Anyway, here I am in Normandy, at Mesnil-Roy. The house, which is not far from the village, is called The Priory. And that’s about all I know of my future home.
Now that I find myself, as a result of a sudden impulse, living here at the back of beyond, I cannot help feeling both anxiety and regret. What I’ve seen of it frightens me a bit, and I wonder what is going to become of me. Nothing good, you may be sure; and, as usual, plenty of worries. Worry, that’s the one perquisite we can always count on. For every one of us who is successful, that is to say marries a decent chap or manages to get herself an old one, how many of us are destined to misfortune, to be swept away into the whirlpool of misery? In any case, I had no choice; and this is better than nothing.
It isn’t the first time I’ve taken a place in the country. Four years ago I had one, though not for long … and in quite exceptional circumstances. I can remember it as though it were yesterday. The details of what happened may be rather sordid, even horrible, but I am going to describe them. And here I may as well warn anybody who thinks of reading this diary that, in writing it, I don’t intend to hold anything back, either as regards myself or other people. On the contrary, I mean to put into it all the frankness that is in my nature and, where necessary, all the brutality that exists in life. It is not my fault if, when one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people’s souls give off such a pungent smell of decay.
This is what happened then:
I had been engaged at a registry office, by a kind of housekeeper, as chambermaid for a certain Monsieur Rabour who lived in Touraine. Having come to terms, it was agreed that I should take the train at a certain time on a certain day for a certain station; and this was done as arranged. Having given up my ticket at the barrier, outside the station I found a coachman of sorts, a man with a red, loutish face, who asked me if I was M. Rabour’s new chambermaid.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Have you got a trunk?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Then give me the ticket for it and wait for me here.’
He went on to the platform where the porters treated him with considerable respect, addressing him in a friendly way as ‘Monsieur Louis’. He found my trunk amongst a pile of baggage and got one of the porters to put it into the dogcart which was standing in the station yard.
‘Aren’t you going to get up then?’
I took my place beside him on the driving seat, and we set off. The coachman began looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and I did the same. I could see straight away that he was nothing but a country bumpkin, little better than a peasant; a fellow without the slightest style, who had certainly never seen service in a decent establishment. This was a bore for I love fine liveries—there’s nothing I find more exciting than a pair of well-shaped thighs in close-fitting, white breeches. But this Louis just didn’t know what elegance means. He had no driving gloves, and was wearing a suit of grey-blue serge, much too big for him, with a flat patent leather cap decorated with gold braid. Really, they’re all behind the times in this part of the world. To crown everything he had a scowling brutal expression, though maybe he was not such a bad chap at heart. I know the type. When there’s a new maid they start by showing off, but later on things get fixed up between them—often a good deal better fixed than they intended.
For a long time neither of us said a word. He was pretending to be a real coachman, holding the reins high in the air and flourishing his whip. Oh, he was a scream! As for me, I just sat there in a dignified way looking at the countryside, though there was nothing very special about it—fields, trees, houses, like anywhere else. When we came to a hill, he pulled up the horse to a walk and, with a mocking smile, suddenly asked me: ‘Well, I suppose you’ve brought a good supply of boots with you!’
‘Naturally,’ I replied, surprised by such a pointless question, and even more by the curious tone of his voice.
‘Why should you want to know? It’s rather a stupid question to ask, my man, isn’t it?’
He nudged me lightly in the ribs and, running his eyes over me with a strange expression on his face, a mixture of acute irony and jovial obscenity that puzzled me, he said with a sneer: ‘Get along with you! As if you didn’t know what I was talking about, you blooming humbug, you!’
Then he clicked his tongue and the horse broke into a trot once more. I was intrigued. What could all this mean? Maybe nothing at all. I decided the fellow must be a bit of a booby, who just didn’t know how to talk to a woman and thought this was a way of starting a conversation. However, I felt it best not to pursue the matter.
M. Rabour’s property was a fine big place, with a pretty house, painted light green and surrounded by huge flowerbeds, and a pinewood that scented the air with turpentine. I adore the country—though the funny thing is, it always makes me sad and sends me to sleep. I was more or less dopey by the time I reached the hall, where I found the housekeeper waiting for me. It was the woman who had engaged me at the registry office in Paris, after God alone knows how many indiscreet enquiries as to my intimate habits and tastes, which ought to have been enough to put me on my guard. But it is no use. Though every time you have to put up with some fresh imposition, you never learn from it. I hadn’t taken to the housekeeper when I first met her; here I felt an immediate dislike for her, for there was something about her that reminded me of an old bawd. She was a big woman, not tall, but with lots of puffy, yellowish fat. Her greying hair was done in plaits, and she had a huge, bulging bosom and soft, moist hands, transparent like gelatine. Her grey eyes had a spiteful expression, cold, deliberate and vicious, and she looked at you in a cruel, unemotional way, as though trying to strip you body and soul, that was enough to make you blush.
She took me into a small sitting-room, and almost immediately left me there, saying she would let Monsieur Rabour know that I had arrived, as he wanted to see me before I started work.
‘The master hasn’t seen you yet,’ she added. ‘It’s true I engaged you, but unless the master takes to you …’
I inspected the room. It was kept extremely clean and tidy. Brasses, furniture, floors, doors, were all scrubbed, waxed, polished till they shone like glass. Nothing trashy, no heavy embroidered curtains and hangings like one sees in some Paris houses, but a general air of wealth and solid comfort, of the regular, tranquil, well-to-do life they lived in the country. Crikey! How unutterably boring such an existence must be!
Monsieur Rabour came into the room, such an odd creature I could scarcely help laughing. Just imagine a little old man dressed up to the nines, freshly shaven and with pink cheeks like a doll’s, very upright, very much alive, very attractive even, and skipping about like a grasshopper. He bowed to me and, with the greatest politeness, asked: ‘What is your name, my dear?’
‘Célestine, sir.’
‘Célestine?’ he repeated. ‘Célestine? Bless me! A pretty name and no mistake … But too long, my child, much too long. If you have no objection I shall call you Marie. That’s also a very nice name, and shorter. Besides, I always call the maids who work here Marie. It’s become a habit that I should hate to give up. I would rather find somebody else.’
They’ve all got this strange mania of never calling you by your own name. So I was not really surprised, having in my time been called after every saint in the calendar. He went on:
‘You don’t mind if I call you Marie? That’s agreed?’
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘Pretty girl … and good character. Excellent, excellent.’
He said all this in a spritely, extremely respectful way, and without putting me out of countenance by staring at me as though he were trying to see through my blouse and skirt as men usually do. Indeed, he had scarcely been looking at me. Since the moment he came into the room his eyes had remained obstinately fixed on my boots.
‘Have you any others?’ he asked after a short silence during which it seemed to me that his eyes had become strangely brilliant.
‘Other name
s, sir?’
‘No, my dear, boots,’ and he kept licking his lips with the tip of his pointed tongue in the way cats do.
I did not answer immediately. I was amazed by this reference to boots, which reminded me of what that rascally coachman had said to me. What was behind it? After M. Rabour had put the question again I managed to reply, but I was flustered and my voice sounded hoarse like it does when you have to confess to the priest that you have committed sins of the flesh.
‘Yes, sir, I have some others.’
‘Polished ones?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Properly polished?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Good, good. Have you a brown pair?’
‘No, sir.’
‘But you must have brown ones. I shall give you a pair.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Good, good. Not another word.’
I was frightened, for a troubled look had come into his eyes, which were bloodshot with excitement, and drops of sweat were running down his forehead. Thinking he was going to faint, I was on the point of calling for help, but the crisis passed over and after some minutes he managed to say in a quieter voice, though there were still traces of froth at the corners of his mouth:
‘It was nothing … it’s all over … You must understand, my dear … I am a bit of a crank. But at my age that’s not extraordinary, is it? For one thing, you see, I don’t think it’s right for women to have to clean boots, especially not mine. I have a great respect for women, Marie, and I won’t allow it. So I shall clean yours … your dear, sweet little boots. I shall look after them. Now, listen carefully. At night, before you go to bed, you will bring your boots to my room and put them on the little table beside my bed, and in the morning, when you come to draw the curtains, you will take them away again.’
And as I appeared utterly amazed, he added:
‘Come now, that’s not such a tremendous thing to ask, is it? After all, it’s quite natural, and if you’re very good …’ He quickly took a couple of louis from his pocket and handed them to me.
‘If you’re really nice, really obedient, I shall often give you such little presents. The housekeeper will pay you your wages each month. But I shall often give you little presents, ‘Marie … just between you and me. And what do I expect in return? Come now, it’s nothing so extraordinary. Is it really so extraordinary, my God?’
He was getting worked up again, and all the time he was speaking his eyelids kept fluttering like leaves in a gale.
‘Why don’t you say anything Marie? Speak to me … Don’t just stand there—walk about a little so that I can see your little boots moving, coming to life …’ He suddenly knelt down, kissed my boots, stroked them feverishly with his finger-tips, and began to unlace them. Then, still kissing and caressing them, he said in a plaintive voice like a child about to burst into tears:
‘Oh, Marie, Marie, your little boots. Let me take them at once, at once. I want them now, straight away. Give me them!’
I felt completely powerless, stupified with amazement scarcely knowing whether I was really alive or simply dreaming. All I could see of Monsieur Rabour’s eyes were two little white globes, streaked with red, and his whole mouth was covered with a kind of white froth. In the end he took my boots off to his bedroom, where he shut himself up for the next couple of hours.
‘The master is very pleased with you,’ said the housekeeper, as she showed me over the house. ‘You must try to keep things that way. You’ll find you have a good place here.’
Four days later, when I went to his room at the usual time to draw the curtains, I almost fainted with horror. Monsieur Rabour was dead. He was lying on his back in the middle of the bed, his body almost completely naked, and one could sense immediately the stiffness of a corpse. The bedclothes were scarcely disturbed. There was no sign of a struggle, not the slightest trace of a convulsive death agony, of clenched hands straining to fight off death. Except for the hideous colour of his face, the sinister purple of aubergines, you would have thought he was asleep. But a ghastly sight, worse even than his face, made me tremble with fear. Clenched between his teeth was one of my boots, so firmly gripped that, having tried in vain to prise it loose, I was obliged to cut away the leather with a razor.
Now I don’t profess to be a saint. I have known plenty of men and experienced at first-hand all the crazy and filthy things they are capable of. But men like this! No, really, such types shouldn’t be allowed to exist. What on earth makes them want to think up such horrible things, when it’s so nice, so simple to make love properly like everyone else?
I feel pretty sure that nothing of this kind is going to happen to me here. They are obviously quite a different sort of people. Though whether they will turn out to be any better remains to be seen.
One thing does really worry me, however. Perhaps I should have chucked up this beastly job for good … taken the plunge and swapped a skivvy’s life for a tart’s, like so many of the girls I have known; girls who have ‘fewer advantages’ than me, even if I do say it myself. Though I am not what you’d call pretty, I have got something better than that: an appeal, a style, that plenty of society women and plenty of tarts have often envied me. A bit on the tall side, perhaps, but slim and well-made, with lovely fair hair and fine, deep blue eyes, saucy and enticing, and a bold mouth—and on top of that a sort of originality, a turn of mind at once lively and languorous, that men like. I could have been a success. But, apart from the fact that through my own fault I have missed some stunning opportunities that probably won’t occur again, I’ve always been afraid; afraid, because you never know how things are going to turn out. I’ve come across so much wretchedness amongst such women … listened to such heartbreaking confidences! All those tragic visits to the hospital, that no one can hope to escape for ever. And, in the end, the sheer hell of St Lazare. The very thought of it is enough to give you the shivers. Besides, who knows whether I should have had as much success as a tart as I’ve had as a chambermaid? We have a special kind of attraction for men, that does not depend merely upon ourselves, however pretty we may be. It’s partly a question, I realize, of the surroundings we live in—of the background of luxury and depravity, of our mistresses and the desire that they arouse. When men fall for us, it is partly our mistresses, and even more their mystery, that they are in love with.
And there’s another thing. In spite of the free and easy life I have led, I have always fortunately had a very sincere religious feeling, that has saved me from going too far, held me back from the brink of the abyss. Oh, if it weren’t for religion, for being able to go and pray in church on those dreary evenings when you feel morally down and out, if it weren’t for the Blessed Virgin and St Anthony of Padua and all the rest of them, life would certainly be a great deal more miserable, that’s certain. Without them, the devil alone knows what would become of you, or how far you would let yourself go.
Besides, and this is more serious, I haven’t the slightest defence against men. I should always be sacrificing myself to my own open-heartedness and their pleasure. I am altogether too pleasure-loving … Yes, I enjoy making love too much to be able to make a living from it. I can’t help it, but I couldn’t ask a man for money when he had just given me such happiness, opened the radiant gates of ecstasy for me. They only have to begin talking to me, the monsters, and directly I feel the warmth of their breath and the pricking of their beard on the back of my neck, it’s no use. I just go as limp as a rag, and they can do what they like with me …
So, here I am, at The Priory … waiting for what? Heavens above, I haven’t the slightest idea. The most sensible thing would be not to think about it, but just wait and see what turns up. That way, perhaps, things work out best in the long run. Provided that tomorrow, at one word from the mistress and pursued by the pitiless bad luck that never leaves me, I don’t have to chuck up the job once again. That would be a pity. For some time now I’ve been getting pains in the back of my stomach, my w
hole body feels worn out. My digestion’s upset, and I’m losing my memory, and I’ve been getting more and more nervy and irritable. Just now, looking at myself in the glass, my face seemed to have a really fagged-out look and my complexion—the high complexion I’m so proud of—was as white as a sheet. Can it be that I’m getting old already? I don’t want that to happen. But in Paris it’s so difficult to look after oneself properly. There’s no time for anything. Life is too feverish, too hurried—one is always in contact with too many people, too many things, too much pleasure, too many surprises. Yet you have to keep going just the same. Here, everything is so peaceful … And the silence! The air you breathe ought to be healthy and do you good. Oh if only I could relax a little, even if it does mean being bored to tears.
But the fact is I don’t feel at all sure of myself. True, the mistress is quite nice to me. She was good enough to compliment me on my appearance, and to congratulate herself on the references she had received; though I don’t like to think what she’d say if she knew they were false, or at best, just an act of kindness. What surprised her most is that I am so elegant. Of course, to begin with, they’re nearly always pleasant to you, the bitches. The newer the better, as they say. But before long the atmosphere begins to change—and that’s another story we also know. Besides, she has cold, hard eyes that I don’t fancy at all … the eyes of a miser, and as suspicious as a policeman’s. I don’t like her lips, either: thin and dry and covered with a white film. Nor the sharp, cutting way she has of speaking, that makes even a friendly word sound almost insulting or humiliating. All the time she was cross-questioning me, enquiring about my aptitudes and my past life, she was watching me like an old custom’s officer, with that calm, sly impertinence they all have.
The Diary of a Chambermaid Page 2
