them. A society made up of people like papa and mamma? Oh! you know ... none of that in mine, thank you!"

Now I felt at ease with M. Xavier, in whom I found, together with the same vices, the drawling accent of the Paris toughs. It seemed to me that I had known him for years and years. In his turn he asked me:

"Tell me, are you intimate with papa?"

"Your father!" I cried, pretending to be scandalized. "Oh! Monsieur Xavier! Such a holy man!"

His laugh redoubled, and rang out loudly:

"Papa! Oh! papa! Why, he is intimate with all the servants here. Then you are not yet intimate with papa? You astonish me."

"Oh! no," I replied, laughing also. "Only he brings me the 'Fin de Siècle,' the 'Rigolo,' the 'Petites Femmes de Paris'."

That set him off in a delirium of joy, and, shaking more than ever with laughter, he cried:

"Papa! Oh! he is astonishing!"

And, being now well started, he continued in a comical tone:

"He is like mamma. Yesterday she made me another scene. I am disgracing her,—her and papa. Would you believe it? And religion, and society, and everything! It is twisting. Then I declared to her: 'My dear little mother, it is agreed; I will settle down to a regular life on the day when you shall have given up your lovers.' That was a hot one, eh? That shut her up. Oh! no, you know, they make me very tired, these authors of my being. I have supped on their lectures. By the way, you know Fumeau, don't you?"

"No, Monsieur Xavier."

"Why, yes ... why, yes ... Anthime Fumeau?"

"I assure you that I do not."

"A fat fellow, very young, very red-faced, ultra-stylish, the finest teams in Paris. Fumeau ... an income of three millions. Tartlet the Kid? Why, yes, you know him."

"But I tell you that I do not know him."

"You astonish me! Why, everybody knows him. Don't you know the Fumeau biscuit? The young fellow who had a judicial adviser appointed for him two months ago? Don't you remember?"

"Not at all, I swear to you, Monsieur Xavier."

"Never mind, little turkey. Well, I played a good one on Fumeau last year,—a very good one. Guess what? You do not guess?"

"How do you expect me to guess, since I do not know him?"

"Well, it was this, my little baby. I introduced Fumeau to my mother. Upon my word! What do you think of that for a discovery? And the funniest part of it is that in two months mamma succeeded in blackmailing Fumeau to the tune of three hundred thousand bones. What a godsend that, for papa's works! Oh! they know a thing or two; they are up to snuff! But for that, the house would have gone up. We were over head and ears in debt. The priests themselves were refusing to have anything to do with us. What do you say to that, eh?"

"I say, Monsieur Xavier, that you have a queer way of treating the family."

"What do you expect, my dear? I am an Anarchist, I am. I have supped on the family."

That morning Madame was even nicer than usual with me.

"I am well satisfied with your service," she said to me. "Mary, I raise your wages ten francs."

"If she raises me ten francs every time," thought I to myself, "that will not be bad. It is more suitable."

Oh! when I think of all that! I, too, have supped on it.

M. Xavier's fancy did not last long; he had quickly "supped on me." Not for a moment, moreover, was I able to keep him in the house. Several times, on entering his room in the morning, I found the bed undisturbed and empty. M. Xavier had been out all night. The cook knew him well, and she had told the truth when she said: "He prefers to roam elsewhere." He pursued his old habits, and went in search of his customary pleasures, as before. On those mornings I felt a sudden pain in my heart, and all day long I was sad, sad!

The unfortunate part of it all is that M. Xavier had no feeling. He was not poetical, like M. Georges. He did not vouchsafe me the slightest attention. Never did he say to me a kind and touching word, as lovers do in books and plays. Moreover, he liked nothing that I liked; he did not like flowers, with the exception of the big carnations with which he adorned the buttonhole of his coat. Yet it is so good to whisper to each other things that caress the heart, to exchange disinterested kisses, to gaze for eternities into one another's eyes. But men are such coarse creatures; they do not feel these joys,—these joys so pure and blue. And it is a great pity. M. Xavier knew nothing but vice, found pleasure only in debauchery. In love all that was not vice and debauchery bored him.

"Oh! no, you know, that makes me very tired. I have supped on poetry. The little blue flower ... we must leave that to papa."

To him I was always an impersonal creature, the domestic to whom he gave orders and whom he maltreated in the exercise of his authority as master, and with his boyish cynical jests. And he often said to me, with a laugh in the corner of his mouth,—a frightful laugh that wounded and humiliated me:

"And papa? Really, you are not yet intimate with papa? You astonish me."

Once I had not the power to keep back my tears; they were choking me. M. Xavier became angry at once:

"Oh! no, you know, that is the most tiresome thing of all. Tears, scenes? You must stop that, my dear; or else, good evening! I have supped on all that nonsense."

For my part I feel an immense and imperative need of that pure embrace, of that chaste kiss, which is no longer the savage bite of the flesh, but the ideal caress of the soul. I need to rise from the hell of love to the paradise of ecstasy, to the fullness, the delicious and candid silence, of ecstasy. But M. Xavier had supped on ecstasy.

Nothing pained me so much as to see that I had not left the slightest trace of affection, not the smallest tenderness, in his heart. Yet I believe that I could have loved the little scoundrel,—that I could have devoted myself to him, in spite of everything, like a beast. Even to-day I think regretfully of his impudent, cruel, and pretty phiz, and of his perfumed skin. And I have often on my lips, from which, since then, so many lips ought to have effaced it, the acid taste, the burning sensation of his kiss. Oh! Monsieur Xavier! Monsieur Xavier!

One evening, before dinner, when he had returned to dress,—my! but how nice he looked in evening dress!—and as I was carefully arranging his affairs in the dressing-room, he asked me, without embarrassment or hesitation, and almost in a tone of command, precisely as he would have asked me for hot water:

"Have you five louis? I am in absolute need of five louis to-night. I will return them to you to-morrow."

That very morning Madame had paid me my wages. Did he know it?

"I have only ninety francs," I answered, a little ashamed,—ashamed of his question, perhaps, but more ashamed, I think, at not having the entire sum that he asked.

"That makes no difference," said he; "go and get me the ninety francs. I will return them to you to-morrow."

He took the money, and, by way of thanks, said in a dry, curt tone that froze my heart: "That's good!" Then, putting out his foot with a brutal movement, he commanded insolently:

"Tie my shoes. And be quick about it; I am in a hurry."

I looked at him sadly, imploringly:

"Then you are not to dine here this evening, Monsieur Xavier?"

"No, I dine in town. Make haste."

As I tied his shoes, I moaned:

"And you will not return to-night? I shall cry all night long. It is not nice of you, Monsieur Xavier."

His voice became hard and thoroughly wicked.

"If you lent me your ninety francs that you might say that, you can take them back. Here, take them!"

"No, no," I sighed. "You know very well that it was not for that."

"Well, then, don't bother me."

He had quickly finished dressing, and he started off without kissing me and without saying a word.

The next day nothing was said about returning the money; and I did not wish to claim it. It gave me pleasure to think that he had something of me. And now I understand the women who kill themselves with toil, the women who sell themselves to passers-by, at night, on the sidewalks, the women who steal, and the women who kill, in order to get a little money with which to procure indulgences for the little man whom they love. That is what has happened to me, in fact. Or has it really happened to me in the degree that I say? Alas! I do not know. There are moments when, in presence of a man, I feel so soft, so soft, without will, without courage, so yielding ... yes, so yielding!

Madame was not slow in changing her manner toward me. Instead of treating me nicely, as she had done before, she became severe, exacting, fault-finding. I was only a blockhead; I never did anything right; I was awkward, unclean, ill-bred, forgetful, dishonest. And her voice, which at first had been so sweet, so much like the voice of a comrade, now became as sour as vinegar. She gave me orders in a blunt and humiliating tone. No more gifts of underwear, no more cold cream and powder, no more of the secret counsels and private confidences that had so embarrassed me at first. No more of that suspicious comradeship which at bottom I felt not to be kindness, and which caused me to lose my respect for this mistress who raised me to the level of her own vice. I snapped at her sharply, strong in my knowledge of all the open or hidden infamies of the house. We got to quarreling like fish-wives, hurling our week's notice at each other's heads, like dirty rags.

"What, then, do you take my house for?" she cried. "Do you think you are working for a fast woman?"

Think of her cheek! I answered:

"Oh! your house is a clean one, indeed! You can boast of it. And you? Let us talk about it; yes, let us talk about it! You are clean, too! And what about Monsieur? Oh! la! la! And do you think they don't know you in the neighborhood, and in Paris? Why, you are notorious, everywhere. Your house? A brothel. And, in fact, there are brothels which are not as dirty as your house."

And so these quarrels went on; we exchanged the worst insults and the lowest threats; we descended to the vocabulary of the street-walkers and the prisons. And then, suddenly, everything quieted down. M. Xavier had only to show signs of a reviving interest in me,—fleeting, alas!—when straightway began again the suspicious familiarity, the shameful complicities, the gifts of garments, the promises of doubled wages, the washing with Simon cream,—it is more suitable,—and the initiations into the mysteries of refined perfumes. M. Xavier's conduct toward me was the thermometer by which Madame regulated her own. The latter's kindness immediately followed the former's caresses. Abandonment by the son was accompanied by insults from the mother. I was the victim, continually tossed back and forth, of the enervating fluctuations to which the intermittent love of this capricious and heartless boy was subject. One would have thought that Madame must have played the spy with us, must have listened at the door, must have kept tabs for herself on the different phases of our relations. But no. She simply had the instinct of vice, that's all. She scented it through walls and souls, as a dog inhales in the breeze the far-away odor of game.

As for Monsieur, he continued to dance about among all these events, among all the hidden dramas of this house, alert, busy, cynical, and comical. In the morning he disappeared, with his face of a little pink and shaven faun, with his documents, with his bag stuffed with pious pamphlets and obscene newspapers. In the evening he reappeared, cravated with respectability, armored with Christian Socialism, his gait a little slower, his gestures a little more oily, his back slightly bent, doubtless under the weight of the good works done during the day. Regularly every Friday he gave me the week's issues of indecent journals, awaiting just the right occasion for making his declaration, and contenting himself with smiling at me with the air of an accomplice, caressing my chin, and saying to me, as he passed his tongue over his lips:

"Ho, ho, she is a very queer little one, indeed!"

As it amused me to watch Monsieur's game, I did not discourage him, but I promised myself to seize the first exceptionally favorable opportunity to sharply put him where he belonged.

One afternoon I was greatly surprised to see him enter the linen-room, where I sat alone, musing sadly over my work. In the morning I had had a painful scene with M. Xavier, and was still under the influence of the impression it had left on me. Monsieur closed the door softly, placed his bag on the large table near a pile of cloth, and, coming to me, took my hands and patted them. Under his blinking eyelid his eye turned, like that of an old hen dazzled by the sunlight. It was enough to make one die of laughter.

"Célestine," said he, "for my part, I prefer to call you Célestine. That does not offend you, does it?"

I could hardly keep from bursting.

"Why, no, Monsieur," I answered, holding myself on the defensive.

"Well, Célestine, I think you charming! There!"

"Really, Monsieur?"

"Adorable, in fact; adorable, adorable!"

"Oh! Monsieur!"

His fingers had left my hand, and were caressing my neck and chin with fat and soft little touches.

"Adorable, adorable!" he whispered.

He tried to embrace me. I drew back a little, to avoid his kiss.

"Stay, Célestine, I beg of you. I do not annoy you, do I?"

"No, Monsieur; you astonish me."

"I astonish you, you little rogue. I astonish you? Oh! you don't know me."

His voice was no longer dry. A fine froth moistened his lips.

"Listen to me, Célestine. Next week I am going to Lourdes; yes, I conduct a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Do you wish to come to Lourdes? I have a way of taking you to Lourdes. Will you come? Nobody will notice anything. You will stay at the hotel; you will take walks, or do what you like. And I will meet you in the evening."

What stupefied me was not the proposition in itself,—for I had been expecting it a long time,—but the unforeseen form which Monsieur gave it. Yet I preserved all my self-possession. And, desirous of humiliating this old rake, of showing him that I had not been the dupe of Madame's dirty calculations and his own, I lashed him squarely in the face with these words:

"And M. Xavier? Say, it seems to me that you are forgetting M. Xavier? What is he to do while we are amusing ourselves in Lourdes, at the expense of Christianity?"

An indirect and troubled gleam, the look of a surprised deer, lighted in the darkness of his eyes. He stammered:

"M. Xavier?"

"Why, yes!"

"Why do you speak to me of M. Xavier? There is no question of M. Xavier? M. Xavier has nothing to do with this."

I redoubled my insolence.

"On your word? Oh! don't pretend to be ignorant. Am I hired, yes or no, to be company for M. Xavier? Yes, am I not? Well, I am company for him. But you? Oh! no, that is not in the bargain. And then, you know, my little father, you are not my style."

And I burst out laughing in his face.

He turned purple; his eyes flamed with anger. But he did not think it prudent to enter into a discussion, for which I was terribly armed. He hastily picked up his bag, and slunk away, pursued by my laughter.

The next day, apropos of nothing, Monsieur made some gross remark to me. I flew into a passion. Madame happened along. I became mad with anger. The scene that ensued between us three was so frightful, so low, that I cannot undertake to describe it. In unspeakable terms I reproached them with all their filth and with all their infamy. I demanded the return of the money that I had lent M. Xavier. They foamed at the mouth. I seized a cushion, and hurled it violently at Monsieur's head.

"Go away! Get out of here, at once, at once!" screamed Madame, threatening to tear my face with her nails.

"I erase your name from the membership of my society; you no longer belong to my society, lost creature, prostitute!" vociferated Monsieur, stuffing his bag with thrusts of his fists.

Finally Madame withheld my week's wages, refused to pay the ninety francs that I had lent M. Xavier, and obliged me to return all the rags that she had given me.

"You are all thieves," I cried; "you are all pimps!"

And I went away, threatening them with the commissary of police and the justice of the peace.

"Oh! you are looking for trouble? Yes, well, you shall have it, scoundrels that you are!"

Alas! the commissary of police pretended that the affair did not concern him. The justice of the peace advised me to let it drop. He explained:

"In the first place, Mademoiselle, you will not be believed. And that is as it should be. What would become of society if a servant could be right against a master? There would be no more society, Mademoiselle. That would be anarchy."

I consulted a lawyer; he demanded two hundred francs. I wrote to M. Xavier; he did not answer me. Then I counted up my resources. I had three francs fifty left—and the street pavement.

XIII

November 13.

And I see myself again at Neuilly, with the sisters of Our Lady of Thirty-Six Sorrows, a sort of house of refuge, and also an employment-bureau for housemaids. My! but it is a fine establishment, with a white front, and at the rear of a large garden. In the garden, which is ornamented, at intervals of fifty steps, with statues of the Virgin, there is a little chapel, very new and sumptuous, built from the proceeds of the collections. Large trees surround it. And every hour one hears the tolling of the bells. It is so nice to hear the bells toll. It stirs in one's heart memories of things so old and long forgotten. When the bells toll, I close my eyes and listen, and I see again landscapes which perhaps I never saw before, and which I recognize all the same,—very peaceful landscapes, imbued with all the transformed recollections of childhood and youth,... and bagpipes,... and, on the moor bordering on the beaches, the slowly-moving panorama of holiday crowds. Ding ... dinn ... dong! It is not very gay; it is not the same thing as gaiety; it is even sad at bottom,—sad, like love. But I like it. In Paris one never hears anything but the fountaineer's horn, and the deafening trumpet of the tramway.

In the establishment of the sisters of Our Lady of Thirty-Six Sorrows, you sleep in attic dormitories; you are fed meagrely on scraps of meat and spoiled vegetables, and you pay twenty-five sous a day to the institution. That is to say, the sisters withhold twenty-five sous from your wages, when they have secured a place for you. They call that getting you a place for nothing. Further, you have to work from six o'clock in the morning until nine in the evening, like the inmates of prisons. You are not allowed to go out. Meals and religious exercises take the place of recreation. Ah! the good sisters do not bore themselves, as M. Xavier would say; and their charity is a famous trap. They rope you in finely! But there it is,—I shall be stupid all my life. The stern lessons of experience, the succession of misfortunes, never teach me anything, are of no use to me. I am always crying out and raising a row, but in the end I am always victimized by everybody.

Several times comrades had spoken to me of the sisters of Our Lady of Thirty-Six Sorrows.

"Yes, my dear, it seems that only very swell people come to the box,... countesses,... marchionesses. One may chance on astonishing places."

I believed it. And then, in my distress, I remembered with some feeling, booby that I am, the happy years that I spent with the little sisters of Pont-Croix. Moreover, I had to go somewhere. Beggars cannot be choosers.

When I arrived, there were forty housemaids there. Many came from a great distance,—from Brittany, from Alsace, from the south, girls who had never yet had a place,—awkward, clumsy, with livid complexions, sly airs, and singular eyes that looked over the walls of the convent at the mirage of Paris lying beyond. Others, not as green, were just out of a place, like myself.

The sisters asked me whence I came, what I knew how to do, whether I had good references, and whether I had any money left. I told them all sorts of things, and without further inquiry they welcomed me, saying:

"This dear child! We will find her a good place."

We all were their "dear children." While waiting for the promised good place, each of these dear children was put at some work, according to her faculties. Some did cooking and housework; others worked in the garden, digging in the soil, like navvies. I was promptly put at sewing, having, said Sister Boniface, supple fingers and a distinguished air. I began by mending the chaplain's pantaloons and the drawers of a sort of monk who was just then preaching a retreat in the chapel. Oh! those pantaloons! Oh! those drawers! Surely they did not resemble M. Xavier's. Then they intrusted to me tasks less ecclesiastical,—quite profane, in fact,—the making of fine and delicate linen garments, among which I again found myself in my element. I participated in the making of elegant bridal trousseaux, of rich baby-linen, ordered of the good sisters by charitable and wealthy ladies who were interested in the establishment.

At first, after so many shocks, in spite of the bad food, the chaplain's pantaloons, the lack of liberty, in spite of all the fierce exploitation that I could plainly see, I felt a sense of real relief amid this calm and silence. I did not reason much; I felt rather a need of prayer. Remorse over my past conduct, or, rather, the weariness resulting from it, prompted me to fervent repentance. Several times in succession I confessed to the chaplain. He was a queer man, this chaplain, very round and red, a little rude in manner and in speech, and afflicted with a disagreeable body-smell. He asked me strange questions, and insisted on knowing my favorite authors.

"Armand Silvestre? Yes. To be sure, he is dirty. I would not give you his works instead of the 'Imitation.' No, not that; yet he is not dangerous. But you must not read impious books, books against religion,—Voltaire, for instance. No, never; never read Voltaire,—that is a mortal sin,—or Renan, or Anatole France. They are dangerous."

"And Paul Bourget, Father?"

"Paul Bourget! He is entering on the right path; that I do not deny. But his Catholicism is not sincere,—not yet; at least, it is much mixed. Your Paul Bourget makes upon me the impression of a wash-basin,—yes, that is it,—of a wash-basin, in which no matter what has been washed, and in which olives from Calvary are swimming amid hair and soapsuds. You should wait a little before reading him! Huysmans! Well, he is a little stiff in his expressions,—yes, indeed, very stiff,—but he is orthodox."

And he said to me further:

"Yes ... Ah! you do mad things with your body! That is not good. No, indeed, that is always bad. But, sin for sin, it is better to sin with your masters, when they are pious persons, than with people of your own condition. It is less serious, less irritating to the good God. And perhaps these people have dispensations. Many have dispensations."

As I named M. Xavier and his father, he cried:

"No names. I do not ask you for names. Never tell me names. I do not belong to the police. Besides, those are rich and respectable people whom you have just named,—extremely religious people. Consequently you are wrong; you are rebellious against morality and against society."

These ridiculous conversations considerably cooled my religious zeal, my ardor for repentance. The work, too, annoyed me. It made me homesick for my own calling. I felt impatient desires to escape from this prison, to return to the privacies of dressing-rooms. I sighed for the closets full of sweet-smelling linen, the wardrobes stuffed with silks, satins, and velvets, so smooth to the touch, and the bath-rooms where white flesh is lathered with oily soaps. And the stories of the servants' hall, and the unforeseen adventures, and the evenings on the stairs and in the chambers! It is really curious; when I have a place, these things disgust me, but, when I am out of a place, I miss them. I was tired also, excessively tired, sickened in fact, from having eaten for a week nothing but preserves made out of spoiled currants, of which the good sisters had purchased a large quantity in the Levallois market. Anything that the holy women could rescue from the refuse-heap was good enough for us.