The Diary of a Chambermaid (44 page)

‘Well, I’ll be damned … Well, I’ll be damned!’

Not to be outdone, Joseph stood there with a ghastly expression on his face, yelling:

‘The Louis Seize cruet! The Louis Seize cruet … Oh, the bandits!’

Then, suddenly, there was a tragic silence, a long moment of prostration, like the protracted deathlike silence, enveloping things and people alike, that succeeds the crash of a great earthquake, or the thunder of a mighty cataclysm … And the swaying lantern that Joseph was carrying lit up the whole scene, the deathly faces and the empty cases, with its trembling, sinister red beams.

I had come downstairs at the same time as Madame, when the alarm was first raised. Despite the highly comical spectacle they presented, my first reaction was one of compassion. I felt that I, too, was involved in this disaster, and I, too, shared their grief, like one of the family. So upset was I by the sight of Madame’s utter collapse, that I wanted to console her … But it was not long before this fellow feeling —or was it just instinctive servility?—was dissipated.

The very violence of the crime had something impressive about it, a quality of almost religious retribution which, while it certainly scared me, also left me with a feeling of admiration that I find it hard to explain. No, it was not exactly admiration, for admiration is a moral feeling, it produces a sense of spiritual exultation, whereas what I felt only affected me physically … It was a savage shock, experienced by my whole body, distressing, yet at the same time delightful, painful yet rapturous, a kind of sexual violation … It is a curious thing, probably quite personal, and perhaps horrible—and I don’t pretend to understand what causes such strange and powerful feelings—but, with me, any crime, especially murder, is in some mysterious way closely related to love … Yes, that’s it … a splendid crime excites me in the same way as a fine specimen of a man.

I ought, perhaps, to add that this atrocious and powerful feeling of pleasure, which replaced my first instinctive, but quite inappropriate sense of compassion, was itself quickly transformed, by the thought that almost immediately struck me, into wild, mocking gaiety. ‘Here are these two creatures,’ I said to myself, ‘living like moles, like grubs … Willing prisoners, they have voluntarily shut themselves up in this inhospitable gaol, suppressing all the joy of life, everything that might be a source of happiness, as though it was superfluous, and denying themselves whatever might have excused their wealth, pardoned their human futility, as though it were mere filth. Too mean to spare a crumb from their table for the hungry, too heartless to give a thought to the sick, they have preferred to do without happiness, even for themselves. Why, then, should I feel pity for them? What has happened to them is simply what they deserve. By robbing them of some of their wealth, by stealing their buried treasure, the thieves have merely restored the balance … My one regret is that while they were about it, they didn’t strip these two evil creatures naked, leave them as destitute as the tramps who have so often begged in vain for bread, as the sick whom they have left to die by the roadside within a few yards of all this accursed wealth.’

This idea, that the Lanlaires might have been obliged to trail their lamentable rags and bleeding feet through all the misery of the gutter, begging their bread at the implacable doors of the rich, enchanted and delighted me. And my delight became all the more immediate, more intense, more filled with hatred, at the sight of Madame, slumped over her empty cases, deader than if she had really died, because she was conscious of being dead—for what death could conceivably be more horrible, for a creature who had never in her life loved anything, but had always assumed that money could buy everything, even the things without price, pleasure, charity, love … This shameful grief, this sordid dejection were my revenge for all the humiliations and brutality I had suffered, which she had inflicted upon me with every word she uttered, every look she gave me … And I delighted to the full in this savage revenge. I would have liked to shout aloud, ‘Well done, well done!’ But, above all, I would have liked to know these admirable, these sublime, thieves, that I might thank them in the name of all the beggars in the world, that I might embrace them as brothers. Oh, honest thieves, beloved figures of justice and of pity, what a succession of powerful and delicious sensations you have enabled me to experience!

It was not long, however, before Madame succeeded in pulling herself together … Her violently aggressive nature soon reasserted itself …

‘What on earth d’you think you’re doing?’ she said to Monsieur Lanlaire, in an angry and supremely contemptuous tone of voice. ‘What are you waiting for? If only you could see what a fool you look, with that great puffy face and your shirt all over the place! Do you think that’s going to get us back our silver? Come on, wake up and get a move on! Try to realize what’s happened. Why don’t you call the police? They should have been here long ago … Oh my God, what a man!’

The master hung his head, and was about to leave the room, when she called him back.

‘How is it you never heard anything? The whole house is turned upside down, doors forced, locks broken, cases gutted, and yet you never heard a sound, you great, good-for-nothing blockhead.’

‘But neither did you, my love,’ he replied, summoning up all his courage.

‘Me? But that’s quite different … Really, you’re infuriating. For heaven’s sake, get out of my sight.’

And, as her husband went upstairs to get dressed, she turned her anger against us.

‘And what about you? What’s the good of staring at me like that, you boobies? I suppose it’s all the same to you whether your employers are robbed or not? Do you mean to tell me you heard nothing, either? Oh, it’s marvellous to have such servants … All you ever think of is eating and sleeping, you lazy brutes!’

Then, turning to Joseph and addressing him directly, she said:

‘Why didn’t the dogs bark? Tell me … why?’

Her question seemed to disconcert him, but only for the flash of a second. Quickly recovering, he replied in the most natural tone of voice:

‘I don’t rightly know, ma’am, but it’s quite right … the dogs ought to have barked. It’s funny they didn’t, and that’s a fact!’

‘Did you let them off the chain?’

‘Certainly I did, like I do every evening … But it’s a funny thing they didn’t bark … Makes you think. The thieves must have got to know the place, and the dogs …’

‘All the same, Joseph, how comes it that you didn’t hear anything? You’re usually so careful … so sensible.’

‘True enough, I never heard a sound … And there’s another thing that makes it seem as though there was some funny business … I’m not a heavy sleeper … As a rule I hear if a cat runs across the garden … No, it’s certainly not natural, especially those damned dogs … But there it it, there it is!’

But Madame cut him short:

‘That’ll do … You’re a pack of fools, the whole lot of you … But where’s Marianne? What’s happened to her? Why isn’t she here? … I suppose she’s still sleeping like a log.’

And leaving the pantry, she went to the foot of the staircase and started calling: ‘Marianne, Marianne!’

I looked at Joseph. He was still staring at the empty cases with a grave, intent expression on his face. But there was a mysterious look in his eyes …

I shall not attempt to describe that day in detail, with all its fantastic goings on. The District Attorney, summoned by special messenger, arrived in the afternoon and began his enquiry. Joseph, Marianne and I were interrogated in turn, the first two more or less formally, I, with an insistent hostility that I found most disagreeable. They went up to my room, and searched through all my drawers and trunks. All my correspondence was minutely examined, but, by the greatest piece of luck, my diary escaped their attention, for a few days previously I had sent it to Cléclé, who had written to me most affectionately. Otherwise, the examining magistrate might have found sufficient evidence to charge Joseph, or at least, to suspect him … Even now it makes me shudder to think of it … Needless to say, they also carried out a thorough search of the garden paths, flowerbeds, walls, gaps in the hedge and the little courtyard leading to the alleyway, hoping to find footprints … But the ground was so dry and hard that they failed to discover the slightest clue. Gateway, walls, gaps in the hedge, they all jealously kept their secret. As had happened with the affair of the rape, the entire neighbourhood flocked to the scene, demanding to give evidence. Someone had seen a fair-haired man that he ‘didn’t at all fancy’; someone else a dark man who ‘looked funny’. In short, the enquiry led nowhere. There was not even a suspect …

‘We shall just have to wait,’ the District Attorney declared mysteriously as he was leaving. ‘Perhaps the Paris police will be able to put us on their trail.’

Throughout that exhausting day, what with all the coming and going, I scarcely had time to consider the consequences of this drama, which, for the first time, had brought some life and animation to this dreary Priory. Madame never let up for a moment. She kept us continually on the run … quite pointlessly, as it turned out, for she herself had lost her head … As to Marianne, she seemed not to notice that anything out of the ordinary was going on. Like poor Eugenie, she was intent on her own thoughts, and they were far away from what preoccupied the rest of us. But, whenever the master appeared in the kitchen, she immediately began to behave as though she were drunk, staring at him ecstatically …

It was not until the evening, after we had eaten our dinner in silence, that I was able to think about things. It had struck me straight away, and I was now more convinced than ever, that Joseph was in some way involved in the robbery. I like to think that some clear connection might emerge between his visit to Cherbourg and the preparation of this bold and incomparably well-executed plan. And I recalled the answer he had given me the night before he set out:

‘It all depends on some very important business …’

Although he did his best to behave naturally, his gestures, his silence, his whole attitude, betrayed an uneasiness, imperceptible to anybody but myself. This presentiment was so satisfying that I made no attempt to reject it. On the contrary, I indulged it to the full … When for a moment Marianne happened to leave us alone together in the kitchen, I went up to him and, stirred by an inexplicable emotion, asked him, in a tender, coaxing voice:

‘Tell me, Joseph, it was you who raped little Clara, wasn’t it? And now you’ve stolen the silver … Yes?’

Surprised and dismayed by this question, Joseph looked at me … Then, suddenly, without replying, he drew me towards him and planted a kiss on the back of my neck like a blow from a club.

‘We won’t talk of such things,’ he said, ‘in the first place because you’re going to come away with me, and, in the second, because you and I are the same kind of people!’

I could not help thinking of a Hindu idol, terrifyingly beautiful, that used to stand in the small drawing-room at Countess Fardin’s … At that moment, Joseph looked exactly like it.

The days went by, and gradually turned into months … Naturally, the examining magistrates failed to discover anything, and finally abandoned their enquiries. In their opinion, the robbery was the work of burglars from Paris .. . Paris has a broad back!

This negative result infuriated Madame, and she roundly abused the magistrates for their failure to restore her silver. But she did not give up hope of getting back ‘Louis XVI’s cruet’, as Joseph called it. Every day she had some new, cockeyed proposal, which she conveyed to the magistrates. But they soon became so fed up with her nonsense that they didn’t even trouble to reply … And in the end I felt convinced that Joseph was safe, for I had always been terrified lest some catastrophe might befall him.

Meanwhile, Joseph had once again become the silent, devoted, family servant … ‘A perfect treasure’.

I could not help smiling at the thought of the conversation I had overheard on the day of the robbery, between Madame and the examining magistrate, a dried-up little chap with thin lips and a bilious complexion, and a profile like the edge of a scimitar.

‘You don’t suspect any of the servants?’ asked the magistrate. ‘Your coachman, for example?’

‘Joseph?’ Madame had exclaimed in a shocked voice. ‘Why he’s been with us more than fifteen years, and is utterly devoted to us! He is honesty itself, a perfect treasure! He would go through fire and water for us …’ Then, frowning a little, she had thoughtfully considered the question, and added:

‘Of course, there’s the girl … my chambermaid. I really know very little about her. For all I know, she may well have criminal connections in Paris. She often writes there … And I’ve several times caught her drinking the table wine and stealing fruit … A girl who would do that, is capable of anything … One should never get servants from Paris . .. She’s certainly a peculiar girl.’

Can’t you just see the old cat?

It’s always the same with these suspicious types … they distrust everybody except the one that is actually robbing them … For I was more and more convinced that Joseph had been the ringleader in this business. For a long time I had been watching him, not in any unfriendly way, you understand, but out of curiosity, and I was quite certain that this faithful and devoted servant, this ‘absolute treasure’, was pilfering everything he could lay hands on. He stole hay, coal, eggs … all the little things, that it would be impossible to trace when they were resold. And his friend, the verger, certainly didn’t come to the saddle-room every evening for nothing-nor just to discuss anti-semitism. A man as shrewd, patient, prudent and methodical as Joseph was certainly aware that small daily thefts add up to a considerable annual sum. And, indeed, I’m quite sure that in this way he must have trebled or quadrupled his wages … which is not to be sneezed at. Of course, I realise that small-scale pilfering like this is a very different matter from an audacious robbery like the one on Christmas Eve, but that only goes to prove that he was also capable of working on a grand scale … Nobody’s going to tell me that Joseph didn’t belong to some gang or other. Oh, how I should have liked, and, indeed, would still like, to know for certain!