I
_September 14._
To-day, September 14, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in mild, gray,
and rainy weather, I have entered upon my new place. It is the twelfth
in two years. Of course I say nothing of the places which I held in
previous years. It would be impossible for me to count them. Ah! I can
boast of having seen interiors and faces, and dirty souls. And the
end is not yet. Judging from the really extraordinary and dizzy way
in which I have rolled, here and there, successively, from houses to
employment-bureaus, and from employment-bureaus to houses, from the
Bois de Boulogne to the Bastille, from the Observatory to Montmartre,
from the Ternes to the Gobelins, everywhere, without ever succeeding in
establishing myself anywhere, the masters in these days must be hard to
please. It is incredible.
The affair was arranged through an advertisement in the "Figaro," and
without any interview with Madame. We wrote letters to each other,
that is all; a risky method, often resulting in surprises on both
sides. Madame's letters are well written, it is true. But they reveal
a meddlesome and fastidious character. Ah! the explanations and the
commentaries that she insisted upon, the whys and the becauses. I do
not know whether Madame is stingy; at any rate she is hardly ruining
herself with her letter-paper. It is bought at the Louvre. I am not
rich, but I have more elegance than that. I write on paper perfumed _à
la peau d'Espagne_, beautiful paper, some of it pink, some light blue,
which I have collected from my former mistresses. Some of it even bears
a countess's coronet engraved upon it. That must have been a crusher
for her.
Well, at last, here I am in Normandy, at Mesnil-Roy. Madame's estate,
which is not far from the country, is called the Priory. This is almost
all that I know of the spot where henceforth I am to live.
I am not without anxiety, or without regret, at having come, in
consequence of a moment's rashness, to bury myself in the depths of the
country. What I have seen of it frightens me a little, and I ask myself
what further is going to happen to me here. Doubtless nothing good,
and the usual worries. To worry is the clearest of our privileges. For
every one who succeeds,--that is, for every one who marries a worthy
young fellow or forms an alliance with an old man,--how many of us are
destined to ill-luck, swept away in the great whirlwind of poverty?
After all, I had no choice, and this is better than nothing.
This is not the first time that I have had a place in the country.
Four years ago I had one. Oh! not for long, and in really exceptional
circumstances. I remember this adventure as if it had occurred
yesterday. Although the details are slightly indecorous, and even
horrible, I wish to relate it. Moreover, I charitably warn my readers
that it is my intention, in writing this diary, to keep nothing back,
in relation either to myself or to others. On the contrary, I intend
to put into it all the frankness that is in me, and, when necessary,
all the brutality that is in life. It is not my fault if the souls from
which we tear the veils, and which then appear in all their nakedness,
exhale so strong an odor of rottenness.
Well, here it is.
I was engaged in an employment-bureau, by a sort of fat governess, to
be a chambermaid in the house of a certain M. Rabour, in Touraine. The
conditions accepted, it was agreed that I should take the train on such
a day, at such an hour, for such a station; which was done, according
to the programme.
As soon as I had given up my ticket at the exit, I found, outside, a
sort of coachman with a rubicund and churlish face, who asked me:
"Are you M. Rabour's new chambermaid?"
"Yes."
"Have you a trunk?"
"Yes, I have a trunk."
"Give me your baggage ticket, and wait for me here."
He made his way to the platform. The employees hastened about him. They
called him "Monsieur Louis" in a tone of friendly respect. Louis looked
for my trunk in the pile of baggage, and had it placed in an English
cart that stood near the exit.
"Well, will you get in?"
I took my seat beside him, and we started. The coachman looked at me
out of the corner of his eye. I examined him similarly. I saw at once
that I had to do with a countryman, an unpolished peasant, an untrained
domestic who had never served in grand establishments. That annoyed me.
For my part, I like handsome liveries. I dote on nothing so much as on
white leather knee-breeches tightly fitting nervous thighs. And how
lacking in elegance he was, this Louis, without driving-gloves, with
a full suit of grayish-blue drugget that was too big for him, and a
flat cap of glazed leather, ornamented with a double row of gold lace.
No, indeed, they are slow in this region. And, with all, a scowling,
brutal air, but not a bad fellow at bottom. I know these types. At
first they assume a knowing air with the new people, and later a more
friendly footing is arrived at. Often more friendly than one would like.
We sat a long time without saying a word. He assumed the manners of
a grand coachman, holding the reins high and swinging his whip with
rounded gestures. Oh! how ridiculous he was! For my part, with much
dignity I surveyed the landscape, which had no special feature; simply
fields, trees, and houses, just as everywhere else. He brought his
horse down to a walk in order to ascend a hill, and then, suddenly,
with a quizzing smile, he asked:
"I suppose that at least you have brought a good supply of shoes?"
"Undoubtedly," said I, astonished at this question, which rhymed with
nothing, and still more at the singular tone in which he put it to me.
"Why do you ask me that? It is a rather stupid question, don't you
know, my old man?"
He nudged me slightly with his elbow, and, gliding over me a strange
look whose two-fold expression of keen irony and, indeed, of jovial
obscenity was unintelligible to me, he said, with a chuckle:
"Oh! yes, pretend that you know nothing. You are a good one, you
are,--a jolly good one!"
Then he clacked his tongue, and the horse resumed its rapid gait.
I was puzzled. What could be the meaning of this? Perhaps nothing at
all. I concluded that the good man was a little silly, that he did not
know how to talk with women, and that he had been able to think of no
other way to start a conversation which, however, I did not see fit to
continue.
M. Rabour's estate was sufficiently large and beautiful. A pretty
house, painted light green, and surrounded by broad lawns adorned with
flowers and by a pine forest which gave forth an odor of turpentine.
I adore the country, but, oddly enough, it makes me sad and sleepy. I
was utterly stupid when I entered the vestibule where the governess was
awaiting me,--she who had engaged me at the Paris employment-bureau,
God knows after how many indiscreet questions as to my private habits
and tastes, which ought to have made me distrustful. But in vain does
one see and endure things stronger and stronger; they never teach you
anything. The governess had not pleased me at the employment-bureau;
here she instantly disgusted me. She seemed to me to have the air
of an old procuress. She was a fat woman, and short, with puffed-up
yellowish flesh, hair brushed flat and turning gray, huge and rolling
breasts, and soft, damp hands as transparent as gelatine. Her grey eyes
indicated wickedness, a cold, calculating, vicious wickedness. The
tranquil and cruel way in which she looked at you, searching soul and
flesh, was almost enough to make you blush.
She escorted me into a little reception-room, and at once left me,
saying that she was going to notify Monsieur, that Monsieur wished to
see me before I should begin my service.
"For Monsieur has not seen you," she added. "I have taken you, it is
true, but then it is necessary that you please Monsieur."
I inspected the room. It was extremely clean and orderly. The brasses,
the furniture, the floor, the doors, thoroughly polished, waxed,
varnished, shone like mirrors. No clap-trap, no heavy hangings, no
embroidered stuffs, such as are seen in certain Paris houses; but
serious comfort, an air of rich decency, of substantial country life,
regular and calm. But my! how tiresome it must be to live here!
Monsieur entered. Oh! the queer man, and how he amused me! Fancy a
little old man, looking as if he had just stepped out of a band-box,
freshly shaven, and as pink as a doll. Very erect, very sprightly,
very inviting, in fact, he hopped about, in walking, like a little
grasshopper in the fields. He saluted me, and then asked, with infinite
politeness:
"What is your name, my child?"
"Célestine, Monsieur."
"Célestine!" he exclaimed. "Célestine? The devil! It is a pretty
name,--that I do not deny,--but too long, my child, much too long. I
will call you Marie, if you are willing. That is a very nice name, too,
and it is short. And besides, I have called all my chambermaids Marie.
It is a habit which it would distress me to abandon. I would rather
abandon the person."
They all have this queer mania of never calling you by your real name.
I was not too much astonished, having already borne all the names of
all the saints in the calendar. He persisted:
"So it will not displease you if I call you Marie? That is agreed, is
it?"
"Why, certainly, Monsieur."
"A pretty girl; good character; very well, very well."
He had said all this to me in a sprightly and extremely respectful way,
and without staring at me, without seeming to undress me with his eyes,
after the fashion of men generally. Scarcely had he looked at me. From
the moment that he entered the room, his eyes had remained obstinately
fixed upon my shoes.
"You have others?" he asked, after a short silence, during which it
seemed to me that his eyes became strangely brilliant.
"Other names, Monsieur?"
"No, my child, other shoes."
And with a slender tongue he licked his lips, after the manner of cats.
I did not answer at once. This word shoes, reminding me of the
coachman's salacious joke, had astounded me. Then that had a meaning?
On a more pressing interrogation I finally answered, but in a voice
somewhat hoarse and thick, as if I were, confessing a sin of gallantry:
"Yes, Monsieur, I have others."
"Glazed?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Highly, highly glazed?"
"Why, yes, Monsieur."
"Good, good! And of yellow leather?"
"I have none of that kind, Monsieur."
"You will have to have some; I will give you some."
"Thank you, Monsieur."
"Good, good! Be still!"
I was frightened, for dull gleams had just passed over his eyes, and
drops of sweat were rolling down his forehead. Thinking that he was
about to faint, I was on the point of shouting, of calling for help.
But the crisis quieted down, and, after a few minutes, he continued in
a calmer voice, though a little saliva still foamed at the corner of
his lips.
"It is nothing. It is over. Understand me, my child. I am a little
of a maniac. At my age that is allowed, is it not? For instance, I do
not think it proper that a woman should black her own shoes, much less
mine. I have a great respect for women, Marie, and cannot endure that.
So I will black your shoes, your little shoes, your dear little shoes.
I will take care of them. Listen to me. Every evening, before going to
bed, you will carry your shoes into my room; you will place them near
the bed, on a little table, and every morning, on coming to open my
windows, you will take them away again."
And, as I manifested a prodigious astonishment, he added:
"Oh! now, it is nothing enormous that I ask of you; it is a very
natural thing, after all. And if you are very nice...."
Quickly he took from his pocket two louis, which he handed to me.
"If you are very nice, very obedient, I will often make you little
presents. The governess will pay you your wages every month. But
between ourselves, Marie, I shall often make you little presents. And
what is it that I ask of you? Come, now, it is not extraordinary. Is
it, then, indeed, so extraordinary?"
Monsieur was getting excited again. As he spoke his eyelids rapidly
rose and fell, like leaves in a tempest.
"Why do you say nothing, Marie? Say something. Why do you not
walk? Walk a little, that I may see them move, that I may see them
live,--your little shoes."
He knelt down, kissed my shoes, kneaded them with his feverish and
caressing fingers, unlaced them. And, while kissing, kneading, and
caressing them, he said, in a supplicating voice, in the voice of a
weeping child:
"Oh! Marie, Marie, your little shoes; give them to me directly,
directly, directly. I want them directly. Give them to me."
I was powerless. Astonishment had paralyzed me. I did not know whether
I was really living or dreaming. Of Monsieur's eyes I saw nothing but
two little white globes streaked with red. And his mouth was all daubed
with a sort of soapy foam.
At last he took my shoes away and shut himself up with them in his room
for two hours.
"Monsieur is much pleased with you," said the governess to me, in
showing me over the house. "Try to continue to please him. The place is
a good one."
Four days later, in the morning, on going at the usual hour to open the
windows, I came near fainting with horror in the chamber. Monsieur was
dead. Stretched on his back in the middle of the bed, he lay with all
the rigidity of a corpse. He had not struggled. The bed-clothing was
not disarranged. There was not the slightest trace of shock, of agony,
of clinched hands striving to strangle Death. And I should have thought
him asleep, if his face had not been violet, frightfully violet, the
sinister violet of the egg-plant. And,--terrifying spectacle, which,
still more than this face, caused me to quake with fear,--Monsieur
held, pressed between his teeth, one of my shoes, so firmly pressed
between his teeth that, after useless and horrible efforts, I was
obliged to cut the leather with a razor, in order to tear it from him.
I am no saint; I have known many men, and I know, by experience, all
the madness, all the vileness, of which they are capable. But a man
like Monsieur? Oh! indeed, is it not ridiculous all the same that such
types exist? And where do they go in search of all their conceits,
when it is so simple and so good to love each other prettily, as other
people do?
I do not think that anything of that kind will happen to me here. Here,
evidently, they are of another sort. But is it better? Is it worse? As
to that, I know nothing.
There is one thing that torments me. I ought, perhaps, to have
finished, once for all, with all these dirty places, and squarely taken
the step from domesticity into gallantry, like so many others that I
have known, and who--I say it without pride--had fewer "advantages"
than I. Though I am not what is called pretty, I am better; without
conceit I may say that I have an atmosphere, a style, which many
society women and many women of the _demi-monde_ have often envied me.
A little tall, perhaps, but supple, slender, and well-formed, with very
beautiful blonde hair, very beautiful deep-blue eyes, an audacious
mouth, and, finally, an original manner and a turn of mind, very lively
and languishing at once, that pleases men. I might have succeeded.
But, in addition to the fact that, by my own fault, I have missed some
astonishing opportunities, which probably will never come to me again,
I have been afraid. I have been afraid, for one never knows where that
will lead you. I have rubbed against so many miseries in that sphere of
life; I have received so many distressing confidences. And those tragic
calvaries from the Depot to the Hospital, which one does not always
escape! And, for a background to the picture, the hell of Saint-Lazare!
Such things cause one to reflect and shudder. Who knows, too, whether
I should have had, as woman, the same success that I have had as
chambermaid? The particular charm which we exercise over men does not
lie solely in ourselves, however pretty we may be. It depends largely,
as I have had occasion to know, on our environment, on the luxury and
vice of our surroundings, on our mistresses themselves and on the
desire which they excite. In loving us, it is a little of them and much
of their mystery that men love in us.
But there is something else. In spite of my dissolute life, I have
luckily preserved, in the depths of my being, a very sincere religious
feeling, which saves me from definitive falls and holds me back at
the edge of the worst abysses. Ah! if there were no religion; if, on
evenings of gloom and moral distress, there were no prayer in the
churches; if it were not for the Holy Virgin, and Saint Anthony of
Padua, and all the rest of the outfit,--we should be much more unhappy,
that is sure. And what would become of us, and how far we should go,
the devil only knows!
Finally,--and this is more serious,--I have not the least defence
against men. I should be the constant victim of my disinterestedness
and their pleasure. I am too amorous,--yes, I am too much in love with
love, to draw any profit whatever out of love. It is stronger than I; I
cannot ask money of one who gives me happiness and sets ajar for me the
radiant gates of Ecstasy.
So here I am, then, at the Priory, awaiting what? Indeed, I do not
know. The wisest way would be not to think about it, and trust
everything to luck. Perhaps it is thus that things go best. Provided
that to-morrow, and pursued even here by that pitiless mischance which
never leaves me, I am not forced once more to quit my place. That
would annoy me. For some time I have had pains in my loins, a feeling
of weariness in my whole body; my stomach is becoming impaired, my
memory is weakening; I am growing more irritable and nervous. Just now,
when looking in the glass, I discovered that my face had a really tired
look, and that my complexion--that amber complexion of which I was so
proud--had taken on an almost ashen hue. Can I be growing old already?
I do not wish to grow old yet. In Paris it is difficult to take care of
one's self. There is no time for anything. Life there is too feverish,
too tumultuous; one comes continually in contact with too many people,
too many things, too many pleasures, too much of the unexpected. But
you have to go on, just the same. Here it is calm. And what silence!
The air that one breathes must be healthy and good. Ah! if, at the risk
of being bored, I could but rest a little.
In the first place, I have no confidence. Certainly Madame is nice
enough with me. She has seen fit to pay me some compliments on my
appearance, and to congratulate herself on the reports that she has
received concerning me. Oh! her head, if she knew that these reports
are false, or at least that they were given simply to oblige! What
especially astonishes her is my elegance. And then, as a rule, they
are nice the first day, these camels. While all is new, all is
beautiful. That is a well-known song. Yes, and the next day the air
changes into another one equally well known. Especially as Madame has
very cold, hard eyes, which do not please me,--the eyes of a miser,
full of keen suspicion and spying inquiry. Nor do I like her dry and
too thin lips, which seem to be covered with a whitish crust, or her
curt, cutting speech, which turns an amiable word almost into an
insult or a humiliation. When, in questioning me concerning this or
that, concerning my aptitudes and my past, she looked at me with that
tranquil and sly impudence of an old customs official which they all
have, I said to myself:
"There is no mistake about it. Here is another one who is bound to put
everything under lock and key, to count every evening her grapes and
her lumps of sugar, and to put marks on the bottles. Oh! yes, indeed,
we change and change, but we find always the same thing."
Nevertheless, it will be necessary to see, and not rely on this first
impression. Among so many mouths that have spoken to me, among so many
looks that have searched my soul, I shall find perhaps, some day,--who
knows?--a friendly mouth, a sympathetic look. It costs me nothing to
hope.
As soon as I had arrived, still under the deadening influence of four
hours in a third-class railway carriage, and before any one in the
kitchen had even thought of offering me a slice of bread, Madame took
me over the house, from cellar to garret, in order to immediately
familiarize me with my duties. Oh! she does not waste her time, or
mine. How big this house is! And how many things and corners it
contains! Oh! no, thank you, to keep it in order as it should be, four
servants would not suffice. Besides the ground floor, which in itself
is very important,--for there are two little pavilions, in the form
of a terrace, which constitute additions and continuations,--it has
two stories, in which I shall have to be forever going up and down,
since Madame, who stays in a little room near the dining-room, has had
the ingenious idea of placing the linen-room, where I am to work, at
the top of the house, by the side of our chambers. And cupboards, and
bureaus, and drawers, and store-rooms, and litters of all sorts,--if
you like these things, there are plenty of them. Never shall I find
myself in all this.
At every minute, in showing me something, Madame said to me:
"You will have to be careful about this, my girl. This is very pretty,
my girl. This is very rare, my girl. This is very expensive, my girl."
She could not, then, call me by my name, instead of saying all the
time, "My girl," this, "My girl," that, in that tone of wounding
domination which discourages the best wills and straightway puts such
a distance, so much hatred, between our mistresses and us? Do I call
her "little mother"? And then Madame has always on her lips the words
"very expensive." It is provoking. Everything that belongs to her, even
paltry articles that cost four sous, are "very expensive." One has no
idea where the vanity of the mistress of a house can hide itself. It is
really pitiful. In explaining to me the working of an oil lamp, which
in no way differed from all other lamps, she said to me:
"My girl, you know that this lamp is very expensive, and that it can be
repaired only in England. Take care of it, as if it were the apple of
your eye."
Oh! the cheek that they have, and the fuss that they make about
nothing! And when I think that it is all done just to humiliate you, to
astonish you!
And the house is not so much after all. There is really no reason to
be so proud of it. The exterior, to be sure, with the great clusters
of trees that sumptuously frame it and the gardens that descend to the
river in gentle slopes, ornamented with broad rectangular lawns, gives
an impression of some importance. But within it is sad, old, rickety,
and has a musty smell. I do not understand how they can live in it.
Nothing but rats' nests, break-neck wooden stairways, whose warped
steps tremble and creak beneath your feet; low and dark passage-ways,
whose floors, instead of being covered with soft carpets, consist of
badly-laid tiles, of a faded red color, and glazed, glazed, slippery,
slippery. The too thin partitions, made of too dry planks, make the
chambers as sonorous as the inside of a violin. Oh! it is all hollow
and provincial. It surely is not furnished in the Paris fashion. In
all the rooms old mahogany, old worm-eaten stuffs, old worn-out faded
rugs, and arm-chairs and sofas, ridiculously stiff, without springs,
worm-eaten, and rickety. How they must grind one's shoulders! Really,
I, who am so fond of light-colored hangings, broad elastic divans,
where one can stretch voluptuously on heaps of cushions, and all these
pretty modern furnishings, so luxurious, so rich, and so gay,--I feel
utterly saddened by the gloomy sadness of these. And I am afraid that
I shall never get accustomed to such an absence of comfort, to such a
lack of elegance, to so much old dust and so many dead forms.
Nor is Madame dressed in Parisian fashion. She is lacking in style,
and is unacquainted with the great dressmakers. She is somewhat of a
fright, as they say. Although she shows a certain pretension in her
costumes, she is at least ten years behind the fashion. And what a
fashion! Still, she would not be bad-looking, if she chose not to be;
at least, she would not be too bad-looking. Her worst fault is that
she awakens in you no sympathy,--that she is a woman in nothing. But
she has regular features, pretty hair naturally blonde, and a beautiful
skin; in fact, she has too much color, as if she were suffering from
some internal malady. I know this type of woman, and I am not to be
deceived by the brilliancy of their complexion. They are pink on
the surface, yes, but within they are rotten. They cannot stand up
straight, they cannot walk, they cannot live, except by the aid of
girdles, trusses, pessaries, and a whole collection of secret horrors
and complex mechanisms. Which does not prevent them from making a show
in society. Yes, indeed, they are coquettish, if you please; they flirt
in the corners, they exhibit their painted flesh, they ogle, they
wiggle; and yet they are fit for nothing but preservation in alcohol.
Oh! misfortune! One has but little satisfaction with them, I assure
you, and it is not always agreeable to be in their service.
I do not know whether it is from temperament or from organic
indisposition, but, judging from the expression of Madame's face, her
severe gestures, and the stiff bending of her body, she cares nothing
at all for love. She has the sharpness and sourness of an old maid,
and her whole person seems dried up and mummified,--a rare thing with
blondes. Not such women as Madame does beautiful music, like that of
"Faust",--oh! that "Faust"!--cause to fall with languor and swoon
voluptuously in the arms of a handsome man. Oh, no indeed! She does
not belong to that class of very ugly women into whose faces the ardor
of sex sometimes puts so much of radiant life, so much of seductive
beauty. After all, though, one cannot trust too securely in airs like
those of Madame. I have known women of the most severe and crabbed
type, who drove away all thought of desire and love, and who yet were
famous rovers.
Although Madame forces herself to be amiable, she surely is not up to
date, like some that I have seen. I believe her to be very wicked, very
spying, very fault-finding,--a dirty character and a wicked heart. She
must be continually at people's heels, pestering them in all ways.
"Do you know how to do this?" and "Do you know how to do that?" or
again: "Are you in the habit of breaking things? Are you careful? Have
you a good memory? Are you orderly?" There is no end to it. And also:
"Are you clean? I am very particular about cleanliness; I pass over
many things, but I insist upon cleanliness." Does she take me for a
farm girl, a peasant, a country servant? Cleanliness? Oh! I know that
chestnut. They all say that. And often, when one goes to the bottom
of things, when one turns up their skirts and examines their linen,
how filthy they are! Sometimes it is disgusting enough to turn one's
stomach.
Consequently I distrust Madame's cleanliness. When she showed me her
dressing-room, I did not notice any bath, or any of the things that
are necessary to a woman who takes proper care of herself. And what a
scant supply she has of _bibelots_, bottles, and all those private and
perfumed articles with which I am so fond of messing! I long, for the
sake of amusement, to see Madame naked. She must be a pretty sight.
In the evening, as I was setting the table, Monsieur entered the
dining-room. He had just returned from a hunt. He is a very tall man,
with broad shoulders, a heavy black moustache, and a dull complexion.
His manners are a little heavy and awkward, but he seems good-natured.
Evidently he is not a man of genius, like M. Jules Lemaître, whom
I have so often served in the Rue Christophe-Colomb, or a man of
elegance, like M. de Janzé. Ah, M. de Janzé! There was a man for
you! Yet he is sympathetic. His thick and curly hair, his bull neck,
his calves that look like a wrestler's, his thick, intensely red,
and smiling lips, testify to his strength and good humor. He is not
indifferent. That I saw directly from his mobile, sniffing, sensual
nose, and from his extremely brilliant eyes, which are at once gentle
and fun-loving. Never, I think, have I met a human being with such
eyebrows, thick to the point of obscenity, and with so hairy hands.
Like most men of little intelligence and great muscular development, he
is very timid.
He surveyed me with a very queer air, an air in which there was
kindness, surprise, and satisfaction,--something also of salaciousness,
but without impudence, something of an undressing look, but without
brutality. It is evident that Monsieur is not accustomed to such
chambermaids as I, that I astonish him, and that I have made a
great impression on him at the start. He said to me, with a little
embarrassment:
"Ah! Ah! So you are the new chambermaid?"
I bent forward, slightly lowered my eyes, and then, modest and mutinous
at once, I answered simply, in my gentlest voice:
"Why, yes, Monsieur."
Then he stammered:
"So you have come? That's very good, that's very good."
He would have liked to say something further,--was trying, indeed, to
think of something to say,--but, being neither eloquent or at his ease,
he did not find anything. I was greatly amused at his embarrassment.
But, after a short silence, he asked:
"You come from Paris, like that?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"That's very good, that's very good."
And growing bolder:
"What is your name?"
"Célestine, Monsieur."
He rubbed his hands,--a mannerism of his,--and went on:
"Célestine. Ah! Ah! that's very good. Not a common name; in fact, a
pretty name. Provided Madame does not oblige you to change it. She has
that mania."