For more than an hour I walked up and down outside the house, hoping to see William, either coming in or going out … And all the time the ridiculous little phrase kept running through my head … I saw the grocer’s boy go in, and the little dressmaker, with two big cardboard boxes, and the delivery man from the Louvre; and I saw the plumbers coming out, and all sorts of other people … ghosts, ghosts, ghosts … I was afraid to visit the porter’s lodge next door, in case she should be unpleasant to me. And, besides, what could she have told me? At last I decided to give up, and went away pursued by the irritating refrain: ‘That’s life.’
The streets seemed unbearably sad. The passers-by were like creatures from another world. When, in the distance, I caught sight of a man’s hat, shining like a beacon in the night, my heart suddenly leapt … But it was not William … In the heavy, leaden-coloured sky there was no gleam of hope.
I got back to my room, disgusted with everything … Oh men, men, men! They’re all the same … coachmen, footmen, toffs, parsons, poets … Nothing but a lot of swine!
Well, that’s the last of my memories I mean to write about. Not that I haven’t got plenty of others … I have. But they’re all so much alike, and I’m tired of continually describing the same events, the same monotonous succession of faces, hearts, phantoms. Besides, I am distracted from the ashes of the past by my preoccupation with the future … I could have told a good deal more about the time I was with the Countess Fardin … But what’s the use? I’m sick and tired of it all … It was there, that, for the first time I encountered the type of vanity that most disgusts me, literary vanity, and the lowest of all forms of stupidity, political stupidity …
It was there that I met Monsieur Paul Bourget, at the height of his fame—need I say more? … He is precisely the kind of philosophizing, poeticizing, moralizing writer that suits the pretentious nullity, the intellectual snobbery, the fundamental untruth of that social stratum for whom everything is artificial: elegance, love, cooking, religious feeling, patriotism, art, charity … yes, even vice itself, which, on the pretext of literature and good manners, decks itself out in tawdry mysticism and hides behind a mask of sanctity … A world in which there is but one genuine desire … the ruthless desire for money, a desire that adds an odious and savage quality to the absurdity of these puppets, and is the one indication that the pathetic phantoms are living human beings.
It was there, too, that I met Monsieur Jean, another psychologist and moralist: the psychologist of the pantry, the moralist of the backstairs, and, in his own way, scarcely more of an upstart and a simpleton that the one that rules the roost upstairs in the drawing-room. Monsieur Jean empties people’s chamber-pots, Monsieur Bourget their souls … In terms of servility, there is not so much difference between the kitchen and the drawing-room as is sometimes supposed! … But, since I have put Monsieur Jean’s photograph away at the bottom of my trunk, I may as well let the memory of him remain buried at the bottom of my heart, beneath a thick layer of oblivion …
It is two o’clock in the morning … The fire has gone out, the lamp is beginning to gutter, and I have no more wood or paraffin. I am going to bed … But my brain is too feverish to let me sleep. I shall dream of what is advancing to meet me, of what will happen tomorrow … Outside, the night is silent and tranquil. The earth lies frozen hard, beneath a sky glittering with stars. And, somewhere within that night, Joseph is on his way home … Through the darkness I can see him, yes, really see him, sitting in a third-class carriage, grave, thoughtful, huge. He is smiling at me, drawing closer to me, bringing me at last peace, freedom, happiness … Will it really be happiness? Tomorrow I shall know.
It is eight months since I last wrote anything in this diary, I have had so many other things to think about; and exactly three since Joseph and I left the Priory and settled at Cherbourg, in the little café near the harbour. We are married; business is good; I like the work; and I am happy. Born by the sea, now I have returned to it, and though I used not to miss it, I am glad to be back there all the same. Here, it is not like the desolate country at Audierne, the infinite sadness of the cliffs, the terrible splendour of those sombre, roaring beaches. There is nothing sad about Cherbourg, on the contrary, everything is full of gaiety … all the cheerful din of a military town, all the picturesque bustle and motley activity of a naval port. All around you are people making love, indulging in wild riotous sprees … crowds intent upon pleasure, between two spells of exile … an absorbing, ever-changing spectacle, and the smell of tar and seaweed that I have known and loved since childhood, though in those days, I must say, I never found it particularly sweet. Once again I meet lads from home, serving in the navy … not that we have much to say to each other, and I have never dreamt of asking them for news of my brother … That’s all so long ago. For me, it’s as though he were dead. Good morning … Good evening … How are you? … When they aren’t drunk they’re too stupid, and when they aren’t stupid, they’re too drunk … And they all look the same … heads like old fishes … and no more feeling for me than I for them. Besides, Joseph doesn’t like me being too familiar with ordinary sailors … lousy Bretons, who haven’t a penny to bless themselves with and get tight on cheap spirits.
But I must briefly describe what happened before we left the Priory. As you will remember, Joseph used to sleep in the stables, in a room over the saddle room; and every day, summer and winter, he used to be up at five o’clock in the morning. Well, on Christmas Eve, exactly a month after he got back from Cherbourg, the first thing he saw was that the kitchen door was wide open … ‘What?’ he thought. ‘Surely they aren’t up already? …’
Then he noticed that a square hole had been cut in the glazed panel of the door, near the lock, large enough for a man to get his arm through. The lock had been expertly forced, and a few bits of wood, tiny pieces of twisted iron and splinters of glass were scattered about on the ground … Inside, all the doors, so carefully bolted every evening under Madame’s personal supervision, were also open. It was obvious that something terrible had happened … By this time, feeling very worried—I am repeating exactly what Joseph told the examining magistrate—he hurried through the kitchen into the passage, which leads to the apple room, bathroom and hall on the right, and, on the left, to the pantry, dining-room, morning-room and, at the far end, the drawing-room. The dining-room was in a shocking state—furniture overturned, the sideboard ransacked from top to bottom, all its drawers, as well as those of the two dumb-waiters, emptied on to the floor, and, on the table, in the middle of a jumble of empty boxes and objects of no value, a candle, still burning in a copper candlestick. But it was when he got to the pantry that he realized how serious the situation was. There, as I think I mentioned earlier, there was a deep cupboard, fastened by a very complicated lock, the combination of which was only known to Madame. It was here that the famous silver was kept, in three heavy cases, protected by steel bands and corner-pieces, which were bolted to the bottom of the cupboard and secured to the walls by solid iron brackets. Well, these three cases had been wrenched from their mysterious and inviolable tabernacle, and were standing in the middle of the room, empty. Directly he saw this, Joseph raised the alarm, running to the bottom of the staircase and yelling with all the strength of his lungs:
‘Sir! Madame! Come on down, quick … We’ve been robbed, we’ve been robbed!’
There was an immediate rush, a terrifying avalanche of people. Madame in her nightdress, with only a light shawl round her shoulders; the master still trying to tuck the ends of his shirt into his trousers … and both of them, pale, dishevelled, with an expression of bewilderment on their faces as though they had been woken up in the middle of a nightmare, were shouting:
‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’
‘We’ve been robbed, we’ve been robbed!’
‘What’s been stolen? What’s been stolen?’
In the dining-room, Madame started wailing, ‘Oh my God, my God!’ While the master k
ept on bawling ‘What’s been stolen? What’s been stolen?’
Joseph led them to the pantry, and there, at the sight of the three open cases, Madame threw her arms in the air and shrieked:
‘It’s my silver! Oh my God! Is it possible? My silver!’
And, taking out the empty compartments, turning the cases upside down, bewildered, horrified, she sank to the ground … It was all she could do to mutter in a childish voice:
‘They’ve taken the lot! Everything, everything, everything —even the Louis Sieze cruet!’
She continued staring at the cases, as though she were gazing at her dead child, while the master, scratching the back of his neck and rolling haggard eyes, could only moan, in the obstinate, faraway voice of someone going out of his mind:
‘Well, I’ll be damned … Well, I’ll be damned!’
Not to be outdone, Joseph stood there with a ghastly expression on his face, yelling:
‘The Louis Seize cruet! The Louis Seize cruet … Oh, the bandits!’
Then, suddenly, there was a tragic silence, a long moment of prostration, like the protracted deathlike silence, enveloping things and people alike, that succeeds the crash of a great earthquake, or the thunder of a mighty cataclysm … And the swaying lantern that Joseph was carrying lit up the whole scene, the deathly faces and the empty cases, with its trembling, sinister red beams.
I had come downstairs at the same time as Madame, when the alarm was first raised. Despite the highly comical spectacle they presented, my first reaction was one of compassion. I felt that I, too, was involved in this disaster, and I, too, shared their grief, like one of the family. So upset was I by the sight of Madame’s utter collapse, that I wanted to console her … But it was not long before this fellow feeling —or was it just instinctive servility?—was dissipated.
The very violence of the crime had something impressive about it, a quality of almost religious retribution which, while it certainly scared me, also left me with a feeling of admiration that I find it hard to explain. No, it was not exactly admiration, for admiration is a moral feeling, it produces a sense of spiritual exultation, whereas what I felt only affected me physically … It was a savage shock, experienced by my whole body, distressing, yet at the same time delightful, painful yet rapturous, a kind of sexual violation … It is a curious thing, probably quite personal, and perhaps horrible—and I don’t pretend to understand what causes such strange and powerful feelings—but, with me, any crime, especially murder, is in some mysterious way closely related to love … Yes, that’s it … a splendid crime excites me in the same way as a fine specimen of a man.
I ought, perhaps, to add that this atrocious and powerful feeling of pleasure, which replaced my first instinctive, but quite inappropriate sense of compassion, was itself quickly transformed, by the thought that almost immediately struck me, into wild, mocking gaiety. ‘Here are these two creatures,’ I said to myself, ‘living like moles, like grubs … Willing prisoners, they have voluntarily shut themselves up in this inhospitable gaol, suppressing all the joy of life, everything that might be a source of happiness, as though it was superfluous, and denying themselves whatever might have excused their wealth, pardoned their human futility, as though it were mere filth. Too mean to spare a crumb from their table for the hungry, too heartless to give a thought to the sick, they have preferred to do without happiness, even for themselves. Why, then, should I feel pity for them? What has happened to them is simply what they deserve. By robbing them of some of their wealth, by stealing their buried treasure, the thieves have merely restored the balance … My one regret is that while they were about it, they didn’t strip these two evil creatures naked, leave them as destitute as the tramps who have so often begged in vain for bread, as the sick whom they have left to die by the roadside within a few yards of all this accursed wealth.’
This idea, that the Lanlaires might have been obliged to trail their lamentable rags and bleeding feet through all the misery of the gutter, begging their bread at the implacable doors of the rich, enchanted and delighted me. And my delight became all the more immediate, more intense, more filled with hatred, at the sight of Madame, slumped over her empty cases, deader than if she had really died, because she was conscious of being dead—for what death could conceivably be more horrible, for a creature who had never in her life loved anything, but had always assumed that money could buy everything, even the things without price, pleasure, charity, love … This shameful grief, this sordid dejection were my revenge for all the humiliations and brutality I had suffered, which she had inflicted upon me with every word she uttered, every look she gave me … And I delighted to the full in this savage revenge. I would have liked to shout aloud, ‘Well done, well done!’ But, above all, I would have liked to know these admirable, these sublime, thieves, that I might thank them in the name of all the beggars in the world, that I might embrace them as brothers. Oh, honest thieves, beloved figures of justice and of pity, what a succession of powerful and delicious sensations you have enabled me to experience!
It was not long, however, before Madame succeeded in pulling herself together … Her violently aggressive nature soon reasserted itself …
‘What on earth d’you think you’re doing?’ she said to Monsieur Lanlaire, in an angry and supremely contemptuous tone of voice. ‘What are you waiting for? If only you could see what a fool you look, with that great puffy face and your shirt all over the place! Do you think that’s going to get us back our silver? Come on, wake up and get a move on! Try to realize what’s happened. Why don’t you call the police? They should have been here long ago … Oh my God, what a man!’
The master hung his head, and was about to leave the room, when she called him back.
‘How is it you never heard anything? The whole house is turned upside down, doors forced, locks broken, cases gutted, and yet you never heard a sound, you great, good-for-nothing blockhead.’
‘But neither did you, my love,’ he replied, summoning up all his courage.
‘Me? But that’s quite different … Really, you’re infuriating. For heaven’s sake, get out of my sight.’
And, as her husband went upstairs to get dressed, she turned her anger against us.
‘And what about you? What’s the good of staring at me like that, you boobies? I suppose it’s all the same to you whether your employers are robbed or not? Do you mean to tell me you heard nothing, either? Oh, it’s marvellous to have such servants … All you ever think of is eating and sleeping, you lazy brutes!’
Then, turning to Joseph and addressing him directly, she said:
‘Why didn’t the dogs bark? Tell me … why?’
Her question seemed to disconcert him, but only for the flash of a second. Quickly recovering, he replied in the most natural tone of voice:
‘I don’t rightly know, ma’am, but it’s quite right … the dogs ought to have barked. It’s funny they didn’t, and that’s a fact!’
‘Did you let them off the chain?’
‘Certainly I did, like I do every evening … But it’s a funny thing they didn’t bark … Makes you think. The thieves must have got to know the place, and the dogs …’
‘All the same, Joseph, how comes it that you didn’t hear anything? You’re usually so careful … so sensible.’
‘True enough, I never heard a sound … And there’s another thing that makes it seem as though there was some funny business … I’m not a heavy sleeper … As a rule I hear if a cat runs across the garden … No, it’s certainly not natural, especially those damned dogs … But there it it, there it is!’
But Madame cut him short:
‘That’ll do … You’re a pack of fools, the whole lot of you … But where’s Marianne? What’s happened to her? Why isn’t she here? … I suppose she’s still sleeping like a log.’
And leaving the pantry, she went to the foot of the staircase and started calling: ‘Marianne, Marianne!’
I looked at Joseph. He was still staring at the
empty cases with a grave, intent expression on his face. But there was a mysterious look in his eyes …
I shall not attempt to describe that day in detail, with all its fantastic goings on. The District Attorney, summoned by special messenger, arrived in the afternoon and began his enquiry. Joseph, Marianne and I were interrogated in turn, the first two more or less formally, I, with an insistent hostility that I found most disagreeable. They went up to my room, and searched through all my drawers and trunks. All my correspondence was minutely examined, but, by the greatest piece of luck, my diary escaped their attention, for a few days previously I had sent it to Cléclé, who had written to me most affectionately. Otherwise, the examining magistrate might have found sufficient evidence to charge Joseph, or at least, to suspect him … Even now it makes me shudder to think of it … Needless to say, they also carried out a thorough search of the garden paths, flowerbeds, walls, gaps in the hedge and the little courtyard leading to the alleyway, hoping to find footprints … But the ground was so dry and hard that they failed to discover the slightest clue. Gateway, walls, gaps in the hedge, they all jealously kept their secret. As had happened with the affair of the rape, the entire neighbourhood flocked to the scene, demanding to give evidence. Someone had seen a fair-haired man that he ‘didn’t at all fancy’; someone else a dark man who ‘looked funny’. In short, the enquiry led nowhere. There was not even a suspect …
‘We shall just have to wait,’ the District Attorney declared mysteriously as he was leaving. ‘Perhaps the Paris police will be able to put us on their trail.’
The Diary of a Chambermaid Page 35