“My dear Caroline,” says Adolphe one day to his wife, “are you
satisfied with Justine?”
“Yes, dear, quite so.”
“Don’t you think she speaks to you rather impertinently?”
“Do you suppose I would notice a maid? But it seems _you_ notice her!”
“What do you say?” asks Adolphe in an indignant way that is always
delightful to women.
Justine is a genuine maid for an actress, a woman of thirty stamped by
the small-pox with innumerable dimples, in which the loves are far from
sporting: she is as brown as opium, has a good deal of leg and not much
body, gummy eyes, and a tournure to match. She would like to have
Benoit marry her, but at this unexpected suggestion, Benoit asked for
his discharge. Such is the portrait of the domestic tyrant enthroned by
Caroline’s jealousy.
Justine takes her coffee in the morning, in bed, and manages to have it
as good as, not to say better than, that of her mistress. Justine
sometimes goes out without asking leave, dressed like the wife of a
second-class banker. She sports a pink hat, one of her mistress’ old
gowns made over, an elegant shawl, shoes of bronze kid, and jewelry of
doubtful character.
Justine is sometimes in a bad humor, and makes her mistress feel that
she too is a woman like herself, though she is not married. She has her
whims, her fits of melancholy, her caprices. She even dares to have her
nerves! She replies curtly, she makes herself insupportable to the
other servants, and, to conclude, her wages have been considerably
increased.
“My dear, this girl is getting more intolerable every day,” says
Adolphe one morning to his wife, on noticing Justine listening at the
key-hole, “and if you don’t send her away, I will!”
Caroline, greatly alarmed, is obliged to give Justine a talking to,
while her husband is out.
“Justine, you take advantage of my kindness to you: you have high
wages, here, you have perquisites, presents: try to keep your place,
for my husband wants to send you away.”
The maid humbles herself to the earth, she sheds tears: she is so
attached to madame! Ah! she would rush into the fire for her: she would
let herself be chopped into mince-meat: she is ready for anything.
“If you had anything to conceal, madame, I would take it on myself and
say it was me!”
“Very well, Justine, very good, my girl,” says Caroline, terrified:
“but that’s not the point: just try to keep in your place.”
“Ah, ha!” says Justine to herself, “monsieur wants to send me away,
does he? Wait and see the deuce of a life I’ll lead you, you old
curmudgeon!”
A week after, Justine, who is dressing her mistress’ hair, looks in the
glass to make sure that Caroline can see all the grimaces of her
countenance: and Caroline very soon inquires, “Why, what’s the matter,
Justine?”
“I would tell you, readily, madame, but then, madame, you are so weak
with monsieur!”
“Come, go on, what is it?”
“I know now, madame, why master wanted to show me the door: he has
confidence in nobody but Benoit, and Benoit is playing the mum with
me.”
“Well, what does that prove? Has anything been discovered?”
“I’m sure that between the two they are plotting something against you
madame,” returns the maid with authority.
Caroline, whom Justine watches in the glass, turns pale: all the
tortures of the previous petty trouble return, and Justine sees that
she has become as indispensable to her mistress as spies are to the
government when a conspiracy is discovered. Still, Caroline’s friends
do not understand why she keeps so disagreeable a servant girl, one who
wears a hat, whose manners are impertinent, and who gives herself the
airs of a lady.
This stupid domination is talked of at Madame Deschars’, at Madame de
Fischtaminel’s, and the company consider it funny. A few ladies think
they can see certain monstrous reasons for it, reasons which compromise
Caroline’s honor.
Axiom.—In society, people can put cloaks on every kind of truth, even
the prettiest.
In short the _aria della calumnia_ is executed precisely as if Bartholo
were singing it.
It is averred that Caroline cannot discharge her maid.
Society devotes itself desperately to discovering the secret of this
enigma. Madame de Fischtaminel makes fun of Adolphe who goes home in a
rage, has a scene with Caroline and discharges Justine.
This produces such an effect upon Justine, that she falls sick, and
takes to her bed. Caroline observes to her husband, that it would be
awkward to turn a girl in Justine’s condition into the street, a girl
who is so much attached to them, too, and who has been with them sine
their marriage.
“Let her go then as soon as she is well!” says Adolphe.
Caroline, reassured in regard to Adolphe, and indecently swindled by
Justine, at last comes to desire to get rid of her: she applies a
violent remedy to the disease, and makes up her mind to go under the
Caudine Forks of another petty trouble, as follows: