Some of the other women had now joined us out of curiosity, crowding round and greeting each fresh revelation with an energetic ‘Quite true … That’s right enough,’ while Rose, who had now her second wind, chattered away tirelessly.
‘Now Monsieur Mauger, there’s a really decent man for you … and nobody else to worry about, my dear. It’s almost like being the mistress there. A retired army captain, you see … so what else would you expect? He hasn’t the slightest idea of running a house. All he wants is someone to look after him and spoil him a bit … to have his clothes properly seen to … his little ways respected, and now and then one of his favourite dishes for supper. If he didn’t have somebody to look after him that he could trust, he’d have everybody sponging on him … God knows there are plenty of thieves in this part of the world!’
From the intonation of her voice and the way she screwed up her eyes it was clear enough how matters stood in the captain’s house.
‘After all, could you expect anything else? A man living on his own, who still has his little ideas … There’s plenty of work to be done all the same. We’re going to get a young lad to give a hand.’
She’s lucky, this Rose … I’ve often thought of working for an old man. It may be disgusting, but it’s a nice quiet life and there’s always the future to look forward to. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have its difficulties, with a captain who ‘still has his little ideas’… They must be a funny sight, the two of them under the same eiderdown …
We had to walk right through the village … Not exactly exciting; nothing like the Boulevard Malesherbes. Dirty, winding narrow streets, houses that look as though they’re about to fall down, dark houses with rotten old beams and high gables, with the upper storeys bulging like in the old days … And the people you see … ugly, so ugly! I didn’t set eyes on a single decent-looking fellow … The local industry is making felt slippers, and most of the shoemakers, who hadn’t been able to finish their quota for the factory during the week, were still at work. Behind the windows I could see their poor, sickly faces and bowed shoulders as they fixed the leather soles with their blackened hands. It all added to the mournful sadness of the place. You’d have thought you were in a prison.
And there, standing at her door, smiling and waving to us, was the draper’s wife.
‘So you’re off to the eight o’clock mass? I went at seven. But you’ve plenty of time, won’t you come in for a minute?’
Rose thanked her, but did not stop. And when we were out of earshot she warned me against the woman, a nasty creature who spoke ill of everybody … a regular plague! Then she started singing the praises of her master again, and the easy life she led there. I asked her:
‘So the captain has no family then?’
‘No family?’ she exclaimed in a horrified voice. ‘Why, you’re certainly wrong there, my dear. Oh, there’s a family all right, and no mistake! Crowds of nieces, penniless good-for-nothings and misery-mongers who used to swindle him and steal from him right and left. You should just have seen, it was really abominable. Oh, but it didn’t take me long to sort that lot out! I wasn’t going to have those pests cluttering up the house. If it hadn’t been for me, my dear young woman, the captain would have been on the rocks by this time! Now, he’s only too pleased with what I did.’
I pressed my point with an irony which however escaped her.
‘Then I suppose, Mademoiselle Rose, he’ll have put you in his will?’
‘Naturally the captain will do as he pleases,’ she replied cautiously. ‘He’s a free man, and certainly I’d be the last person to try to influence him. I wouldn’t ask him for a thing —not even when he forgets to pay me my wages. I only stay with him because I’m devoted to him. But
he
understands how things are,
he
knows who loves him and looks after him without a thought for themselves, who makes a fuss of him … You mustn’t think he’s as stupid as some people round here would like to make out, especially Madame Lanlaire. Why the things she says about us! On the contrary, Mademoiselle, he’s a very shrewd man with a will of his own. Yes, indeed!’
With this eloquent defence of the captain we had reached the church. Rose never left my side. She insisted upon sitting next to me, and began mumbling prayers, genuflecting and crossing herself. And what a church! With those huge beams supporting the roof, it’s more like a barn than anything else. And the congregation coughing and spitting, banging into the pews, dragging chairs about, you’d think you were at the village inn. All you could see were faces brutalized by ignorance, and embittered mouths soured with hate. Nothing but wretched creatures who have only come there to pray for God’s help against someone else. I found it impossible to collect my thoughts, and a horrible chill seemed to envelop me. Perhaps it was because there was no organ. It may sound an odd thing to say, but I just cannot pray without an organ. The sound of an organ thrills my whole being, does something to me like when you are in love. If only I could always listen to the sound of an organ, I really believe I’d never want to commit another sin. But here, instead of an organ, there was an old lady sitting in the choir, with blue spectacles and a wretched little black shawl over her shoulders, painfully picking out the notes on a wheezy, out of tune piano … And the continual noise of all these people, coughing and spitting, so that you could scarcely hear the intoning of the priests or the choirboys chanting the responses. And what a horrible smell … A mixture of manure, cowsheds, earth, dirty straw and wet leather … A funny kind of incense! Really, it’s awful the way these country people are brought up.
It seemed as though the service would never end and I was beginning to get bored. What worried me most was finding myself among such commonplace, ugly people, who scarcely seemed to notice me. Nothing nice to look at, no well-dressed women to take my thoughts off things and cheer me up. I’d never realized so clearly just how much elegance really means to me. Instead of being stimulated, as they always were in Paris, all my senses protested. In an attempt to distract myself I carefully studied the movements of the priest. But no thank you! He was just a strapping great fellow, still quite young, with a coarse, brick-red face. With his tousled hair, great hungry jaw and greedy lips, and little obscene eyes with black circles under them, it didn’t take me long to place him. He enjoyed his food all right … and in the confessional, fumbling at your petticoat and making dirty remarks! Noticing that I was watching him, Rose leaned over to me and said beneath her breath:
‘It’s the new curate … I can recommend him. There’s no one like him for hearing confessions. The rector’s certainly a very good man, but most people find him too strict … Whereas the new curate …’
She made a clucking noise with her tongue and returned to her prayers, her head bowed over the back of a chair. Well, he certainly wouldn’t suit me, this new curate, with his dirty, brutal appearance. You would take him for a carter rather than a priest. What I need is a little delicacy, a little poetry, something other-worldly … and nice, white hands. I like men who are gentle and stylish, men like Monsieur Jean.
After the service, Rose invited me to go with her to the grocer’s, explaining to me in a mysterious way that it was just as well to keep in with her, and that all the servants round about curried favour with her.
Another little dumpling—this is certainly the place for fat women—she had a freckled face and lustreless, tow-coloured hair, so thin that you could see half of her scalp through it, and done up in a ridiculous little bun on top of her head. At the slightest movement, her bosom seemed to flow beneath her brown cloth bodice like liquid in a bottle. She had red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, and a mouth so ugly that every smile was a grimace . .. Rose introduced me:
‘This is the new maid at The Priory, Madame Gouin. I brought her to see you …’
The grocer’s wife scrutinized me closely, and I noticed that her gaze was fixed with embarrassing persistence on my belly. She said in a toneless voice:
‘You must make yourself at home here, Mademoiselle. A fine-looking girl … A Parisian I wouldn’t wonder?’
‘That’s right, Madame Gouin, I come from Paris.’
‘Obviously, you can tell straight away. You don’t have to look twice to see that. I like Parisian women, they know what life is. I myself was in service in Paris when I was young. I used to work for a midwife in rue Guénégaud, a Madame Tripier … I daresay you know her?’
‘No …’
‘Oh well, never mind. After all that was a long time ago. But come in, Mademoiselle Célestine.’
She ushered us ceremoniously into a room behind the shop, where four other servants were already seated round a table.
‘I’m afraid you’re in for trouble, my poor girl,’ murmured the grocer’s wife, offering me a seat. ‘It’s not just because they’ve stopped dealing with me, but I can assure you that The Priory is a hellish place … hellish. Isn’t that true?’ she said, turning to the others.
‘It certainly is!’ they replied unanimously, All with exactly the same gestures and the same expressions on their faces.
‘Thank you very much, but I certainly don’t want to serve people who haggle over every little thing … always screeching like so many polecats that you’re robbing and cheating them. They can go where they like for all I care.’
‘That’s right,’ echoed the chorus of servants, ‘Let them go where they like.’
To which Madame Gouin, addressing herself particularly to Rose, added in a firm tone of voice: ‘Well, no one can say I run after them, can they Mademoiselle Rose? We don’t have to rely on them, thank God.’
Rose contented herself with shrugging her shoulders, in such a way as to convey all the concentrated spleen, rancour and scorn that she felt. And her huge musketeer’s hat accentuated the strength of her feeling with a wild flourish of black feathers. Then after a silence she added: ‘But let’s say no more about them. Every time I mention them I get the gripes.’
In the midst of the laughter another of the girls, a swarthy, skinny little creature, rat-faced and with spots all over her forehead and running eyes, exclaimed:
‘Sure enough, let’s drop the subject.’
Whereupon, the stories and the gossip started again—all those unhappy mouths spewing out an uninterrupted flood of filth like so many drains. The room seemed to be infected by it. The impression was all the more disagreeable because the room where we were sitting was so dark that their faces appeared to be fantastically deformed. The only light came from a narrow window which opened on to a damp, muddy yard, a kind of well, between walls covered with leprous mosses. A stench of pickling brine, of fomenting vegetables and sour herrings hung about, impregnating our clothes. It was intolerable. Then each of these creatures, slumped on their chairs like bundles of dirty linen, insisted on raking up some new scandal or crime. I was cowardly enough to try to join in their laughter, to applaud their stories, but I experienced a sense of atrocious and unbearable disgust. I could feel the nausea rising in my throat, cloying my mouth. I wanted to get away but I could not move, and I stayed there like an idiot, slumped in my chair like them, making the same gestures, listening stupidly to their shrill voices, which affected me like the gurgling sound of dishwater emptying itself down the kitchen sink.
I realize that it is necessary for us to defend ourselves against our employers, And I am certainly not the last one to do so, I can assure you. But no … this was really going too far … these women were hateful to me. I detested them, telling myself that I had nothing in common with them. Education, contact with elegant people, being used to beautiful things, reading the novels of Paul Bourget, have saved me from utter depravity. This was something quite different from the witty and amusing cattiness that goes on amongst servants in Paris!
It was definitely Rose who had the greatest success. Eyes fluttering, lips moist with anticipation, she began yet another story:
‘Why that’s nothing compared with Madame Rodeau, the lawyer’s wife … Oh, there are some nice goings-on there, I can tell you.’
‘I thought as much,’ said one of them. While another declared: ‘Though she’s for ever running round with the clergy, I’ve always thought she was a filthy pig.’
They were all turned towards Rose, their eyes bright with anticipation. She began:
‘The day before yesterday Monsieur Rodeau went out for the day, to the country, according to him …’
In my honour, and to put me in the picture as regards Monsieur Rodeau, she said parenthetically:
‘A shady character, this Monsieur Rodeau, a lawyer who is really scarcely Christian … Always up to some fishy business or other. That’s why I made the captain withdraw some shares he was looking after for him … But it’s not
him
I’m concerned with for the moment.’
Having concluded her parenthesis, and turning to the company at large, she continued:
‘Well, so Monsieur Rodeau was away in the country … What he’s always running off to the country for I’m sure I don’t know. Anyhow, as soon as he’d gone, Madame Rodeau sent for the little clerk, young Justin, on the pretext of sweeping out her bedroom … And there she was with scarcely a stitch on, and a funny look in her eyes like a bitch on heat. She called him over to her and started kissing and caressing him, and then, pretending to be looking for fleas, she started undressing him. And you know what she did then? Why, she suddenly flung herself upon him, the ghoul, and took him by force. Yes, by force, my dears … If I was to tell you just how she took him …’
‘Oh, go on, tell us,’ the dark girl begged, her rat’s nose twitching with excitement.
They were all anxious to hear but in a sudden excess of modesty, all Rose would say was: ‘It’s not fit to be repeated in front of young girls like you!’
Her answer was greeted by a chorus of disappointed exclamations, and she went on, in a voice alternating between indignation and concern:
‘A kid of fifteen, if you’ll believe it … As pretty as a picture … and innocent as a new-born babe! To do a thing like that to a child, a woman must be vicious through and through! … It seems that when he got home he was trembling all over, and crying fit to break your heart. What d’you make of that?’