A Chambermaid's Diary. Octave Mirbeau
he would not please me, the new vicar; he has a dirty and brutal air; he looks more like a ploughman than a priest. For my part, I require delicacy, poetry, the beyond, and white hands. I like men to be gentle and chic, as Monsieur Jean was.
After mass Rose drags me to the grocery store. With a few mysterious words she explains to me that it is necessary to be on good terms with the woman who keeps it, and that all the domestics pay her assiduous court.
Another little dump—decidedly, this is the country of fat women. Her face is covered with freckles, and, through her thin, light, flaxen hair, which is lacking in gloss, can be seen portions of her skull, on top of which a chignon stands up in a ridiculous fashion, like a little broom. At the slightest movement her breast, beneath her brown cloth waist, shakes like a liquid in a bottle. Her eyes, bordered with red circles, are bloodshot, and her ignoble mouth makes of her every smile a grimace. Rose introduces me:
"Madame Gouin, I bring you the new chambermaid at the Priory."
The grocer observes me attentively, and I notice that her eyes fasten themselves upon my waist with an embarrassing obstinacy. She says in a meaningless voice:
"Mademoiselle is at home here. Mademoiselle is a pretty girl. Mademoiselle is a Parisienne, undoubtedly?"
"It is true, Madame Gouin, I come from Paris."
"That is to be seen; that is to be seen directly. One need not look at you twice. I am very fond of the Parisiennes; they know what it is to live. I too served in Paris, when I was young. I served in the house of a midwife in the Rue Guénégaud—Madame Tripier. Perhaps you know her?"
"No."
"That makes no difference. Oh! it was a long time ago. But come in, Mademoiselle Célestine."
She escorts us, with ceremony, into the back shop, where four other domestics are already gathered about a round table.
"Oh! you will have an anxious time of it, my poor young woman," groaned the grocer, as she offered me a chair. "It is not because they do not patronize me at the château; but I can truly say that it is an infernal house, infernal! Is it not so, Mesdemoiselles?"
"For sure!" answer in chorus, with like gestures and like grimaces, the four domestics thus appealed to.
Madame Gouin continues:
"Oh! thank you, I would not like to sell to people who are continually haggling, and crying out, like pole-cats, that they are being robbed, that they are being injured. They may go where they like."
The chorus of servants responds:
"Surely they may go where they like."
To which Madame Gouin, addressing Rose more particularly, adds, in a firm tone:
"They do not run after them, do they, Mam'zelle Rose? Thank God! we have no need of them, do we?"
Rose contents herself with a shrug of her shoulders, putting into this gesture all the concentrated gall, spite, and contempt at her command. And the huge musketeer hat emphasizes the energy of these violent sentiments by the disorderly swaying of its black plumes.
Then, after a silence:
"Oh! well, let us talk no more about these people. Every time that I speak of them it turns my stomach."
Thereupon the stories and gossip begin again. An uninterrupted flow of filth is vomited from these sad mouths, as from a sewer. The back-shop seems infected with it. The impression is the more disagreeable because the room is rather dark and the faces take on fantastic deformities. It is lighted only by a narrow window opening on a damp and filthy court—a sort of shaft formed by moss-eaten walls. An odor of pickle, of rotting vegetables, of red herring, persists around us, impregnating our garments. It is intolerable. Then each of these creatures, heaped up on their chairs like bundles of dirty linen, plunges into the narration of some dirty action, some scandal, some crime. Coward that I am, I try to smile with them, to applaud with them; but I feel something insurmountable, something like frightful disgust. A nausea turns my stomach, forces its way to my throat, leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and presses my temples. I should like to go away. I cannot, and I remain there, like an idiot, heaped up like them on my chair, making the same gestures that they make—I remain there, stupidly listening to these shrill voices that sound to me like dish-water gurgling and dripping through sinks and pipes.
I know very well that we have to defend ourselves against our masters, and I am not the last to do it, I assure you. But no; here, all the same, that passes imagination. These women are odious to me. I detest them, and I say to myself, in a low voice, that I have nothing in common with them. Education, contact with stylish people, the habit of seeing beautiful things, the reading of Paul Bourget's novels, have saved me from these turpitudes. Ah! the pretty and amusing monkey-tricks of the servants' halls in Paris—they are far away!
As we are leaving, the grocer says to me, with an amiable smile:
"Pay no attention to the fact that your masters do not patronize me; you must come and see me again."
I go back with Rose, who finishes familiarizing me with the daily doings of the neighborhood. I had supposed that her stock of infamies was exhausted. Not at all. She discovers and invents new and more frightful ones. In the matter of calumny her resources are infinite. And her tongue goes on forever, without stopping. It does not forget anybody or anything. It is astonishing how, in a few minutes, one can dishonor people, in the country. Thus she escorts me back to the Priory gate. Even there she cannot make up her mind to leave me; talks on, talks incessantly, tries to envelop and stun me with her friendship and devotion. As for me, my head is broken by all that I have heard, and the sight of the Priory fills me with a feeling of discouragement. Ah! these broad, flowerless lawns! And this immense building, that has the air of a barrack or a prison, and where, from behind each window, a pair of eyes seems to be spying you.
The sun is warmer, the fog has disappeared, and the view of the landscape has become clearer. Beyond the plain, on the hills, I perceive little villages, gilded by the light, and enlivened by red roofs. The river running through the plain, yellow and green, shines here and there in silvery curves. And a few clouds decorate the sky with their light and charming frescoes. But I take no pleasure in the contemplation of all this. I have now but one desire, one will, one obsession—to flee from this sun, from this plain, from these hills, from this house, and from this fat woman, whose malicious voice hurts and tortures me.
At last she gets ready to leave me, takes my hand, and presses it affectionately in her fat fingers gloved with mittens. She says to me:
"And then, my little one, Madame Gouin, you know, is a very amiable and very clever woman. You must go to see her often."
She lingers longer, and adds more mysteriously:
"She has relieved many young girls. As soon as they are in any trouble, they go to her. Neither seen or known. One can trust her, take my word for it. She is a very, very expert woman."
With eyes more brilliant, and fastening her gaze on me with a strange tenacity, she repeats:
"Very expert, and clever, and discreet. She is the Providence of the neighborhood. Now, my little one, do not forget to come to see us when you can. And go often to Madame Gouin's. You will not regret it. We will see each other soon again."
She has gone. I see her, with her rolling gait, moving away, skirting first the wall and then the hedge with her enormous person, and suddenly burying herself in a road, where she disappears.
I pass by Joseph, the gardener-coachman, who is raking the paths. I think that he is going to speak to me; he does not speak to me. He simply looks at me obliquely, with a singular expression that almost frightens me.
"Fine weather this morning, Monsieur Joseph."
Joseph grunts I know not what between his teeth. He is furious that I have allowed myself to walk in the path that he is raking.
What a queer man he is, and how ill-bred! And why does he never say a word to me? And