_November 24._
No letter from Joseph. Knowing how prudent he is, I am not greatly
astonished at his silence, but it causes me a little suffering. To be
sure, Joseph is not unaware that the letters go through Madame's hands
before reaching ours, and doubtless he does not wish to expose himself
or me to the danger of their being read by her, or even have the fact
that he writes to me made a subject of Madame's malicious comments.
Yet, with his great mental resources, it seems to me that he could have
found a way of sending me news. He is to return to-morrow morning. Will
he return? I am not without anxiety, and cannot keep from thinking
about it. Why, too, was he unwilling to give me his Cherbourg address?
But I do not wish to think of all these things, that split my head and
put me into a fever.
Here everything goes on in the same way, except that there are fewer
events and still greater silence. Joseph's work is done by the
sacristan, out of friendship. He comes every day, punctually, to groom
the horses and to tend to the garden-frames. Impossible to get a single
word out of him. He is more silent and suspicious than Joseph, and his
manners are more doubtful. He is more ordinary, too, and lacks his
greatness and power. I see him only when I have an order to deliver to
him. He is a queer type, too. The grocer tells me that, when young,
he studied for the priesthood, and was expelled from the seminary on
account of his indelicacy and immorality. May it not have been he who
outraged the little Claire in the woods? Since then, he has tried his
hand at all trades. Now a pastry-cook, now a church-singer, now a
peddler, a notary's clerk, a domestic, the town drummer, an auctioneer,
and an employee in the sheriff's office, for the last four years he
has been sacristan. To be sacristan is to be also something of a
priest. Moreover, he has all the slimy and crawling manners of the
ecclesiastical bugs. Surely he would not recoil from the vilest tasks.
Joseph does wrong to make him his friend. But is he his friend? Is he
not, rather, his accomplice?
Madame has a sick headache. It seems she has one regularly every three
months. For two days she remains shut up in her room, with drawn
curtains and without light, only Marianne being allowed to enter. She
does not want me. Madame's sickness means a good time for Monsieur.
Monsieur makes the most of it. He does not leave the kitchen.
Captain Mauger, who does not speak to me any more, but casts furious
glances at me over the hedge, has become reconciled with his
family,--at least, with one of his nieces, who has come to live with
him. She is not bad-looking,--a tall blonde with a nose that is too
long, but with a fresh complexion and a good figure. People say she is
to keep the house, and take Rose's place.
As for Mme. Gouin, Rose's death must have been a blow to her Sunday
mornings. She saw at once that she could not get along without a
leading lady. Now, it is that pest of a haberdasher who leads off in
the gossip, and undertakes to maintain the admiration of the girls
of Mesnil-Roy for the clandestine talents of this infamous grocer.
Yesterday being Sunday, I went to the grocery-shop. It was a very
brilliant occasion; they were all there. There was very little said
about Rose, and, when I told the story of the wills, there was a
general shout of laughter. Ah! the captain was right when he said to
me: "Everything can be replaced." But the haberdasher has not Rose's
authority, for she is a woman concerning whom, from the point of view
of morals, there unhappily is nothing to be said.
In what a hurry I am to see Joseph! With what nervous impatience I
await the moment when I shall know what I must hope or fear from
destiny! I can no longer live as I am living now. Never have I been
so distressed by this mediocre life that I live, by these people whom
I serve, by all these dismal mountebanks around me, among whom I am
growing more stupid from day to day. If I were not sustained by the
strange feeling that gives a new and powerful interest to my present
life, I think it would not be long before I, too, should plunge into
the abyss of stupidity and vileness which I see continually widening
around me. Ah! whether Joseph succeeds or not, whether he changes his
mind about me or not, I have come to a final decision; I will no longer
stay here. A few hours more, another whole night of anxiety, and then I
shall be settled regarding my future.
I am going to spend this night in a further revival of old memories,
perhaps for the last time. It is the only way that I have of avoiding
the anxieties of the present and not splitting my head over the dreams
of to-morrow. In reality these recollections amuse me, and deepen my
contempt. What singular and monotonous faces, all the same, I have met
on my path of servitude! When I see them again, in my mind's eye, they
do not make on me the impression of really living beings. They live,
or at least give the illusion of life, only through their vices. Take
away the vices that sustain them as bandages sustain mummies, and they
are no longer even phantoms ... they are nothing but dust ... ashes ...
death.
Oh! that was a famous house, for instance, to which, a few days
after my refusal to go into the service of the old gentleman in the
country, I was sent, with all sorts of admirable references, by Mme.
Paulhat-Durand. My masters were a very young couple, without animals
or children, living in an ill-kept interior, though the furniture was
stylish and there was a heavy elegance about the decorations. Luxury
and great waste! A single glance as I entered showed me all; I saw
clearly with whom I had to deal. It was my dream! Now then, I was going
to forget all my miseries,--M. Xavier, and the good sisters of Neuilly,
and the killing sessions in the ante-room of the employment-bureau,
and the long days of anguish, and the long nights of solitude and
debauchery.
Now then, I was going to plan for myself an agreeable life, with easy
work and certain profits. Made happy by this prospect, I promised
myself that I would correct my caprices, repress the ardent impulses
of my frankness, in order to stay in this place a long, long time. In
a twinkling my gloomy ideas vanished; and my hatred of the _bourgeois_
flew away, as if by enchantment. I again became madly and hilariously
gay, and, seized anew with a violent love of life, I began to think
that the masters are sometimes good. The personnel was not numerous,
but it was select,--a cook, a _valet de chambre_, an old butler, and
myself. There was no coachman, the masters having abolished their
stable a short time before, preferring to hire their teams from a
livery-man. We became friends directly. That very evening they gave me
welcome by opening a bottle of champagne.
"My!" I exclaimed, clapping my hands; "they do things well here."
The _valet de chambre_ smiled, and shook a bunch of keys musically in
the air. He had the keys to the cellar; he had all the keys. He was the
trusted servant of the house.
"Say, will you lend them to me?" I asked, by way of a joke.
Giving me a tender look, he answered:
"Yes, if you are nice with Baby. You will have to be nice with Baby."
Oh! he was a _chic_ man, and he knew how to talk to women. He had an
English name,--William. What a pretty name!
During the meal, which lasted for some time, the old butler did not say
a word, but ate and drank a great deal. They paid no attention to him,
and he seemed a little dopy. As for William, he was charming, gallant,
and assiduous; he paid me delicate attentions under the table; and,
when we were drinking our coffee, he offered me Russian cigarettes, of
which his pockets were full. Then, drawing me to him,--the tobacco had
made me a little dizzy, and I was a little drunk too, and my hair was
disarranged,--he seated me upon his knees, and whispered audacious
things in my ear. Oh! but he was bold!
Eugénie, the cook, did not seem scandalized by these remarks and
these performances. Anxious and dreamy, she kept her neck continually
inclined toward the door, pricked up her ears at the slightest sound,
as if she were expecting some one, and, with a very uncertain eye,
kept on guzzling wine, glass after glass. She was a woman of about
forty-five, with a large bust, fleshy, sensual lips, languishing and
passionate eyes, and an air of great kindness mingled with melancholy.
At last there came a discreet knock at the door. Eugénie's face lighted
up; she rose with a bound, and went to open the door. Not being
familiar with the habits of this servants' hall, I wanted to assume a
more decorous attitude, but William held me more tightly than before,
pressing me close against him with a firm embrace.
"That's nothing," he remarked, quietly. "That is the little one."
Meantime a young man had entered, almost a child. Very slender, very
blonde, with a very white skin underlying the dark beginnings of a
beard, scarcely eighteen, he was as pretty as a love. He wore an
entirely new and elegant jacket, which set off his trim and slender
bust, and a pink cravat. He was the son of the janitor in the next
house. He came, it seems, every evening. Eugénie adored him, was mad
over him. Every day she put aside, in a big basket, tureens full of
_bouillon_, fine slices of meat, bottles of wine, cakes, and delicious
fruits, which the little one carried to his parents.
"Why are you so late to-night?" asked Eugénie.
The little one excused himself in a drawling voice.
"I had to look out for the lodge. Mamma had gone on an errand."
"Your mother, your mother ... are you telling me the truth, young
scamp?"
She sighed, and, with her eyes gazing into the child's eyes, and her
two hands resting on his shoulders, she continued, in a mournful tone:
"When you are late, I am always afraid something has happened. I do not
want you to be late, my darling. You will say to your mother that, if
that continues,--well, I will give you nothing more ... for her."
Then, with quivering nostrils and her whole body shaken by a thrill,
she said:
"How pretty you are, my love! Oh! your little phiz! your little phiz!
Why did you not wear your pretty yellow shoes? I want you to look your
best when you come to see me. And those eyes, those big eyes, you
little brigand! Ah! I'll bet they have been looking at another woman.
And your lips! your lips! What have those lips been doing?"
He smilingly reassured her, with a slightly swaying motion of his body:
"No, indeed, I assure you, Nini, that's straight. Mamma had gone on an
errand,--yes, truly."
Eugénie repeated several times:
"Oh! you scamp, you scamp, I do not want you to be looking at other
women. Your little phiz for me, your little mouth for me, your big eyes
for me! Say, do you really love me?"
"Oh, yes, surely."
"Say it again."
"Oh! surely."
She leaped upon his neck, and, panting, led him into the adjoining
room, stammering words of love.
William said to me:
"How she holds him! And what a pile this little chap costs her! Last
week she gave him a complete new outfit. You would not love me like
that."
This scene had stirred me deeply, and I promptly vowed a sister's
friendship for the poor Eugénie. This boy resembled M. Xavier. At least
there was a moral similarity between these two beings,--so pretty,
though so rotten. And this reminder made me sad,--oh! infinitely
sad! I saw myself again in M. Xavier's room, the night when I gave
him the ninety francs. Oh! your little phiz! your little mouth! your
big eyes! They were the same cold and cruel eyes, there was the same
undulation of the body, there was the same vice shining in the pupils
and imparting a sort of benumbing poison to the lips.
I released myself from William's arms, and, as I was arranging my
disordered hair, I remarked:
"Well, I must say, you don't lose any time."
Of course I did not want to change anything in the habits of the house,
or in the service. William did the housework, in a go-as-you-please
fashion. A stroke of the broom here, a stroke of the duster there,
and the thing was done. The rest of the time he babbled, ransacked
drawers and closets, and read the letters that were dragging about on
every hand and in every corner. I did as he did. I allowed the dust to
accumulate upon and under the furniture, and I took good care not to
disturb the disorder of the _salons_ and the chambers. If I had been in
the masters' place, I should have been ashamed to live in so untidy an
interior. But they did not know how to command, and, being timid and
fearing scenes, they never dared to say anything. If sometimes, after
an omission that was too patent or too embarrassing, they ventured to
stammer: "It seems to me that you have not done this or that," we had
only to answer, in a tone whose firmness did not exclude insolence: "I
really ask Madame's pardon; Madame is mistaken. And, if Madame is not
content...." Then they insisted no further, and that was the end of it.
Never in my life have I met masters having less authority over their
servants, or such ninnies! Really, one is not to be led by the nose as
they were.
It is necessary to do William this justice,--that he had known how to
put things on a good footing in the box. William had a passion that
is common among servants,--the passion for the races. He knew all the
jockeys, all the trainers, all the bookmakers, and also some very
sporty gentlemen, barons and viscounts, who showed a certain friendship
for him, knowing that he had astonishing tips from time to time. This
passion, whose maintenance and satisfaction require numerous suburban
excursions, does not harmonize with a restricted and sedentary calling,
like that of a _valet de chambre_. Now, William had regulated his life
in this way; after breakfast, he dressed and went out. How _chic_ he
was in his black and white check pantaloons, his highly-polished shoes,
his putty-colored overcoat, and his hats! Oh! William's hats, hats the
color of deep water, in which skies, trees, streets, rivers, crowds,
hippodromes, succeeded one another in prodigious reflections! He came
back just in time to dress his master, and often, in the evening,
after dinner, he went out again, saying that he had an important
rendezvous with the English. I did not see him again until very late
at night, when he always came home a little drunk, from having taken
too many cocktails. Every week he invited friends to dinner,--coachmen,
_valets de chambre_, race-track people,--these latter very comical
and weird with their twisted legs, their deformed knees, and their
appearance of crapulous cynicism and ambiguous sex. They talked horses,
turf, women, told all sorts of disagreeable stories about the morals
of their masters, and then, becoming excited by the fumes of the wine,
began on politics. William was a superbly uncompromising and terribly
violent reactionary.
"The man for me," he cried, "is Cassagnac. A rude lad, Cassagnac! They
are afraid of him. How he can write! What raps he gives! Yes, let the
dirty rascals tackle this strenuous chap if they dare!"
And suddenly, at the height of the noise, Eugénie rose, paler and with
shining eyes, and rushed for the door. The little one entered, his face
wearing an expression of astonishment at sight of these unusual people,
of these empty bottles, of this reckless pillage of the table. Eugénie
had saved a glass of champagne and a plate of goodies for him. Then
they both disappeared into the adjoining room.
"Oh! your little phiz, your little mouth, your big eyes!"
That night the parents' basket contained larger and better portions. Of
course these worthy people should profit by the feast.
William often spoke to me of Edgar, the celebrated stud-groom of the
baron de Borgsheim. He was proud to know him; he admired him almost as
much as he admired Cassagnac. Edgar and Cassagnac were the two great
enthusiasms of his life. I think it would have been dangerous to joke
him about them, or even to discuss them with him. When he came home
at night, late, William excused himself by saying to me, "I was with
Edgar." It seemed that to be with Edgar constituted not only an excuse,
but a glory.
"Why don't you bring your famous Edgar to dinner, that I may see him?"
I asked of him one day.
William was scandalized at this idea, and he declared, loftily: "What!
do you imagine that Edgar would dine with simple servants?"
It was from Edgar that William got his incomparable method of polishing
his hats. Once, at the Auteuil races, Edgar was approached by the young
marquis de Plérin.
"Say, my lad," begged the marquis, "how do you get your hats?"
"My hats, Monsieur the Marquis?" responded Edgar, highly flattered,
for the young Plérin, a robber at the races and a trickster at the
gaming-table, was then one of the most famous personalities of Parisian
society. "It is very simple; only it is like picking the winner,--you
must know how. Well, this is the trick. Every morning I make my _valet
de chambre_ run for a quarter of an hour. He sweats, of course. And the
sweat contains oil. Then, with a very fine silk handkerchief, he wipes
the sweat from his brow, and rubs my hats with it. A stroke or two
with the iron finishes the job. But it takes a clean and healthy man,
preferably a man with nut-brown complexion,--for some blondes smell
strong, and all sweats are not suitable. Last year I gave the receipt
to the prince of Wales."
And, as the young marquis de Plérin thanked Edgar and slyly shook his
hand, the latter added, confidently:
"Take Baladeur at seven to one. He is to be the winner, Monsieur the
Marquis."
It is really funny when I think of it, but I finally came to feel
flattered myself that William had such a relation. To me, too, Edgar
was something admirable and inaccessible, like the emperor of Germany,
Victor Hugo, or Paul Bourget. That is why I think it advisable to fix
in these pages, from all that William told me, the portrait of this
more than illustrious, this historic personage.
Edgar was born in London, in a frightful den, between two hiccups
of whiskey. As a boy he was a vagabond, a beggar, a thief, and a
jail-bird. Later, having the requisite physical deformities and the
most crapulous instincts, he was pitched on for a groom. From ante-room
to stable, rubbing against all the trickery, all the rapacity, all the
vice prevailing among the servants of a grand establishment, he became
a "lad" in the Eaton stud. And he strutted about in a Scotch cap, a
yellow and black striped waistcoat, and light pantaloons, loose at the
thighs, tight at the calves, and wrinkled at the knees in the form of
a screw. When scarcely an adult, he looked like a little old man, with
frail limbs and furrowed face, red at the cheek-bones, yellow at the
temples, with worn-out and grimacing mouth, with thin hair brushed over
his ears in the form of a greasy spiral. In a society which the odor of
horse-dung causes to swoon with delight Edgar was already a personage
less anonymous than a workingman or a peasant,--almost a gentleman.
At Eaton he learned his trade thoroughly. He knows how to groom a
stylish horse, how to take care of it when it is sick, and what
detailed and complicated toilets are most suitable to the color of
its coat. He knows the secret of the intimate washings, the refined
polishings, the expert pedicurings, and the ingenious processes of
make-up, by which the beasts of the race-track, like the beasts of
love, are set out and beautified. In the bar-rooms he knew important
jockeys, celebrated trainers, and the big-bellied baronets, and
blackleg dukes and bums, who are the _cream_ of this muck-heap and the
_flower_ of this horse-dung. Edgar would have liked to become a jockey,
for he soon saw all the tricks that could be played and the money that
could be made. But he had grown too large. Though his legs had remained
thin and bowed, he had acquired something of a corporation. He was too
heavy. So, being unable to don the jockey's coat, he decided to wear
the coachman's livery.
To-day Edgar is forty-three years old. He is one of the five or six
English, Italian, and French stud-grooms of whom they talk in elegant
society with wondering admiration. His name triumphs in the sporting
papers, and even in the paragraphs of the society and literary
journals. The baron de Borgsheim, his present master, is proud of
him,--more proud of him than he would be of a financial operation
that had ruined a hundred thousand janitors. Swelling up with an air
of definitive superiority, he says: "My stud-groom!" as a collector
of pictures would say: "My Rubens!" And, in fact, the lucky baron has
reason to be proud, for, since he came into possession of Edgar, he has
made great strides in fame and respectability. Edgar has gained for
him that admission to uncompromising _salons_ which he so long coveted.
Through Edgar he has at last overcome the resistance of society to his
race. At the club they talk of the famous "victory of the baron over
England." The English have taken Egypt from us, but the baron has taken
Edgar from the English, and that restores the equilibrium. If he had
conquered the Indies, he would not have been more loudly acclaimed.
This admiration is accompanied, however, by deep jealousy. They would
like to get Edgar away from him, and so there goes on around Edgar all
sorts of intrigues, and corrupting conspiracies, and flirtations, like
those that go on around a beautiful woman. As for the newspapers, they,
in their respectful enthusiasm, have reached a point where they are
no longer able to tell exactly which of the two, Edgar or the baron,
is the admirable stud-groom, and which the admirable financier. They
confound the two in the mutual glories of one and the same apotheosis.
Provided you have been curious enough to circulate among aristocratic
crowds, you certainly must have met Edgar, who is one of their most
precious ornaments and one who is most commonly displayed. He is a man
of average height, very ugly,--that comical English ugliness,--and
having an immoderately long nose, with doubly royal curves, which
oscillate between the Semitic curve and the Bourbon curve. His lips,
very short and turned-up, reveal black holes between decaying teeth.
His complexion is lightened in the scale of the yellows, relieved at
the cheek-bones with some hatchings in bright lake. Without being
obese, like the majestic coachman of the olden time, he is now endowed
with a comfortable and regular _embonpoint_ which covers with fat the
vulgar protuberances of his frame. And, slightly throwing out his
chest, he walks with an elastic step, his elbows bent at the regulation
angle. Scorning to follow the fashion, desirous rather of setting it,
he dresses richly and fantastically. He has blue frock-coats, with
watered-silk facings, excessively tight-fitting and too new; pantaloons
of English cut that are too light; cravats that are too white; jewels
that are too big; handkerchiefs that are too fragrant; shoes that are
too highly polished; hats that are too shining. How long the young
swells have envied Edgar the unusual and fulgurating brilliancy of his
headgear!
At eight o'clock in the morning, wearing a little round hat and a
putty-colored overcoat as short as a jacket, with an enormous yellow
rose in his button-hole, Edgar descends from his automobile, in front
of the baron's mansion. The grooming is just finished. After having
cast an ill-humored look around the yard, he enters the stables and
begins his inspection, followed by the anxious and respectful hostlers.
Nothing escapes his suspicious and sidewise glances,--a bucket not
in its place, a spot on the steel chains, a scratch on the silvers
and brasses. And he growls, flies into a passion, and threatens in a
phlegm-choked voice, his bronchial tubes being still obstructed by the
fermentation of the champagne drunk the night before. He enters each
box, and passes his white-gloved hand over the manes, necks, bellies,
and legs of the horses. If he finds the slightest trace of dirt on
his glove, he jaws the hostlers; there is a flood of filthy words and
insulting oaths, and a tempest of furious gestures. Then he examines
minutely the horses' hoofs, smells of the oats in the marble mangers,
feels of the litter, and long and carefully studies the form, color,
and density of the dung, which never suits him.
"What kind of dung do you call that, I should like to know? It is the
dung of a cab-horse. Be sure that I see nothing like it to-morrow, pack
of good-for-nothings that you are!"
Sometimes the baron puts in an appearance, glad of a chance to talk
with his stud-groom. Scarcely does he notice his master's presence. The
latter's timid questions he answers with curt and snarling words. Never
does he say "Monsieur the Baron." The baron, on the contrary, is almost
tempted to say: "Monsieur the coachman!" Afraid that he may irritate
Edgar, he does not stay long, and retires discreetly.
Having finished his review of the stables, the carriage-houses, and
the harness-rooms, and having given his orders in a tone of military
command, Edgar gets into his automobile again, and starts rapidly for
the Champs-Elysées, where at first he makes a short stop in a little
bar-room, among race-track people, skunk-faced tipsters, who drop
mysterious words into his ears, and show him confidential dispatches.
The rest of the morning is devoted to visits to sundry trades-people,
to give them new orders and receive commissions, and to horse-dealers,
with whom such conversations as the following take place:
"Well, Master Edgar?"
"Well, Master Poolny?"
"I have a buyer for the baron's bays."
"They are not for sale."
"Fifty pounds for you."
"No."
"A hundred pounds, Master Edgar."
"We will see, Master Poolny."
"That is not all, Master Edgar."
"What else, Master Poolny?"
"I have two magnificent sorrels for the baron."
"We do not need them."
"Fifty pounds for you."
"No."
"A hundred pounds, Master Edgar."
"We will see, Master Poolny."
A week later Edgar has spoiled the paces of the baron's bays in
just the right degree, not too much or too little, and then, having
demonstrated to the baron that it is high time to get rid of them, he
sells them to Poolny, who sells to Edgar the two magnificent sorrels.
Poolny restores the bays to good condition by sending them to pasture
for three months, and two years later perhaps sells them again to the
baron.
At noon Edgar's work is done. He returns for lunch to his apartments in
the Rue Euler, for he does not live in the baron's mansion, and never
drives the baron. His apartments consist of a ground-floor, heavily
upholstered in embroidered plush of the loudest shades, the walls
being covered with English lithographs of hunts, steeplechases, famous
cracks, and various portraits of the prince of Wales, one of which
was presented to Edgar by the prince himself, and bears a dedication
from him. Then there are canes, whips, stirrups, bits, and tally-ho
horns, arranged in a panoply, with an enormous bust of Queen Victoria,
made of polychromatic and loyalist terra cotta, in the centre, between
two gilded pediments. Then, free from care, strangling in his blue
frock-coats, his head covered with his radiant beacon, Edgar devotes
the rest of his day to his own affairs and to his own pleasures. His
affairs are numerous, for he is in partnership with a club cashier,
a bookmaker, and a horse photographer, and he has three horses in
training near Chantilly. Nor are his pleasures lacking; the most famous
little women know the way to the Rue Euler, where, on days when they
happen to be short, they are sure to find a cup of tea and five louis.
In the evening, after having shown himself at the Ambassadeurs, at the
Cirque, and at the Olympia, very correct in his silk-faced dress-coat,
Edgar repairs to the _Ancien_, and there spends a long time in getting
drunk, in the company of coachmen who assume the airs of gentlemen, and
of gentlemen who assume the airs of coachmen.
And every time that William told me one of these stories he concluded,
with a voice of admiring wonder:
"Oh! this Edgar! there is a man for you, indeed!"
My masters belonged to what it is agreed to call the high society of
Paris; that is to say, Monsieur was a penniless nobleman, and nobody
knew exactly where Madame came from. Many stories were afloat regarding
her origin, each more disagreeable than the others. William, very
familiar with the scandals of high society, pretended that the madame
was the daughter of an old coachman and an old chambermaid, who,
by pinching and general misbehavior, got together a small capital,
established themselves as usurers in a disreputable quarter of
Paris, and rapidly made a large fortune by lending money, mainly to
prostitutes and house-servants. They struck it rich, indeed!
It was certainly true that Madame, in spite of her apparent elegance
and her very pretty face, had queer manners and vulgar habits that were
very disagreeable. The dirty creature was fond of boiled beef, and
bacon and cabbage; and, like the cabmen, it was her delight to pour red
wine into her soup. I was ashamed of her. Often, in her quarrels with
Monsieur, her anger stirred the mud that still remained in the depths
of her being, not yet thoroughly cleaned by her suddenly-acquired
luxury, and brought up to her lips a filthy foam of words,--ah! words
that I, who am not a lady, often regret having uttered. But there
you are! One does not imagine how many women there are, with angels'
mouths, and starry eyes, and three-thousand-franc dresses, who, in
their own houses, use coarse language, make filthy gestures, and are
disgusting by their vulgarity,--in fact, strumpets of the lowest type.
"Great ladies," said William, "are like the best sauces,--it is better
not to know how they are made."
William was given to these disenchanting aphorisms. And, being all the
same a very gallant man, he added, as he took me about the waist:
"A little girl like you is less flattering to a lover's vanity. But she
is more serious, all the same."
I must say that Madame spent all her wrath and showered all her coarse
words upon Monsieur; with us, I repeat, she was rather timid.
Moreover, amid the disorder of her house, amid all the reckless waste
she tolerated, Madame showed queer streaks of avarice that were quite
unexpected. She higgled with the cook over two sous spent for salad,
economized in the matter of the servants' washing, raised objections
to a bill of three francs, and did not rest until, after endless
complaints and correspondence, and interminable negotiations, she had
secured a refunding of fifteen centimes unwarrantably collected by an
expressman for the transportation of a package. Every time she took a
cab, there was a quarrel with the coachman, to whom she gave no tip,
and whom she even found a way of cheating. And yet she left her money
about everywhere, with her jewels and her keys, on the mantels and
on the furniture. She recklessly ruined her richest costumes and her
finest linen, she suffered herself to be impudently robbed by dealers
in articles of luxury, and accepted with without a frown the books
of the old butler, as Monsieur, for that matter, accepted those of
William. And yet God knows what frauds they contained! Sometimes I
said to William:
"Really, you pinch too much; some day you will get into trouble."
To which William replied, very calmly:
"Oh! let me alone; I know what I am about, and how far I can go. When
one has masters as stupid as these are, it would be a crime not to take
advantage of them."
But the poor fellow scarcely profited by these continual larcenies,
which, in spite of the astonishing tips he had, continually went to
fill the pockets of the bookmakers.
Monsieur and Madame had been married for five years. At first they
went into society a great deal, and gave dinners. Then gradually they
restricted their goings-out and their receptions, and lived almost
alone, saying that they were jealous of each other. Madame reproached
Monsieur with flirting with the women; Monsieur accused Madame of
looking too much at the men. They loved each other much,--that is to
say, they quarreled all day long, like a little _bourgeois_ household.
The truth is that Madame had not succeeded in society, and that her
manners had cost her not a few insults. She was angry with Monsieur for
not having been able to impose her upon society, and Monsieur was angry
with Madame for having made him ridiculous in the eyes of his friends.
They did not confess to each other the bitterness of their feelings,
finding it simpler to charge their dissensions to the score of love.
Every year, in the middle of June, they started for the country, Madame
having, it seems, a magnificent château in Touraine. The personnel was
re-enforced with a coachman, two gardeners, a second chambermaid, and
some barnyard-scullions. There were cows, peacocks, hens, and rabbits.
How delightful! William told me the details of their country life with
a bitter and grumbling ill-humor. He did not like the country; the
fields, the trees, and the flowers made him tired. Nature was endurable
to him only with bar-rooms, race-tracks, bookmakers, and jockeys. He
was exclusively Parisian.
"Do you know anything more stupid than a chestnut tree?" he often said
to me. "Take Edgar, for instance; he is a _chic_ man, a superior man;
does he like the country?"