The Diary of a Chambermaid (17 page)

In the end he lay down on the sofa, by the huge window that looked out over an immense stretch of sea. In the distance, fishing boats, running before the threatening storm, were making for harbour at Trouville. With a listless expression, he stared out at their grey sails manoeuvring in the wind. It was true what he had said—I just could not stay still, but kept fidgeting about trying to think of something to occupy his mind. But I could find nothing, and my restlessness communicated itself to him.

‘Why are you so restless, so on edge? Come and sit by me.’

I asked him whether he would like to be on one of those little boats.

‘Don’t talk just for the sake of talking … What’s the good of asking such pointless questions? Come and sit here by me.’

No sooner had I done so than he complained that the sight of the sea was unbearable, and asked me to pull down the blind.

‘This half-light exasperates me. The sea is horrible. I don’t want to look at it any more. Everything is horrible today. I don’t want to look at anything at all except you.’

I gently scolded him: ‘Now, Monsieur George, you’re being very naughty. It’s not right. If your grandmother were to see you in this state it would make her cry again.’

Raising himself a little on the cushions, he said:

‘In the first place why do you keep calling me “Monsieur” George? You know I don’t like it.’

‘Well, I can scarcely call you Monsieur Gaston, can I?’

‘You know quite well what I mean, you little wretch. Just call me plain George.’

‘But I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t.’

And he sighed: ‘Isn’t it curious. Do you really want to be a poor little slave for ever?’

Then he fell silent. And we spent the rest of the day either in a state of nervous irritation or, which was even worse, in silence.

In the evening, after dinner, at last the storm broke. The wind rose to a gale, and the sea broke against the sea wall with a loud, lifeless thud. Monsieur George did not want to go to bed, because he felt it would be impossible to sleep, and he was afraid of the long night stretching before him. Lying on the sofa, with me sitting at a little table and a shaded lamp shedding its soft pink light around us, neither of us spoke. Though his eyes were brighter than usual, Monsieur George seemed to have become calmer, and the light from the lamp heightened the colour in his cheeks and threw into relief the charming outlines of his face. I was busy with some sewing.

Suddenly he said to me: ‘Stop working for a bit, Célestine, and come and sit closer to me.’

I always fell in with his wishes, his caprices … He used to have these sudden outbursts of friendship sometimes, and I attributed them to his feeling of gratitude. Now, as usual, I did what he asked me.

‘Closer, come closer to me,’ he said. Then, ‘Now, give me your hand.’

Without the least hesitation I let him take it, and he began stroking it.

‘What lovely hands you’ve got! And your eyes too! Everything about you is lovely, everything.’

He had often spoken of my kindness, but never before had he told me I was pretty, at least, not in this way. Taken aback, but nevertheless delighted by his words, which he uttered in a serious, slightly breathless voice, I instinctively drew back.

‘No, no, don’t go away. Stay close to me, very close. You’ve no idea how much good it does me to have you near me … how it warms me. You see? I’m not nervous or upset any more. I’m not ill now … just content and happy … very, very happy.’

He put his arm round my waist, and gently pulled me down to sit beside him on the sofa. Then he asked:

‘Do you mind being like this?’

I felt some misgiving, for his eyes were burning and his voice had begun to tremble … the trembling that I know … My God, how well I know it! … the trembling that always comes into men’s voices when they feel the stirring of desire. I was deeply moved, and felt quite weak. My head was beginning to swim. But I was determined to defend myself against him, and above all, to defend him against himself, and I replied with a roguish smile:

‘Yes, Monsieur George, I mind it very much … Let me get up.’

But without taking his arm away, he went on: ‘No, no, please be nice to me.’

And in a voice that was unbelievably gentle and caressing he added:

‘But you’re frightened … What is there to be afraid of?’

At the same time he brought his face close to mine, and I could feel the warmth of his breath, which had a stale kind of smell like the incense of death. Seized by unspeakable anguish I cried out:

‘Monsieur George, oh, Monsieur George, let me go! You will make yourself ill. I beg you, please let me go.’

Because of his weakness, the frailty of his limbs, I dared not struggle. I simply tried, with infinite care, to push away the hand with which, awkwardly, trembling with shyness, he was trying to undo my blouse and feel my breasts. And again I said:

‘Let me go! What you are doing is very wicked, Monsieur George. Let me go!’

The effort of holding me so close had tired him. The pressure of his arms grew weaker, and for a few seconds he had difficulty in breathing … Then his body was shaken by a dry cough.

‘Now, you see, Monsieur George,’ I said, as gently as a mother scolding her child. ‘You wouldn’t listen to me; now you’ve made yourself ill and we shall have to start all over again. A lot of good you’ve done yourself. Do, please, be sensible … please. If you were really good do you know what you’d do? You’d go to bed straight away.’

He took his hand from my waist, stretched out on the sofa and, while I was putting back the cushions which had fallen, murmured sadly:

‘Yes, I know. You were quite right. You must forgive me.’

‘There’s nothing for me to forgive, Monsieur George. You must just keep calm.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, staring at a point on the ceiling where the lamp made a circle of moving light. ‘It was crazy of me to have dreamt for a moment that you could love me …
me,
who have never known what love is …
me,
who have never had anything but suffering. Why should you love me? This ought to cure me of loving you … But when you are here, close to me, and I desire you … when you are here in all the freshness of your youth … with your eyes, your hands, those soft little hands, that seem to be caressing me when they are caring for me … Since I am continually dreaming of you, feeling within myself, in my whole soul and body, fresh strength welling up, a vitality I’ve never known before … that is to say, when I used to feel this … Anyway, what does it matter to you? I was crazy! And you? You? … No, you were right …’

I was very embarrassed. I did not know either what to say, or what to do. Powerful and conflicting feelings were tugging me in every direction, one impulse urging me towards him, but a sense of duty holding me back. And because I was not sincere, because I could not be sincere, torn as I was in the struggle between desire and duty, all I could do was to stammer:

‘You must be sensible, Monsieur George. You mustn’t think of such terrible things. It will only do you harm. Look, Monsieur George, you must try to be good …’

But he repeated: ‘It’s true. Why should you love me? You are quite right not to. You think I am a sick man. You’re afraid that the poison of my mouth will poison you … that you will catch my disease—the disease I am dying of—from my kisses. You are quite right …’

The cruel injustice of his words pierced me to the heart.

‘You mustn’t say such things, Monsieur George,’ I cried. ‘It’s horrible, it’s wicked, what you’re saying. I can’t bear what you are doing to me. I can’t bear it.’

I seized hold of his hands … they were moist, and burning hot. I stooped over him and his breath was like a furnace:

‘It’s horrible, horrible!’ he continued. ‘A kiss from you, that’s what would restore me to life … would really mean my resurrection. Did you seriously believe in your sea-bathing and port wine and horsehair gloves? Poor little thing! It’s your love I have been bathing in, the wine of your love I have been drinking, the irritant of your love that has caused new blood to course through my veins. If I have a new hold on life, if I have become strong again, it is because I have been looking forward to your kisses, longing for them, waiting for them … But I don’t blame you for refusing. You are right to do so. I understand, I understand. You are a timid little creature, without courage … a bird singing first on this branch, then on that … and then, at the slightest noise, off you go!’

‘It’s terrible, what you’re saying, Monsieur George.’

But he had not finished, and all I could do was to sit there wringing my hands.

‘What’s terrible about it? No, it’s not terrible, it’s true. You think I’m ill … Do you believe it’s possible to be ill when one is in love … Don’t you realize that love is life—life everlasting … Yes, yes, I understand. Though for me your kiss means life, you’re afraid that for you it might mean death … Let’s say no more about it.’

I could not listen any longer. Was it pity? Was it the bitter reproaches, the savage challenge contained in his atrocious words? Or was it simply that I was suddenly possessed by impulsive, primitive desire? I have no idea. Perhaps it was something of them all. All I know is that I flung myself down beside him on the sofa and, raising his charming, boyish head in my hands, cried wildly:

‘You’ve no right to say such things. See if I’m afraid, just see if I’m afraid!’

I pressed my mouth to his, grinding my teeth against his with such quivering passion that it seemed to me as though my tongue must penetrate his wounded lungs and draw forth all the poisoned blood and deadly pus. He flung his arms round me and held me close …

And what had to happen, happened …

Yet now, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that what made me fling myself into George’s arms and press my lips to his was first and foremost an overwhelming and spontaneous protest against the mean motives to which—it was a trick, maybe—George had attributed my refusal. Above all, it was an act of fervent piety, sure and disinterested, which meant: ‘No, I do not believe you are ill … No, you are not ill … And the proof is that I’m not afraid to breathe your breath, to inhale it, to draw it deep into my lungs, till my whole body is saturated with it. And even if you were really ill, even if your illness was contagious and must kill whoever came near you, I would hate you to feel that I was afraid of catching it, or even of dying of it!’

Moreover, I did not foresee what must inevitably be the result of this kiss … that once I was in his arms, once I felt his lips upon mine, I should no longer have the strength to tear myself from his embrace … But there it is! Whenever a man holds me in his arms, my skin immediately starts burning, and my head spins and spins. I become intoxicated, mad, a wild thing, I can think of nothing but the satisfaction of my desire. All I can think of is him. And, docile and terrible, I let him lead me where he will, even into crime!

Oh, when I remember that first kiss of Monsieur George’s! His awkward, charming caresses, the ingenuous passion of his every movement, and the look of wonder in his eyes as, at last, the mystery of woman and of love was unveiled for him. In this first encounter I gave myself to him completely, with a zest that held nothing back, with that feverish, inventive delight that tames and overwhelms the strongest men, till they beg for mercy. But as the intoxication died away and I looked at the poor, frail boy lying in my arms, panting, almost swooning, I had a terrible feeling of remorse … the monstrous fear that I might have killed him.

‘Monsieur George, Monsieur George! My poor boy, what have I done? I have made you ill.’

But, tenderly, trustingly, overwhelmed by gratitude, he snuggled up against me like a cat seeking protection and, with an ecstatic look in his eyes, murmured: ‘I’m so happy … so happy … Now I don’t mind dying.’

And when in desperation I began cursing my own weakness, he repeated:

‘I am happy. Don’t leave me. Stay with me all night. If you left me by myself I don’t think I could bear the bitter sweetness of this happiness.’

While I was helping him to get ready to sleep, he had a bout of coughing. Fortunately, it did not last long. But short as it was it was heartrending. Could it be that after taking such care of him and curing him, I was now to be responsible for his death? I detested myself, and could scarcely hold back my tears.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, smiling. ‘Nothing at all. You mustn’t be upset when I am so happy … Besides, I’m not ill, I’m not ill. You’ll see how well I shall sleep, with you here beside me. This is how I want to sleep, with my head on your breast, as if I were your child.’

‘But if your grandmother rings for me during the night …?’

‘No, no, she won’t ring. I want to sleep like this, knowing you are beside me.’

Sometimes sick people are more sexually potent than other men, even the strongest. I think it must be because the idea of death, the presence of death, acts mysteriously as a terrible stimulus to their passion. During the fortnight that followed that marvellous, tragic night, it was as though we were both possessed by a kind of madness, as though our kisses, bodies, souls, were intermingled in an endless act of possession. We were in furious haste to make up for all the time we had lost. We wanted to live every moment of this love, this love which we both felt could only end in death.

‘Again, again, again!’

By a sudden revulsion of feeling, I not only no longer felt remorse, but when Monsieur George’s strength began to fail I discovered new and more effective caresses to revive him, to give him for a moment fresh energy. My kisses had the monstrous power of an aphrodisiac.

‘Again, again, again!’

There was something sinister, madly criminal, in my love-making. Knowing that I was killing George, it was as though I were desperately striving to kill myself as well, in the same happiness, and of the same illness. I was deliberately sacrificing both his life and my own with a wild and bitter exaltation that enormously intensified our love. I inhaled, I drank death from his mouth, smearing my lips with his poison. Once, lying in my arms, when he was seized by a fit of coughing, more violent than usual, his lips were covered with bloodstained froth, and I took a clot of blood in my mouth and swallowed it as if it were the elixir of life.