The Diary of a Chambermaid

by Octave Mirbeau

  Later in the evening I heard someone knocking at the door. I was stretched out on the bed, half-naked and muzzy with drink.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I cried.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Who’s me?’

  ‘The waiter …’

  I got up, my breasts half exposed, my hair coming down and falling over my shoulders, and opened the door.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The waiter smiled … He was a great strapping fellow with red hair, whom I had often passed on the staircase. And he was staring at me with a strange look in his eyes.

  ‘What do you want?’ I repeated.

  Still smiling with embarrassment, screwing up the bottom of his greasy apron in his huge fingers, he stammered:

  ‘Mademoiselle … I …’

  With an expression of gloomy lust he was considering my breasts, my almost naked stomach, the shift hanging round my waist …

  ‘All right, come in then, you great brute,’ I suddenly exclaimed. And, pushing him into my room, I shut the door behind us with a bang …

  When they found us next day, we were in a terrible state, wallowing on the bed and still drunk … The waiter got the sack. I had never even discovered what his name was.

  I cannot leave the subject of the registry office without mentioning another of the poor devils I met there … a gardener, who had lost his wife, four months previously and was looking for a job. Of all the pitiful faces I saw there, none was as sad, as utterly overwhelmed by life, as his. After being out of work for two months, his wife had died of a miscarriage, the very day before they were due to start a job at a country estate … she looking after the poultry, and he as gardener. Whether from bad luck, or whether because he was just fed up with life, he had been unable to find any other work since this misfortune befell him. Indeed, he had scarcely bothered to look for any. And what little money he had managed to save had quickly disappeared during the time he was without a job. Although he was very distrustful of everybody, I managed to get round him a bit. What follows is an impersonal account of the simple, human drama, which he described to me one day, when, feeling very upset by all his misfortunes, I had been more than usually sympathetic. Here it is.

  After visiting the gardens, with its terraces and greenhouses, and having inspected the gardener’s cottage which, thickly covered with ivy and Virginia creeper, stood at the entrance to the park, they slowly returned, in a state of mingled hope and anxiety, and without speaking to one another, to the lawn where they had left the Countess. She was sitting fondly watching her three, fair-haired, pink-faced children, who, daintily dressed, were happily playing on the grass, watched over by their governess. While still some distance away, the couple stopped respectfully, the husband bareheaded and cap in hand, his wife standing timidly beside him, ill at ease in her black straw hat and dark, woollen jacket, and twisting the chain of a little leather bag in an attempt to keep herself in countenance. Behind them, stretching far away into the distance, lay the undulating parkland, with its massive clumps of trees.

  ‘Come closer,’ said the Countess, in a kindly, encouraging voice. The man was tanned and weatherbeaten, and the fingers of his gnarled, earth-coloured hands were smooth and shining from the continual handling of tools. The woman was rather pale, the greyness of her skin accentuated by the patches of freckles that covered her face … rather awkward too, but very clean and tidy. She kept her eyes on the ground, afraid to look at the splendid lady who would soon be examining her, overwhelming her with embarrassing questions, turning her inside out, like they all did … But she watched delightedly the charming picture of the three babies, who, as they played on the grass, already displayed such restrained manners and such easy grace …

  The couple slowly advanced a few steps and then, simultaneously, both of them with the same mechanical gesture folded their hands on their stomachs.

  ‘Well?’ asked the Countess. ‘Have you seen everything?’

  ‘Your ladyship is very kind,’ replied the man. ‘It’s a fine big place … a magnificent property … There’s plenty to do and no mistake…’

  ‘And I warn you, I’m very particular … Quite fair but very particular … I like everything to be just so … and heaps of flowers everywhere, and all the year round … Of course, you will have some help. Two men in summer, and one through the winter.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the man, ‘I’m not afraid of work. The more there is, the better it suits me. I’m fond of my job, and I know a good bit about it … Trees … early vegetables … mosaic work … the lot. And when it comes to flowers … if you’re prepared to work, and have a fancy for them, all you need is plenty of water, a good mulching now and then and, saving your presence, your ladyship, lots of dung and manure, and you can grow what you like …’

  After a pause he went on: ‘My wife’s very active, as well … very handy … And she’s a good manager. You might not think she was very strong to look at her, but she’s got guts and she’s never ill, and when it comes to looking after animals, there’s no one to touch her … Why, in our last place, they kept three cows and two hundred chickens … so you can see!’

  The Countess nodded her head approvingly … ‘And how did you like the cottage?’

  ‘Oh, the cottage is all right … A bit on the grand side, you might say, for folk like us. We’ve hardly got the furniture for it. But you live where you’ve got to live, and that’s that … Besides, its a good long way from the house, and that’s all to the good. The masters don’t want their gardeners on top of them, and we don’t want to be a nuisance to anybody … This way, we can both be on our own, so to speak … That’s best for everybody … There’s only one thing …’

  He paused, overcome by sudden timidity at the thought of what he wanted to say …

  ‘Only what?’ asked the Countess.

  The man still hesitated, and the silence increased his uneasiness. He clutched his cap tightly, twisting it between his great fingers, and eased his weight from one foot to the other. Then, plucking up courage, he said:

  ‘Well, it’s like this … What I’m trying to say is that … well, the wages aren’t right for the job … They are a bit on the low side. With the best will in the world, we just couldn’t manage … I reckon your ladyship ought to raise them a bit …’

  ‘You’re forgetting, my good man, that, in addition to the cottage, you get your lighting and heating, and free fruit and vegetables … Not to mention the fact that I allow you a dozen eggs a week, as well as a litre of milk a day … That makes an enormous difference.’

  ‘Milk and eggs? … free lighting?’

  And, looking at his wife, as though to ask her advice, he murmured to himself: ‘Well, there’s no denying it, that’s a bit better … That’s not bad at all.’

  And his wife joined in: ‘Well, of course, it would help quite a bit …’; adding shyly: ‘And I daresay there’ll be the usual Xmas boxes?’

  ‘Oh no, I’m afraid not … We never do that sort of thing here.’

  ‘And what about the vermin, your ladyship?’ enquired the man in his turn. ‘Weasels, moles, and the like?’

  ‘No, I don’t pay for them, either … Though you can have the skins.’

  The Countess spoke so sharply that it was obviously no use insisting, and she added quickly: ‘And I must warn you, once and for all, that I do not allow the gardener either to sell or give away any vegetables. Oh, of course, I’m quite aware that, if there are always to be plenty for the house, you’ll have to grow too many, and that threequarters of them may be wasted … But that can’t be helped. That’s how I wish it to be … As long as that’s quite understood … How long have you been married?’

  ‘Six years,’ replied the wife.

  ‘And have you any children?’

  ‘We had one little girl, but she died.’

  ‘Good … that’s very good,’ said the Countess casually. ‘After all, you’re still both young … you’ve got plenty of time ahead of you …’
<
br />   ‘Oh, we’re in no hurry about that, your ladyship … Why bless me, it’s a lot easier having another kid than earning a decent wage …’

  The Countess looked at him severely … ‘I ought to make it quite clear that on no account will I have children … If you did happen to have one I should be obliged to dismiss you … immediately. No, no children! … Always crying and getting into mischief … frightening the horses … spreading infection … No, I simply couldn’t tolerate having children about the place, so don’t say you haven’t been warned … It’s up to you. You must take the necessary precautions.’

  At that moment, one of her own children who had fallen down came running up to its mother, crying and hiding its face in her dress. She picked him up, rocked him tenderly in her arms, murmured a few soothing words over him, and then sent him back, reassured and smiling, to play with the others …

  The gardener’s wife could scarcely keep back her tears . .. was such happiness, the tender joy of a mother’s love, only for the rich, then? … Seeing the children, happy once again at their play, she felt such bitter hatred for them that she could willingly have killed them. She wanted to curse this cruel, insolent woman, to strike the selfish mother whose heartless words had just condemned her to forego the happiness of bearing a child. But she restrained herself, and simply murmured:

  ‘We’ll take care, your ladyship. We’ll do what we can.’

  ‘Then that’s understood … For I must repeat, with me it’s a matter of principle. On this question I am quite adamant.’ Then, in an almost affectionate tone, she added: ‘Besides, believe me, when you are not rich, you are much better off without children …’

  And, in an endeavour to please his future mistress, the man concluded: ‘That’s true, that’s very true … What your ladyship says is quite right.’

  But his heart swelled with hatred, and the wild, sombre light that flashed in his eyes belied the servility of his last words … The Countess did not see this murderous gleam, however, for instinctively her gaze had been drawn to the belly of the woman whom she had just condemned to sterility or infanticide.

  The bargain was soon struck. She gave her instructions, described their duties in the greatest detail and, as she was about to dismiss them, she said with a superior smile and in a tone which admitted of no reply: ‘I assume you are both religious people … Here everyone goes to church on Sundays, and receives communion at Easter … That is something I am most particular about.’

  They set out for home in a sombre mood, neither of them speaking. It was very warm and the road was dusty. The poor woman struggled along, limping a little. Presently, she was out of breath and, sitting down on the side of the road, she put down her bag and undid her corsets.

  ‘Ouf,’ she exclaimed, taking a great draught of air. And her belly, freed at last from the tight corsets, resumed its natural, rounded shape, proclaiming that she was guilty of the crime of motherhood … And they continued on their way.

  A little further on, they entered a wayside inn and ordered a litre of wine.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her I was pregnant?’ asked the wife.

  ‘What, and get thrown off the premises … same as the last three times?’

  ‘Today or tomorrow, what’s the difference?’

  There was a silence between them. Then the man muttered: ‘If you were a real wife, I reckon you’d go and see old mother Hurlot … They say she’s got some kind of herbs …’

  The woman started to cry, moaning through her tears:

  ‘Oh don’t say that, love, don’t say that … It’s unlucky.’

  ‘What do you want us to do, then, for Christ’s sake? Starve?’

  And sure enough, the bad luck came. Four days later the woman had a miscarriage … and, after suffering terribly from peritonitis, she died.

  When the man had finished telling his story, he said to me: ‘So, you see, I am all alone now … no wife, no child, nothing. I thought of trying to revenge myself … Yes, I thought about it a lot … by killing those three kids we saw playing in the grass … I’m not a wicked sort of chap, but, I don’t mind telling you, I swear I could have strangled that woman’s kids with pleasure … yes, with pleasure. But there it is … I suppose I haven’t got the guts. The trouble is, when it comes to the point, we haven’t the courage … only to go on suffering.’

  24 NOVEMBER

  Still no word from Joseph. Knowing how careful he is, his silence does not altogether surprise me, though it makes me rather unhappy. Of course, Joseph knows that all letters go to Madame before being passed on to us, and probably he doesn’t want to run the risk of her reading his letter, or even knowing that he writes to me. All the same, I should have thought that anybody as resourceful as he is would have found some way of letting me have news … He is due back tomorrow morning. Will he turn up, I wonder? I don’t mind admitting I’m worried … my mind keeps on and on. Why didn’t he want me to know his address at Cherbourg? … But it’s no use thinking about that now, it only gives me a headache.

  Here, nothing whatever has happened since Joseph went, even less than usual … and the same old, dreary silence. Out of friendship, the verger has been doing his job for him while he is away. Every morning, punctually, he comes to groom the horses and see to the greenhouse. But it’s impossible to get a word out of him. He’s even more silent, more distrustful, more shifty in his behaviour than Joseph. He’s more commonplace as well, with none of Joseph’s bigness and power … I have hardly seen anything of him, except when I have had to go and give him an order … He’s another queer fish, all right! The grocer’s wife once told me that when he was a lad, he was studying to be a priest, but got kicked out of the seminary for immorality … I wonder if it might have been him that raped little Clara? … After leaving the seminary he tried all kinds of jobs … pastrycook, choirboy, pedlar, lawyer’s clerk, domestic service, town crier, auctioneer, bailiff’s assistant, and now, for the last four years, he has been the verger here. It’s not all that different from being a priest. Anyway, he’s got all the slimy, creeping ways of a parson … The dirtiest kind of business wouldn’t upset him … Joseph made a great mistake in having him as a friend … But is he really a friend? Or is he just an accomplice?

  Madame has got migraine … It seems that this happens regularly every three months. For two days she stays shut up in her room, with the curtains drawn and no light, and only Marianne is allowed in to see her … She won’t have me. These illnesses are the master’s great opportunity, and he’s making the most of it … he’s scarcely ever out of the kitchen. Only the other day I surprised him coming out, scarlet in the face and his flies still unbuttoned … Oh, but I’d like to see them at it, Marianne and him. It ought to be enough to put you off sex for the rest of your life.

  Captain Mauger, who is no longer on speaking terms with me, but just hurls furious glances at me from the other side of the hedge, has made it up with his family, or at least with one of his nieces, and she has come to live with him .. . She’s not so bad—a big, fair woman, with a fresh complexion and well-made, though her nose is a bit on the long side. From what people are saying, it looks as though she’s going to keep house for him, and succeed Rose as his bedmate. That’s certainly one way of keeping your dirty ways in the family.

  Rose’s death might have been a bad blow to Madame Gouin’s Sunday mornings. But she realized that she needed someone to play the principal part, so now she’s got the draper’s wife to act as ringleader of the gossips and advertise her clandestine talents amongst all the girls in Mesnil-Roy. Yesterday, being Sunday, I paid her a visit. A most brilliant occasion … everybody was there. Nothing much was said about Rose, and when I told them the story of the wills there was a general outburst of laughter. Oh, the captain was certainly right when he said ‘Nobody is irreplaceable …’ But the draper’s wife has not got Rose’s authority, for she is one of those women about whose private life there is, unfortunately, nothing whatsoever to be said.

  H
ow I am looking forward to seeing Joseph again … I can scarcely wait to hear my fate, what I have to hope or fear! I can’t go on living like this any longer. Never have I felt so disgusted with the mediocrity of the life I’m leading here, with the people I have to wait on, with the bunch of dreary puppets who, day by day, are driving me further round the bend. If I were not sustained by the strange feeling that has brought my life a new and powerful interest, it wouldn’t be long before I, too, sank into the morass of stupidity and ugliness that surrounds me on every side. Whether Joseph succeeds or not, whether or not he changes his mind about me, I am absolutely determined not to stay here another moment … In a few more hours, after one more night of anxiety, my future will be decided!

  I shall spend this night reviving once again, perhaps for the last time, memories of my past. It is the only way to stop myself brooding about my present problems, or plaguing myself with dreams about the future. These memories amuse me, yet at the same time they deepen my feeling of contempt. After all, what singular and monotonous faces I have encountered in my life of servitude! … When I see them again, in imagination, they no longer strike me as being really alive. They only live, or at least create the illusion of being alive, through their vices … Take away their vices, which preserve them like the bandages that preserve a mummy, and they are no longer even ghosts … merely dust and ashes … death …

  Consider, for example, the establishment to which I was sent by Madame Paulhat-Durand, with all kinds of excellent references, only a few days after refusing to work for the old gentleman in the country. A young couple, with neither animals nor children … an ill-kept house, despite the apparent elegance of the furniture and general display of wealth … plenty of luxury, but even more sheer waste. As soon as I got inside the door, one glance was enough … I could see immediately the kind of people I had to deal with … So my dream had come true! I was going to forget all the misery I had endured … and that little beast, Monsieur Xavier, whom I hadn’t been able to get out of my system … and the nuns at Neuilly, and the heartbreaking sessions at the registry office … all those long days of wretchedness and long nights of loneliness or debauchery.