‘Well? So the Lanlaires haven’t sacked you yet? You ought to be proud of yourself, working for such a remarkable scoundrel. You have my heartiest sympathy, my dear young lady.’
He went on to explain that once upon a time he and Monsieur Lanlaire had been good neighbours and inseparable friends. But a discussion about Rose had led to a deadly quarrel. Monsieur Lanlaire had reproached the captain for not keeping up his position, and allowing his servant to eat at the same table. Interrupting his account of the quarrel, the captain appealed to me:
‘To eat with me, if you please! And what if I wanted her to sleep with me? Surely I’ve got the right to do as I please? Is it any business of his?’
‘I should think not indeed, captain.’
In a tone of extreme modesty Rose sighed:
‘A man living on his own … surely it’s the most natural thing in the world?’
After this famous discussion, which had almost ended in blows, the two one-time friends spent their time playing tricks on each other and issuing summonses. They hated one another bitterly.
‘For my part,’ declared the captain, ‘every stone I can find in the garden I throw over the hedge into Lanlaire’s. If they happen to fall on his cloches and frames, I just can’t help it, or rather, I’m delighted … the swine! Still you’ll find out for yourself …’
Spotting a stone on the pathway, he rushed to pick it up, crept up to the hedge like a hunter stalking his prey and, with all his strength, hurled the stone into our garden. There was a noise of splintering glass. Triumphantly he returned to where we were sitting, and bursting and spluttering with laughter, hummed to himself:
‘Every time we break a pane, Call the glazier in again …’
Gazing at him with a maternal expression, Rose said to me admiringly: ‘Isn’t he funny? And so young for his age … Just a boy!’
When we’d finished our glass of cherry brandy the captain wanted to show me round his garden. Rose apologized for not coming with us, because of her asthma, and warned us not to be away too long. ‘Besides,’ she said jokingly, ‘I shall be keeping an eye on you.’
The captain showed me his flower-beds, edged with box and filled with flowers. He told me the names of all the finest ones, remarking each time, ‘You wouldn’t find anything to compare with those in that pig Lanlaire’s garden. Suddenly he picked a little orange-coloured flower, most unusual and charming, and turning the stalk gently in his fingers asked me: ‘Have you ever tried eating these?’
I was so surprised by this ridiculous question that I couldn’t answer. The captain insisted:
‘I have. It tastes delicious. I’ve tried all the flowers you can see. Some are excellent, others not so good and some are no good at all … You see, I eat anything!’
He winked, clucked his tongue, patted his stomach and, in a challenging tone of voice, repeated more loudly: ‘I just don’t mind what I eat.’
The way in which the captain proclaimed this strange profession of faith made it clear that his greatest pride in life was to eat anything. I thought it would be amusing to flatter his vanity and replied:
‘And you’re quite right, captain.’
‘Certainly,’ he said, not without pride. ‘And it’s not only plants that I eat … It’s animals as well … animals that no one else has eaten, that they haven’t even heard of. I eat absolutely anything.’
We continued our walk amongst the flower-beds, down narrow alleys hung with clusters of flowers, blue, yellow, red. As he looked at them the captain seemed almost to shudder with delight. His tongue, passing over his cracked lips, made a moist little sound.
‘I’m going to tell you something,’ he continued. ‘There’s not an insect, not a bird, not even an earthworm that I haven’t eaten. I’ve eaten polecats, snakes, rats, crickets, caterpillars. I eat anything. Why, I’m well-known for it round here. If anyone finds an animal, dead or alive, and they don’t know what it is, they say: “Better take it to captain Mauger”. So they do, and I eat it. In winter, especially when there’s a hard frost, we get some very rare birds here. They come from America, or maybe further still. People bring them to me and I eat them. I bet there’s not another man in the world who has eaten as many things as I have. I eat anything.’
Having seen all over the garden we went back to sit under the acacia tree. I was just getting ready to say good-bye when the captain suddenly cried:
‘Wait, there’s something I must show you, something very curious, that I’m sure you’ve never seen.’ And in a stentorian voice he shouted: ‘Kléber! Kléber!’ explaining to me that this was his ferret, a phenomenal creature.
He called again, ‘Kléber, Kléber!’ And there on a branch right above us, showing between the green and golden leaves, was a little pink muzzle and two tiny black eyes, very alive and watchful.
‘I knew he couldn’t be far away. Come on, Kléber. Here!’
The ferret climbed along the branch, reached the trunk and cautiously descended, digging its claws into the bark. Its body, covered with white fur with tawny patches, moved with the subtle, graceful undulations of a snake. It reached the ground and, in a couple of bounds, was on the captain’s knee, who began stroking it with a delighted expression.
‘There’s a good Kléber. There’s my pretty little Kléber!’
He turned to me: ‘Have you ever seen such a tame ferret? He follows me all over the garden, like a little dog. I’ve only got to call him and he comes at once, wagging his tail and his head in the air. He eats with us and sleeps with us—in fact I love the little creature as much as anybody in the world. D’you know, Mademoiselle Célestine, I have refused three hundred francs for him? But I wouldn’t let him go for a thousand francs. No, not for two thousand. Here, Kléber.’
The animal raised its head and looked at its master, then climbed on to his shoulder and, with a charming little movement, curled itself round the captain’s neck like a muffler. Rose said nothing, but she appeared to be on edge.
A monstrous idea suddenly entered my head. I said: ‘I’ll bet you, captain, you’d never eat your ferret.’
The captain looked at me, at first with deep astonishment, then with infinite sadness. His eyes grew quite round, and his lips began to tremble.
‘What, Kléber?’ he stammered. ‘Eat Kléber?’
Obviously, though he was prepared to eat anything, this was something he had never thought of. It was as though a new world had suddenly opened before him.
‘I’ll bet you,’ I repeated savagely, ‘that you won’t eat your ferret.’
Astonished and upset, shocked by some mysterious but invincible feeling, the old captain had got up from the bench where he had been sitting. He was seized by an extraordinary agitation.
‘D’you mind repeating that?’ he stammered.
For a third time, emphatically and pronouncing each word distinctly, I said: ‘I bet you will not eat your ferret.’
‘Not eat my ferret? What are you talking about? Are you saying that I won’t eat it? Is that what you mean? Well, you’re just going to see … I eat anything.’
He picked up the ferret, and, like breaking a roll of bread, he crushed the little creature’s ribs, killing it before it could make the slightest movement. Then he threw it down on the path and shouted at Rose: ‘There you are, you can make a stew of it for me this evening!’ And he hurried away, gesticulating wildly, to shut himself up in the house.
For some minutes I stood there filled with unspeakable horror, utterly overcome by the revolting act I had just committed. I got up to go. I was very pale. Rose went with me and said, smiling:
‘I don’t mind at all what’s just happened. He was getting too fond of that ferret, and I don’t like him getting fond of things. Indeed, he thinks a great deal too much about his flowers already.’
After a short silence she added: ‘But you know, he’ll never forgive you for this. He’s not the kind of man who likes to be challenged. An old soldier like him!’
Then, a few
steps further on: ‘You want to look out, my girl … they’re already beginning to talk about you. It seems that somebody saw you the other day in the garden with Monsieur Lanlaire. It’s very unwise of you, I assure you. He’ll be sure to get you in the family way, if it hasn’t happened already. So take care. With that man, remember … one go, and hoopla, you’ve got a baby.’
Then, as she was shutting the gate behind me, she said: ‘Oh well, so long! I suppose I had better go and make that stew for him …’
All the rest of that day I kept seeing the body of that poor little ferret lying in the dust on the path.
That evening at dinner, as I was serving the dessert, Madame said to me very severely:
‘If you’re fond of plums, you’ve only got to ask me and I’ll see whether you can have some. But I won’t have you helping yourself.’
I replied: ‘I am not a thief, Madame, and I do not like plums.’
Madame insisted: ‘I tell you, you’ve been taking them.’
I said: ‘If you really believe I’m a thief, you have only to give me notice.’
She snatched the plate of plums out of my hands.
‘The master had five this morning, and last night there were thirty-two. There are only twenty-five left, and that means you must have taken two of them. Just see that this doesn’t happen again!’
It was true, I had eaten two. She must actually have counted them. No, really … in all my life …
28 SEPTEMBER
My mother is dead. I heard this morning in a letter from home. Though all I ever got from her was blows the news upset me, and I cried and cried … Seeing me in tears the mistress said: ‘Come, come, what’s all this about?’
And when I told her my mother had died, she went on, in her usual tone of voice:
‘I’m sorry to hear it … but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it. Still, you mustn’t let it interfere with your work …’
That was all … yes, really! She’s not exactly overflowing with kindness …
What upsets me most of all is that I cannot help feeling there is some connection between my mother’s death and the killing of the little ferret … that it is some kind of punishment from heaven. I keep thinking that if I hadn’t made the captain kill poor Kléber, perhaps my mother would still be alive. In vain I tell myself that my mother must have been dead before the business with the ferret… It’s no use, and the idea has haunted me all day.
I should like to have gone home … But Audierne is miles away, the end of the earth, and I just haven’t got the fare. When I draw my first month’s wages I shall have to pay the registry office their fee, and there won’t be even enough to settle the little debts I had to run up when I was down and out.
Anyhow, what’s the good of going? My brother’s in the navy, in China I think, for it’s ages since I last heard from him. And as for my sister Louise, where she’s got to I’m sure I don’t know. Ever since she left home, and went off to Concarneau with Jean the Duff, we never had another word from her. She must have been knocking about all over the place … God only knows! As likely as not she had ended up in a brothel. Or maybe she’s dead as well … and my brother … so why go? There wouldn’t be any point in it. I’ve got nobody there now. And my mother certainly won’t have left me anything … her few clothes and bits and pieces of furniture won’t even be enough to pay what she owes for drink.
It’s funny, all the same … As long as she was still alive I scarcely ever thought of her … never wanted to see her again … The only times I ever wrote to her were if I changed my place, and then simply to give her my address. She used to beat me such a lot … and I was so miserable with her always drunk! Yet now, suddenly hearing she has died, my heart grieves for her, and I feel more alone in the world than ever.
I remember my childhood as clearly as anything. I can recall everything … all the things and people where I began my hard apprenticeship to life … Honestly, for some people there’s too much unhappiness, and for others too little. There’s no justice in the world.
I remember one night—though I must have been very little at the time—I remember us all being suddenly woken up by the lifeboat’s siren. What a melancholy sound that used to be, in the middle of the night, with a storm raging! Since the previous day the wind had been blowing a gale, the harbour bar was all white with the crashing of waves, and only a few sloops had managed to get back to port. All the others must have been in terrible danger, poor devils! Knowing that my father was fishing in the shelter of the island of Sein, my mother had not been too worried, for she hoped he would have put into the harbour on the island, as he had often done before. Nevertheless, directly she heard the siren she got up, pale and trembling from head to foot, and hurriedly wrapping me in a huge woollen shawl set off for the pier. My sister Louise, who was already a big girl, and my brother, who was younger, followed her, and all three of them kept calling out: ‘Oh blessed Virgin! Oh Jesus!’
The streets were full of people: women, old folk, kids. On the quay, where you could hear the noise of the boats grinding against the side, a crowd of frightened shadows were scurrying all over the place. But it was impossible to get on to the pier because of the high wind, and especially the waves that broke against its stone foundations and swept it from end to end with a roar like gunfire. My mother—‘Oh blessed Virgin! Oh Jesus!’—took the footpath that runs along the estuary as far as the lighthouse. Everywhere was in pitch darkness, but now and then, in the distance, the sea was lit up by the flashes from the lighthouse, and you could see the huge white-capped waves rising and breaking. Despite their thundering crash and the deafening roar of the wind I fell asleep in my mother’s arms. And when I woke up we were in a small room, where, through a forest of dark bodies and mournful faces and waving arms, I could see, lying on a camp bed and lit up by two candles, a corpse … a terrifying corpse, long and naked and stiff, the face crushed in, the limbs scored with bleeding gashes and covered with bruises. It was my father.
I can see him still. His hair was plastered to his skull, with strands of seaweed caught up in it, making a kind of crown. Leaning over him, men were rubbing his body with warm cloths and blowing into his mouth. The mayor was there, and the rector, a customs house officer and one of the harbour police. I was terrified and, struggling out of my shawl, I ran across the wet flagstones between the men’s legs, wailing and calling for my father, for my mother. A neighbour took me away.
It was from that moment that my mother started drinking. To begin with she did her best to find work in the sardine factories, but, as she was always drunk, none of the owners would ever keep her on. So she stopped at home, steadily drinking, getting more and more miserable and quarrelsome, and when she had had her fill of brandy she would start beating us. God only knows how she didn’t kill me! Whenever I could I escaped from the house, and spent my time playing about on the quay, plundering orchards or, when the tide was out, paddling in the pools. Sometimes I would take the road to Plogoff, and there, at the bottom of a grassy slope, sheltered from the sea wind and covered with thick bushes, I would be sure to find some of the lads from the village and, hidden amongst the hawthorn bushes, they would introduce me to their games … Often, when I got home in the evening, I would find my mother stretched out across the threshold, motionless, her mouth fouled with vomit and a broken bottle in her hand, so that I’d have to step over her body. And when she came to, it was terrible. She would be seized by a crazy passion for destruction, and without listening to my prayers and cries she would pull me out of bed and chase me round the room, trampling on me and banging me against the furniture, and shouting: ‘I’ll murder you, you little misery! I’ll murder you!’
Many a time I thought I was going to die …
And then, to earn money for drink, she took to whoring. At night, every night, there would be a soft knock on the door, and a fisherman would come into the room, bringing with him the tang of the sea and a pungent odour of fish. He would get into bed with he
r, stay an hour, and then go away. And he would be followed by another, and the same business would be repeated. Sometimes they would start fighting, and the darkness would be filled with a terrifying clamour, so that often enough the neighbours would call the police.
Years passed like this. No one would have anything to do with us, me and my brother and sister. People would shun us in the street, and respectable folk would pelt us with stones to drive us away from their houses, whether we were on the look-out for something to steal or simply begging. One day my sister Louise, who by this time had also started going with the sailors, cleared out altogether. Then my brother got a job as cabin boy, and I was left alone with my mother.
By the time I was ten years old I was no longer chaste. My mother’s example had initiated me into the meaning of sex; and, already perverted by all the games I’d been up to with boys, I had developed physically very early. Despite all the privations and beatings, the wonderful sea air had made me healthy and strong, and I had grown so fast that, by the time I was eleven, I had experienced the first shock of puberty. Though I still looked like a girl, I was almost a woman.
At twelve I was so completely, and no longer a virgin. Violated? Well, not exactly. Willingly? Yes, more or less … at least to the extent that the ingenuousness of my vice and the candour of my depravity permitted it … One Sunday, after high mass, the foreman at one of the sardine factories, an old man who stank like a billygoat and had filthy, shaggy hair all over his head and face, took me down to the shore by Saint-Jean. And there, beneath the cliffs, hidden in a dark cleft in the rocks where the seagulls used to make their nests and sometimes the sailors hid the flotsam they rescued from the sea, there, on a bed of stagnant seaweed, and without any attempt on my part to stop him, he seduced me … for an orange! He had a funny name: Cléophas Biscouille.
And here is something that I have never been able to understand, and have never found explained in any novel. Monsieur Biscouille was ugly, brutal and repulsive, moreover on the four or five occasions that he persuaded me to go with him to this black hole in the rocks, he never once gave me the slightest pleasure—on the contrary. Why is it then, that when I think of him—and I often do—I never feel like loathing or cursing him? I take pleasure in recalling him, and I experience an extraordinary sense of gratitude … a great tenderness … and, at the same time, a genuine regret, when I realize that never again, shall I see this disgusting creature, as he was then, beside me on that bed of seaweed …
The Diary of a Chambermaid Page 9