OCTAVE MIRBEAU (continued 5)

What completed my irritation was the evident, the persistent effrontery with which we were exploited. Their game was a very simple one, and they took little pains to conceal it. They found places only for those girls of whom they could make no use themselves. Those from whom they could reap any profit whatever they held as prisoners, taking advantage of their talents, of their strength, and of their simplicity. As the height of Christian charity, they had found a way of having servants who paid for the privilege of working, and whom they stripped, without remorse and with inconceivable cynicism, of their modest resources and their little savings, after making a profit out of their labor. And the costs kept running on.

I complained, at first feebly, and then more forcibly, that they had not once summoned me into the reception-room, but to all my complaints the hypocrites answered:

"A little patience, my dear child! We are planning to get you an excellent place, my dear child; for you we desire an exceptional place. We know what sort of a place you should have. As yet not one has offered itself such as we wish for you, and such as you deserve."

Days and weeks passed. The places were never good enough, never exceptional enough for me. And the costs kept running on.

Although there was a watcher in the dormitory, the things that went on every night were enough to make one shudder. As soon as the watcher had finished her round, and every one seemed to be asleep, you could see white forms arise and glide about among the beds. The good sisters, holy women, closed their eyes that they might see nothing, stopped up their ears that they might hear nothing. Wishing to avoid scandal, they tolerated horrors of which they feigned ignorance. And the costs kept running on.

Fortunately, when I was at the very depth of my ennui, I was delighted by the entrance into the establishment of a little friend, Clémence, whom I called Cléclé, and whom I had known in a place where I had worked in the Rue de l'Université. Cléclé was a charming pink blonde, extremely gay and lively, and very fly. She laughed at everything, accepted everything, and was contented everywhere. Devoted and faithful, she knew but one pleasure,—that of being useful to others. Vicious to the marrow of her bones, her vice had nothing repugnant about it, it was so gay, artless, and natural. She bore vice as a plant bears flowers, as a cherry-tree bears cherries. Her pretty, bird-like chatter sometimes made me forget my feeling of weariness, and put to sleep my tendency to rebel. Our two beds were next to each other; and one night she told me, in a funny sort of whisper, that she had just had a place in the house of a magistrate at Versailles.

"Fancy, there were nothing but animals in the den,—cats, three parrots, a monkey, and two dogs. And they all had to be taken care of. Nothing was good enough for them. We were fed on old scraps, the same as in this box here. But they had what was left over of the poultry; they had cream, and cakes, and mineral water, my dear! Yes, the dirty beasts drank nothing but Evian water, because of an epidemic of typhoid fever that was raging at Versailles. In the winter Madame had the cheek to take the stove out of my chamber, and put it in the room where the monkey and the cats slept. Would you believe it? I detested them, especially one of the dogs, a horrible old pug, that was always sniffing at my skirts, in spite of the kicks that I gave it. The other morning Madame caught me whipping it. You can imagine the scene. She showed me the door in double-quick time."

Oh! this Cléclé! how agreeable and amusing she was!

People have no idea of all the annoyances to which domestics are subjected, or of the fierce and eternal exploitation under which they suffer. Now the masters, now the keepers of employment-bureaus, now the charitable institutions, to say nothing of the comrades, some of whom are capable of terrible meanness. And nobody takes any interest in anybody else. Each one lives, grows fat, and is entertained by the misery of some one poorer than himself. Scenes change, settings are shifted, you traverse social surroundings that are different and even hostile, but everywhere you find the same appetites and passions. In the cramped apartments of the bourgeois and in the elegant mansion of the banker you meet the same filth, and come in contact with the inexorable. The result of it all, for a girl like me, is that she is conquered in advance, wherever she may go and whatever she may do. The poor are the human manure in which grow the harvests of life, the harvests of joy which the rich reap, and which they misuse so cruelly against us. They pretend that there is no more slavery. Oh! what nonsense? And what are domestics, then, if not slaves? Slaves in fact, with all that slavery involves of moral vileness, inevitable corruption, and hate-engendering rebellion. Servants learn vice in the houses of their masters. Entering upon their duties pure and innocent,—some of them,—they are quickly made rotten by contact with habits of depravity. They see nothing but vice, they breathe nothing but vice, they touch nothing but vice. Consequently, from day to day, from minute to minute, they get more and more used to it, being defenceless against it, being obliged, on the contrary, to serve it, to care for it, to respect it. And their revolt arises from the fact that they are powerless to satisfy it, and to break down all the obstacles in the way of its natural expansion. Oh! it is extraordinary. They demand of us all the virtues, complete resignation, all the sacrifices, all the heroisms, and only those vices that flatter the vanity of the masters, and which yield them a profit. And all this in return for contempt and wages ranging from thirty-five to ninety francs a month. No, it is too much! Add that we live in perpetual distress of mind, in a perpetual struggle between the ephemeral semi-luxury of the places that we fill, and the anguish which the loss of these places causes us. Add that we are continually conscious of the wounding suspicions that follow us everywhere,—bolting doors, padlocking drawers, marking bottles, numbering cakes and prunes, and continually putting us to shame by invasive examination of our hands, our pockets, and our trunks. For there is not a door, not a closet, not a drawer, not a bottle, not an article, that does not cry out to us: "Thief! thief! thief!" And also the continuous vexation caused by that terrible inequality, that frightful disproportion in our destinies, which, in spite of familiarities, smiles, and presents, places between our mistresses and ourselves an impassable abyss, a whole world of sullen hatreds, suppressed desires, and future vengeances,—a disproportion which is rendered every minute more perceptible, more humiliating, more disgracing, by the caprices, and even by the kindnesses, of those beings that know no justice and feel no love,—the rich. Did you ever think for a moment of the mortal and legitimate hatred, of the murderous—yes, murderous—desires with which we must be filled when we hear one of our masters, in trying to describe something base and ignoble, cry out in our presence, with a disgust that casts us so violently outside the pale of humanity: "He has the soul of a domestic; that is the sentiment of a domestic." Then what do you expect us to become in these hells? Do these mistresses really imagine that I should not like to wear fine dresses, ride in fine carriages, have a gay time with lovers, and have servants of my own? They talk to us of devotion, of honesty, of fidelity. Why; but it would choke you to death, my little chippies!

Once, in the Rue Cambon ... how many of these places I have had!... the masters were marrying their daughter. They gave a grand reception in the evening, at which the wedding-presents were exhibited,—enough of them to fill a furniture-van. By way of jest I asked Baptiste, the valet de chambre:

"Well, Baptiste, and you? What is your present?"

"My present?" exclaimed Baptiste, with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Yes, tell me, what is it?"

"A can of petroleum lighted under their bed. That is my present."

It was a smart answer. Moreover, this Baptiste was an astonishing man in politics.

"And yours, Célestine?" he asked, in his turn.

"Mine?"

I contracted my two hands into the shape of talons, and, pretending to claw a face ferociously, I answered:

"My nails, in their eyes!"

The butler, without being asked, remarked quietly, while arranging flowers and fruits in a glass dish with his fastidious fingers:

"I would be satisfied to sprinkle their faces in church with a bottle of good vitriol."

And he stuck a rose between two pears.

Oh! yes, how we love them! The extraordinary thing is that these revenges are not taken more frequently. When I think that a cook, for instance, holds her masters' lives in her hands every day; a pinch of arsenic instead of salt, a little dash of strychnine instead of vinegar, and the thing is done. Well, no, it must be that we have servitude in our very blood!

I have no education, and I write what I think and what I have seen. Well, I say that all this is not beautiful. I say that from the moment when any one installs another under his roof, though he were the last of poor devils, or the lowest of disreputable girls, he owes them protection, he owes them happiness. I say also that, if the master does not give it to us, we have a right to take it, even from his strong-box, even from his blood.

But enough of this! I do wrong to think of things that make my head ache and turn my stomach. I come back to my little stories.

I had much difficulty in leaving the sisters of Our Lady of Thirty-Six Sorrows. In spite of Cléclé's companionship, I was growing old in the box, and beginning to be hungry for liberty. When they understood that I had made up my mind to go, then the worthy sisters offered me places and places. There were places only for me. But I am not always a fool, and I have a keen eye for rascalities. All these places I refused. In all of them I found something that did not suit me. You should have seen the heads of these holy women. It was laughable. They had calculated on finding me a place in the house of some old bigot, where they could get back out of my wages the cost of my board with usury, and I enjoyed playing them a trick in my turn.

One day I notified Sister Boniface that it was my intention to go that very evening. She had the cheek to answer me, raising her arms to heaven:

"But, my dear child, it is impossible."

"How so? Why is it impossible?"

"Why, my dear child, you cannot leave the house like that. You owe us more than seventy francs. You will have to pay us first these seventy francs."

"And with what?" I replied. "I have not a sou; you can search me."

Sister Boniface gave me a hateful look, and, then declared, with severe dignity: "But, Mademoiselle, do you know that this is a robbery? And to rob poor women like us is worse than robbery; it is a sacrilege, for which the good God will punish you. Reflect."

Then anger got the better of me, and I cried:

"Say, then, who is it that steals here,—you or I? No, but you are astonishing, my little mothers."

"Mademoiselle, I forbid you to speak in this way."

"Oh! don't talk to me. What? One does your work, one toils like a beast for you from morning to night, one earns enormous money for you, you give us food which dogs would refuse, and then we must pay you into the bargain! Indeed, you have no cheek!"

Sister Boniface had turned very pale. I felt that coarse, filthy, furious words were on her lips, and ready to leave them; but, not daring to let them go, she stammered:

"Silence! You are a girl without shame, without religion. God will punish you. Go, if you will; but we keep your trunk."

I planted myself squarely before her, in an attitude of defiance, and, looking her full in the face, I said:

"Well, I should like to see you try it. Just try to keep my trunk, and you will have a visit from the commissary of police in short order. And, if religion consists in patching the dirty pantaloons of your chaplains, in stealing bread from poor girls, in speculating on the horrors that go on every night in the dormitory...."

The good sister was fairly white. She tried to cover my voice with her own.

"Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle!"

"Oh! don't pretend ignorance of the dirty things that go on every night in the dormitory! Do you dare to tell me, in my face, your eyes looking into mine, that you are ignorant of them? You encourage them because they are profitable to you,—yes, because they are profitable to you."

And trembling, panting, with dry throat, I completed my accusation.

"If religion is all that; if it is religious to keep a prison and a brothel,—well, then, I have enough of religion. My trunk, do you hear? I wish my trunk. You will give me my trunk at once."

Sister Boniface was frightened.

"I do not wish to discuss with a lost creature," said she, in a voice of dignity. "All right; you shall go."

"With my trunk?"

"With your trunk."

"Very well; but it takes tall talk to get one's rights here. It is worse than at the custom-house."

I went, in fact, that very evening. Cléclé, who was very nice, and who had saved something, lent me twenty francs. I went to engage a room in a lodging-house in the Rue de la Sourdière, and I bought a seat among the gallery-gods at the Porte-Saint-Martin. The play was "The Two Orphans." How true it is! Almost my own story.

I passed there a delightful evening, weeping, weeping, weeping.

XIV

November 18.

Rose is dead. Decidedly, misfortune hangs over the captain's house. Poor captain! His ferret dead ... Bourbaki dead ... and now it is Rose's turn! After a sickness of some days, she was carried off day before yesterday, in the evening, by a sudden attack of congestion of the lungs. She was buried this morning. From the windows of the linen-room I saw the procession pass in the road. The heavy coffin, borne by six men, was covered with crowns and with bunches of white flowers, like that of a young virgin. A considerable crowd, in long, dark, babbling files,—all Mesnil-Roy—followed Captain Mauger, who, wearing a tightly-fitting black frock-coat, and holding himself very stiffly, led the mourners, in thoroughly military fashion. And the church bells, tolling in the distance, responded to the sound of the rattle waved by the beadle. Madame had warned me that I was not to go to the funeral. However, I had no desire to go. I did not like this fat and wicked woman; her death leaves me very calm and indifferent. Yet perhaps I shall miss Rose; perhaps I shall miss my occasional conversations with her in the road. But what a source of gossip this event must be at the grocer's!

I was curious to know what impression this sudden death had made upon the captain. And, as my masters were visiting, I took a walk in the afternoon along the hedge. The captain's garden is sad and deserted. A spade stuck in the ground indicates abandoned work. "The captain will not come into the garden," said I to myself; "he is undoubtedly weeping in his chamber, among the souvenirs." And suddenly I perceive him. He has taken off his fine frock-coat, and put on his working-clothes again, and, with his old foraging-cap on his head, he is engaged in manuring his lawns. I even hear him humming a march in a low voice. He leaves his wheelbarrow, and comes toward me, carrying his fork on his shoulder.

"I am glad to see you, Mademoiselle Célestine."

I should like to offer him consolation or pity. I search for words, for phrases. But how can one find a touching word in presence of such a droll face? I content myself with repeating:

"A great misfortune, captain, a great misfortune for you! Poor Rose!"

"Yes, yes," he says, tamely.

His face is devoid of expression. His movements are uncertain. He adds, jabbing his fork into a soft spot in the ground near the hedge:

"Especially as I cannot get along without anybody."

I insist upon Rose's domestic virtues.

"You will not easily replace her, Captain."

Decidedly, he is not touched at all. One would say even, from looking at his eyes that have suddenly become brighter and from watching his movements, now more alert, that he has been relieved from a great weight.

"Bah!" says he, after a short silence, "everything can be replaced."

This resignation astonishes me, and even scandalizes me a little. To amuse myself, I try to make him understand all he has lost in losing Rose.

"She knew so well your habits, your tastes, your manias! She was so devoted to you!"

"Well, if she had not been, that would have been the last straw," he growled.

And, making a gesture by which he seems to put aside all sorts of objections, he goes on:

"Besides, was she so devoted to me? Oh! I may as well tell you the truth. I had had enough of Rose. Yes, indeed! After we took a little boy to help us, she attended to nothing in the house, and everything went badly, very badly. I could not even have an egg boiled to my taste. And the scenes that went on, from morning to night, apropos of nothing. If I spent ten sous, there were cries and reproaches. And, when I talked with you, as I am doing now,—well, there was a row, indeed; for she was jealous, jealous. Oh! no. She went for you; you should have heard her. In short, I was no longer at home in my own house."

He breathes deeply, noisily, and, with the new and deep joy that a traveler feels on returning from a long journey, he contemplates the sky, the bare grass-plots in the garden, the violet interlacings of the branches of the trees against the light, and his little house.

This joy, so offensive to Rose's memory, now seems to me very comical. I stimulate the captain to further confidences. And I say to him, in a tone of reproach:

"Captain, I think you are not just to Rose."

"Egad!" he rejoins, quickly. "You do not know; you don't know anything about it. She did not go to tell you of all the scenes that she made, her tyranny, her jealousy, her egoism. Nothing belonged to me here any longer. Everything in my house was hers. For instance, you would not believe it, my Voltaire arm-chair was never at my disposition. She had it all the time. She had everything, for that matter. To think that I could no longer eat asparagus with oil, because she did not like it! Oh! she did well to die. It was the best thing that could happen to her, for, in some way or other, I should have gotten rid of her. Yes, yes, I should have gotten rid of her. She was becoming too much for me. I had had enough. And let me tell you; if I had died before her, Rose would have been prettily trapped. I had a bitter pill in store for her. My word for it!"

His lip curls in a smile that ends in an atrocious grimace. He continues, chopping each of his words with moist little puffs of laughter:

"You know that I made a will, in which I gave her everything,—house, money, dividends, everything. She must have told you; she told everybody. Yes, but what she did not tell you, because she did not know it, is that, two months later, I made a second will, cancelling the first, in which I did not leave her anything,—not a sou."

Unable to contain himself longer, he bursts out laughing, a strident laugh that scatters through the garden like a flight of scolding sparrows. And he cries:

"Ah! that's an idea, hey? Oh! her head,—you can see it from here,—on learning that I had left my little fortune to the French Academy. For, my little Célestine, it is true; I had left my fortune to the French Academy. Ah! that's an idea!"

I allow his laughter to become quieter, and then I gravely ask him:

"And now, Captain, what are you going to do?"

The captain gives me a long, sly, amorous look, and says:

"Well, that depends on you."

"On me?"

"Yes, on you; on you alone."

"And how is that?"

A moment of silence follows, during which, straightening up and twisting his pointed beard, he seeks to envelop me in a seductive fluid.

"Come," he says, suddenly, "let us go straight to the point. Let us speak squarely,—soldier-fashion. Do you wish to take Rose's place?"

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

"And the wills, Captain?"

"Oh! I tear them up."

I object:

"But I do not know how to cook."

"Oh! I will do the cooking; I will make my bed; I will do everything."

He becomes gallant, sprightly; his eye sparkles. He leans towards the hedge, stretching out his neck. His eyes become bloodshot. And in a lower voice he says:

"If you came to me, Célestine,—well...."

"Well, what?"

"Well, the Lanlaires would die of rage. Ah! that's an idea!"

I lapse into silence, and pretend to be profoundly dreaming. The captain becomes impatient. He digs the heels of his shoes into the sandy path.

"See, Célestine, thirty-five francs a month; the master's table; the master's room; a will; does that suit you? Answer me."

"We will see later. But, while waiting, take another."

And I run away that I may not blow into his face the tempest of laughter that is roaring in my throat.

I have, then, only the embarrassment of choice. The captain or Joseph? To live as a servant-mistress, with all the contingencies that such a position involves,—that is, to remain still at the mercy of a stupid, coarse, changeable man, and dependent upon a thousand disagreeable circumstances and a thousand prejudices; or else to marry, and thus acquire a sort of regular and respected liberty, in a situation free from the control of others, and liberated from the caprice of events? Here at last a portion of my dream promises to be realized.

It is very evident that I should have liked a realization on a grander scale. But, when I think how few chances present themselves, in general, in the existence of a woman like me, I must congratulate myself that something is coming to me at last other than this eternal and monotonous tossing back and forth from one house to another, from one bed to another, from one face to another face.

Of course, I put aside at once the captain's plan. Moreover, I had no need of this last conversation with him to know the sort of grotesque and sinister mountebank, the type of odd humanity, that he represents. Beyond the fact that his physical ugliness is complete,—for there is nothing to relieve and correct it,—he gives one no hold on his soul. Rose believed firmly in her assured domination over this man, and this man tricked her. One cannot dominate nothing; one can have no influence over emptiness. I cannot, without choking with laughter, think of myself for an instant in the arms of this ridiculous personage and caressing him. Yet, in spite of this, I am content, and I feel something akin to pride. However low the source from which it comes, it is none the less an homage, and this homage strengthens my confidence in myself and in my beauty.

Quite different are my feelings toward Joseph. Joseph has taken possession of my mind. He retains it, he holds it captive, he obsesses it. He disturbs me, bewitches me, and frightens me, by turns. Certainly, he is ugly, brutally, horribly ugly; but, when you analyze this ugliness, you find something formidable in it, something that is almost beauty, that is more than beauty, that is above beauty,—something elemental. I do not conceal from myself the difficulty, the danger, of living, whether married or not, with such a man, of whom I am warranted in suspecting everything, and of whom, in reality, I know nothing. And it is this that draws me to him with a dizzy violence. At least he is capable of many things in crime, perhaps, and perhaps also in the direction of good. I do not know. What does he want of me? What will he do with me? Should I be the unscrupulous instrument of plans that I knew nothing of, the plaything of his ferocious passions? Does he even love me? And why does he love me? For my beauty; for my vices; for my intelligence; for my hatred of prejudices,—he who makes parade of all the prejudices? I do not know. In addition to this attraction which the unknown and mysterious has for me, he exercises over me the bitter, powerful charm of force. And this charm, yes, this charm acts more and more on my nerves, conquers my passive and submissive flesh. It is something which I cannot define exactly, something that takes me wholly, by my mind and by my sex, revealing in me instincts of which I was unaware, instincts that slept within me without my knowledge, and that no love, no thrill of voluptuousness had before awakened. And I tremble from head to foot when I remember the words of Joseph, saying to me:

"You are like me, Célestine. Oh! not in features, of course. But our two souls are alike; our two souls resemble each other."

Our two souls! Is that possible?

These sensations that I feel are so new, so imperious, so strongly tenacious, that they do not leave me a minute's rest, and that I remain always under the influence of their stupefying fascination. In vain do I seek to occupy my mind with other thoughts. I try to read and walk in the garden, when my masters are away, and, when they are at home, to work furiously at my mending in the linen-room. Impossible! Joseph has complete possession of my thought. And not only does he possess it in the present, but he possesses it also in the past. Joseph so interposes himself between my entire past and myself that I see, so to speak, nothing but him, and that this past, with all its ugly or charming faces, draws farther and farther from me, fades away, disappears. Cléophas Biscouille; M. Jean; M. Xavier; William, of whom I have not yet spoken; M. Georges, himself, by whom I believed my soul to have been branded forever, as the shoulder of the convict is branded by the red iron; and all those to whom, voluntarily, joyously, passionately, I have given a little or much of myself, of my vibrant flesh and of my sorrowful heart,—all of them shadows already! Uncertain and ludicrous shadows that fade away until they are hardly recollections, and then become confused dreams ... intangible, forgotten realities ... vapors ... nothing. Sometimes, in the kitchen, after dinner, when looking at Joseph and his criminal mouth, and his criminal eyes, and his heavy cheek-bones, and his low, knotty, humpy forehead, upon which the lamplight accumulates hard shadows, I say to myself:

"No, no, it is not possible. I am under the influence of a fit of madness; I will not, I cannot, love this man. No, no, it is not possible."

And yet it is possible, and it is true. And I must at last confess it to myself, cry out to myself: "I love Joseph!"

Ah! now I understand why one should never make sport of love; why there are women who rush, with all the consciencelessness of murder, with all the invincible force of nature, to the kisses of brutes and to the embraces of monsters, and who voluptuously sound the death-rattle in the sneering faces of demons and bucks.

Joseph has obtained from Madame six days' leave of absence, and to-morrow he is to start for Cherbourg, pretending to be called by family matters. It is decided; he will buy the little café. But for some months he will not run it himself. He has some one there, a trusted friend, who is to take charge of it.

"Do you understand?" he says to me. "It must first be repainted, and made to look like new; it must be very fine, with its new sign, in gilt letters: 'To the French Army!' And besides, I cannot leave my place yet. That I cannot do."

"Why not, Joseph?"

"Because I cannot now."

"But when will you go, for good?"

Joseph scratches his neck, gives me a sly glance, and says:

"As to that I do not know. Perhaps not for six months yet; perhaps sooner; perhaps even later. I cannot tell. It depends."

I feel that he does not wish to speak. Nevertheless I insist:

"It depends on what?"

He hesitates to answer; then, in a mysterious and, at the same time, somewhat excited tone, he says:

"On a certain matter; on a very important matter."

"But what matter?"

"Oh! on a certain matter, that's all."

This is uttered in a brusque voice,—a voice not of anger exactly, but of impatience. He refuses to explain further.

He says nothing to me of myself. This astonishes me, and causes me a painful disappointment. Can he have changed his mind? Has my curiosity, my hesitation, wearied him? Yet it is very natural that I should be interested in an event in the success or failure of which I am to share. Can the suspicion that I have not been able to hide, my suspicion of the outrage committed by him upon the little Claire, have caused Joseph to reflect further, and brought about a rupture between us? But I feel from the tremor of my heart that my resolution, deferred out of coquetry, out of a disposition to tease, was well taken. To be free, to be enthroned behind a bar, to command others, to know that one is looked at, desired, adored by so many men! And that is not to be? And this dream is to escape me, as all the others have? I do not wish to seem to be throwing myself at Joseph's head, but I wish to know what he has in his mind. I put on a sad face, and I sigh:

"When you have gone, Joseph, the house will no longer be endurable to me. I have become so accustomed to you now, to our conversations."

"Oh! indeed!"

"I too shall go away."

Joseph says nothing.

He walks up and down the harness-room, with anxious brow and preoccupied mind, his hands nervously twirling a pair of garden-shears in the pocket of his blue apron. The expression of his face is unpleasant. I repeat, as I watch him go back and forth:

"Yes, I shall go away; I shall return to Paris."

He utters not a word of protest, not a cry; not even an imploring glance does he turn upon me. He puts a stick of wood in the stove, as the fire is low, and then begins again his silent promenade up and down the room. Why is he like this? Does he, then, accept this separation? Does he want it? Has he, then, lost his confidence in me, the love that he had for me? Or does he simply fear my imprudence, my eternal questions?

Trembling a little, I ask him:

"Will it cause you no pain, Joseph, if we do not see each other again?"

Without halting in his walk, without even glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, in the manner so characteristic of him, he says:

"Of course. But what can you expect? One cannot oblige people to do what they refuse to do. A thing either pleases, or it does not please."

"What have I refused to do, Joseph?"

"And besides, you are always full of bad ideas about me," he continues, without answering my question.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because...."

"No, no, Joseph; you no longer love me; you have something else in mind now. I have refused nothing; I have reflected, that is all. It is natural enough, isn't it? One does not make a life-contract without reflection. My hesitation, on the contrary, ought to make you think well of me. It proves that I am not light-headed,—that I am a serious woman."

"You are a good woman, Célestine, an orderly woman."

"Well, then?"

At last Joseph stops walking, and, gazing at me with profound and still suspicious, but yet tenderer, eyes, he says, slowly:

"It is not that, Célestine. There is no question of that. I do not prevent you from reflecting. Reflect all you like. There is plenty of time, and we will talk again on my return. But what I do not like, you see, is so much curiosity. There are things that do not concern women; there are things...."

And he finishes his phrase with a shake of his head.

After a moment's silence he resumes:

"I have nothing else in mind, Célestine. I dream of you; I am crazy over you. As true as the good God exists, what I have said once I say always. We will talk it over again. But you must not be curious. You do what you do; I do what I do. In that way there is no mistake, no surprise."

Approaching me, he grasps my hands.

"I have a hard head, Célestine; yes, indeed! But what is in it stays in it, and cannot be gotten out of it. I dream of you, Célestine, of you ... in the little café."

XV

November 20.

Joseph started for Cherbourg yesterday morning, as had been agreed. On coming down stairs, I find him already gone. Marianne, half awake, with swollen eyes and hawking throat, is pumping water. The plate from which Joseph has just eaten his soup, and the empty cider-pitcher, are still on the kitchen table. I am anxious, and at the same time I am content, for I feel that, starting from to-day, a new life is at last preparing for me. The sun has scarcely risen; the air is cold. Beyond the garden the country is still sleeping under a curtain of fog, and in the distance, coming from an invisible valley, I hear the very feeble sound of a locomotive whistle. It is the train that bears Joseph and my destiny. I can eat no breakfast; it seems to me that something huge and heavy fills my stomach. I no longer hear the whistle. The fog is thickening; it has entered the garden.

And if Joseph were never to come back?

All day long I have been distracted, nervous, extremely agitated. Never did the house weigh more heavily upon me; never did the long corridors seem more dismal, more icily silent; never have I so much detested the crabbed face and shrill voice of Madame. Impossible to work. I have had with Madame a very violent scene, in consequence of which I really thought that I should be obliged to go. And I ask myself what I am going to do during these six days, without Joseph. I dread the ennui of being alone, at meals, with Marianne. I really need somebody to talk to.

As a rule, as soon as it comes night, Marianne, under the influence of drink, falls into a state of complete stupefaction. Her brain becomes torpid; her tongue becomes thick; her lips hang and shine like the worn brink of an old well; and she is sad, sad to the point of weeping. I can get nothing out of her but little plaints, little cries, something like the puling of a child. Nevertheless, last night, less drunk than usual, she confided to me, amid never-ending groans, that she is afraid she is in trouble. Well, that caps the climax! My first impulse is to laugh. But soon I feel a keen sorrow,—something like the cutting of a lash in the pit of my stomach. Suppose it were through Joseph? I remember that, on the day of my arrival here, I at once suspected them. But since then nothing has happened to justify this stupid suspicion. On the contrary. No, no, it is impossible. It cannot be. I ask:

"You are sure, Marianne?"

"Sure? No," she says; "I am only afraid."

"And through whom?"

She hesitates to answer; then, suddenly, with a sort of pride, she declares:

"Through Monsieur."

This time I came near bursting with laughter. Marianne, mistaking my laugh for one of admiration, begins to laugh, too.

"Yes, yes, through Monsieur," she repeats. "I am going to see Madame Gouin to-morrow."

I feel a real pity for this poor woman whose brain is so dark and whose ideas are so obscure. Oh! how melancholy and lamentable she is! And what is going to happen to her now? An extraordinary thing,—love has given her no radiance, no grace. She has not that halo of light with which voluptuousness surrounds the ugliest faces. She has remained the same,—heavy, flabby, lumpy.

I left her with a somewhat heavy heart. Now I laugh no more; I will never laugh at Marianne again, and the pity that I feel for her turns into a real and almost painful emotion.

But I feel that my emotion especially concerns myself. On returning to my room, I am seized with a sort of shame and great discouragement. One should never reflect upon love. How sad love is at bottom! And what does it leave behind? Ridicule, bitterness, or nothing at all. What remains to me now of Monsieur Jean, whose photograph is on parade on the mantel, in its red plush frame? Nothing, except my disappointment at having loved a vain and heartless imbecile. Can I really have loved this insipid beauty, with his white and unhealthy face, his regulation black mutton-chops, and his hair parted down the middle? This photograph irritates me. I can no longer have continually before me those two stupid eyes that look at me with the unchangeable look of an insolent and servile flunky. Oh! no, let it go to keep company with the others, at the bottom of my trunk, pending the time when I shall make of my more and more detested past a fire of joy and ashes.

And I think of Joseph. Where is he at the present moment? What is he doing? Is he even thinking of me? Undoubtedly he is in the little café. He is looking, discussing, measuring; he is picturing to himself the effect that I shall produce at the bar, before the mirror, amid the dazzling of the glasses and the multi-colored bottles. I wish that I knew Cherbourg, its streets, its squares, its harbor, that I might represent Joseph to myself going and coming, conquering the city as he has conquered me. I turn and turn again in my bed, a little feverish. My thought goes from the forest of Raillon to Cherbourg, from the body of Claire to the little café. And, after a painful period of insomnia, I finally go off to sleep with the stern and severe image of Joseph before my eyes, the motionless image of Joseph outlining itself in the distance against a dark and choppy background, traversed by white masts and red yards.

To-day, Sunday, I paid a visit in the afternoon to Joseph's room. The two dogs follow me eagerly. They seem to be asking me where Joseph is. A little iron bed, a large cupboard, a sort of low commode, a table, two chairs, all in white-wood, and a porte-manteau, which a green lustring curtain, running on a rod, protects from the dust,—these constitute the furnishings. Though the room is not luxurious, it is extremely orderly and clean. It has something of the rigidity and austerity of a monk's cell in a convent. On the white-washed walls, between the portraits of Déroulède and General Mercier, holy pictures unframed,—Virgins, an Adoration of the Magi, a Massacre of the Innocents, a view of Paradise. Above the bed a large crucifix of dark wood, serving as a holy-water basin, and barred with a branch of consecrated box.

It is not very delicate, to be sure, but I could not resist my violent desire to search everywhere, in the hope, vague though it were, of discovering some of Joseph's secrets. Nothing is mysterious in this room, nothing is hidden. It is the naked chamber of a man who has no secrets, whose life is pure, exempt from complications and events. The keys are in the furniture and in the cupboards; not a drawer is locked. On the table some packages of seeds and a book, "The Good Gardener." On the mantel a prayer-book, whose pages are yellow, and a little note-book, in which have been copied various receipts for preparing encaustic, Bordelaise stew, and mixtures of nicotine and sulphate of iron. Not a letter anywhere; not even an account-book. Nowhere the slightest trace of any correspondence, either on business, politics, family matters, or love. In the commode, beside worn-out shoes and old hose-nozzles, piles of pamphlets, numerous numbers of the "Libre Parole." Under the bed, mouse-traps and rat-traps. I have felt of everything, turned everything upside down, emptied everything,—coats, mattress, linen, and drawers. There is nothing else. In the cupboard nothing has been changed. It is just as I left it a week ago, when I put it in order in Joseph's presence. Is it possible that Joseph has nothing? Is it possible that he is so lacking in those thousand little intimate and familiar things whereby a man reveals his tastes, his passions, his thoughts, a little of that which dominates his life? Ah! yes, here! From the back of the table-drawer I take a cigar-box, wrapped in paper and strongly tied with string running four times round. With great difficulty I untie the knots, I open the box, and on a bed of wadding I see five consecrated medals, a little silver crucifix, and a rosary of red beads. Always religion!

My search concluded, I leave the room, filled with nervous irritation at having found nothing of what I was searching for, and having learned nothing of what I wanted to know. Decidedly, Joseph communicates his impenetrability to everything that he touches. The articles that he possesses are as silent as his lips, as unfathomable as his eyes and brow. The rest of the day I have had before me, really before me, Joseph's face, enigmatical, sneering, and crusty, by turns. And it has seemed to me that I could hear him saying to me:

"And much farther you have got, my awkward little one, in consequence of your curiosity. Ah! you can look again, you can search my linen, my trunks, my soul; you will never find anything out."

I do not wish to think of all this any more; I do not wish to think of Joseph any more. My head aches too hard, and I believe that I should go mad. Let us return to my memories.

Scarcely had I left the good sisters of Neuilly, when I fell again into the hell of the employment-bureaus. And yet I had firmly resolved never to apply to them again. But, when one is on the pavements, without money enough to buy even a bit of bread, what is one to do? Friends, old comrades? Bah! They do not even answer you. Advertisements in the newspapers? They cost a great deal, and involve interminable correspondence,—a great lot of trouble for nothing. And besides, they are very risky. At any rate, one must have something ahead, and Cléclé's twenty francs had quickly melted in my hands. Prostitution? Street-walking? To take men home with you who are often more destitute than yourself? Oh! no, indeed. For pleasure,—yes, as much as you like. But for money? I cannot; I do not know how; I am always victimized. I was even obliged to hang up some little jewels that I had, in order to pay for my board and lodging. Inevitably, hard luck brings you back to the agencies of usury and human exploitation.

Oh! the employment-bureaus, what dirty traps they are! In the first place, one must give ten sous to have her name entered; and then there is the risk of getting a bad place. In these frightful dens there is no lack of bad places; and, really, one has only the embarrassment of choice between one-eyed hussies and blind hussies. Nowadays, women with nothing at all, keepers of little fourpenny grocery stores, pretend to have servants and to play the role of countess. What a pity! If, after discussions, and humiliating examinations, and still more humiliating haggling, you succeed in coming to terms with one of these rapacious bourgeoises, you owe to the keeper of the employment-bureau three per cent. of your first year's wages. So much the worse, if you remain but ten days in the place she has procured for you. That does not concern her; her account is good, and the entire commission is exacted. Oh! they know the trick; they know where they send you, and that you will come back to them soon. Once, for instance, I had seven places in four months and a half. A run on the black; impossible houses, worse than prisons. Well, I had to pay the employment-bureau three per cent. of seven years' wages,—that is, including the ten sous required for each fresh entrance of my name, more than ninety francs. And nothing had been accomplished, and all had to be begun over again. Is that just, I want to know? Is it not abominable robbery?

Robbery? In whatever direction one turns, one sees nothing but robbery anywhere. Of course it is always those who have nothing who are the most robbed, and robbed by those who have all. But what is one to do? One rages and rebels, and then ends by concluding that it is better to be robbed than to die like a dog in the street. Oh! the world is arranged on a fine plan, that's sure! What a pity it is that General Boulanger did not succeed! At least he, it seems, loved domestics.

The employment-bureau in which I was stupid enough to have my name entered is situated in the Rue du Colisée, at the back of a court-yard, on the third floor of a dark and very old house,—almost a house for working-people. At the very entrance the narrow and steep staircase, with its filthy steps that stick to your shoes and its damp banister that sticks to your hands, blows into your face an infected air, an odor of sinks and closets, and fills your heart with discouragement. I do not pretend to be fastidious, but the very sight of this staircase turns my stomach and cuts off my legs, and I am seized with a mad desire to run away. The hope which, on the way, has been singing in your head is at once silenced, stifled by this thick and sticky atmosphere, by these vile steps, and these sweating walls that seem to be frequented by glutinous larvæ and cold toads. Really, I do not understand how fine ladies dare to venture into this unhealthy hovel. Frankly, they are not disgusted. But what is there to-day that disgusts fine ladies? They would not go into such a house to help a poor person, but to worry a domestic they would go the devil knows where!

This bureau was run by Mme. Paulhat-Durand, a tall woman of almost forty-five years, who, underneath her very black and slightly wavy hair, and in spite of soft flesh crammed into a terrible corset, still preserved remnants of beauty, a majestic deportment,... and such an eye! My! but she must have had fun in her day! With her austere elegance, always wearing a black watered-silk dress, a long gold chain falling in loops over her prominent bosom, a brown velvet cravat around her neck, and with very pale hands, she seemed the perfection of dignity and even a little haughty. She lived, outside of marriage, with a city employee, M. Louis. We knew him only by his Christian name. He was a queer type, extremely near-sighted, with mincing movements, always silent, and presenting a very awkward appearance in a grey jacket that was too short for him. Sad, timid, bent, although young, he seemed, not happy, but resigned. He never dared to speak to us, or even to look at us, for the madame was very jealous. When he came in, with his bag of papers under his arm, he contented himself with slightly lifting his hat in our direction, without turning his head toward us, and, with a dragging step, glided into the hall, like a shadow. And how tired the poor fellow was! At night M. Louis attended to the correspondence, kept the books,... and did the rest.

Mme. Paulhat-Durand was named neither Paulhat or Durand; these two names, which go so well together, she acquired, it seems, from two gentlemen, dead to-day, with whom she had lived, and who had supplied her with funds to open her employment-bureau. Her real name was Josephine Carp. Like many keepers of employment-bureaus, she was an old chambermaid. That was to be seen, moreover, in her pretentious bearing, in her manners, modeled upon those of the great ladies in whose service she had been, and beneath which, in spite of her gold chain and black silk dress, one could see the filth of her inferior origin. She showed all the insolence of an old domestic, but she reserved this insolence for us exclusively, showing her customers, on the contrary, a servile obsequiousness, proportioned to their wealth and social rank.

"Oh! what a set of people, Madame the Countess," said she, with an air of affectation. "Chambermaids de luxe,—that is, wenches who are unwilling to do anything, who do not work, and whose honesty and morality I do not guarantee,—as many of those as you want! But women who work, who sew, who know their trade,—there are no more of them; I have no more of them; nobody has any more of them. That's the way it is."

Yet her bureau was well patronized. She had the custom especially of the people in the Champs-Elysées quarter, consisting largely of foreigners and Jewesses. Ah! the scandals that I know about them!

The door opens into a hall leading to the salon, where Mme. Paulhat-Durand is enthroned in her perpetual black silk dress. At the left of the hall is a sort of dark hole, a vast ante-room with circular benches, and in the middle a table recovered with faded red serge. Nothing else. The ante-room is lighted only by a narrow strip of glass set in the upper part of the partition which separates the room from the employment-bureau, and running its entire length. A bad light, a light more gloomy than darkness, comes through this glass, coating objects and faces with something less than a twilight glimmer.

We came there every morning and every afternoon, heaps of us,—cooks and chambermaids, gardeners and valets, coachmen and butlers,—and we spent our time in telling each other of our misfortunes, in running down the masters, and in wishing for extraordinary, fairy-like, liberating places. Some brought books and newspapers, which they read passionately; others wrote letters. Now gay, now sad, our buzzing conversations were often interrupted by the sudden irruption of Mme. Paulhat-Durand, like a gust of wind.

"Be silent, young women," she cried. "It is impossible to hear ourselves in the salon."

Or else she called in a curt, shrill voice:

"Mademoiselle Jeanne!"

Mlle. Jeanne rose, arranged her hair a little, followed the madame into the bureau, from which she returned a few moments later, with a grimace of disdain upon her lips. Her recommendations had not been found sufficient. What did they require then? The Monthyon prize? A maiden's diploma?

Or else they had been unable to agree upon wages.

"Oh! no, the mean things! A dirty dance hall ... nothing to pinch. She does her own marketing. Oh! la! la! Four children in the house! Think of it!"

The whole punctuated by furious or obscene gestures.

We all passed into the bureau by turns, summoned by Mme. Paulhat-Durand, whose voice grew shriller and shriller, and whose shining flesh at last became green with anger. For my part, I saw directly with whom I had to deal, and that the place did not suit me. Then, to amuse myself, instead of submitting to their stupid questions, I questioned the fine ladies themselves.

"Madame is married?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Ah! And Madame has children?"

"Certainly."

"Dogs?"

"Yes."

"Madame makes the chambermaid sit up?"

"When I go out in the evening ... evidently."

"And Madame often goes out in the evening?"

Pursing up her lips, she was about to answer; but I, casting a contemptuous glance at her hat, her costume, and her entire person, said, in a curt and disdainful voice:

"I regret it, but Madame's place does not please me. I do not go into houses like Madame's."

And I sailed out triumphantly.

One day a little woman, with hair outrageously dyed, with lips painted with minium, with enameled cheeks, as insolent as a guinea-hen, and perfumed like a bidet, after asking me thirty-six questions, put a thirty-seventh:

"Are you well behaved? Do you receive lovers?"

"And Madame?" I answered very quietly, showing no astonishment.

Some, less difficult to please, or more weary or more timid, accepted infected places. They were hooted.

"Bon voyage! We shall see you soon again."

At the sight of us thus piled up on our benches, with legs spread apart, dreamy, stupid, or chattering, and listening to the successive calls of the madame: "Mademoiselle Victoire!... Mademoiselle Irène!... Mademoiselle Zulma!" it sometimes seemed to me as if we were in a public house, awaiting the next caller. That seemed to me funny or sad, I don't know which; and one day I remarked upon it aloud. There was a general outburst of laughter. Each one immediately delivered herself of all the exact and marvelous information of which she was in possession concerning establishments of that character. A fat and puffy creature, who was peeling an orange, said:

"Surely that would be better. They are sure of a living in those places. And champagne, you know, young women; and chemises with silver stars; and no corsets!"

I remember that that day I thought of my sister Louise, undoubtedly shut up in one of those houses. I pictured to myself her life, possibly happy, at least tranquil, in any case exempt from the danger of poverty and hunger. And, more than ever disgusted with my dismal and beaten youth, with my wandering existence, with my dread of the morrow, I too dreamed:

"Yes, perhaps that would be better."

And evening came, and then night,—a night hardly darker than the day. We became silent, fatigued from having talked too much, from having waited too long. A gas jet was lighted in the hall, and regularly, at five o'clock, through the glass in the door, we could see the slightly-bent outline of M. Louis passing very quickly, and then vanishing. It was the signal for our departure.

Often old women, runners for public houses, pimps with a respectable air, and quite like the good sisters in their honeyed sweetness, awaited us at the exit on the sidewalk. They followed us discreetly, and, in some darker corner of the street, behind the groups of trees in the Champs-Elysées, out of sight of the police, they approached us.

"Come, then, to my house, instead of dragging out your poor life from anxiety to anxiety, and from poverty to poverty. In my house you will find pleasure, luxury, money; you will find liberty."

Dazzled by the marvelous promises, several of my little comrades listened to these love-brokers. With sadness I saw them start. Where are they now?

One evening one of these prowlers, fat and flabby, whom I had already brutally dismissed, succeeded in getting me to go with her to a café in the Rond-Point, where she offered me a glass of chartreuse. I see her still, with her hair turning grey, her severe costume of a bourgeoise widow, her plump and sticky hands, loaded with rings. She reeled off her story with more spirit and conviction than usual, and, as I remained indifferent to all her humbug inducements, she cried:

"Oh! if you only would, my little one. I do not need to look at you twice to see how beautiful you are in all respects. And it is a real crime to let such beauty go to waste, and be squandered in the company of house-servants. With your beauty, you would quickly make a fortune. Oh! you would have a bag of money in a very little time. You see, I have a wonderful set of customers,—old gentlemen, very influential, and very, very generous. All that is best in Paris comes to my house,—famous generals, powerful magistrates, foreign ambassadors."

She drew nearer to me, lowering her voice.

"And if I were to tell you that the president of the republic himself ... why, yes, my little one! That gives you an idea of what my house is. There is not one like it in the world. Rabineau's is nothing side of my house. And stay! yesterday at five o'clock the president was so well pleased that he promised me the academic palms ... for my son, who is chief auditor in a religious educational institution at Auteuil."

She looked at me a long time, searching me body and soul, and repeated:

"Oh! if you would! What a success!"

I offered a heap of objections, my lack of fine linen, of costumes, of jewels. The old woman reassured me.

"Oh! if that's all," said she, "you need not worry, because in my house, you understand, natural beauty is the chief adornment."

"Yes, yes, I know, but still...."

"I assure you that you need not worry," she insisted, with benevolence. "Listen, sign a contract with me for three months, and I will give you an outfit of the best, such as no soubrette of the Théâtre-Français ever had. My word for it!"

I asked time to reflect.

"Well, all right! reflect," counseled this dealer in human flesh. "Let me give you my address, at any rate. When your heart speaks,—well, you will have only to come. Oh! I am perfectly confident. And to-morrow I am going to announce you to the president of the republic."

We had finished drinking. The old woman settled for the two glasses, and took from a little black pocket-book a card, which she slyly slipped into my hand. When she had gone, I looked at the card, and I read:

MADAME REBECCA RANVET Millinery

At Mme. Paulhat-Durand's I witnessed some extraordinary scenes. As I cannot describe them all, unfortunately, I select one to serve as an example of what goes on daily in this house.

I have said that the upper part of the partition separating the ante-room from the bureau consists of a strip of glass covered with transparent curtains. In the middle of the strip is a casement-window, ordinarily closed. One day I noticed that, by some oversight, of which I resolved to take advantage, it had been left partly open. Putting a small stool upon the bench, I stood upon it, and thus succeeded in touching with my chin the frame of the casement-window, which I softly pushed. I was thus enabled to look into the room, and here is what I saw.

A lady was seated in an arm-chair; a chambermaid was standing in front of her; in the corner Mme. Paulhat-Durand was distributing some cards among the compartments of a drawer. The lady had come from Fontainebleau in search of a servant. She may have been fifty years old. In appearance a rich and rough bourgeoise, dressed soberly, provincial in her austerity. The maid, puny and sickly, with a complexion that had been made livid by poor food and lack of food, had nevertheless a sympathetic face, which, under more fortunate circumstances, would perhaps have been pretty. She was very clean and trim in a black skirt. A black jersey moulded her thin form, and on her head she wore a linen cap, prettily set back, revealing her brow and her curly brown hair.

After a detailed, sustained, offensive, aggressive examination, the lady at last made up her mind to speak.

"Then," said she, "you offer yourself as ... what? As a chambermaid?"

"Yes, Madame."

"You do not look like one. What is your name?"

"Jeanne Le Godec."

"What did you say?"

"Jeanne Le Godec, Madame."

The lady shrugged her shoulders.

"Jeanne," she exclaimed. "That is not a servant's name; that is a name for a young girl. If you enter my service, you do not expect, I suppose, to keep this name Jeanne?"

"As Madame likes."

Jeanne had lowered her head, and was leaning with her two hands on the handle of her umbrella.

"Raise your head," ordered the lady; "stand up straight. Don't you see you are making a hole in the carpet with the point of your umbrella? Where do you come from?"

"From Saint-Brieuc."

"From Saint-Brieuc!"

And she gave a pout of disdain that quickly turned into a frightful grimace. The corners of her mouth and eyes contracted, as if she had swallowed a glass of vinegar.

"From Saint-Brieuc!" she repeated. "Then you are a Breton? Oh! I do not like the Bretons. They are obstinate and dirty."

"I am very clean, Madame," protested the poor Jeanne.

"You say so. However, we haven't reached that yet. How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

"Twenty-six? Not counting the nursing months, no doubt? You look much older. It is not worth while to deceive me."

"I am not deceiving Madame. I assure Madame I am only twenty-six. If I look older, it is because I have been sick a long time."

"Oh! you have been sick?" replied the bourgeoise, in a voice of sneering severity. "Oh! you have been sick a long time? I warn you, my girl, that the place, though not a very hard one, is of some importance, and that I must have a woman of very good health."

Jeanne tried to repair her imprudent words. She declared:

"Oh! I am cured, quite cured."

"That is your affair. Moreover, we haven't reached that yet. You are married or single, which? What are you?"

"I am a widow, Madame."

"Ah! You have no child, I suppose?"

And, as Jeanne did not answer directly, the lady insisted, more sharply:

"Say, have you children, yes or no?"

"I have a little girl," she confessed, timidly.

Then, making grimaces and gestures as if she were scattering a lot of flies, she cried:

"Oh! no child in the house; no child in the house; not under any consideration. Where is your little girl?"

"She is with my husband's aunt."

"And what is this aunt?"

"She keeps a wine-shop in Rouen."

"A deplorable calling. Drunkenness and debauchery,—that is a pretty example for a little girl! However, that concerns you, that is your affair. How old is your little girl?"

"Eighteen months, Madame."

Madame gave a start, and turned violently in her arm-chair. This was too much for her; she was scandalized. A sort of growl escaped from her lips.

"Children! Think of it! Children, when one cannot bring them up, or have them at home! These people are incorrigible; the devil is in their bodies!"

Becoming more and more aggressive, and even ferocious, she addressed herself to Jeanne again, who stood trembling before her gaze.

"I warn you," said she, enunciating each word separately, "I warn you that, if you enter my service, I will not allow you to bring your little girl to my house. No goings and comings in the house; I want no goings and comings in the house. No, no. No strangers, no vagabonds, no unknown people. One is exposed quite enough with the ordinary run of callers. Oh! no, thank you!"

In spite of this declaration, which was not very prepossessing, the little servant dared to ask, nevertheless:

"In that case, Madame surely will permit me to go and see my little girl, once a year,—just once a year!"

"No."

Such was the reply of the implacable bourgeoise. And she added:

"My servants never go out. It is the principle of the house,—a principle on which I am not willing to compromise. I do not pay domestics that they may make the round of doubtful resorts, under pretence of going to see their daughters. That would be really too convenient. No, no. You have recommendations?"

"Yes, Madame."

She drew from her pocket a paper in which were wrapped some recommendations, yellow, crumpled, and soiled; and she silently handed them to Madame, with a trembling hand. Madame, with the tips of her fingers, as if to avoid soiling them, and with grimaces of disgust, unfolded one, which she began to read aloud:

"'I certify that the girl J'...."

Suddenly interrupting herself, she cast an atrocious look at Jeanne, who was growing more anxious and troubled.

"'The girl'? It plainly says 'girl.' Then you are not married? You have a child, and you are not married? What does that mean?"

The servant explained.

"I ask Madame's pardon. I have been married for three years, and this recommendation was written six years ago. Madame can see the date for herself."

"Well, that is your affair."

And she resumed her reading of the recommendation.

"... 'that the girl Jeanne Le Godec has been in my service for thirteen months, and that I have no cause of complaint against her, on the score of work, behavior, and honesty.' Yes, it is always the same thing. Recommendations that say nothing, that prove nothing. They give one no information. Where can one write to this lady?"

"She is dead."

"She is dead. To be sure, evidently she is dead. So you have a recommendation, and the very person who gave it to you is dead. You will confess that has a somewhat doubtful look."

All this was said with a very humiliating expression of suspicion, and in a tone of gross irony. She took another recommendation.

"And this person? She is dead, too, no doubt?"

"No, Madame. Mme. Robert is in Algeria with her husband, who is a colonel."

"In Algeria!" exclaimed the lady. "Naturally. How do you expect anybody to write to Algeria? Some are dead, others are in Algeria. The idea of seeking information in Algeria! This is all very extraordinary."

"But I have others, Madame," implored the unfortunate Jeanne Le Godec. "Madame can see for herself. Madame can inform herself."

"Yes, yes! I see you have many others. I see that you have been in many places,—much too many places. At your age, that is not very prepossessing! Well, leave me your recommendations, and I will see. Now something else. What can you do?"

"I can do housework, sew, wait on table."

"Are you good at mending?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Do you know how to fatten poultry?"

"No, Madame. That is not my business."

"Your business, my girl," declared the lady, severely, "is to do what your masters tell you to do. You must have a detestable character."

"Why, no, Madame. I am not at all inclined to talk back."

"Naturally. You say so; they all say so; and they are not to be touched with a pair of tongs. Well, let me see, I believe I have already told you that the place, while not particularly hard, is of some importance. The servants rise at five o'clock."

"In winter too?"

"In winter too. Yes, certainly. And why do you say: 'In winter too'? Is there less work to be done in winter? What a ridiculous question!, The chambermaid does the stairs, the salon, Monsieur's study, the chamber of course, and attends to all the fires. The cook does the ante-chamber, the halls, and the dining-room. I am very particular on the score of cleanliness. I cannot bear to see a speck of dust in the house. The door-knobs must be well polished, the furniture must shine, and the mirrors must be thoroughly cleaned. The chambermaid has charge of the poultry-yard."

"But, Madame, I know nothing about poultry-yards."

"Well, you will learn. The chambermaid soaps, washes, and irons, except Monsieur's shirts; she does the sewing,—I have no sewing done outside, except the making of my costumes; she waits on table, helps the cook to wipe the dishes, and does the polishing. There must be order, perfect order. I am a stickler for order and cleanliness, and especially for honesty. Moreover, everything is under lock and key. If anything is wanted, I must be asked for it. I have a horror of waste. What are you accustomed to take in the morning?"

"Coffee with milk, Madame."

"Coffee with milk? You do not stint yourself. Yes, in these days they all take coffee with milk. Well, that is not the custom in my house. You will take soup; it is better for the stomach. What did you say?"

Jeanne had said nothing. But it was evident she was making an effort to say something. At last she made up her mind.

"I ask Madame's pardon, but what does Madame give us to drink?"

"Six quarts of cider a week."

"I cannot drink cider, Madame. The doctor has forbidden me to."

"Ah! the doctor has forbidden you to. Well, I will give you six quarts of cider. If you want wine, you will buy it. That concerns you. What pay do you expect?"

She hesitated, looked at the carpet, the clock, and the ceiling, rolled her umbrella in her hands, and said, timidly:

"Forty francs."

"Forty francs!" exclaimed Madame. "Why don't you say ten thousand francs, and done with it? You must be crazy. Forty francs! Why, it is unheard of! We used to pay fifteen francs, and got much better service. Forty francs! And you do not even know how to fatten poultry! You do not know how to do anything! I pay thirty francs, and I think that altogether too much. You have no expenses in my house. I am not exacting as to what you wear. And you are washed and fed. God knows how well you are fed! I give out the portions myself."

Jeanne insisted:

"I have had forty francs in all the places where I have worked."

But the lady had risen. And, in a dry and ugly voice, she exclaimed:

"Well, you had better go back to them. Forty francs! Such impudence! Here are your recommendations—your recommendations from dead people. Be off with you!"

Jeanne carefully wrapped up her recommendations, put them back into the pocket of her dress, and then said, imploringly, in a timid and sorrowful voice:

"If Madame will go as high as thirty-five francs, we could come to terms."

"Not a sou. Be off with you! Go to Algeria to find again your Mme. Robert. Go where you like. There is no lack of vagabonds like you; there are heaps of them. Be off with you."

With sad face and slow step Jeanne left the bureau, after curtseying twice. I saw from her eyes and lips that she was on the point of crying.

Left alone, the lady shouted furiously: "Ah! these domestics, what a plague! It is impossible to be served these days."

To which Mme. Paulhat-Durand, who had finished sorting her cards, answered, majestic, crushed, and severe:

"I had warned you, Madame; they are all like that. They are unwilling to do anything, and expect to earn hundreds and thousands. I have nothing else to-day. All the others are worse. To-morrow I will try to find you something. Oh! it is very distressing, I assure you."

I got down from my post of observation the very moment that Jeanne Le Godec was re-entering the ante-room, amid an uproar.

"Well?" they asked her.

She went and sat down on her bench at the rear of the room, and there, with lowered head, folded arms, heavy heart, and empty stomach, she remained in silence, her two little feet twitching nervously under her gown.

But I saw things sadder still.

Among the girls who came daily to Mme. Paulhat-Durand's I had noticed one especially, in the first place because she wore a Breton cap, and then because the very sight of her filled me with unconquerable melancholy. A peasant girl astray in Paris, in this frightful, jostling, feverish Paris,—I know nothing more lamentable. Involuntarily it invites me to a survey of my own past, and moves me infinitely. Where is she going? Where does she come from? Why did she leave her home? What madness, what tragedy, what tempest has pushed her forth, and stranded her, a sorrowful waif, in this roaring human sea? These questions I asked myself every day, as I examined this poor girl sitting in her corner, so frightfully isolated.

She was ugly with that definitive ugliness which excludes all idea of pity and makes people ferocious, because it is really an offence to them. However disgraced she may be by nature, a woman rarely reaches the point of total and absolute ugliness, utter degeneracy from the human estate. Generally she has something, no matter what,—eyes, a mouth, an undulation of the body, a bending of the hips, or less than that, a movement of the arms, a coupling of the wrist, a freshness of skin, upon which others may rest their eyes without being offended. Even in the very old a certain grace almost always survives the deformations of the body, the death of sex, and the seamy flesh betrays some souvenir of what they formerly were. The Breton had nothing of the kind, and she was very young. Little, long-waisted, angular, with flat hips, and legs so short that it seemed as if she really called to mind those barbarian virgins, those snub-nosed saints, shapeless blocks of granite that have been leaning for centuries, in loneliness, on the inclined arms of Armorican Calvaries. And her face? Ah! the unfortunate! An overhanging brow; pupils so dim in outline that they seemed to have been rubbed with a rag; a horrible nose, flat at the start, gashed with a furrow down the middle, and suddenly turning up at its tip, and opening into two black, round, deep, enormous holes, fringed with stiff hair. And over all this a gray and scaly skin,—the skin of a dead adder, a skin that, in the light, looked as if it had been sprinkled with flour. Yet the unspeakable creature had one beauty that many beautiful women would have envied,—her hair, magnificent, heavy, thick hair, of a resplendent red reflecting gold and purple. But, far from being a palliation of her ugliness, this hair only aggravated it, making it more striking, fulgurating, irreparable.

This is not all. Every movement that she made was clumsy. She could not take a step without running against something; everything she took into her hands she was sure to let fall; her arms hit against the furniture, and swept off everything that was lying on it. When walking, she stepped on your toes and dug her elbows into your breast; then she excused herself with a harsh and sullen voice, a voice that breathed into your face a tainted, corpse-like odor. As soon as she entered the ante-room there at once arose among us a sort of irritated complaint, which quickly changed into insulting recriminations and ended in growls. The wretched creature was hooted as she crossed the room, rolling along on her short legs, passed on from one to another like a ball, until she reached her bench at the end of the room. And every one pretended to draw away from her, with significant gestures of disgust, and grimaces that were accompanied with a lifting of handkerchiefs. Then, in the empty space instantaneously formed behind the sanitary cordon that isolated her from us, the dismal girl sat leaning against the wall, silent and detested, without a complaint, without revolt, without seeming to understand that all this contempt was meant for her.

Although, not to be unlike the others, I sometimes took part in this cruel sport, I could not help feeling a sort of pity for the little Breton. I understood that here was a being predestined to misfortune,—one of those beings who, whatever they may do and wherever they may go, will be eternally repulsed by men, and also by beasts,—for there is a certain height of ugliness, a certain form of infirmity, that the beasts themselves do not tolerate.

One day, overcoming my disgust, I approached her, and asked:

"What is your name?"

"Louise Randon."

"I am a Breton ... from Audierne. And you, too, are a Breton, are you not?"

Astonished that anyone was willing to speak to her, and fearing some insult or practical joke, she did not answer directly. She buried her thumb in the deep caverns of her nose. I repeated my question.

"From what part of Brittany do you come?"

Then she looked at me, and, seeing undoubtedly that there was no unkindness in my eyes, she decided to answer:

"I am from Saint-Michel-en-Grève, near Lannion."

I knew not what further to say to her. Her voice was repulsive to me. It was not a voice; it was something hoarse and broken, like a hiccup,—a sort of gurgle. This voice drove away my pity. However, I went on.

"You have relatives living?"

"Yes; my father, my mother, two brothers, four sisters. I am the oldest."

"And your father? What does he do?"

"He is a blacksmith."

"You are poor."

"My father has three fields, three houses, three threshing-machines...."

"Then he is rich?"

"Surely he is rich. He cultivates his fields and rents his houses, and goes about the country with his threshing-machines and threshes the peasants' wheat. And my brother shoes the horses."

"And your sisters?"

"They have beautiful lace caps and embroidered gowns."

"And you?"

"I have nothing."

I drew further away, that I might not get the mortal odor of this voice.

"Why are you a domestic?" I resumed.

"Because...."

"Why did you leave home?"

"Because...."

"You were not happy?"

She spoke very quickly, in a voice that rushed and rolled the words out, like pebbles.

"My father whipped me; my mother whipped me; my sisters whipped me; everybody whipped me; they made me do everything. I brought up my sisters."

"Why did they whip you?"

"I do not know; just to whip me. In all families there is some one who is whipped ... because ... well, one does not know."

My questions no longer annoyed her. She was gaining confidence.

"And you?" she said to me, "did not your parents whip you?"

"Oh! yes."

"Of course; that is how things are."

Louise was no longer exploring her nose; her two hands, with their close-clipped nails, lay flat upon her thighs. Whispering was going on around us. Laughs, quarrels, and lamentations prevented the others from hearing our conversation.

"But how did you happen to come to Paris?" I asked, after a silence.

"Last year," answered Louise, "there was a lady from Paris at Saint-Michel-en-Grève, who was taking the sea-baths with her children. She had discharged her domestic for stealing, and I offered to go to work for her. And so she took me with her to Paris, to take care of her father, an old invalid whose legs were paralyzed."

"And you did not stay in your place? In Paris it is not the same thing."

"No," she exclaimed, energetically. "I could have remained; it was not that. But I was not treated right."

Her dull eyes lighted up strangely. Something like a gleam of pride passed over them. And her body straightened up, and became almost transfigured.

"I was not treated right," she repeated. "The old man made advances to me."

For a moment I was stunned by this revelation. Was it possible? Then a desire, even that of a low and nasty old man, had been felt for this bundle of shapeless flesh, this monstrous irony of nature? A kiss had wished to place itself upon these decaying teeth and mingle with this rotten breath? Ah! what filthy things men are! What a frightful madness, then, is love! I looked at Louise. But the flame had gone out of her eyes. Once more her pupils looked like dead gray spots.

"That was some time ago?" I asked.

"Three months."

"And since then you have found no place?"

"Nobody wants me. I do not know why. When I enter the bureau, all the ladies cry out at the sight of me: 'No, no; I don't want her.' There must surely be some spell over me. For, you know, I am not ugly; I am very strong; I know my work; and my will is good. If I am too small, it is not my fault. Surely, some one has thrown a spell over me."

"How do you live?"

"In a lodging-house. I do all the chambers, and I mend the linen. They give me a mattress in the garret, and a meal in the morning."

There were some, then, that were more unfortunate than myself! This egoistic thought brought back the pity that had vanished from my heart.

"Listen, my little Louise," I said, in a voice which I tried to make as tender and convincing as possible. "Places in Paris are very hard. One has to know many things, and the masters are more exacting than elsewhere. I am much afraid for you. If I were you, I would go home again."

But Louise became frightened.

"No, no," she exclaimed, "never! I do not want to go home. They would say that I had not succeeded, that nobody wanted me; they would laugh at me too much. No, no, it is impossible; I would rather die!"

Just then the door of the ante-room opened. The shrill voice of Mme. Paulhat-Durand called:

"Mademoiselle Louise Randon!"

"Are they calling me?" asked Louise, frightened and trembling.

"Why, yes, it is you. Go quickly, and try to succeed this time."

She arose, gave me a dig in the ribs with her outstretched elbows, stepped on my feet, ran against the table, and, rolling along on her too short legs, disappeared, followed by hoots.

I mounted my stool, and pushed open the casement-window, to watch the scene that was about to take place. Never did Mme. Paulhat-Durand's salon seem to me gloomier; yet God knows whether it had frozen my soul, every time I had entered it. Oh! that furniture upholstered in blue rep, turned yellow by wear; that huge book of record spread like the split carcass of a beast, on the table, also covered with blue rep spotted with ink. And that desk, where M. Louis's elbows had left bright and shining spots on the dark wood. And the sideboard at the rear, upon which stood foreign glassware, and table-ware handed down from ancestors. And on the mantel, between two lamps which had lost their bronze, between photographs that had lost their color, that tiresome clock, whose enervating tic-tac made the hours longer. And that dome-shaped cage in which two homesick canaries swelled their damaged plumage. And that mahogany case of pigeon-holes, scratched by greedy nails. But I had not taken my post of observation for the purpose of taking an inventory of this room, which I knew, alas! too well,—this lugubrious interior, so tragic, in spite of its bourgeois obscurity, that many times my maddened imagination transformed it into a gloomy butcher-shop for the sale of human meat. No; I wanted to see Louise Randon, in the clutches of the slave-traders.

There she was, near the window, in a false light, standing motionless, with hanging arms. A hard shadow, like a thick veil, added confusion to the ugliness of her face, and made still more of a heap of the short and massive deformity of her body. A hard light illuminated the lower locks of her hair, enhanced the shapelessness of her arms and breast, and lost itself in the dark folds of her deplorable skirt. An old lady was examining her. She was sitting in a chair with her back toward me,—a hostile back, a ferocious neck. Of this old lady I saw nothing but her black cap, with its ridiculous plumes, her black cape, whose lining turned up at the bottom in grey fur, and her black gown, which made rings upon the carpet. I saw especially, lying upon one of her knees, her hand gloved with black floss-silk, a knotty and gouty hand that moved slowly about, the fingers stretching out and drawing back, clutching the material of her dress, as talons fasten upon living prey. Standing near the table, very erect and dignified, Mme. Paulhat-Durand was waiting.

It seems a small matter, does it not? the meeting of these three commonplace beings, in this commonplace setting. In this very ordinary fact there was nothing to cause one to stop, nothing to move one. Nevertheless it seemed to me an enormous drama, these three persons, silently gazing at one another. I felt that I was witnessing a social tragedy, terrible, agonizing, worse than a murder! My throat was dry. My heart beat violently.

"I do not get a good view of you, my little one," said the old lady, suddenly. "Do not stay there; I do not get a good view of you. Go to the rear of the room, that I may see you better."

And she cried, in an astonished voice:

"My God! how little you are!"

In saying these words, she had moved her chair, and now I had a sight of her profile. I expected to see a hooked nose, long teeth protruding from the mouth, and the round and yellow eye of a hawk. Not at all; her face was calm, rather amiable. In truth, there was no expression at all in her eyes, either kind or unkind. She must have been an old shop-keeper, retired from business. Merchants have this faculty of acquiring a special physiognomy, revealing nothing of their inner nature. In proportion as they grow hardened in their business, and as the habit of unjust and rapid gains develops low instincts and ferocious ambitions, the expression of their face softens, or, rather, becomes neutralized. That in them which is bad, that which might inspire distrust in their customers, hides itself in the privacies of their being, or takes refuge on corporeal surfaces that are ordinarily destitute of any expression whatever. In this old lady the hardness of her soul, invisible in her eyes, in her mouth, in her forehead, in all the relaxed muscles of her flabby face, was exhibited prominently in her neck. Her neck was her real face, and this face was terrible.

Louise, obeying the old lady's command, had gone to the rear of the room. The desire to please gave her a really monstrous look and a discouraging attitude. Scarcely had she placed herself in the light, when the lady cried:

"Oh! how ugly you are, my little one!"

And calling Mme. Paulhat-Durand to witness:

"Can there really be creatures on earth as ugly as this little one?"

Ever solemn and dignified, Mme. Paulhat-Durand answered:

"Undoubtedly she is not a beauty, but Mademoiselle is very honest."

"Possibly," replied the lady. "But she is too ugly. Such ugliness is in the last degree disagreeable. What? What did you say?"

Louise had not uttered a word. She had simply blushed a little, and lowered her head. Her dull eyes were surrounded with a red streak. I thought she was going to cry.

"Well, let us look into this," resumed the lady, whose fingers at this moment, furiously agitated, were tearing the material of her gown, with the movements of a cruel beast.

She questioned Louise regarding her family, her previous places, and her capacities for cooking, sewing, and doing housework. Louise answered, "Yes, indeed," or "No, indeed," hoarsely and spasmodically. The examination, fastidious, unkind, criminal, lasted twenty minutes.

"Well, my little one," concluded the old lady, "the clearest thing about you is that you do not know how to do anything. I shall have to teach you everything. For four or five months you will be of no use to me. And besides, such ugliness is not prepossessing. That gash in your nose? Have you received a blow?"

"No, Madame, it has always been there."

"Well, it is not very attractive. What pay do you expect?"

"Thirty francs, washing, and wine," declared Louise, resolutely.

The old woman started.

"Thirty francs! Have you never, then, looked at yourself? It is senseless! What? Nobody wants you; nobody will ever want you. If I take you, it is because I am kind, it is because I really pity you. And you ask me thirty francs! Well, you have audacity, my little one. Undoubtedly your comrades have been giving you bad advice. You do wrong to listen to them."

"Surely," said Mme. Paulhat-Durand, approvingly. "When they get together, they get very big ideas."

"Well," offered the old lady, in a tone of conciliation, "I will give you fifteen francs. And you will pay for your wine. It is too much. But I do not wish to take advantage of your ugliness and distress."

She softened. Her voice became almost caressing.

"You see, my little one, this is a unique opportunity, such as you will not find again. I am not like the others; I am alone, I have no family, I have no one. My servant is my family. And what do I ask of my servant? To love me a little, that is all. My servant lives with me, eats with me ... apart from the wine. Oh! I am indulgent to her. And then, when I die,—for I am very old and often sick,—when I die, surely I shall not forget the girl who has been devoted to me, served me well, and taken care of me. You are ugly, very ugly, too ugly. Well, I shall get used to your ugliness, to your face. There are some pretty women who are very ill-disposed, and who rob you beyond question. Ugliness is sometimes a guarantee of morality in the house. Of course, you will bring no men to my house? You see, I know how to do you justice. Under these conditions, and as kind as I am, what I offer you, my little one,—why, it is a fortune; better than a fortune, it is a family!"

Louise was shaken. Certainly, the old lady's words caused unknown hopes to sing in her head. With her peasant's rapacity, she had visions of strong-boxes filled with gold, and fabulous wills. And life in common, with this good mistress, the table shared, frequent trips to the squares and the suburban woods,—these things seemed marvelous to her. And they frightened her also, for doubts, an unconquerable and native mistrust, dimmed the brilliancy of these promises. She knew not what to say or do; she knew not what course to take. I felt a desire to cry out to her: "Do not accept." For I could see this hermit-like life, the exhausting tasks, the bitter reproaches, the disputed food, and the stripped bones and spoiled meat thrown to her hunger, and the eternal, patient, torturing exploitation of a poor, defenceless being. "No, do not listen to her; go away!" But I repressed this cry, which was on my lips.

"Come a little nearer, my little one," ordered the old lady. "One would think that you were afraid of me. Come, do not be afraid of me; come nearer. How curious it is! Already you seem less ugly. Already I am getting used to your face."

Louise approached slowly, with stiffened members, trying hard not to run against the chairs and furniture, endeavoring to walk with elegance, the poor creature! But she had scarcely placed herself beside the old lady, when the latter repulsed her with a grimace.

"My God!" she cried, "what is the matter with you? Why do you smell so bad? Is your body rotten? It is frightful! It is incredible! Never did any one smell as you smell. Have you, then, a cancer in your nose, or perhaps in your stomach?"

Mme. Paulhat-Durand made a noble gesture.

"I had warned you, Madame," she said. "That is her great fault. It is that which keeps her from finding a place."

The old lady continued to groan.

"My God! My God! is it possible? Why, you will taint the whole house; you cannot stay near me. This changes the case entirely. And when I was beginning to feel sympathy for you! No, no; in spite of all my kindness, it is not possible, it is no longer possible!"

She had pulled out her handkerchief, and was trying to dissipate the putrid air, as she repeated:

"No, really, it is no longer possible!"

"Come, Madame," intervened Mme. Paulhat-Durand, "make an effort. I am sure that this unhappy girl will always be grateful to you."

"Grateful? That is all well enough. But gratitude will not cure her of this frightful infirmity. Well, so be it! But I can give her only ten francs. Ten francs, no more! She can take it or leave it."

Louise, who had so far kept back her tears, was choking.

"No ... I will not ... I will not ... I will not."

"Listen, Mademoiselle," said Mme. Paulhat-Durand, dryly. "You will accept this place. If you don't, I will not undertake to get another for you. You can go and ask for places at the other bureaus. I have had enough. And you are doing injury to my house."

"It is evident," insisted the old lady. "And you ought to thank me for these ten francs. It is out of pity, out of charity, that I offer them to you. How is it that you do not see that I am doing a good work, of which no doubt I shall repent, as I have repented of others?"

Then, addressing Mme. Paulhat-Durand, she added:

"What do you expect? I am so constituted. I cannot bear to see people suffer. In the presence of misfortune I become utterly stupid. And at my age one does not change, you know. Come, my little one, I take you with me."