The Diary of a Chambermaid
Page 37
‘There’s bad news … Everyone’s talking of war with England.’
‘Oh my God,’ I exclaimed, ‘what if they bombard Cherbourg?’
‘No, no, they’ll never do that,’ said Joseph. ‘But I’ve been thinking … I’ve got an idea, a marvellous idea.’
I felt sure he had thought up something really monstrous, and couldn’t help trembling. But all he said was:
‘The more I look at you, the more it strikes me you don’t look like a woman from Brittany … No, you’re not a real Breton … You’re more like an Alsatian … Now, an Alsatian woman behind the bar, that would be something to look at!’
I felt completely let down … I was expecting him to propose something really terrible, and the idea that I was to be involved in some daring enterprise flattered my vanity … Whenever I saw him looking thoughtful, my imagination always flared up immediately and I began dreaming of nocturnal expeditions, burglaries, drawn knives, people gasping out their last breath in the forest … And, after all that, here he was just thinking about a new kind of advertisement, a trivial, vulgar advertisement.
Hands in pocket, swaggering about in his blue beret, he went on:
‘Don’t you realize? … If there’s a war, just think what a fine patriotic effect it would have … a pretty, smartly turned out Alsatian girl behind the bar … There’s nothing like patriotism for getting people tight … Isn’t it a splendid idea? I could get your picture in the papers … Maybe on the hoardings …’
‘I prefer to remain a lady,’ I replied rather drily.
Whereupon we began arguing, and for the first time we both lost our tempers.
‘You didn’t put on such airs when you were sleeping around with every Tom, Dick and Harry,’ cried Joseph.
‘And what about you? Why, when you … But there, let’s drop it, or I shall be saying too much …’
‘Whore!’
‘Thief!’
At that moment a customer came in … We immediately changed the subject, and that night we kissed and made up …
I’m going to have a lovely Alsatian costume made … all silk and velvet. When it comes to the point, I can’t deny Joseph anything. I may occasionally rebel, but I belong to him, he possesses me like a demon. And I’m happy to belong to him … I know that I shall always do whatever he wants me to, always go as far as he tells me to … even if it means committing a crime!
Copyright
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Publishing History
First published in France in 1900
First published in England in 1966
First published by Dedalus in 1991, reprinted in 2001
First ebook edition in 2012
Translation copyright © Grafton Publishers 1966
Printed in Finland by Bookwell
Typeset by Refine Catch
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