Then a cloud of constant misery began for her. She worked mechanically,
without thinking of what she was doing, with one fixed idea in her head:
“Suppose people were to know.”
This continual feeling made her so incapable of reasoning that she did
not even try to think of any means of avoiding the disgrace that she
knew must ensue, which was irreparable and drawing nearer every day, and
which was as sure as death itself. She got up every morning long before
the others and persistently tried to look at her figure in a piece of
broken looking-glass, before which she did her hair, as she was very
anxious to know whether anybody would notice a change in her, and,
during the day, she stopped working every few minutes to look at herself
from top to toe, to see whether her apron did not look too short.
The months went on, and she scarcely spoke now, and when she was asked a
question, did not appear to understand; but she had a frightened look,
haggard eyes and trembling hands, which made her master say to her
occasionally: “My poor girl, how stupid you have grown lately.”
In church she hid behind a pillar, and no longer ventured to go to
confession, as she feared to face the priest, to whom she attributed
superhuman powers, which enabled him to read people's consciences; and
at meal times the looks of her fellow servants almost made her faint
with mental agony; and she was always fancying that she had been found
out by the cowherd, a precocious and cunning little lad, whose bright
eyes seemed always to be watching her.
One morning the postman brought her a letter, and as she had never
received one in her life before she was so upset by it that she was
obliged to sit down. Perhaps it was from him? But, as she could not
read, she sat anxious and trembling with that piece of paper, covered
with ink, in her hand. After a time, however, she put it into her
pocket, as she did not venture to confide her secret to any one. She
often stopped in her work to look at those lines written at regular
intervals, and which terminated in a signature, imagining vaguely that
she would suddenly discover their meaning, until at last, as she felt
half mad with impatience and anxiety, she went to the schoolmaster, who
told her to sit down and read to her as follows:
“MY DEAR DAUGHTER: I write to tell you that I am very ill. Our neighbor,
Monsieur Dentu, begs you to come, if you can.
“From your affectionate mother, “CESAIRE DENTU, Deputy Mayor.”
She did not say a word and went away, but as soon as she was alone her
legs gave way under her, and she fell down by the roadside and remained
there till night.
When she got back, she told the farmer her bad news, and he allowed her
to go home for as long as she liked, and promised to have her work done
by a charwoman and to take her back when she returned.
Her mother died soon after she got there, and the next day Rose gave
birth to a seven-months child, a miserable little skeleton, thin enough
to make anybody shudder, and which seemed to be suffering continually,
to judge from the painful manner in which it moved its poor little
hands, which were as thin as a crab's legs; but it lived for all that.
She said she was married, but could not be burdened with the child, so
she left it with some neighbors, who promised to take great care of it,
and she went back to the farm.
But now in her heart, which had been wounded so long, there arose
something like brightness, an unknown love for that frail little
creature which she had left behind her, though there was fresh suffering
in that very love, suffering which she felt every hour and every minute,
because she was parted from her child. What pained her most, however,
was the mad longing to kiss it, to press it in her arms, to feel the
warmth of its little body against her breast. She could not sleep at
night; she thought of it the whole day long, and in the evening, when
her work was done, she would sit in front of the fire and gaze at it
intently, as people do whose thoughts are far away.
They began to talk about her and to tease her about her lover. They
asked her whether he was tall, handsome and rich. When was the wedding
to be and the christening? And often she ran away to cry by herself, for
these questions seemed to hurt her like the prick of a pin; and, in
order to forget their jokes, she began to work still more energetically,
and, still thinking of her child, she sought some way of saving up money
for it, and determined to work so that her master would be obliged to
raise her wages.
By degrees she almost monopolized the work and persuaded him to get rid
of one servant girl, who had become useless since she had taken to
working like two; she economized in the bread, oil and candles; in the
corn, which they gave to the chickens too extravagantly, and in the
fodder for the horses and cattle, which was rather wasted. She was as
miserly about her master's money as if it had been her own; and, by dint
of making good bargains, of getting high prices for all their produce,
and by baffling the peasants' tricks when they offered anything for
sale, he, at last, entrusted her with buying and selling everything,
with the direction of all the laborers, and with the purchase of
provisions necessary for the household; so that, in a short time, she
became. indispensable to him. She kept such a strict eye on everything
about her that, under her direction, the farm prospered wonderfully, and
for five miles around people talked of “Master Vallin's servant,” and
the farmer himself said everywhere: “That girl is worth more than her
weight in gold.”
But time passed by, and her wages remained the same. Her hard work was
accepted as something that was due from every good servant, and as a
mere token of good will; and she began to think rather bitterly that if
the farmer could put fifty or a hundred crowns extra into the bank every
month, thanks to her, she was still only earning her two hundred francs
a year, neither more nor less; and so she made up her mind to ask for an
increase of wages. She went to see the schoolmaster three times about
it, but when she got there, she spoke about something else. She felt a
kind of modesty in asking for money, as if it were something
disgraceful; but, at last, one day, when the farmer was having breakfast
by himself in the kitchen, she said to him, with some embarrassment,
that she wished to speak to him particularly. He raised his head in
surprise, with both his hands on the table, holding his knife, with its
point in the air, in one, and a piece of bread in the other, and he
looked fixedly at, the girl, who felt uncomfortable under his gaze, but
asked for a week's holiday, so that she might get away, as she was not
very well. He acceded to her request immediately, and then added, in
some embarrassment himself:
“When you come back, I shall have something to say to you myself.”