The Diary of a Chambermaid

by Octave Mirbeau

  As there is no servants hall, we take our meals in the kitchen, on the same table where, during the day, the cook does all her dirty jobs—cutting up meat and vegetables, gutting fish, with her fat round fingers like black puddings. It’s really the limit.

  This first evening, the heat from the fire made the atmosphere of the room stifling, and there was a continual smell of stale grease, rancid sauces and everlasting frying. All the time we were eating, a foul stench came from the saucepan where the dog’s food was cooking, which caught you in the throat and made you cough … enough to make you throw up … They show more concern for the criminals in their prisons, and the dogs in their kennels … The meal consisted of fat bacon and cabbage, followed by stinking cheese, with only rough cider to drink … nothing else. The plates were earthenware, and as most of the glaze had worn off they smelt of burnt fat; and, to crown it all, the forks were made of tin.

  Having only just arrived, I did not want to complain. But I didn’t want to eat, either. There’s no point in making my stomach worse, thank you very much. ‘Why aren’t you eating anything?’ asked the cook.

  ‘Because I’m not hungry,’ I replied in a dignified tone of voice.

  Whereupon Marianne grunted: ‘I suppose her ladyship would prefer truffles?’

  Keeping my temper, still snooty and standoffish, I said: ‘It might interest you to know that I have at least eaten truffles, which is more than some people can say.’

  That shut her up. Meanwhile, the coachman went on stuffing his mouth with huge chunks of fat bacon and watching me furtively. I don’t know why, but the way this man looked at me was embarrassing, and his silence worried me. Though he was no longer young, I was astonished by the suppleness of his movements, swaying his hips when he walked like the undulations of a snake. But it’s time I described him in more detail. His rough, greying hair, low forehead and slanting eyes, his prominent cheekbones and broad, powerful jaw, and his long, fleshy, jutting chin, all combined to produce a curious effect that I find hard to define. Was he a scoundrel, or was he just a simpleton? I couldn’t tell. Yet the strange thing was that in some way the man impressed me, though eventually this obsession wore off. I realized that it had been just another of the thousand and one tricks of my excessively romantic imagination, which makes me see both things and people as all black or all white, and which was now doing its best to transform this wretched Joseph into someone superior to the stupid lout, the dull peasant that he really was.

  Towards the end of the meal Joseph, still without saying a word, took a copy of Free Speech from his apron pocket, and started reading it attentively, while Marianne, mollified by the two full carafes of cider she had drunk, became more agreeable. Sprawled in her chair, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow and her cap askew on her tousled hair, she asked me where I came from, where else I had been in service, whether they had been decent jobs, and whether I was anti-Jewish. For a time we chatted away almost like friends. When it was my turn I asked her to give me some details about the household. Were there often visitors? And, if so, what kind? Did the master run after the maids? Had the mistress got a lover?

  But heavens above! You should just have seen their faces, for Joseph’s reading had been interrupted by my questions. They were utterly and completely shocked … One simply has no idea how backward these country people are. They know nothing, see nothing, understand nothing, and the most natural thing in the world absolutely flabbergasts them … Yet, despite his loutish respectability and the virtuous airs the cook gives herself, nobody is going to convince me that they don’t sleep together. For my part, I must say, I should have to be really hard up to put up with a type like him.

  ‘It’s easy to see you’re from Paris,’ the cook sourly reproached me.

  To which Joseph, nodding his head, briefly added:

  ‘Sure enough.’

  Then he turned to his paper again, while Marianne got up heavily from her chair and took the saucepan off the fire. Our conversation had come to an end.

  My thoughts turned to the last place I had been in, and to Monsieur Jean, the footman, so distinguished with his black side whiskers and white skin, as carefully tended as a woman’s. Oh, he was so nice and gay, Monsieur Jean, so natty, so refined, reading bits from the Fin de siècle to us of an evening, or telling us naughty stories, or giving us the latest news from the master’s correspondence … Things are going to be very different here. How on earth did I manage to land up in a place like this, among such awful people, and miles from everything I like? … I could almost cry.

  I am writing this in my bedroom, a filthy little room under the rafters, exposed to every wind, freezing in winter and stifling in summer. The only furniture is a wretched iron bedstead and a miserable unpainted wardrobe with a door that doesn’t shut and no room to put all my things; and all the light I’ve got is a smoking candle that drips into a copper candlestick. It’s pitiful! If I want to go on keeping this diary, or to read the novels I brought with me, or to tell my fortune with the cards, I shall have to buy candles with my own money. For as to pinching any from Madame, nothing doing, as Monsieur Jean used to say. She keeps them locked up.

  Tomorrow I must try to sort things out a bit. If I nail my little gilt crucifix over my bed, and put the coloured china statue of the Virgin on the mantelpiece, with all my little boxes and trinkets and the photographs of Monsieur Jean, maybe it will make this garret seem a bit more cheerful and homely.

  Marianne’s room is next to mine, with only a thin partition between us, so that one can hear everything that is going on. I thought Joseph, who sleeps in the stables, might perhaps be paying her a visit. But no. For ages I had to listen to Marianne moving about her room, coughing and spitting, dragging chairs about, turning everything upside down … And now she’s snoring. They must make love in the daytime. Far away in the country a dog is barking. It’s almost two o’clock in the morning, and my candle is almost burnt out. It’s time I got into bed, but I feel I shan’t be able to sleep. Oh, I feel as though this miserable dump is going to turn me into an old woman before my time! And that’s the truth!

  15 SEPTEMBER

  So far I haven’t mentioned the name of my employers. It’s a quite ridiculous name: Lanlaire … Monsieur and Madame Lanlaire … Monsieur and Madame Head-in-air Lanlaire! The sort of name you can’t help making silly jokes about. As for their Christian names, they’re even more ridiculous. The master’s called Isidore, and she’s Euphrasie! Really, I ask you.

  At the draper’s, where I’ve just been to match some silk, the woman told me a good deal about the set-up at The Priory. It was pretty awful. Though, to be fair, I must admit I’ve never in my life come across such an ill-natured gossip. If shopkeepers who rely upon their custom can talk about my employers like this, what on earth will other people have to say? Crikey But these country folk are terrible scandalmongers!

  Monsieur Lanlaire’s father was a cloth manufacturer and banker, at Louviers. He arranged a fraudulent bankruptcy and ruined all the small investors in the neighbourhood, for which he was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. But considering all the forgeries, confidence tricks, thefts and other crimes he’d committed, he got off very lightly. He was still in prison at Gaillon when he died. But it seems that somehow or other he had managed to keep back 450,000 francs that ought to have gone to his creditors … And Monsieur Lanlaire inherited the lot! So you see, being a rich man is as simple as that!

  The mistress’s father was even worse, although he never did time but departed this life respected by all decent people. His stock-in-trade was human beings. The draper’s wife explained to me how, in the time of Napoleon III, conscription was not obligatory for everybody as it is today. The conscripts were chosen by lot. But the sons of wealthy parents, if they happened to be selected, could buy themselves out. They would get in touch, either with an agency or some individual, who on payment of a premium, varying from 1,000 to 2,000 francs according to the risk involved, would find some poor devil
who was prepared to take their place in the army for seven years, and, if there happened to be a war, die for them. In short, it wasn’t only in Africa that there was a slave trade, only here, in France, it was white men who were bought and sold instead of black. We had markets for men instead of for cattle, though for a more horrible kind of butchery. This did not altogether surprise me, for the same sort of thing is going on today. After all, what are our registry offices and public brothels, if not markets for the sale of human flesh?

  According to the draper’s wife it must have been a very lucrative business, and the mistress’s father, who had cornered the trade throughout the whole Department, showed considerable talent for it; that is to say, most of the premium went into his own pocket. Ten years ago, when he died, he was the mayor of Mesnil-Roy, deputy-justice of the peace, county councillor, chairman of the board of directors at the factory, treasurer of the welfare department, decorated by the Government and, in addition to buying The Priory for next to nothing, he left 1,200,000 francs, half of which went to the mistress, for her only brother turned out to be a bad egg and no one knew what had become of him. I don’t care what anybody says, but that money’s dirty money—if money can ever be said to be anything else. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly simple: I’ve never seen any money that wasn’t dirty or any rich people who weren’t rotten.

  Anyhow, between them the Lanlaires—isn’t it disgusting? —ended up with more than a million francs. Yet they’re always trying to find ways of economizing, even though they probably never spend more than a third of their income. Always bargaining, haggling over every bill, going back on their word, refusing to stand by any agreement that isn’t in writing and properly signed, so that you have to keep your eye on them continually and, whatever happens, never give them the slightest chance of going to law. Another thing, they take advantage of people by not paying their bills, especially small shopkeepers who can’t afford a lawyer’s fees, and any other poor devil who can’t stand up for himself. Naturally, they never give away a cent except occasionally to the church, for they’re very religious. As for the poor, they could be dying of hunger on the very steps of The Priory, and they wouldn’t as much as open the door to them.

  ‘I really believe,’ said the draper’s wife, ‘that if they could steal money from the poor they would do it with pleasure, without turning a hair.’

  And, as a monstrous example of their meanness, she added: ‘Look, all of us round here who earn our living the hard way, when we give bread for the poor we buy the very best, it’s just common decency, a question of self-respect. But that lot, the dirty misers … what d’you think they give? Why, not even white bread, my dear young lady, but just the ordinary black stuff the peasants eat. Isn’t it scandalous … as rich as they are? Only the other day, Madame Paumier, the cooper’s wife, heard Madame Lanlaire say to the vicar, who was giving her a scolding for being so stingy, “But what’s wrong, Father? It’s quite good enough for people like them!” ’

  Still, you ought to be fair, even to your employers, and though there may be only one opinion as regards the mistress, no one seems to have any grudge against the master. They don’t dislike him. Everyone agrees that he’s not stuck-up, and would treat people generously and do a lot of good if he was allowed to. The trouble is, he isn’t. In his own house the master counts for nothing—less even than the servants, badly treated as they are, less than the cat, which does just as it likes. For the sake of a little peace and quiet, he’s gradually given up all his authority, all his masculine pride, and it’s Madame who controls, rules, organizes, administers everything. She’s in charge of the stables, the poultry, the garden, the cellar … and she’s always got something to complain about. Nothing ever goes right for her, and she’s forever making out that she’s been robbed. And she’s as sharp as a knife … you’d never believe it! No one can play any tricks on her, for she’s up to them all. It’s she who pays the bills, draws the dividends, collects the rent and does all the business. She’s as smart as an old book-keeper, as unscrupulous as a bum bailiff, and as tightfisted as a moneylender. It’s unbelievable! Naturally, it’s she who holds the purse strings, and she never lets go of them … except to put away some more money. She leaves the master without a penny to his name, so that he’s lucky if he has enough to buy his tobacco with, poor devil! With all that money, he’s as hard-up as the poorest beggar in the neighbourhood. Yet he never jibs, never … he obeys her like one of the servants. Oh, it’s funny to see him sometimes, looking all worried like a well-trained dog. If Madame happens to be out, and some shopkeeper calls with his account, or some broken-down beggar, or a messenger expects a tip, you just ought to see him! It would really make you laugh. He feels in his pocket, scratches his head, blushes, starts apologizing and then with the most pitiful expression says: ‘Look, I am afraid I haven’t any change … nothing but 1000 franc notes. Do you happen to have change for 1000 francs? No? Then I’m afraid you’ll have to call again.’

  A thousand francs indeed … why, he never has as much as a five-franc piece! If he only wants to write a letter, he has to go to Madame for the notepaper, because she keeps it locked up in a drawer and only allows him a sheet at a time, and grumbles about that. ‘Heavens, you do get through some notepaper. Whatever can you be writing about to need so much?’

  The only thing people reproach him for, the one thing they simply cannot understand, is his shameful weakness, allowing such a shrew to lead him by the nose. For everybody knows about it, you see … even if she wasn’t always shouting it from the housetops … Of course, they don’t mean anything to one another any more. For one thing, Madame, who has something wrong with her inside and cannot have children, just won’t hear of sleeping with him, and that almost drives him out of his mind. On this particular subject there’s a good story going the rounds.

  One day, at confession, Madame explained the situation to the priest, and asked him if it would be all right for them to ‘cheat’.

  ‘It depends what you mean by cheat, my child?’ the priest answered.

  ‘Well, I don’t exactly know, Father,’ she said, highly embarrassed. ‘But it seems there are certain caresses …’

  ‘Certain caresses? But my child, surely you know that such caresses are a mortal sin?’

  ‘That’s just why I’m asking the Church’s permission, Father.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s all very well … But how often?’

  ‘My husband is a very robust man, a healthy man, Father. Perhaps twice a week …’

  ‘Twice a week? That’s much too often … sheer debauchery. However robust a man may be, he doesn’t need certain … certain caresses twice a week.’

  Then after pondering the question for a moment or two, he added: ‘All right then, I will authorize it twice a week … but on certain conditions. Firstly, that you yourself get no pleasure from it …’

  ‘Oh, but I swear I shan’t, Father!’

  ‘Secondly, that you donate the sum of 200 francs every year to the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin.’

  ‘Two hundred francs?’ gasped Madame, ‘just for that? Why, it’s out of the question!’

  And she has never bothered her confessor again.

  The draper’s wife, who told me this story, concluded by saying: ‘How on earth can such a decent man as Monsieur Lanlaire be such a coward with his wife, when she refuses to give him, not only money, but even pleasure? If it was me, I’d soon bring her to her senses … and that’s a fact!’

  So what happens? When Monsieur Lanlaire, who is a vigorous man and as fond of a bit of stuff as the next, wants to stand himself a little treat in that line, or even just to give some poor creature a present, he is reduced to the most ridiculous expedients … every kind of wangling and fiddling. And, when Madame finds out, it results in the most terrible scenes, rows that often go on for months at a time. So the master wanders about the countryside like a madman, waving his arms in the air, grinding clods of earth under his heel and talking to himself
, come wind, rain or snow. And then, when he gets home in the evening, he’s more timid than ever … more scared, more obsequious, more utterly crushed.

  The most curious, and also the saddest, part of this story is that, despite all the recriminations of the draper’s wife, despite all the infamous revelations, all the shameful filth that is hawked about from mouth to mouth, from shop to shop and house to house, I feel that the people of the village envy the Lanlaires even more than they look down on them. Despite their criminal idleness and all the harm they do to society, despite everything that is crushed beneath the weight of their monstrous wealth, it is precisely their money that gives them a halo of respectability, even of importance. People are prepared to bow down to them, to greet them more readily … and how complacently they speak of this wretched dump, where they live in such spiritual squalor, as The Castle. If a visitor were to ask what places of interest there were to see in the neighbourhood, I feel convinced that even the draper’s wife, despite all her hatred of them, would reply: ‘We have a fine church and a fine fountain, but best of all, we have the Lanlaires, the Lanlaires who are worth a million francs and live in a castle. They are atrocious people, but we are very proud of them.’

  The worship of money is the lowest of all human emotions, but it is shared not only by the bourgeoisie but also by the great majority of us … little people, humble people, even those who are practically penniless. And I, with all my indignation, all my passion for destruction, I, too, am not free of it. I who am oppressed by wealth, who realize it to be the source of all my misery, all my vices and hatred, all the bitterest humiliations that I have to suffer, all my impossible dreams and all the endless torment of my existence, still, all the same, as soon as I find myself in the presence of a rich person, I cannot help looking up to him, as some exceptional and splendid being, a kind of marvellous divinity. And in spite of myself, stronger than either my will or my reason, I feel, rising from the very depths of my being, a sort of incense of admiration for this wealthy creature, who is all too often as stupid as he is pitiless. Isn’t it crazy? And why … why?