The Diary of a Chambermaid (16 page)

It was a Saturday, I remember. At the registry office in the rue Colisée, where, for the past week, I had been coming regularly every morning in the hope of finding a situation, I was introduced to an old lady in mourning. Never in my life had I encountered such a prepossessing face, such a gentle expression and simple manners. Never had I heard such encouraging words, and the politeness with which she greeted me warmed my heart.

‘My child,’ she said, ‘Madame Paulhat-Durand (the woman who ran the registry office) has recommended you highly to me. From your appearance, I am inclined to agree with her—your frank, intelligent and cheerful demeanour pleases me. I need someone I can trust, and whose devotion I can count upon. Oh, I know that is asking a great deal—since you don’t yet know me, there is no reason why you should feel devotion for me. I am going to explain to you exactly what the position is … But don’t stand there, child … Come and sit down beside me.’

If anyone speaks kindly to me, if they do not regard me as a creature belonging to another world, something between a dog and a parrot, I am immediately touched … I immediately feel as though I were once again a child. All my bitterness and hatred, all my rebelliousness miraculously disappears, and I feel nothing but unselfish affection towards those who speak to me with humanity. I know from experience that only those who have themselves suffered can appreciate the suffering of others, even if they are socially inferior to them … There is always an element of insolence and remoteness in the kindness of those who have known nothing but happiness.

By the time I had seated myself beside her I already loved, really loved, this impressive old lady in her widow’s weeds.

‘The situation I’m offering you, my child, is not a very cheerful one …’

‘Don’t worry, ma’am,’ I interrupted, with an enthusiastic sincerity that did not escape her. ‘I will do whatever you ask of me.’

And it was true—I was ready for anything. She thanked me with a look of tenderness, and continued: ‘Well, this is the position. Life has not treated me at all kindly. The only one of my family still left to me is a grandson, and his life is already threatened by the terrible illness that killed the others.’

As though fearing to utter the name of this terrible disease, she indicated what it was by placing her old, black-gloved hand on her chest and, with an even sadder expression, added: ‘Poor child … he is a charming lad, really adorable, and I have set my last hopes on him, for if he were to die, I should be left quite alone in the world. And then what should I do with my life, dear God?’

Her eyes filled with tears, and she dabbed them with her handkerchief:

‘The doctors assure me that he can be saved, that the infection is not yet serious; and they have prescribed a cure for him from which they expect great things. Every afternoon George has to bathe in the sea, though only a quick dip … then he has to be rubbed all over with a horse-hair glove to restore the circulation … then drink a glass of port wine, and finally lie down in a nice, warm bed for at least an hour. The first thing I should want from you, my dear, would be to see to all this. But what you must also understand is that the most important thing of all for him is youth, kindness, gaiety, life. Living with me, these are the things that he misses most. I have two very devoted servants, but they’re old and sad, and a bit crotchety. George cannot stand them. As for me, with my white hair and always in mourning, I realize that I only distress him … and, what’s worse, I know all too well that I often cannot hide my apprehension. Oh, I realize that this is perhaps scarcely the kind of role that a young girl like you ought to be expected to play towards a lad of George’s age—after all, he’s only nineteen, and it is bound to set tongues wagging. But I am not concerned with what other people think. I am only concerned with this poor, sick lad. And I have confidence in you … I am assuming that you are a good woman.’

‘Oh yes, ma’am,’ I cried, already convinced that I could be the kind of saint that this broken-hearted grandmother was hoping to find.

‘As for him, poor child … In the state he is in, dear God! … Don’t you see, that what he needs most of all, more than the seabathing and all the rest of it, is not to be left alone, always to have someone with him, with a pretty face and fresh, young laughter—someone who can rid his mind of the idea of death, who can give him confidence in life .. . Well, what do you think?’

‘I accept, ma’am,’ I replied, deeply moved, ‘and you can be quite sure that I shall do everything possible to look after your grandson.’

It was agreed that I should enter upon my duties immediately, and that we should set off next day for Houlgate, where the old lady had rented a fine villa on the seashore.

His grandmother had not exaggerated, Monsieur George was really a charming lad … His beardless face had all the charm of a handsome woman’s; and womanly, too, were his indolent gestures, and the slim hands, so white and supple, with the veins clearly visible. And what eyes! Eyes that burned with a sombre fire, beneath eyelids ringed with blue shadows as though the flame of his glance had singed them. And what thought and passion they expressed, what sensibility and intelligence, what a profound inner life, despite the red flowers of death that already bloomed in his cheeks … It seemed that it was not the illness he was dying of, but the excess of vitality, the passion for life, that was eating into his vital organs and withering up his flesh. Oh, how charming he was to look at, and how sad! When his grandmother took me to see him he was lying stretched out on a sofa, holding in his long white hand a scentless rose. He welcomed me, not like a servant, but as though I were a friend for whom he had been waiting. And, from that first moment, I felt myself drawn to him by all the strength of my soul.

My arrival at Houlgate passed without incident. By the time we arrived everything was ready. All we had to do was to install ourselves in the villa, which was spacious and elegant, full of light and gaiety, and separated from the beach only by a broad terrace, with wicker chairs and gaily striped awnings. Leading to the sea was a stone staircase built in the sea wall, so that at high tide you could hear the sound of the waves breaking on the bottom steps. Monsieur George’s bedroom was on the ground floor, with large bay-windows looking out over a fine expanse of sea. Mine—one of the best rooms in the house, with bright cretonne hangings—was separated from Monsieur George’s by a passage that led into a small garden with a few bushes and straggling rose trees. But to express in words the joy and pride, the pure and novel delight that I experienced at being treated like this … spoilt, invited like a lady to partake of all this luxury, to share, as I had so often vainly longed, the life of the family … all this is quite beyond me. Nor is it possible for me to explain how, by a wave of this marvellous fairy’s wand, happiness had suddenly come to me so that, forgetting all my past humiliations, I could think only of the duties imposed upon me by being at last accepted as a human being. What I
can
say, however, is that in this moment I was really transfigured. Not only could I see from the mirror that I had suddenly become more beautiful, but also I knew in my heart that I was really a better woman. I discovered within myself inexhaustible springs of devotion and self-sacrifice, of heroism even, and I was dominated by a single thought: by my care and faithful attention, by every kind of ingenuity, to save Monsieur George from death.

I felt so strong a faith in my power to save that I would say to the poor old lady, always in despair and often spending the whole day weeping in the drawing-room:

‘There, there, don’t cry, ma’am. You’ll see, we are going to save him … I give you my word, we shall.’

And indeed, at the end of a fortnight, Monsieur George was already feeling much better. There was a noticeable change in his condition. He had fewer attacks of coughing, and at longer intervals; his sleep and appetite were becoming normal. He was no longer having those terrible night sweats that used to leave him, next day, breathless and exhausted. Indeed, he had so far regained his strength that we were able to take long carriage drives, even to go for little walks, without tiring him too much. In a way, it was like a kind of resurrection. Since the weather was fine and the air, though tempered by a breeze from the sea, very warm, when we did not go out we would spend most of the day beneath the awning on the terrace, waiting until it was time to bathe … ‘to have my dip’, as Monsieur George used to call it. And he was gay, always gay, never referring to his illness, never speaking about death … I really believe that, during the whole of this period, he never once uttered the terrible word. On the other hand, he delighted in my chatter, often urging me on; while I, gaining confidence from the gentle look in his eyes and his kindly indulgence, talked to him about anything that came into my head, however silly or crazy. I told him about my childhood, my longings, my unhappiness, my dreams, my revolts, the various situations I’d been in and the cranky and squalid people I had worked for. And I made little attempt to hide the truth from him for, young as he was and though he had never been able to mix with people, with that insight, that marvellous intuition that sick people often have, he seemed to understand all about life. A genuine friendship had sprung up between us, partly as a result of his character, of his loneliness, but above all as a result of all the intimate little attentions with which I sought to bring comfort to his dying body. It made me happier than I can say, it helped to refine my mind through the continual contact with his.

Monsieur George adored poetry. For hours on end, lying on the terrace listening to the sound of the sea, or in the evening in his room, he would get me to read aloud to him poems by Hugo and Baudelaire, by Verlaine and Maeterlinck. Often he would close his eyes and lie without moving, his hands folded on his chest, so that, thinking he had fallen asleep, I would stop reading. But then he would smile, and say: ‘Go on, little one, I am not asleep. I can listen to poetry like this and hear your voice better … You have a charming voice.’

At other times he would interrupt me. Then, after a moment’s thought, he himself would begin to recite, slowly and drawing out the rhythms, the poems that he specially liked, and he would try—oh, how I liked that!—to make me understand them and to feel their beauty.

One day he said to me, and I have cherished his words like a relic:

‘What is so sublime about poetry, you see, is that in order to understand and enjoy it there is no need at all to be highly educated. On the contrary, there are plenty of scholars who just can’t understand it, and often they despise it out of vanity. All one needs to enjoy poetry is a soul … a little naked soul like a flower’s. The poets speak directly to the souls of simple people, of the sad and the sick, and that’s why their words are immortal. Do you realise that anyone with any sensibility already has something of the poet in him? Why, you, my little Célestine, often say things that are as lovely as poetry.’

‘Oh, Monsieur George, don’t make fun of me.’

‘But I am not. And what is so wonderful is that you yourself are quite unaware that you’re saying such beautiful things.’

For me those hours were unique. Whatever fate may have in store for me, as long as I live, they will sing in my heart. I experienced the sensation, unspeakably sweet, of becoming a new person, of sharing, so to speak, in the revelation of something new, of something hitherto unknown to me which was nevertheless me. And today, despite all my backsliding, despite the fact that the bad and angry side of me has once more gained the upper hand, if I still take a passionate delight in reading, if sometimes I feel an aspiration to things superior to myself and to the world in which I move, if in an attempt to recapture the spontaneity of my nature I have dared, despite my ignorance, to write this diary—all these are things that I owe to Monsieur George.

Yes, I was happy … happy above all to see this gentle invalid gradually reviving … putting on flesh and getting a better colour as he felt the new sap rising in his veins … happy for the joy and hope that the speed of his recovery was bringing back to the whole household, who began to look upon me as their fairy queen. For this miracle they attributed to me … to the way I looked after him, to my devoted vigilance, and still more, perhaps, to my constant gaiety, to my charming youthfulness and the surprising influence that I exerted over Monsieur George. His poor grandmother was always thanking me, overwhelming me with her gratitude and blessing—like a wet nurse to whom a dying baby has been entrusted, and whose pure and healthy milk has restored it to health, to health and laughter. Sometimes, forgetting her position, she would take my hands, stroking and kissing them, and with tears of happiness in her eyes, would say:

‘I knew … As soon as I saw you, I was quite certain!’

And already the air was full of projects, of journeys in search of the sun, of rose-filled landscapes!

‘You must never leave us, never, my child.’

The warmth of her feeling often embarrassed me, but in the end I came to believe that I deserved it. To have abused her generosity, as others might have done in my place, would have been infamous.

And what was bound to happen, happened.

On that particular day it was very warm, heavy and stormy. Above the smooth, leaden-coloured sea, the sky was full of huge stifling clouds, in which the storm crouched, ready to spring. Monsieur George did not want to go out, not even as far as the terrace, so we stayed in his room. More nervous than usual, owing to the electricity in the atmosphere, he did not even want me to read poetry to him.

‘It would tire me,’ he said. ‘Besides, today I feel that you would read very badly.’

He went into the drawing-room and began doodling on the piano, but before long he returned to the bedroom and, in an attempt to distract himself, picked up a pencil and started to sketch me. But soon he gave this up, too, grumbling impatiently: ‘It’s no use, I can’t. I’m not in the mood, and my hand is trembling. I don’t know what’s the matter with me, nor with you. You don’t seem to be able to sit still.’