There she stood, near the window with her back to the light, quite still, her arms hanging at her sides. A heavy shadow cast a thick veil over the ugliness of her face, but emphasised the stocky, massive deformity of her body, and the hard light that lit up the falling strands of her hair at the same time revealed the twisted outline of her arm and throat, before losing itself in the black folds of her deplorable skirt … An old lady, sitting in a chair with her back turned towards me—a hostile, savage back—was examining her attentively … All I could see of this old woman was a black hat with ridiculous feathers, a black cloak trimmed round the bottom with grey fur, and the hem of a black dress, forming a circle on the carpet. What I noticed particularly was the hand, lying on her knee in a black silk glove and contorted with athritis, the fingers slowly extending and contracting, plucking at her dress like the claws of a bird of prey … Near the table stood Madame Paulhat-Durand, stiff and dignified.
There was really nothing very special about all this … three commonplace people in this commonplace setting. It was in no way particularly striking or moving … Yet, to me, the sight of these three people, silently observing one another, held all the elements of a tremendous drama … I felt that I was watching a social tragedy, more terrible, more agonizing, than any murder … And my throat was dry, my heart was beating furiously.
Suddenly the old lady said:
‘I can’t see you properly, my dear … Don’t just stand there … I can’t see you, I tell you … Walk to the other end of the room, so that I can get a proper look at you!’ And then, in an astonished voice, she exclaimed: ‘Good God, how tiny she is!’
As she said this, she turned her chair a little so that I could now see her profile. I should have expected her to have a hooked nose, with long projecting teeth and the round yellow eye of a hawk. But not at all … her face was tranquil, almost friendly. As a matter of fact, her eyes expressed nothing at all, neither good nor evil… She might have been a retired shopkeeper. In business, people acquire a special gift for controlling the expression on their faces, so that it is impossible to tell what is going on inside their minds. The more callous they become, the more the habit of making quick profits develops their ambition and all their lower instincts, the gentler, or rather the more neutral, becomes their expression. All the evil in them, whatever might make their customers distrustful of them, is either concealed within the depth of their being or else finds some totally unexpected physical expression. The hardness of this old woman’s heart was not apparent in her eyes, her mouth, her forehead or the slack muscles of her face, but was all concentrated in the back of her neck … That was her real face, and it was a terrible one.
In obedience to the old lady, Louise had moved to the other end of the room. Her desire to please made her truly monstrous, utterly disheartening, and directly the light fell upon her the old lady exclaimed:
‘Oh, but how ugly you are, my dear!’ And turning to Madame Paulhat-Durand she added: ‘Is it possible? Can such hideous creatures really exist?’
Solemn and smug as usual, Madame Paulhat-Durand replied: ‘Certainly she’s no beauty … but the girl is quite honest …’
‘That may be so,’ said the old lady, ‘but she’s really too ugly … Such ugliness is really quite offensive … What’s that you’re saying?’
Louise had not uttered a word. She had merely blushed a little, and lowered her head. A thread of scarlet had appeared, circling her lustreless eyes. I thought she was going to cry.
‘Still, I suppose we’d better see …’ the old lady went on, her fingers working furiously, tearing savagely at her dress.
She questioned Louise about her family, the situations she had been in, her experience of cooking, housework, sewing. Louise merely replied ‘yes’ or ‘no’, in her harsh, jerky voice, but the mean, meticulous, cruel cross-examination went on for some twenty minutes.
‘Well, my girl,’ the old woman concluded, ‘one thing’s perfectly clear: you are completely untrained … I shall have to teach you everything … It will be at least four or five months before you are of the slightest use to me … And then your looks … They can hardly be called prepossessing … That mark on your nose, was it the result of a blow?’
‘No, ma’am, I have always had it …’
‘Well, it’s certainly most unattractive … What wages do you expect?’
‘Thirty francs, ma’am … and free laundry and wine,’ Louise declared in a determined voice.
The old woman almost leapt out of her chair.
‘Thirty francs,’ she screamed. ‘But have you never looked at yourself in the glass? You must be insane! Why, nobody will employ you … If I take you on, it will simply be out of the goodness of my heart, because I’m sorry for you. And you ask for thirty francs! Well, there’s one thing, you’re not lacking in cheek. If that’s the advice your friends out there have given you, you’d do better not to listen to them …’
‘Quite true,’ commented Madame Paulhat-Durand, approvingly. ‘The trouble is, they all egg each other on …’
‘Well then,’ proposed the old woman, ‘I shall pay you fifteen francs, and you’ll pay for your own wine … It’s really much too much, but I don’t want to take advantage of your being so ugly and hard up …’ And, lowering her voice so that it sounded almost kindly, she added: ‘You must realise, my dear, this is a unique opportunity for you, such as you won’t find elsewhere … I’m not like the others, you see. I’m quite alone … no family, no one. I look upon my maid as my family, and all I ask of her is to show me a little affection … She lives with me, shares my meals … Oh, I make a regular fuss of her … And then, when I die—and I’m a very old woman, and often ill—you can rest assured I shan’t forget her, provided she has looked after me properly, been devoted to me … You’re ugly, horribly ugly. Well, I must just get used to that … Besides, some of the pretty ones are wicked creatures, who are simply out to rob you. So perhaps your ugliness will be a guarantee for your behaviour … At least you’re not likely to have men running after you … You see, I mean to be fair with you, and what I’m offering you, my child, is a fortune … more than a fortune … a family.’
Louise was shaken. Clearly the old woman’s words had raised unexpected hopes, with her peasant greed, she was already dreaming of coffers filled with gold, fabulous legacies … And then, the thought of sharing her life with such a good mistress, eating at the same table with her, going for little outings with her in the town and neighbouring woods … all this dazzled her. But at the same time it all scared her, for her deeply ingrained mistrust cast a shadow of doubt over these shining promises … She could not make up her mind what to say or do … I longed to call out to her ‘No, don’t accept’, for I could easily imagine the kind of existence that was being offered her, shut away, overwhelmed with work, continually scolded, never enough to eat … all the everlasting, brutal exploitation of the poor, patient defenceless creature … ‘No, come away, don’t listen to them …’ But I never uttered the cry that was on my lips.
‘Come a little closer, my dear,’ the old lady ordered. ‘Anyone would think you were afraid of me … Come now, there’s nothing to be frightened of … It’s a curious thing, you know, but already you seem to be less ugly … I’m already getting used to that face of yours …’
Louise slowly approached, holding herself stiff in a desperate attempt not to knock anything over, trying hard to walk elegantly, poor creature. But as soon as she came near the old woman pushed her away.
‘My God,’ she cried, screwing up her face, ‘whatever’s the matter with you? What makes you smell so terribly? … This odour of decay … it’s frightful, unbelievable! … I’ve never known anybody smell like this … Have you got cancer? … Your nose, your stomach, perhaps?’
Madame Paulhat-Durand made a noble gesture.
‘I did warn you, Madame,’ she said. ‘It’s her one great defect … the only thing that has prevented her from finding a situation.’
&nb
sp; But the old woman went on muttering: ‘Oh my God, my God! Is it possible? Why, you’ll poison the whole house … I couldn’t bear you near me … This makes all the difference … And there was me, growing so fond of you! No, no. I may be kind-hearted, but it’s simply not possible.’
She took out her handkerchief and began waving it in front of her face as though to purify the air, at the same time repeating: ‘Oh, really, it is simply impossible.’
‘Come, come,’ Madame Paulhat-Durand intervened, ‘make an effort … I’m sure this unfortunate girl will always be extremely grateful to you …’
‘Grateful indeed! That’s all very well, but gratitude isn’t going to cure this terrible infirmity … No, indeed! In fact, the very most I could pay would be ten francs, not a penny more … You can take it or leave it …’
Up to this point Louise had succeeded in restraining her tears, but now she broke down.
‘No, no,’ she sobbed, ‘No, I won’t take it, I won’t.’
‘Listen, young lady,’ observed Madame Paulhat-Durand drily, ‘either you accept this situation or I shall take no further responsibility for you … You will have to go to some other registry office. I have done what I can for you, and you’re certainly not much credit to my business …’
‘That’s perfectly true,’ the old woman agreed. ‘You ought to be only too grateful that I’m prepared to pay you ten francs … I offer them because I am sorry for you … Don’t you understand that it’s an act of charity, that I may well be sorry for later on.’
Then turning to Madame Paulhat-Durand, she added:
‘It can’t be helped … I’m like that … I simply can’t bear to see people suffering … I’m quite silly when it comes to the misfortunes of others. And at my age I am scarcely likely to change … Come along now, child, you can come with me.’
At this point, an attack of cramp forced me to get down from my observation post. I never saw Louise again …
Two days later Madame Paulhat-Durand called me into her office and, after looking me over in a rather tiresome manner, said to me:
‘Mademoiselle Célestine, I have a good situation to offer you … extremely good … The only thing is it’s in the country … Oh, not very far …’
‘In the country? … I don’t fancy that much, you know …’
‘People are quite wrong about the country,’ she insisted. ‘There are excellent situations to be found there.’
‘Excellent? That’s a good one,’ I interrupted. ‘In the first place there’s no such thing as an excellent situation anywhere.’
Madame Paulhat-Durand gave me a friendly, simpering smile. I had never seen her smile like that before.
‘I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle Célestine … there’s no such thing as a bad situation.’
‘Heavens, I know that … only a bad employer.’
‘Not at all … only bad servants … You know very well I send you to the very best houses. It is not my fault if you choose not to stay there …’
Then, looking at me in an almost friendly fashion, she went on:
‘Besides, you are very intelligent … you have a good appearance … you’re pretty, with a good figure and charming hands, not ruined by hard work … And you certainly know how to use your eyes. Things might turn out very well for you … You might end up almost anywhere if you behave yourself …’
‘Misbehave myself, don’t you mean?’
‘That depends how you look at it … I call it behaving yourself …’
She was beginning to relax. Gradually she was dropping her dignified mask … revealing herself to me for what she was, an ex-chambermaid, adept at every kind of monkey business. At that moment she had the suggestive eyes, the soft, lewd gestures, the typical slavering mouth, that are typical of every procuress, and which I had noticed in the case of ‘Madame Rebecca Ranvet, Dressmaker …’ She repeated …
‘I prefer to call it behaviour.’
‘So what?’ said I.
‘Look, Mademoiselle Célestine, you are no longer a child and you know your way around … We can talk frankly … The situation in question is with a gentleman living by himself, already getting on in years and extremely well-off, and it is not very far from Paris … You will be expected to run his house for him … be a kind of housekeeper, you understand? … Such situations require a certain tact, but they’re much sought after and can be very profitable. There’s an assured future in it for a woman like yourself, intelligent and charming and, I repeat, one who knows how to behave herself.’
It was what I had always dreamt of … how often I had set my hopes on an old man’s infatuation for me, and now the paradise I had dreamt of was within my grasp, smiling at me, beckoning to me! … And yet, by some inexplicable irony of life, some stupid contradiction the cause of which I could not fathom, now that this happiness that I had so often longed for was mine for the asking … I turned it down flat.
‘A dirty old man? … Oh no, I’ve had some, thanks very much … I’m absolutely fed up with men … young, old, the lot.’
For a moment Madame Paulhat-Durand was completely taken aback … this was the last thing she had expected. Then, recovering the austerely dignified manner with which, as she thought, she maintained a proper distinction between the correct middle-class woman she would like to have been and a Bohemian creature like myself, she added:
‘Oh indeed, young woman … and what do you take me for? Who do you imagine you are?’
‘I don’t imagine anything … All I’m telling you is that I’m simply sick of men …’
‘Do you realize who it is you are talking about? This gentleman happens to be extremely respectable … a member of the Society of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, and at one time a royalist deputy …’
I burst out laughing.
‘Oh, get along with you! Don’t tell me … you and your Vincent-de-Pauls … Deputy indeed … Thank you very much.’
Then, abruptly, and without the slightest change of tone, I asked:
‘What exactly is he like, this old man of yours? … After all, I don’t suppose one more or less will make all that difference.’
But Madame Paulhat-Durand was not prepared to relent. In a severe tone of voice she declared:
‘It’s no use, young woman … I’m afraid you’re not the serious, reliable type of woman this gentleman is looking for … I thought you might have been suitable, but obviously you are not to be trusted.’
I did my best to get her to change her mind but she remained implacable, and I returned to the waiting-room, feeling moody and depressed … Oh that dreary, dark waiting-room, always the same! All those wretched creatures sprawling about on the beaches, just bodies for sale, to satisfy the voracious appetite of the bourgeoisie … All that eternal ebb and flow of misery and filth, forever washing us up here, pitiable odds and ends from the shipwreck of humanity.
‘What a strange creature I must be,’ I thought. ‘I long for things, so many, many things, just as long as they seem to me to be unattainable. And as soon as they are within my grasp, as soon as they begin to assume concrete shape, I no longer want them.’ Certainly this was one reason for my refusal. But there had also been another … an irresistible desire to take Madame Paulhat-Durand down a peg, to revenge myself on this scornful, high and mighty creature by showing her up as a common or garden procuress.
I was sorry about the old man, who now had for me all the appeal of the unknown, all the attraction of an inaccessible ideal … And I amused myself by imagining what he would have been like … A natty, little old chap, with soft hands and a merry smile on his well-shaven pink and white face, gay, generous, easy to get on with, not too passionate and with none of Monsieur Rabour’s perversions … An old boy that I could have ordered about like a little dog … ready to come when I called him, wagging his tail affectionately and gazing at me with submissive eyes.
‘Beg … There’s a good dog, beg …’
And then he’d sit on his little backside waving his
front paws in the air, while I gave him lumps of sugar and stroked his silky back. The thought of him no longer filled me with disgust, and I asked myself again:
‘Must I always be such a fool? … A pet of a little man … a lovely garden … fine house … money, peace of mind, and an assured future … Fancy having refused all that without even knowing why! … And never knowing what it is I want … and never taking it when I have the chance. Though I have given myself to plenty of men, the fact is, when I am by myself, men scare me … worse even, they disgust me. But I only have to be with them, and I let myself be caught as easily as a sick hen … and then I’m capable of every folly under the sun. I can only resist things that won’t ever happen and men I shall never meet … Something, I’m convinced, will always prevent me from being happy …’
The waiting room was stifling. The thought of that dingy light and those sprawling creatures made me feel more and more depressed. Something heavy and irremediable seemed to be hovering over my head … I left early, without waiting for the office to close, my heart heavy and my throat on fire … Outside I passed Monsieur Louis. Clinging to the banister, he was slowly and laboriously climbing the stairs … For a moment we looked at one another. He did not speak to me, nor I to him. But, though I could not find a word to say, the glance we exchanged expressed everything … He, too, was unhappy … I waited a moment for him to reach the top, then I rushed downstairs . .. Poor little sod!
In the street I paused for a moment, bewildered … I looked to see if any of the old bawds were waiting about. At that moment, if I had caught sight of Madame Rebecca Ranvet, Dressmaker, I should have rushed up to her and handed myself over … But none of them was there, and the passers-by, preoccupied and indifferent, had no thought to spare for my anguish … On the way home I stopped at a pub and bought a bottle of brandy, and, after wandering about for a time, I got back to my hotel, still feeling half dazed.
The Diary of a Chambermaid Page 30