‘Surely you might just as well stay at home? What need is there for you to be always going out?’
She even strolled in the garden with him for a good hour. Naturally the master is quite unaware of what’s going on; he eats and smokes as usual, and certainly doesn’t lose a moment’s sleep … What a blockhead the man is!
I have always been interested in what they find to say to each other, those two, when they are alone … Yesterday I was listening at the drawing-room door for over twenty minutes … I heard the master rumpling his paper, and Madame was sitting at her desk doing her accounts.
‘What was it I let you have yesterday?’ Madame asked.
‘Two francs …’
‘You’re quite certain?’
‘Of course, love …’
‘Well, I am thirty-eight sous short …’
‘I can assure you I haven’t taken them …’
‘Oh no, of course not. It must have been the cat!’
And that is all they had to say to each other.
Joseph doesn’t like us to talk about little Clara in the kitchen. If Marianne or I try to do so he immediately changes the subject, or else withdraws from the conversation. The whole business annoys him … I don’t know why, but the idea has occurred to me—and the more I think about it the more I am convinced—that it was Joseph who did it. I have no proof … and the only evidence in support of my suspicion is the look in his eyes and the slight gesture of surprise that escaped him, when, coming back from the grocer’s and finding him in the saddle room, I suddenly mentioned little Clara’s name, and told him about her having been murdered and raped . .. Yet this quite intuitive suspicion has increased, until it has become a possibility, almost a certainty. Of course, I may be quite wrong … I try to convince myself that Joseph really is a ‘treasure’. I keep telling myself that I often imagine the craziest things, and allow myself to be influenced by the romantic perversity that I know to be a part of myself … But it’s no use. In spite of myself, the impression persists. It doesn’t leave me for a moment, and it is rapidly taking on the hideous, nagging form of a fixed idea … I have an irresistible desire to ask him:
‘Tell me, Joseph, was it really you who raped little Clara in the wood? Was it you, you old swine?’
The crime was committed on a Saturday … I remember that at about the same time Joseph had been to collect some leaf mould from the Raillon woods. He was away all day, and only got back with his load late in the evening. This is what makes me certain. And by an extraordinary coincidence, I also remember there was a certain agitation in his behaviour, a more than usually worried look in his eyes, when he came in that evening. At the time I paid no particular attention. Why should I? Now, however, I can’t help recalling these details … But was it actually on the Saturday of the crime that he went to Raillon? … I’ve tried in vain to fix the exact date … Besides, did he really have the uneasy gestures, the guilty looks, that now seem to me to prove his guilt? Or can it be that I am desperately trying to convince myself that there was something strange and unusual about him, to insist, unreasonably and against all appearances, that it was Joseph, this ‘treasure’, who really did it? … It annoys me not to be able to reconstruct what actually took place in the forest, though at the same time it strengthens my convictions … If only the inquest had revealed that freshly made cart tracks had been found in the dead leaves and undergrowth near the corpse … But no … it revealed nothing of the kind … merely that a little girl had been raped and murdered. That was all … And yet it is precisely that this impresses me so deeply—the murderer’s cleverness in not leaving behind the slightest evidence of his crime, his diabolical invisibility. It is because of this that I feel, can actually see, the presence of Joseph.
After a short silence, completely on edge, I suddenly summoned up courage to ask outright:
‘Joseph, which day was it that you went to collect leaf mould in the forest? Do you remember?’
Quite unperturbed, Joseph slowly raised his eyes from the paper he was reading. Steeled against shocks, he said casually:
‘Why ever do you want to know?’
‘To find out …’
He looked at me with a heavy, penetrating expression in his eyes. Then, quite unaffectedly, like someone searching his memory in an effort to recall a forgotten fact, he answered:
‘I’m damned if I really remember … But I’m pretty sure it was a Saturday …’
‘The Saturday that little Clara’s body was found?’ I insisted, the urgency of my question giving an aggressive edge to my voice.
He continued to stare at me, and there was something so intense, so terrible in his gaze that, despite all my effrontery, I was forced to lower my eyes.
‘It’s quite possible,’ he said. ‘Why, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure it must have been that Saturday.’ And he added: ‘Oh, you damned women … haven’t you got anything better to think about? If only you read the papers you’d realize that some more Jews have just been killed at Algiers … that’s at least of some interest.’
Apart from the expression in his eyes, he was perfectly calm and at ease, almost good-humoured: he gestured freely and his voice was quite steady. Then he relapsed into silence and, picking up the paper he’d laid on the table, returned to his reading again as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
I continued to brood over my thoughts, trying to recall some indication of active ferocity in Joseph’s behaviour since I had been here … His hatred of the Jews, the way he is always threatening to torture them, kill them, burn them … But maybe that’s simply bragging … Anyway it’s only politics … What I was looking for was something more precise, something that would convince me I was not mistaken about his criminal temperament. Yet all I could discover were a few vague impressions mere hypotheses, which the desire, perhaps the fear, of obtaining irresistible proof, made more important and significant than they actually were … Desire or fear? Which of these two feelings is it that drives me on? I wish I knew.
But wait a minute … there is one thing, something quite horrible, and very revealing. It isn’t something I’ve invented … I’m not exaggerating, and I didn’t dream it … It happened like this. One of Joseph’s jobs is to kill the chickens, rabbits or ducks for the house. He kills the ducks by driving a pin into their heads, the old Norman way. If he wanted to he could quite easily just knock them on the head, so that they didn’t suffer. But he prefers to prolong their agony by refinements of torture. He enjoys feeling the quivering of their flesh and the beating of their hearts. He likes holding them in his hands, so that he doesn’t miss a single stage of their suffering … One day I happened to be there when he was killing a duck. He held it between his knees, one hand round its neck, while with the other he drove a pin into its skull, twisting and turning it with a slow, regular movement like grinding coffee. And as he did so, he said with savage delight:
‘You’ve got to make them suffer. The more they do, the better the flavour.’
The bird managed to free its wings, and began flapping them wildly. Although Joseph still had hold of it, its neck was writhing in a horrible spiral, and beneath its covering of feathers, the flesh kept twitching. Then Joseph threw it on the kitchen floor, and sitting with his elbows on his knees, his chin cupped in his hands, he watched, with an expression of ghastly satisfaction, the [convulsive twisting and turning of the wretched bird, as it wildly scratched at the floor with its yellow feet.
‘That’s enough Joseph!’ I exclaimed. ‘Put it out of its misery. It’s horrible making an animal suffer like that.’
But his only reply was:
‘It amuses me … I like watching it.’
When I think of this, when I recall all the sinister details and even the actual words he said, I feel an even more irresistible desire to yell at him:
‘It was you who raped little Clara … Yes, yes, now I am certain of it. It was you, you old swine.’
There’s no doubt about it, the man m
ust be an absolute swine. Yet this opinion I have reached as to his moral character, far from driving me away from him, far from creating a gulf of horror between us, has had the effect, I won’t say of making me fall in love with him, but at least of interesting me in him tremendously. It’s a funny thing, but I’ve always had a weakness for brutes like him. There’s something unforeseen about them that stimulates me … a particular kind of intoxicating odour, harsh and powerful, that excites me sexually. Yet however evil such brutes may be they are never evil in the way respectable people are. And what bores me about Joseph is his reputation for—and, indeed, unless you really know that look in his eyes, his appearance of—complete respectability. I should like him better if his brutality was frank and shameless. True, then he wouldn’t have this aura of mystery, this fascination of the unknown, that so moves and disturbs and attracts me—for I must admit, the old monster does attract me.
Now I am beginning to feel easier in my mind, for now I know, with a certainty that nothing can ever shake, that it was he who raped little Clara in the woods.
For some time now I have realized that I am making a considerable impression upon Joseph’s heart. His attitude towards me is no longer unfriendly. His silence isn’t either hostile or scornful, even when he bites my head off, he does it with a kind of tenderness. He no longer looks at me with hatred—did he ever, I wonder?—and though there is still something terrible in the way he stares at me, it is because he is trying to get to know me, because he wants to put me to the test. Like most peasants, he is extremely suspicious and is afraid of trusting people in case they let him down. He must have plenty of secrets, but he hides them jealously behind a savage, scowling mask, in the same way that people lock up their valuables in an iron box, bolted and barred. Yet, when he’s alone with me he’s no longer so suspicious. Indeed, in his own way he is charming to me, and does everything he can to please me and show his friendship. He takes on some of the heaviest and nastiest jobs I am responsible for, and he does this quite unpretentiously, without any ulterior motive, without asking for gratitude or claiming anything in return. As for me, I tidy up his room, mend his socks and trousers, patch his shirts and put his clothes away in the wardrobe—and I don’t mind admitting I take more trouble for him than for Madame.
Looking at me with a contented expression, he says:
‘That’s very nice of you, Célestine … You’re a good woman, a tidy woman. And I don’t mind telling you, tidiness is worth a fortune. And when a woman’s nice into the bargain and good-looking, what more could a man want?’
Until lately, we have only been able to talk in snatches. At night, in the kitchen with Marianne, conversation can only be quite general … There’s never any intimacy between us, and even when I do find him alone it’s almost impossible to get him to speak. He doesn’t like long discussions, probably for fear of compromising himself. A couple of words here, a couple of words there, sometimes friendly, sometimes churlish, and that’s all. But if he doesn’t say much, his eyes are certainly not silent. They are continually looking me up and down, enveloping me, peering into my innermost depths, as though they were trying to turn my soul upside down to find out what is underneath it.
Yesterday was the first time we have had a long conversation. It was in the evening. The Lanlaires were already in bed, and Marianne had gone up to her room earlier than usual. I did not feel like reading or writing, and was bored with being on my own. Still obsessed by the thought of little Clara, I went over to the stable where I found Joseph seated at a little table, sorting seeds by the dim light of a lantern. His friend the verger was also there, standing beside him with a pile of brightly covered pamphlets under his arm. With his huge round eyes under the deep arch of his eyebrows, his flattened skull, and yellowish, coarsely-grained skin, he looked just like a toad; and when he moved, he seemed to hop like a toad as well. The two dogs were asleep under the table, rolled up in a ball, with their heads hidden in their fur.
‘Oh, so it’s you, Célestine,’ said Joseph.
The verger tried to conceal the pamphlets, but Joseph reassured him:
‘You can say what you like in front of Célestine … She’s a sensible woman.’
Then, returning to their interrupted conversation, he went on: ‘So that’s understood then, old man? Bazoches … Courtain … Fleur-sur-Tille … and you’ll see they’re delivered tomorrow, during the daytime? Try to get some subscribers … But, above all, make sure you call at every house, even if they’re Republicans. Maybe they’ll try to kick you out, but don’t worry … just stick to your guns. If you manage to win over even one of the sods, that’s always something. And don’t forget, for every Republican you get a franc.’
The verger nodded his head by way of agreement. Then, having re-adjusted the pamphlets under his arm, he set off for home, accompanied as far as the gate by Joseph. When the latter returned he saw from my face that I was curious.
‘Oh,’ he said casually, ‘only a few songs and pictures and some anti-Semitic propaganda we are distributing. I’ve got an arrangement with the clerical gentry … I work for them. And why not? Of course, we have the same outlook … but I admit, they also pay well.’
He sat down again at the little table. The two dogs, having woken up and sniffed about the room, had now settled down again, further away.
‘Yes,’ he repeated, ‘the pay isn’t at all bad … These parsons, you know, have got plenty of money all right.’
And as though he were afraid he might have said too much, he added:
‘I’m only telling you this, Célestine, because you’re a good woman … a sensible woman … Because I trust you. But it’s strictly between you and me, you understand?’
After a silence, he said: ‘What a good idea of yours it was, to come here this evening … Real nice … very flattering.’
I had never known him so friendly and chatty. I leant across the table towards him and, stirring the seeds he had been sorting out with the tip of my finger, and said flirtatiously:
‘Well, as soon as we’d finished supper, you went off before we’d had time for a bit of a natter … Would you like me to help you sort your seeds?’
‘Thank you, Célestine, but it’s all done.’
He scratched his head and said, irritably:
‘Blast it, I ought to go and see to the frames, or the mice will have the lot … No, I’m damned if I will … I’ve got to talk to you, Célestine …’
He got up, closed the door which he’d left half open, and led me into the saddle room. For a moment I felt scared. Suddenly I could see little Clara, whom I’d forgotten about, lying in the undergrowth, horribly pale and covered with blood … But the look in Joseph’s eyes wasn’t evil. Indeed, it was as though he was shy, though we could scarcely see one another in the dark room, which was lit only by the wavering sinister light from the lantern. Up to this point, Joseph had been speaking hesitantly, but now his voice became grave and assured.
‘There is something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, Célestine, for several days now,’ he began. ‘You see, it’s like this. I’m fond of you … You’re a good woman … a sensible woman. I feel I’m really getting to know you …’
I thought it best to put on a friendly, teasing smile, and replied:
‘You must admit you’ve taken long enough about it … What used to make you so disagreeable to me always? You’d never speak to me except to chivvy me … Do you remember how you used to bawl me out, just for walking on a path after you’d been raking it? … A regular old misery you were.’
Joseph laughed, and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Ah well … But damn it all, you can’t be expected to tell what people are like straight away … especially women. They’re the devil to understand. And after all you do come from Paris! But now I’ve got to know you.’
‘If you know me so well, then tell me what sort of a person I am.’
Tight-lipped and with a serious expression, he declared:
‘What sort of person? … Why, the same sort as me, Célestine.’
‘As you?’
‘Oh, not to look at, of course … But, at the very bottom of our hearts, you and me, we’re just the same … That’s a fact, and I know what I’m talking about.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then he went on in a gentler voice:
‘I’m fond of you, Célestine … And besides …’
‘And besides?’
‘I’ve also got a bit of money put away … Not much, but damn it all a man doesn’t expect to work in decent situations for forty years without managing to put a bit by, does he?’
‘Certainly not,’ I replied, more and more amazed at what Joseph was saying and the way he was behaving. ‘How much have you saved, then?’
‘Oh, a tidy bit.’
‘Yes, but how much? … Show me.’
With a superior smile, Joseph replied:
‘Why, you don’t really imagine I keep it here, do you? Oh no! That’s nicely tucked away where it can do a bit of breeding on its own …’
‘All right. But how much does it come to?’
Then in a low voice, almost a whisper, he said:
‘Maybe 15,000 francs … maybe a bit more …’
‘Crikey! You’ve done pretty well for yourself, haven’t you?’
‘… or maybe a bit less.’
Suddenly, both the dogs raised their heads and sprang towards the door, barking. Seeing that I was frightened, Joseph reassured me.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, giving both animals a hearty kick in the ribs. ‘It’s only someone in the road. Listen! Yes, that’s Rose coming home. I recognize her step.’
And sure enough, a few moments later, I heard the sound of footsteps and a gate being shut. The dogs stopped barking.
The Diary of a Chambermaid Page 17
