The Diary of a Chambermaid (33 page)

‘You’re like me, Célestine … Oh, not to look at, of course! … But our souls, they are as alike as twins …’

Can it really be true? These feelings that I am experiencing are so novel, so insistent and tenacious, that they never give me a moment’s respite. I am continually under the influence of their numbing fascination. Though I try to occupy my mind with other things … reading … walking in the garden when the Lanlaires are out … busying myself with mending when they’re at home … it is no use! The thought of Joseph obsesses me. And this complete domination applies not only to the present, but also to the past. Between me and my whole past life, I am so forcefully aware of his presence, that it is as though I can see no one else, and the past with all its faces, ugly or charming, becomes more and more remote, emptied of all colour … Cléophas Biscouille, Monsieur Jean, Monsieur Xavier, William, whom I haven’t mentioned yet, even Monsieur George, who I thought had left a mark upon my soul as indelible as the number branded on a convict’s back, and all those others, to whom freely, gaily, passionately I have given some part of myself, of my trembling flesh and sorrowful heart, are nothing but shadows … Vague, flickering shadows, already disappearing, scarcely memories and soon to become mere troubled dreams … intangible, forgotten realities … smoke fumes disappearing into nothingness … Sometimes, in the kitchen after dinner, looking at Joseph and his criminal mouth, his criminal eyes, the heavy cheekbones and low, rugged brow thrown into relief by the light from the lamp, I tell myself:

‘No, no, it isn’t possible … I’m going crazy … I won’t, I can’t love such a man … No, no! it just isn’t possible!’

But it is possible … It’s true … And it’s time I admitted it to myself, time I shouted aloud ‘I love Joseph!’

Oh, now I realize why one should never laugh at love … Now I know why there are women, driven by the invisible force of nature, who yearn for the kisses of brutes, fling themselves heedlessly into the arms of monsters, moaning with pleasure, their faces contorted like satyrs and demons …

Madame has given Joseph six days’ holiday, and tomorrow, on the pretext of family business, he is going to Cherbourg. He has decided to buy the little café, though for some months he won’t be running it himself. He has a friend there he can rely on, who will look after it for him.

‘You see,’ he said to me, ‘first of all it must be repainted from top to bottom, so that everything will be in first-class order, with a new sign “To the French Army” in gold lettering. Besides, I can’t give up my place here at present … It’s out of the question.’

“Why, Joseph?’

‘Because it wouldn’t do … not now …’

‘But when do you intend to give in your final notice?’

Scratching the back of his neck, and glancing at me slyly, he said: ‘I don’t really know … Maybe in six months’ time from now … It might be a bit sooner, it might be a bit later. You can’t tell … It all depends …’

I knew he didn’t want to talk, but I insisted:

‘All depends on what?’

It was some time before he answered. Then, mysteriously, but at the same time with a kind of excitement, he said:

‘Some business I have to see to … important business.’

‘But what kind of business?’

‘Business … And that’s that.’ He spoke sharply, not exactly angrily, but as though he were on edge and refused any further explanation.

What surprised me was that he had said nothing about me. I was surprised and very disappointed. Could he have changed his mind? Was he fed up with my curiosity, and my continual hesitation? Surely it was quite natural, if I was to share in the success or failure of the undertaking, that I should be interested? … Had my suspicion, which I couldn’t conceal, that it was he who had raped little Clara, decided him to break things off between us? … From the sudden quickening of my heart, I felt that the conclusion I had reached—though from coquetry, just to tease him, I hadn’t yet told him—was nevertheless the right one. To be free, to sit behind the bar giving orders to other people, to know that so many men were looking at me, desiring me, adoring me … Was it to prove yet another of my dreams that never came true? … I did not want Joseph to think I was throwing myself at his head, but I did want to know what was in his mind. Putting on a forlorn expression I murmured:

‘When you go, Joseph, I shan’t be able to stand this house another moment … I’ve got so used to you now … to our little chats.’

‘Well, there it is …’

‘I shall pack it up as well.’

He made no reply but began walking up and down the saddle-room frowning and preoccupied, nervously twiddling a pair of secateurs in his apron pocket … There was a nasty expression on his face.

‘Yes, I shall pack up and go back to Paris,’ I repeated.

Still no word of protest, not even a pleading glance in my direction … He put some wood on the dying fire, then resumed his silent pacing … Why was he like this? Had he accepted our separation? Was that what he wanted? Had he lost all confidence in me, all his love for me? Or was it simply that he dreaded my rashness, my everlasting questions? … Trembling a little, I asked:

‘Wouldn’t you mind at all, Joseph, if we were never to see each other again?’

He continued to walk up and down, not so much as looking at me with that funny, oblique expression of his.

‘Of course I should,’ he said. ‘But there it is. You can’t force people to do something if they don’t want to … Either they do or they don’t …’

‘But what have I ever refused to do, Joseph?’

Ignoring my question, he added: ‘Besides, you’ve always had rotten ideas about me.’

‘Me? Why do you say that?’

‘Because …’

‘No, no, Joseph, it’s you that don’t love me any longer … You’ve got some other idea in your head … I’ve never refused anything … I just wanted time to think about it, that’s all. Surely, that’s reasonable? You don’t take somebody on for the rest of your life without thinking about it … On the contrary, you ought to be glad that I hesitated. It proves I’m not just a featherbrain, that I’m a serious woman …’

‘You’re a good woman, Célestine, and a sensible woman.’

‘Well then, so what?’

At last he stopped walking about and, staring at me with a grave expression, still distrustful, yet very gentle, he said slowly:

‘It’s not that, Célestine … That’s got nothing to do with it. I don’t want to stop you thinking about it … For God’s sake, think about it as much as you like … There’s plenty of time. We’ll talk it over again when I get back … But look, what I don’t like is when anyone is too inquisitive. There are some things that don’t concern women … There are some things …’ And he concluded the sentence by shaking his head.

After a moment’s silence, he went on: ‘I think about nothing else, Célestine … I dream about you … You’ve got right under my skin … as true as God’s in heaven. And when I say a thing once, I say it for keeps … We’ll have another talk about it … But don’t you be too inquisitive … What you do is your business, and what I do is mine … Like that, we shall get along fine.’

He drew closer to me, and took hold of my hand:

I know I’m pig-headed, Célestine … I admit it. But that’s not such a bad thing … It means I’m not one to change my mind … I’m crazy about you, Célestine … you, in our little café.’

The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, and I could see the huge supple muscles of his arms, moving swiftly and powerfully beneath the whiteness of his skin … His forearms, and both biceps, were tattooed with flaming hearts and crossed daggers and a vase of flowers … A strong masculine odour, almost like the smell of a wild animal, rose from his broad chest, curved like a cuirass … Intoxicated by this strength, this odour, I leant against the wooden saddle-tree where he had been polishing the harness brasses when I first came in … Neither Monsieur Xavier, nor Monsieur Jean, nor any of the others, handsome and sweet-smelling as they were, had ever made such a profound impression on me as this already ageing man, with his narrow skull and cruel, animal face … And as I clasped him in my arms, pressing my fingertips into the steely bands of muscle, I said in a fainting voice:

‘Joseph, you must take me now, my love … I, too, am crazy about you … You’ve got right under my skin as well.’

But he replied in a gravely, fatherly voice: ‘No, it isn’t possible … not now, Célestine.’

‘Yes, Joseph, straight away, my dearest one.’

Gently he freed himself from my embrace: ‘If it was simply for a bit of fun, Célestine, of course it would be all right … But this is serious, this is for keeps. We’ve got to behave right … We’ve got to wait until we’re married.’

And there we stood, facing one another. He, with gleaming eyes and heaving chest … I, with my arms hanging slackly at my sides, my head buzzing, my whole body on fire.

Yesterday morning, as had been arranged, Joseph set out for Cherbourg. By the time I got down he had already left. Marianne, still only half awake, puffy-eyed and her throat full of phlegm, was drawing water from the pump. Joseph’s plate was still on the kitchen table, and an empty jug of cider … I was anxious, but, at the same time glad that he had gone, for I felt that from today a new life was beginning for me. The sun was scarcely up and it was cold. Beyond the garden the countryside still slept beneath a thick blanket of fog, and in the distance I could hear the faint whistle of an engine coming from the invisible valley. That train bore both Joseph and my hopes for the future … I could not eat any breakfast … I felt as though a heavy weight was pressing on my stomach … The sound of the whistle died away … The fog was growing thicker, filling the garden …

But supposing Joseph didn’t come back?

All that day I was listless and nervous, and extremely restless. Never had the house weighed so heavily upon me; never had the long corridors seemed to me so dreary, or the silence so icy; never had I so detested Madame’s ill-tempered face and yapping voice. Work was out of the question, and I had such a violent row with Madame that for a moment I thought she was going to give me notice … I kept wondering how I was going to get through the week without Joseph … I dreaded the boredom of having meals alone with Marianne. What I needed was somebody I could really talk to …

By the time evening comes Marianne is generally pretty well stupefied with drink … She just sits there, with her fuddled brain and thick speech, her mouth hanging open, her lips shining like the worn edge of an old well … All you can get out of her is an occasional grumble, or a kind of childish whimper … Yesterday evening, however, she was less drunk than usual and, in the middle of her endless moaning, she suddenly announced that she was afraid she was pregnant … I ask you, Marianne in child … If that isn’t the last straw! My first instinct was to laugh … Then I thought, what if Joseph is the father? And I felt a sudden pain, as though someone had hit me in the pit of the stomach … I remembered how, when I first got here, I had suspected that they might be sleeping together … But that was ridiculous and certainly not borne out by anything that had happened since. On the contrary … No, no, it was impossible … If Joseph had been having an affair with Marianne I must have known about it … I should have smelt it in the air … No, it wasn’t that, it couldn’t be that … And another thing, in his way, Joseph was too much of an artist …

‘Are you sure you’re pregnant, Marianne?’ I asked her.

She pressed her hand against her stomach, her huge fingers sinking into the folds of flesh, like those of a badly blown-up rubber cushion.

‘Not sure …’ she said, ‘just afraid.’

‘And who’s the man?’

She hesitated a moment … Then, abruptly, almost proudly, she declared:

‘Why, the master!’

This time I couldn’t help laughing. The master … that really was the last straw! Marianne took my laughter for a sign of admiration, and she, too, began to laugh.

‘Yes, yes … the master!’ she repeated.

But how was it that I had noticed nothing? How could anything so perfectly ridiculous have been going on, right under my nose, so to speak, without my having seen anything, or even suspected anything? … I began questioning her, and with a little pressing, she told me all about it, with the greatest complacency, and rather flattered.

‘About two months ago,’ she began, ‘Monsieur came into the scullery one day, while I was washing up after lunch. It must have been soon after you got here … Yes, that’s right, because he’d just been talking to you on the staircase … Well, when he came into the scullery, he was flinging his arms about, puffing and blowing … and you should have seen his eyes, all bloodshot and fairly starting out of his head … I thought he was going to have a stroke … Then, without a word, he just hurled himself on me … and it was pretty clear what he was up to … Being the master, you understand, I didn’t dare try to defend myself … Anyway, you don’t often get that kind of chance here! … It took me quite by surprise … though, mind you, I enjoyed it all right … After that he often used to come to the scullery … Oh, he’s a lovely man … and so tender with it.’

‘A bit of all right, what, Marianne?’

‘Oh yes,’ she murmured, her eyes full of ecstasy. ‘Oh, a lovely man!’

Her huge soft face lit up with a sensual smile, and beneath her torn blouse, stained with grease and smoke, her vast breasts heaved …

‘So you’re quite happy about it?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘That is to say, I should be if I was quite certain I wasn’t in the family way … That would be too bad, at my time of life.’

I did my best to reassure her … and, at everything I said, she just nodded her head … Then she added:

‘All the same, just to put my mind at rest, I shall go and see Madame Gouin tomorrow.’

I felt genuinely sorry for this poor woman, with her dull brain, stuffed with hazy ideas … Pathetic, unhappy creature, whatever was to become of her? … To me, it was quite extraordinary, but love didn’t seem to have even touched her with its radiance; there wasn’t a trace of that halo that passion sometimes seems to create around the ugliest faces … She remained just as she’d always been … heavy, soft and dumpy … And yet I couldn’t help feeling pleased that this happiness, that must have revivified that great body with the almost forgotten touch of a man’s hand, had come to her through me. For had I not first aroused Lanlaire’s desires he would never have chosen to satisfy them with this pathetic creature …