Mademoiselle was sitting in her large armchair at the corner of the
fireplace, where a few live embers were still sleeping under the ashes.
Her black cap was pulled down over her wrinkled forehead almost to her
eyes. Her black dress, cut in the shape of a child's frock, was draped
in scanty folds about her scanty body, showing the location of every
bone, and fell straight from her knees to the floor. She wore a small
black shawl crossed on her breast and tied behind her back, as they are
worn by little girls. Her half-open hands were resting on her hips, with
the palms turned outward--thin, old woman's hands, awkward and stiff,
and swollen with gout at the knuckles and finger joints. Sitting in the
huddled, crouching posture that compels old people to raise their heads
to look at you and speak to you, she seemed to be buried in all that
mass of black, whence nothing emerged but her face, to which
preponderance of bile had imparted the yellow hue of old ivory, and the
flashing glance of her brown eyes. One who saw her thus, her bright,
sparkling eyes, the meagre body, the garb of poverty and the noble air
with which she bore all the burdens of age, might well have fancied
that he was looking at a fairy on the stage of the Petits-Menages.
Germinie was by her side. The old lady began:
"The list is still under the door, eh, Germinie?"
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"Do you know, my girl," Mademoiselle de Varandeuil resumed, after a
pause, "do you know that when one is born in one of the finest houses on
Rue Royale--when one has been in a fair way to own the Grand and
Petit-Charolais--when one has almost had the Chateau of
Clichy-la-Garenne for a country house--and when it took two servants to
carry the silver platter on which the joint was served at your
grandmother's--do you know that it takes no small amount of
philosophy"--and mademoiselle with difficulty raised a hand to her
shoulder--"to see yourself end like this, in this devilish nest of
rheumatism, where, in spite of all the list in the world, you can't keep
out of draughts.--That's it, stir up the fire a little."
She put out her feet toward Germinie, who was kneeling in front of the
fireplace, and laughingly placed them under her nose: "Do you know that
that takes no small amount of philosophy--to wear stockings out at heel!
Simpleton! I'm not scolding you; I know well enough that you can't do
everything. So you might as well have a woman come to do the mending.
That's not very much to do. Why don't you speak to that little girl that
came here last year? She had a face that I remember."
"Oh! she's black as a mole, mademoiselle."
"Bah! I knew it. In the first place you never think well of anybody.
That isn't true, you say? Why, wasn't she a niece of Mere Jupillon's? We
might take her for one or two days a week."
"That hussy shall never set foot here."
"Nonsense, more fables! You're a most astonishing creature, to adore
people and then not want to see them again. What has she done to you?"
"She's a lost creature, I tell you!"
"Bah! what does my linen care for that?"
"But, mademoiselle."
"All right! find me someone else then. I don't care about her
particularly. But find me someone."
"Oh! the women that come in like that don't do any work. I'll mend your
clothes. You don't need any one."
"You!--Oh! if we have to rely on your needle!" said mademoiselle
jocosely; "and then, will Mere Jupillon ever give you the time?"
"Madame Jupillon? Oh! for all the dust I shall ever leave in her house
again!"
"Hoity-toity! What's that? She too! so she's on your black books, is
she? Oho! hurry up and make another acquaintance, or else, _bon Dieu de
Dieu_! we shall have some bad days here!"