A Chambermaid's Diary. Octave Mirbeau
raising my eyes, I assumed an air of innocence:
"I, Monsieur?"
"Surely, you; it can hardly be my feet."
"Oh! Monsieur!"
And this "Oh! Monsieur!" at the same time that it was a protest in favor of his feet, was also a sort of friendly reprimand—friendly to the point of encouragement—for his familiarity. Did he understand? I think so, for again, with more force, and even with a sort of amorous trembling, he repeated:
"Célestine, you smell awfully good—awfully good."
Ah! but the old gentleman is making free. I appeared as if slightly scandalized by his insistence, and kept silence. Timid as he is, and knowing nothing of the tricks of women, Monsieur was disturbed. He feared undoubtedly that he had gone too far, and, suddenly changing his idea, he asked:
"Are you getting accustomed to the place, Célestine?"
That question? Was I getting accustomed to the place? And I had been there but three hours. I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing. The old gentleman has queer ways; and, really, he is a little stupid.
But that makes no difference. He does not displease me. In his very vulgarity he reveals a certain power and masculinity which are not disagreeable to me.
When his boots had been taken off, and to leave him with a good impression of me, I asked him, in my turn:
"I see Monsieur is a hunter. Has Monsieur had a good hunt to-day?"
"I never have good hunts, Célestine," he answered, shaking his head. "I hunt for the sake of walking—for the sake of riding—that I may not be here, where I find it tiresome."
"Ah! Monsieur finds it tiresome here?"
After a pause, he gallantly corrected himself.
"That is to say, I did find it tiresome. For now, you see, it is different."
Then, with a stupid and moving smile:
"Célestine?"
"Monsieur."
"Will you get me my slippers? I ask your pardon."
"But, Monsieur, it is my business."
"Yes, to be sure; they are under the stairs, in a little dark closet, at the left."
I believe that I shall get all that I want of this type. He is not shrewd; he surrenders at the start. Ah! one could lead him far.
The dinner, not very luxurious, consisting of the leavings from the day before, passed off without incident, almost silently. Monsieur devours, and Madame picks fastidiously at the dishes with sullen gestures and disdainful mouthings. But she absorbs powders, syrups, drops, pills, an entire pharmacy which you have to be very careful to place on the table, at every meal, beside her plate. They talked very little, and what they did say concerned local matters and people of little or no interest to me. But I gathered that they have very little company. Moreover, it was plain that their thoughts were not on what they were saying. They were watching me, each according to the ideas that prompted him or her, each moved by a different curiosity; Madame, severe and stiff, contemptuous even, more and more hostile, and dreaming already of all the dirty tricks that she would play me; Monsieur, slyly, with very significant winks, and, although he tried to conceal them, with strange looks at my hands. Really, I don't know what there is about my hands that so excites men. For my part, I seemed to be taking no notice of their game. I went and came with dignity, reserved, adroit, and distant. Ah! if they could have seen my soul, if they could have heard my soul, as I saw and heard theirs!
I adore waiting on table. It is there that one surprises one's masters in all the filthiness, in all the baseness of their inner natures. Prudent at first, and watchful of each other, little by little they reveal themselves, exhibit themselves as they are, without paint and without veils, forgetting that some one is hovering around them, listening and noting their defects, their moral humps, the secret sores of their existence, and all the infamies and ignoble dreams that can be contained in the respectable brains of respectable people. To collect these confessions, to classify them, to label them in our memory, for use as a terrible weapon on the day of settlement, is one of the great and intense joys of our calling, and the most precious revenge for our humiliations.
From this first contact with my new masters I have obtained no precise and formal indications. But I feel that things do not go well here, that Monsieur is nothing in the house, that Madame is everything, that Monsieur trembles before Madame like a little child. Oh! he hasn't a merry time of it, the poor man! Surely he sees, hears, and suffers all sorts of things. I fancy that I shall get some amusement out of it, at times. At dessert, Madame, who, during the meal, had been continually sniffing at my hands, my arms, and my waist, said, in a clear and cutting tone:
"I do not like the use of perfumes."
As I did not answer, pretending to ignore the fact that the remark was addressed to me, she added:
"Do you hear, Célestine?"
"Very well, Madame."
Then I looked stealthily at poor Monsieur, who likes perfumes, or who at least likes my perfume. With his elbows on the table, apparently indifferent, but really humiliated and distressed, he was following the flight of a wasp which had been lingering over a plate of fruit. And there was now a dismal silence in this dining-room, which the twilight had just invaded, and something inexpressibly sad, something unspeakably heavy, fell from the ceiling on these two beings, concerning whom I really asked myself of what use they are and what they are doing on earth.
"The lamp, Célestine."
It was Madame's voice, sharper than ever in the silence and the shade. It made me start.
"Do you not see that it is dark? I should not have to ask you for the lamp. Let it be the last time."
While lighting the lamp—this lamp which can be repaired only in England—I had a strong desire to cry out to poor Monsieur:
"Just wait a little, my old man, and fear nothing, and don't distress yourself. You shall eat and drink the perfumes that you so love, and of which you are so deprived. You shall breathe them, I promise you; you shall breathe them in my hair, on my lips, on my neck. And the two of us will lead this blockhead a merry dance, I answer for it."
And, to emphasize this silent invocation, I took care, as I placed the lamp upon the table, to slightly brush against Monsieur's arm, and I went out.
The servants' hall is not gay. Besides myself, there are only two domestics—a cook, who is always scolding, and a gardener-coachman, who never says a word. The cook's name is Marianne; that of the gardener-coachman, Joseph. Stupid peasants. And what heads they have! She, fat, soft, flabby, sprawling, a neck emerging in a triple cushion from a dirty neckkerchief which looks as if she wiped her kettles with it, two enormous and shapeless breasts rolling beneath a sort of blue cotton camisole covered with grease, her too short dress disclosing thick ankles and big feet encased in grey woolen; he, in shirt-sleeves, work-apron, and wooden shoes, shaven, dry, nervous, with an evil grimace on his lips which stretch from ear to ear, and a devious gait, the sly movements of a sacristan. Such are my two companions.
No dining-room for the servants. We take our meals in the kitchen, at the same table where, during the day, the cook does her dirty work, carves her meats, cleans her fish, and cuts up her vegetables, with fingers fat and round as sausages. Really, that is scarcely proper. The fire in the stove renders the atmosphere of the room stifling; odors of old grease, of rancid sauces, of continual fryings, circulate in the air. While we eat, a kettle in which the dogs' soup is boiling exhales a fetid vapor that attacks your throat and makes you cough. One almost vomits. More respect is shown for prisoners in their cells and dogs in their kennels.
We had bacon and cabbage, and stinking cheese; for drink, sour cider. Nothing else. Earthen plates, with cracked enamel, and which smell of burnt grease, and tin forks, complete this pretty service.
Being too new in the house, I did