"Well, all right! reflect," counseled this dealer in human flesh. "Let
me give you my address, at any rate. When your heart speaks,--well,
you will have only to come. Oh! I am perfectly confident. And
to-morrow I am going to announce you to the president of the republic."
We had finished drinking. The old woman settled for the two glasses,
and took from a little black pocket-book a card, which she slyly
slipped into my hand. When she had gone, I looked at the card, and I
read:
MADAME REBECCA RANVET
_Millinery_
At Mme. Paulhat-Durand's I witnessed some extraordinary scenes. As I
cannot describe them all, unfortunately, I select one to serve as an
example of what goes on daily in this house.
I have said that the upper part of the partition separating the
ante-room from the bureau consists of a strip of glass covered with
transparent curtains. In the middle of the strip is a casement-window,
ordinarily closed. One day I noticed that, by some oversight, of which
I resolved to take advantage, it had been left partly open. Putting
a small stool upon the bench, I stood upon it, and thus succeeded in
touching with my chin the frame of the casement-window, which I softly
pushed. I was thus enabled to look into the room, and here is what I
saw.
A lady was seated in an arm-chair; a chambermaid was standing in
front of her; in the corner Mme. Paulhat-Durand was distributing
some cards among the compartments of a drawer. The lady had come from
Fontainebleau in search of a servant. She may have been fifty years
old. In appearance a rich and rough _bourgeoise_, dressed soberly,
provincial in her austerity. The maid, puny and sickly, with a
complexion that had been made livid by poor food and lack of food,
had nevertheless a sympathetic face, which, under more fortunate
circumstances, would perhaps have been pretty. She was very clean and
trim in a black skirt. A black jersey moulded her thin form, and on her
head she wore a linen cap, prettily set back, revealing her brow and
her curly brown hair.
After a detailed, sustained, offensive, aggressive examination, the
lady at last made up her mind to speak.
"Then," said she, "you offer yourself as ... what? As a chambermaid?"
"Yes, Madame."
"You do not look like one. What is your name?"
"Jeanne Le Godec."
"What did you say?"
"Jeanne Le Godec, Madame."
The lady shrugged her shoulders.
"Jeanne," she exclaimed. "That is not a servant's name; that is a
name for a young girl. If you enter my service, you do not expect, I
suppose, to keep this name Jeanne?"
"As Madame likes."
Jeanne had lowered her head, and was leaning with her two hands on the
handle of her umbrella.
"Raise your head," ordered the lady; "stand up straight. Don't you see
you are making a hole in the carpet with the point of your umbrella?
Where do you come from?"
"From Saint-Brieuc."
"From Saint-Brieuc!"
And she gave a pout of disdain that quickly turned into a frightful
grimace. The corners of her mouth and eyes contracted, as if she had
swallowed a glass of vinegar.
"From Saint-Brieuc!" she repeated. "Then you are a Breton? Oh! I do not
like the Bretons. They are obstinate and dirty."
"I am very clean, Madame," protested the poor Jeanne.
"You say so. However, we haven't reached that yet. How old are you?"
"Twenty-six."
"Twenty-six? Not counting the nursing months, no doubt? You look much
older. It is not worth while to deceive me."
"I am not deceiving Madame. I assure Madame I am only twenty-six. If I
look older, it is because I have been sick a long time."
"Oh! you have been sick?" replied the _bourgeoise_, in a voice of
sneering severity. "Oh! you have been sick a long time? I warn you,
my girl, that the place, though not a very hard one, is of some
importance, and that I must have a woman of very good health."
Jeanne tried to repair her imprudent words. She declared:
"Oh! I am cured, quite cured."
"That is your affair. Moreover, we haven't reached that yet. You are
married or single, which? What are you?"
"I am a widow, Madame."
"Ah! You have no child, I suppose?"
And, as Jeanne did not answer directly, the lady insisted, more sharply:
"Say, have you children, yes or no?"
"I have a little girl," she confessed, timidly.
Then, making grimaces and gestures as if she were scattering a lot of
flies, she cried:
"Oh! no child in the house; no child in the house; not under any
consideration. Where is your little girl?"
"She is with my husband's aunt."
"And what is this aunt?"
"She keeps a wine-shop in Rouen."
"A deplorable calling. Drunkenness and debauchery,--that is a pretty
example for a little girl! However, that concerns you, that is your
affair. How old is your little girl?"
"Eighteen months, Madame."
Madame gave a start, and turned violently in her arm-chair. This was
too much for her; she was scandalized. A sort of growl escaped from her
lips.
"Children! Think of it! Children, when one cannot bring them up, or
have them at home! These people are incorrigible; the devil is in their
bodies!"
Becoming more and more aggressive, and even ferocious, she addressed
herself to Jeanne again, who stood trembling before her gaze.
"I warn you," said she, enunciating each word separately, "I warn you
that, if you enter my service, I will not allow you to bring your
little girl to my house. No goings and comings in the house; I want no
goings and comings in the house. No, no. No strangers, no vagabonds, no
unknown people. One is exposed quite enough with the ordinary run of
callers. Oh! no, thank you!"
In spite of this declaration, which was not very prepossessing, the
little servant dared to ask, nevertheless:
"In that case, Madame surely will permit me to go and see my little
girl, once a year,--just once a year!"
"No."
Such was the reply of the implacable _bourgeoise_. And she added:
"My servants never go out. It is the principle of the house,--a
principle on which I am not willing to compromise. I do not pay
domestics that they may make the round of doubtful resorts, under
pretence of going to see their daughters. That would be really too
convenient. No, no. You have recommendations?"
"Yes, Madame."
She drew from her pocket a paper in which were wrapped some
recommendations, yellow, crumpled, and soiled; and she silently handed
them to Madame, with a trembling hand. Madame, with the tips of her
fingers, as if to avoid soiling them, and with grimaces of disgust,
unfolded one, which she began to read aloud:
"'I certify that the girl J'...."
Suddenly interrupting herself, she cast an atrocious look at Jeanne,
who was growing more anxious and troubled.
"'The girl'? It plainly says 'girl.' Then you are not married? You have
a child, and you are not married? What does that mean?"
The servant explained.
"I ask Madame's pardon. I have been married for three years, and this
recommendation was written six years ago. Madame can see the date for
herself."
"Well, that is your affair."
And she resumed her reading of the recommendation.
"... 'that the girl Jeanne Le Godec has been in my service for thirteen
months, and that I have no cause of complaint against her, on the score
of work, behavior, and honesty.' Yes, it is always the same thing.
Recommendations that say nothing, that prove nothing. They give one no
information. Where can one write to this lady?"
"She is dead."
"She is dead. To be sure, evidently she is dead. So you have a
recommendation, and the very person who gave it to you is dead. You
will confess that has a somewhat doubtful look."
All this was said with a very humiliating expression of suspicion, and
in a tone of gross irony. She took another recommendation.
"And this person? She is dead, too, no doubt?"
"No, Madame. Mme. Robert is in Algeria with her husband, who is a
colonel."
"In Algeria!" exclaimed the lady. "Naturally. How do you expect anybody
to write to Algeria? Some are dead, others are in Algeria. The idea of
seeking information in Algeria! This is all very extraordinary."
"But I have others, Madame," implored the unfortunate Jeanne Le Godec.
"Madame can see for herself. Madame can inform herself."
"Yes, yes! I see you have many others. I see that you have been in
many places,--much too many places. At your age, that is not very
prepossessing! Well, leave me your recommendations, and I will see. Now
something else. What can you do?"
"I can do housework, sew, wait on table."
"Are you good at mending?"
"Yes, Madame."
"Do you know how to fatten poultry?"
"No, Madame. That is not my business."
"Your business, my girl," declared the lady, severely, "is to do what
your masters tell you to do. You must have a detestable character."
"Why, no, Madame. I am not at all inclined to talk back."
"Naturally. You say so; they all say so; and they are not to be touched
with a pair of tongs. Well, let me see, I believe I have already told
you that the place, while not particularly hard, is of some importance.
The servants rise at five o'clock."
"In winter too?"
"In winter too. Yes, certainly. And why do you say: 'In winter too'?
Is there less work to be done in winter? What a ridiculous question!,
The chambermaid does the stairs, the _salon_, Monsieur's study, the
chamber of course, and attends to all the fires. The cook does the
ante-chamber, the halls, and the dining-room. I am very particular on
the score of cleanliness. I cannot bear to see a speck of dust in the
house. The door-knobs must be well polished, the furniture must shine,
and the mirrors must be thoroughly cleaned. The chambermaid has charge
of the poultry-yard."
"But, Madame, I know nothing about poultry-yards."
"Well, you will learn. The chambermaid soaps, washes, and irons, except
Monsieur's shirts; she does the sewing,--I have no sewing done outside,
except the making of my costumes; she waits on table, helps the cook to
wipe the dishes, and does the polishing. There must be order, perfect
order. I am a stickler for order and cleanliness, and especially for
honesty. Moreover, everything is under lock and key. If anything is
wanted, I must be asked for it. I have a horror of waste. What are you
accustomed to take in the morning?"
"Coffee with milk, Madame."
"Coffee with milk? You do not stint yourself. Yes, in these days they
all take coffee with milk. Well, that is not the custom in my house.
You will take soup; it is better for the stomach. What did you say?"
Jeanne had said nothing. But it was evident she was making an effort to
say something. At last she made up her mind.
"I ask Madame's pardon, but what does Madame give us to drink?"
"Six quarts of cider a week."
"I cannot drink cider, Madame. The doctor has forbidden me to."
"Ah! the doctor has forbidden you to. Well, I will give you six quarts
of cider. If you want wine, you will buy it. That concerns you. What
pay do you expect?"
She hesitated, looked at the carpet, the clock, and the ceiling, rolled
her umbrella in her hands, and said, timidly:
"Forty francs."
"Forty francs!" exclaimed Madame. "Why don't you say ten thousand
francs, and done with it? You must be crazy. Forty francs! Why, it
is unheard of! We used to pay fifteen francs, and got much better
service. Forty francs! And you do not even know how to fatten poultry!
You do not know how to do anything! I pay thirty francs, and I think
that altogether too much. You have no expenses in my house. I am not
exacting as to what you wear. And you are washed and fed. God knows how
well you are fed! I give out the portions myself."
Jeanne insisted:
"I have had forty francs in all the places where I have worked."
But the lady had risen. And, in a dry and ugly voice, she exclaimed:
"Well, you had better go back to them. Forty francs! Such impudence!
Here are your recommendations--your recommendations from dead people.
Be off with you!"
Jeanne carefully wrapped up her recommendations, put them back into
the pocket of her dress, and then said, imploringly, in a timid and
sorrowful voice:
"If Madame will go as high as thirty-five francs, we could come to
terms."
"Not a sou. Be off with you! Go to Algeria to find again your Mme.
Robert. Go where you like. There is no lack of vagabonds like you;
there are heaps of them. Be off with you."
With sad face and slow step Jeanne left the bureau, after curtseying
twice. I saw from her eyes and lips that she was on the point of crying.
Left alone, the lady shouted furiously: "Ah! these domestics, what a
plague! It is impossible to be served these days."
To which Mme. Paulhat-Durand, who had finished sorting her cards,
answered, majestic, crushed, and severe:
"I had warned you, Madame; they are all like that. They are unwilling
to do anything, and expect to earn hundreds and thousands. I have
nothing else to-day. All the others are worse. To-morrow I will try to
find you something. Oh! it is very distressing, I assure you."
I got down from my post of observation the very moment that Jeanne Le
Godec was re-entering the ante-room, amid an uproar.
"Well?" they asked her.
She went and sat down on her bench at the rear of the room, and there,
with lowered head, folded arms, heavy heart, and empty stomach, she
remained in silence, her two little feet twitching nervously under her
gown.
But I saw things sadder still.
Among the girls who came daily to Mme. Paulhat-Durand's I had
noticed one especially, in the first place because she wore a
Breton cap, and then because the very sight of her filled me with
unconquerable melancholy. A peasant girl astray in Paris, in this
frightful, jostling, feverish Paris,--I know nothing more lamentable.
Involuntarily it invites me to a survey of my own past, and moves me
infinitely. Where is she going? Where does she come from? Why did she
leave her home? What madness, what tragedy, what tempest has pushed her
forth, and stranded her, a sorrowful waif, in this roaring human sea?
These questions I asked myself every day, as I examined this poor girl
sitting in her corner, so frightfully isolated.
She was ugly with that definitive ugliness which excludes all idea of
pity and makes people ferocious, because it is really an offence to
them. However disgraced she may be by nature, a woman rarely reaches
the point of total and absolute ugliness, utter degeneracy from the
human estate. Generally she has something, no matter what,--eyes, a
mouth, an undulation of the body, a bending of the hips, or less than
that, a movement of the arms, a coupling of the wrist, a freshness of
skin, upon which others may rest their eyes without being offended.
Even in the very old a certain grace almost always survives the
deformations of the body, the death of sex, and the seamy flesh betrays
some souvenir of what they formerly were. The Breton had nothing of
the kind, and she was very young. Little, long-waisted, angular, with
flat hips, and legs so short that it seemed as if she really called
to mind those barbarian virgins, those snub-nosed saints, shapeless
blocks of granite that have been leaning for centuries, in loneliness,
on the inclined arms of Armorican Calvaries. And her face? Ah! the
unfortunate! An overhanging brow; pupils so dim in outline that they
seemed to have been rubbed with a rag; a horrible nose, flat at the
start, gashed with a furrow down the middle, and suddenly turning up
at its tip, and opening into two black, round, deep, enormous holes,
fringed with stiff hair. And over all this a gray and scaly skin,--the
skin of a dead adder, a skin that, in the light, looked as if it had
been sprinkled with flour. Yet the unspeakable creature had one beauty
that many beautiful women would have envied,--her hair, magnificent,
heavy, thick hair, of a resplendent red reflecting gold and purple.
But, far from being a palliation of her ugliness, this hair only
aggravated it, making it more striking, fulgurating, irreparable.
This is not all. Every movement that she made was clumsy. She could
not take a step without running against something; everything she took
into her hands she was sure to let fall; her arms hit against the
furniture, and swept off everything that was lying on it. When walking,
she stepped on your toes and dug her elbows into your breast; then she
excused herself with a harsh and sullen voice, a voice that breathed
into your face a tainted, corpse-like odor. As soon as she entered the
ante-room there at once arose among us a sort of irritated complaint,
which quickly changed into insulting recriminations and ended in
growls. The wretched creature was hooted as she crossed the room,
rolling along on her short legs, passed on from one to another like a
ball, until she reached her bench at the end of the room. And every one
pretended to draw away from her, with significant gestures of disgust,
and grimaces that were accompanied with a lifting of handkerchiefs.
Then, in the empty space instantaneously formed behind the sanitary
cordon that isolated her from us, the dismal girl sat leaning against
the wall, silent and detested, without a complaint, without revolt,
without seeming to understand that all this contempt was meant for her.
Although, not to be unlike the others, I sometimes took part in
this cruel sport, I could not help feeling a sort of pity for the
little Breton. I understood that here was a being predestined to
misfortune,--one of those beings who, whatever they may do and
wherever they may go, will be eternally repulsed by men, and also by
beasts,--for there is a certain height of ugliness, a certain form of
infirmity, that the beasts themselves do not tolerate.
One day, overcoming my disgust, I approached her, and asked:
"What is your name?"
"Louise Randon."
"I am a Breton ... from Audierne. And you, too, are a Breton, are you
not?"
Astonished that anyone was willing to speak to her, and fearing some
insult or practical joke, she did not answer directly. She buried her
thumb in the deep caverns of her nose. I repeated my question.
"From what part of Brittany do you come?"
Then she looked at me, and, seeing undoubtedly that there was no
unkindness in my eyes, she decided to answer:
"I am from Saint-Michel-en-Grève, near Lannion."
I knew not what further to say to her. Her voice was repulsive to
me. It was not a voice; it was something hoarse and broken, like a
hiccup,--a sort of gurgle. This voice drove away my pity. However, I
went on.
"You have relatives living?"
"Yes; my father, my mother, two brothers, four sisters. I am the
oldest."
"And your father? What does he do?"
"He is a blacksmith."
"You are poor."
"My father has three fields, three houses, three threshing-machines...."
"Then he is rich?"
"Surely he is rich. He cultivates his fields and rents his houses, and
goes about the country with his threshing-machines and threshes the
peasants' wheat. And my brother shoes the horses."
"And your sisters?"
"They have beautiful lace caps and embroidered gowns."
"And you?"
"I have nothing."