The Diary of a Chambermaid
Page 11
Nowadays, however, I have got used to it and habit, which reduces all things to proportion, has taught me a different, and I think a more sensible, reaction. When I see these faces, from which no amount of make-up, of toilet-water and powder can efface the ravages of the night, I just shrug my shoulders … But how they infuriate me, these respectable people, with their dignified airs and virtuous manners, their savage contempt for any wretched girl who happens to go wrong, and their everlasting nagging about our moral behaviour: ‘Célestine, don’t stare at men like that … Célestine, it is most improper, always gossiping in corners with the footman … Célestine, please understand that this house is not a brothel. As long as you’re working for me and sharing my roof I simply will not allow …’
And so on and so forth.
Of course, none of this prevents the master, despite all his morality, pulling you on to a sofa or bed as soon as he gets the chance, and as often as not, in return for a fleeting moment of weakness, leaving you with a child on your hands. Then, of course, it’s up to you to do what you can if you can … And if you can’t, then you and the child can just starve, for all they care. It’s no concern of theirs.
When I worked in Lincoln Street, for example, it used to happen regularly every Friday—there couldn’t be the slightest mistake about that. Friday was Madame’s at home day, and swarms of women used to turn up, chattering, featherbrained, shameless creatures, plastered with makeup. A very posh crowd in short. And, of course, amongst themselves there would be plenty of filthy talk that used to excite the mistress. Then, in the evening, it was always the Opera and all that goes with that. Anyhow, whether it was this, that or the other that actually started it, what is quite certain is that every Friday night was the night. And what a night! You should have seen the dressing-room and bedroom next morning, furniture upside down, clothes strewn all over the place, and water from the wash-basins all over the floor. And the smell! Everywhere the powerful odour of human bodies mixed with perfume—though the perfume smelt delicious, I’ll admit. In the mistress’s dressing-room there used to be a huge mirror, from floor to ceiling. And, in front of it, you would find piles of cushions, all creased and battered, between tall silver candelabras covered with wax because the candles had been left to burn themselves out … Oh, they certainly liked their little gadgets, those two, God knows what they would have managed to think up if they hadn’t been married.
Which reminds me of our famous trip to Belgium, one year when we were going to Ostend. At Feignies, we had to go through the customs. It was at night, and the master was so sleepy that he stayed behind in the compartment. So Madame and I had to go to the hall where the baggage was being inspected.
‘Anything to declare?’ asked a huge customs officer, who, seeing that the mistress was so elegant, was delighted at the thought of all the pretty things he could handle … There really are some of these officials for whom the chance of rummaging through a pile of vests and knickers belonging to a good-looking woman is a physical pleasure, almost amounting to an act of possession.
‘No,’ Madame answered, ‘nothing to declare.’
‘Would you mind opening this suitcase?’
Out of the six cases we had with us, he had picked on the largest and heaviest, made of pigskin, with a grey cloth cover.
‘But I tell you, I have nothing to declare,’ Madame insisted irritably.
‘All the same, open it,’ the lout demanded, obviously incited by the mistress’s reluctance to carry out a more thorough examination.
The mistress—why, I can see her now!—took her key-ring from her handbag and opened the suitcase. With a hateful appearance of pleasure the customs officer inhaled the delicious scent that escaped from it, and immediately started fumbling through the exquisite underclothes and dresses with his dirty, clumsy paws. Madame was furious, and protested indignantly, especially when, with obvious malevolence, the brute began turning everything upside down, crumpling up the clothes that we had so carefully folded and packed.
Then, just as it seemed that he had finished his inspection, he produced from the bottom of the trunk a long red velvet case and demanded: ‘And this? What does this contain?’
‘My jewellery,’ Madame replied with complete assurance and not a trace of embarrassment.
‘Do you mind opening it?’
‘But what’s the point? I’ve told you, it only contains my personal jewellery.’
‘Open it.’
‘No I have no intention of doing so. You are abusing your authority, and I refuse to open it … Besides I haven’t got the key with me.’
By this time, however, Madame was beginning to show signs of extraordinary agitation. She attempted to snatch the disputed case from the inspector’s hands, but he drew back, and said in a threatening voice: ‘If you refuse, then I shall be obliged to call the chief inspector.’
‘But this is preposterous … utterly shameful.’
‘And if you can’t produce the key we shall just have to force it.’
In a tone of growing exasperation Madame shouted: ‘You have no right to do anything of the kind. I shall complain to our ambassador, to one of your ministers … I shall report the matter to the king who is a friend of ours . . I shall have you dismissed, do you understand? … You shall go to prison for this.’
Her angry words produced no effect, however, on the impassive customs house officer, who merely repeated with greater assurance: ‘Will you open the case?’
Madame had turned quite pale and was nervously twisting her hands.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I will not open it. I do not wish to, and in any case, I cannot.’
And for about the tenth time the stubborn official insisted: ‘Open the case.’
This argument had led to a general interruption of the work, and a small crowd of curious travellers had gathered round us. As for me, I was intensely interested by the sudden change that had transformed this little drama, and especially by the mysterious case, which I did not recognize, and indeed, had never previously seen, and which I was quite certain had been packed without my knowledge. Once again, Madame now brusquely changed her tactics, adopting a much gentler, one might almost say an endearing manner towards the incorruptible customs official. Drawing closer to him, as though hoping to hypnotize him with the scent of her perfume, she begged him in a low voice: ‘If you will just send all these people away I will open the case.’
The official, apparently thinking that Madame was trying to trap him, shook his obstinate, distrustful old head and said: ‘I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense, and don’t want any more of your eyewash. Open the case.’
And at last, blushing with confusion but resigned, Madame took a tiny key from her purse, a sweet little golden key, and trying to prevent the onlookers seeing what was in it, opened the red velvet case, which the customs officer held out to her, though still keeping a firm grip on it. Directly he saw what it contained, he leapt back with a gesture of dismay as though he were afraid of being bitten by a venomous snake.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ he swore. Then, controlling his amazement, he exclaimed cheerfully: ‘Why on earth couldn’t you have told me in the first place … If I’d known you were a widow!’
And he closed the case, but not before the sniggers and whispers of the crowd, their offensive and even indignant remarks had made it only too clear to Madame that her ‘jewels’ had been seen by everyone.
She was extremely embarrassed. Still, I must admit, she showed considerable pluck under very trying circumstances, though she always had had plenty of cheek … She helped me to repack the suitcase which was in a terrible mess, and we left the customs shed to a chorus of whistles and insulting laughter.
I accompanied her to the sleeper, carrying her bag into which she had thrust the famous case. When we reached the platform she stopped a moment, and with the coolest impertinence said to me:
‘Heavens, what a fool I was! I ought t6 have told him that it belonged to you.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ said Madame, though not in the least put out. ‘You are a little fool.’ And climbing into the coach, she rejoined her Coco, who had not the slightest idea of what had been going on.
Apart from this, Madame never had much luck. Whether because of her cheek or as a result of her disorderly way of life, this sort of thing was always happening to her. I could give a number of examples, most edifying ones … But you reach a point when the feeling of disgust is too powerful, and you get tired of endlessly wading through filth. Besides, I think I’ve already said enough about this household, which I regard as the perfect example of moral degradation. I will restrict myself to a couple more instances.
In one of her drawers, Madame used to hide a dozen or so little books, bound in yellow leather with gilt clasps, as pretty as a young girl’s prayer-book. Sometimes, on Saturday mornings, she would leave one of these by mistake on the table by her bed, or amongst the pile of cushions in the dressing room. They were full of the most extraordinary illustrations. And though I’m not exactly an innocent, I must say that only a whore would have found such absolute horrors amusing. Just to think of them makes me go hot all over. Women with women, men with men, the sexes all mixed up in crazy embraces and exasperated rut … Naked bodies rearing, bending, straining, wallowing, in heaps, in clusters, in processions welded together by fantastic caresses and complicated embraces … Mouths clinging to breasts and bellies like the suckers of an octopus, a whole landscape of thighs and legs, knotted and twisted like the trees of a jungle … Oh no, it was too much!
One day Matilda, the first housemaid, pinched one of them, imagining that Madame wouldn’t have the nerve to ask her about it; though in fact she did. After searching everywhere for it, ransacking her drawers in vain, she asked Matilda: ‘Did you happen to come across a book when you were doing the bedroom?’
‘What book, ma’am?’
‘A yellow one …’
‘Do you mean a prayer-book ma’am?’ Then, looking the mistress straight in the eyes, though without disconcerting her in the slightest, she added:
‘Now I come to think of it, I did see a little yellow book with gilt clasps. It was on the table by your bed, ma’am.’
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know what you could have done with it, ma’am.’
‘You’re sure you didn’t take it?’
‘Me, ma’am?’ And with magnificent impertinence she went on: ‘Surely, ma’am, you don’t really imagine that I would read such books?’
Really, that Matilda was a scream … Madame simply didn’t know what to say next. And afterwards, every day while we were doing the linen, Matilda would say:
‘Attention please! We will now say mass.’
And she would pull out the little yellow book from her pocket and start reading from it, despite the protests from the English housekeeper, who would bleat: ‘Will you be quiet! You are very naughty girls.’ Though, nevertheless, she used to gaze longingly at the illustrations, her eyes magnified by her spectacles and her nose almost touching the page, as though she wanted to inhale its smell. What a time we used to have!
Oh, that English housekeeper! Never in my life have I met such a drunk, and so funny with it. Whenever she’d been drinking she used to become all tender, all amorous and passionate, especially towards women. The vices that she managed to conceal when she was sober beneath a mask of comical austerity were then revealed in all their grotesque beauty. But they were more cerebral than physical, and I never heard of her actually practising them. As the mistress used to put it, ‘Miss was content to “practise” upon herself …’ Indeed, without her, the collection of crackbrained, dissipated humanity that distinguished this very modern household would have been incomplete.
One night I was on duty waiting up for the mistress. Everyone else in the house was asleep, and I was all on my own in the living-room, trying to keep awake. Towards two o’clock in the morning Madame arrived home. As soon as the bell rang, I got up and went to her room, where I found her taking off her gloves, staring at the floor, and laughing fit to burst: ‘Look!’ she said, ‘Here’s Miss, completely drunk again.’ And she pointed to the housekeeper sprawled on the floor, her arms flung out, one leg in the air whimpering, sighing and muttering unintelligibly.
‘Come on. Get her up, and put her to bed.’
As she was very heavy and falling all over the place, Madame did her best to help me, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that we managed to get her on to her feet. Clinging to the mistress’s cloak with both hands, she said: ‘I don’t want to leave you … I don’t want to leave you, ever. I love you terribly … you’re beautiful … you’re my little baby …’
‘Miss,’ Madame replied, laughing, ‘you’re an old drunk. Get to bed with you!’
‘No, no, I want to sleep with you. You’re beautiful, I love you, I want to hold you in my arms.’
One hand still clutching Madame’s cloak, with the other she tried to stroke her breasts, at the same time thrusting out her withered old lips in moist, noisy kisses …
‘You pig, you pig … you’re a naughty little pig, I want to hold you in my arms, phew! …’
Eventually I managed to free the mistress from her embraces, and succeeded in dragging her off to her bedroom. But now it was my turn. Though she could hardly stand on her feet, she flung her arms round me and, much bolder than she’d been with Madame and much more precise in her movements, her hand began wandering all over my body. There was no mistaking what she was up to.
‘Come on now, pack it up, you dirty old bag!’
‘No, no, I want you, you’re beautiful, I love you, really. Stay with me … Phew! Phew!’
I don’t know how I should have managed to get away from her if, when we reached her bedroom, she had not been violently sick, with the result that her overwhelming passion was drowned in a flood of vomit.
Scenes like this Madame used to find very amusing, for her only real pleasure was the spectacle of vice, however disgusting.
On another occasion I surprised her in the middle of describing to a friend, in her dressing-room a visit she had paid the previous evening with her husband to a special kind of brothel, where she had watched two little dwarfs making love.
‘You really ought to see them, my dear … You can imagine nothing more entrancing!’
Those who only see humanity from the outside, and allow themselves to be dazzled by appearances, can have no idea of how filthy and corrupt the great world, ‘high society’, really is. It is no exaggeration to say that the main aim of its existence is to enjoy the filthiest kinds of amusement. I have had plenty of experience of the middle class, and of the nobility, and only very rarely have I seen love that was accompanied by any noble feeling or real tenderness, the kind of self-sacrifice and pity that alone make it something great and holy.
Just one word more about this particular employer. Apart from receptions and formal dinner parties, Coco and the mistress were on very intimate terms with a smart young couple with whom they used to go to theatres, concerts, private rooms and restaurants and even, it appears, brothels. The husband was very good-looking, effeminate and scarcely a hair on his face; the wife, a handsome red-head, with curiously ardent eyes and the most sensual mouth I have ever seen. No one ever knew just what these two creatures actually were. When the four of them were dining together, it seems that their conversation often became so preposterous, so filthy, that the butler, who was certainly not easily shocked, could have thrown the food in their faces. He had no doubt whatever that there were the most unnatural relationships between them, and that they used to indulge in orgies like those illustrated in Madame’s little yellow books. Such things may not be common, but they certainly happen all the same. And there are plenty of people who, though not driven to prac
tise such vices by their passions, nevertheless indulge in them out of snobbery … because it is the smart thing to do.
Whoever would have imagined that Madame was capable of such abominations? For amongst her guests were archbishops and the papal nuncio, and every week Le Gaulois used to pay tribute to her virtues, elegance and charity, describing her chic dinner parties and her fidelity to the purest Catholic traditions of France. All the same, despite all the vicious practices that went on there, it was an easygoing, happy household, and the mistress never worried her head about the morals of the staff.
This evening we stayed in the kitchen longer than usual. I was helping Marianne do her accounts, for she could never manage them by herself. I realize that, like everyone else in such confidential positions, she is always on the scrounge, fiddling whatever she can. Some of her tricks even amaze me, but they have to be concealed. For if, as sometimes happens, her figures don’t tally, Madame, who immediately spots any mistakes, is furious with her … Joseph is becoming a little more human with me. Now he even deigns to speak to me from time to time. This evening, for example, he did not as he usually does, go off to visit his dear friend, the verger. And while Marianne and I were busy with the books, he read his Libre Parole. It is his favourite paper, and he simply cannot believe that anybody could possibly read any other. I noticed that several times while he was reading he was observing me with a new expression in his eyes.
Having finished his paper, he insisted upon expounding his political opinions to me. He is fed up with the Republic, which he maintains is ruining and dishonouring him. He is all for the use of force.
‘Until we are prepared to draw the sword again, and let a little blood, we shall never get anywhere …’ he said.
He is in favour of religion because … well … anyhow, he’s all for it.
‘Until religion has been restored in France as it used to be, until everybody is obliged once again to go to confession and to mass, we shan’t get anywhere!’