The Diary of a Chambermaid

by Octave Mirbeau

  And then he would immerse himself silently in the mysteries of conservative politics.

  All this time Eugenie was still wandering around the kitchen, lovesick and dreamy. She did her work mechanically, as though she was sleep-walking, far away from the couple upstairs, far away from us and from herself, her eyes regardless of their foolishness and of ours, her lips forever murmuring unhappy words of love and adoration.

  I don’t know why, but all this used to make me feel sad, so sad I could have cried … Yes, somehow that strange household, where everyone, the silent old butler, William, I myself, seemed to me like restless, futile ghosts, filled me with a heavy, indescribable melancholy.

  The last scene I was present at was a particularly funny one … One morning, the master happened to come into the boudoir, where I was helping Madame try on a new pair of corsets … hideous things, made of mauve satin, with small yellow flowers and yellow laces. But then, taste was scarcely her strong point.

  ‘What?’ said Madame, in a gay, reproachful voice. ‘So that’s the way you enter women’s bedrooms … without even knocking.’

  ‘Women’s?’ cooed the master. ‘But you’re not women.’

  ‘Well, if I’m not, I’d like to know what I am, then.’

  The master screwed up his mouth—God, what a fool he looked!—and murmured with an affectation of tenderness:

  ‘But you’re my wife, of course … My sweet little wife. Surely it’s not a crime to visit one’s own little wife.’

  Whenever the master behaved like a love-sick idiot, it usually meant that he was hoping to cadge some money, as Madame realized. Already suspicious, she replied:

  ‘I’m not so sure … You and your “little wife”, indeed! .., I’m not sure I want to be your “little wife”’ …

  ‘What? … You’re not sure? …’

  ‘How can you ever be? … Men are such funny creatures …’

  ‘But of course you’re my little wife, my one and only darling little wife.’

  ‘Get along with you … And I suppose you’re just my own great big baby?’

  While I was lacing her up, Madame stood with her hands raised above her head, regarding herself in the mirror and stroking the tufts of hair in her armpits … I could have laughed. All this ‘little wife, big baby’ stuff was enough to drive you round the bend. And they looked such utter fools … the pair of them.

  After glancing into the bathroom and picking up some petticoats and a pair of stockings, the master began fidgeting about with all the brushes and flasks and pots of cold cream. Then, taking up a fashion magazine that was lying on the dressing table, he seated himself on a kind of plush stool and asked:

  ‘Is there a puzzle this week?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Have you solved it?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  Seeing that he had become absorbed in the puzzle, Madame said rather drily:

  ‘Robert.’

  ‘Yes, darling.’

  ‘Haven’t you noticed anything?’

  ‘What? In the puzzle?’

  Pulling a face and shrugging her shoulders, she said

  ‘No, not in the puzzle … Haven’t you really noticed anything? But there, you never do notice anything.’

  The master gazed vacantly round the room, from the carpet to the ceiling, from the bathroom to the door, with a ludicrously vacant expression on his face.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about? Do you mean there’s something new, here in this room, that I haven’t noticed? I can’t see anything, on my word of honour.’

  ‘Then you simply don’t love me any more, Robert,’ Madame groaned.

  ‘Not love you? … Surely, that’s coming it a bit thick!’

  He stood up, waving the magazine.

  ‘Not love you?’ he repeated. ‘Where on earth do you get that idea?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t, because if you did, there’s one thing you certainly would have noticed …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Can’t you see I am wearing a new pair of corsets?’

  ‘Corsets, what corsets? … Oh, now I see. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t noticed them. I must be going crazy … Oh but aren’t they sweet … perfectly ravishing …’

  ‘Yes, it’s all right to say that now, but you don’t care tuppence … It’s me who’s crazy, wearing myself out trying to make myself look nice for you … and you don’t care in the slightest … Anyhow, what do I really mean to you? Nothing, less than nothing! You come in here, and all you do is read that beastly magazine … The only thing you’re interested in is that ridiculous puzzle … Oh, it’s a nice life you lead me. We never see anyone … we never go anywhere … we just live here like savages without any money …’

  ‘Come, come, now, I implore you … Don’t get all worked up. Look here! …’ And he tried to put his arm round her waist and kiss her.

  But she angrily pushed him away.

  ‘No, leave me alone … you get on my nerves .. .’

  ‘But, see here, darling, my own little wife …’

  ‘You get on my nerves, d’you hear? Leave me alone … Don’t come near me … You think of nobody but yourself, you great lout … You never do a thing for me … You’re just a pig, there!’

  ‘Whatever are you talking about? This is all nonsense. Look, it’s no good getting in such a tizzy … All right, then, I’m in the wrong … I ought to have seen them straight away … they’re very pretty corsets … I just can’t understand why I didn’t! … Look at me, love. Smile at me … God, yes, they really are sweet, and they suit you perfectly.’

  But the master was trying too hard. He was even getting on my nerves, though their quarrel did not concern me in the slightest. Madame was stamping her foot, growing more and more hysterical. Her lips were pale, and her hands clenched, and she kept repeating:

  ‘You get on my nerves … you get on my nerves … you get on my nerves … Is that clear? … Get out!’

  The master went rambling on, but he, too, was beginning to get annoyed.

  ‘Now, sweetheart. you’re being unreasonable. All this over a pair of corsets. They’ve simply no connection … Come, look at me, darling, smile at me … It’s stupid to get so worked up about a pair of corsets …’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, get out,’ she shouted in a voice like a washerwoman’s. ‘Go on, get out and leave me alone.’

  I had finished lacing her up. At these words I stood up, delighted that they had both completely given themselves away in front of me and, later on, would feel humiliated. They seemed to have forgotten that I was there, and anxious to see how the scene ended I made myself as inconspicuous as possible, not saying a word …

  It was now the master’s turn. Having contained himself as long as he could, he suddenly lost his temper and, screwing the magazine up into a ball, flung it with all his strength at the dressing-table mirror and shouted:

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, this is really impossible! It’s always the same. You can’t say a word without being treated like a dog … And always the same coarseness, the same filthy language … I’ve had just about enough of this kind of thing. I’m absolutely fed up with you behaving like a fishwife … And shall I tell you something? Those corsets are simply impossible … Nobody but a whore would dream of wearing them!’

  ‘You swine!’ Her eyes bloodshot, her mouth foaming and her fists clenched, she bore down upon the master, in such a fury that when she tried to speak her words almost choked her …

  ‘You swine,’ she managed to bring out at last. ‘And you dare to speak to me like this. Why, it’s unforgivable … Who was it that picked you up out of the gutter … a fine, broken-down gentleman, up to his eyes in debt, blackballed by his club? … You were glad enough when I pulled you out of the shit! … I suppose you think I did it just for your name, your title? A fat lot they counted, when the moneylenders wouldn’t even advance you another sou … Well, you can take your title back and wipe your backside
with it … Talk about your noble ancestors … why, wasn’t it I that bought you in the first place? And haven’t I been keeping you ever since? Well, you’re not getting another penny out of me! And as to your ancestors, you cheap skate, just you try hocking them, and see if you can raise ten sous on the whole thieving pack of them … There’s going to be no more of all that, you understand. Never, never! … So you’d better take up gambling again, you cheat … or find yourself a whore, you ponce!’

  She was really terrifying … Trembling with fear, his body sagging, not knowing where to look, the master recoiled before this flood of filth … As he reached the door, he caught sight of me and fled, while Madame went on shouting after him down the corridor, in a still more terrible voice:

  ‘A ponce, that’s all you are!’

  Then she sank down on the couch, overcome by a terrible attack of nerves, which I only managed to calm by making her inhale ether …

  Eventually she returned to her novelettes and started tidying her drawers again, while the master became more absorbed than ever in his complicated games of patience and yet another rearrangement of his pipes … And the correspondence started all over again … shyly at first, and at long intervals, though before long it had become as fast and furious as ever. I almost ran myself into the ground, hurrying backwards and forwards between the bedroom and the study, carrying their ridiculous notes … Oh how I laughed!

  Three days later, as she was reading one of the master’s messages written on pink paper stamped with his coat of arms, Madame suddenly turned pale and asked me breathlessly:

  ‘Célestine, do you believe the master really means to kill himself? Have you seen him with a revolver? My God, what if he were to commit suicide!’

  I just burst out laughing, straight in her face … I didn’t do it on purpose, but I couldn’t help myself. I simply couldn’t stop. My laughter just grew louder and louder. It was choking me. I thought I should really die of laughing.

  For a moment she looked absolutely bewildered. Then she said:

  ‘What on earth’s the matter with you? What are you laughing about? Be quiet … Will you shut up, you wicked girl.’

  But it was no use. I just couldn’t stop. At last I managed to stammer out:

  ‘Oh no … it’s really too funny, this nonsense of yours … Too stupid, ha-ha, ha-ha-ha. Oh, but it’s ridiculous!’

  Naturally, that evening I had to leave the house, and, once again, I found myself in the street. What a bitch of a job, what a bitch of a life!

  This was a bad blow, especially as I realized—though too late—that I could never hope to find such a good situation again … It had everything: good wages, all kinds of perks, easy work, and plenty of freedom and amusement. All I had to do was to let myself drift along. Any other girl, not a crazy idiot like me, would have managed to save up a nice bit of money, and fixed herself up with a handsome trousseau. In five or six years or so, who knows, I might have got married, bought a little business, had my own place, with no fear of being hard up … happy, almost a lady … As it was, I had to start the whole wretched business all over again, submit once more to the mercies of chance … I was vexed by what had happened, furious with myself, with William, Eugenie, Madame, everybody. What is so curious, and hard to explain, is that, instead of hanging on to this place by hook or crook, which, with a woman like Madame, would have been quite easy, I allowed myself to behave more stupidly than ever; and even, by my sheer impertinence, made the position irreparable when it could quite well have been patched up … Isn’t it strange, the things that sometimes go on inside you? It just isn’t possible to understand them. It’s as though you were seized by a kind of madness that shocks and excites you so that you start shouting and insulting people, though you haven’t the least idea where it comes from or what it is. Dominated by such madness, I had treated Madame absolutely outrageously. I had jeered at her parents, and drawn attention to the ridiculous lie she was living. I had treated her worse than anybody would dare treat a whore, and had said the filthiest things about her husband … It frightens me to think about it, and it makes me ashamed as well … These sudden outbursts of shamelessness, this intoxication with filth, that sometimes drives me almost to the point of murder, and makes me feel that I’m going out of my mind … What stopped me strangling her, killing her, I simply don’t know … Yet, God knows, I’m not a bad woman. Now, later, when I think about that poor creature and remember the wretched, muddled kind of life she was leading with that miserable weakling of a husband, I feel immensely sorry for her … I only hope she had the strength of mind to leave him, and that now she has found some kind of happiness …

  Immediately after that terrible scene I went downstairs to the pantry, where I found William, lazily polishing the silver and smoking a Russian cigarette.

  ‘What’s up with you then?’ he asked me, as calm as you like.

  ‘I’ve got to leave … I’m giving up the job this evening,’ I panted, scarcely able to speak.

  ‘You don’t say! … What on earth do you want to leave for?’ said William without the slightest trace of emotion.

  I described the scene with Madame in short, breathless sentences, trying to imitate the way she spoke, but William remained completely indifferent. He merely shrugged his shoulders and said:

  ‘But this is absolutely ridiculous … No one can be as stupid as that.’

  ‘Is that all you can find to say to me?’

  ‘And what else do you expect me to say? I tell you, it’s silly, and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘And what about you? What are you going to do?’

  He glanced at me from under his eyebrows, and there was a mean sneer on his lips. Oh how ugly he looked now that I was in trouble! What a hideous, cowardly expression he had!

  ‘Me?’ he said, pretending not to understand that my question was an appeal to him.

  ‘Yes, you … I asked you what you’re going to do …’

  ‘Nothing … there’s nothing I can do … I shall just go on as I am … But you’re mad, my girl. You should never have done it!’

  I burst out: ‘So you’re prepared to stay on with these people when they’ve given me the sack?’

  He got up, relit his cigarette which had gone out, and said coldly:

  ‘Oh, we won’t have any scenes, if you don’t mind! I’m not your husband you know … If you’ve chosen to make a fool of yourself, that’s your look out. It’s not my fault … What d’you expect? You’ll just have to put up with the consequences … That’s life!’

  ‘So you’re going to let me down?’ I said indignantly. ‘Then you’re a miserable swine, like all the rest of them … Do you hear? … A miserable swine!’

  William merely smiled in his superior manner.

  ‘Don’t start talking a lot of nonsense … When you and I got together, I never made any promises and nor did you . .. We just happened to meet, and we just fell for each other … Very good. Now you’ve got to go, so we break it off … and that’s all right, too. That’s life.’

  And he added, sententiously: ‘You see, Célestine, in real life, you have to learn to behave … You need what I call organization. You don’t know how to behave, you can’t organize … You let yourself be carried away by your feelings, and in our job we can’t afford feelings … Just you remember what I’ve told you … That’s life.’

  I could have thrown myself on him and scratched his face with my nails—his unfeeling, cowardly, flunkey’s face —if a sudden burst of tears had not brought relief to my exhausted nerves. My anger disappeared, and I implored him:

  ‘Oh, William, William, my dear little William, if only you knew how miserable I feel!’

  He made some attempt to restore my morale, and, I must say, he employed all his powers of persuasion and philosophy. For the rest of that day he overwhelmed me with noble thoughts and grave, consoling aphorisms, in which the same alternatively irritating and soothing phrase continually recurred … ‘But that’s life …’ />
  I must, however, do him justice. That last day he was charming, though rather pompous, and he did things handsomely. In the evening, when we had had dinner, he loaded my trunks on to a cab and took me to a lodging house that he knew, where he paid a week in advance for me and told them they must look after me properly. I wanted him to spend the night with me, but he had an appointment with Edgar.

  ‘I can’t very well let him down, you know … And now I come to think of it, perhaps he may know of a situation for you … If Edgar was to find you a place, that would be marvellous.’

  As he was leaving, he said:

  ‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow. So be a good girl, and don’t get up to any more of your nonsense … That get’s you nowhere … The one thing you have got to get into your head, Célestine, is that life’s like that …’

  The next day I waited for him in vain. He never came. ‘I suppose,’ I said to myself, ‘that’s life.’

  The following day, however, as I was still anxious to see him, I went back to the house. There was no one in the kitchen, except a tall, fair-haired girl, extremely cheeky and a bit wild, and prettier than me.

  ‘Isn’t Eugenie about?’ I asked.

  ‘No, she’s gone out,’ the tall girl replied drily.

  ‘And William?’

  ‘He’s not in, either.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘I want to see him … Go and tell him I’m here.’

  The tall girl looked at me disdainfully:

  ‘What’s that? … I’m not paid to wait on you, you know.’

  The position was only too obvious … And as I was tired of struggling, I took myself off … ‘That’s life …’

  I couldn’t get the phrase out of my head. It went on and on, like the words of some popular song. As I turned away, I couldn’t help remembering how gaily I had first been made welcome in that house … The same scene must have taken place all over again … the uncorking of the champagne … William taking the fair girl on his knee, whispering in her ear: ‘You must always be nice to Bibi …’ all the same words, the same gestures, the same caresses … and Eugenie gazing adoringly at the porter’s son and taking him off into the next room …