‘Yes, ma’am.’
Monsieur Xavier’s bedroom was at the far end of the huge apartment, a charming room, hung with blue silk trimmed with yellow braid. There were coloured English engravings on the walls, depicting scenes of hunting and racing, carriages and castles, and the whole of one panel was taken up by a rack containing an elaborate panoply of riding crops, with a hunting horn in the centre between two pairs of crossed coach horns … On the mantelpiece, amongst all sorts of knick-knacks, cigar boxes and pipes, stood a photograph of a good-looking youth, young and clean-shaven, with the insolent features of a precocious dandy and the dubious grace of a young girl, which at once attracted my attention.
‘That’s Monsieur Xavier,’ Madame informed me.
I could not help exclaiming, perhaps rather too warmly:
‘Oh, isn’t he handsome!’
‘Now, now, Mary,’ said Madame, though I could see from her smile that my words had not upset her. And she went on:
‘Like most young people, Monsieur Xavier isn’t very orderly in his habits, so I expect you to tidy up after him and see that his room is kept absolutely spotless. You will call him every morning at nine o’clock, and take him a cup of tea … At nine, you understand, Mary. Maybe he won’t be too pleased to see you for he sometimes gets home very late. But don’t let that worry you. A young man ought to be up by nine o’clock.’
She showed me where Monsieur Xavier kept his linen, ties, shoes and so on, accompanying each detail with some such remark as, ‘My son is rather quick-tempered, but he’s a dear boy all the same,’ or, ‘Do you know how to fold trousers properly? Monsieur Xavier is most particular about his trousers …’ As for his hats, it was agreed that I should not be expected to see to them, since it was the footman’s special glory to iron them every day. I found it extremely odd that, in a household where a footman was kept, it should be I who had the job of looking after Monsieur Xavier.
‘It will be rather a lark … though perhaps not altogether becoming,’ I said to myself, parodying my mistress’s favourite expression.
The fact of the matter is, everything about this peculiar house seemed to me to be extremely odd.
That evening in the servants’ hall I was to learn a good deal more.
‘An extraordinary joint,’ they told me. ‘A bit of a shock to begin with, but you’ll soon get used to it. Sometimes nobody in the house has a penny to bless themselves with. Then Madame starts running about all over the place, and when she gets back she’s worn out and nervous, and starts using the foulest language … As for the master, he’s forever ever on the telephone, shouting, threatening, begging, playing the very devil… And then the bailiffs! Often the butler has to pay the shopkeepers something on account, out of his own pocket, because they get so angry that they refuse to deliver anything. One day, in the middle of a party, the electricity and gas were both cut off! … And then, suddenly, the whole place is simply bursting with money again, though where it all comes from nobody actually knows … As for us servants, sometimes we have to wait months and months for our wages. True, we always end up by getting paid, but only as a result of all sorts of rows and swearing matches. You’d never believe …’
I could see that I had properly let myself in for it. Just my luck, when for once in a way I was getting really, good wages.
‘Monsieur Xavier didn’t come home again last night,’ said the footman.
‘Oh well,’ commented the cook, looking pointedly in my direction, ‘maybe in future we shall find he does.’
And the footman went on to describe how, that very morning, one of Monsieur Xavier’s creditors had called again and kicked up a hell of a row.
‘It must have been some pretty dirty business, for the old man soon knuckled under, and agreed to pay him a huge sum at least 4,000 francs.’
‘But was he furious!’ he added. ‘I heard him saying to Madame: “This simply can’t go on any longer. He’ll end up by dragging our name in the mud … in the mud”.’
The cook, who seemed to be a philosophical body, merely shrugged her shoulders and said in a sneering tone of voice:
‘A fat lot that’ll worry them … It’s having to pay out that they don’t like.’
This conversation made me feel uneasy. It struck me vaguely that there might be a connection between some of the things Madame had said to me, and all the clothes she’d given me, and Monsieur Xavier … though I couldn’t exactly see how … ‘It’s having to pay out that they don’t like.’
That night I slept badly, haunted by the strangest dreams, impatient to see Monsieur Xavier. The footman wasn’t exaggerating—it was a funny set-up all right!
Monsieur de Tarves was something in the pilgrim business … I don’t know exactly what, but some kind of president or director. He dug up pilgrims wherever he could, Jews, Protestants, tramps, even Catholics, and once a year used to conduct a party of them to Rome or Lourdes —at considerable profit to himself, of course. The Pope was delighted, and it was another triumph for religion. Monsieur de Tarves also had an interest in charitable and political organizations. The League Against Secular Education … The League for the Suppression of Obscene Publications .. . The Society for the Promotion of Religious Literature … The Association of Catholic Wet-Nurses for the Feeding of Working-class Children … I can’t even remember them all. Then he was president of all kinds of orphanages, old boys’ associations, schools of needlework, employment bureaux . .. anything like that… Oh he had plenty of jobs! He was a plumpish, lively little chap, always well shaved and very particular about his appearance, with the plausible, cynical manners of a sly, jolly priest. Now and then there were references to him and his organizations in the papers, some of them praising him for his humanitarian and devout way of life, others describing him as just an old crook. We servants used to get a lot of fun out of these contradictory reports, though it is usually regarded as rather flattering to work for people who get their names in the papers.
Every week, Monsieur de Tarves used to give a formal dinner party, followed by a reception attended by all kinds of celebrities—academicians, reactionary senators, catholic deputies, protestant priests, intriguing monks, archbishops and so on. There was one of them in particular, I remember, who always used to go out of his way to be nice to me … an aged Assumptionist father, whose name I forget, a poisonously sanctimonious old chap, who was always saying the most malicious things while maintaining an expression of the utmost piety. And all over the place, in every room, were portraits of the Pope … Oh, he must have seen some pretty funny goings-on in
that
household, the Holy Father!
I didn’t take to Monsieur de Tarves. He had a finger in too many pies and liked too many people, and though no one knew half the things he really was up to, he was certainly an old shyster. The day after my arrival, as I was helping him to put on his overcoat, he asked me:
‘Are you a member of my society? The Society of the Servants of Jesus?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, you ought to be, it’s essential. I shall put your name down.’
‘Thank you, sir … May I ask what the society is, sir?’
‘An admirable society for rescuing unmarried mothers and giving them a Christian education …’
‘But I don’t happen to be an unmarried mother, sir.’
‘That doesn’t matter. It also provides for women who have been in prison, prostitutes who have turned over a new leaf … anybody, in fact. I shall certainly make you a member.’
Then he took some carefully folded newspapers from his pocket and handed them to me.
‘Hide these, and read them when you are by yourself. You’ll find them very interesting.’ And, chucking me under the chin, he added: ‘Tut! tut! tut! But she’s an amusing little creature. Yes, indeed … very amusing.’
After he had gone, I had a look at the papers he had given me …
Le Fin de Siècle, Rigolo, Petites femmes de Paris
… Sheer filth, the lot of them!
Oh, these bourgeois! Always the same old comedy! I’ve come across a good many of them in my time, and at bottom they’re all the same. For instance, there was a republican deputy I used to work for. He used to spend most of his time railing against the priests … And he didn’t half think a lot of himself! … He wouldn’t hear a good word about religion or the Pope, or the holy Sisters … Why, if anybody had paid any attention to him, there wouldn’t have been a single church left standing, and all the convents would have been blown up … Yet every Sunday he used to go to mass, secretly, in churches where he wasn’t known … If the slightest thing was wrong with him, he would immediately call in the priest, and he sent all his children to Jesuit schools. And just because his brother had refused to be married in church, he wouldn’t speak to him … In one way or another, they are all just a bunch of hypocrites; disgusting, cowardly hypocrites.
Madame de Tarves also interested herself in good works. She was chairman of all sorts of religious committees and benevolent societies, and was always organizing charity bazaars, with the result that she was never at home and the household was left to get along as best it could. Often enough, after having been God knows where, she would arrive home very late, her underclothes all anyhow, and smelling of some scent that certainly wasn’t her own … Oh, she couldn’t fool me! I soon realized the kind of benevolent works she was engaged in … some pretty fishy committee meetings, if you ask me … But she was always nice to me … never a harsh word or a complaint. On the contrary, she would often get quite familiar with me, even friendly, so that sometimes, forgetting all about her dignity and my respect, we’d talk about everything under the sun … She would advise me about my personal affairs and encourage my coquettish tastes, smothering me with glycerine and eau-de-cologne, rubbing cold cream on my neck and shoulders and powdering my cheeks. And all the time she was performing these operations she would keep on:
‘You see, Mary, a woman should always look after herself properly, and keep her skin soft and white. You’ve got a pretty face, so you must learn to arrange your hair to suit it … You have a very fine bust, so you ought to make the most of it. And your legs are magnificent, if only you would let people see them now and again … It’s more becoming …’
On the whole I was content, yet somewhere inside me there remained a certain misgiving, an obscure feeling of suspicion. I could not forget the extraordinary stories that I heard from the other servants. Whenever I praised Madame, or told them about her many acts of kindness towards me, the cook would say:
‘Yes, yes, that’s all very fine … But you just wait and see what she’s up to. What she wants is for you to sleep with that son of hers, so that hell spend more time at home and not cost them so much, the old skinflints. She’s already tried it on with plenty of others … Why, she’s even tried it on with her own friends … married and unmarried. Yes, even girls, the old cow! Only Monsieur Xavier isn’t having any … the lad prefers tarts. You’ll see, you’ll see.’
And then she would add, almost regretfully: ‘Oh, if only I were in your place, I’d sting them … And I’d make no bones about it either!’
When she spoke to me like this I couldn’t help feeling rather ashamed, but I tried to reassure myself by pretending that cook was jealous of Madame’s obvious preference for me.
Every morning, at nine o’clock, I used to draw Monsieur Xavier’s curtains and take him his morning tea. It’s silly, but whenever I went into his room my heart used to start beating and I would feel quite apprehensive. For a long time he paid not the slightest attention to me. I used to hang about the room, putting his things ready, preparing his bath, trying to be as nice as I could and show myself off to advantage. But he never said a word to me, except to complain in a sleepy, grumbling voice that I’d woken him too early. His indifference vexed me, and I redoubled my efforts to attract his attention. Every day I expected something to happen, and Monsieur Xavier’s silence, his complete lack of interest in my appearance, irritated me beyond measure. What I should have done if what I expected had actually happened, I just didn’t bother to think. All I wanted was that it
should
happen …
He was really a very good-looking lad, much better than his photograph made him out to be. His light blonde moustache outlined the curve of his lips, which were red and full, just asking to be kissed. His eyes light blue flecked with yellow, had a curious fascination for me, and when he moved he had the cruel, indolent grace of a girl or a wild animal. He was tall and slim, and extremely supple, and you could feel a kind of cynicism and corruption about him, that gave him an ultra-modern, very seductive elegance. Apart from the fact that I had taken to him the first time I saw him, and that I desired him for myself, the effect of his resistance to me, or rather his indifference, was that, before long, desire had become something stronger, and I fell in love with him.
One morning when I went into his room, I found Monsieur Xavier already awake and sitting bare-legged on the side of his bed. I remember that he was wearing a nightshirt of white silk, with blue spots … One of his feet was tucked up underneath him and the other on the floor, so that his position was extremely revealing and not at all decent. Pretending to be shocked, I was about to withdraw. But he called me back:
‘Hi, what’s the matter? Come on in. What is there to be afraid of? Have you never seen a man before?’
He pulled a fold of his nightgown over his knee and, folding his hands on his lap and swaying his body, he sat watching me while I deposited the tray on the table in front of the fire, in such an impudent way that I couldn’t help blushing a little. Then, for all the world as though this were the first time he had ever set eyes on me, he said:
‘Why, you’re a pretty smart girl … How long have you been in the place?’
‘Three weeks, sir.’
‘But that’s marvellous.’
‘What’s marvellous, sir.’
‘That this is the first time I’ve noticed how good-looking you are.’
Then, stretching out both his legs and patting his thighs, which were as round and white as a woman’s, he exclaimed: