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diff --git a/27711.txt b/27711.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..380f44e --- /dev/null +++ b/27711.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8054 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Germinie Lacerteux, by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Germinie Lacerteux + +Author: Edmond and Jules de Goncourt + +Release Date: January 5, 2009 [EBook #27711] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMINIE LACERTEUX *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Meredith Bach and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + CHEFS D'OEUVRE + DU + ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN + + REALISTS + + + + +[Illustration: Chapter XXI + +_Jupillon was a true Parisian: he loved to fish with a pole and line._ + +_And when summer came they stayed there all day, at the foot of the +garden, on the bank of the stream--Jupillon on a laundry board resting +on two stakes, pole in hand, and Germinie sitting, with the child in her +skirts, under the medlar tree that overhung the stream._] + + + + + BIBLIOTHEQUE + DES CHEFS-D'OEUVRE + DU ROMAN + CONTEMPORAIN + + + + _GERMINIE LACERTEUX_ + + + + EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT + + + PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY + GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PHILADELPHIA + + + + + GERMINIE LACERTEUX + + + + +PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION + + +We must ask pardon of the public for offering it this book, and give it +due warning of what it will find therein. + +The public loves fictitious novels! this is a true novel. + +It loves books which make a pretence of introducing their readers to +fashionable society: this book deals with the life of the street. + +It loves little indecent books, memoirs of courtesans, alcove +confessions, erotic obscenity, the scandal tucked away in pictures in a +bookseller's shop window: that which is contained in the following pages +is rigidly clean and pure. Do not expect the photograph of Pleasure +_decolletee_: the following study is the clinic of Love. + +Again, the public loves to read pleasant, soothing stories, adventures +that end happily, imaginative works that disturb neither its digestion +nor its peace of mind: this book furnishes entertainment of a +melancholy, violent sort calculated to disarrange the habits and injure +the health of the public. + +Why then have we written it? For no other purpose than to annoy the +public and offend its tastes? + +By no means. + +Living as we do in the nineteenth century, in an age of universal +suffrage, of democracy, of liberalism, we asked ourselves the question +whether what are called "the lower classes" had no rights in the novel; +if that world beneath a world, the common people, must needs remain +subject to the literary interdict, and helpless against the contempt of +authors who have hitherto said no word to imply that the common people +possess a heart and soul. We asked ourselves whether, in these days of +equality in which we live, there are classes unworthy the notice of the +author and the reader, misfortunes too lowly, dramas too foul-mouthed, +catastrophes too commonplace in the terror they inspire. We were curious +to know if that conventional symbol of a forgotten literature, of a +vanished society, Tragedy, is definitely dead; if, in a country where +castes no longer exist and aristocracy has no legal status, the miseries +of the lowly and the poor would appeal to public interest, emotion, +compassion, as forcibly as the miseries of the great and the rich; if, +in a word, the tears that are shed in low life have the same power to +cause tears to flow as the tears shed in high life. + +These thoughts led us to venture upon the humble tale, _Soeur +Philomene_, in 1861; they lead us to put forth _Germinie Lacerteux_ +to-day. + +Now, let the book be spoken slightingly of; it matters little. At this +day, when the sphere of the Novel is broadening and expanding, when it +is beginning to be the serious, impassioned, living form of literary +study and social investigation, when it is becoming, by virtue of +analysis and psychological research, the true History of contemporary +morals, when the novel has taken its place among the necessary elements +of knowledge, it may properly demand its liberty and freedom of speech. +And to encourage it in the search for Art and Truth, to authorize it to +disclose misery and suffering which it is not well for the fortunate +people of Paris to forget, and to show to people of fashion what the +Sisters of Charity have the courage to see for themselves, what the +queens of old compelled their children to touch with their eyes in the +hospitals: the visible, palpitating human suffering that teaches +charity; to confirm the novel in the practice of that religion which the +last century called by the vast and far-reaching name, _Humanity_:--it +needs no other warrant than the consciousness that that is its right. + +_Paris, October, 1864._ + + + + +SECOND PREFACE + +PREPARED FOR A POSTHUMOUS EDITION OF GERMINIE LACERTEUX + + +_July 22, 1862._--The disease is gradually doing its work of destruction +in our poor Rose. It is as if the immaterial manifestations of life that +formerly emanated from her body were dying one by one. Her face is +entirely changed. Her expression is not the same, her gestures are not +the same; and she seems to me as if she were putting off every day more +and more of that something, humanly speaking indefinable, which makes +the personality of a living being. Disease, before making an end of its +victim, introduces into his body something strange, unfamiliar, +something that is _not he_, makes of him a new being, so to speak, in +whom we must seek to find the former being--he, whose joyous, +affectionate features have already ceased to exist. + +_July 31._--Doctor Simon is to tell me very soon whether our dear old +Rose will live or die. I am waiting to hear his ring, which to me, is +equivalent to that of a jury at the assizes, announcing their return to +the court room with their verdict. "It is all over, there is no hope, it +is simply a question of time. The disease has progressed very rapidly. +One lung is entirely gone and the other substantially." And we must +return to the invalid, restore her serenity with a smile, give her +reason to hope for convalescence in every line of our faces. Then we +feel an unconquerable longing to rush from the room and from the poor +creature. We leave the house, we wander at random through the streets; +at last, overdone with fatigue, we sit down at a table in a cafe. We +mechanically take up a copy of _L'Illustration_ and our eyes fall at +once upon the solution of its last riddle: _Against death, there is no +appeal!_ + +_Monday, August 11._--The disease of the lungs is complicated with +peritonitis. She has terrible pains in the bowels, she cannot move +without assistance, she cannot lie on her back or her left side. In +God's name, is not death enough? must she also endure suffering, aye, +torture, as the final implacable breaking-up of the human organism? And +she suffers thus, poor wretch! in one of the servant's rooms, where the +sun, shining in through a window in the sloping roof, makes the air as +stifling as in a hothouse, and where there is so little room that the +doctor has to put his hat on the bed. We struggled to the last to keep +her, but finally we had to make up our minds to let her go away. She was +unwilling to go to Maison Dubois, where we proposed to take her; it +seems that twenty-five years ago, when she first came to us, she went +there to see the nurse in charge of Edmond, who died there, and so that +particular hospital represents to her the place where people die. I am +waiting for Simon who is to bring her a permit to go to Lariboisiere. +She passed almost a good night. She is all ready, in high spirits, in +fact. We have covered everything up from her as well as we could. She +longs to be gone. She is in a great hurry. She feels that she is going +to get well there. At two o'clock Simon arrives: "Here it is, all +right." She refuses to have a litter: "I should think I was dead!" she +says. She is dressed. As soon as she leaves her bed, all the signs of +life to be seen upon her face disappear. It is as if the earth had risen +under her skin. She comes down into our apartments. Sitting in the +dining-room, with a trembling hand, the knuckles of which knock against +one another, she draws her stockings on over a pair of legs like +broomsticks, consumptive legs. Then, for a long moment, she looks about +at the familiar objects with dying eyes that seem desirous to take away +with them the memory of the places they are leaving--and the door of the +apartment closes upon her with a noise as of farewell. She reaches the +foot of the stairs, where she rests for an instant on a chair. The +concierge, in a bantering tone, assures her that she will be well in six +weeks. She bows and says "yes," an inaudible "yes." The cab drives up to +the door. She rests her hand on the concierge's wife. I hold her +against the pillow she has behind her back. With wide open, vacant eyes +she vaguely watches the houses pass, but she does not speak. At the door +of the hospital she tries to alight without assistance. "Can you walk so +far?" the concierge asks. She makes an affirmative gesture and walks on. +Really I cannot imagine where she procured the strength to walk as she +does. Here we are at last in the great hall, a high, cold, bare, clean +place with a litter standing, all ready for use, in the centre. I seat +her in a straw armchair by a door with a glazed wicket. A young man +opens the wicket, asks my name and age and writes busily for quarter of +an hour, covering ten or more sheets of paper with a religious figure at +the head. At last, everything is ready, and I embrace her. A boy takes +one arm, the housekeeper the other.--After that, I saw nothing more. + +_Thursday, August 14._--We have been to Lariboisiere. We found Rose +quiet, hopeful, talking of her approaching discharge--in three weeks at +most,--and so free from all thought of death that she told us of a +furious love scene that took place yesterday between a woman in the bed +next hers and a brother of the Christian schools, who was there again +to-day. Poor Rose is death, but death engrossed with life. Near her bed +was a young woman, whose husband, a mechanic, had come to see her. "You +see, as soon as I can walk, I shall walk about the garden so much that +they'll have to send me home!" she said. And the mother in her added: +"Does the child ask for me sometimes?" + +"Sometimes, oh! yes," the man replied. + +_Saturday, August 16._--This morning, at ten o'clock, someone rings the +bell. I hear a colloquy at the door between the housekeeper and the +concierge. The door opens, the concierge enters with a letter. I take +the letter; it bears the stamp of Lariboisiere. Rose died this morning +at seven o'clock. + +Poor girl! So it is all over! I knew that she was doomed; but she was so +animated, so cheerful, almost happy, when we saw her Thursday! And here +we are both walking up and down the salon, filled with the thought that +a fellow-creature's death inspires: We shall never see her again!--an +instinctive thought that recurs incessantly within you. What a void! +what a gap in our household! A habit, an attachment of twenty-five years +growth, a girl who knew our whole lives and opened our letters in our +absence, and to whom we told all our business. When I was a bit of a boy +I trundled my hoop with her, and she bought me apple-tarts with her own +money, when we went to walk. She would sit up for Edmond till morning, +to open the door for him, when he went to the Bal de l'Opera without our +mother's knowledge. She was the woman, the excellent nurse, whose hands +mother placed in ours when she was dying. She had the keys to +everything, she managed everything, she did everything for our comfort. +For twenty-five years she tucked us up in bed every night, and every +night there were the same never-ending jokes about her ugliness and her +disgraceful physique. Sorrows and joys alike she shared with us. She was +one of those devoted creatures upon whose solicitude you rely to close +your eyes. Our bodies, when we were ill or indisposed, were accustomed +to her attentions. She was familiar with all our hobbies. She had known +all our mistresses. She was a piece of our life, part of the furniture +of our apartment, a stray memory of our youth, at once loving and +scolding and care-taking, like a watchdog whom we were accustomed to +having always beside us and about us, and who ought to last as long as +ourselves. And we shall never see her again! It is not she moving about +the rooms; she will never again come to our rooms to bid us +good-morning! It is a great wrench, a great change in our lives, which +seems to us, I cannot say why, like one of those solemn breaks in one's +existence, when, as Byron says, destiny changes horses. + +_Sunday, August 17._--This morning we are to perform all the last sad +duties. We must return to the hospital, enter once more the reception +hall, where I seem to see again, in the armchair against the wicket, the +ghost of the emaciated creature I seated there less than a week ago. +"Will you identify the body?" the attendant hurls the question at me in +a harsh voice. We go to the further end of the hospital, to a high +yellow door, upon which is written in great black letters: +_Amphitheatre_. The attendant knocks. After some moments the door is +partly opened, and a head like a butcher's boy's appears, with a short +pipe in its mouth: a head which suggests the gladiator and the +grave-digger. I fancied that I was at the circus, and that he was the +slave who received the gladiators' bodies; and he does receive the slain +in that great circus, society. They made us wait a long while before +opening another door, and during those moments of suspense, all our +courage oozed away, as the blood of a wounded man who is forced to +remain standing oozes away, drop by drop. The mystery of what we were +about to see, the horror of a sight that rends your heart, the search +for the one body amid other bodies, the scrutiny and recognition of that +poor face, disfigured doubtless--the thought of all this made us as +timid as children. We were at the end of our strength, at the end of our +will-power, at the end of our nervous tension, and, when the door +opened, we said: "We will send some one," and fled. From there we went +to the mayor's office, riding in a cab that jolted us and shook our +heads about like empty things. And an indefinable horror seized upon us +of death in a hospital, which seems to be only an administrative +formality. One would say that in that abode of agony, everything is so +well administered, regulated, reduced to system, that death opens it as +if it were an administrative bureau. + +While we were having the death registered,--_Mon Dieu!_ the paper, all +covered with writing and flourishes for a poor woman's death!--a man +rushed out of an adjoining room, in joyous exultation, and looked at the +almanac hanging on the wall to find the name of the saint of the day and +give it to his child. As he passed, the skirt of the happy father's coat +swept the sheet on which the death was registered from the desk to the +floor. + +When we returned home, we must look through her papers, get her clothes +together, sort out the clutter of phials, bandages and innumerable +things that sickness collects--jostle death about, in short. It was a +ghastly thing to enter that attic, where the crumbs of bread from her +last meal were still lying in the folds of the bedclothes. I threw the +coverlid up over the bolster, like a sheet over the ghost of a dead man. + +_Monday, August 18._--The chapel is beside the amphitheatre. In the +hospital God and the dead body are neighbors. At the mass said for the +poor woman beside her coffin, two or three others were placed near by to +reap the benefit of the service. There was an unpleasant promiscuousness +of salvation in that performance: it resembled the common grave in the +prayer. Behind me, in the chapel, Rose's niece was weeping--the little +girl she had at our house for a short time, who is now a young woman of +nineteen, a pupil at the convent of the Sisters of Saint-Laurent: a +poor, weazened, pale, stunted creature, rickety from starvation, with a +head too heavy for her body, back bent double, and the air of a +Mayeux--the last sad remnant of that consumption-ridden family, awaited +by Death and with his hand even now heavy upon her,--in her soft eyes +there is already a gleam of the life beyond. + +Then from the chapel to the extreme end of the Montmartre +cemetery,--vast as a necropolis and occupying a whole quarter of the +city,--walking at slow steps through mud that never ends. Lastly the +intoning of the priests, and the coffin laboriously lowered by the +gravediggers' arms to the ends of the ropes, as a cask of wine is +lowered into a cellar. + +_Wednesday, August 20._--Once more I must return to the hospital. For +since the visit I paid Rose on Thursday and her sudden death the next +day, there has existed for me a mystery which I force from my thoughts, +but which constantly returns; the mystery of that agony of which I know +nothing, of that sudden end. I long to know and I dread to learn. It +does not seem to me as if she were dead; I think of her simply as of a +person who has disappeared. My imagination returns to her last hours, +gropes for them in the darkness and reconstructs them, and they torture +me with their veiled horrors! I need to have my doubts resolved. At +last, this morning, I took my courage in both hands. Again I see the +hospital, again I see the red-faced, obese concierge, reeking with life +as one reeks with wine, and the corridors where the morning light falls +upon the pale faces of smiling convalescents. + +In a distant corner, I rang at a door with little white curtains. It was +opened and I found myself in a parlor where a Virgin stood upon a sort +of altar between two windows. On the northern wall of the room, the +cold, bare room, there are--why, I cannot explain--two framed views of +Vesuvius, wretched water-colors which seem to shiver and to be entirely +expatriated there. Through an open door behind me, from a small room in +which the sun shines brightly, I hear the chattering of sisters and +children, childish joys, pretty little bursts of laughter, all sorts of +fresh, clear vocal notes: a sound as from a dovecote bathed in the sun. +Sisters in white with black caps pass and repass; one stops in front of +my chair. She is short, badly developed, with an ugly, sweet face, a +poor face by the grace of God. She is the mother of the Salle +Saint-Joseph. She tells me how Rose died, in hardly any pain, feeling +that she was improving, almost well, overflowing with encouragement and +hope. In the morning, after her bed was made, without any suspicion that +death was near, suddenly she was taken with a hemorrhage, which lasted +some few seconds. I came away, much comforted, delivered from the +thought that she had had the anticipatory taste of death, the horror of +its approach. + +_Thursday, October 21._ + + * * * * * + +In the midst of our dinner, which was rendered melancholy enough by the +constant hovering of the conversation around the subject of death, +Maria, who came to dinner to-night, cried out, after two or three +nervous blows with her fingers upon her fluffy blonde locks:--"My +friends, while the poor girl was alive, I kept the professional secret +of my trade. But, now that she is under ground, you must know the +truth." + +And thereupon we learned things concerning the unhappy creature that +took away our appetites, leaving in our mouths the bitter taste of fruit +cut with a steel knife. And a whole strange, hateful, repugnant, +deplorable existence was revealed to us. The notes she signed, the debts +she has left behind her at all the dealers, have the most unforeseen, +the most amazing, the most incredible basis. She kept men: the +milkwoman's son, for whom she furnished a chamber; another to whom she +carried our wine, chickens, food of all sorts. A secret life of +nocturnal orgies, of nights passed abroad, of fierce nymphomania, that +made her lovers say: "Either she or I will stay on the field!" A +passion, passions with her whole head and heart and all her senses at +once, and complicated by all the wretched creatures' diseases, +consumption which adds frenzy to pleasure, hysteria, the beginning of +insanity. She had two children by the milkwoman's son, one of whom lived +six months. Some years ago, when she told us that she was going on a +visit to her province, it was to lie in. And, with regard to these men, +her passion was so extravagant, so unhealthy, so insane, that she, who +was formerly honesty personified, actually stole from us, took twenty +franc pieces out of rolls of a hundred francs, so that the lovers she +paid might not leave her. Now, after these involuntarily dishonest acts, +these petty crimes extorted from her upright nature, she plunged into +such depths of self-reproach, remorse, melancholy, such black despair, +that in that hell in which she rolled on from sin to sin, desperate and +unsatisfied, she had taken to drinking to escape herself, to save +herself from the present, to drown herself and founder for a few moments +in the heavy slumber, the lethargic torpor in which she would lie +wallowing across her bed for a whole day, just as she fell when she +tried to make it. The miserable creature! how great an incentive, how +many motives and reasons she found for devouring her suffering, and +bleeding internally: in the first place the rejection at intervals of +religious ideas by the terrors of a hell of fire and brimstone; then +jealousy, that characteristic jealousy of everything and everybody that +poisoned her life; then, then--then the disgust which these men, after a +time, brutally expressed for her ugliness, and which drove her deeper +and deeper into sottishness,--caused her one day to have a miscarriage, +and she fell half dead on the floor. Such a frightful tearing away of +the veil we have worn over our eyes is like the examination of a +pocketful of horrible things in a dead body suddenly opened. From what +we have heard I suddenly seem to realize what she must have suffered for +ten years past: the dread of an anonymous letter to us or of a +denunciation from some dealer; and the constant trepidation on the +subject of the money that was demanded of her, and that she could not +pay; and the shame felt by that proud creature, perverted by the vile +Quartier Saint-Georges, because of her intimacy with low wretches whom +she despised; and the lamentable consciousness of the premature senility +caused by drunkenness; and the inhuman exactions and brutality of the +Alphonses of the gutter; and the temptations to suicide which caused me +to pull her away from a window one day, when I found her leaning far +out--and lastly all the tears that we believed to be without cause--all +these things mingled with a very deep and heartfelt affection for us, +and with a vehement, feverish devotion when either of us was ill. And +this woman possessed an energetic character, a force of will, a skill in +mystification, to which nothing can be compared. Yes, yes, all those +frightful secrets kept under lock and key, hidden, buried deep in her +own heart, so that neither our eyes, nor our ears, nor our powers of +observation ever detected aught amiss, even in her hysterical attacks, +when nothing escaped her but groans: a mystery preserved until her +death, and which she must have believed would be buried with her. And of +what did she die? She died, because, all through one rainy winter's +night, eight months ago, at Montmartre, she spied upon the milkwoman's +son, who had turned her away, in order to find out with what woman he +had filled her place; a whole night leaning against a ground-floor +window, as a result of which she was drenched to the bones with deadly +pleurisy! + +Poor creature, we forgive her; indeed, a vast compassion for her fills +our hearts, as we reflect upon all that she has suffered. But we have +become suspicious, for our lives, of the whole female sex, and of women +above us as well as of women below us in station. We are terror-stricken +at the double lining of their hearts, at the marvelous faculty, the +science, the consummate genius of falsehood with which their whole being +is instinct. + + * * * * * + +The above extracts are from our journal: JOURNAL DES +GONCOURTS--_Memoires de la Vie Litteraire_; they are the documentary +foundation upon which, two years later, my brother and I composed +GERMINIE LACERTEUX, whom we made a study of and taught when she was in +the service of our venerable cousin, Mademoiselle de C----t, of whom we +were writing a veracious biography, after the style of a biography of +modern history. + + EDMOND DE GONCOURT. + +_Auteuil, April, 1886._ + + + + +I + + +"Saved! so you are really out of danger, mademoiselle!" exclaimed the +maid with a cry of joy, as she closed the door upon the doctor, and, +rushing to the bed on which her mistress lay, she began, in a frenzy of +happiness and with a shower of kisses to embrace, together with the bed +covers, the old woman's poor, emaciated body, which seemed, in the huge +bed, as small as a child's. + +The old woman took her head, silently, in both hands, pressed it against +her heart, heaved a sigh, and muttered: "Ah, well! so I must live on!" + +This took place in a small room, through the window of which could be +seen a small patch of sky cut by three black iron pipes, various +neighboring roofs, and in the distance, between two houses that almost +touched, the leafless branch of a tree, whose trunk was invisible. + +On the mantelpiece, in a mahogany box, was a square clock with a large +dial, huge figures and bulky hands. Beside it, under glass covers, were +two candlesticks formed by three silver swans twisting their necks +around a golden quiver. Near the fireplace an easy chair _a la +Voltaire_, covered with one of the pieces of tapestry of checker-board +pattern, which little girls and old women make, extended its empty arms. +Two little Italian landscapes, a flower piece in water-colors after +Bertin, with a date in red ink at the bottom, and a few miniatures hung +on the walls. + +Upon the mahogany commode of an Empire pattern, a statue of Time in +black bronze, running with his scythe in rest, served as a watch stand +for a small watch with a monogram in diamonds upon blue enamel, +surrounded with pearls. The floor was covered with a bright carpet with +black and green stripes. The curtains at the bed and the window were of +old-fashioned chintz with red figures upon a chocolate ground. + +At the head of the bed, a portrait inclined over the invalid and seemed +to gaze sternly at her. It represented a man with harsh features, whose +face emerged from the high collar of a green satin coat, and a muslin +cravat, with waving ends, tied loosely around the neck, in the style of +the early years of the Revolution. The old woman in the bed resembled +the portrait. She had the same bushy, commanding black eyebrows, the +same aquiline nose, the same clearly marked lines of will, resolution +and energy. The portrait seemed to cast a reflection upon her, as a +father's face is reflected in his child's. But in hers the harshness of +the features was softened by a gleam of rough kindliness, by an +indefinable flame of sturdy devotion and masculine charity. + +The light in the room was the light of an evening in early spring, about +five o'clock, a light as clear as crystal and as white as silver, the +cold, chaste, soft light, which fades away in the flush of the sunset +passing into twilight. The sky was filled with that light of a new life, +adorably melancholy, like the still naked earth, and so replete with +pathos that it moves happy souls to tears. + +"Well, well! my silly Germinie, weeping?" said the old woman, a moment +later, withdrawing her hands which were moist with her maid's kisses. + +"Oh! my dear, kind mademoiselle, I would like to weep like this all the +time! it's so good! it brings my poor mother back before my eyes--and +everything!--if you only knew!" + +"Go on, go on," said her mistress, closing her eyes to listen, "tell me +about it." + +"Oh! my poor mother!" The maid paused a moment. Then, with the flood of +words that gushes forth with tears of joy, she continued, as if, in the +emotion and outpouring of her happiness, her whole childhood flowed back +into her heart! "Poor woman! I can see her now the last time she went +out to take me to mass, one 21st of January, I remember. In those days +they read from the king's Testament. Ah! she suffered enough on my +account, did mamma! She was forty-two years old, when I was born----papa +made her cry a good deal! There were three of us before and there wasn't +any too much bread in the house. And then he was proud as anything. If +we'd had only a handful of peas in the house he would never have gone to +the cure for help. Ah! we didn't eat bacon every day at our house. Never +mind; for all that mamma loved me a little more and she always found a +little fat or cheese in some corner to put on my bread. I wasn't five +when she died. That was a bad thing for us all. I had a tall brother, +who was white as a sheet, with a yellow beard--and good! you have no +idea. Everybody loved him. They gave him all sorts of names. Some called +him Boda--why, I don't know. Others called him Jesus Christ. Ah! he was +a worker, he was! It didn't make any difference to him that his health +was good for nothing; at daybreak he was always at his loom--for we were +weavers, you must know--and he never put his shuttle down till night. +And honest, too, if you knew! People came from all about to bring him +their yarn, and without weighing it, too. He was a great friend of the +schoolmaster, and he used to write the _mottoes_ for the carnival. My +father, he was a different sort: he'd work for a moment, or an hour, you +know, and then he'd go off into the fields--and when he came home he'd +beat us, and beat us hard. He was like a madman; they said it was +because he was consumptive. It was lucky my brother was there: he used +to prevent my second sister from pulling my hair and hurting me, because +she was jealous. He always took me by the hand to go and see them play +skittles. In fact, he supported the family all alone. For my first +communion he had the bells rung! Ah! he did a heap of work so that I +should be like the others, in a little white dress with flounces and a +little bag in my hand, such as they used to carry in those days. I +didn't have any cap: I remember making myself a pretty little wreath of +ribbons and the white pith you pull off when you strip reeds; there was +lots of it in the places where we used to put the hemp to soak. That was +one of my great days--that and the drawing lots for the pigs at +Christmas--and the days when I went to help them tie up the vines; that +was in June, you know. We had a little vineyard near Saint Hilaire. +There was one very hard year in those days--do you remember it, +mademoiselle?--the long frost of 1828 that ruined everything. It +extended as far as Dijon and farther, too--people had to make bread from +bran. My brother nearly killed himself with work. Father, who was always +out of doors tramping about the fields, sometimes brought home a few +mushrooms. It was pretty bad, all the same; we were hungry oftener than +anything else. When I was out in the fields myself, I'd look around to +see if anyone could see me, and then I'd crawl along softly on my knees, +and when I was under a cow, I'd take off one of my sabots and begin to +milk her. Bless me! I came near being caught at it! My oldest sister was +out at service with the Mayor of Lenclos, and she sent home her +wages--twenty-four francs--it was always as much as that. The second +worked at dressmaking in bourgeois families; but they didn't pay the +prices then that they do to-day; she worked from six in the morning till +dark for eight sous. Out of that she wanted to put some by for a dress +for the fete on Saint-Remi's day.--Ah! that's the way it is with us: +there are many who live on two potatoes a day for six months so as to +have a new dress for that day. Bad luck fell on us on all sides. My +father died. We had to sell a small field, and a bit of a vineyard that +yielded a cask of wine every year. The notaries don't work for nothing. +When my brother was sick there was nothing to give him to drink but +_lees_ that we'd been putting water to for a year. And there wasn't any +change of linen for him; all the sheets in the wardrobe, which had a +golden cross on top of it in mother's time, had gone--and the cross too. +More than that, before he was sick this time, my brother goes off to the +fete at Clefmont. He hears someone say that my sister had gone wrong +with the mayor she worked for; he falls on the men who said it, but he +wasn't very strong. They were, though, and they threw him down, and when +he was down, they kicked him with their wooden shoes, in the pit of the +stomach. He was brought home to us for dead. The doctor put him on his +feet again, though, and told us he was cured. But he could just drag +himself along. I could see that he was going when he kissed me. When he +was dead, poor dear boy, Cadet Ballard had to use all his strength to +take me away from the body. The whole village, mayor and all, went to +his funeral. As my sister couldn't keep her place with the mayor on +account of the things he said to her, and had gone to Paris to find a +place, my other sister went after her. I was left all alone. One of my +mother's cousins then took me with her to Damblin; but I was all upset +there; I cried all night long, and whenever I could run away I always +went back to our house. Just to see the old vine at our door, from the +end of the street, did me good! it put strength into my legs. The good +people who had bought the house would keep me till someone came for me! +they were always sure to find me there. At last they wrote to my sister +in Paris that, if she didn't send for me to come and live with her, I +wasn't likely to live long. It's a fact that I was just like wax. They +put me in charge of the driver of a small wagon that went from Langres +to Paris every month, and that's how I came to Paris. I was fourteen +years old, then. I remember that I went to bed all dressed all the way, +because they made me sleep in the common room. When I arrived I was +covered with lice." + + + + +II + + +The old woman said nothing: she was comparing her own life with her +servant's. + + * * * * * + +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil was born in 1782. She first saw the light in +a mansion on Rue Royale and Mesdames de France were her sponsors in +baptism. Her father was a close friend of the Comte d'Artois, in whose +household he held an important post. He joined in all his +hunting-parties, and was one of the few familiar spirits, in whose +presence, at the mass preceding the hunt, he who was one day to be King +Charles X. used to hurry the officiating priest by saying in an +undertone: "Psit! psit! cure, swallow your _Good Lord_ quickly!" + +Monsieur de Varandeuil had made one of those marriages which were +customary enough in his day: he had espoused a sort of actress, a +singer, who, although she had no great talent, had made a success at the +_Concert Spirituel_, beside Madame Todi, Madame Ponteuil and Madame +Saint-Huberty. The little girl born of this marriage in 1782 was sickly +and delicate, ugly of feature, with a nose even then large enough to be +absurd, her father's nose in a face as thin as a man's wrist. She had +nothing of what her parents' vanity would have liked her to have. After +making a fiasco on the piano at the age of five, at a concert given by +her mother in her salon, she was relegated to the society of the +servants. Except for a moment in the morning, she never went near her +mother, who always made her kiss her under the chin, so that she might +not disturb her rouge. When the Revolution arrived, Monsieur de +Varandeuil, thanks to the Comte d'Artois' patronage, was disburser of +pensions. Madame de Varandeuil was traveling in Italy, whither she had +ordered her physician to send her on the pretext of ill health, leaving +her daughter and an infant son in her husband's charge. The absorbing +anxiety of the times, the tempests threatening wealth and the families +that handled wealth--Monsieur de Varandeuil's brother was a +Farmer-General--left that very selfish and unloving father but little +leisure to attend to the wants of his children. Thereupon, he began to +be somewhat embarrassed pecuniarily. He left Rue Royale and took up his +abode at the Hotel du Petit-Charolais, belonging to his mother, who +allowed him to install himself there. Events moved rapidly; one evening, +in the early days of the guillotine, as he was walking along Rue +Saint-Antoine, he heard a hawker in front of him, crying the journal: +_Aux Voleurs! Aux Voleurs!_ According to the usual custom of those +days, he gave a list of the articles contained in the number he had for +sale: Monsieur de Varandeuil heard his own name mingled with oaths and +obscenity. He bought the paper and read therein a revolutionary +denunciation of himself. + +Some time after, his brother was arrested and detained at Hotel Talaru +with the other Farmers-General. His mother, in a paroxysm of terror, had +foolishly sold the Hotel du Petit-Charolais, where he was living, for +the value of the mirrors: she was paid in _assignats_, and died of +despair over the constant depreciation of the paper. Luckily Monsieur de +Varandeuil obtained from the purchasers, who could find no tenants, +leave to occupy the rooms formerly used by the stableboys. He took +refuge there, among the outbuildings of the mansion, stripped himself of +his name and posted at the door, as he was ordered to do, his family +name of Roulot, under which he buried the _De Varandeuil_ and the former +courtier of the Comte d'Artois. He lived there alone, buried, forgotten, +hiding his head, never going out, cowering in his hole, without +servants, waited upon by his daughter, to whom he left everything. The +Terror was to them a period of shuddering suspense, the breathless +excitement of impending death. Every evening, the little girl went and +listened at a grated window to the day's crop of condemnations, the +_List of Prize Winners in the Lottery of Saint Guillotine_. She answered +every knock at the door, thinking that they had come to take her father +to the Place de la Revolution, whither her uncle had already been taken. +The moment came when money, the money that was so scarce, no longer +procured bread. It was necessary to go and get it, almost by force, at +the doors of the bakeries; it was necessary to earn it by standing for +hours in the cold, biting night air, in the crushing pressure of crowds +of people; to stand in line from three o'clock in the morning. The +father did not care to venture into that mass of humanity. He was afraid +of being recognized, of compromising himself by one of those outbursts +to which his impetuous nature would have given vent, no matter where he +might be. Then, too, he recoiled from the fatigue and severity of the +task. The little boy was still too small; he would have been crushed; so +the duty of obtaining bread for three mouths each day fell to the +daughter. She obtained it. With her little thin body, fairly lost in her +father's knitted jacket, a cotton cap pulled down over her eyes, her +limbs all huddled together to retain a little warmth, she would wait, +shivering, her eyes aching with cold, amid the pushing and buffeting, +until the baker's wife on Rue des Francs-Bourgeois placed in her hands a +loaf which her little fingers, stiff with cold, could hardly hold. At +last, this poor little creature, who returned day after day, with her +pinched face and her emaciated, trembling body, moved the baker's wife +to pity. With the kindness of heart of a woman of the people, she would +send the coveted loaf to the little one by her boy as soon as she +appeared in the long line. But one day, just as she put out her hand to +take it, a woman, whose jealousy was aroused by this mark of favor and +preference, dealt the child a kick with her wooden shoe which kept her +in bed almost a month. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil bore the marks of the +blow all her life. + +During that month, the whole family would have died of starvation, had +it not been for a supply of rice, which one of their acquaintances, the +Comtesse d'Auteuil, had had the forethought to lay aside, and which she +consented to share with the father and the two children. + +Thus, Monsieur de Varandeuil escaped the Revolutionary Tribunal by +burying himself in obscurity. He escaped it also by reason of the fact +that the accounts of his administration of his office were still +unsettled, as he had had the good fortune to procure the postponement of +the settlement from month to month. Then, too, he kept suspicion at bay +by his personal animosity toward some great personages at court, and by +the hatred of the queen which many retainers of the king's brothers had +conceived. Whenever he had occasion to speak of that wretched woman, he +used violent, bitter, insulting words, uttered in such a passionate, +sincere tone that they almost made him appear as an enemy of the royal +family; so that those to whom he was simply Citizen Roulot looked upon +him as a good patriot, and those who knew his former name almost excused +him for having been what he had been: a noble, the friend of a prince +of the blood, and a place holder. + +The Republic had reached the epoch of patriotic suppers, those repasts +of a whole street in the street; Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, in her +confused, terrified reminiscences of those days, could still see the +tables on Rue Pavee, with their legs in the streams of the blood of +September flowing from La Force! It was at one of these suppers that +Monsieur de Varandeuil conceived a scheme that completely assured his +immunity. He informed two of his neighbors at table, devoted patriots +both, one of whom was on intimate terms with Chaumette, that he was in +great embarrassment because his daughter had been privately baptized +only, so that she had no civil status, and said that he would be very +happy if Chaumette would have her entered on the registers of the +municipality and honor her with a name selected by him from the +Republican calendar of Greece or Rome. Chaumette at once arranged a +meeting with this father, _who had reached so high a level_, as they +said in those days. During the interview Mademoiselle de Varandeuil was +taken into a closet where she found two women who were instructed to +satisfy themselves as to her sex, and she showed them her breast. They +then escorted her to the great Salle des Declarations, and there, after +a metaphorical allocution, Chaumette baptized her _Sempronie_; a name +which habit was destined to fasten upon Mademoiselle de Varandeuil and +which she never abandoned. + +Somewhat protected and reassured by that episode, the family passed +through the terrible days preceding the fall of Robespierre. At last +came the ninth Thermidor and deliverance. But poverty was none the less +a pressing fact in the Varandeuil household. They had not lived through +the bitter days of the Revolution, they were not to live through the +wretched days of the Directory without unhoped-for succor, money sent by +Providence by the hand of Folly. The father and the two children could +hardly have existed without the income from four shares in the +_Vaudeville_, an investment which Monsieur de Varandeuil was happily +inspired to make in 1791, and which proved to be the best of all +possible investments in those years of death, when people felt the need +of forgetting death every evening--in those days of supreme agony, when +everyone wished to laugh his last laugh at the latest song. Soon these +shares, added to the amount of some outstanding claims that were paid, +provided the family with something more than bread. They thereupon left +the eaves of the Hotel du Petit-Charolais and took a small suite in the +Marais, on Rue du Chaume. + +No change took place, however, in the habits of the household. The +daughter continued to wait upon her father and brother. Monsieur de +Varandeuil had gradually become accustomed to see in her only the woman +indicated by her costume and by the work that she did. The father's eyes +did not care to recognize a daughter in that servant's garb and in her +performance of menial occupations. She was no longer a person with his +blood in her veins or who had the honor to belong to him: she was a +servant; and his selfishness confirmed him so fully in that idea and in +his harsh treatment of her, he found that filial, affectionate, +respectful service,--which cost nothing at all, by the way,--so +convenient, that it cost him a bitter pang to give it up later, when a +little more money mended the family fortunes: battles had to be fought +to induce him to take a maid to fill his child's place and to relieve +the girl from the most humiliating domestic labor. + +They were without information concerning Madame de Varandeuil, who had +refused to join her husband at Paris during the early years of the +Revolution; at last they learned that she had married again in Germany, +producing, as a certificate of her husband's death, the death +certificate of his guillotined brother, the baptismal name having been +changed. The girl grew up, therefore, abandoned, without affection, with +no mother except a woman dead to her family, whom her father taught her +to despise. Her childhood was passed in constant anxiety, in the +privations that wear life away, in the fatigue resulting from labor that +exhausted the strength of a sickly child, in an expectation of death +that became, at last, an impatient longing to die: there had been hours +when that girl of thirteen was tempted to do as many women did in those +days--to open the door and rush into the street, crying: _Vive le roi!_ +in order to end it all. Her girlhood was a continuation of her childhood +with less tragic motives of weariness. She had to submit to the ill +humor, the exactions, the bitter moods, the tempestuous outbreaks of her +father, which had been hitherto somewhat curbed and restrained by the +great tempest of the time. She was still doomed to undergo the fatigues +and humiliations of a servant. She remained alone with her father, kept +down and humbled, shut out from his arms and his kisses, her heart heavy +with grief because she longed to love and had nothing to love. She was +beginning to suffer from the cold void that is formed about a woman by +an unattractive, unfascinating girlhood, by a girlhood devoid of beauty +and sympathetic charm. She could see that she aroused a sort of +compassion with her long nose, her yellow complexion, her angular +figure, her thin body. She felt that she was ugly, and that her ugliness +was made repulsive by her miserable costumes, her dismal, woolen dresses +which she made herself, her father paying for the material only after +much grumbling: she could not induce him to make her a small allowance +for her toilet until she was thirty-five. + +How sad and bitter and lonely for her was her life with that morose, +sour old man, who was always scolding and complaining at home, affable +only in society, and who left her every evening to go to the great +houses that were reopened under the Directory and at the beginning of +the Empire! Only at very long intervals did he take her out, and when he +did, it was always to that everlasting _Vaudeville_, where he had boxes. +Even on those rare occasions, his daughter was terrified. She trembled +all the time that she was with him; she was afraid of his violent +disposition, of the tone of the old regime that his outbreaks of wrath +had retained, of the facility with which he would raise his cane at an +insolent remark from the _canaille_. On almost every occasion there were +scenes with the manager, wordy disputes with people in the pit, and +threats of personal violence to which she put an end by lowering the +curtain of the box. The same thing was kept up in the street, even in +the cab, with the driver, who would refuse to carry them at Monsieur de +Varandeuil's price and would keep them waiting one hour, two hours +without moving; sometimes would unharness his horse in his wrath and +leave him in the vehicle with his daughter who would vainly implore him +to submit and pay the price demanded. + +Considering that these diversions should suffice for Sempronie, and +having, moreover, a jealous desire to have her all to himself and always +under his hand, Monsieur de Varandeuil allowed her to form no intimacies +with anybody. He did not take her into society; he did not take her to +the houses of their kinsfolk who returned after the emigration, except +on days of formal receptions or family gatherings. He kept her closely +confined to the house: not until she was forty did he consider that she +was old enough to be allowed to go out alone. Thus, the girl had no +friendship, no connection of any sort to lean upon; indeed, she no +longer had her younger brother with her, as he had gone to the United +States and enlisted in the American navy. + +She was forbidden by her father to marry, he did not admit that she +would allow herself even to think of marrying and deserting him; all the +suitors who might have come forward he fought and rejected in advance, +in order not to leave his daughter the courage to speak to him on the +subject, if the occasion should ever arise. + +Meanwhile our victories were stripping Italy of her treasures. The +masterpieces of Rome, Florence and Venice were hurrying to Paris. +Italian art was at a premium. Collectors no longer took pride in any +paintings but those of the Italian school. Monsieur de Varandeuil saw an +opening for a fortune in this change of taste. He, also, had fallen a +victim to the artistic dilettantism which was one of the refined +passions of the nobility before the Revolution. He had lived in the +society of artists and collectors; he admired pictures. It occurred to +him to collect a gallery of Italian works and then to sell them. Paris +was still overrun with the objects of art sold and scattered under the +Terror. Monsieur de Varandeuil began to walk back and forth through the +streets--they were the markets for large canvases in those days,--and at +every step he made a discovery; every day he purchased something. Soon +the small apartment was crowded with old, black paintings, so large for +the most part that the walls would not hold them with their frames, with +the result that there was no room for the furniture. These were +christened Raphael, Vinci, or Andrea del Sarto; there were none but +_chefs d'oeuvre_, and the father would keep his daughter standing in +front of them hours at a time, forcing his admiration upon her, wearying +her with his ecstatic flights. He would ascend from epithet to epithet, +would work himself into a state of intoxication, of delirium, and would +end by thinking that he was negotiating with an imaginary purchaser, +would dispute with him over the price of a masterpiece, and would cry +out: "A hundred thousand francs for my Rosso! yes, monsieur, a hundred +thousand francs!" His daughter, dismayed by the large amount of money +that those great, ugly things, in which there were so many nude men, +deducted from the housekeeping supply, ventured upon remonstrance and +tried to check such ruinous extravagance. Monsieur de Varandeuil lost +his temper, waxed wroth like a man who was ashamed to find one of his +blood so deficient in taste, and told her that that was her fortune and +that she would see later if he was an old fool. At last she induced him +to realize. The sale took place; it was a failure, one of the most +complete shipwrecks of illusions that the glazed hall of the Hotel +Bullion has ever seen. Stung to the quick, furious with rage at this +blow, which not only involved pecuniary loss and a serious inroad upon +his little fortune, but was also a direct denial of his claims to +connoisseurship, a slap at his knowledge of art delivered upon the cheek +of his Raphaels, Monsieur de Varandeuil informed his daughter that they +were too poor to remain in Paris and that they must go into the +provinces to live. Having been cradled and reared in an epoch little +adapted to inspire a love of country life in women, Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil tried vainly to combat her father's resolution: she was +obliged to go with him wherever he chose to go, and, by leaving Paris, +to lose the society and friendship of two young kinswomen, to whom, in +their too infrequent interviews, she had partly given her confidence, +and whose hearts she had felt reaching out to her as to an older sister. + +Monsieur de Varandeuil hired a small house at L'Isle-Adam. There he was +near familiar scenes, in the atmosphere of what was formerly a little +court, close at hand to two or three chateaux, whose owners he knew, and +which were beginning to throw open their doors once more. Then, too, +since the Revolution a little community of well-to-do bourgeois, rich +shopkeepers, had settled upon this territory which once belonged to the +Contis. The name of Monsieur de Varandeuil sounded very grand in the +ears of all those good people. They bowed very low to him, they +contended for the honor of entertaining him, they listened +respectfully, almost devoutly, to the stories he told of society as it +was. And thus, flattered, caressed, honored as a relic of Versailles, he +had the place of honor and the prestige of a lord among them. When he +dined with Madame Mutel, a former baker, who had forty thousand francs a +year, the hostess left the table, silk dress and all, to go and fry the +oyster plants herself: Monsieur de Varandeuil did not like them except +as she cooked them. But Monsieur de Varandeuil's decision to go into +retirement at L'Isle-Adam was mainly due, not to the pleasant +surroundings there, but to a project that he had formed. He had gone +thither to obtain leisure for a monumental work. That which he had been +unable to do for the honor and glory of Italian art by his collection, +he proposed to do by his pen. He had learned a little Italian with his +wife; he took it into his head to present Vasari's _Lives of the +Painters_ to the French public, to translate it with the assistance of +his daughter, who, when she was very small, had heard her mother's maid +speak Italian and had retained a few words. He plunged the girl into +Vasari, he locked up her time and her thoughts in grammars, +dictionaries, commentaries, all the works of all the scholiasts of +Italian art, kept her bending double over the ungrateful toil, the +_ennui_ and labor of translating Italian words, groping in the darkness +of her imperfect knowledge. The whole burden of the book fell upon her; +when he had laid out her task, he would leave her tete-a-tete with the +volumes bound in white vellum, to go and ramble about the neighborhood, +paying visits, gambling at some chateau or dining among the bourgeois of +his acquaintance, to whom he would complain pathetically of the +laborious effort that the vast undertaking of his translation entailed +upon him. He would return home, listen to the reading of the translation +made during the day, make comments and critical remarks, and upset a +sentence to give it a different meaning, which his daughter would +eliminate again when he had gone; then he would resume his walks and +jaunts, like a man who has well earned his leisure, walking very erect, +with his hat under his arm and dainty pumps on his feet, enjoying +himself, the sky and the trees and Rousseau's God, gentle to all nature +and loving to the plants. From time to time fits of impatience, common +to children and old men, would overtake him; he would demand a certain +number of pages for the next day, and would compel his daughter to sit +up half the night. + +Two or three years passed in this labor, in which Sempronie's eyes were +ruined at last. She lived entombed in her father's Vasari, more entirely +alone than ever, holding aloof through innate, haughty repugnance from +the bourgeois ladies of L'Isle-Adam and their manners _a la Madame +Angot_, and too poorly clad to visit at the chateaux. For her, there was +no pleasure, no diversion, which was not made wretched and poisoned by +her father's eccentricities and fretful humor. He tore up the flowers +that she planted secretly in the garden. He would have nothing there but +vegetables and he cultivated them himself, putting forth grand +utilitarian theories, arguments which might have induced the Convention +to convert the Tuileries into a potato field. Her only enjoyment was +when her father, at very long intervals, allowed her to entertain one of +her two young friends for a week--a week which would have been seven +days of paradise to Sempronie, had not her father embittered its joys, +its diversions, its fetes, with his always threatening outbreaks, his +ill-humor always armed and alert, and his constant fault-finding about +trifles--a bottle of eau de Cologne that Sempronie asked for to place in +her friend's room, a dish for her dinner, or a place to which she wished +to take her. + +At L'Isle-Adam Monsieur de Varandeuil had hired a servant, who almost +immediately became his mistress. A child was born of this connection, +and the father, in his cynical indifference, was shameless enough to +have it brought up under his daughter's eyes. As the years rolled on the +woman acquired a firm foothold in the house. She ended by ruling the +household, father and daughter alike. The day came when Monsieur de +Varandeuil chose to have her sit at his table and be served by +Sempronie. That was too much. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil rebelled under +the insult, and drew herself up to the full height of her indignation. +Secretly, silently, in misery and isolation, harshly treated by the +people and the things about her, the girl had built up a resolute, +straightforward character; tears had tempered instead of softening it. +Beneath filial docility and humility, beneath passive obedience, beneath +apparent gentleness of disposition, she concealed a character of iron, a +man's strength of will, one of those hearts which nothing bends and +which never bend themselves. When her father demanded that she lower +herself to that extent, she reminded him that she was his daughter, she +reviewed her whole life, cast, in a flood of words, the shame and the +reproach of it in his face, and concluded by informing him that if that +woman did not leave the house that very evening, she would leave it, and +that she should have no difficulty in living, thank God! wherever she +might go, with the simple tastes he had forced upon her. The father, +thunderstruck and bewildered by this revolt, yielded and dismissed the +servant; but he retained a dastardly sort of rancor against his daughter +on account of the sacrifice she had extorted from him. His spleen +betrayed itself in sharp, aggressive words, ironical thanks and bitter +smiles. Sempronie's only revenge was to attend to his wants more +thoroughly, more gently, more patiently than ever. Her devotion was +destined to be subjected to one final test; the old man had a stroke of +apoplexy which left him with one whole side of his body stiff and dead, +lame in one leg, and asleep so far as his intelligence was concerned, +although keenly conscious of his misfortune and of his dependence upon +his daughter. Thereupon, all the evil that lay dormant in the depths of +his nature was aroused and let loose. His selfishness amounted to +ferocity. Under the torment of his suffering and his weakness, he became +a sort of malevolent madman. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil devoted her days +and her nights to the invalid, who seemed to hate her for her +attentions, to be humiliated by her care as if it implied generosity and +forgiveness, to suffer torments at seeing always by his side, +indefatigable and kindly, that image of duty. But what a life it was! +She had to contend against the miserable man's incurable _ennui_, to be +always ready to bear him company, to lead him about and support him all +day long. She must play cards with him when he was at home, and not let +him win or lose too much. She must combat his wishes, his gormandizing +tendencies, take dishes away from him, and, in connection with +everything that he wanted, endure complaints, reproaches, insults, +tears, mad despair, and the outbursts of childish anger in which +helpless old men indulge. And this lasted ten years! ten years, during +which Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had no other recreation, no other +consolation than to pour out all the tenderness and warmth of a maternal +affection upon one of her two young friends, recently married,--her +_chick_, as she called her. It was Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's delight +to go and pass a short time every fortnight in that happy household. She +would kiss the pretty child, already in its cradle and asleep for the +night when she arrived; she would dine at racing speed; at dessert she +would send for a carriage and would hasten away like a tardy schoolboy. +But in the last years of her father's life she could not even obtain +permission to dine out: the old man would no longer sanction such a long +absence and kept her almost constantly beside him, repeating again and +again that he was well aware that it was not amusing to take care of an +infirm old man like himself, but that she would soon be rid of him. He +died in 1818, and, before his death, could find no words but these for +her who had been his daughter nearly forty years: "I know that you never +loved me!" + +Two years before her father's death, Sempronie's brother had returned +from America. He brought with him a colored woman who had nursed him +through the yellow fever, and two girls, already grown up, whom he had +had by the woman before marrying her. Although she was imbued with the +ideas of the old regime as to the blacks, and although she looked upon +that ignorant creature, with her negro jargon, her grin like a wild +beast's and her skin that left grease stains upon her clothing, as no +better than a monkey, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil combated her father's +horror and unwillingness to receive his daughter-in-law; and she it was +who induced him, in the last days of his life, to allow her brother to +present his wife to him. When her father was dead she reflected that +her brother's household was all that remained of the family. + +Monsieur de Varandeuil, to whom the Comte d'Artois had caused the +arrears of salary of his office to be paid at the return of the +Bourbons, left about ten thousand francs a year to his children. The +brother had, before that inheritance, only a pension of fifteen hundred +francs from the United States. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil considered +that five or six thousand francs a year would hardly suffice for the +comfortable support of that family, in which there were two children, +and it at once occurred to her to add to it her share in the +inheritance. She suggested this contribution in the most natural and +simple way imaginable. Her brother accepted it, and she went with him to +live in a pretty little apartment at the upper end of Rue de Clichy, on +the fourth floor of one of the first houses built in that neighborhood, +then hardly known, where the fresh country air blew briskly through the +framework of the white buildings. She continued there her modest life, +her humble manner of dressing, her economical habits, content with the +least desirable room in the suite, and spending upon herself no more +than eighteen hundred to two thousand francs a year. But, soon, a +brooding jealousy, slowly gathering strength, took possession of the +mulattress. She took offence at the fraternal affection which seemed to +be taking her husband from her arms. She suffered because of the +communion of speech and thought and reminiscences between them; she +suffered because of the conversations in which she could take no part, +because of what she heard in their voices, but could not understand. The +consciousness of her inferiority kindled in her heart the fires of wrath +and hatred that burn fiercely in the tropics. She had recourse to her +children for her revenge; she urged them on, excited them, aroused their +evil passions against her sister-in-law. She encouraged them to laugh at +her, to make sport of her. She applauded the manifestations of the +mischievous intelligence characteristic of children, in whom observation +begins with naughtiness. Once she had let them loose upon their aunt, +she allowed them to laugh at all her absurdities, her figure, her nose, +her dresses, whose meanness, nevertheless, provided their own elegant +attire. Thus incited and upheld, the little ones soon arrived at +insolence. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had the quick temper that +accompanies kindness of heart. With her the hand, as well as the heart, +had a part in the first impulse. And then she shared the prevalent +opinion of her time as to the proper way of bringing up children. She +endured two or three impertinent sallies without a word; but at the +fourth she seized the mocking child, took down her skirts, and +administered to her, notwithstanding her twelve years, the soundest +whipping she had ever received. The mulattress made a great outcry and +told her sister-in-law, that she had always detested her children and +that she wanted to kill them. The brother interposed between the two +women and succeeded in reconciling them after a fashion. But new scenes +took place, when the little ones, inflamed against the woman who made +their mother weep, assailed their aunt with the refined tortures of +misbehaved children, mingled with the fiendish cruelty of little +savages. After several patched-up truces it became necessary to part. +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil decided to leave her brother, for she saw how +unhappy he was amid this daily wrenching of his dearest affections. She +left him to his wife and his children. This separation was one of the +great sorrows of her life. She who was so strong against emotion and so +self-contained, and who seemed to take pride in suffering, as it were, +almost broke down when she had to leave the apartment, where she had +dreamed of enjoying a little happiness in her corner, looking on at the +happiness of others: her last tears mounted to her eyes. + +She did not go too far away, so that she might be at hand to nurse her +brother if he were ill, and to see him and meet him sometimes. But there +was a great void in her heart and in her life. She had begun to visit +her kinsfolk since her father's death: she drew nearer to them; she +allowed the relatives whom the Restoration had placed in a lofty and +powerful position to come to her, and sought out those whom the new +order of things left in obscurity and poverty. But she returned to her +dear _chick_ first of all, and to another distant cousin, also married, +who had become the _chick's_ sister-in-law. Her relations with her +kinsfolk soon assumed remarkable regularity. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil +never went into society, to an evening party, or to the play. It +required Mademoiselle Rachel's brilliant success to persuade her to step +inside a theatre; she ventured there but twice. She never accepted an +invitation to a large dinner-party. But there were two or three houses +where, as at the _chick's_, she would invite herself to dine, +unexpectedly, when there were no guests. "My love," she would say +without ceremony, "are you and your husband doing nothing this evening? +Then I will stay and eat some of your ragout." At eight o'clock +regularly she rose to go, and when the husband took his hat to escort +her home, she would knock it out of his hands with a: "Nonsense! an old +nanny-goat like me! Why, I frighten men in the street!" And then ten +days or a fortnight would pass, during which they would not see her. But +if anything went wrong, if there was a death or sickness in the house, +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil always heard of it at once, no one knew how; +she would come, in spite of everything--the weather or the hour--would +give a loud ring at the bell in her own way--they finally called it +_cousin's ring_--and a moment later, relieved of her umbrella, which +never left her, and of her pattens, her hat tossed upon a chair, she was +at the service of those who needed her. She listened, talked, restored +their courage with an indescribable martial accent, with language as +energetic as a soldier might use to console a wounded comrade, and +stimulating as a cordial. If it was a child that was out of sorts, she +would go straight to the bed, laugh at the little one, whose fear +vanished at once, order the father and mother about, run hither and +thither, assume the management of everything, apply the leeches, arrange +the cataplasms, and bring back hope, joy and health at the double quick. +In all branches of the family the old maid appeared thus providentially, +without warning, on days of sorrow, _ennui_ and suffering. She was never +seen except when her hands were needed to heal, her devoted friendship +to console. She was, so to speak, an impersonal creature, because of her +great heart; a woman who did not belong to herself: God seemed to have +made her only to give her to others. Her everlasting black dress which +she persisted in wearing, her worn, dyed shawl, her absurd hat, her +impoverished appearance, were, in her eyes, the means of being rich +enough to help others with her little fortune; she was extravagant in +almsgiving, and her pockets were always filled with gifts for the poor; +not of money, for she feared the wineshop, but of four-pound loaves +which she bought for them at the baker's. And then, too, by dint of +living in poverty, she was able to give herself what was to her the +greatest of all luxuries: the joy of her friends' children whom she +overwhelmed with New Year's and other gifts, with surprises and +pleasures of all sorts. For instance, suppose that one of them had been +left by his mother, who was absent from Paris, to pass a lovely summer +Sunday at his boarding school, and the little rascal, out of spite, had +misbehaved so that he was not allowed to go out. How surprised he would +be, as the clock struck nine, to see his old cousin appear in the +courtyard, just buttoning the last button of her dress, she had come in +such haste. And what a feeling of desolation at the sight! "Cousin," he +would say piteously, in one of those fits of passion in which at the +same moment you long to cry and to kill your _tyrant_, "I--I am kept in, +and----" "Kept in? Oh! yes, kept in! And do you suppose I've taken all +this trouble----Is your schoolmaster poking fun at me? Where is the +puppy, that I may have a word with him? You go and dress yourself +meanwhile. Off with you!" And the child, not daring to hope that a woman +so shabbily dressed would have the power to raise the embargo, would +suddenly feel a hand upon his arm, and the cousin would carry him off, +toss him into a cab, all bewildered and dumfounded with joy, and take +him to the Bois de Boulogne. She would let him ride a donkey all day +long, urging the beast on with a broken branch, and crying: "Get up!" +And then, after a good dinner at Borne's, she would take him back to +school, and, under the porte-cochere, as she kissed him she would slip a +big hundred-sou piece into his hand. + +Strange old maid. The bitter experiences of her whole existence, the +struggle to live, the never-ending physical suffering, the +long-continued bodily and mental torture had, as it were, cut her loose +from life and placed her above it. Her education, the things she had +seen, the spectacle of what seemed the end of everything, the +Revolution, had so formed her character as to lead her to disdain human +suffering. And this old woman, who had nothing left of life save breath, +had risen to a serene philosophy, to a virile, haughty, almost satirical +stoicism. Sometimes she would begin to declaim against a sorrow that +seemed a little too keen; but, in the midst of her tirade, she would +suddenly hurl an angry, mocking word at herself, upon which her face +would at once become calm. She was cheerful with the cheerfulness of a +deep, bubbling spring, the cheerfulness of devoted hearts that have seen +everything, of the old soldier or the old hospital nurse. Kind-hearted +to admiration she was, and yet something was lacking in her kindness of +heart: forgiveness. Hitherto, she had never succeeded in moving or +bending her character. A slight, an unkind action, a trifle, if it +touched her heart, wounded her forever. She forgot nothing. Time, death +itself, did not disarm her memory. + +Of religion, she had none. Born at a period when women did without it, +she had grown to womanhood at a time when there were no churches. Mass +did not exist when she was a young maid. There had been nothing to +accustom her to the thought of God or to make her feel the need of Him, +and she had retained a sort of shrinking hatred for priests, which must +have been connected with some family secret of which she never spoke. +Her faith, her strength, her piety, all consisted in the pride of her +conscience; she considered that if she retained her own esteem, she +could be sure of acting rightly and of never failing in her duty. She +was thus singularly constituted by the two epochs in which she had +lived, a compound of the two, dipped in the opposing currents of the old +regime and the Revolution. After Louis XVI. failed to take horse on the +Tenth of August, she lost her regard for kings; but she detested the +mob. She desired equality and she held parvenus in horror. She was a +republican and an aristocrat, combined scepticism with prejudice, the +horrors of '93, which she saw, with the vague and noble theories of +humanity which surrounded her cradle. + +Her external qualities were altogether masculine. She had the sharp +voice, the freedom of speech, the unruly tongue of the old woman of the +eighteenth century, heightened by an accent suggestive of the common +people, a mannish, highly colored style of elocution peculiar to +herself, rising above modesty in the choice of words and fearless in +calling things baldly by their plain names. + +Meanwhile, the years rolled on, sweeping away the Restoration and the +monarchy of Louis-Philippe. She saw all those whom she had loved go +from her one by one, all her family take the road to the cemetery. She +was left quite alone, and she marveled and was grieved that death should +forget her, who would have offered so little resistance, for she was +already leaning over the grave and was obliged to force her heart down +to the level of the little children brought to her by the sons and +daughters of the friends whom she had lost. Her brother was dead. Her +dear _chick_ was no more. The _chick's_ sister-in-law alone was left to +her. But hers was a life that hung trembling in the balance, ready to +fly away. Crushed by the death of a child for whom she had waited for +years, the poor woman was dying of consumption. Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil was in her bedroom every day, from noon until six o'clock, +for four years. She lived by her side all that time, in the close +atmosphere and the odor of constant fumigations. She did not allow +herself to be kept away for one hour by her own gout and rheumatism, but +gave her time and her life to the peaceful last hours of that dying +woman, whose eyes were fixed upon heaven, where her dead children +awaited her. And when, in the cemetery, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had +turned aside the shroud to kiss the dead face for the last time, it +seemed to her as if there were no one near to her, as if she were all +alone upon the earth. + +Thenceforth, yielding to the infirmities which she had no further reason +to shake off, she began to live the narrow, confined life of old people +who wear out their carpet in one spot only--never leaving her room, +reading but little because it tired her eyes, and passing most of her +time buried in her easy-chair, reviewing the past and living it over +again. She would sit in the same position for days, her eyes wide open +and dreaming, her thoughts far from herself, far from the room in which +she sat, journeying whither her memories led her, to distant faces, +dearly loved, pallid faces, to vanished regions--lost in a profound +lethargy which Germinie was careful not to disturb, saying to herself: +"Madame is in her meditations----" + +One day in every week, however, she went abroad. Indeed it was with that +weekly excursion in view, in order to be nearer the spot to which she +wished to go on that one day, that she left her apartments on Rue +Taitbout and took up her abode on Rue de Laval. One day in every week, +deterred by nothing, not even by illness, she repaired to the Montmartre +Cemetery, where her father and her brother rested, and the women whose +loss she regretted, all those whose sufferings had come to an end before +hers. For the dead and for Death she displayed a veneration almost equal +to that of the ancients. To her, the grave was sacred, and a dear +friend. She loved to visit the land of hope and deliverance where her +dear ones were sleeping, there to await death and to be ready with her +body. On that day, she would start early in the morning, leaning on the +arm of her maid, who carried a folding-stool. As she drew near the +cemetery, she would enter the shop of a dealer in wreaths, who had known +her for many years, and who, in winter, loaned her a foot-warmer. There +she would rest a few moments; then, loading Germinie down with wreaths +of immortelles, she would pass through the cemetery gate, take the path +to the left of the cedar at the entrance, and make her pilgrimage slowly +from tomb to tomb. She would throw away the withered flowers, sweep up +the dead leaves, tie the wreaths together, and, sitting down upon her +folding-chair, would gaze and dream, and absent-mindedly remove a bit of +moss from the flat stone with the end of her umbrella. Then she would +rise, turn as if to say _au revoir_ to the tomb she was leaving, walk +away, stop once more, and talk in an undertone, as she had done before, +with that part of her that was sleeping under the stone; and having thus +paid a visit to all the dead who lived in her affections, she would +return home slowly and reverentially, enveloping herself in silence as +if she were afraid to speak. + + + + +III + + +In the course of her reverie, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had closed her +eyes. + +The maid's story ceased, and the remainder of the history of her life, +which was upon her lips that evening, was once more buried in her heart. + +The conclusion of her story was as follows: + +When little Germinie Lacerteux arrived in Paris, being then less than +fifteen years old, her sister, desirous to have her begin to earn her +living at once, and to help to put bread in her hand, obtained a place +for her in a small cafe on the boulevard, where she performed the double +duties of lady's maid to the mistress of the cafe and assistant to the +waiters in carrying on the main business of the establishment. The +child, just from her village and dropped suddenly in that place, was +completely bewildered and terrified by her surroundings and her duties. +She had the first instinctive feeling of wounded modesty and, +foreshadowing the woman she was destined to become, she shuddered at the +perpetual contact with the other sex, working, eating, passing her whole +time with men; and whenever she had an opportunity to go out, and went +to her sisters, there were tearful, despairing scenes, when, without +actually complaining of anything, she manifested a sort of dread to +return, saying that she did not want to stay there, that they were not +satisfied with her, that she preferred to return to them. They would +reply that it had already cost them enough to bring her to Paris, that +it was a silly whim on her part and that she was very well off where she +was, and they would send her back to the cafe in tears. She dared not +tell all that she suffered in the company of the waiters in the cafe, +insolent, boasting, cynical fellows, fed on the remains of debauches, +tainted with all the vices to which they ministered, and corrupt to the +core with putrefying odds and ends of obscenity. At every turn, she had +to submit to the dastardly jests, the cruel mystifications, the +malicious tricks of these scoundrels, who were only too happy to make a +little martyr of the poor unsophisticated child, ignorant of everything, +with the crushed and sickly air, timid and sullen, thin and pale, and +pitiably clad in her wretched, countrified gowns. Bewildered, +overwhelmed, so to speak, by this hourly torture, she became their +drudge. They made sport of her ignorance, they deceived her and abused +her credulity by absurd fables, they overburdened her with fatiguing +tasks, they assailed her with incessant, pitiless ridicule, which +well-nigh drove her benumbed intellect to imbecility. In addition, they +made her blush at the things they said to her, which made her feel +ashamed, although she did not understand them. They soiled the +artlessness of her fourteen years with filthy veiled allusions. And they +found amusement in putting the eyes of her childish curiosity to the +keyholes of the private supper-rooms. + +The little one longed to confide in her sisters, but she dared not. +When, with nourishing food, her body took on a little flesh, her cheeks +a little color and she began to have something of the aspect of a woman, +they took great liberties with her and grew bolder. There were attempts +at familiarity, significant gestures, advances, which she eluded, and +from which she escaped unscathed, but which assailed her purity by +breathing upon her innocence. Roughly treated, scolded, reviled by the +master of the establishment, who was accustomed to abuse his +maidservants and who bore her a grudge because she was not old enough or +of the right sort for a mistress, she found no support, no touch of +humanity, except in his wife. She began to love that woman with a sort +of animal devotion, and to obey her with the docility of a dog. She did +all her errands without thought or reflection. She carried her letters +to her lovers and was very clever about delivering them. She became very +active and agile and ingenuously sly in passing in and out, evading the +awakened suspicions of the husband; and without any clear idea of what +she was doing or of what she was concealing, she felt a mischievous +delight, such as children and monkeys feel, in telling herself vaguely +that she was causing some little suffering to that man and that house, +which caused her so much. There was among her comrades an old waiter, +named Joseph, who defended her, warned her of the cruel plots concocted +against her, and, when she was present, put a stop to conversation that +was too free, with the authority of his white hairs and his paternal +interest in the girl. Meanwhile Germinie's horror of the house increased +every day. One week her sisters were compelled to take her back to the +cafe by force. + +A few days later, there was a great review on the Champ de Mars, and the +waiters had leave of absence for the day. Only Germinie and old Joseph +remained in the house. Joseph was at work sorting soiled linen in a +small, dark room. He told Germinie to come and help him. She entered the +room; she cried out, fell to the floor, wept, implored, struggled, +called desperately for help. The empty house was deaf. + +When she recovered consciousness, Germinie ran and shut herself up in +her chamber. She was not seen again that day. On the following day, when +Joseph walked toward her and attempted to speak to her, she recoiled +from him in dismay, with the gesture of a woman mad with fear. For a +long time, whenever a man approached her, her first involuntary impulse +was to draw back suddenly, trembling and nervous, like a terrified, +bewildered beast, looking about for means of flight. Joseph, who feared +that she would denounce him, allowed her to keep him at a distance, and +respected the horrible repugnance she exhibited for him. + +She became _enceinte_. One Sunday she had been to pass the evening with +her sister, the concierge; she had an attack of vomiting, followed by +severe pain. A physician who occupied an apartment in the house, came to +the lodge for his key, and the sisters learned from him the secret of +their younger sister's condition. The brutal, intractable pride of the +common people in their honor, the implacable severity of rigid piety, +flew to arms in the two women and found vent in fierce indignation. +Their bewilderment changed to fury. Germinie recovered consciousness +under their blows, their insults, the wounds inflicted by their hands, +the harsh words that came from their mouths. Her brother-in-law was +there, who had never forgiven her the cost of her journey; he glanced at +her with a bantering expression, with the cunning, ferocious joy of an +Auvergnat, with a sneering laugh that dyed the girl's cheeks a deeper +red than her sisters' blows. + +She received the blows, she did not repel the insults. She sought +neither to defend nor to excuse herself. She did not tell what had taken +place and how little her own desires had had to do with her misfortune. +She was dumb: she had a vague hope that they would kill her. When her +older sister asked her if there had been no violence, and reminded her +that there were police officers and courts, she closed her eyes at the +thought of publishing her shame. For one instant only, when her +mother's memory was cast in her face, she emitted a glance, a lightning +flash from her eyes, by which the two women felt their consciences +pierced; they remembered that they were the ones who had placed her and +kept her in that den, and had exposed her to the danger, nay, had almost +forced her into her misfortune. + +That same evening, the younger of Germinie's sisters took her to the Rue +Saint-Martin, to the house of a repairer of cashmere shawls, with whom +she lodged, and who, being almost daft on the subject of religion, was +banner-bearer in a sisterhood of the Virgin. She made her lie beside her +on a mattress on the floor, and having her there under her hand all +night, she vented upon her all her long-standing, venomous jealousy, her +bitter resentment at the preference, the caresses given Germinie by her +father and mother. It was a long succession of petty tortures, brutal or +hypocritical exhibitions of spite, kicks that bruised her legs, and +progressive movements of the body by which she gradually forced her +companion out of bed--it was a cold winter's night--to the floor of the +fireless room. During the day, the seamstress took Germinie in hand, +catechized her, preached at her, and by detailing the tortures of the +other life, inspired in her mind a horrible fear of the hell whose +flames she caused her to feel. + +She lived there four months, in close confinement, and was never allowed +to leave the house. At the end of four months she gave birth to a dead +child. When her health was restored, she entered the service of a +depilator on Rue Laffitte, and for the first few days she had the joyful +feeling of having been released from prison. Two or three times, in her +walks, she met old Joseph who ran after her and wanted to marry her; but +she escaped him and the old man never knew that he had been a father. + +But soon Germinie began to pine away in her new place. The house where +she had taken service as a maid of all work was what servants call "a +barrack." A spendthrift and glutton, devoid of order as of money, as is +often the case with women engaged in the occupations that depend upon +chance, and in the problematical methods of gaining a livelihood in +vogue in Paris, the depilator, who was almost always involved in a +lawsuit of some sort, paid but little heed to her small servant's +nourishment. She often went away for the whole day without leaving her +any dinner. The little one would satisfy her appetite as well as she +could with some kind of uncooked food, salads, vinegary things that +deceive a young woman's appetite, even charcoal, which she would nibble +with the depraved taste and capricious stomach of her age and sex. This +diet, just after recovering from her confinement, her health being but +partially restored and greatly in need of stimulants, exhausted the +young woman's strength, reduced her flesh and undermined her +constitution. She had a terrifying aspect. Her complexion changed to +that dead white that looks green in the daylight. Her swollen eyes were +surrounded with a great, bluish shadow. Her discolored lips assumed the +hue of faded violets. Her breath failed her at the slightest ascent, and +the incessant vibrating sound that came from the arteries of her throat +was painful to those near her. With heavy feet and enfeebled body, she +dragged herself along, as if life were too heavy a burden for her. Her +faculties and her senses were so torpid that she swooned for no cause at +all, for so small a matter as the fatigue of combing her mistress's +hair. + +She was silently drooping there when her sister found her another place, +with a former actor, a retired comedian, living upon the money that the +laughter of all Paris had brought him. The good man was old and had +never had any children. He took pity on the wretched girl, interested +himself in her welfare, took care of her and made much of her. He took +her into the country. He walked with her on the boulevards in the +sunlight, and enjoyed the warmth the more for leaning on her arm. It +delighted him to see her in good spirits. Often, to amuse her, he would +take down a moth-eaten costume from his wardrobe and try to remember a +fragment of some part that had gone from his memory. The mere sight of +this little maid and her white cap was like a ray of returning youth to +him. In his old age, Jocrisse leaned upon her with the good-fellowship, +the pleasures and the childish fancies of a grandfather's heart. But he +died after a few months, and Germinie had fallen back into the service +of kept mistresses, boarding-house keepers, and passageway tradesmen, +when the sudden death of a maidservant gave her an opportunity to enter +the service of Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, then living on Rue Taitbout, +in the house of which her sister was concierge. + + + + +IV + + +Those people who look for the death of the Catholic religion in our day, +do not realize by what an infinite number of sturdy roots it still +retains its hold upon the hearts of the people. They do not realize the +secret, delicate fascination it has for the woman of the people. They do +not realize what confession and the confessor are to the impoverished +souls of those poor women. In the priest who listens and whose voice +falls softly on her ear, the woman of toil and suffering sees not so +much the minister of God, the judge of her sins, the arbiter of her +welfare, as the confidant of her sorrows and the friend of her misery. +However coarse she may be, there is always a little of the true woman in +her, a feverish, trembling, sensitive, wounded something, a restlessness +and, as it were, the sighing of an invalid who craves caressing words, +even as a child's trifling ailments require the nurse's droning lullaby. +She, as well as the woman of the world, must have the consolation of +pouring out her heart, of confiding her troubles to a sympathetic ear. +For it is the nature of her sex to seek an outlet for the emotions and +an arm to lean upon. There are in her mind things that she must tell, +and concerning which she would like to be questioned, pitied and +comforted. She dreams of a compassionate interest, a tender sympathy for +hidden feelings of which she is ashamed. Her masters may be the kindest, +the most friendly, the most approachable of masters to the woman in +their employ: their kindness to her will still be of the same sort that +they bestow upon a domestic animal. They will be uneasy concerning her +appetite and her health; they will look carefully after the animal part +of her, and that will be all. It will not occur to them that she can +suffer elsewhere than in her body, and they will not dream that she can +have the heartache, the sadness and immaterial pain for which they seek +relief by confiding in those of their own station. In their eyes, the +woman who sweeps and does the cooking, has no ideas that can cause her +to be sad or thoughtful, and they never speak to her of her thoughts. To +whom, then, shall she carry them? To the priest who is waiting for them, +asks for them, welcomes them, to the churchman who is also a man of the +world, a superior creature, a well-educated gentleman, who knows +everything, speaks well, is always accessible, gentle, patient, +attentive, and seems to feel no scorn for the most humble soul, the most +shabbily dressed penitent. The priest alone listens to the woman in a +cap. He alone takes an interest in her secret sufferings, in the things +that disturb and agitate her and that bring to a maid, as well as to +her mistress, the sudden longing to weep, or excite a tempest within +her. There is none but he to encourage her outpourings, to draw from her +those things which the irony of her daily life holds back, to look to +the state of her moral health; none but he to raise her above her +material life, none but he to cheer her with moving words of charity and +hope,--such divine words as she has never heard from the mouths of the +men of her family and of her class. + +After entering the service of Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, Germinie +became profoundly religious and cared for nothing but the church. She +abandoned herself little by little to the sweet delight of confession, +to the priest's smooth, tranquil bass voice that came to her from the +darkness, to the conversations which resembled the touch of soothing +words, and from which she went forth refreshed, light of heart, free +from care, and happy with a delightful sense of relief, as if a balm had +been applied to all the tender, suffering, fettered portions of her +being. + +She did not, could not, open her heart elsewhere. Her mistress had a +certain masculine roughness of demeanor which repelled expansiveness. +She had an abrupt, exclamatory way of speaking that forced back all that +Germinie would have liked to confide to her. It was in her nature to be +brutal in her treatment of all lamentations that were not caused by pain +or disappointment. Her virile kindliness had no pity to spare for +diseases of the imagination, for the suffering that is created by the +thought, for the weariness of spirit that flows from a woman's nerves +and from the disordered condition of her mental organism. Germinie often +found her unfeeling; the old woman had simply been hardened by the times +in which she had lived and by the circumstances of her life. The shell +of her heart was as hard as her body. Never complaining herself, she did +not like to hear complaints about her. And by the right of all the tears +she had not shed, she detested childish tears in grown persons. + +Soon the confessional became a sort of sacred, idolized rendezvous for +Germinie's thoughts. Every day it was her first idea, the theme of her +first prayer. Throughout the day, she was kneeling there as in a dream; +and while she was about her work it was constantly before her eyes, with +its oaken frame with fillets of gold, its pediment in the shape of a +winged angel's head, its green curtain with the motionless folds, and +the mysterious darkness on both sides. It seemed to her that now her +whole life centred there, and that every hour tended thither. She lived +through the week looking forward to that longed-for, prayed-for, +promised day. On Thursday, she began to be impatient; she felt, in the +redoubling of her blissful agony, the material drawing near, as it were, +of the blessed Saturday evening; and when Saturday came and +mademoiselle's dinner had been hastily served and her work done, she +would make her escape and run to Notre-Dame de Lorette, hurrying to the +penitential stool as to a lover's rendezvous. Her fingers dipped in holy +water and a genuflexion duly made, she would glide over the flags, +between the rows of chairs, as softly as a cat steals across a carpeted +floor. With bent head, almost crawling, she would go noiselessly forward +in the shadow of the side aisles, until she reached the mysterious, +veiled confessional, where she would pause and await her turn, absorbed +in the emotion of suspense. + +The young priest who confessed her, encouraged her frequent confessions. +He was not sparing of time or attention or charity. He allowed her to +talk at great length and tell him, with many words, of all her petty +troubles. He was indulgent to the diffuseness of a suffering soul, and +permitted her to pour out freely her most trivial afflictions. He +listened while she set forth her anxieties, her longings, her troubles; +he did not repel or treat with scorn any portion of the confidences of a +servant who spoke to him of all the most delicate, secret concerns of +her existence, as one would speak to a mother and a physician. + +This priest was young. He was kind-hearted. He had lived in the world. A +great sorrow had impelled him, crushed and broken, to assume the gown +wherein he wore mourning for his heart. There remained something of the +man in the depths of his being, and he listened, with melancholy +compassion, to the outpouring of this maidservant's suffering heart. He +understood that Germinie needed him, that he sustained and strengthened +her, that he saved her from herself and removed her from the temptations +to which her nature exposed her. He was conscious of a sad sympathy for +that heart overflowing with affection, for the ardent, yet tractable +girl, for the unhappy creature who knew nothing of her own nature, who +was promised to passion by every impulse of her heart, by her whole +body, and who betrayed in every detail of her person the vocation of her +temperament. Enlightened by his past experience, he was amazed and +terrified sometimes by the gleams that emanated from her, by the flame +that shot from her eyes at the outburst of love in a prayer, by the +evident tendency of her confessions, by her constantly recurring to that +scene of violence, that scene in which her perfectly sincere purpose to +resist seemed to the priest to have been betrayed by a convulsion of the +senses that was stronger than she. + +This fever of religion lasted several years, during which Germinie lived +a concentrated, silent, happy life, entirely devoted to God's +service--at least she thought so. Her confessor, however, had come +gradually to the conclusion that all her adoration tended toward +himself. By her glances, by her blushes, by the words she no longer said +to him, and by others which she made bold to say to him for the first +time, he realized that his penitent's devotion was going astray and +becoming unduly fervent, deceiving itself as to its object. She watched +for him when the services were at an end, followed him into the +sacristy, hung on his skirts, ran into the church after his cassock. The +confessor tried to warn her, to divert her amorous fervor from himself. +He became more reserved and assumed a cold demeanor. In despair at this +change, at his apparent indifference, Germinie, feeling bitter and hurt, +confessed to him one day, in the confessional, the hatred that had taken +possession of her for two young girls, who were his favorite penitents. +Thereupon the priest dismissed her, without discussion, and sent her to +another confessor. Germinie went once or twice to confess to this other +confessor; then she ceased to go; soon she ceased even to think of +going, and of all her religion naught remained in her mind but a certain +far-off sweetness, like the faint odor of burned-out incense. + +Affairs had reached that point when mademoiselle fell ill. Throughout +her illness, as Germinie did not want to leave her, she did not attend +mass. And on the first Sunday--when mademoiselle, being fully recovered, +did not require her care, she was greatly surprised to find that "her +devotee" remained at home and did not run away to church. + +"Oho!" said she, "so you don't go and see your cures nowadays? What have +they done to you, eh?" + +"Nothing," said Germinie. + + + + +V + + +"There, mademoiselle!--Look at me," said Germinie. + +It was a few months later. She had asked her mistress's permission to go +that evening to the wedding ball of her grocer's sister, who had chosen +her for her maid-of-honor, and she had come to exhibit herself _en +grande toilette_, in her low-necked muslin dress. + +Mademoiselle raised her eyes from the old volume, printed in large type, +which she was reading, removed her spectacles, placed them in the book +to mark her place, and exclaimed: + +"What, my little bigot, you at a ball! Do you know, my girl, this seems +to me downright nonsense! You and the hornpipe! Faith, all you need now +is to want to get married! A deuce of a want, that! But if you marry, I +warn you that I won't keep you--mind that! I've no desire to wait on +your brats! Come a little nearer----Oho! why----bless my soul! +Mademoiselle Show-all! We're getting to be a bit of a flirt lately, I +find----" + +"Why no, mademoiselle," Germinie tried to say. + +"And then," continued Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, following out her +thought, "among you people, the men are such sweet creatures! They'll +spend all you have--to say nothing of the blows. But marriage--I am sure +that that nonsensical idea of getting married buzzes around in your head +when you see the others. That's what gives you that simper, I'll wager. +_Bon Dieu de Dieu!_ Now turn a bit, so that I can see you," said +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, with an abrupt change of tone to one that +was almost caressing; and placing her thin hands on the arms of her +easy-chair, crossing her legs and moving her foot back and forth, she +set about inspecting Germinie and her toilet. + +"What the devil!" said she, after a few moments of silent scrutiny, +"what! is it really you?----Then I have never used my eyes to look at +you.----Good God, yes!----But----but----" She mumbled more vague +exclamations between her teeth.----"Where the deuce did you get that mug +like an amorous cat's?" she said at last, and continued to gaze at her. + +Germinie was ugly. Her hair, of so dark a chestnut that it seemed black, +curled and twisted in unruly waves, in little stiff, rebellious locks, +which escaped and stood up all over her head, despite the pomade upon +her shiny _bandeaux_. Her smooth, narrow, swelling brow protruded above +the shadow of the deep sockets in which her eyes were buried and sunken +to such a depth as almost to denote disease; small, bright, sparkling +eyes they were, made to seem smaller and brighter by a constant girlish +twinkle that softened and lighted up their laughter. They were neither +brown eyes nor blue eyes, but were of an undefinable, changing gray, a +gray that was not a color, but a light! Emotion found expression therein +in the flame of fever, pleasure in the flashing rays of a sort of +intoxication, passion in phosphorescence. Her short, turned-up nose, +with large, dilated, palpitating nostrils, was one of those noses of +which the common people say that it rains inside: upon one side, at the +corner of the eye was a thick, swollen blue vein. The square head of the +Lorraine race was emphasized in her broad, high, prominent cheek-bones, +which were well-covered with the traces of small-pox. The most +noticeable defect in her face was the too great distance between the +nose and mouth. This lack of proportion gave an almost apish character +to the lower part of the head, where the expansive mouth, with white +teeth and full lips that looked as if they had been crushed, they were +so flat, smiled at you with a strange, vaguely irritating smile. + +Her _decollete_ dress disclosed her neck, the upper part of her breast, +her shoulders and her white back, presenting a striking contrast to her +swarthy face. It was a lymphatic sort of whiteness, the whiteness, at +once unhealthy and angelic, of flesh in which there is no life. She had +let her arms fall by her sides--round, smooth arms with a pretty dimple +at the elbow. Her wrists were delicate; her hands, which did not betray +the servant, were embellished with a lady's fingernails. And lazily, +with graceful sloth, she allowed her indolent figure to curve and +sway;--a figure that a garter might span, and that was made even more +slender to the eye by the projection of the hips and the curve of the +hoops that gave the balloon-like roundness to her skirt;--an impossible +waist, absurdly small but adorable, like everything in woman that +offends one's sense of proportion by its diminutiveness. + +From this ugly woman emanated a piquant, mysterious charm. Light and +shadow, jostling and intercepting each other on her face on which +hollows and protuberances abounded, imparted to it that suggestion of +libertinism which the painter of love scenes gives to the rough sketch +of his mistress. Everything about her,--her mouth, her eyes, her very +plainness--was instinct with allurement and solicitation. Her person +exhaled an aphrodisiac charm, which challenged and laid fast hold of the +other sex. It unloosed desire, and caused an electric shock. Sensual +thoughts were naturally and involuntarily aroused by her, by her +gestures, her gait, her slightest movement--even by the air in which her +body had left one of its undulations. Beside her, one felt as if he were +near one of those disturbing, disquieting creatures, burning with the +love disease and communicating it to others, whose face appears to man +in his restless hours, torments his listless noonday thoughts, haunts +his nights and trespasses upon his dreams. + +In the midst of Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's scrutiny, Germinie stooped +over her, and covered her hand with hurried kisses. + +"There--there--enough of that," said Mademoiselle. "You would soon wear +out the skin--with your way of kissing. Come, run along, enjoy yourself, +and try not to stay out too late. Don't get all tired out." + +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil was left alone. She placed her elbows on her +knees, stared at the fire and stirred the burning wood with the tongs. +Then, as she was accustomed to do when deeply preoccupied, she struck +herself two or three sharp little blows on the neck with the flat of her +hand, and thereby set her black cap all awry. + + + + +VI + + +When she mentioned the subject of marriage to Germinie, Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil touched upon the real cause of her trouble. She placed her +hand upon the seat of her _ennui_. Her maid's uneven temper, her +distaste for life, the languor, the emptiness, the discontent of her +existence, arose from that disease which medical science calls the +_melancholia of virgins_. The torment of her twenty-four years was the +ardent, excited, poignant longing for marriage, for that state which was +too holy and honorable for her, and which seemed impossible of +attainment in face of the confession her womanly probity would insist +upon making of her fall and her unworthiness. Family losses and +misfortunes forcibly diverted her mind from her own troubles. + +Her brother-in-law, her sister the concierge's husband, had dreamed the +dream of all Auvergnats: he had undertaken to increase his earnings as +concierge by the profits of a dealer in bric-a-brac. He had begun +modestly with a stall in the street, at the doors of the marts where +executors' sales are held; and there you could see, set out upon blue +paper, plated candlesticks, ivory napkin rings, colored lithographs +with frames of gold lace on a black ground, and three or four odd +volumes of Buffon. His profit on the plated candlesticks intoxicated +him. He hired a dark shop on a passage way, opposite an umbrella +mender's, and began to trade upon the credulity that goes in and out of +the lower rooms in the Auction Exchange. He sold _assiettes a coq_, +pieces of Jean Jacques Rousseau's wooden shoe, and water-colors by +Ballue, signed Watteau. In that business he threw away what he had made, +and ran in debt to the amount of several thousand francs. His wife, in +order to straighten matters out a little and to try and get out of debt, +asked for and obtained a place as box-opener at the _Theatre-Historique_. +She hired her sister the dressmaker to watch the door in the evening, +went to bed at one o'clock and was astir again at five. After a few +months she caught cold in the corridors of the theatre, and an attack of +pleurisy laid her low and carried her off in six weeks. The poor woman +left a little girl three years old, who was taken down with the measles; +the disease assumed its most malignant form in the foul stench of the +loft, where the child had breathed for more than a month air poisoned by +the breath of her dying mother. The father had gone into the country to +try and borrow money. He married again there. Nothing more was heard of +him. + +When returning from her sister's burial Germinie ran to the house of an +old woman who made a living in those curious industries which prevent +poverty from absolutely starving to death in Paris. This old woman +carried on several trades. Sometimes she cut bristles into equal lengths +for brushes, sometimes she sorted out bits of gingerbread. When those +industries failed, she did cooking and washed the faces of pedlars' +children. In Lent she rose at four o'clock in the morning, went and took +possession of a chair at Notre-Dame, and sold it for ten or twelve sous +when the crowd arrived. In order to procure fuel to warm herself, in the +den where she lived on Rue Saint-Victor, she would go, at nightfall, to +the Luxembourg and peel the bark off the trees. Germinie, who knew her +from having given her the crusts from the kitchen every week, hired a +servant's room on the sixth floor of the house, and took up her abode +there with the little one. She did it on the impulse of the moment, +without reflection. She did not remember her sister's harsh treatment of +her when she was _enceinte_, so that she had no need to forgive it. + +Thenceforth Germinie had but one thought, her niece. She determined to +rescue her from death and restore her to life by dint of careful +nursing. She would rush away from Mademoiselle at every moment, run up +the stairs to the sixth floor four at a time, kiss the child, give her +her draught, arrange her comfortably in bed, look at her, and rush down +again, all out of breath and red with pleasure. Care, caresses, the +breath from the heart with which we revive a tiny flame on the point of +dying out, consultations, doctor's visits, costly medicines, the +remedies of the wealthy,--Germinie spared nothing for the little one and +gave her everything. Her wages flowed through that channel. For almost a +year she gave her beef juice every morning: sleepyhead that she was, she +left her bed at five o'clock in the morning to prepare it, and awoke +without being called, as mothers do. The child was out of danger at +last, when Germinie received a visit one morning from her sister the +dressmaker, who had been married two or three years to a machinist, and +who came now to bid her adieu: her husband was going to accompany some +fellow-workmen who had been hired to go to Africa. She was going with +him and she proposed to Germinie that they should take the little one +with them as a playmate for their own child. They offered to take her +off her hands. Germinie, they said, would have to pay only for the +journey. It was a separation she would have to make up her mind to +sooner or later on account of her mistress. And then, said the sister, +she was the child's aunt too. And she heaped words upon words to induce +Germinie to give them the child, with whom she and her husband expected, +after their arrival in Africa, to move Germinie to pity, to get +possession of her wages, to play upon her heart and her purse. + +It cost Germinie very dear to part with her niece. She had staked a +portion of her existence upon the child. She was attached to her by her +anxiety and her sacrifices. She had disputed possession of her with +disease and had won the day; the girl's life was her miracle. And yet +she realized that she could never take her to mademoiselle's apartments; +that mademoiselle, at her age, with the burden of her years, and an aged +person's need of tranquillity, could never endure the constant noise and +movement of a child. And then, the little girl's presence in the house +would cause idle gossip and set the whole street agog: people would say +she was her child. Germinie made a confidante of her mistress. +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil knew the whole story. She knew that she had +taken charge of her niece, although she had pretended not to know it; +she had chosen to see nothing in order to permit everything. She advised +Germinie to entrust her niece to her sister, pointing out to her all the +difficulties in the way of keeping her herself, and she gave her money +to pay for the journey of the whole family. + +The parting was a heart-breaking thing to Germinie. She found herself +left alone and without occupation. Not having the child, she knew not +what to love; her heart was weary, and she had such a feeling of the +emptiness of life without the little one, that she turned once more to +religion and transferred her affections to the church. + +Three months had passed when she received news of her sister's death. +The husband, who was one of the whining, lachrymose breed of mechanics, +gave her in his letter, mingled with labored, moving phrases, and +threads of pathos, a despairing picture of his position, with the burial +to pay for, attacks of fever that prevented him from working, two young +children, without counting the little girl, and a household with no wife +to heat the soup. Germinie wept over the letter; then her thoughts +turned to living in that house, beside that poor man, among the poor +children, in that horrible Africa; and a vague longing to sacrifice +herself began to awaken within her. Other letters followed, in which, +while thanking her for her assistance, her brother-in-law gave to his +poverty, to his desolate plight, to the misery that enveloped him, a +still more dramatic coloring--the coloring that the common people impart +to trifles, with its memories of the Boulevard du Crime and its +fragments of vile books. Once caught by the _blague_ of this misery, +Germinie could not cut loose from it. She fancied she could hear the +cries of the children calling her. She became completely absorbed, +buried in the project and resolution of going to them. She was haunted +by the idea and by the word Africa, which she turned over and over +incessantly in the depths of her mind, without a word. Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil, noticing her thoughtfulness and melancholy, asked her what +the matter was, but in vain: Germinie did not speak. She was pulled this +way and that, tormented between what seemed to her a duty and what +seemed to her ingratitude, between her mistress and her sisters' blood. +She thought that she could not leave mademoiselle. And again she said to +herself that God did not wish her to abandon her family. She would look +about the apartment and mutter: "And yet I must go!" Then she would fear +that mademoiselle might be sick when she was not there. Another maid! At +that thought she was seized with jealousy and fancied that she could +already see someone stealing her mistress. At other moments, when her +religious ideas impelled her to thoughts of self-sacrifice, she was all +ready to devote her existence to this brother-in-law. She determined to +go and live with this man, whom she detested, with whom she had always +been on the worst of terms, who had almost killed her sister with grief, +whom she knew to be a brutish, drunken sot; and all that she +anticipated, all that she dreaded, the certainty of all she would have +to suffer and her shrinking fear of it, served to exalt and inflame her +imagination, to urge her on to the sacrifice with the greater impatience +and ardor. Often the whole scheme fell to the ground in an instant: at a +word, at a gesture from mademoiselle, Germinie would become herself once +more, and would fail to recognize herself. She felt that she was bound +to her mistress absolutely and forever, and she had a thrill of horror +at having so much as thought of detaching her own life from hers. She +struggled thus for two years. Then she learned one fine day, by chance, +that her niece had died a few weeks after her sister: her brother-in-law +had concealed the child's death in order to maintain his hold upon her, +and to lure her to him in Africa, with her few sous. Germinie's +illusions being wholly dispelled by that revelation, she was cured on +the spot. She hardly remembered that she had ever thought of going +away. + + + + +VII + + +About this time a small creamery at the end of the street, with few +customers, changed hands, as a result of the sale of the real estate by +order of court. The shop was renovated and repainted. The front windows +were embellished with inscriptions in yellow letters. Pyramids of +chocolate from the Compagnie Coloniale, and coffee-cups filled with +flowers, alternating with small liqueur glasses, were displayed upon the +shelves. At the door glistened the sign--a copper milk jug divided in +the middle. + +The woman who thus endeavored to re-establish the concern, the new +_cremiere_, was a person of about fifty years of age, whose corpulence +passed all bounds, and who still retained some _debris_ of beauty, half +submerged in fat. It was said in the quarter that she had set herself up +in business with the money of an old gentleman, whose servant she had +been until his death, in her native province, near Langres; for it +happened that she was a countrywoman of Germinie, not from the same +village, but from a small place near by; and although she and +mademoiselle's maid had never met nor seen each other in the country, +they knew each other by name and were drawn together by the fact that +they had acquaintances in common and could compare memories of the same +places. The stout woman was a flattering, affected, fawning creature. +She said: "My love" to everybody, talked in a piping voice, and played +the child with the querulous languor of corpulent persons. She detested +vulgar remarks and would blush and take alarm at trifles. She adored +secrets, twisted everything into a confidential communication, invented +stories and always whispered in your ear. Her life was passed in +gossiping and groaning. She pitied others and she pitied herself; she +lamented her ill fortune and her stomach. When she had eaten too much +she would say dramatically: "I am dying!" and nothing ever was so +pathetic as her indigestion. She was constantly moved to tears: she wept +indiscriminately for a maltreated horse, for someone who had died, for +milk that had curdled. She wept over the various items in the +newspapers, she wept for the sake of weeping. + +Germinie was very soon ensnared and moved to pity by this wheedling, +talkative _cremiere_, who was always in a state of intense emotion, +calling upon others to open their hearts to her, and apparently so +affectionate. After three months hardly anything passed mademoiselle's +doors that did not come from Mere Jupillon. Germinie procured +everything, or almost everything there. She passed hours in the shop. +Once there it was hard work for her to leave; she remained there, +unable to rise from her chair. A sort of instinctive cowardice detained +her. At the door she would stop and talk on, in order to delay her +departure. She felt bound to the _cremiere_ by the invisible charm of +familiar places to which you constantly return, and which end by +embracing you like things that would love you. And then, too, in her +eyes the shop meant Madame Jupillon's three dogs, three wretched curs; +she always had them on her knees, she scolded them and kissed them and +talked to them; and when she was warm with their warmth, she would feel +in the depths of her heart the contentment of a beast rubbing against +her little ones. Again, the shop to her meant all the gossip of the +quarter, the rendezvous of all the scandals,--how this one had failed to +pay her note and that one had received a carriage load of flowers; it +meant a place that was on the watch for everything, even to the lace +_peignoir_ going to town on the maid's arm. + +In a word everything tended to attach her to the place. Her intimacy +with the _cremiere_ was strengthened by all the mysterious bonds of +friendship between women of the people, by the continual chatter, the +daily exchange of the trivial affairs of life, the conversation for the +sake of conversing, the repetition of the same _bonjour_ and the same +_bonsoir_, the division of caresses among the same animals, the naps +side by side and chair against chair. The shop at last became her +regular place for idling away her time, a place where her thoughts, her +words, her body and her very limbs were marvelously at ease. There came +a time when her happiness consisted in sitting drowsily of an evening in +a straw arm-chair, beside Mere Jupillon--sound asleep with her +spectacles on her nose--and holding the dogs rolled in a ball in the +skirt of her dress; and while the lamp, almost dying, burned pale upon +the counter, she would sit idly there, letting her glance lose itself at +the back of the shop, and gradually grow dim, with her ideas, as her +eyes rested vaguely upon a triumphal arch of snail shells joined +together with old moss, beneath which stood a little copper Napoleon, +with his hands behind his back. + + + + +VIII + + +Madame Jupillon, who claimed to have been married and signed herself +_Widow Jupillon_, had a son. He was still a child. She had placed him at +Saint-Nicholas, the great religious establishment where, for thirty +francs a month, rudimentary instruction and a trade are furnished to the +children of the common people, and to many natural children. Germinie +fell into the way of accompanying Madame Jupillon when she went to see +_Bibi_ on Thursdays. This visit became a means of distraction to her, +something to look forward to. She would urge the mother to hurry, would +always arrive first at the omnibus office, and was content to sit with +her arms resting on a huge basket of provisions all the way. + +It happened that Mere Jupillon had trouble with her leg--a carbuncle +that prevented her from walking for nearly eighteen months. Germinie +went alone to Saint-Nicholas, and as she was promptly and easily led to +devote herself to others, she took as deep an interest in that child as +if he were connected with her in some way. She did not miss a single +Thursday and always arrived with her hands full of the last week's +desserts, and with cakes and fruit and sweetmeats she had bought. She +would kiss the urchin, inquire for his health, and feel to see if he had +his knitted vest under his blouse; she would notice how flushed he was +from running, would wipe his face with her handkerchief and make him +show her the soles of his shoes so that she could see if there were any +holes in them. She would ask if his teachers were satisfied with him, if +he attended to his duties and if he had had many good marks. She would +talk to him of his mother and bid him love the good Lord, and until the +clock struck two she would walk with him in the courtyard: the child +would offer her his arm, as proud as you please to be with a woman much +better dressed than the majority of those who came there--with a woman +in silk. He was anxious to learn the flageolet. It cost only five francs +a month, but his mother would not give them. Germinie carried him the +hundred sous every month, on the sly. It was a humiliating thing to him +to wear the little uniform blouse when he went out to walk, and on the +two or three occasions during the year when he went to see his mother. +On his birthday, one year, Germinie unfolded a large parcel before him: +she had had a tunic made for him; it is doubtful if twenty of his +comrades in the whole school belonged to families in sufficiently easy +circumstances to wear such garments. + +She spoiled him thus for several years, not allowing him to suffer with +a longing for anything, encouraging the caprices and the pride of +wealthy children in the poor child, softening for him the privations and +hardships of that trade school, where children were formed for a +laboring life, wore blouses and ate off plates of brown earthenware; a +school that by its toilsome apprenticeship hardened the children of the +people to lives of toil. Meanwhile the boy was growing fast. Germinie +did not notice it: in her eyes he was still the child he had always +been. From habit she always stooped to kiss him. One day she was +summoned before the abbe who was at the head of the school. He spoke to +her of expelling Jupillon. Obscene books had been found in his +possession. Germinie, trembling at the thought of the blows that awaited +the child at his mother's hands, prayed and begged and implored; she +succeeded at last in inducing the abbe to forgive the culprit. When she +went down into the courtyard again she attempted to scold him; but at +the first word of her moral lecture, Bibi suddenly cast in her face a +glance and smile in which there was no trace of the child that he was +the day before. She lowered her eyes, and she was the one to blush. A +fortnight passed before she went again to Saint-Nicholas. + + + + +IX + + +About the time that young Jupillon left the boarding-school, a maid in +the service of a kept woman who lived on the floor below mademoiselle +sometimes passed the evening with Germinie at Madame Jupillon's. A +native of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which supplies Paris with coupe +drivers and lorettes' waiting-maids, this girl was what is called in +vulgar parlance: "a great _bringue_;" she was an awkward, wild-eyed +creature, with the eyebrows of a water carrier. She soon fell into the +habit of going there every evening. She treated everybody to cakes and +liquors, amused herself by showing off little Jupillon, playing +pat-a-cake with him, sitting on his knee, telling him to his face that +he was a beauty, treating him like a child, playing the wanton with him +and joking him because he was not a man. The boy, happy and proud of +these attentions from the first woman who had ever taken notice of him, +manifested before long his preference for Adele: so was the new-comer +called. + +Germinie was passionately jealous. Jealousy was the foundation of her +nature; it was the dregs of her affection and gave it its bitter taste. +Those whom she loved she wished to have entirely to herself, to possess +them absolutely. She demanded that they should love no one but her. She +could not permit them to take from her and bestow upon others the +slightest fragment of their affection: as she had earned it, it no +longer belonged to them; they were no longer entitled to dispose of it. +She detested the people whom her mistress seemed to welcome more +cordially than others, and with whom she was on most intimate terms. By +her ill-humor and her sullen manner she had offended, had almost driven +from the house, two or three of mademoiselle's old friends, whose visits +wounded her; as if the old ladies came there for the purpose of +abstracting something from the rooms, of taking a little of her mistress +from her. People of whom she had once been fond became odious to her: +she did not consider that they were fond enough of her; she hated them +for all the love she wanted from them. Her heart was despotic and +exacting in everything. As it gave all, it demanded all in return. At +the least sign of coldness, at the slightest indication that she had a +rival, she would fly into a rage, tear her hair, pass her nights in +weeping, and execrate the whole world. + +Seeing that other woman make herself at home in the shop and adopt a +tone of familiarity with the young man, all Germinie's jealous instincts +were aroused and changed to furious rage. Her hatred flew to arms and +rebelled, with her disgust, against the shameless, brazen-faced +creature, who could be seen on Sunday sitting at table on the outer +boulevards with soldiers, and who had blue marks on her face on Monday. +She did her utmost to induce Madame Jupillon to turn her away; but she +was one of the best customers of the creamery, and the _cremiere_ mildly +refused to close her doors upon her. Germinie had recourse to the son +and told him that she was a miserable creature. But that only served to +attach the young man the closer to the vile woman, whose evil reputation +delighted him. Moreover, he had the cruel mischievous instinct of youth, +and he redoubled his attentions to her simply to see "the nose" that +Germinie made and to enjoy her despair. Soon Germinie discovered that +the woman's intentions were more serious than she had at first supposed: +she began to understand what she wanted of the child,--for the tall +youth of seventeen was still a child in her eyes. Thenceforward she hung +upon their steps; she was always beside them, never left them alone for +a moment, made one at all their parties, at the theatre or in the +country, joined them in all their walks, was always at hand and in the +way, seeking to hold Adele back, and to restore her sense of decency by +a word in an undertone: "A mere boy! ain't you ashamed?" she would say +to her. And the other would laugh aloud, as if it were a good joke. + +When they left the theatre, enlivened and heated by the feverish +excitement of the performance and the place; when they returned from an +excursion to the country, laden with a long day's sunshine, intoxicated +with the blue sky and the pure air, excited by the wine imbibed at +dinner, amid the sportive liberties in which the woman of the people, +drunk with enjoyment and with the delights of unlimited good cheer, and +with the senses keyed up to the highest pitch of joviality, makes bold +to indulge at night, Germinie tried to be always between the maid and +Jupillon. She never relaxed her efforts to break the lovers' hold upon +each other's arms, to unbind them, to uncouple them. Never wearying of +the task, she was forever separating them, luring them away from each +other. She placed her body between those bodies that were groping for +each other. She glided between the hands outstretched to touch each +other; she glided between the lips that were put forth in search of +other proffered lips. But of all this that she prevented she felt the +breath and the shock. She felt the pressure of the hands she held apart, +the caresses that she caught on the wing and that missed their mark and +went astray upon her. The hot breath of the kisses she intercepted blew +upon her cheek. Involuntarily, and with a feeling of horror, she became +a party to the embracing, she was infected with the desires aroused by +this constant friction and struggling, which diminished day by day the +young man's restraint and respect for her person. + +It happened one day that she was less strong against herself than she +had previously been. On that occasion she did not elude his advances so +abruptly as usual. Jupillon felt that she stopped short. Germinie felt +it even more keenly than he; but she was at the end of her efforts, +exhausted with the torture she had undergone. The love which, coming +from another, she had turned aside from Jupillon, had slowly taken full +possession of her own heart. Now it was firmly rooted there, and, +bleeding with jealousy, she found that she was incapable of resistance, +weak and fainting, like a person fatally wounded, in presence of the joy +that had come to her. + +She repelled the young man's audacious attempts, however, without a +word. She did not dream of belonging to him otherwise than as a friend, +or giving way farther than she had done. She lived upon the thought of +love, believing that she could live upon it always. And in the ecstatic +exaltation of her thoughts, she put aside all memory of her fall, and +repressed her desires. She remained shuddering and pure, lost and +suspended in abysses of affection, neither enjoying nor wishing for +aught from the lover but a caress, as if her heart were made only for +the joy of kissing. + + + + +X + + +This happy though unsatisfied love produced a strange physiological +phenomenon in Germinie's physical being. One would have said that the +passion that was alive within her renewed and transformed her lymphatic +temperament. She did not seem, as before, to extract her life, drop by +drop, from a penurious spring: it flowed through her arteries in a full, +generous stream; she felt the tingling sensation of rich blood over her +whole body. She seemed to be filled with the warm glow of health, and +the joy of living beat its wings in her breast like a bird in the +sunlight. + +A marvelous animation had come to her. The miserable nervous energy that +once sustained her had given place to healthy activity, to bustling, +restless, overflowing gayety. She had no trace now of the weakness, the +dejection, the prostration, the supineness, the sluggishness that +formerly distinguished her. The heavy, drowsy feeling in the morning was +a thing of the past; she awoke feeling fresh and bright, and alive in an +instant to the cheer of the new day. She dressed in haste, playfully; +her agile fingers moved of themselves, and she was amazed to be so +bright and full of activity during the hours of faintness before +breakfast, when she had so often felt her heart upon her lips. And +throughout the day she had the same consciousness of physical +well-being, the same briskness of movement. She must be always on the +move, walking, running, doing something, expending her strength. At +times all that she had lived through seemed to have no existence; the +sensations of living that she had hitherto experienced seemed to her +like a far-off dream, or as if dimly seen in the background of a +sleeping memory. The past lay behind her, as if she had traversed it, +covered with a veil like one in a swoon, or with the unconsciousness of +a somnambulist. It was the first time that she had experienced the +feeling, the impression, at once bitter and sweet, violent and +celestial, of the game of life brilliant in its plenitude, its +regularity and its power. + +She ran up and downstairs for a nothing. At a word from mademoiselle she +would trip down the whole five flights. When she was seated, her feet +danced on the floor. She brushed and scrubbed and beat and shook and +washed and set to rights, without rest or reprieve, always at work, +filling the apartment with her goings and comings, and the incessant +bustle that followed her about.--"Mon Dieu!" her mistress would say, +stunned by the uproar she made, just like a child,--"you're turning +things upside down, Germinie! that will do for that!" + +One day, when she went into Germinie's kitchen, mademoiselle saw a +little earth in a cigar box on the leads.--"What's that?" she +asked.--"That's grass--that I planted--to look at," said Germinie.--"So +you're in love with grass now, eh? All you need now is to have +canaries!" + + + + +XI + + +In the course of a few months, Germinie's life, her whole life belonged +to the _cremiere_. Mademoiselle's service was not exacting and took but +little time. A whiting or a cutlet--that was all the cooking there was +to be done. Mademoiselle might have kept her with her in the evening for +company: she preferred, however, to send her away, to drive her out of +doors, to force her to take a little air and diversion. She asked only +that she would return at ten o'clock to help her to bed; and yet when +Germinie was a little late, mademoiselle undressed herself and went to +bed alone very comfortably. Every hour that her mistress left her at +leisure, Germinie passed in the shop. She fell into the habit of going +down to the creamery in the morning, when the shutters were removed, and +generally carried them inside; she would take her _cafe au lait_ there +and remain until nine o'clock, when she would go back and give +mademoiselle her chocolate; and between breakfast and dinner she found +excuses for returning two or three times, delaying and chattering in the +back-shop on the slightest pretext. "What a magpie you are getting to +be!" mademoiselle would say, in a scolding voice, but with a smiling +face. + +At half past five, when her mistress's little dinner was cleared away, +she would run down the stairs four at a time, install herself at Mere +Jupillon's, wait until ten o'clock, clamber up the five flights, and in +five minutes undress her mistress, who submitted unresistingly, albeit +she was somewhat astonished that Germinie should be in such haste to go +to bed; she remembered the time when she had a mania for moving her +sleepy body from one easy-chair to another, and was never willing to go +up to her room. While the candle was still smoking on mademoiselle's +night table, Germinie would be back at the creamery, this time to remain +until midnight, until one o'clock; often she did not go until a +policeman, noticing the light, tapped on the shutters and made them +close up. + +In order to be always there and to have the right to be always there, to +make herself a part of the shop, to keep her eyes constantly upon the +man she loved, to hover about him, to keep him, to be always brushing +against him, she had become the servant of the establishment. She swept +the shop, she prepared the old woman's meals and the food for the dogs. +She waited upon the son; she made his bed, she brushed his clothes, she +waxed his boots, happy and proud to touch what he touched, thrilling +with pleasure when she placed her hand where he placed his body, and +ready to kiss the mud upon the leather of his boots, because it was +his! + +She did the menial work, she kept the shop, she served the customers. +Madame Jupillon rested everything upon her shoulders; and while the +good-natured girl was working and perspiring, the bulky matron, assuming +the majestic, leisurely air of an annuitant, anchored upon a chair in +the middle of the sidewalk and inhaling the fresh air of the street, +fingered and rattled the precious coin in the capacious pocket beneath +her apron--the coin that rings so sweetly in the ears of the petty +tradesmen of Paris, that the retired shopkeeper is melancholy beyond +words at first, because he no longer has the chinking and the tinkling +under his hand. + + + + +XII + + +When the spring came, Germinie said to Jupillon almost every evening: +"Suppose we go as far as the beginning of the fields?" + +Jupillon would put on his flannel shirt with red and black squares, and +his black velvet cap; and they would start for what the people of the +quarter call "the beginning of the fields." + +They would go up the Chaussee Clignancourt, and, with the flood of +Parisians from the faubourg hurrying to drink a little fresh air, would +walk on toward the great patch of sky that rose straight from the +pavements, at the top of the ascent, between the two lines of houses, +unobstructed except by an occasional omnibus. The air was growing cooler +and the sun shone only upon the roofs of the houses and the chimneys. As +from a great door opening into the country, there came from the end of +the street and from the sky beyond, a breath of boundless space and +liberty. + +At the Chateau-Rouge they found the first tree, the first foliage. Then, +at Rue du Chateau, the horizon opened before them in dazzling beauty. +The fields stretched away in the distance, glistening vaguely in the +powdery, golden haze of seven o'clock. All nature trembled in the +daylight dust that the day leaves in its wake, upon the verdure it blots +from sight and the houses it suffuses with pink. + +Frequently they descended the footpath covered with the figures of the +game of hop-scotch marked out in charcoal, by long walls with an +occasional overhanging branch, by lines of detached houses with gardens +between. At their left rose tree-tops filled with light, clustering +foliage pierced by the beams of the setting sun, which cast lines of +fire across the bars of the iron gateways. After the gardens came +hedgerows, estates for sale, unfinished buildings erected upon the line +of projected streets and stretching out their jagged walls into empty +space, with heaps of broken bottles at their feet; large, low, plastered +houses, with windows filled with bird-cages and cloths, and with the Y +of the sink-pipes at every floor; and openings into enclosures that +resembled barnyards, studded with little mounds on which goats were +browsing. + +They would stop here and there and smell the flowers, inhale the perfume +of a meagre lilac growing in a narrow lane. Germinie would pluck a leaf +in passing and nibble at it. + +Flocks of joyous swallows flew wildly about in circles and in fantastic +figures over her head. The birds called. The sky answered the cages. She +heard everything about her singing, and glanced with a glad eye at +the women in chemisettes at the windows, the men in their shirt sleeves +in the little gardens, the mothers on the doorsteps with their little +ones between their legs. + + +[Illustration: Chapter XII + +_But at the fortifications her pleasure returned. She would go with +Jupillon and sit upon the slope of the embankment. Beside her were +families innumerable, workmen lying flat upon their faces, small +annuitants gazing at the horizon through spy-glasses, philosophers of +want, bent double, with their hands upon their knees, the greasy coats +characteristic of old men, and black hats worn as red as their red +beards._] + + +At the foot of the slope the pavement came to an end. The street was +succeeded by a broad, white, chalky, dusty road, made of debris, old +pieces of plaster, crumbs of lime and bricks; a sunken road, with deep +ruts, polished on the edges, made by the iron tires of the huge great +wheels of carts laden with hewn stone. At that point began the things +that collect where Paris ends, the things that grow where grass does not +grow, one of those arid landscapes that large cities create around them, +the first zone of suburbs _intra muros_ where nature is exhausted, the +soil used up, the fields sown with oyster shells. Beyond was a +wilderness of half-enclosed yards displaying numbers of carts and trucks +with their shafts in the air against the sky, stone-cutters' sheds, +factories built of boards, unfinished workmen's houses, full of gaps and +open to the light, and bearing the mason's flag, wastes of gray and +white sand, kitchen gardens marked out with cords, and, on the lower +level, bogs to which the embankment of the road slopes down in oceans of +small stones. + +Soon they would reach the last lantern hanging on a green post. People +were still coming and going about them. The road was alive and amused +the eyes. They met women carrying their husband's canes, lorettes in +silk dresses leaning on the arms of their blouse-clad brothers, old +women in bright-colored ginghams walking about with folded arms, +enjoying a moment's rest from labor. Workmen were drawing their children +in little wagons, urchins returning with their rods from fishing at +Saint-Ouen, and men and women dragging branches of flowering acacia at +the ends of sticks. + +Sometimes a pregnant woman would pass, holding out her arms to a yet +small child, and casting the shadow of her pregnancy upon the wall. + +And everyone moved tranquilly, blissfully, at a pace that told of the +wish to delay, with the awkward ease and the happy indolence of those +who walk for pleasure. No one was in a hurry, and against the unbroken +horizon line, crossed from time to time by the white smoke of a railroad +train, the groups of promenaders were like black spots, almost +motionless, in the distance. + +Behind Montmartre, they came to those great moats, as it were, those +sloping squares, where narrow, gray, much-trodden paths cross and +recross. A few blades of shriveled, yellow grass grew thereabout, +softened by the rays of the setting sun, which they could see, all +ablaze, between the houses. And Germinie loved to watch the wool-combers +at work there, the quarry horses at pasture in the bare fields, the +madder-red trousers of the soldiers who were playing at bowls, the +children flying kites that made black spots in the clear air. Passing +all these, they turned to cross the bridge over the railroad by the +wretched settlement of ragpickers, the stonemasons' quarter at the foot +of Clignancourt hill. They would walk quickly by those houses built of +materials stolen from demolished buildings, and exuding the horrors they +conceal; the wretched structures, half cabin, half burrow, caused +Germinie a vague feeling of terror: it seemed to her as if all the +crimes of Night were lurking there. + +But at the fortifications her pleasure returned. She would go with +Jupillon and sit upon the slope of the embankment. Beside her were +families innumerable, workmen lying flat upon their faces, small +annuitants gazing at the horizon through spy-glasses, philosophers of +want, bent double, with their hands upon their knees, the greasy coats +characteristic of old men, and black hats worn as red as their red +beards. The air was full of rich harmonies. Below her, in the moat, a +musical society was playing at each corner. Before her eyes was a +multi-colored crowd, white blouses, children in blue aprons running +around, a game of riding at the ring in progress, wine shops, cake +shops, fried fish stalls, and shooting galleries half hidden in clumps +of verdure, from which arose staves bearing the tricolor; and farther +away, in a bluish haze, a line of tree tops marked the location of a +road. To the right she could see Saint-Denis and the towering basilica; +at her left, above a line of houses that were becoming indistinct, the +sun was setting over Saint-Ouen in a disk of cherry-colored flame, and +projecting upon the gray horizon shafts of light like red pillars that +seemed to support it tremblingly. Often a child's balloon would pass +swiftly across the dazzling expanse of sky. + +They would go down, pass through the gate, walk along by the Lorraine +sausage shops, the dealers in honeycomb, the board _cabarets_, the +verdureless, still unpainted arbors, where a noisy multitude of men and +women and children were eating fried potatoes, mussels and prawns, until +they reached the first field, the first living grass: on the edge of the +grass there was a handcart laden with gingerbread and peppermint +lozenges, and a woman selling hot cocoa on a table in the furrow. A +strange country, where everything was mingled--the smoke from the +frying-pan and the evening vapor, the noise of quoits on the head of a +cask and the silence shed from the sky, the city barrier and the idyllic +rural scene, the odor of manure and the fresh smell of green wheat, the +great human Fair and Nature! Germinie enjoyed it, however; and, urging +Jupillon to go farther, walking on the very edge of the road, she would +constantly step in among the grain to enjoy the fresh, cool sensation of +the stalks against her stockings. When they returned she always wanted +to go upon the slope once more. The sun had by that time disappeared and +the sky was gray below, pink in the centre and blue above. The horizon +grew dark; from green the trees became a dark brown and melted into the +sky; the zinc roofs of the wine shops looked as if the moon were +shining upon them, fires began to appear in the darkness, the crowd +became gray, and the white linen took on a bluish tinge. Little by +little everything would fade away, be blotted out, lose its form and +color in a dying remnant of colorless daylight, and through the +increasing darkness the voices of a class whose life begins at night, +and the voice of the wine beginning to sing, would arise, mingled with +the din of the rattles. Upon the slope the tops of the tall grass waved +to and fro in the gentle breeze. Germinie would make up her mind to go. +She would wend her way homeward, filled with the influence of the +falling night, abandoning herself to the uncertain vision of things +half-seen, passing the dark houses, and finding that everything along +her road had turned paler, as it were--wearied by the long walk over +rough roads, and content to be weary and slow and half-fainting, and +with a feeling of peace at her heart. + +At the first lighted lanterns on Rue du Chateau, she would fall from her +dream to the pavement. + + + + +XIII + + +Madame Jupillon's face always wore a pleased expression when Germinie +appeared; when she kissed her she was very effusive, when she spoke to +her her voice was caressing, when she looked at her her glance was most +amiable. The huge creature's kind heart seemed, when with her, to +abandon itself to the emotion, the affection, the trustfulness of a sort +of maternal tenderness. She took Germinie into her confidence as to her +business, as to her woman's secrets, as to the most private affairs of +her life. She seemed to open her heart to her as to a person of her own +blood, whom she desired to make familiar with matters of interest to the +family. When she spoke of the future, she always referred to Germinie as +one from whom she was never to be separated, and who formed a part of +the household. Often she allowed certain discreet, mysterious smiles to +escape her, smiles which made it appear that she saw all that was going +on and was not angry. Sometimes, too, when her son was sitting by +Germinie's side, she would let her eyes, moist with a mother's tears, +rest upon them, and would embrace them with a glance that seemed to +unite her two children and call down a blessing on their heads. + +Without speaking, without ever uttering a word that could be construed +as an engagement, without divulging her thoughts or binding herself in +any way, and all the time repeating that her son was still very young to +think of being married, she encouraged Germinie's hopes and illusions by +her whole bearing, her airs of secret indulgence and of complicity, so +far as her heart was concerned; by those meaning silences when she +seemed to open to her a mother-in-law's arms. And displaying all her +talents in the way of hypocrisy, drawing upon her hidden mines of +sentiment, her good-natured shrewdness, and the consummate, intricate +cunning that fat people possess, the corpulent matron succeeded in +vanquishing Germinie's last resistance by dint of this tacit assurance +and promise of marriage; and she finally allowed the young man's ardor +to extort from her what she believed that she was giving in advance to +the husband. + + + + +XIV + + +As Germinie was going down the servant's staircase one day, she heard +Adele's voice calling her over the banister and telling her to bring her +two sous' worth of butter and ten of absinthe. + +"Oh! you can sit down a minute, you know you can," said Adele, when she +brought her the absinthe and the butter. "I never see you now, you'll +never come in. Come! you have plenty of time to be with your old woman. +For my part, I couldn't live with an Antichrist's face like hers! So +stay. This is the house without work to-day. There isn't a sou--madame's +abed. Whenever there's no money, she goes to bed, does madame; she stays +in bed all day, reading novels. Have some of this?"--And she offered her +her glass of absinthe.--"No? oh! no, you don't drink. You're very +foolish. It's a funny thing not to drink. Say, it would be very nice of +you to write me a little line for my dearie. Hard work, you know. I have +told you about it. See, here's madame's pen--and her paper--it smells +good. Are you ready? He's a good fellow, my dear, and no mistake! He's +in the butcher line as I told you. Ah! my word! I mustn't rub him the +wrong way! When he's had a glass of blood after killing his beasts, he's +like a madman--and if you're obstinate with him--Dame! why then he +thumps you! But what would you have? He does that to make him strong. If +you could see him thump himself on the breast--blows that would kill an +ox, and say: 'That's a wall, that is!' Ah! he's a gentleman, I tell you! +Are you thinking about the letter, eh? Make it one of the fetching kind. +Say nice things to him, you know--and a little sad--he adores that. At +the theatre he doesn't like anything that doesn't make him cry. Look +here! Imagine that you're writing to a lover of your own." + +Germinie began to write. + +"Say, Germinie! Have you heard? Madame's taken a strange idea into her +head. It's a funny thing about women like her, who can hold their heads +up with the greatest of 'em, who can have everything, hobnob with kings +if they choose! And there's nothing to be said--when one is like madame, +you know, when one has such a body as that! And then the way they load +themselves down with finery, with their tralala of dresses and lace +everywhere and everything else--how do you suppose anyone can resist +them? And if it isn't a gentleman, if it's someone like us--you can see +how much more all that will catch him; a woman in velvet goes to his +brain. Yes, my dear, just fancy, here's madame gone daft on that +_gamin_ of a Jupillon! That's all we needed to make us die of hunger +here!" + +Germinie, with her pen in the air over the letter she had begun, looked +up at Adele, devouring her with her eyes. + +"That brings you to a standstill, doesn't it?" said Adele, sipping her +absinthe, her face lighted up with joy at sight of Germinie's +discomposed features. "Oh! it is too absurd, really; but it's true, 'pon +my word it's true. She noticed the _gamin_ on the steps of the shop the +other day, coming home from the races. She's been there two or three +times on the pretence of buying something. She'll probably have some +perfumery sent from there--to-morrow, I think.--Bah! it's sickening, +isn't it? It's their affair. Well! what about my letter? Is it what I +told you that makes you so stupid? You played the prude--I didn't +know--Oh! yes, yes, now I remember; that's what it is--What was it you +said to me about the little one? I believe you didn't want anyone to +touch him! Idiot!" + +At a gesture of denial from Germinie, she continued: + +"Nonsense, nonsense! What do I care? The kind of a child that, if you +blew his nose, milk would come out! Thanks! that's not my style. +However, that's your business. Come, now for my letter, eh?" + +Germinie leaned over the sheet of paper. But she was burning up with +fever; the quill cracked in her nervous fingers. "There," she said, +throwing it down after a few seconds, "I don't know what's the matter +with me to-day. I'll write it for you another time." + +"As you like, little one--but I rely on you. Come to-morrow, then.--I'll +tell you some of madame's nonsense. We'll have a good laugh at her!" + +And, when the door was closed, Adele began to roar with laughter: it had +cost her only a little _blague_ to unearth Germinie's secret. + + + + +XV + + +So far as young Jupillon was concerned, love was simply the satisfaction +of a certain evil curiosity, which sought, in the knowledge and +possession of a woman, the privilege and the pleasure of despising her. +Just emerging from boyhood, the young man had brought to his first +_liaison_ no other ardor, no other flame than the cold instincts of +rascality awakened in boys by vile books, the confidences of their +comrades, boarding-school conversation, the first breath of impurity +which debauches desire. The sentiment with which the young man usually +regards the woman who yields to him, the caresses, the loving words, the +affectionate attentions with which he envelops her--nothing of all that +existed in Jupillon's case. Woman was to him simply an obscene image; +and a passion for a woman seemed to him desirable as being prohibited, +illicit, vulgar, cynical and amusing--an excellent opportunity for +trickery and sarcasm. + +Sarcasm--the low, cowardly, despicable sarcasm of the dregs of the +people--was the beginning and the end of this youth. He was a perfect +type of those Parisians who bear upon their faces the mocking +scepticism of the great city of _blague_ in which they are born. The +smile, the shrewdness and the mischief of the Parisian physiognomy were +always mocking and impertinent in him. Jupillon's smile had the jovial +expression imparted by a wicked mouth, a mouth that was almost cruel at +the corners of the lips, which curled upward and were always twitching +nervously. His face was pale with the pallor that nitric acid strong +enough to eat copper gives to the complexion, and in his sharp, pert, +bold features were mingled bravado, energy, recklessness, intelligence, +impudence and all sorts of rascally expressions, softened, at certain +times, by a cat-like, wheedling air. His trade of glove-cutter--he had +taken up with that trade after two or three unsuccessful trials as an +apprentice in other crafts--the habit of working in the shop-windows, of +being on exhibition to the passers-by, had given to his whole person the +self-assurance and the dandified airs of a _poseur_. Sitting in the +work-shop on the street, with his white shirt, his little black cravat +_a la Colin_, and his skin-tight pantaloons, he had adopted an awkward +air of nonchalance, the pretentious carriage and _canaille_ affectations +of the workman who knows he is being stared at. And various little +refinements of doubtful taste, the parting of the hair in the middle and +brushing it down over the temples, the low shirt collars that left the +whole neck bare, the striving after the coquettish effects that +properly belong to the other sex, gave him an uncertain appearance, +which was made even more ambiguous by his beardless face, marred only by +a faint suggestion of a moustache, and his sexless features to which +passion and ill-temper imparted all the evil quality of a shrewish +woman's face. But in Germinie's eyes all these airs and this Jupillon +style were of the highest distinction. + +Thus constituted, with nothing lovable about him and incapable of a +genuine attachment even through his passions, Jupillon was greatly +embarrassed and bored by this adoration which became intoxicated with +itself, and waxed greater day by day. Germinie wearied him to death. She +seemed to him absurd in her humiliation, and laughable in her devotion. +He was weary, disgusted, worn out with her. He had had enough of her +love, enough of her person. And he had no hesitation about cutting loose +from her, without charity or pity. He ran away from her. He failed to +keep the appointments she made. He pretended that he was kept away by +accident, by errands to be done, by a pressure of work. At night, she +waited for him and he did not come; she supposed that he was detained by +business: in fact he was at some low billiard hall, or at some ball at +the barrier. + + + + +XVI + + +There was a ball at the _Boule-Noire_ one Thursday. The dancing was in +full blast. + +The ball-room had the ordinary appearance of modern places of amusement +for the people. It was brilliant with false richness and tawdry +splendor. There were paintings there, and tables at which wine was sold, +gilded chandeliers and glasses that held a quartern of brandy, velvet +hangings and wooden benches, the shabbiness and rusticity of an +ale-house with the decorations of a cardboard palace. + +Garnet velvet lambrequins with a fringe of gold lace hung at the windows +and were economically copied in paint beneath the mirrors, which were +lighted by three-branched candelabra. On the walls, in large white +panels, pastoral scenes by Boucher, surrounded with painted frames, +alternated with Prud'hon's _Seasons_, which were much astonished to find +themselves in such a place; and above the windows and doors dropsical +Loves gamboled among five roses protruding from a pomade jar of the sort +used by suburban hair-dressers. Square pillars, embellished with meagre +arabesques, supported the ceiling in the centre of the hall, where +there was a small octagonal stand containing the orchestra. An oaken +rail, waist high, which served as a back to a cheap red bench, enclosed +the dancers. And against this rail, on the outside, were tables painted +green and two rows of benches, surrounding the dance with a cafe. + +In the dancers' enclosure, beneath the fierce glare and the intense heat +of the gas, were women of all sorts, dressed in dark, worn, rumpled +woolens, women in black tulle caps, women in black _paletots_, women in +_caracos_ worn shiny at the seams, women in fur tippets bought of +open-air dealers and in shops in dark alleys. And in the whole +assemblage not one of the youthful faces was set off by a collar, not a +glimpse of a white skirt could be seen among the whirling dancers, not a +glimmer of white about these women, who were all dressed in gloomy +colors, the colors of want, to the ends of their unpolished shoes. This +absence of linen gave to the ball an aspect as of poverty in mourning; +it imparted to all the faces a touch of gloom and uncleanness, of +lifelessness and earthiness--a vaguely forbidding aspect, in which there +was a suggestion of the Hotel-Dieu and the Mont-de-Piete! + +An old woman in a wig with the hair parted at the side passed in front +of the tables, with a basket filled with pieces of Savoy cake and red +apples. + +From time to time the dance, in its twisting and turning, disclosed a +soiled stocking, the typical Jewish features of a street pedlar of +sponges, red fingers protruding from black mitts, a swarthy moustached +face, an under-petticoat soiled with the mud of night before last, a +second-hand-skirt, stiff and crumpled, of flowered calico, the cast-off +finery of some kept mistress. + +The men wore _paletots_, small, soft caps pulled down over their ears, +and woolen comforters untied and hanging down their backs. They invited +the women to dance by pulling them by the cap ribbons that fluttered +behind them. Some few, in hats and frockcoats and colored shirts, had an +insolent air of domesticity and a swagger befitting grooms in some great +family. + +Everybody was jumping and bustling about. The women frisked and capered +and gamboled, excited and stimulated by the spur of bestial pleasure. +And in the evolutions of the contra-dance, one could hear brothel +addresses given: _Impasse du Depotoir_. + +Germinie entered the hall just at the conclusion of a quadrille to the +air of _La Casquette du pere Bugeaud_, in which the cymbals, the +sleigh-bells and the drum had infected the dancers with the giddiness +and madness of their uproar. At a glance she embraced the whole room, +all the men leading their partners back to the places marked by their +caps: she had been misled; _he_ was not there, she could not see him. +However, she waited. She entered the dancers' enclosure and sat down on +the end of a bench, trying not to seem too much embarrassed. From their +linen caps she judged that the women seated in line beside her were +servants like herself: comrades of her own class alarmed her less than +the little brazen-faced hussies, with their hair in nets and their hands +in the pockets of their _paletots_, who strolled humming about the room. +But soon she aroused hostile attention, even on her bench. Her hat--only +about a dozen women at the ball wore hats--her flounced skirt, the white +hem of which could be seen under her dress, the gold brooch that secured +her shawl awakened malevolent curiosity all about her. Glances and +smiles were bestowed upon her that boded her no good. All the women +seemed to be asking one another where this new arrival had come from, +and to be saying to one another that she would take their lovers from +them. Young women who were walking about the hall in pairs, with their +arms about one another's waists as if for a waltz, made her lower her +eyes as they passed in front of her, and then went on with a +contemptuous shrug, turning their heads to look back at her. + +She changed her place: she was met with the same smiles, the same +whispering, the same hostility. She went to the further end of the hall; +all the women looked after her; she felt as if she were enveloped in +malicious, envious glances, from the hem of her dress to the flowers on +her hat. Her face flushed. At times she feared that she should weep. She +longed to leave the place, but she lacked courage to walk the length of +the hall all alone. + +She began mechanically to watch an old woman who was slowly making the +circuit of the hall with a noiseless step, like a bird of night flying +in a circle. A black hat, of the hue of charred paper, confined her +_bandeaux_ of grizzled hair. From her square, high masculine shoulders, +hung a sombre-hued Scotch tartan. When she reached the door, she cast a +last glance about the hall, that embraced everyone therein, with the eye +of a vulture seeking in vain for food. + +Suddenly there was an outcry: a police officer was ejecting a diminutive +youth who tried to bite his hands and clung to the tables, against +which, as he was dragged along, he struck with a noise like breaking +furniture. + +As Germinie turned her head she spied Jupillon: he was sitting between +two women at a green table in a window-recess, smoking. One of the two +was a tall blonde with a small quantity of frizzled flaxen hair, a flat, +stupid face and round eyes. A red flannel chemise lay in folds on her +back, and she had both hands in the pockets of a black apron which she +was flapping up and down on her dark red skirt. The other, a short, dark +creature, whose face was still red from having been scrubbed with soap, +was enveloped as to her head, with the coquetry of a fishwoman, in a +white knitted hood with a blue border. + +Jupillon had recognized Germinie. When he saw her rise and approach him, +with her eyes fixed upon his face, he whispered something to the woman +in the hood, rested his elbows defiantly on the table and waited. + +"Hallo! you here," he exclaimed when Germinie stood before him, erect, +motionless and mute. "This is a surprise!--Waiter! another bowl!" + +And, emptying the bowl of sweetened wine into the two women's glasses, +he continued: "Come, don't make up faces--sit down there." + +And, as Germinie did not budge: "Go on! These ladies are friends of +mine--ask them!" + +"Melie," said the woman in the hood to the other woman, in a voice like +a diseased crow's, "don't you see? She's monsieur's mother. Make room +for the lady if she'd like to drink with us." + +Germinie cast a murderous glance at the woman. + +"Well! what's the matter?" the woman continued; "that don't suit you, +madame, eh? Excuse me! you ought to have told me beforehand. How old do +you suppose she is, Melie, eh? _Sapristi!_ You select young ones, my +boy, you don't put yourself out!" + +Jupillon smiled internally, and simpered and sneered externally. His +whole manner displayed the cowardly delight that evil-minded persons +take in watching the suffering of those who suffer because of loving +them. + +"I have something to say to you--to you!--not here--outside," said +Germinie. + +"Much joy to you! Coming, Melie?" said the woman in the hood, lighting +the stub of a cigar that Jupillon had left on the table beside a piece +of lemon. + +"What do you want?" said Jupillon, impressed, in spite of himself, by +Germinie's tone. + +"Come!" + +And she walked on ahead of him. As she passed, the people crowded about +her, laughing. She heard voices, broken sentences, subdued hooting. + + + + +XVII + + +Jupillon promised Germinie not to go to the ball again. But he was just +beginning to make a name for himself at La Brididi, among the low haunts +near the barrier, the _Boule-Noire_, the _Reine-Blanche_ and the +_Ermitage_. He had become one of the dancers who make the guests leave +their seats, who keep a whole roomful of people hanging on the soles of +their boots as they toss them two inches above their heads, and whom the +fair dancers of the locality invite to dance with them and sometimes pay +for their refreshment to that end. The ball to him was not a ball +simply; it was a stage, an audience, popularity, applause, the +flattering murmur of his name among the groups of people, an ovation +accorded to saltatory glory in the glare of the reverberators. + +On Sunday he did not go to the _Boule-Noire_; but on the following +Thursday he went there again; and Germinie, seeing plainly enough that +she could not prevent him from going, decided to follow him and to stay +there as long as he did. Sitting at a table in the background, in the +least brilliantly lighted corner of the ball-room, she would follow him +eagerly with her eyes throughout the whole contra-dance; and when it was +at an end, if he held back, she would go and seize him, take him almost +by force from the hands and caresses of the women who persisted in +trying to pull him back, to detain him by wicked wiles. + +As they soon came to know her, the insulting remarks in her neighborhood +ceased to be vague and indistinct and muttered under the breath, as at +the first ball. The words were thrown in her face, the laughter spoke +aloud. She was obliged to pass her three hours amid a chorus of derision +that pointed its finger at her, called her by name and cast her age in +her face. At every turn she was forced to submit to the appellation of: +_old woman!_ which the young hussies spat at her over their shoulders as +they passed. But they did at least look at her; often, however, dancing +women invited by Jupillon to drink, and brought by him to the table at +which Germinie was, would sit with their elbows on the table and their +cheeks resting on their hands, drinking the bowl of mulled wine for +which she paid, apparently unaware that there was another woman there, +crowding into her place as if it were unoccupied, and making no reply +when she spoke to them. Germinie could have killed these creatures whom +Jupillon forced her to entertain and who despised her so utterly that +they did not even notice her presence. + +The time arrived, when, having endured all she could endure and being +sickened by the humiliation she was forced to swallow, she conceived +the idea of dancing herself. She saw no other way to avoid leaving her +lover to others, to keep him by her all the evening, and perhaps to bind +him more closely to her by her success, if she had any chance of +succeeding. Throughout a whole month she worked, in secret, to learn to +dance. She rehearsed the figures and the steps. She forced her body into +unnatural attitudes, she wore herself out trying to master the +contortions and the manipulations of the skirt that she saw were +applauded. At the end of the month she made the venture; but everything +tended to disconcert her and added to her awkwardness; the hostility +that she could feel in the atmosphere, the smiles of astonishment and +pity that played about the lips of the spectators when she took her +place in the dancers' enclosure. She was so absurd and so laughed at, +that she had not the courage to make a second attempt. She buried +herself gloomily in her dark corner, only leaving it to hunt up Jupillon +and carry him off, with the mute violence of a wife dragging her husband +out of the wineshop and leading him home by the arm. + +It was soon rumored in the street that Germinie went to these balls, +that she never missed one of them. The fruit woman, at whose shop Adele +had already held forth, sent her son "to see;" he returned with a +confirmation of the rumor, and told of all the petty annoyances to which +Germinie was subjected, but which did not keep her from returning. +Thereafter there was no more doubt in the quarter as to the relations +between mademoiselle's servant and Jupillon--relations which some +charitable souls had hitherto persisted in denying. The scandal burst +out, and in a week the poor girl, berated by all the slanderous tongues +in the quarter, baptized and saluted by the vilest names in the language +of the streets, fell at a blow from the most emphatically expressed +esteem to the most brutally advertised contempt. + +Thus far her pride--and it was very great--had procured for her the +respect and consideration which is bestowed, in the lorette quarters, +upon a servant who honestly serves a virtuous mistress. She had become +accustomed to respect and deference and attention. She stood apart from +her comrades. Her unassailable probity, her conduct, as to which not a +word could be said, her confidential relations with mademoiselle, which +caused her mistress's honorable character to be reflected upon her, led +the shopkeeper to treat her on a different footing from the other maids. +They addressed her, cap in hand; they always called her _Mademoiselle +Germinie_. They hurried to wait upon her; they offered her the only +chair in the shop when she had to wait. Even when she contended over +prices they were still polite with her and never called her _haggler_. +Jests that were somewhat too broad were cut short when she appeared. She +was invited to the great banquets, to family parties, and consulted upon +business matters. + +Everything changed as soon as her relations with Jupillon and her +assiduous attendance at the _Boule-Noire_ were known. The quarter took +its revenge for having respected her. The brazen-faced maids in the +house accosted her as one of their own kind. One, whose lover was at +Mazas, called her: "My dear." The men accosted her familiarly, and with +all the intimacy of thee and thou in glance and gesture and tone and +touch. The very children on the sidewalk, who were formerly trained to +courtesy politely to her, ran away from her as from a person of whom +they had been told to be afraid. She felt that she was being maligned +behind her back, handed over to the devil. She could not take a step +without walking through scorn and receiving a blow from her shame upon +the cheek. + +It was a horrible affliction to her. She suffered as if her honor were +being torn from her, shred by shred, and dragged in the gutter. But the +more she suffered, the closer she pressed her love to her heart and +clung to him. She bore him no ill-will, she uttered no word of reproach +to him. She attached herself to him by all the tears he caused her pride +to shed. And now, in the street through which she passed but a short +time ago, proudly and with head erect, she could be seen, bent double as +if crouching over her fault, hurrying furtively along, with oblique +glances, dreading to be recognized, quickening her pace in front of the +shops that swept their slanders out upon her heels. + + + + +XVIII + + +Jupillon was constantly complaining that he was tired of working for +others, that he could not set up for himself, that he could not find +fifteen or eighteen hundred francs in his mother's purse. He needed no +more than that, he said, to hire a couple of rooms on the ground floor +and set up as a glover in a small way. Indeed he was already dreaming of +what he might do and laying out his plans: he would open a shop in the +quarter, an excellent quarter for his business, as it was full of +purchasers, and of makers of wretched gloves at five francs. He would +soon add a line of perfumery and cravats to his gloves; and then, when +he had made a tidy sum, he would sell out and take a fine shop on Rue de +Richelieu. + +Whenever he mentioned the subject Germinie asked him innumerable +questions. She wanted to know everything that was necessary to start in +business. She made him tell her the names of the tools and +appurtenances, give her an idea of their prices and where they could be +bought. She questioned him as to his trade and the details of his work +so inquisitively and persistently that Jupillon lost his patience at +last and said to her: + +"What's all this to you? The work sickens me enough now; don't mention +it to me!" + +One Sunday she walked toward Montmartre with him. Instead of taking Rue +Frochot she turned into Rue Pigalle. + +"Why, this ain't the way, is it?" said Jupillon. + +"I know what I'm about," said she, "come on." + +She had taken his arm, and she walked on, turning her head slightly away +from him so that he could not see what was taking place on her face. +Half way along Rue Fontaine Saint-Georges, she halted abruptly in front +of two windows on the ground floor of a house, and said to him: "Look!" + +She was trembling with joy. + +Jupillon looked; he saw between the two windows, on a glistening copper +plate: + + + _Magasin de Ganterie._ + + JUPILLON. + + +He saw white curtains at the first window. Through the glass in the +other he saw pigeon-holes and boxes, and, near the window, the little +glover's cutting board, with the great shears, the jar for clippings, +and the knife to make holes in the skins in order to stretch them. + +"The concierge has your key," she said. + +They entered the first room, the shop. + +She at once set about showing him everything. She opened the boxes and +laughed. Then she pushed open the door into the other room. "There, you +won't be stifled there as you are in the loft at your mother's. Do you +like it? Oh! it isn't handsome, but it's clean. I'd have liked to give +you mahogany. Do you like that little rug by the bed? And the paper--I +didn't think of that----" She put a receipt for the rent in his hand. +"See! this is for six months. Dame! you must go to work right off and +earn some money. The few sous I had laid by are all gone. Oh! let me sit +down. You look so pleased--it gives me a turn--it makes my head spin. I +haven't any legs." + +And she sank into a chair. Jupillon stooped over her to kiss her. + +"Ah! yes, they're not there any longer," she said, seeing that he was +looking for her earrings. "They've gone like my rings. D'ye see, all +gone----" + +And she showed him her hands, bare of the paltry gems she had worked so +long to buy. + +"They all went for the easy-chair, you see--but it's all horsehair." + +As Jupillon stood in front of her with an embarrassed air, as if he were +trying to find words with which to thank her, she continued: + +"Why, you're a funny fellow. What's the matter with you? Ah! it's on +that account, is it?" And she pointed to the bedroom. "You're a stupid! +I love you, don't I? Well then?" + +Germinie said the words simply, as the heart says sublime things. + + + + +XIX + + +She became _enceinte_. + +At first she doubted, she dared not believe it. But when she was certain +of the fact, she was filled with immeasurable joy, a joy that overflowed +her heart. Her happiness was so great and so overpowering that it +stifled at a single stroke the anguish, the fear, the inward trembling +that ordinarily disturb the maternity of unmarried women and poisons +their anticipations of childbirth, the divine hope that lives and moves +within them. The thought of the scandal caused by the discovery of her +_liaison_, of the outcry in the quarter, the idea of the abominable +thing that had always made her think of suicide: dishonor,--even the +fear of being detected by mademoiselle and dismissed by her--nothing of +all this could cast a shadow on her felicity. The child that she +expected allowed her to see nothing but it, as if she had it already in +her arms before her; and, hardly attempting to conceal her condition, +she bore her woman's shame almost proudly through the streets, exulting +and radiant in the thought that she was to be a mother. + +She was unhappy only because she had spent all her savings, and was not +only without money but had been paid several months' wages in advance by +her mistress. She bitterly deplored having to receive her child in a +poor way. Often, as she passed through Rue Saint-Lazare, she would stop +in front of a linen-draper's, in whose windows were displayed stores of +rich baby-linen. She would devour with her eyes the pretty, dainty +flowered garments, the pique bibs, the long short-waisted dresses +trimmed with English embroidery, the whole doll-like cherub's costume. A +terrible longing,--the longing of a pregnant woman,--to break the glass +and steal it all, would come upon her: the clerks standing behind the +display framework became accustomed to seeing her take up her station +there and would laughingly point her out to one another. + +Again, at intervals, amid the happiness that overflowed her heart, amid +the ecstasy that exalted her being, another disturbing thought passed +through her mind. She would ask herself how the father would welcome his +child. Two or three times she had attempted to tell him of her condition +but had not dared. At last, one day, seeing that his face wore the +expression she had awaited so long as a preliminary to telling him +everything, an expression in which there was a touch of affection, she +confessed to him, blushing hotly and as if asking his forgiveness, what +it was that made her so happy. + +"That's all imagination!" said Jupillon. + +And when she had assured him that it was not imagination and that she +was positively five months advanced in pregnancy: "Just my luck!" the +young man rejoined. "Thanks!" And he swore. "Would you mind telling me +who's going to feed the sparrow?" + +"Oh! never you fear! it sha'n't suffer, I'll look out for that. And then +it'll be so pretty! Don't be afraid, no one shall know anything about +it. I'll fix myself up. See! the last part of the time I'll walk like +this, with my head back--I won't wear any petticoats, and I'll pull +myself in--you'll see! Nobody shall notice anything, I tell you. Just +think of it! a little child of our own!" + +"Well, as long as it's so, it's so, eh?" said the young man. + +"Say," ventured Germinie, timidly, "suppose you should tell your +mother?" + +"Ma? Oh! no, I rather think not. You must lie in first. After that we'll +take the brat to the house. It will give her a start, and perhaps she'll +consent without meaning to." + + + + +XX + + +Twelfth Night arrived. It was the day on which Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil gave a grand dinner-party regularly every year. She invited +all the children of her own family or her old friends' families, great +and small. The small suite would hardly hold them all. They were obliged +to put part of the furniture on the landing, and a table was set in each +of the two rooms which formed mademoiselle's whole suite. For the +children, that day was a great festival to which they looked forward for +a week. They came running up the stairway behind the pastry-cook's men. +At table they ate too much without being scolded. At night, they were +unwilling to go to bed, they climbed on the chairs and made a racket +that always gave Mademoiselle de Varandeuil a sick headache the next +day; but she bore them no grudge therefor: she had had the full +enjoyment of a genuine grandmother's fete, in listening to them, looking +at them, tying around their necks the white napkins that made them look +so rosy. And not for anything in the world would she have failed to give +this dinner-party, which filled her old maid's apartments with the +fair-haired little imps of Satan, and brought thither, in a single day, +an atmosphere of activity and youth and laughter that lasted a whole +year. + +Germinie was preparing the dinner. She was whipping cream in an earthen +bowl on her knees, when suddenly she felt the first pains. She looked at +her face in the bit of a broken mirror that she had above her kitchen +dresser, and saw that she was pale. She went down to Adele: "Give me +your mistress's rouge," she said. And she put some on her cheeks. Then +she went up again, and, refusing to listen to the voice of her +suffering, finished cooking the dinner. It had to be served, and she +served it. At dessert, she leaned against the furniture and grasped the +backs of chairs as she passed the plates, hiding her torture with the +ghastly set smile of people whose entrails are writhing. + +"How's this, are you sick?" said her mistress, looking sharply at her. + +"Yes, mademoiselle, a little--it may be the charcoal or the hot +kitchen." + +"Go to bed--we don't need you any more, and you can clean up to-morrow." + +She went down to Adele once more. + +"It's come," she said; "call a cab quick. It was Rue de la Huchette +where you said your midwife lives, wasn't it? opposite a copper +planer's? Haven't you a pen and paper?" + +And she sat down to write a line to her mistress. She told her that she +was too ill to work, that she had gone to the hospital, but would not +tell her where, because she would fatigue herself coming to see her; +that she would come back within a week. + +"There you are!" said Adele, all out of breath, giving her the number of +the cab. + +"I can stay there," said Germinie; "not a word to mademoiselle. That's +all. Swear you won't say a word to her!" + +She was descending the stairs when she met Jupillon. + +"Hallo!" said he, "where are you going? going out?" + +"I am going to lie in----It took me during the day. There was a great +dinner-party here----Oh! but it was hard work! Why do you come here? I +told you never to come; I don't want you to!" + +"Because----I'll tell you----because just now I absolutely must have +forty francs. 'Pon my word, I must." + +"Forty francs! Why I have just that for the midwife!" + +"That's hard luck----look out! What do you want to do?" And he offered +his arm to assist her. "_Cristi!_ I'm going to have hard work to get 'em +all the same." + +He had opened the carriage door. + +"Where do you want him to take you?" + +"To La Bourbe," said Germinie. And she slipped the forty francs into his +hand. + +"No, no," said Jupillon. + +"Oh! nonsense----there or somewhere else! Besides, I have seven francs +left." + +The cab started away. + +Jupillon stood for a moment motionless on the sidewalk, looking at the +two napoleons in his hand. Then he ran after the cab, stopped it, and +said to Germinie through the window: + +"At least, I can go with you?" + +"No, I am in too much pain, I'd rather be alone," she replied, writhing +on the cushions of the cab. + +After an endless half hour, the cab stopped on Rue de Port-Royal, in +front of a black door surmounted by a violet lantern, which announced to +such medical students as happened to pass through the street that there +was that night, and at that moment, the curious and interesting +spectacle of a difficult labor in progress at La Maternite. + +The driver descended from his box and rang. The concierge, assisted by a +female attendant, took Germinie's arms and led her up-stairs to one of +the four beds in the _salle d'accouchement_. Once in bed, her pains +became somewhat less excruciating. She looked about her, saw the other +beds, all empty, and, at the end of the immense room, a huge +country-house fireplace in which a bright fire was blazing, and in front +of which, hanging upon iron bars, sheets and cloths and bandages were +drying. + +Half an hour later, Germinie gave birth to a little girl. Her bed was +moved into another room. She had been there several hours, lost in the +blissful after-delivery weakness which follows the frightful agony of +childbirth, happy and amazed to find that she was still alive, swimming +in a sea of blessed relief and deeply penetrated with the joy of having +created. Suddenly a loud cry: "I am dying!" caused her to turn her eyes +in the direction from which it came: she saw one of her neighbors throw +her arms around the neck of one of the assistant nurses, fall back +almost instantly, move a moment under the clothes, then lie perfectly +still. Almost at the same instant, another shriek arose from a bed on +the other side, a horrible, piercing, terrified shriek, as of one who +sees death approaching: it was a woman calling the young assistant, with +desperate gestures; the assistant ran to her, leaned over her, and fell +in a dead faint upon the floor. + +Thereupon silence reigned once more; but between the two dead bodies and +the half-dead assistant, whom the cold floor did not restore to +consciousness for more than an hour, Germinie and the other women who +were still alive in the room lay quiet, not daring even to ring the bell +that hung beside each bed to call for help. + +Thereafter La Maternite was the scene of one of those terrible puerperal +epidemics which breathe death upon human fecundity, of one of those +cases of atmospheric poisoning which empty, in a twinkling and by whole +rows, the beds of women lately delivered, and which once caused the +closing of La Clinique. They believed that it was a visitation of the +plague, a plague that turns the face black in a few hours, carries all +before it and snatches up the youngest and the strongest, a plague that +issues from the cradle--the Black Plague of mothers! All about Germinie, +at all hours, especially at night, women were dying such deaths as the +milk-fever causes, deaths that seemed to violate all nature's laws, +agonizing deaths, accompanied by wild shrieks and troubled by +hallucinations and delirium, death agonies that compelled the +application of the strait-waistcoat, death agonies that caused the +victims to leap suddenly from their beds, carrying the clothes with +them, and causing the whole room to shudder at the thought that they +were dead bodies from the amphitheatre! Life departed as if it were torn +from the body. The very disease assumed a ghastly shape and monstrous +aspect. The bedclothes were lifted in the centre by the swelling caused +by peritonitis, producing a vague, horrifying effect in the lamplight. + +For five days Germinie, lying swathed and bandaged in her bed, closing +her eyes and ears as best she could, had the strength to combat all +these horrors, and yielded to them only at long intervals. She was +determined to live, and she clung to her strength by thinking of her +child and of mademoiselle. But, on the sixth day, her energy was +exhausted, her courage forsook her. A cold wave flowed into her heart. +She said to herself that it was all over. The hand that death lays upon +one's shoulder, the presentiment of death, was already touching her. She +felt the first breath of the epidemic, the belief that she was its +destined victim, and the impression that she was already half-possessed +by it. Although unresigned, she succumbed. Her life, vanquished +beforehand, hardly made an effort to struggle. At that crisis a head +bent over her pillow, like a ray of light. + +It was the head of the youngest of the pupil-assistants, a fair head, +with long golden locks and blue eyes so soft and sweet that the dying +saw heaven opening its gates therein. When they saw her, delirious women +said: "Look! the Blessed Virgin!" + +"My child," she said to Germinie, "you must ask for your discharge at +once. You must go away from here. You must dress warmly. You must wrap +up well. As soon as you're at home and in bed, you must take a hot +draught of something or other. You must try to take a sweat. Then, it +won't do you any harm. But go away from here. It wouldn't be healthy for +you here to-night," she said, glancing around at the beds. "Don't say +that I told you to go: you would get me discharged if you should." + + + + +XXI + + +Germinie recovered in a few days. The joy and pride of having given +birth to a tiny creature in whom her flesh was mingled with the flesh of +the man she loved, the bliss of being a mother, saved her from the +natural results of a confinement in which she did not receive proper +care. She was restored to health and had an apparent pleasure in living +that her mistress had never before seen her manifest. + +Every Sunday, no matter what the weather might be, she left the house +about eleven o'clock; mademoiselle believed that she went to see a +friend in the country, and was delighted that her maid derived so much +benefit from these days passed in the open air. Germinie would capture +Jupillon, who allowed himself to be taken in tow without too much +resistance, and they would start for Pommeuse where the child was, and +where a good breakfast ordered by the mother awaited them. Once in the +carriage on the Mulhouse railway, Germinie would not speak or reply when +spoken to. She would lean out of the window, and all her thoughts seemed +to be upon what lay before her. She gazed, as if her longing were +striving to outrun the steam. The train would hardly have stopped before +she had leaped out, tossed her ticket to the ticket-taker, and started +at a run on the Pommeuse road, leaving Jupillon behind. She drew nearer +and nearer, she could see the house, she was there: yes, there was the +child! She would pounce upon her, snatch her from the nurse's arms with +jealous hands--a mother's hands!--hug her, strain her to her heart, kiss +her, devour her with kisses and looks and smiles! She would gaze +admiringly at her for an instant and then, distraught with joy, mad with +love, would cover her with kisses to the tips of her little bare toes. +Breakfast would be served. She would sit at the table with the child on +her knees and eat nothing: she had kissed her so much that she had not +yet looked at her, and she would begin to seek out points of resemblance +to themselves in the little one. One feature was his, another +hers:--"She has your nose and my eyes. Her hair will be like yours in +time. It will curl! Look, those are your hands--she is all you." And for +hours she would continue the inexhaustible and charming prattle of a +woman who is determined to give a man his share of their daughter. +Jupillon submitted to it all with reasonably good grace, thanks to +divers three-sou cigars Germinie always produced from her pocket and +gave to him one by one. Then he had found a means of diversion; the +Morin flowed at the foot of the garden. Jupillon was a true Parisian: he +loved to fish with a pole and line. + +And when summer came they stayed there all day, at the foot of the +garden, on the bank of the stream--Jupillon on a laundry board resting +on two stakes, pole in hand, and Germinie sitting, with the child in her +skirts, under the medlar tree that overhung the stream. On pleasant +days, the sun poured down upon the broad sparkling current, from which +beams of light arose as from a mirror. It was like a display of +fireworks from the sky and the stream, amid which Germinie would hold +the little girl upon her feet and let her trample upon her with her +little bare pink legs, in her short baby dress, her skin shimmering in +spots in the sunlight, her flesh mottled with sunbeams like the flesh of +angels Germinie had seen in pictures. She had a divinely sweet sensation +when the little one, with the active hands of children that cannot talk, +touched her chin and mouth and cheeks, persisted in putting her fingers +in her eyes, rested them playfully on the lids, and kept them moving +over her whole face, tickling and tormenting her with the dear little +digits that seem to grope in the dark for a mother's features: it was as +if her child's life and warmth were wandering over her face. From time +to time she would bestow half of her smile on Jupillon over the little +one's head, and would call to him: "Do look at her!" + +Then the child would fall asleep with the open mouth that laughs in +sleep. Germinie would lean over her and listen to her breathing in +repose. And, soothed by the peaceful respiration, she would gradually +forget herself as she gazed dreamily at the poor abode of her happiness, +the rustic garden, the apple-trees with their leaves covered with little +yellow snails and the red-cheeked apples on the southern limbs, the +poles, at whose feet the beanstalks, twisted and parched, were beginning +to climb, the square of cabbages, the four sunflowers in the little +circle in the centre of the path; and, close beside her, on the edge of +the stream, the patches of grass covered with dog's mercury, the white +heads of the nettles against the wall, the washerwomen's boxes, the +bottles of lye and the bundle of straw scattered about by the antics of +a puppy just out of the water. She gazed and dreamed. She thought of the +past, having her future on her knees. With the grass and the trees and +the river that were before her eyes, she reconstructed, in memory, the +rustic garden of her rustic childhood. She saw again the two stones +reaching down to the water, from which her mother, when she was a little +child, used to wash her feet before putting her to bed in summertime. + +"Look you, Pere Remalard," said Jupillon from his board, on one of the +hottest days in August, to the peasant who was watching him,--"do you +know they won't bite at the red worm worth a sou?" + +"You must try the gentle," rejoined the peasant sententiously. + +"All right, I'll have my revenge with the gentle! Pere Remalard, you +must get some calf's lights Thursday. You hang 'em up in that tree, and +Sunday we'll see." + +On the Sunday Jupillon had miraculous success with his fishing, and +Germinie heard the first syllable issue from her daughter's mouth. + + + + +XXII + + +On Wednesday morning, when she came downstairs, Germinie found a letter +for herself. In that letter, written on the back of a laundry receipt, +the Remalard woman informed her that her child had fallen sick almost +immediately after her departure; that she had grown steadily worse; that +she had consulted the doctor; that he said some insect had stung the +child; that she had been to him a second time; that she did not know +what more to do; that she had had pilgrimages made for her. The letter +concluded thus: "If you could see how troubled I am for your little +one--if you could see how good she is when she isn't suffering!" + +This letter produced upon Germinie the effect of a push from behind. She +went out and instinctively walked toward the railroad that would take +her to her little one. Her hair was uncombed and she was in her +slippers, but she did not think of that. She must see her child, she +must see her instantly. Then she would come back. She thought of +mademoiselle's breakfast for a moment, then forgot it. Suddenly, +half-way to the station, she saw a clock at a cab office and noticed +the hour: she remembered that there was no train at that time. She +retraced her steps, saying to herself that she would hurry the breakfast +and then make some excuse to be given her liberty for the rest of the +day. But when the breakfast was served she could find none: her mind was +so full of her child that she could not invent a falsehood; her +imagination was benumbed. And then, if she had spoken, if she had made +the request, she would have betrayed herself; she could feel the words +upon her lips: "I want to go and see my child!" At night she dared not +make her escape; mademoiselle had been a little indisposed the night +before; she was afraid that she might need her. + +The next morning when she entered mademoiselle's room with a fable she +had invented during the night, all ready to ask for leave of absence, +mademoiselle said to her, looking up from a letter that had just been +sent up to her from the lodge: "Ah! my old friend De Belleuse wants you +for the whole day to-day, to help her with her preserves. Come, give me +my two eggs, post-haste, and off with you. Eh? what! doesn't that suit +you? What's the matter?" + +"With me? why nothing at all!" Germinie found strength to say. + +All that endless day she passed standing over hot stewpans and sealing +up jars, in the torture known only to those whom the chances of life +detain at a distance from the sick bed of those dear to them. She +suffered such heart-rending agony as those unhappy creatures suffer who +cannot go where their anxiety calls them, and who, in the extremity of +despair caused by separation and uncertainty, constantly imagine that +death will come in their absence. + +As she received no letter Thursday evening and none Friday morning, she +took courage. If the little one were growing worse the nurse would have +written her. The little one was better: she imagined her saved, cured. +Children are forever coming near dying, and they get well so quickly! +And then hers was strong. She decided to wait, to be patient until +Sunday, which was only forty-eight hours away, deceiving the remainder +of her fears with the superstitions that say yes to hope, persuading +herself that her daughter had "escaped," because the first person she +met in the morning was a man, because she had seen a red horse in the +street, because she had guessed that a certain person would turn into a +certain street, because she had ascended a flight of stairs in so many +strides. + +On Saturday, in the morning, when she entered Mere Jupillon's shop, she +found her weeping hot tears over a lump of butter that she was covering +with a moist cloth. + +"Ah! it's you, is it?" said Mere Jupillon. "That poor charcoal woman! +See, I'm actually crying over her! She just went away from here. You +don't know--they can't get their faces clean in their trade with +anything but butter. And here's her love of a daughter--she's at +death's door, you know, the dear child. That's the way it is with us! +Ah! _mon Dieu_, yes!--Well, as I was saying, she said to her just now +like this: 'Mamma, I want you to wash my face in butter right away--for +the good God.'" + +And Mere Jupillon began to sob. + +Germinie had fled. All that day she was unable to keep still. Again and +again she went up to her chamber to prepare the few things she proposed +to take to her little one the next day, to dress her cleanly, to make a +little special toilet for her in honor of her recovery. As she went down +in the evening to put Mademoiselle to bed, Adele handed her a letter +that she had found for her below. + + + + +XXIII + + +Mademoiselle had begun to undress, when Germinie entered her bedroom, +walked a few steps, dropped upon a chair, and almost immediately, after +two or three long-drawn, deep, heart-breaking sighs, mademoiselle saw +her throw herself backward, wringing her hands, and at last roll from +the chair to the floor. She tried to lift her up, but Germinie was +shaken by such violent convulsions that the old woman was obliged to let +the frantic body fall again upon the floor; for all the limbs, which +were for a moment contracted and rigid, lashed out to right and left, at +random, with the sharp report of the trigger of a rifle, and threw down +whatever they came in contact with. At mademoiselle's shrieks on the +landing, a maid ran to a doctor's office near by but did not find him; +four other women employed in the house assisted mademoiselle to lift +Germinie up and carry her to the bed in her mistress's room, on which +they laid her after cutting her corset lacings. + +The terrible convulsions, the nervous contortions of the limbs, the +snapping of the tendons had ceased; but her neck and her breast, which +was uncovered where her dress was unbuttoned, moved up and down as if +waves were rising and falling under the skin, and the rustling of the +skirts showed that the movement extended to her feet. Her head thrown +back, her face flushed, her eyes full of melancholy tenderness, of the +patient agony we see in the eyes of the wounded, the great veins clearly +marked under her chin, Germinie, breathing hard and paying no heed to +questions, raised her hands to her neck and throat and clawed at them; +she seemed to be trying to tear out the sensation of something rising +and falling within her. In vain did they make her inhale ether and drink +orange-flower water; the waves of grief that flowed through her body did +not cease their action; and her face continued to wear the same +expression of gentle melancholy and sentimental anxiety, which seemed to +place the suffering of the heart above the suffering of the flesh in +every feature. For a long time everything seemed to wound her senses and +to produce a painful effect upon them--the bright light, the sound of +voices, the odor of the things about her. At last, after an hour or +more, a deluge of tears suddenly poured from her eyes and put an end to +the terrible crisis. After that there was nothing more than an +occasional convulsive shudder in the overburdened body, soon quieted by +weariness and by general prostration. It was possible to carry Germinie +to her own room. + +The letter Adele handed her contained the news of her daughter's death. + + + + +XXIV + + +As a result of this crisis, Germinie fell into a state of dumb, brutish +sorrow. For months she was insensible to everything; for months, +completely possessed and absorbed by the thought of the little creature +that was no more, she carried her child's death in her entrails as she +had carried her life. Every evening, when she went up to her chamber, +she took the poor darling's little cap and dress from the trunk at the +foot of her bed. She would gaze at them and touch them; she would lay +them out on the bed; she would sit for hours weeping over them, kissing +them, talking to them, saying the things that a mother's bitter sorrow +is wont to say to a little daughter's ghost. + +While weeping for her daughter the unhappy creature wept for herself as +well. A voice whispered to her that she was saved had the child lived; +that to have that child to love was her Providence; that all that she +dreaded in herself would be expended upon that dear head and be +sanctified there--her affections, her unreasoning impulses, her ardor, +all the passions of her nature. It seemed to her that she had felt her +mother's heart soothing and purifying her woman's heart. In her +daughter she saw a sort of celestial vision that would redeem her and +make her whole, a little angel of deliverance as it were, issuing from +her errors to fight for her and rescue her from the evil influences +which pursued her and by which she sometimes thought that she was +possessed. + +When she began to recover from the first prostration of despair, when, +as the consciousness of life and the perception of objects returned to +her, she looked about her with eyes that saw, she was aroused from her +grief by a more poignant cause of bitterness of spirit. + +Madame Jupillon, who had become too stout and too heavy to do what it +was necessary for her to do at the creamery, notwithstanding all the +assistance rendered by Germinie, had sent to her province for a niece of +hers. She was the embodiment of the blooming youth of the country, a +woman in whom there was still something of the child, active and +vivacious, with black eyes full of sunlight, lips as round and red as +cherries, the summer heat of her province in her complexion, the warmth +of perfect health in her blood. Impulsive and ingenuous as she was, the +girl had, at first, drawn near to her cousin, simply and naturally, +obeying the law of attraction that draws the young toward the young. She +had met his friendly advances with the immodesty of innocence, artless +effrontery, the liberties taught by life in the country, the happy folly +of a nature abounding in high spirits, and with all sorts of ignorant +hardihood, unblushing ingenuousness and rustic coquetry, against which +her cousin's vanity was without means of defence. The child's presence +deprived Germinie of all hope of repose. Mere girl as she was, she +wounded her every minute in the day by her presence, her touch, her +caresses, everything in her amorous body that spoke of love. Her +preoccupation with Jupillon, the work that kept them constantly +together, the provincial wonderment that she constantly exhibited, the +half-confidences she allowed to come to her lips when the young man had +gone, her gayety, her jests, her healthy good-humor--everything helped +to exasperate Germinie and to arouse a sullen wrath within her; +everything wounded that jealous heart, so jealous that the very animals +caused it a bitter pang by seeming to love someone whom it loved. + +She dared not speak to Mere Jupillon and denounce the little one to her, +for fear of betraying herself; but whenever she found herself alone with +Jupillon she vented her feelings in recriminations, complaints and +quarrels. She would remind him of an incident, a word, something he had +done or said, some answer he had made, a trifle forgotten by him but +still bleeding in her heart. + +"Are you mad?" Jupillon would say to her; "a slip of a girl!"--"A slip +of a girl, eh? nonsense!--when she has such eyes that all the men stare +at her in the street! I went out with her the other day--I was +ashamed--I don't know how she did it, but we were followed by a +gentleman all the time."--"Well, what if you were? She's a pretty girl, +you know!"--"Pretty! pretty!" And at that word Germinie would hurl +herself, figuratively speaking, at the girl's face, and claw it to +pieces with frantic words. + +Often she would end by saying to Jupillon: "Look here! you love +her!"--"Well! what then?" he would retort, highly entertained by these +disputes, by the opportunity to watch the antics of this fierce wrath +which he fanned with pretended sulkiness, and by the excitement of +trifling with the woman, whom he saw to be half insane under his +sarcasms and his indifference, stumbling wildly about and running her +head against stone walls in the first paroxysms of madness. + +As a result of these scenes, repeated almost every day, a revolution +took place in that excitable, extreme character, which knew no middle +course, in that heart in which the most violent passions were constantly +clashing. Love, in which poison had long been at work, became decomposed +and changed to hate. Germinie began to detest her lover and to seek out +every possible pretext for hating him more. And her thoughts recurred to +her daughter, to the loss of her child, to the cause of her death, and +she persuaded herself that he had killed her. She looked upon him as an +assassin. She conceived a horror of him, she avoided him, fled from him +as from the evil genius of her life, with the terror that one has of a +person who is one's Bane! + + + + +XXV + + +One morning, after a night passed by her in turning over and over in her +mind all her despairing, hate-ridden thoughts, Germinie went to the +creamery for her four sous' worth of milk and found in the back-shop +three or four maids from the neighborhood engaged in "taking an +eye-opener." They were seated at a table, gossiping and sipping +liqueurs. + +"Aha!" said Adele, striking the table with her glass; "you here already, +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil?" + +"What's this?" said Germinie, taking Adele's glass; "I'd like some +myself." + +"Are you so thirsty as all that this morning? Brandy and absinthe, +that's all!--my soldier boy's _tap_, you know,--he never drank anything +else. It's a little stiff, eh?" + +"Ah! yes," said Germinie, contracting her lips and winking like a child +who is given a glass of liqueur with the dessert at a grand +dinner-party. + +"It's good, all the same." Her spirits rose. "Madame Jupillon, let's +have the bottle--I'll pay." + +And she tossed money on the table. After the third glass, she cried: "I +am _tight_!" And she roared with laughter. + +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had gone out that morning to collect her +half-yearly income. When she returned at eleven o'clock, she rang once, +twice! no one came. "Ah!" she said to herself, "she must have gone +down." She opened the door with her key, went to her bedroom and looked +in: the mattress and bedclothes lay in a heap on two chairs, and +Germinie was stretched out across the straw under-mattress, sleeping +heavily, like a log, in the utterly relaxed condition following a sudden +attack of lethargy. + +At the noise made by mademoiselle, Germinie sprang to her feet and +passed her hand over her eyes.--"Yes?" she said, as if some one had +called her; her eyes were wandering. + +"What's happened?" said Mademoiselle de Varandeuil in alarm; "did you +fall? Is anything the matter with you?" + +"With me? no," Germinie replied; "I fell asleep. What time is it? +Nothing's the matter. Ah! what a fool!" + +And she began to shake the mattress, turning her back to her mistress to +hide the flush of intoxication on her face. + + + + +XXVI + + +One Sunday morning Jupillon was dressing in the room Germinie had +furnished for him. His mother was sitting by, gazing at him with the +wondering pride expressed in the eyes of mothers among the common people +in presence of a son who dresses like a _monsieur_. + +"You're dressed up like the young man on the first floor!" she said. "I +should think it was his coat. I don't mean to say fine things don't look +well on you, too----" + +Jupillon, intent upon tying his cravat, made no reply. + +"You'll play the deuce with the poor girls to-day!" continued Mere +Jupillon, giving to her voice an accent of insinuating sweetness: "Look +you, bibi, let me tell you this, you great bad boy: if a young woman +goes wrong, so much the worse for her! that's their look-out. You're a +man, aren't you? you've got the age and the figure and everything. I +can't always keep you in leading-strings. So, I said to myself, as well +one as another. That one will do. And I fixed her so that she wouldn't +see anything. Yes, Germinie would do, as you seemed to like her. That +prevented you from wasting your money on bad women--and then I didn't +see anything out of the way in the girl till now. But now it won't do at +all. They're telling stories in the quarter--a heap of horrible things +about us. A pack of vipers! We're above all that, I know. When one has +been an honest woman all her life, thank God! But you never know what +will happen--mademoiselle would only have to put the end of her nose +into her maid's affairs. Why there's the law--the bare idea gives me a +turn. What do you say to that, bibi, eh?" + +"_Dame_, mamma,--whatever you please." + +"Ah! I knew you loved your dear darling mamma!" exclaimed the monstrous +creature embracing him. "Well! invite her to dinner to-night. You can +get up two bottles of our Lunel--at two francs--the heady kind. And be +sure she comes. Make eyes at her, so that she'll think to-day's the +great day. Put on your fine gloves: they'll make you look more +dignified." + +Germinie arrived at seven o'clock, happy and bright and hopeful, her +head filled with blissful dreams by the mysterious air with which +Jupillon delivered his mother's invitation. They dined and drank and +made merry. Mere Jupillon began to cast glances expressive of deep +emotion, drowned in tears, upon the couple sitting opposite her. When +the coffee was served, she said, as if for the purpose of being left +alone with Germinie: "Bibi, you know you have an errand to do this +evening." + +Jupillon went out. Madame Jupillon, as she sipped her coffee, turned to +Germinie the face of a mother seeking to learn her daughter's secret, +and, in her indulgence, forgiving her in advance of her confession. For +a moment the two women sat thus, silent, one waiting for the other to +speak, the other with the cry of her heart on her lips. Suddenly +Germinie rushed from her chair into the stout woman's arms. + +"If you knew, Madame Jupillon!" + +She talked and wept and embraced her all at once. "Oh! you won't be +angry with me! Well! yes, I love him--I've had a child by him. It's +true, I love him. Three years ago----" + +At every word Madame Jupillon's face became sterner and more icy. She +coldly pushed Germinie away, and in her most doleful voice, with an +accent of lamentation and hopeless desolation, she began, like a person +who is suffocating: "Oh! my God--you!--tell me such things as +that!--me!--his mother!--to my face! My God, must it be? My son--a +child--an innocent child! You've had the face to ruin him for me! And +now you tell me that you did it! No, it ain't possible, my God! And I +had such confidence. There's nothing worth living for. There's no +trusting anybody in this world! All the same, mademoiselle, I wouldn't +ever 'a' believed it of you. _Dame!_ such things give me a turn. Ah! +this upsets me completely. I know myself, and I'm quite likely to be +sick after this----" + +"Madame Jupillon! Madame Jupillon!" Germinie murmured in an imploring +tone, half dead with shame and grief on the chair on which she had +fallen. "I beg you to forgive me. It was stronger than I was. And then I +thought--I believed----" + +"You believed! Oh! my God; you believed! What did you believe? That +you'd be my son's wife, eh? Ah! Lord God! is it possible, my poor +child?" + +And adopting a more and more plaintive and lamentable tone as the words +she hurled at Germinie cut deeper and deeper, Mere Jupillon continued: +"But, my poor girl, you must have a reason, let's hear it. What did I +always tell you? That it would be all right if you'd been born ten years +earlier. Let's see, your date was 1820, you told me, and now it's '49. +You're getting on toward thirty, you see, my dear child. I say! it makes +me feel bad to say that to you--I'd so much rather not hurt you. But a +body only has to look at you, my poor young lady. What can I do? It's +your age--your hair--I can lay my finger in the place where you part +it." + +"But," said Germinie, in whose heart black wrath was beginning to +rumble, "what about what your son owes me? My money? The money I took +out of the savings bank, the money I borrowed for him, the money I----" + +"Money? he owes you money? Oh! yes, what you lent him to begin business +with. Well! what about it? Do you think we're thieves? Does anyone want +to cheat you out of your old money, although there wasn't any paper--I +know it because the other day--it just occurs to me--that honest man of +a child of mine wanted to write it down for fear he might die. But the +next minute we're pickpockets, as glib as you please! Oh! my God, it's +hardly worth while living in such times as these! Ah! I'm well paid for +getting attached to you! But I see through it now. You're a politician, +you are! You wanted to pay yourself with my son, for his whole life! +Excuse me! No, thank you! It costs less to give back your money! A cafe +waiter's leavings! my poor dear boy! God preserve him from it!" + +Germinie had snatched her shawl and hat from the hook and was out of +doors. + + + + +XXVII + + +Mademoiselle was sitting in her large armchair at the corner of the +fireplace, where a few live embers were still sleeping under the ashes. +Her black cap was pulled down over her wrinkled forehead almost to her +eyes. Her black dress, cut in the shape of a child's frock, was draped +in scanty folds about her scanty body, showing the location of every +bone, and fell straight from her knees to the floor. She wore a small +black shawl crossed on her breast and tied behind her back, as they are +worn by little girls. Her half-open hands were resting on her hips, with +the palms turned outward--thin, old woman's hands, awkward and stiff, +and swollen with gout at the knuckles and finger joints. Sitting in the +huddled, crouching posture that compels old people to raise their heads +to look at you and speak to you, she seemed to be buried in all that +mass of black, whence nothing emerged but her face, to which +preponderance of bile had imparted the yellow hue of old ivory, and the +flashing glance of her brown eyes. One who saw her thus, her bright, +sparkling eyes, the meagre body, the garb of poverty and the noble air +with which she bore all the burdens of age, might well have fancied +that he was looking at a fairy on the stage of the Petits-Menages. + +Germinie was by her side. The old lady began: + +"The list is still under the door, eh, Germinie?" + +"Yes, mademoiselle." + +"Do you know, my girl," Mademoiselle de Varandeuil resumed, after a +pause, "do you know that when one is born in one of the finest houses on +Rue Royale--when one has been in a fair way to own the Grand and +Petit-Charolais--when one has almost had the Chateau of +Clichy-la-Garenne for a country house--and when it took two servants to +carry the silver platter on which the joint was served at your +grandmother's--do you know that it takes no small amount of +philosophy"--and mademoiselle with difficulty raised a hand to her +shoulder--"to see yourself end like this, in this devilish nest of +rheumatism, where, in spite of all the list in the world, you can't keep +out of draughts.--That's it, stir up the fire a little." + +She put out her feet toward Germinie, who was kneeling in front of the +fireplace, and laughingly placed them under her nose: "Do you know that +that takes no small amount of philosophy--to wear stockings out at heel! +Simpleton! I'm not scolding you; I know well enough that you can't do +everything. So you might as well have a woman come to do the mending. +That's not very much to do. Why don't you speak to that little girl that +came here last year? She had a face that I remember." + +"Oh! she's black as a mole, mademoiselle." + +"Bah! I knew it. In the first place you never think well of anybody. +That isn't true, you say? Why, wasn't she a niece of Mere Jupillon's? We +might take her for one or two days a week." + +"That hussy shall never set foot here." + +"Nonsense, more fables! You're a most astonishing creature, to adore +people and then not want to see them again. What has she done to you?" + +"She's a lost creature, I tell you!" + +"Bah! what does my linen care for that?" + +"But, mademoiselle." + +"All right! find me someone else then. I don't care about her +particularly. But find me someone." + +"Oh! the women that come in like that don't do any work. I'll mend your +clothes. You don't need any one." + +"You!--Oh! if we have to rely on your needle!" said mademoiselle +jocosely; "and then, will Mere Jupillon ever give you the time?" + +"Madame Jupillon? Oh! for all the dust I shall ever leave in her house +again!" + +"Hoity-toity! What's that? She too! so she's on your black books, is +she? Oho! hurry up and make another acquaintance, or else, _bon Dieu de +Dieu_! we shall have some bad days here!" + + + + +XXVIII + + +The winter of that year should certainly have assured Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil a share of paradise hereafter. She had to undergo the reflex +action of her maid's chagrin, her nervous irritability, the vengeance of +her embittered, contradictory moods, which the approaching spring would +ere long infect with that species of malignant madness which the +critical season, the travail of nature and the restless, disturbing +fructification of the summer cause in unhealthily sensitive +organizations. + +Germinie was forever wiping eyes which no longer wept, but which had +once wept copiously. She was always ready with an everlasting: +"Nothing's the matter, mademoiselle!" uttered in the tone that covers a +secret. She adopted dumb, despairing, funereal attitudes, the airs by +which a woman's body diffuses melancholy and makes her very shadow a +bore. With her face, her glance, her mouth, the folds of her dress, her +presence, the noise she made at work in the adjoining room, even with +her silence, she enveloped mademoiselle in the despair that exhaled from +her person. At the slightest word she would bristle up. Mademoiselle +could not address an observation to her, ask her the most trivial +question, give her an order or express a wish: everything was taken by +her as a reproach. And thereupon she would act like a madwoman. She +would wipe her eyes and grumble: "Oh! I am very unfortunate! I can see +that mademoiselle doesn't care for me any more!" Her spite against +various people vented itself in sublimely ingenious complaints. "That +woman always comes when it rains!" she would say, upon discovering a bit +of mud that Madame de Belleuse had left on the carpet. During the week +following New Year's Day, the week when all of Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil's remaining relatives and friends, rich and poor alike, +climbed the five flights and waited on the landing at her door for their +turns to occupy the six chairs in her bedroom, Germinie redoubled her +ill-humor, her impertinent remarks, her sulky muttering. Inventing +grievances against her mistress, she punished her constantly by a +persistent silence, which it was impossible to break. Then there would +be periods of frenzied industry. Mademoiselle would hear through the +partitions on all sides furious manipulation of the broom and duster, +the sharp, vicious scrubbing and slamming of the servant whom one +imagines muttering to herself as she maltreats the furniture: "Oh! yes, +I'll do your work for you!" + +Old people are patient with servants who have been long in their +service. Long habit, the weakening will-power, the horror of change, +the dread of new faces,--everything disposes them to weakness and +cowardly concessions. Notwithstanding her quick temper, her promptness +to lose her head, to fly into a rage, to breathe fire and flame, +mademoiselle said nothing. She acted as if she saw nothing. She +pretended to be reading when Germinie entered the room. She waited, +curled up in her easy-chair, until the maid's ill-humor had blown over +or burst. She bent her back before the storm; she said no word, had no +thought of bitterness against her. She simply pitied her for causing +herself so much suffering. + +In truth Germinie was not Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's maid; she was +Devotion, waiting to close her eyes. The solitary old woman, overlooked +by death, alone at the end of her life, dragging her affections from +grave to grave, had found her last friend in her servant. She had rested +her heart upon her as upon an adopted daughter, and she was especially +unhappy because she was powerless to comfort her. Moreover, at +intervals, Germinie returned to her from the depths of her brooding +melancholy and her savage humor, and threw herself on her knees before +her kind heart. Suddenly, at a ray of sunlight, a beggar's song, or any +one of the nothings that float in the air and expand the heart, she +would burst into tears and demonstrations of affection; her heart would +overflow with burning emotions, she would seem to feel a pleasure in +embracing her mistress, as if the joy of living again had effaced +everything. At other times some trifling ailment of mademoiselle's would +bring about the change; a smile would come to the old servant's face and +gentleness to her hands. Sometimes, at such moments, mademoiselle would +say: "Come, my girl--something's the matter. Tell me what it is." And +Germinie would reply: "No, mademoiselle, it's the weather."--"The +weather!" mademoiselle would repeat with a doubtful air, "the weather!" + + + + +XXIX + + +One evening in March the Jupillons, mother and son, were talking +together by the stove in their back-shop. + +Jupillon had been drafted. The money his mother had put aside to +purchase his release had been used up as a result of six months of poor +business and by credits given to certain _lorettes_ on the street, who +had left the key under their door-mat one fine morning. He had not +prospered, in a business way, himself, and his stock in trade had been +taken on execution. He had been that day to ask a former employer to +advance him the money to purchase a substitute. But the old perfumer had +not forgiven him for leaving him and setting up for himself, and he +refused point-blank. + +Mere Jupillon, in despair, was complaining tearfully. She repeated the +number drawn by her son: "Twenty-two! twenty-two!" And she said: "And +yet I sewed a black spider into your _paletot_ with his web; a _velvety_ +fellow he was! Oh, dear! I ought to have done as they told me and made +you wear the cap you were baptized in. Ah! the good God ain't fair! +There's the fruit woman's son drew a lucky number! That comes of being +honest! And those two sluts at number eighteen must go and hook it with +my money! I might have known they meant something by the way they shook +hands. They did me out of more than seven hundred francs, did you know +it? And the black creature opposite--and that infernal girl as had the +face to eat pots of strawberries at twenty francs! they might as well +have taken me too, the hussies! But you haven't gone yet all the same. +I'd rather sell the creamery--I'll go out to work again, do cooking or +housekeeping,--anything! Why, I'd draw money from a stone for you!" + +Jupillon smoked and let his mother do the talking. When she had +finished, he said: "That'll do for talk, mamma!--all that's nothing but +words. You'll spoil your digestion and it ain't worth while. You needn't +sell anything--you needn't strain yourself at all--I'll buy my +substitute and it sha'n't cost you a sou;--do you want to bet on it?" + +"Jesus!" ejaculated Madame Jupillon. + +"I have an idea." + +After a pause, Jupillon continued: "I didn't want to make trouble with +you on account of Germinie--you know, at the time the stories about us +were going round; you thought it was time for me to break with her--that +she would be in our way--and you kicked her out of the house, stiff. +That wasn't my idea--I didn't think she was so bad as all that for the +family butter. But, however, you thought best to do it. And perhaps, +after all, you did the best thing; instead of cooling her off, you +warmed her up for me--yes, warmed her up--I've met her once or +twice--and she's changed, I tell you. Gad! how she's drying up!" + +"But you know very well she hasn't got a sou." + +"I don't say she has, of her own. But what's that got to do with it? +She'll find it somewhere. She's good for twenty-three hundred shiners +yet!" + +"But suppose you get mixed up in it?" + +"Oh! she won't steal 'em----" + +"The deuce she won't!" + +"Well! if she does, it won't be from anyone but her mistress. Do you +suppose her mademoiselle would have her pinched for that? She'll turn +her off, and that'll be the end of it. We'll advise her to try the air +in another quarter--off she goes!--and we sha'n't see her again. But it +would be too stupid for her to steal. She'll arrange it somehow, she'll +hunt round and turn things over. I don't know how, not I! but that's her +affair, you understand. This is the time for her to show her talents. By +the way, perhaps you don't know, they say her old woman's sick. If the +dear lady should happen to step out and leave her all the stuff, as the +story goes in the quarter--why, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have +played see-saw with her, eh, mamma? We must put on gloves, you see, +mamma, when we're dealing with people who may have four or five thousand +a year come tumbling into their aprons." + +"Oh! my God! what are you talking about? But after the way I treated +her--oh! no, she'll never come back here." + +"Well! I tell you I'll bring her back--and to-night at the latest," said +Jupillon, rising, and rolling a cigarette between his fingers. "No +excuses, you know," he said to his mother, "they won't do any good--and +be cold to her. Act as if you received her only on my account, because +you are weak. No one knows what may happen, we must always keep an +anchor to windward." + + + + +XXX + + +Jupillon was walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of +Germinie's house when she came out. + +"Good-evening, Germinie," he said, behind her. + +She turned as if she had been struck, and, without answering his +greeting, instinctively moved on a few steps as if to fly from him. + +"Germinie!" + +Jupillon said nothing more than that; he did not follow her, he did not +move. She came back to him like a trained beast when his rope is taken +off. + +"What is it?" said she. "Do you want more money? or do you want to tell +me some of your mother's foolish remarks?" + +"No, but I am going away," said Jupillon, with a serious face. "I am +drafted--and I am going away." + +"You are going away?" said she. She seemed as if her mind was not awake. + +"Look here, Germinie," Jupillon continued. "I have made you unhappy. I +haven't been very kind to you, I know. My cousin's been a little to +blame. What do you want?" + +"You're going away?" rejoined Germinie, taking his arm. "Don't lie to +me--are you going away?" + +"I tell you, yes--and it's true. I'm only waiting for marching orders. +You have to pay more than two thousand francs for a substitute this +year. They say there's going to be a war: however, there's a chance." + +As he spoke he was leading Germinie down the street. + +"Where are you taking me?" said she. + +"To mother's, of course--so that you two can make up and put an end to +all this nonsense." + +"After what she said to me? Never!" + +And Germinie pushed Jupillon's arm away. + +"Well, if that's the way it is, good-bye." + +And Jupillon raised his cap. + +"Shall I write to you from the regiment?" + +Germinie was silent, hesitating, for a moment. Then she said, abruptly: +"Come on!" and, motioning to Jupillon to walk beside her, she turned +back up the street. + +And so they walked along, side by side, without a word. They reached a +paved road that stretched out as far as the eye could see, between two +lines of lanterns, between two rows of gnarled trees that held aloft +handfuls of bare branches and cast their slender, motionless shadows on +high blank walls. There, in the keen air, chilled by the evaporation of +the snow, they walked on and on for a long time, burying themselves in +the vague, infinite, unfamiliar depths of a street that follows the +same wall, the same trees, the same lanterns, and leads on to the same +darkness beyond. The damp, heavy air that they breathed smelt of sugar +and tallow and carrion. From time to time a vivid flash passed before +their eyes: it was the lantern of a butcher's cart that shone upon +slaughtered cattle and huge pieces of bleeding meat thrown upon the back +of a white horse; the light upon the flesh, amid the darkness, resembled +a purple conflagration, a furnace of blood. + +"Well! have you reflected?" said Jupillon. "This little Avenue Trudaine +isn't a very cheerful place, do you know?" + +"Come on," Germinie replied. + +And, without another word, she set out again at the same fierce, jerky +gait, agitated by all the tumult raging in her heart. Her thoughts were +expressed in her gestures. Her feet went astray, madness attacked her +hands. At times her shadow, seen from behind, reminded one of a woman +from La Salpetriere. Two or three passers-by stopped for a moment and +looked after her; then, remembering that they were in Paris, passed on. + +Suddenly she stopped, and with the gesture of one who has made a +desperate resolution, she said: "Ah! my God! another pin in the +cushion!--Let us go!" + +And she took Jupillon's arm. + +"Oh! I know very well," said Jupillon, when they were near the creamery, +"my mother wasn't fair to you. You see, the woman has been too virtuous +all her life. She don't know, she don't understand. And then, d'ye see, +I'll tell you the whole secret: she loves me so much she's jealous of +any woman who loves me. So go in, do!" + +And he pushed her into the arms of Madame Jupillon, who kissed her, +mumbled a few words of regret, and made haste to weep in order to +relieve her own embarrassment and make the scene more affecting. + +Throughout the evening Germinie sat with her eyes fixed on Jupillon, +almost terrifying him with her expression. + +"Come, come," he said, as he walked home with her, "don't be so down in +the mouth as all this. We must have a little philosophy in this world. +Well! here I am a soldier--that's all! To be sure they don't all come +back. But then--look here! I propose that we enjoy ourselves for the +fortnight that's left, because it will be so much gained--and if I don't +come back--Well, at all events, I shall leave you a pleasant memory of +me." + +Germinie made no reply. + + + + +XXXI + + +For a whole week Germinie did not set foot in the shop again. + +The Jupillons, when she did not return, began to despair. At last, one +evening about half past ten, she pushed the door open, entered the shop +without a word of greeting, walked up to the little table where the +mother and son were sitting half asleep, and placed upon it, beneath her +hand which was closed like a claw, an old piece of cloth that gave forth +a ringing sound. + +"There it is!" said she. + +And, letting go the corners of the cloth, she emptied its contents on +the table: forth came greasy bank-notes, patched on the back, fastened +together with pins, old tarnished louis d'or, black hundred-sou pieces, +forty-sou pieces, ten-sou pieces, the money of the poor, the money of +toil, money from Christmas-boxes, money soiled by dirty hands, worn out +in leather purses, rubbed smooth in the cash drawer filled with +sous--money with a flavor of perspiration. + +For a moment she gazed at the display as if to assure her own eyes; then +she said to Madame Jupillon in a sad voice, the voice of her sacrifice: + +"There it is--There's the two thousand three hundred francs for him to +buy a substitute." + +"Oh! my dear Germinie!" said the stout woman, almost suffocated by +emotion; and she threw herself upon Germinie's neck, who submitted to be +embraced. "Oh! you must take something with us--a cup of coffee--" + +"No, thank you," said Germinie; "I am done up. _Dame!_ I've had to fly +around, you know, to get them. I'm going to bed now. Some other time." + +And she went away. + +She had had to "fly around," as she said, to scrape together such a sum, +to accomplish that impossibility: to raise two thousand three hundred +francs--two thousand three hundred francs, of which she had not the +first five! She had collected them, begged them, extorted them piece by +piece, almost sou by sou. She had picked them up, scraped them together +here and there, from this one and from that one, by loans of two +hundred, one hundred, fifty, twenty francs, or whatever sum anyone would +lend. She had borrowed from her concierge, her grocer, her fruit woman, +her poulterer, her laundress; she had borrowed from all the dealers in +the quarter, and from the dealers in the quarters where she had +previously lived with mademoiselle. She had made up the amount with +money drawn from every source, even from her poor miserable +water-carrier. She had gone a-begging everywhere, importuned humbly, +prayed, implored, invented fables, swallowed the shame of lying and +of seeing that she was not believed. The humiliation of confessing that +she had no money laid by, as was supposed, and as, through pride, she +had encouraged people to suppose, the sympathy of people she despised, +the refusals, the alms, she had undergone everything, endured what she +would not have endured to procure bread for herself, and not once only, +with a single person, but with thirty, forty, all those who had given +her something or from whom she had hoped for something. + + +[Illustration: Chapter XXXI + +_At last, one evening about half past ten, she pushed the door open, +entered the shop without a word of greeting, walked up to the little +table where the mother and son were sitting half asleep, and placed upon +it, beneath her hand which was closed like a claw, an old piece of cloth +that gave forth a ringing sound._ + +_"There it is!" said she._] + + +At last she had succeeded in collecting the money; but it was her master +and had possession of her forever. Her life thenceforth belonged to the +obligations she had entered into with all these people, to the service +her dealers had rendered her, knowing very well what they were doing. +She belonged to her debt, to the sum she would have to pay every year. +She knew it; she knew that all her wages would go in that way; that with +the rates of interest, which she had left entirely at the discretion of +her creditors, and the written obligations demanded by them, +mademoiselle's three hundred francs would hardly suffice to pay the +interest on the twenty-three hundred she had borrowed. She knew that she +was in debt, that she should be in debt forever, that she was doomed +forever to privation and embarrassment, to the strictest economy in her +manner of living and her dress. She had hardly any more illusions as to +the Jupillons than as to her own future. She had a presentiment that +her money was lost so far as they were concerned. She had not even based +any hopes on the possibility that this sacrifice would touch the young +man. She had acted on the impulse of the moment. If she had been told to +die to prevent his going, she would have died. The idea of seeing him a +soldier, the idea of the battlefield, the cannon, the wounded, in +presence of which a woman shuts her eyes in terror, had led her to do +something more than die; to sell her life for that man, to consign +herself to everlasting poverty. + + + + +XXXII + + +Disorders of the nervous system frequently result in disarranging the +natural sequence of human joys and sorrows, in destroying their +proportion and equilibrium, and in carrying them to the greatest +possible excess. It seems that, under the influence of this disease of +sensitiveness, the sharpened, refined, spiritualized sensations exceed +their natural measure and limits, reach a point beyond themselves, and, +as it were, make the enjoyment and suffering of the individual infinite. +So the infrequent joys that Germinie still knew were insane joys, from +which she emerged drunk, and with the physical symptoms of +drunkenness.--"Why, my girl," mademoiselle sometimes could not forbear +saying, "anyone would think you were tipsy."--"Mademoiselle makes you +pay dear for a little amusement once in a while!" Germinie would reply. +And when she relapsed into her sorrowful, disappointed, restless +condition, her desolation was more intense, more frantic and delirious +than her gayety. + +The moment had arrived when the terrible truth, which she had suspected +before, at last became clear to her. She saw that she had failed to lay +hold of Jupillon by the devotion her love had manifested, by stripping +herself of all she possessed, by all the pecuniary sacrifices which +involved her life in the toils and embarrassment of a debt it was +impossible for her to pay. She felt that he gave her his love +grudgingly, a love to which he imparted all the humiliation of an act of +charity. When she told him that she was again _enceinte_, the man whom +she was about to make a father once more said to her: "Well, women like +you are amusing creatures! always full or just empty!" She conceived the +ideas, the suspicions that come to genuine love when it is betrayed, the +presentiments of the heart that tell women they are no longer in +undisputed possession of their lovers, and that there is another because +there is likely to be another. + +She complained no more, she wept no more, she indulged no more in +recrimination. She abandoned the struggle with this man, armed with +indifference, who, with the cold-blooded sarcasm of the vulgar cad, was +so expert in insulting her passion, her unreasoning impulses, her wild +outbursts of affection. And so, in agonizing resignation, she set +herself the task of waiting--for what? She did not know: perhaps until +he would have no more of her. + +Heart-broken and silent, she kept watch upon Jupillon; she followed him +about and never lost sight of him; she tried to make him speak by +interjecting remarks in his fits of distraction. She hovered about him, +but she saw nothing wrong, she could lay hold of nothing, detect +nothing; and yet she was convinced that there was something and that +what she feared was true; she felt a woman's presence in the air. + +One morning, as she went down the street rather earlier than usual, she +spied him a few yards before her on the sidewalk. He was dressed up, and +constantly looked himself over as he walked along. From time to time he +raised his trouser leg a little to see the polish on his boots. She +followed him. He went straight on without looking back. She was not far +behind him when he reached Place Breda. There was a woman walking on the +square beside the cabstand. Germinie could see nothing of her but her +back. Jupillon went up to her and she turned: it was his cousin. They +began to walk side by side, up and down the square; then they started +through Rue Breda toward Rue de Navarin. There the girl took Jupillon's +arm; she did not lean on it at first, but little by little, as they +proceeded, she leaned toward him, with the movement of a branch when it +is bent, and drew closer and closer. They walked slowly, so slowly that +at times Germinie was obliged to stop in order to keep at a safe +distance from them. They ascended Rue des Martyrs, passed through Rue de +la Tour d'Auvergne, and went down Rue Montholon. Jupillon was talking +earnestly; the cousin said nothing, but listened to Jupillon, and +walked on with the absent-minded air of a woman smelling of a bouquet, +now and then darting a little vague glance on one side or the other--the +glance of a frightened child. + +When they reached Rue Lamartine, opposite the Passage des Deux-Soeurs, +they turned. Germinie had barely time to throw herself in at a hall +door. They passed without seeing her. The little one was very serious +and walked slowly. Jupillon was talking into her ear. They stopped for a +moment; Jupillon gesticulated earnestly; the girl stared fixedly at the +pavement. Germinie thought they were about to part; but they resumed +their walk together and made four or five turns, passing back and forth +by the end of the passage. At last they turned in; Germinie darted from +her hiding-place and rushed after them. From the gateway of the passage +she saw the skirt of a dress disappear through the door of a small +furnished lodging-house, beside a wine shop. She ran to the door, looked +into the hall and could see nothing. Thereupon all her blood rushed to +her head, with one thought, a single thought that her lips kept +repeating like an idiot: "Vitriol! vitriol! vitriol!" And as her +thoughts were instantly transformed into the act of which she thought, +and her delirium transported her abruptly to the crime she contemplated, +she said to herself that she would go up the stairs with the bottle well +hidden under her shawl; she would knock at the door very loud and +continuously. He would come at last and would open the door a crack. +She would say nothing to him, not her name even. She would go in without +heeding him. She was strong enough to kill him! and she would go to the +bed, to _her_! She would take her by the arm and say: "Yes it's me--this +is for your life!" And over her face, her throat, her skin, over +everything about her that was youthful and attractive and that invited +love, Germinie watched the vitriol sear and seam and burn and hiss, +transforming her into a horrible object that filled Germinie's heart to +overflowing with joy! The bottle was empty, and she laughed! And, in her +frightful dream, her body also dreaming, her feet began to move. She +walked unconsciously down the passage, into the street and to a grocer's +shop. Ten minutes she stood motionless at the counter, with eyes that +did not see, the vacant, wandering eyes of one who has murder in his +heart. + +"Well, well, what do you want?" said the grocer's wife testily, almost +frightened by the bearing of this woman who did not stir. + +"What do I want?" said Germinie. She was so filled, so possessed with +the thought of what she wanted that she believed she had asked for +vitriol. "What do I want?"--She passed her hand across her +forehead.--"Ah! I don't know now." + +And she left the shop, stumbling as she went. + + + + +XXXIII + + +In the torment of the life she was leading, in which she suffered the +horrors of death and of unsatisfied passion, Germinie, seeking to deaden +her ghastly thoughts, had remembered the glass she had taken from +Adele's hand one morning, which gave her a whole day of oblivion. From +that day she had taken to drink. She had begun with the little morning +draughts to which the maids of kept women are addicted. She had drunk +with this one and with that one. She had drunk with men who came to +breakfast at the creamery; she had drunk with Adele, who drank like a +man and who took a base delight in seeing this virtuous woman's maid +descend as low as herself. + +At first she had needed excitement, company, the clinking of glasses, +the encouragement of speech, the inspiration of the challenge, in order +to arouse the desire to drink; but she had soon reached the point where +she drank alone. Then it was that she began to carry home a half-filled +glass under her apron and hide it in a corner of the kitchen; that she +had taken to drinking those mixtures of white wine and brandy, of which +she would take draught upon draught until she had found that for which +she thirsted--sleep. For what she craved was not the fevered brain, the +happy confusion, the living folly, the delirious, waking dream of +drunkenness; what she needed, what she sought was the negative joy of +sleep, Lethean, dreamless sleep, a leaden sleep falling upon her like +the blow of the sledge upon the ox's head: and she found it in those +compounds which struck her down and stretched her out face downward on +the waxed cover of the kitchen table. + +To sleep that overpowering sleep, to wallow, by day, in that midnight +darkness, had come to mean to her a truce, deliverance from an existence +that she had not the courage to continue or to end. An overwhelming +longing for oblivion was all she felt when she awoke. The hours of her +life that she passed in possession of her faculties, contemplating +herself, examining her conscience, looking on at her own shame, seemed +to her so execrable! She preferred to kill them. There was nothing in +the world but sleep to make her forget everything--the congested sleep +of intoxication, which lulls its victim with the arms of Death. + +In that glass, from which she forced herself to drink, and which she +emptied in a sort of frenzy, her sufferings, her sorrows, all her +horrible present would be drowned and disappear. In a half hour, her +mind would have ceased to think, her life would have ceased to exist; +nothing of her surroundings would have any being for her, there would be +no more time even, so far as she was concerned. "I drink away my +troubles!" she said to a woman who told her that she would wreck her +health by drinking. And as, in the periods of reaction that followed her +debauches, there came to her a more painful feeling of her own shame, a +greater sense of desolation and a fiercer detestation of her mistakes +and her sins, she sought stronger decoctions of alcohol, more fiery +brandy, and even drank pure absinthe, in order to produce a more deathly +lethargy, and to make her more utterly oblivious to everything. + +She ended by attaining in this way whole half days of unconsciousness, +from which she emerged only half awake, with benumbed intelligence, +blunted perceptions, hands that did things by force of habit, the +motions of a somnambulist, a body and a mind in which thought, will, +memory seemed still to retain the drowsiness and vagueness of the +confused waking hours of the morning. + + + + +XXXIV + + +Half an hour after the horrible meeting when--her mind having dabbled in +crime as if with her fingers--she had determined to disfigure her rival +with vitriol and had believed that she had done so, Germinie returned to +Rue de Laval with a bottle of brandy procured at the grocer's. + +For two weeks she had been mistress of the apartment, free to indulge +her brutish appetite. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, who as a general rule +hardly stirred from her chair, had gone, strangely enough, to pass six +weeks with an old friend in the country; and she decided not to take +Germinie with her for fear of setting a bad example to the other +servants, and arousing their jealousy of a maid who was accustomed to +very light duties and was treated on a different footing from +themselves. + +Germinie went into mademoiselle's bedroom and took no more time than was +necessary to throw her shawl and hat on the floor before she began to +drink, with the neck of the bottle between her teeth, pouring down the +liquid hurriedly until everything in the room was whirling around her, +and she remembered nothing of the day. Thereupon, staggering, feeling +that she was about to fall, she tried to throw herself on her mistress's +bed to sleep; but her dizziness threw her against the night table. From +that she fell to the floor and lay without moving; she simply snored. +But the blow was so violent that during the night she had a miscarriage, +followed by one of those hemorrhages in which the life often ebbs away. +She tried to rise and go out on the landing to call; she tried to stand +up: she could not. She felt that she was gliding on to death, entering +its portals and descending with gentle moderation. At last, summoning +all her strength for a final effort, she dragged herself as far as the +hall door; but it was impossible for her to lift her head to the +keyhole, impossible to cry out. And she would have died where she lay +had not Adele, as she was passing in the morning, heard a groan, and, in +her alarm, fetched a locksmith to open the door, and afterward a midwife +to attend to the dying woman. + +When mademoiselle returned a month later, she found Germinie up and +about, but so weak that she was constantly obliged to sit down, and so +pale that she seemed to have no blood left in her body. They told her +that she had had a hemorrhage of which she nearly died: mademoiselle +suspected nothing. + + + + +XXXV + + +Germinie welcomed mademoiselle's return with melting caresses, wet with +tears. Her affectionate manner was like a sick child's; she had the same +clinging gentleness, the imploring expression, the melancholy of timid, +frightened suffering. She sought excuses for touching her mistress with +her white blue-veined hands. She approached her with a sort of trembling +and fervent humility. Very often, as she sat facing her upon a stool, +and looked up at her with eyes like a dog's, she would rise and go and +kiss some part of her dress, then resume her seat, and in a moment begin +again. + +There was heart-rending entreaty in these caresses, these kisses of +Germinie's. Death, whose footsteps she had heard approaching her as if +it were a living person; the hours of utter prostration, when, as she +lay in her bed, alone with herself, she had reviewed her whole past +life; the consciousness of the shame of all she had concealed from +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil; the fear of a judgment of God, rising from +the depths of her former religious ideas; all the reproaches, all the +apprehensions that whisper in the ear of a dying agony had aroused a +horrible dread in her conscience; and remorse,--the remorse that she had +never been able to put down,--was now alive and crying aloud in her +enfeebled, broken body, as yet but partially restored to life, as yet +scarcely firm in the persuasion that it was alive. + +Germinie's was not one of those fortunate natures that do wrong and +leave the memory of it behind them, and never feel a twinge of regret. +She had not, like Adele, one of those vulgar material organizations, +which never allow themselves to be affected by any but animal impulses. +She was not blessed with one of those consciences which escape suffering +by virtue of mere brutishness, or of that dense stupidity in which a +woman vegetates, sinning because she knows no better. In her case, an +unhealthy sensitiveness, a sort of cerebral excitement, a disposition on +the part of the brain to be always on the alert, to work itself into a +frenzy of bitterness, anxiety and discontent with itself, a moral sense +that stood erect, as it were, after every one of her backslidings, all +the characteristics of a sensitive mind, predestined to misfortune, +united to torture her, and to renew day after day, more openly and more +cruelly in her despair, the agony due to acts that would hardly have +caused such long-continued suffering in many women in her station. + +Germinie yielded to the impulse of passion; but as soon as she had +yielded to it she despised herself. Even in the excitement of pleasure +she could not entirely forget and lose herself. The image of +mademoiselle always arose before her, with her stern, motherly face. +Germinie did not become immodest in the same degree that she abandoned +herself to her passions and sank lower and lower in vice. The degrading +depths to which she descended did not fortify her against her disgust +and horror of herself. Habit did not harden her. Her defiled conscience +rejected its defilement, struggled fiercely in its shame, rent itself in +its repentance and did not for one second permit itself the full +enjoyment of vice, was never completely stunned by its fall. + +And so when mademoiselle, forgetting that she was a servant, leaned over +to her with the brusque familiarity of tone and gesture that went +straight to her heart, Germinie, confused and overcome with blushing +timidity, was speechless and seemed bereft of sense under the horrible +torture caused by the consciousness of her own unworthiness. She would +fly from the room, she would invent some pretext to escape from that +affection which she so shamefully betrayed, and which, when it touched +her, stirred her remorse to shuddering activity. + + + + +XXXVI + + +The miraculous part of this disorderly, abandoned life, this life of +shame and misery, was that it did not become known. Germinie allowed no +trace of anything to appear outside; she allowed nothing to rise to her +lips, nothing to be seen in her face, nothing to be noticed in her +manner, and the accursed background of her existence remained hidden +from her mistress. + +It had, indeed, sometimes occurred to mademoiselle in a vague way that +her maid had some secret, something that she was concealing from her, +something that was obscure in her life. She had had moments of doubt, of +suspicion, an instinctive feeling of uneasiness, confused glimpses of +something wrong, a faint scent that eluded her and vanished in the +gloom. She had thought at times that she had stumbled upon sealed, +unresponsive recesses in the girl's heart, upon a mystery, upon some +unlighted passage of her life. Again, at times it had seemed to her that +her maid's eyes did not say what her mouth said. Involuntarily, she had +remembered a phrase that Germinie often repeated: "A sin hidden, a sin +half forgiven." But the thing that filled her thoughts above all else +was amazement that Germinie, despite the increase in her wages and the +little gifts that she gave her almost every day, never purchased +anything for her toilet, had no new dresses or linen. Where did her +money go? She had almost admitted having withdrawn her eighteen hundred +francs from the savings bank. Mademoiselle ruminated over it, then said +to herself that that was the whole of her maid's mystery; it was about +money, she was short of funds, doubtless on account of some obligations +she had entered into long ago for her family, and perhaps she had been +sending more money to "her _canaille_ of a brother-in-law." She was so +kind-hearted and had so little system! She had so little idea of the +value of a hundred-sou piece! That was all there was to it: mademoiselle +was sure of it; and as she knew the girl's obstinate nature and had no +hope of inducing her to change her mind, she said nothing to her. If +this explanation did not fully satisfy mademoiselle, she attributed what +there was strange and mysterious in her maid's behavior to her somewhat +secretive nature, which retained something of the characteristic +distrust of the peasant, who is jealous of her own petty affairs and +takes delight in burying a corner of her life away down in her heart, as +the villager hoards his sous in a woolen stocking. Or else she persuaded +herself that it was her ill health, her state of continual suffering +that was responsible for her whims and her habit of dissimulation. And +her mind, in its interested search for motives, stopped at that point, +with the indolence and a little of the selfishness of old people's +minds, who, having an instinctive dread of final results and of the real +characters of their acquaintances, prefer not to be too inquisitive or +to know too much. Who knows? Perhaps all this mystery was nothing but a +paltry matter, unworthy to disturb or to interest her, some petty +woman's quarrel. She went to sleep thereupon, reassured, and ceased to +cudgel her brains. + +In truth, how could mademoiselle have guessed Germinie's degradation and +the horror of her secret! In her most poignant suffering, in her wildest +intoxication, the unhappy creature retained the incredible strength +necessary to suppress and keep back everything. From her passionate, +overcharged nature, which found relief so naturally in expansion, never +a word escaped or a syllable that cast a ray of light upon her secret. +Mortification, contempt, disappointment, self-sacrifice, the death of +her child, the treachery of her lover, the dying agony of her love, all +remained voiceless within her, as if she stifled their cries by pressing +her hands upon her heart. Her rare attacks of weakness, when she seemed +to be struggling with pains that strangled her, the fierce, feverish +caresses lavished upon Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, the sudden paroxysms, +as if she were trying to give birth to something, always ended without +words and found relief in tears. + +Even illness, with its resulting weakness and enervation, forced nothing +from her. It could make no impression on that heroic resolution to keep +silent to the end. Hysterical attacks extorted shrieks from her and +nothing but shrieks. When she was a girl she dreamed aloud; she forced +her dreams to cease speaking, she closed the lips of her sleep. As +mademoiselle might have discovered from her breath that she had been +drinking, she ate shallots and garlic, and concealed the fumes of liquor +with their offensive odors. She even trained her intoxication, her +drunken torpor to awake at her mistress's footstep, and remain awake in +her presence. + +Thus she led, as it were, two lives. She was like two women, and by dint +of energy, adroitness and feminine diplomacy, with a self-assurance that +never failed her even in the mental confusion caused by drink, she +succeeded in separating those two existences, in living them both +without mingling them, in never allowing the two women that lived in her +to be confounded with each other, in continuing to be, with Mademoiselle +de Varandeuil, the virtuous, respectable girl she had been, in emerging +from her orgies without carrying away the taste of them, in displaying, +when she left her lover, a sort of old-maidish modesty, shocked by the +scandalous courses of other maids. She never uttered a word or bore +herself in a way to arouse a suspicion of her clandestine life; nothing +about her conveyed a hint as to the way her nights were passed. When she +placed her foot upon the door-mat outside Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's +apartments, when she approached her, when she stood before her, she +adopted the tone and the attitude, even to a certain way of holding the +dress, which relieve a woman from so much as a suspicion of having aught +to do with men. She talked freely upon all subjects, as if she had +nothing to blush for. She spoke with bitterness of the misdoings and +shame of others, as if she were herself beyond reproach. She joked with +her mistress about love, in a jovial, unembarrassed, indifferent tone; +to hear her you would have thought she was talking of an old +acquaintance of whom she had lost sight. And in the eyes of all those +who saw her only as Mademoiselle de Varandeuil did and at her home, +there was a certain atmosphere of chastity about her thirty-five years, +the odor of stern, unimpeachable virtue, peculiar to middle-aged +maid-servants and plain women. + +And yet all this falsehood in the matter of appearances was not +hypocrisy in Germinie. It did not arise from downright duplicity, from +corrupt striving for effect: it was her affection for mademoiselle that +made her what she was with her. She was determined at any price to save +her the grief of seeing her as she was, of going to the bottom of her +character. She deceived her solely in order to retain her +affection,--with a sort of respect; and a feeling of veneration, almost +of piety, stole into the ghastly comedy she was playing, like the +feeling a girl has who lies to her mother in order not to rend her +heart. + + + + +XXXVII + + +To lie! nothing was left for her but that. She felt that it was an +impossibility to draw back from her present position. She did not even +entertain the idea of an attempt to escape from it, it seemed such a +hopeless task, she was so cowardly, so crushed and degraded, and she +felt that she was still so firmly bound to that man by all sorts of +vile, degrading chains, even by the contempt that he no longer tried to +conceal from her! + +Sometimes, as she reflected upon her plight, she was dismayed. The +simple ideas and terrors of the peasantry recurred to her mind. And the +superstitions of her youth whispered to her that the man had cast a +spell upon her, that he had perhaps given her enchanted bread to eat. +Otherwise would she have been what she was? Would she have felt, at the +mere sight of him, that thrill of emotion through her whole frame, that +almost brute-like sensation of the approach of a master? Would she have +felt her whole body, her mouth, her arms, her loving and caressing +gestures involuntarily go out to him? Would she have belonged to him so +absolutely? Long and bitterly she dwelt upon all that should have cured +her, rescued her: the man's disdain, his insults, the degrading +concessions he had forced from her; and she was compelled to admit that +there had been nothing too precious for her to sacrifice to him, and +that for him she had swallowed the things she loathed most bitterly. She +tried to imagine the degree of degradation to which her love would +refuse to descend, and she could conceive of none. He could do what he +chose with her, insult her, beat her, and she would remain under his +heel! She could not think of herself as not belonging to him. She could +not think of herself without him. To have that man to love was necessary +to her existence; she derived warmth from him, she lived by him, she +breathed him. There seemed to be no parallel case to hers among the +women of her condition whom she knew. No one of her comrades carried +into a _liaison_ the intensity, the bitterness, the torture, the +enjoyment of suffering that she found in hers. No one of them carried +into it that which was killing her and which she could not dispense +with. + +To herself she appeared an extraordinary creature, of an exceptional +nature, with the temperament of animals whom ill-treatment binds the +closer to their masters. There were days when she did not know herself, +and when she wondered if she were still the same woman. As she went over +in her mind all the base deeds to which Jupillon had induced her to +stoop, she could not believe that it was really she who had submitted to +it. Had she, violent and impulsive as she knew herself to be, boiling +over with fiery passions, rebellious and hotheaded, exhibited such +docility and resignation? She had repressed her wrath, forced back the +murderous thoughts that had crowded to her brain so many times! She had +always obeyed, always possessed her soul in patience, always hung her +head! She had forced her nature, her instincts, her pride, her vanity, +and more than all else, her jealousy, the fierce passions of her heart, +to crawl at that man's feet! For the sake of keeping him she had stooped +to share him, to allow him to have mistresses, to receive him from the +hands of others, to seek a part of his cheek on which his cousin had not +kissed him! And now, after all these sacrifices, with which she had +wearied him, she retained her hold upon him by a still more distasteful +sacrifice: she drew him to her by gifts, she opened her purse to him to +induce him to keep appointments with her, she purchased his good-humor +by gratifying his whims and his caprices; she paid this brute, who +haggled over the price of his kisses and demanded _pourboires_ of love! +And she lived from day to day in constant dread of what the miserable +villain would demand of her on the morrow. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +"He must have twenty francs," Germinie mechanically repeated the +sentence to herself several times, but her thoughts did not go beyond +the words she uttered. The walk and the climb up five flights of stairs +had made her dizzy. She fell in a sitting posture on the greasy couch in +the kitchen, hung her head, and laid her arms on the table. Her ears +were ringing. Her ideas went and came in a disorderly throng, stifling +one another in her brain, and of them all but one remained, more and +more distinct and persistent: "He must have twenty francs! twenty +francs! twenty francs!" And she looked as if she expected to find them +somewhere there, in the fireplace, in the waste-basket, under the stove. +Then she thought of the people who owed her, of a German maid who had +promised to repay her more than a year before. She rose and tied her +capstrings. She no longer said: "He must have twenty francs;" she said: +"I will get them." + +She went down to Adele: "You haven't twenty francs for a note that just +came, have you? Mademoiselle has gone out." + +"Nothing here," said Adele; "I gave madame my last twenty francs last +night to get her supper. The jade hasn't come back yet. Will you have +thirty sous?" + +She ran to the grocer's. It was Sunday, and three o'clock in the +afternoon: the grocer had closed his shop. + +There were a number of people at the fruitwoman's; she asked for four +sous' worth of herbs. + +"I haven't any money," said she. She hoped that the woman would say: "Do +you want some?" Instead of that, she said: "What an idea! as if I was +afraid of you!" There were other maids there, so she went out without +saying anything more. + +"Is there anything for us?" she said to the concierge. "Ah! by the way, +my Pipelet, you don't happen to have twenty francs about you, do you? it +will save my going way up-stairs again." + +"Forty, if you want----" + +She breathed freely. The concierge went to a desk at the back of the +lodge. "_Sapristi!_ my wife has taken the key. Why! how pale you are!" + +"It isn't anything." And she rushed out into the courtyard toward the +door of the servant's staircase. + +This is what she thought as she went up-stairs: "There are people who +find twenty-franc pieces. He needed them to-day, he told me. +Mademoiselle gave me my money not five days ago, and I can't ask her. +After all, what are twenty francs more or less to her? The grocer would +surely have lent them to me. I had another grocer on Rue Taitbout: he +didn't close till evening Sundays." + +She was in front of her own door. She leaned over the rail of the other +staircase, looked to see if anyone was coming up, entered her room, went +straight to mademoiselle's bedchamber, opened the window and breathed +long and hard with her elbows on the window-sill. Sparrows hastened to +her from the neighboring chimneys, thinking that she was going to toss +bread to them. She closed the window and glanced at the top of the +commode--first at a vein of marble, then at a little sandal-wood box, +then at the key--a small steel key left in the lock. Suddenly there was +a ringing in her ears; she thought that the bell rang. She ran and +opened the door: there was no one there. She returned with the certainty +that she was alone, went to the kitchen for a cloth and began to rub a +mahogany armchair, turning her back to the commode; but she could still +see the box, she could see it lying open, she could see the coins at the +right where mademoiselle kept her gold, the papers in which she wrapped +it, a hundred francs in each;--her twenty francs were there! She closed +her eyes as if the light dazzled them. She felt a dizziness in her +conscience; but immediately her whole being rose in revolt against her, +and it seemed to her as if her heart in its indignation rose to her +throat. In an instant the honor of her whole life stood erect between +her hand and that key. Her upright, unselfish, devoted past, twenty +years of resistance to the evil counsels and the corruption of that foul +quarter, twenty years of scorn for theft, twenty years in which her +pocket had not held back a sou from her employers, twenty years of +indifference to gain, twenty years in which temptation had never come +near her, her long maintained and natural virtue, mademoiselle's +confidence in her--all these things came to her mind in a single +instant. Her youthful years clung to her and took possession of her. +From her family, from the memory of her parents, from the unsullied +reputation of her wretched name, from the dead from whom she was +descended, there arose a murmur as of guardian angels hovering about +her. For one second she was saved. + +And then, insensibly, evil thoughts glided one by one into her brain. +She sought for subjects of bitterness, for excuses for ingratitude to +her mistress. She compared with her own wages the wages of which the +other maids in the house boasted vaingloriously. She concluded that +mademoiselle was very fortunate to have her in her service, and that she +should have increased her wages more since she had been with her. + +"And then," she suddenly asked herself, "why does she leave the key in +her box?" And she began to reflect thereupon that the money in the box +was not used for living expenses, but had been laid aside by +mademoiselle to buy a velvet dress for a goddaughter.--"Sleeping +money," she said to herself. She marshaled her reasons with +precipitation, as if to make it impossible to discuss them. "And then, +it's only for once. She would lend them to me if I asked her. And I will +return them." + +She put out her hand and turned the key. She stopped; it seemed to her +that the intense silence round about was listening to her and looking at +her. She raised her eyes: the mirror threw back her face at her. Before +that face, her own, she was afraid; she recoiled in terror and shame as +if before the face of her crime: it was a thief's head that she had upon +her shoulders! + +She fled into the corridor. Suddenly she turned upon her heel, went +straight to the box, turned the key, put in her hand, fumbled under the +hair trinkets and souvenirs, felt in a roll of five louis and took out +one piece, closed the box and rushed into the kitchen. She had the +little coin in her hand and dared not look at it. + + + + +XXXIX + + +Then it was that Germinie's abasement and degradation began to be +visible in her personal appearance, to make her stupid and slovenly. A +sort of drowsiness came over her ideas. She was no longer keen and +prompt of apprehension. What she had read and what she had learned +seemed to escape her. Her memory, which formerly retained everything, +became confused and unreliable. The sharp wit of the Parisian +maid-servant gradually vanished from her conversation, her retorts, her +laughter. Her face, once so animated, was no longer lighted up by gleams +of intelligence. In her whole person you would have said that she had +become once more the stupid peasant girl that she was when she came from +her province, when she went to a stationer's for gingerbread. She seemed +not to understand. As mademoiselle expressed it, she made faces like an +idiot. She was obliged to explain to her, to repeat two or three times +things that Germinie had always grasped on the merest hint. She asked +herself, when she saw how slow and torpid she was, if somebody had not +exchanged her maid for another.--"Why, you're getting to be a perfect +imbecile!" she would sometimes say to her testily. She remembered the +time when Germinie was so useful about finding dates, writing an address +on a card, telling her what day they had put in the wood or broached the +cask of wine,--all of which were things that her old brain could not +remember. Now Germinie remembered nothing. In the evening, when she went +over her accounts with mademoiselle, she could not think what she had +bought in the morning; she would say: "Wait!" but she would simply pass +her hand vaguely across her brow; nothing would come to her mind. +Mademoiselle, to save her tired old eyes, had fallen into the habit of +having Germinie read the newspaper to her; but she got to stumbling so +and reading with so little intelligence, that mademoiselle was compelled +to decline her services with thanks. + +As her faculties failed, she abandoned and neglected her body in a like +degree. She gave no thought to her dress, nor to cleanliness even. In +her indifference she retained nothing of a woman's natural solicitude +touching her personal appearance; she did not dress decently. She wore +dresses spotted with grease and torn under the arms, aprons in rags, +worn stockings in shoes that were out at heel. She allowed the cooking, +the smoke, the coal, the wax, to soil her hands and face and simply +wiped them as she would after dusting. Formerly she had had the one +coquettish and luxurious instinct of poor women, a love for clean linen. +No one in the house had fresher caps than she. Her simple little +collars were always of that snowy whiteness that lights up the skin so +prettily and makes the whole person clean. Now she wore frayed, dirty +caps which looked as if she had slept in them. She went without ruffles, +her collar made a band of filth against the skin of her neck, and you +felt that she was less clean beneath than above. An odor of poverty, +rank and musty, arose from her. Sometimes it was so strong that +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil could not refrain from saying to her: "Go and +change your clothes, my girl--you smell of the poor!" + +In the street she no longer looked as if she belonged to any respectable +person. She had not the appearance of a virtuous woman's maid. She lost +the aspect of a servant who, by dint of displaying her self-esteem and +self-respect even in her garb, reflects in her person the honor and the +pride of her masters. From day to day she sank nearer to the level of +that abject, shameless creature whose dress drags in the gutter--a dirty +slattern. + +As she neglected herself, so she neglected everything about her. She +kept nothing in order, she did no cleaning or washing. She allowed dirt +and disorder to make their way into the apartments, to invade +mademoiselle's own sanctum, with whose neatness mademoiselle was +formerly so well pleased and so proud. The dust collected there, the +spiders spun their webs behind the frames, the mirrors were as if +covered with a veil; the marble mantels, the mahogany furniture, lost +their lustre; moths flew up from the carpets which were never shaken, +worms ensconced themselves where the brush and broom no longer came to +disturb them; neglect spread a film of dust over all the sleeping, +neglected objects that were formerly awakened and enlivened every +morning by the maid's active hand. A dozen times mademoiselle had tried +to spur Germinie's self-esteem to action; but thereupon, for a whole +day, there was such a frantic scrubbing, accompanied by such gusts of +ill-humor, that mademoiselle would take an oath never to try again. One +day, however, she made bold to write Germinie's name with her finger in +the dust on her mirror; Germinie did not forgive her for a week. At last +mademoiselle became resigned. She hardly ventured to remark mildly, when +she saw that her maid was in good humor: "Confess, Germinie, that the +dust is very well treated with us!" + +To the wondering observations of the friends who still came to see her +and whom Germinie was forced to admit, mademoiselle would reply, in a +compassionate, sympathetic tone: "Yes, it is filthy, I know! But what +can you expect? Germinie's sick, and I prefer that she shouldn't kill +herself." Sometimes, when Germinie had gone out, she would venture to +rub a cloth over a commode or touch a frame with the duster, with her +gouty hands. She would do it hurriedly, afraid of being scolded, of +having a scene, if the maid should return and detect her. + +Germinie did almost no work; she barely served mademoiselle's meals. She +had reduced her mistress's breakfast and dinner to the simplest dishes, +those which she could cook most easily and quickly. She made her bed +without raising the mattress, _a l'Anglaise_. The servant that she had +been was not to be recognized in her, did not exist in her, except on +the days when mademoiselle gave a small dinner party, the number of +covers being always considerable on account of the party of children +invited. On those days Germinie emerged, as if by enchantment, from her +indolence and apathy, and, putting forth a sort of feverish strength, +she recovered all her former energy in face of her ovens and the +lengthened table. And mademoiselle was dumfounded to see her, all by +herself, declining assistance and capable of anything, prepare in a few +hours a dinner for half a score of persons, serve it and clear the table +afterwards, with the nimble hands and all the quick dexterity of her +youth. + + + + +XL + + +"No--not this time, no," said Germinie, rising from the foot of +Jupillon's bed where she was sitting. "There's no way. Why, you know +perfectly well that I haven't a sou--anything you can call a sou! You've +seen the stockings I wear, haven't you?" + +She lifted her skirt and showed him her stockings, all full of holes and +tied together with strings. "I haven't a change of anything. Money? Why, +I didn't even have enough to give mademoiselle a few flowers on her +birthday. I bought her a bunch of violets for a sou! Oh! yes, money, +indeed! That last twenty francs--do you know where I got them? I took +them out of mademoiselle's box! I've put them back. But that's done +with. I don't want any more of that kind of thing. It will do for once. +Where do you expect me to get money now, just tell me that, will you? +You can't pawn your skin at the Mont-de-Piete--unless!----But as to +doing anything of that sort again, never in my life! Whatever else you +choose, but no stealing! I won't do it again. Oh! I know very well what +you will do. So much the worse!" + +"Well! have you worked yourself up enough?" said Jupillon. "If you'd +told me that about the twenty francs, do you suppose I'd have taken it? +I didn't suppose you were as hard up as all that. I saw that you went on +as usual. I fancied it wouldn't put you out to lend me a twenty-franc +piece, and I'd have returned it in a week or two with the others. But +you don't say anything? Oh! well, I'm done, I won't ask you for any +more. But that's no reason we should quarrel, as I can see." And he +added, with an indefinable glance at Germinie: "Till Thursday, eh?" + +"Till Thursday!" said Germinie, desperately. She longed to throw herself +into Jupillon's arms, to ask his pardon for her poverty, to say to him: +"You see, I can't do it!" + +She repeated: "Till Thursday!" and took her leave. + +When, on Thursday, she knocked at the door of Jupillon's apartment on +the ground floor, she thought she heard a man's hurried step at the +other end of the room. The door opened; before her stood Jupillon's +cousin with her hair in a net, wearing a red jacket and slippers, and +with the costume and bearing of a woman who is at home in a man's house. +Her belongings were tossed about here and there: Germinie saw them on +the chairs she had paid for. + +"Whom does madame wish to see?" demanded the cousin, impudently. + +"Monsieur Jupillon?" + +"He has gone out." + +"I'll wait for him," said Germinie, and she attempted to enter the other +room. + +"You'll wait at the porter's lodge then;" and the cousin barred the way. + +"When will he return?" + +"When the hens have teeth," said the girl, seriously, and shut the door +in her face. + +"Well! this is just what I expected of him," said Germinie to herself, +as she walked along the street. The pavement seemed to give way beneath +her trembling legs. + + + + +XLI + + +When she returned that evening from a christening dinner, which she had +been unable to avoid attending, mademoiselle heard talking in her room. +She thought that there was someone with Germinie, and, marveling +thereat, she opened the door. In the dim light shed by an untrimmed, +smoking candle she saw nothing at first; but, upon looking more closely, +she discovered her maid lying in a heap at the foot of the bed. + +Germinie was talking in her sleep. She was talking with a strange accent +that caused emotion, almost fear. The vague solemnity of supernatural +things, a breath from regions beyond this life, arose in the room, with +those words of sleep, involuntary, fugitive words, palpitating, +half-spoken, as if a soul without a body were wandering about a dead +man's lips. The voice was slow and deep, and had a far-off sound, with +long pauses of heavy breathing, and words breathed forth like sighs, +with now and then a vibrating, painful note that went to the heart,--a +voice laden with mystery and with the nervous tremor of the darkness, in +which the sleeper seemed to be groping for souvenirs of the past and +passing her hand over faces. "Oh! she loved me dearly," mademoiselle +heard her say. "And if he had not died we should be very happy now, +shouldn't we? No! no! But it's done, worse luck, and I don't want to +tell of it." + +The words were followed by a nervous contraction of her features as if +she sought to seize her secret on the edge of her lips and force it +back. + +Mademoiselle, with something very like terror, leaned over the poor, +forlorn body, powerless to direct its own acts, to which the past +returned as a ghost returns to a deserted house. She listened to the +confessions that were all ready to rush forth but were instinctively +checked, to the unconscious mind that spoke without restraint, to the +voice that did not hear itself. A sensation of horror came over her: she +felt as if she were beside a dead body haunted by a dream. + +After a pause of some duration, and what seemed to be a sort of conflict +between the things that were present in her mind, Germinie apparently +turned her attention to the circumstances of her present life. The words +that escaped her, disjointed, incoherent words, were, as far as +mademoiselle could understand them, addressed to some person by way of +reproach. And as she talked on, her language became as unrecognizable as +her voice, which had taken on the tone and accent of the dreamer. It +rose above the woman, above her ordinary style, above her daily +expressions. It was the language of the people, purified and +transfigured by passion. Germinie accentuated words according to their +orthography; she uttered them with all their eloquence. The sentences +came from her mouth with their proper rhythm, their heart-rending pathos +and their tears, as from the mouth of an admirable actress. There were +bursts of tenderness, interlarded with shrieks; then there were +outbreaks of rebellion, fierce bursts of passion, and the most +extraordinary, biting, implacable irony, always merging into a paroxysm +of nervous laughter that repeated the same result and prolonged it from +echo to echo. Mademoiselle was confounded, stupefied, and listened as at +the theatre. Never had she heard disdain hurled down from so lofty a +height, contempt so tear itself to tatters and gush forth in laughter, a +woman's words express such a fierce thirst for vengeance against a man. +She ransacked her memory: such play of feature, such intonations, such a +dramatic and heart-rending voice as that voice of a consumptive coughing +away her life, she could not remember since the days of Mademoiselle +Rachel. + +At last Germinie awoke abruptly, her eyes filled with the tears of her +dream, and jumped down from the bed, seeing that her mistress had +returned. "Thanks," said mademoiselle, "don't disturb yourself! Wallow +about on my bed all you please!" + +"Oh! mademoiselle," said Germinie, "I wasn't lying where you put your +head. I have made it nice and warm for your feet." + +"Indeed! Suppose you tell me what you've been dreaming? There was a man +in it--you were having a dispute with him----" + +"Dream?" said Germinie, "I don't remember." + +She silently set about undressing her mistress, trying to recall her +dream. When she had put her in bed, she said, drawing near to her: "Ah! +mademoiselle, won't you give me a fortnight, for once, to go home? I +remember now." + + + + +XLII + + +Soon after this, mademoiselle was amazed to notice an entire change in +her maid's manner and habits. Germinie no longer had her sullen, savage +moods, her outbreaks of rebellion, her fits of muttering words +expressive of discontent. She suddenly threw off her indolence and +became once more an energetic worker. She no longer passed hours in +doing her marketing; she seemed to avoid the street. She ceased to go +out in the evening; indeed, she hardly stirred from mademoiselle's side, +hovering about her and watching her from the time she rose in the +morning until she went to bed at night, lavishing continuous, incessant, +almost irritating attentions upon her, never allowing her to rise or +even to put out her hand for anything, waiting upon her and keeping +watch of her as if she were a child. At times mademoiselle was so worn +out with her, so weary of this constant fussing about her person, that +she would open her mouth to say: "Come, come! aren't you almost ready to +clear out!" But Germinie would look up at her with a smile, a smile so +sad and sweet that it checked the impatient exclamation on the old +maid's lips. And so she stayed on with her, going about with a sort of +fascinated, divinely stolid air, in the impassibility of profound +adoration, buried in almost idiotic contemplation. + +At that period all the poor girl's affection turned to mademoiselle. Her +voice, her gestures, her eyes, her silence, her thoughts, went out to +her mistress with the fervor of expiation, with the contrition of a +prayer, the rapt intensity of a cult. She loved her with all the loving +violence of her nature. She loved her with all the deceptive ardor of +her passion. She strove to give her all that she had not given her, all +that others had taken from her. Every day her love clung more closely, +more devoutly, to the old maid, who was conscious of being enveloped, +embraced, agreeably warmed by the heat from those two arms that were +thrown about her old age. + + + + +XLIII + + +But the past and its debts were still there, and whispered to her every +hour: "If mademoiselle knew!" + +She lived in the constant panic of a guilty woman, trembling with dread +from morning till night. There was never a ring at the door that she did +not say to herself: "It has come at last!" Letters in a strange +handwriting filled her with anxiety. She would feel of the wax with her +fingers, bury the letters in her pocket, hesitate about delivering them, +and the moment when mademoiselle unfolded the terrible paper and scanned +its contents with the inexpressive eye of elderly people was as full of +suspense to her as if she were awaiting sentence of death. She felt that +her secret and her falsehood were in everybody's hand. The house had +seen her and might speak. The quarter knew her as she was. Of all about +her, there was no one but her mistress whose esteem she could still +steal. + +As she went in and out, the concierge looked at her with a smile and a +glance, that said: "I know." She no longer dared to call him: "My +Pipelet." When she returned home he looked into her basket. "I am so +fond of that!" his wife would say, when it contained some tempting +morsel. At night she would take down what was left. She ate nothing +herself. She ended by supplying them with food. + +The whole street frightened her no less than the hall and the porter's +lodge. There was a face in every shop that reflected her shame and +commented on her sins. At every step she had to purchase silence by +groveling humility. The dealers she had not been able to repay had her +in their clutches. If she said that anything was too dear, she was +reminded in a bantering way that they were her masters, and that she +must pay the price unless she chose to be denounced. A jest or an +allusion drove the color from her cheeks. She was bound to them, +compelled to trade with them and to allow them to empty her pockets as +if they were accomplices. The successor of Madame Jupillon, who had gone +into the grocery business at Bar-sur Aube,--the new _cremiere_,--gave +her bad milk, and when she suggested that mademoiselle complained about +it, and that she was found fault with every morning, the woman replied: +"Much you care for your mademoiselle!" And at the fish-stall, if she +smelt of a fish, and said: "This has been frozen," the reply would be: +"Bah! tell me next, will you, that I let the moon shine on their gills, +so's to make 'em look fresh! So these are hard days for you, eh, my +duck?" Mademoiselle wanted her to go to the _Halle Centrale_ one day for +her dinner, and she mentioned the fact in the fish-woman's presence. +"Oho! yes, yes, to the _Halle_! I'd like to see you go to the _Halle_!" +And she bestowed a glance upon her in which Germinie saw a threat to +send her account to her mistress. The grocer sold her coffee that smelt +of snuff, rotten prunes, dried rice and old biscuit. If she ventured to +remonstrate, "Nonsense!" he would say; "an old customer like you +wouldn't want to make trouble for me. Don't I tell you I give you good +weight?" And he would coolly give her false weight of the goods that she +ordered, and that he forced her to order. + + + + +XLIV + + +It was a very great trial to Germinie--a trial that she sought, +however--to have to pass through a street where there was a school for +young girls, when she went out before dinner to buy an evening paper for +mademoiselle. She often happened to be at the door when the school was +dismissed; she tried to run away--and stood still. + +At first there would be a sound like that made by a swarm of bees, a +buzzing and humming, one of those great outbursts of childish joy that +wake the echoes in the streets of Paris. From the dark and narrow +passageway leading to the schoolroom the children would rush forth as if +escaping from an open cage, and run about and frolic in the sunlight. +They would push and jostle one another, and toss their empty baskets in +the air. Then some would call to one another and form little groups; +tiny hands would go forth to meet other tiny hands; friends would take +one another by the arm or put their arms around one another's waists or +necks, and walk along nibbling at the same tart. Soon the whole band +would be in motion, walking slowly up the filthy street with loitering +step. The larger ones, ten years old at most, would stop and talk, like +little women, at the _portes cocheres_. Others would stop to drink from +their luncheon bottles. The smaller ones would amuse themselves by +dipping the soles of their shoes in the gutter. And there were some who +made a headdress of a cabbage leaf picked up from the ground,--a green +cap sent by the good God, beneath which the fresh young face smiled +brightly. + +Germinie would gaze at them all and walk along with them; she would go +in among them in order to feel the rustling of their aprons. She could +not take her eyes off the little arms under which the school satchels +leaped about, the little pea-green dresses, the little black leggings, +the little legs in the little woolen stockings. In her eyes there was a +sort of divine light about all those little flaxen heads, with the soft +hair of the child Jesus. A little stray lock upon a little neck, a bit +of baby flesh above a chemise or at the end of a sleeve--at times she +saw nothing but that; it was to her all the sunshine of the street--and +the sky! + +Gradually the troop dwindled away. Each street took some children away +to neighboring streets. The school dispersed along the road. The gaiety +of all the tiny footsteps died away little by little. The little dresses +disappeared one by one. Germinie followed the last, she attached herself +to those who went the farthest. + +On one occasion, as she was walking along thus, devouring with her eyes +the memory of her daughter, she was suddenly seized with a frenzied +longing to embrace something; she rushed at one of the little girls and +grasped her arm just as a kidnapper of children would do. "Mamma! +mamma!" the little one cried, and wept as she pulled her arm away. + +Germinie fled. + + + + +XLV + + +To Germinie all days were alike, equally gloomy and desolate. She had +reached a point at last where she expected nothing from chance and asked +nothing from the unforeseen. Her life seemed to her to be forever +encaged in her despair; it would always be the same implacable thing, +the same straight, monotonous road to misfortune, the same dark path +with death at the end. In all the time to come there was no future for +her. + +And yet, in the depths of despair in which she was crouching, thoughts +passed through her mind at times which made her raise her head and look +before her to a point beyond the present. At times the illusion of a +last hope smiled upon her. It seemed to her that she might even yet be +happy, and that if certain things should come to pass, she would be. +Thereupon she imagined that those things did happen. She arranged +incidents and catastrophes. She linked the impossible to the impossible. +She reconstructed the opportunities of her life. And her fevered hope, +setting about the task of creating events according to her desire on the +horizon of the future, soon became intoxicated with the insane vision of +her suppositions. + +Then the delirious hope would gradually fade away. She would tell +herself that it was impossible, that nothing of what she dreamed of +could happen, and she would sink back in her chair and think. After a +moment or two she would rise and walk, slowly and uncertainly, to the +fireplace, toy with the coffee-pot on the mantelpiece, and at last +decide to take it: she would learn what the rest of her life was to be. +Her good fortune, her ill fortune, everything that was to happen to her +was there, in that fortune-telling device of the woman of the people, on +the plate on which she was about to pour the coffee-grounds. She drained +the water from the grounds, waited a few minutes, breathed upon them +with the religious breath with which her lips, as a child, touched the +paten at the village church. Then she leaned over them, with her head +thrust forward, terrifying in her immobility, with her eyes fixed +intently upon the black dust scattered in patches over the plate. She +sought what she had seen fortune-tellers find in the granulations and +the almost imperceptible traces left by the coffee as it trickled away. +She fatigued her eyes by gazing at the innumerable little spots, and +deciphered shapes and letters and signs therein. She put aside some +grains with her finger in order to see them more clearly and more +sharply defined. She turned the plate slowly in her hands, this way and +that, questioned its mystery on all sides, and hunted down, within its +circular rim, apparitions, images, rudiments of names, shadowy +initials, resemblances to different people, rough outlines of objects, +omens in embryo, symbols of trifles, which told her that she would be +_victorious_. She wanted to see these things and she compelled herself +to discover them. Under her tense gaze the porcelain became alive with +the visions of her insomnia; her disappointments, her hatreds, the faces +she detested, arose gradually from the magic plate and the designs drawn +thereon by chance. By her side the candle, which she forgot to snuff, +gave forth an intermittent, dying light: it sank lower and lower in the +silence, night came on apace, and Germinie, as if turned to stone in her +agony, always remained rooted there, alone and face to face with her +fear of the future, trying to decipher in the dregs of the coffee the +confused features of her destiny, until she thought she could detect a +cross, beside a woman who resembled Jupillon's cousin--a cross, that is +to say, _a speedy death_. + + + + +XLVI + + +The love which she lacked, and which it was her determination to deny +herself, became the torment of her life, incessant, abominable torture. +She had to defend herself against the fevers of her body and the +irritations from without, against the easily aroused emotions and the +indolent cowardice of her flesh, against all the solicitations of nature +by which she was assailed. She had to contend with the heat of the day, +with the suggestions of the darkness, with the moist warmth of stormy +weather, with the breath of her past and her memories, with the pictures +suddenly thrown upon the background of her mind, with the voices that +whispered caressingly in her ear, with the emotions that sent a thrill +of tenderness into her every limb. + +Weeks, months, years, the frightful temptation endured, and she did not +yield or take another lover. Fearful of herself, she avoided man and +fled from his sight. She continued her domestic, unsocial habits, always +closeted with mademoiselle, or else above in her own room. On Sundays +she did not leave the house. She had ceased to consort with the other +maids in the house, and, in order to occupy her time and forget +herself, she plunged into vast undertakings in the way of sewing, or +buried herself in sleep. When musicians came into the courtyard she +closed the windows in order not to hear them: the sensuousness of music +moved her very soul. + +In spite of everything, she could not calm or cool her passions. Her +evil thoughts rekindled themselves, lived and flourished upon +themselves. At every moment the fixed idea of desire arose from her +whole being, became throughout her body the fierce torment that knows no +end, that delirium of the senses, obsession,--the obsession that nothing +can dispel and that constantly returns, the shameless, implacable +obsession, swarming with images, the obsession that brings love close to +the woman's every sense, that touches with it her closed eyes, forces it +smoking into her brain and pours it, hot as fire, into her arteries! + +At length, the nervous exhaustion caused by these constant assaults, the +irritation of this painful continence, began to disturb Germinie's +faculties. She fancied that she could see her temptations: a ghastly +hallucination brought the realization of her dreams near to her senses. +It happened that at certain moments the things she saw in her room, the +candlesticks, the legs of the chairs, everything about her assumed +impure appearances and shapes. Obscenity arose from everything before +her eyes and approached her. At such times she would look at her +kitchen clock, and would say, like a condemned man whose body no longer +belongs to himself: "In five minutes I am going down into the street." +And when the five minutes had passed she would stay where she was. + + + + +XLVII + + +The time came at last in this life of torture when Germinie abandoned +the conflict. Her conscience yielded, her will succumbed, she bowed her +head beneath her destiny. All that remained to her of resolution, +energy, courage, vanished before the feeling, the despairing conviction, +of her powerlessness to save herself from herself. She felt that she was +being borne along on a resistless current, that it was useless, almost +impious, to try to stop. That great power of the world that causes +suffering, the malevolent power that bears the name of a god on the +marble of the antique tragedies, and is called _No Chance_ on the +tattooed brow of the galley-slave--Fatality--was trampling upon her, and +Germinie lowered her head beneath its foot. + +When, in her hours of discouragement, the bitter experiences of her past +recurred to her memory, when she followed, from her infancy, the links +in the chain of her deplorable existence, that long line of afflictions +that had followed her years and grown heavier with them; all the +incidents that had succeeded one another in her life, as if by +preconcerted arrangement on the part of misery, without her having ever +caught a glimpse of the hand of the Providence of which she had heard so +much--she said to herself that she was one of those miserable creatures +who are destined from their birth to an eternity of misery, one of those +for whom happiness was not made, and who know it only because they envy +it in others. She fed and nourished herself on that thought, and by dint +of yielding to the despair it tended to produce, by dint of brooding +over the unbroken chain of her misfortunes and the endless succession of +her disappointments, she reached the point where she looked upon the +most trifling annoyances of her life and her service as a part of the +persecution of her evil genius. A little money that she loaned and that +was not repaid, a counterfeit coin that was put off upon her in a shop, +an errand that she failed to perform satisfactorily, a purchase in which +she was cheated--all these things were in her opinion due neither to her +own fault nor to chance. It was the sequel of what had gone before. Life +was in a conspiracy against her and persecuted her everywhere, in +everything, great and small, from her daughter's death to bad groceries. +There were days when she broke everything she touched; she thereupon +imagined that she was accursed to her finger-tips. Accursed! almost +damned; she persuaded herself that she was so in very truth, when she +questioned her body, when she probed her feelings. Did she not feel, in +the fire in her blood, in the appetite of her organs, in her passionate +weakness, the spur of the Fatality of Love, the mystery and obsession of +a disease, stronger than her modesty and her reason, having already +delivered her over to the shameful excesses of passion, and +destined--she had a presentiment that it was so--to deliver her again in +the same way? + +And so she had one sentence always in her mouth, a sentence that was the +refrain of her thought: "What can you expect? I am unlucky. I have had +no chance. From the beginning nothing ever succeeded with me!" She said +it in the tone of a woman who has abandoned hope. With the persuasion, +every day more firm, that she was born under an unlucky star, that she +was in the power of hatred and vengeance that were more powerful than +she, Germinie had come to be afraid of everything that happens in +ordinary life. She lived in that state of cowardly unrest wherein the +unexpected is dreaded as a possible calamity, wherein a ring at the bell +causes alarm, wherein one turns a letter over and over, weighing the +mystery it contains, not daring to open it, wherein the news you are +about to hear, the mouth that opens to speak to you, cause the +perspiration to start upon your temples. She was in that state of +suspicion, of shuddering fear, of trembling awe in face of destiny, +wherein misfortune sees naught but misfortune, and wherein one would +like to check the current of his life so that it should not go forward +whither all the endeavors and the attacks of others are forcing it. + +At last, by virtue of the tears she shed, she arrived at that supreme +disdain, that climax of suffering, where the excess of pain seems a +satire, where chagrin, exceeding the utmost limits of human strength, +exceeds its sensibility as well, and the stricken heart, which no longer +feels the blows, says to the Heaven it defies: "Go on!" + + + + +XLVIII + + +"Where are you going in that rig?" said Germinie one Sunday morning to +Adele, as she passed in grand array along the corridor on the sixth +floor, in front of her open door. + +"Ah! there you are! I'm going to a swell wedding, my dear! There's a +crowd of us--big Marie, the _great bully_, you know--Elisa, from 41, the +two Badiniers, big and little--and men, too! In the first place, there's +my _dealer in sudden death_. Yes, and--Oh! didn't you know--my new +flame, the master-at-arms of the 24th--and a friend of his, a painter, a +real Father Joy. We're going to Vincennes. Everyone carries something. +We shall dine on the grass--the men will pay for the wine. And there'll +be plenty of it, I promise you!" + +"I'll go, too," said Germinie. + +"You? nonsense! you don't go to parties any more." + +"But I tell you I'll go," said Germinie, in a sharp, decided tone. "Just +give me time to tell mademoiselle and put on a dress. If you'll wait +I'll go and get half a lobster." + +Half an hour later the two women left the house; they skirted the city +wall and found the rest of the party sitting outside a cafe on Boulevard +de la Chopinette. After taking a glass of currant wine, they entered two +large cabs and rode away. When they arrived at the fortress at Vincennes +they alighted and the whole party walked along the bank of the moat. As +they were passing under the wall of the fort, the master-at-arms' +friend, the painter, shouted to an artilleryman, who was doing sentry +duty beside a cannon: "Say! old fellow, you'd rather drink one than +stand guard over it, eh?"[1] + +"Isn't he funny?" said Adele to Germinie, nudging her with her elbow. + +Soon they were fairly in the forest of Vincennes. + +Narrow paths crossed and recrossed in every direction on the hard, +uneven, footprint-covered ground. In the spaces between all these little +roads there was here and there a little grass, but down-trodden, +withered, yellow, dead grass, strewn about like bedding for cattle, its +straw-colored blades were everywhere mingled with briars, amid the dull +green of nettles. It was easily recognizable as one of the rural spots +to which the great faubourgs resort on Sundays to loll about in the +grass, and which resemble a lawn trampled by a crowd after a display of +fireworks. Gnarled, misshapen trees were scattered here and there; dwarf +elms with gray trunks covered with yellow, leprous-like spots and +stripped of branches to a point higher than a man's head; scraggy oaks, +eaten by caterpillars so that their leaves were like lacework. The +verdure was scant and sickly and entirely unshaded, the leaves above had +a very unhealthy look; the stunted, ragged, parched foliage made only +faint green lines against the sky. Clouds of dust from the high-roads +covered the bushes with a gray pall. Everything had the wretched, +impoverished aspect of trampled vegetation that has no chance to +breathe, the melancholy effect of the grass at the barriers! Nature +seemed to sprout from beneath the pavements. No birds sang in the trees, +no insects hummed about the dusty ground; the noise of the spring-carts +stunned the birds; the hand-organ put the rustling of the trees to +silence; the denizens of the street strolled about through the paths, +singing. Women's hats, fastened with four pins to a handkerchief, were +hanging from the trees; the red plume of an artilleryman burst upon one +at every moment through the scanty leaves; dealers in honey rose from +the thickets; on the trampled greensward children in blouses were +cutting twigs, workingmen's families idling their time away nibbling at +_pleasure_, and little urchins catching butterflies in their caps. It +was a forest after the pattern of the original Bois de Boulogne, hot and +dusty, a much-frequented and sadly-abused promenade, one of those spots, +avaricious of shade, to which the common people flock to disport +themselves at the gates of great capitals--burlesque forests, filled +with corks, where you find slices of melon and skeletons in the +underbrush. + +The heat on this day was stifling; the sun was swimming in clouds, +shedding a veiled diffuse light that was almost blinding to the eyes and +that seemed to portend a storm. The air was heavy and dead; nothing +stirred; the leaves and their tiny, meagre shadows did not move; the +forest seemed weary and crushed, as it were, beneath the heavy sky. At +rare intervals a breath of air from the south passed lazily along, +sweeping the ground, one of those enervating, lifeless winds that blow +upon the senses and fan the breath of desire into a flame. With no +knowledge whence it came, Germinie felt over her whole body a sensation +like the tickling of the down on a ripe peach against the skin. + +They went gayly along, with the somewhat excited activity that the +country air imparts to the common people. The men ran, the women tripped +after them and caught them. They played at rolling on the grass. There +was a manifest longing to dance and climb trees; the painter amused +himself by throwing stones at the loop-holes in the gateways of the +fortress, and he never missed his aim. + +At last they all sat down in a sort of clearing under a clump of oaks, +whose shadows were lengthening in the setting sun. The men, lighting +matches on the seats of their trousers, began to smoke. The women +chattered and laughed and threw themselves backward in paroxysms of +inane hilarity and noisy outbursts of delight. Germinie alone did not +speak or laugh. She did not listen or look. Her eyes, beneath their +lowered lids, were fixed upon the toes of her boots. So engrossed in +thought was she that you would have said she was totally oblivious to +time and place. Lying at full length on the grass, her head slightly +raised by a hammock, she made no other movement than to lay her hands, +palm downwards, on the grass beside her; in a short time she would turn +them on their backs and let them lie in that position, seeking the +coolness of the earth to allay the fever of her flesh. + +"There's a lazybones! going to sleep?" said Adele. + +Germinie opened wide her blazing eyes, without answering, and until +dinner maintained the same position, the same silence, the same air of +torpor, feeling about her for places where her burning hands had not +rested. + +"Come, old girl!" said a woman's voice, "sing us something." + +"Oh! no," Adele replied, "I haven't got wind enough before eating." + +Suddenly a great stone came hurtling through the air and struck the +ground near Germinie's head; at the same moment she heard the painter's +voice shouting: "Don't be afraid! that's your chair." + +One and all laid their handkerchiefs on the ground by way of +tablecloth. Eatables were produced from greasy papers. Bottles were +uncorked and the wine went round; the glasses were rested against tufts +of grass, and they fell to upon bits of pork and sausages, with slices +of bread for plates. The painter cut boats out of paper to hold the +salt, and imitated the orders shouted out by waiters in a cafe. "_Boum! +Pavillon! Servez!_" he cried. The company gradually became animated. The +open air, the patches of blue sky, the food and drink started the gayety +of the table in full blast. Hands approached one another, mouths met, +coarse remarks were whispered from one to another, shirt sleeves crept +around waists, and now and then energetic embraces were attended by +greedy, resounding kisses. + +Germinie drank, and said nothing. The painter, who had taken his place +by her side, felt decidedly chilly and embarrassed beside his +extraordinary neighbor, who amused herself "so entirely inside." +Suddenly he began to beat a tattoo with his knife against his glass, +drowning the uproar of the party, and rose to his knees. + +"Mesdames!" said he, with the voice of a paroquet that has sung too +much, "here's the health of a man in hard luck: myself! Perhaps it will +bring me good luck! Deserted, yes, mesdames; yes, I've been deserted! +I'm a widower! you know the kind of widower, _razibus_! I was struck all +of a heap. Not that I cared much for her, but habit, that old villain, +habit! The fact is I'm as bored as a bed-bug in a watch spring. For two +weeks my life has been like a restaurant without a _pousse-cafe_! And +when I love love as if it had made me! No wife! That's what I call +weaning a grown man! that is to say, since I've known what it is, I take +off my hat to the cures: I feel very sorry for them, 'pon my word! No +wife! and there are so many of 'em! But I can't walk about with a sign: +_Vacant man to let. Inquire within._ In the first place it would have to +be stamped by M'sieu le Prefet, and then, people are such fools, it +would draw a crowd! All of which, mesdames, is intended to inform you, +that if, among the people you have the honor of knowing, there should +happen to be one who'd like to make an acquaintance--virtuous +acquaintance--a pretty little left-handed marriage--why she needn't look +any farther! I'm her man--Victor-Mederic Gautruche! a home body, a +genuine house-ivy for sentiment! She has only to apply at my former +hotel, _La Clef de Surete_. And gay as a hunchback who's just drowned +his wife! Gautruche, called Gogo-la-Gaiete, egad! A pretty fellow who +knows what's what, who doesn't beat about the bush, a good old body who +takes things easy and who won't give himself the colic with that fishes' +grog!" With that he took a bottle of water that stood beside him and +hurled it twenty yards away. "Long live the walls! They're the same to +papa that the sky is to the good God! Gogo-la-Gaiete paints them through +the week and beats them on Monday![2] And with all that not jealous, not +ugly, not a wife-beater, but a real love of a man, who never harmed one +of the fair sex in his life! If you want physique, _parbleu_! I'm your +man!" + +He rose to his feet and, drawing up his wavering body, clad in an old +blue coat with gilt buttons, to its full height, removing his gray hat +so as to show his perspiring, polished, bald skull, and tossing his old +plucked _gamin's_ head, he continued: "You see what it is! It isn't a +very attractive piece of property; it doesn't help it to exhibit it. But +it yields well, it's a little dilapidated, but well put together. Dame! +Here I am with my little forty nine-years--no more hair than a billiard +ball, a witchgrass beard that would make good herb-tea, foundations not +too solid, feet as long as La Villette--and with all the rest thin +enough to take a bath in a musket-barrel. There's the bill of lading! +Pass the prospectus along! If any woman wants all that in a lump--any +respectable person--not too young--who won't amuse herself by painting +me too yellow--you understand, I don't ask for a Princess of +Batignolles--why, sure as you're born, I'm her man!" + +Germinie seized Gautruche's glass, half emptied it at a draught and held +out the side from which she had drunk to him. + + * * * * * + +At nightfall the party returned on foot. When they reached the +fortifications, Gautruche drew a large heart with the point of his knife +on the stone, and all the names with the date were carved inside. + +In the evening Gautruche and Germinie were upon the outer boulevards, +near Barriere Rochechouart. Beside a low house with these words, in a +plaster panel: _Madame Merlin_. _Dresses cut and tried on, two francs_, +they stopped at a stone staircase of three steps leading into a dark +passage, at the end of which shone the red light of an Argand lamp. At +the entrance to the passage, these words were printed in black on a +wooden sign: + + _Hotel of the Little Blue Hand._ + + + + +XLIX + + +Mederie Gautruche was one of the wenching, idling, vagabond workmen who +make their whole life a Monday. Filled with the love of wine, his lips +forever wet with the last drop, his insides as thoroughly lined with +tartar as an old wine cask, he was one of those whom the Burgundians +graphically call _boyaux rouges_.[3] Always a little tipsy, tipsy from +yesterday when he had drunk nothing to-day, he looked at life through +the sunbeam in his head. He smiled at his fate, he yielded to it with +the easy indifference of the drunkard, smiling vaguely from the steps of +the wineshop at things in general, at life and the road that stretched +away into the darkness. _Ennui_, care, want, had gained no hold upon +him; and if by chance a grave or gloomy thought did come into his mind, +he turned his head away, uttered an exclamation that sounded like +_psitt_! which was his way of saying _pshaw_! and, raising his right +arm, caricaturing the gesture of a Spanish dancer, he would toss his +melancholy over his shoulder to the devil. He had the superb +after-drinking philosophy, the jovial serenity, of the bottle. He knew +neither envy nor longing. His dreams served him as a cashbox. For three +sous he was sure of a small glass of happiness; for twelve, of a bottle +of ideal bliss. Being content with everything, he liked everything, and +found food for laughter and entertainment in everything. Nothing in the +world seemed sad to him--except a glass of water. + +With this drunkard's expansiveness, with the gayety of his excellent +health and his temperament, Gautruche combined the characteristic gayety +of his profession, the good humor and the warm-heartedness of that free, +unfatiguing life, in the open air, between heaven and earth, which seeks +distraction in singing, and flings the workmen's _blague_ at passers-by, +from its lofty perch upon a ladder. He was a house-painter and did +lettering. He was the one man in Paris who would attack a sign without a +measure, with no other guide than a cord, without outlining the letters +in white; he was the only one who could place each of the letters in +position inside of the frame of a placard, and, without losing an +instant in aligning them, dash off capitals off-hand. He was also +renowned for fantastic letters, capricious letters, letters shaded in +bronze or gold to imitate those cut in stone. Thus he made fifteen to +twenty francs on some days. But as he drank it all up, he was not +wealthy, and he always had unpaid scores on the slate at the wine-shops. + +He was a man brought up in the street. The street had been his mother, +his nurse and his school. The street had given him his self-assurance, +his ready tongue and his wit. All that the keen mind of a man of the +people can pick up upon the pavements of Paris he had picked up. All +that falls from the upper to the lower strata of a great city, the +strainings and drippings, the crumbs of ideas and information, the +things that float in the sensitive atmosphere and the brimming gutters, +the contact with the covers of books, bits of _feuilletons_ swallowed +between two glasses, odds and ends of plays heard on the boulevard, had +endowed him with that accidental intelligence which, though without +education, learns everything. He possessed an inexhaustible, +imperturbable store of talk. His words gushed forth abundantly in +original remarks, laughable images, the metaphors that flow from the +comic genius of crowds. He had the natural picturesqueness of the +unadulterated farce. He was brimming over with amusing stories and +buffoonery, rich in the possession of the richest of all repertories of +house-painter's nonsense. Being a member of divers of the low haunts +called _lists_, he knew all the new tunes and ballads, and he was never +tired of singing. He was amusing, in short, from head to foot. And if +you merely looked at him you laughed at him, as at a comic actor. + +A man of his cheerful, hearty temperament suited Germinie. + +Germinie was not a mere beast of burden with nothing but her work in her +head. She was not the servant, who stands like a post, with the +frightened face and doltish air of utter stupidity, when masters and +mistresses are talking in her presence. She, too, had cast off her +shell, fashioned herself and opened her mind to the education of Paris. +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, having no occupation, and being interested +after the manner of old maids in what was going on in the quarter, had +long been in the habit of making Germinie tell her what news she had +gleaned, what she knew of the tenants, all the gossip of the house and +the street; and this habit of narration, of talking with her mistress +like a sort of companion, of describing people and drawing silhouettes +of them, had eventually developed in her a facility of animated +description, of happy, unconscious characterization, a piquancy and +sometimes an acrimony in her remarks that were most remarkable in the +mouth of a servant. She had progressed so far that she often surprised +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil by her quickness of comprehension, her +promptness at grasping things only half said, her good fortune and +facility in selecting such words as good talkers use. She knew how to +jest. She understood a play upon words. She expressed herself without +_cuirs_,[4] and when there was a discussion concerning orthography at +the creamery, her opinion was listened to with as much deference as that +of the clerk in the registry of deaths at the mayoralty who came there +to breakfast. She had also that background of indiscriminate reading +which women of her class have when they read at all. With the two or +three kept women in whose service she had been, she had passed her +nights devouring novels; since then she had continued to read the +_feuilletons_ cut by her acquaintances from the bottom of newspapers, +and she had gathered from them a vague idea of many things and of some +of the kings of France. She had retained enough of such subjects to make +her desire to talk of them with others. Through a woman in the house who +worked for an author on the street, she often had tickets to the play; +when she came away she could remember the whole play and the names of +the actors she had seen on the programme. She loved to buy ballads and +one sou novels, and read them. + +The air, the keen breath of Quartier Breda, full of the _verve_ of the +artist and the studio, of art and vice, had sharpened these tastes of +Germinie's mind and had created in her new needs and demands. Long +before her disorderly life began, she had cut loose from the virtuous +companionship of decent women of her rank and station, from the worthy +creatures who were so uninteresting and stupid. She had quitted the +circle of orderly, dull uprightness, of sleep-inducing conversations +around the tea-table under the auspices of the old servants of +mademoiselle's elderly acquaintances. She had shunned the wearisome +society of maids whom their absorption in their employment and the +fascination of the savings bank rendered unendurably stupid. She had +reached the point where, before accepting the companionship of people, +she must satisfy herself that they possessed a degree of intelligence +corresponding to her own and were capable of understanding her. And now, +when she emerged from her fits of brutishness, when she found her old +self and was born again, in diversion and pleasure, she must for her +enjoyment have kindred spirits of her own. She wanted men about her who +would make her laugh, noisy gayety, the spirituous wit that intoxicated +her with the wine that was poured into her glass. And thus it was that +she sank to the level of the rascally Bohemia of the common people, +uproarious, maddening, intoxicating, like all Bohemias: thus it was that +she fell to the lot of a Gautruche. + + + + +L + + +As Germinie was returning to the house one morning at daybreak, she +heard, from the shadows of the _porte-cochere_ as it closed behind her, +a voice cry: "Who's that?" She ran to the servants' staircase, but found +that she was pursued, and as she turned a corner on the landing the +concierge seized her. As soon as he recognized her, he said: "Oh! is it +you? excuse me; don't be frightened! What a giddy creature you are! It +surprises you to see me up so early, eh? It's on account of the thieving +that's going on these days in the cook's bedroom on the second. +Good-night to you! it's lucky for you I don't tell all I know." + +A few days later Germinie learned through Adele that the husband of the +cook who had been robbed said that there was no need to look very far; +that the thief was in the house, and that he knew what he knew. Adele +added that it was making a good deal of talk in the street and that +there were plenty of people who would believe it and repeat it. Germinie +became very indignant and told her mistress all about it. Mademoiselle +was even more indignant than she, and, feeling personally outraged by +the insult, wrote instantly to the cook's mistress that she must put a +stop at once to the slanderous statements concerning a girl who had been +in her service twenty years, and for whom she would answer as for +herself. The cook was reprimanded. Her husband in his wrath talked +louder than ever. He made a great outcry and for several days filled the +house with his project of going to the commissioner of police and +calling upon him to question Germinie as to where she procured the money +to start the _cremiere's_ son in business, as to where she procured the +money to purchase a substitute for him, and how she paid the expenses of +the men she kept. For a whole week the terrible threat hung over +Germinie's head. At last the thief was discovered and the threat fell to +the ground. But it had had its effect on the poor girl. It had done all +the injury it could do in that confused brain, where, under the sudden, +overpowering rush of the blood, her reason was wavering and became +overcast at the slightest shock. It had overturned that brain which was +so prompt to go astray in fear or vexation, which lost so quickly the +faculty of good judgment, of discernment, clear-sightedness and +appreciation of its surroundings, which exaggerated its troubles, which +plunged into foolish alarms, previsions of evil, despairing +presentiments, which looked upon its terrors as realities, and was +constantly lost in the pessimism of that species of delirium, at the end +of which it could find nothing but this ejaculation and this phrase: +"Bah! I will kill myself!" + +Throughout the week the fever in her brain caused her to experience all +the effects of the things she thought might happen. By day and night she +saw her shame laid bare and made public; she saw her secret, her +cowardice, her wrong-doing, all that she carried about with her +concealed and sewn in her heart--she saw it all uncovered, noised +abroad, disclosed--disclosed to mademoiselle! Her debts on Jupillon's +account, augmented by her debts for drink and for food for Gautruche, by +all that she purchased now on credit, her debt to the concierge and the +shopkeepers would soon become known and ruin her! A cold shiver ran down +her back at the thought: she could feel mademoiselle turning her away! +Throughout the week she constantly imagined herself standing before the +commissioner of police. Seven long days she brooded over that word and +that idea: the Law! the Law as it appears to the imagination of the +lower classes; something terrible, indefinable, inevitable, which is +everywhere, and lurks in everyone's shadow; an omnipotent source of +calamity which appears vaguely in the judge's black gown, between the +police sergeant and the executioner, with the hands of the gendarme and +the arms of the guillotine! She, who was subject to all the instinctive +terrors of the common people, and who often repeated that she would much +rather die than appear before the court--she imagined herself seated in +the dock, between two gendarmes, in a court-room, surrounded by all the +unfamiliar paraphernalia of the Law, her ignorance of which made them +objects of terror to her. Throughout the week her ears heard footsteps +on the stairs coming to arrest her! + +The shock was too violent for nerves as weak as hers. The mental +upheaval of that week of agony possessed her with an idea that hitherto +had only hovered about her--the idea of suicide. She began to listen, +with her head in her hands, to the voice that spoke to her of +deliverance. She opened her ears to the sweet music of death that we +hear in the background of life like the fall of mighty waters in the +distance, dying away in space. The temptations that speak to the +discouraged heart of the things that put an end to life so quickly and +so easily, of the means of quelling suffering with the hand, pursued and +solicited her. Her glance rested wistfully upon all the things about her +that could cure the disease called life. She accustomed her fingers and +her lips to them. She touched them, handled them, drew them near to her. +She sought to test her courage upon them and to obtain a foretaste of +death. She would remain for hours at her kitchen window with her eyes +fixed on the pavements in the courtyard down at the foot of the five +flights--pavements that she knew and could have distinguished from +others! As the daylight faded she would lean farther out bending almost +double over the ill-secured window-bar, hoping always that it would +give way and drag her down with it--praying that she might die without +having to make the desperate, voluntary leap into space to which she no +longer felt equal. + +"Why, you'll fall out!" said mademoiselle one day, grasping her skirt +impulsively in her alarm. "What are you looking at down there in the +courtyard?" + +"Oh! nothing--the pavements." + +"In Heaven's name, are you crazy? How you frightened me!" + +"Oh! people don't fall that way," said Germinie in a strange tone. "I +tell you, mademoiselle, in order to fall one must have a mighty longing +to do it!" + + + + +LI + + +Germinie had not been able to induce Gautruche, who was haunted by a +former mistress, to give her the key to his room. When he had not +returned she was obliged to await his coming outside, in the cold, dark +street. + +At first she would walk back and forth in front of the house. She would +take twenty steps in one direction and twenty in the other. Then, as if +to prolong her period of waiting, she would take a longer turn, and, +going farther and farther every time, would end by extending her walk to +both ends of the boulevard. Frequently she walked thus for hours, +shamefaced and mud-stained, in the fog and darkness, amid the iniquitous +and horrible surroundings of an avenue near the barriers, where darkness +reigned. She followed the line of red-wine shops, the naked arbors, the +_cabaret_ trellises supported by dead trees such as we see in bear-pits, +low, flat hovels with curtainless windows cut at random in the walls, +cap factories where shirts are sold, and wicked-looking hotels where a +night's lodging may be had. She passed by closed, hermetically-sealed +shops, black with bankruptcy, by fragments of condemned walls, by dark +passageways with iron gratings, by walled-up windows, by doors that +seemed to give admission to those abodes of murder, the plan of which is +handed to the jury at the assizes. As she went on, there were gloomy +little gardens, crooked buildings, architecture in its most degraded +form, tall, mouldy _portes-cocheres_, hedge-rows, within which could be +vaguely seen the uncanny whiteness of stones in the darkness, corners of +unfinished buildings from which arose the stench of nitrification, walls +disfigured by disgusting placards and fragments of torn advertisements +by which they were spotted with loathsome publications as by leprosy. +From time to time, at a sharp turn in the street, she would come upon +lanes that seemed to plunge into dark holes a few steps from their +beginning, and from which a blast of damp air came forth as from a +cellar; dark no-thoroughfares stood out against the sky with the +rigidity of a great wall; streets stretched vaguely away in the +distance, with the feeble gleam of a lantern twinkling here and there at +long intervals upon the ghostly plaster fronts of the houses. + +Germinie would walk on and on. She would cover all the territory where +low debauchery fills its crop on Mondays and finds its loves, between a +hospital, a slaughter-house, and a cemetery; Lariboisiere, the Abattoir +and Montmartre. + +The people who passed that way--the workman returning from Paris +whistling; the workingwoman, her day's work ended, hurrying on with her +hands under her armpits to keep herself warm; the street-walker in her +black cap--would stare at her as they passed. Strange men acted as if +they recognized her; the light made her ashamed. She would turn and run +toward the other end of the boulevard and follow the dark, deserted +footway along the city wall; but she was soon driven away by horrible +shadows of men and by brutally familiar hands. + +She tried to go away; she insulted herself inwardly; she called herself +a cowardly wretch; she swore to herself that each turn should be the +last, that she would go as far as a certain tree, and that was all; if +he had not returned, she would go away and put an end to the whole +thing. But she did not go; she walked on and on; she waited, more +consumed than ever, the longer he delayed, with the mad desire to see +him. + +At last, as the hours flew by and the boulevard became empty, Germinie, +exhausted, overdone with weariness, would approach the houses. She would +loiter from shop to shop, she would go mechanically where gas was still +burning, and stand stupidly in the bright glare from the shop windows. +She welcomed the dazzling light in her eyes, she tried to allay her +impatience by benumbing it. The objects to be seen through the +perspiring windows of the wine-shops--the cooking utensils, the bowls of +punch flanked by two empty bottles with sprigs of laurel protruding from +their necks, the show-cases in which the liquors combined their varied +colors in a single beam, a cup filled with plated spoons--these things +would hold her attention for a long while. She would read the old +announcements of lottery drawings placarded on the walls of a saloon, +the advertisements of _gloria_--coffee with brandy--the inscriptions in +yellow letters: _New wine, pure blood, 70 centimes._ For a whole quarter +of an hour she would stand staring into a back room containing a man in +a blouse sitting on a stool by a table, a stove-pipe, a slate, and two +black tea-boards against the wall. Her fixed, vacant stare would rest, +through the reddish mist, upon the dark forms of shoemakers leaning over +their benches. It fell and lingered heedlessly upon a counter that was +being washed, upon hands that were counting the receipts of the day, +upon a tunnel or jug that was being scoured with sandstone. She had +ceased to think. She would simply stand there, nailed to the spot and +growing weaker and weaker, feeling her courage vanish from the mere +weariness of standing on her feet, seeing things only through a sort of +film as in a swoon, hearing the noise made by the muddy cabs rolling +over the wet pavements only as a buzzing in her ears, ready to fall and +compelled again and again to lean against the wall for support. + +In her then condition of prostration and illness, with that +semi-hallucination of vertigo that made her so timid of crossing the +Seine and impelled her to cling to the bridge railings, it happened +that, on certain evenings, when it rained, these fits of weakness that +she had upon the outer boulevard assumed the terrors of a nightmare. +When the light from the lanterns, trembling in misty vapor, cast its +varying, flickering reflection on the damp ground; when the pavements, +the sidewalks, the earth, seemed to melt away and disappear under the +rain, and there was no appearance of solidity anywhere in the aqueous +darkness, the wretched creature, almost mad with fatigue, would fancy +that she could see a flood rising in the gutter. A mirage of terror +would show her suddenly the water all about her, and creeping constantly +nearer to her. She would close her eyes, not daring to move, fearing to +feel her feet slip from under her; she would begin to weep, and would +weep on until someone passed by and offered to escort her to the _Hotel +of the Little Blue Hand_. + + + + +LII + + +She would then ascend the stairs; that was her last place of refuge. She +would fly from the rain and snow and cold, from fear, despair, and +fatigue. She would go up and sit on the top step against Gautruche's +closed doors; she would draw her shawl and skirts closely about her in +order to leave room for those who went and came up that long steep +ladder, and would draw back as far as possible into the corner in order +that her shame might fill but little space on the narrow landing. + +From the open doors the odor of unventilated closets, of families heaped +together in a single room, the exhalations of unhealthy trades, the +dense, greasy fumes of cooking done in chafing-dishes on the floor, the +stench of rags and the faint damp smell of clothes drying in the house, +came forth and filled the hall. The broken-paned window behind Germinie +wafted to her nostrils the fetid stench of a leaden pipe in which the +whole house emptied its refuse and its filth. Her stomach rose in revolt +every moment at a puff of infection; she was obliged to take from her +pocket a phial of melissa water that she always carried, and swallow a +mouthful of it to avoid being ill. + +But the staircase had its passers, too: honest workmen's wives went up +with a bushel of charcoal, or a pint of wine for supper. Their feet +would rub against her as they passed, and as they went farther up, +Germinie would feel their scornful glances resting upon her and falling +upon her with more crushing force at every floor. The children--little +girls in _fanchons_ who flitted up the dark stairway and brightened it +as if with flowers, little girls in whom she saw, as she so often saw in +dreams, her own little one, living and grown to girlhood--she saw them +stop and look at her with wide open eyes that seemed to recoil from her; +then the little creatures would turn and run breathlessly up-stairs, +and, when they were well out of reach, would lean over the rail until +they almost fell, and hurl impure jests at her, the insults of the +children of the common people. Insulting words, poured out upon her by +those rosebud mouths, wounded Germinie more deeply than all else. She +would half rise for an instant; then, overwhelmed by shame, resigning +herself to her fate, she would fall back into her corner, and, pulling +her shawl over her head in order to bury herself therein out of sight, +she would sit like a dead woman, crushed, inert, insensible, cowering +over her own shadow, like a bundle tossed on the floor which everyone +might tread upon--having no control of her faculties, dead to everything +except the footsteps that she was listening for--and that did not come. + +At last, after long hours, hours that she could not count, she would +fancy that she heard a stumbling walk in the street; then a vinous voice +would mount the stairs, stammering "_Canaille!_ _canaille_ of a +saloon-keeper!--you sold me the kind of wine that goes to my head!" + +It was he. + +And almost every day the same scene was enacted. + +"Ah! there y'are, my Germinie," he would say as his eyes fell upon her. +"It's like this--I'll tell you all about it. I'm a little bit under +water." And, as he put the key in the lock: "I'll tell you all about it. +It isn't my fault." + +He would enter the room, kick aside a turtle-dove with mangy wings that +limped forward to greet him, and close the door. "It wasn't me, d'ye +see. It was Paillon, you know Paillon? that little round fellow, fat as +a mad dog. Well, it was him, 'pon my honor. He insisted on paying for a +sixteen-sous bottle for me. He offered to treat me, and I _proffered_ +him thanks. Thereupon we naturally _consoled_[5] our coffee; when you're +consoled, you console! and as one thing led to another, we fell upon +each other! There was a very devil of a carnage! The proof of it is that +that gallows-bird of a saloon-keeper threw us out-o'-doors like lobster +shells!" + +Germinie, during the explanation, would have lighted the candle, stuck +in a yellow copper candlestick. By its flickering light the dirty paper +on the walls could be seen, covered with caricatures from _Charivari_, +torn from the paper and pasted on the wall. + +"Well, you're a love!" Gautruche would exclaim, as he saw her place a +cold fowl and two bottles of wine on the table. "For I must tell you all +I've had in my stomach to-day--a plate of wretched soup--that's all. Ah! +it must have taken a stout master-at-arms to put that fellow's eyes +out!" + +And he would begin to eat. Germinie would sit with her elbows on the +table, watching him and drinking, and her glance would grow dark. + + * * * * * + +"Pshaw! all the negresses are dead,"[6] Gautruche would say at last, as +he drained the bottles one by one. "Put the children to bed!" + + * * * * * + +Thereupon terrible, fierce, abhorrent outbursts of passion would ensue +between those two strange creatures, savage ardor followed by savage +satiety, frantic storms of lust, caresses that were impregnated with the +fierce brutality of wine, kisses that seemed to seek the blood beneath +the skin, like the tongue of a wild beast, and at the end, utter +exhaustion that swallowed them up and left their bodies like corpses. + +Germinie plunged into these debauches with--what shall I say?--delirium, +madness, desperation, a sort of supreme frenzy. Her ungovernable +passions turned against themselves, and, going beyond their natural +appetites, forced themselves to suffer. Satiety exhausted them without +extinguishing them; and, overpassing the widest limits of excess, they +excited themselves to self-torture. In the poor creature's paroxysms of +excitement, her brain, her nerves, the imagination of her maddened body, +no longer sought pleasure in pleasure, but something sharper, keener, +and more violent: pain in pleasure. And the words "to die" constantly +escaped from her compressed lips, as if she were invoking death in an +undertone and seeking to embrace it in the agonies of love. + +Sometimes, in the night, she would suddenly sit up on the edge of the +bed, rest her bare feet on the cold floor, and remain there, wild-eyed, +listening to the things that breathe in a sleeping-chamber. And little +by little the obscurity of the place and hour seemed to envelop her. She +seemed to herself to fall and writhe helplessly in the blind +unconsciousness of the night. Her will became as naught. All sorts of +black things, that seemed to have wings and voices, beat against her +temples. The ghastly temptations that afford madness a vague glimpse of +crime caused a red light, the flash of murder, to pass before her eyes, +close at hand; and hands placed against her back pushed her toward the +table where the knives lay. She would close her eyes and move one foot; +then fear would lay hold of her and she would cling to the bedclothes; +and at last she would turn around, fall back upon the bed, and go to +sleep beside the man she had been tempted to murder; why? she had no +idea; for nothing--for the sake of killing! + +And so, until daybreak, in that wretched furnished lodging, the fierce +struggle of those fatal passions would continue, while the poor maimed, +limping dove, the infirm bird of Venus, nesting in one of Gautruche's +old shoes, would utter now and then, awakened by the noise, a frightened +coo. + + +[Illustration: Chapter LII + + +_Sometimes, in the night, she would suddenly sit up on the edge of the +bed, rest her bare feet on the cold floor, and remain there, wild-eyed, +listening to the things that breathe in a sleeping-chamber. The ghastly +temptations that afford madness a vague glimpse of crime caused a red +light, the flash of murder, to pass before her eyes, close at hand; and +hands placed against her back pushed her toward the table where the +knives lay._] + + + + +LIII + + +In those days Gautruche became a little disgusted with drinking. He felt +the first pangs of the disease of the liver that had long been lurking +in his heated, alcoholized blood, under his brick-red cheek bones. The +horrible pains that gnawed at his side, and twisted the cords of his +stomach for a whole week, caused him to reflect. There came to his mind, +together with divers resolutions inspired by prudence, certain almost +sentimental ideas of the future. He said to himself that he must put a +little more water into his life, if he wanted to live to old age. While +he lay writhing in bed and tying himself into knots, with his knees up +to his chin to lessen the pain, he looked about at his den, the four +walls within which he passed his nights, to which he brought his drunken +body home in the evening, and from which he fled into the daylight in +the morning; and he thought about making a real home for himself. He +dreamed of a room, where he could keep a wife, a wife who would make him +a good stew, look after him if he were ill, straighten out his affairs, +keep his linen in order, prevent him from beginning a new score at the +wine-shop; a wife, in short, who would combine all the useful qualities +of a housekeeper, and who, in addition, would not be a stupid fool, but +would understand him and laugh with him. Such a wife was all found: +Germinie was the very one. She probably had a little hoard, a few sous +laid by during the time she had been in her old mistress's service; and +with what he earned they could "grub along" in comfort. He had no doubt +of her consent; he was sure beforehand that she would accept his +proposition. More than that, her scruples, if she had any, would not +hold out against the prospect of marriage which he proposed to exhibit +to her at the end of their _liaison_. + +One Monday she had come to his room as usual. + +"Say, Germinie," he began, "what would you say to this, eh? A good +room--not like this box--a real room, with a closet--at Montmartre, and +two windows, no less! Rue de l'Empereur--with a view an Englishman would +give five thousand francs to carry away with him. Something first-class, +bright, and cheerful, you know, a place where you could stay all day +without hating yourself. Because, I tell you I'm beginning to have +enough of moving about here and there just to change fleas. And that +isn't all, either: I'm tired of being cooped up in furnished lodgings, +I'm tired of being all alone. Friends don't make society. They fall on +you like flies in your glass when you're to pay, and then, there you +are! In the first place, I don't propose to drink any more, honor +bright! no more for me, you'll see! You understand I don't intend to use +myself up in this life, not if I know myself. Not by any means! +Attention! We mustn't let drink get the better of us. It seemed to me +those days as if I'd been swallowing corkscrews. And I've no desire to +knock at the monument just yet. Well, to go from the thread to the +needle, this is what I thought: I'll make the proposition to Germinie. +I'll treat myself to a little furniture. You've got what you have in +your room. You know I'm not much of a shirker, I haven't a lazy bone in +my body where work's concerned. And then we might look to not always be +working for others: we might take a lodging-house for country thieves. +If you had a little something put aside, that would help. We would join +forces in genteel fashion, and have ourselves straightened out some day +before the mayor. That's not such a bad scheme, is it, old girl, eh? And +you'll leave your old lady this time, won't you, for your dear old +Gautruche?" + +Germinie, who had listened to him with her head thrust forward and her +chin resting on the palm of her hand, threw herself back with a burst of +strident laughter. + +"Ha! ha! ha! You thought--and you have the face to tell me so!--you +thought I'd leave her! Mademoiselle? Did you really think so? You're a +fool, you know! Why, you might have thousands and hundred thousands, you +might be stuffed with gold, do you hear? all stuffed with it. You're +joking, aren't you? Mademoiselle? Why, don't you know? haven't I ever +told you? I would like to see her die and these hands not be there to +close her eyes! I'd like to see it! Come now, really, did you think so?" + +"Damnation! I imagined, from the way you acted with me, I thought you +cared more for me than that--that you loved me, in fact!" exclaimed the +painter, disconcerted by the terrible, stinging irony of Germinie's +words. + +"Ah! you thought that, too--that I loved you!" And, as if she were +suddenly uprooting from the depths of her heart the remorse and +suffering of her passions, she continued: "Well, yes! I do love you--I +love you as you love me! just as much! and that's all! I love you as one +loves something that is close at hand--that one makes use of because it +is there! I am used to you as one gets used to an old dress and wears it +again and again. That's how I love you! How do you suppose I should care +for you? I'd like you to tell me what difference it can make to me +whether it's you or another? For, after all, what have you been to me +more than any other man would be? In the first place, you took me. Well? +Is that enough to make me love you? What have you done, then, to attach +me to you, will you be kind enough to tell me? Have you ever sacrificed +a glass of wine to me? Have you even so much as taken pity on me when I +was tramping about in the mud and snow at the risk of my life? Oh! yes! +And what did people say to me and spit out in my face so that my blood +boiled from one end of my body to the other! You never troubled your +head about all the insults I've swallowed waiting for you! Look you! +I've been wanting to tell you all this for a long time--it's been +choking me. Tell me," she continued, with a ghastly smile, "do you +flatter yourself you've driven me wild with your physical beauty, with +your hair, which you've lost, with that head of yours? Hardly! I took +you--I'd have taken anyone, it didn't matter who! It was one of the +times when I had to have someone! At those times I don't know anything +or see anything. I'm not myself at all. I took you because it was a hot +day!" + +She paused an instant. + +"Go on," said Gautruche, "iron me on all the seams. Don't mind me as +long as your hand's in." + +"So?" continued Germinie, "how enchanted you imagined I was going to be +to take up with you! You said to yourself: 'The good-natured fool! +she'll be glad of the chance! And all I shall have to do will be to +promise to marry her. She'll throw up her place. She'll leave her +mistress in the lurch.' The idea! Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle, who has no +one but me! Ah! you don't know anything about such things. You wouldn't +understand if I should tell you. Mademoiselle, who is everything to me! +Why, since my mother died, I've had nobody but her, never been treated +kindly by anybody but her! Who beside her ever said to me when I was +unhappy: 'Are you unhappy?' And, when I was sick: 'Don't you feel well?' +No one! There's been no one but her to take care of me, to care what +became of me. God! and you talk of loving on account of what there is +between us! Ah! mademoiselle has loved me! Yes, loved me! And I'm dying +of it, do you know? of having become such a miserable creature as I am, +a----" She said the word. "And of deceiving her, of stealing her +affection, of allowing her still to love me as her daughter! Ah! if she +should ever learn anything--but, no fear of that, it won't be long. +There's one woman who would make a pretty leap out of a fifth-story +window, as true as God is my master! But fancy--you are not my heart, +you are not my life, you are only my pleasure. But I did have a man. Ah! +I don't know whether I loved him! but you could have torn me to pieces +for him without a word from me. In short, he was the man that made me +what I am. Well, d'ye see, when my passion for him was at its hottest, +when I breathed only as he wished me to, when I was mad over him and +would have let him walk on my stomach if he'd wanted to--even then, if +mademoiselle had been sick, if she had motioned to me with her little +finger, I'd have gone back to her. Yes, I would have left him for her! I +tell you I would have left him!" + +"In that case--if that's the way things stand, my dear--if you're so +fond of your old lady as that, I have only one piece of advice to give +you: you'd better not leave your good lady, d'ye see!" + +"That's my dismissal, is it?" said Germinie, rising. + +"Faith! it's very like it." + +"Well! adieu. That suits me!" + +She went straight to the door, and left the room without a word. + + + + +LIV + + +After this rupture Germinie fell where she was sure to fall, below +shame, below nature itself. Lower and lower the unhappy, passionate +creature fell, until she wallowed in the gutter. She took up the lovers +whose passions are exhausted in one night, those whom she passed or met +on the street, those whom chance throws in the way of a wandering woman. +She had no need to give herself time for the growth of desire: her +caprice was fierce and sudden, kindled instantly. Pouncing greedily upon +the first comer, she hardly looked at him and could not have recognized +him. Beauty, youth, the physical qualities of a lover, in which the +passion of the most degraded woman seeks to realize a base ideal, as it +were--none of those things tempted her now or touched her. In all men +her eyes saw nothing but man: the individual mattered naught to her. The +last indication of decency and of human feeling in debauchery,--preference, +selection,--and even that which represents all that prostitutes retain +of conscience and personality,--disgust, even disgust,--she had lost! + +And she wandered about the streets at night, with the furtive, stealthy +gait of wild beasts prowling in the shadow in quest of food. As if +unsexed, she made the advances, she solicited brutes, she took advantage +of drunkenness, and men yielded to her. She walked along, peering on +every side, approaching every shadowy corner where impurity might lurk +under cover of the darkness and solitude, where hands were waiting to +swoop down upon a shawl. Belated pedestrians saw her by the light of the +street lanterns, an ill-omened, shuddering phantom, gliding along, +almost crawling, bent double, slinking by in the shadow, with that +appearance of illness and insanity and of utter aberration which sets +the thoughtful man's heart and the physician's mind at work on the brink +of deep abysses of melancholy. + + + + +LV + + +One evening when she was prowling about Rue du Rocher, as she passed a +wine-shop at the corner of Rue de Labarde, she noticed the back of a man +who was drinking at the bar: it was Jupillon. + +She stopped short, turned toward the street with her back against the +door of the wine-shop, and waited. The light in the shop was behind her, +her shoulders against the bars, and there she stood motionless, her +skirt gathered up in one hand in front, and her other hand falling +listlessly at her side. She resembled a statue of darkness seated on a +milestone. In her attitude there was an air of stern determination and +the necessary patience to wait there forever. The passers-by, the +carriages, the street--she saw them all indistinctly and as if they were +far away. The tow-horse, waiting to assist in drawing the omnibuses up +the hill,--a white horse, he was,--stood in front of her, worn out and +motionless, sleeping on his feet, with his head and forefeet in the +bright light from the door: she did not see him. There was a dense fog. +It was one of those vile, detestable Parisian nights when it seems as if +the water that falls had become mud before falling. The gutter rose and +flowed about her feet. She remained thus half an hour without moving, +with her back to the light and her face in the shadow, a threatening, +desperate, forbidding creature, like a statue of Fatality erected by +Darkness at a wine-shop door! + +At last Jupillon came out. She stood before him with folded arms. + +"My money?" she said. Her face was that of a woman who has ceased to +possess a conscience, for whom there is no God, no police, no assizes, +no scaffold--nothing! + +Jupillon felt that his customary _blague_ was arrested in his throat. + +"Your money?" he repeated; "your money ain't lost. But I must have time. +Just now, you see, work ain't very plenty. That shop business of mine +came to grief a long while ago, you know. But in three months' time, I +promise. Are you pretty well?" + +"_Canaille!_ Ah! I've got you now! Ah! you'd sneak away, would you? But +it was you, my curse! it was you who made me what I am, brigand! robber! +sneak! It was you." + +Germinie hurled these words in his face, pushing against him, forcing +him back, pressing her body against his. She seemed to be rubbing +against the blows that she invited and provoked, and as she leaned +toward him thus, she cried: "Come, strike me! What, then, must I say to +you to make you strike me?" + +She had ceased to think. She did not know what she wanted; she simply +felt that she needed to be struck. There had come upon her an +instinctive, irrational desire to be maltreated, bruised, made to suffer +in her flesh, to experience a violent shock, a sharp pain that would put +a stop to what was going on in her brain. She could think of nothing but +blows to bring matters to a crisis. After the blows, she saw, with the +lucidity of an hallucination, all sorts of things come to pass,--the +guard arriving, the gendarmes from the post, the commissioner! the +commissioner to whom she could tell everything, her story, her +misfortunes, how the man before her had abused her and what he had cost +her! Her heart collapsed in anticipation at the thought of emptying +itself, with shrieks and tears, of everything with which it was +bursting. + +"Come, strike me!" she repeated, still advancing upon Jupillon, who +tried to slink away, and, as he retreated, tossed caressing words to her +as you do to a dog that does not recognize you and seems inclined to +bite. A crowd was beginning to collect about them. + +"Come, old harridan, don't bother monsieur!" exclaimed a police officer, +grasping Germinie by the arm and swinging her around roughly. Under that +brutal insult from the hand of the law, Germinie's knees wavered: she +thought she should faint. Then she was afraid, and fled in the middle of +the street. + + + + +LVI + + +Passion is subject to the most insensate reactions, the most +inexplicable revivals. The accursed love that Germinie believed to have +been killed by all the wounds and blows Jupillon had inflicted upon it +came to life once more. She was dismayed to find it in her heart when +she returned home. The mere sight of the man, his proximity for those +few moments, the sound of his voice, the act of breathing the air that +he breathed, were enough to turn her heart back to him and relegate her +to the past. + +Notwithstanding all that had happened, she had never been able to tear +Jupillon's image altogether from her heart: its roots were still +imbedded there. He was her first love. She belonged to him against her +own will by all the weaknesses of memory, by all the cowardice of habit. +Between them there were all the bonds of torture that hold a woman fast +forever,--sacrifice, suffering, degradation. He owned her, body and +soul, because he had outraged her conscience, trampled upon her +illusions, made her life a martyrdom. She belonged to him, belonged to +him forever, as to the author of all her sorrows. + +And that shock, that scene which should have caused her to think with +horror of ever meeting him again, rekindled in her the frenzied desire +to meet him again. Her passion seized her again in its full force. The +thought of Jupillon filled her mind so completely that it purified her. +She abruptly called a halt in the vagabondage of her passions: she +determined to belong thenceforth to no one, as that was the only method +by which she could still belong to him. + +She began to spy upon him, to make a study of his usual hours for going +out, the streets he passed through, the places that he visited. She +followed him to Batignolles, to his new quarters, walked behind him, +content to put her foot where he had put his, to be guided by his steps, +to see him now and then, to notice a gesture that he made, to snatch one +of his glances. That was all: she dared not speak to him; she kept at +some distance behind, like a lost dog, happy not to be driven away with +kicks. + +For weeks and weeks she made herself thus the man's shadow, a humble, +timid shadow that shrank back and moved away a few steps when it thought +it was in danger of being seen; then drew nearer again with faltering +steps, and, at an impatient movement from the man, stopped once more, as +if asking pardon. + +Sometimes she waited at the door of a house which he entered, caught him +up again when he came out and escorted him home, always at a distance, +without speaking to him, with the air of a beggar begging for crumbs +and thankful for what she was allowed to pick up. Then she would listen +at the shutters of the ground-floor apartment in which he lived, to +ascertain if he was alone, if there was anybody there. + +When he had a woman on his arm, although she suffered keenly, she was +the more persistent in following him. She went where they went to the +end. She entered the public gardens and ballrooms behind them. She +walked within sound of their laughter and their words, tore her heart to +tatters looking at them and listening to them, and stood at their backs +with every jealous instinct of her nature bleeding. + + + + +LVII + + +It was November. For three or four days Germinie had not fallen in with +Jupillon. She went to hover about his lodgings, watching for him. When +she reached the street on which he lived, she saw a broad beam of light +struggling out through the closed shutters. She approached and heard +bursts of laughter, the clinking of glasses, women's voices, then a song +and one voice, that of the woman whom she hated with all the hatred +of her heart, whom she would have liked to see lying dead before +her, and whose death she had so often sought to discover in the +coffee-grounds,--the cousin! + +She glued her ear to the shutter, breathing in what they said, absorbed +in the torture of listening to them, pasturing her famished heart upon +suffering. It was a cold, rainy winter's night. She did not feel the +cold or rain. All her senses were engaged in listening. The voice she +detested seemed at times to grow faint and die away beneath kisses, and +the notes it sang died in her throat as if stifled by lips placed upon +the song. The hours passed. Germinie was still at her post. She did not +think of going away. She waited, with no knowledge of what she was +waiting for. It seemed to her that she must remain there always, until +the end. The rain fell faster. The water from a broken gutter overhead +beat down upon her shoulders. Great drops glided down her neck. An icy +shiver ran up and down her back. The water dripped from her dress to the +ground. She did not notice it. She was conscious of no pain in any of +her limbs except the pain that flowed from her heart. + +Well on toward morning there was a movement in the house, and footsteps +approached the door. Germinie ran and hid in a recess in the wall some +steps away, and from there saw a woman come out, escorted by a young +man. As she watched them walk away, she felt something soft and warm on +her hands that frightened her at first; it was a dog licking her, a +great dog that she had held in her lap many an evening, when he was a +puppy, in the _cremiere's_ back shop. + +"Come here, Molosse!" Jupillon shouted impatiently twice or thrice in +the darkness. + +The dog barked, ran back, returned and gamboled about her, and at last +entered the house. The door closed. The voices and singing lured +Germinie back to her former position against the shutter, and there she +remained, drenched by the rain, allowing herself to be drenched, as she +listened and listened, till morning, till daybreak, till the hour when +the masons on their way to work, with their dinner loaf under their +arms, began to laugh at her as they passed. + + + + +LVIII + + +Two or three days after that night in the rain, Germinie's features were +distorted with pain, her skin was like marble and her eyes blazing. She +said nothing, made no complaints, but went about her work as usual. + +"Here! girl, look at me a moment," said mademoiselle, and she led her +abruptly to the window. "What does all this mean? this look of a dead +woman risen from the grave? Come, tell me honestly, are you sick? My +God! how hot your hands are!" + +She grasped her wrist, and in a moment threw it down. + +"What a silly slut! you're in a burning fever! And you keep it to +yourself!" + +"Why no, mademoiselle," Germinie stammered. "I think it's nothing but a +bad cold. I went to sleep the other evening with my kitchen window +open." + +"Oh! you're a good one!" retorted mademoiselle; "you might be dying and +you'd never as much as say: 'Ouf!' Wait." + +She put on her spectacles, and hastily moving her arm-chair to a small +table by the fireplace, she wrote a few lines in her bold hand. + +"Here," said she, folding the note, "you will do me the favor to give +this to your friend Adele and have her send the concierge with it. And +now to bed you go!" + +But Germinie refused to go to bed. It was not worth while. She would not +tire herself. She would sit down all day. Besides, the worst of her +sickness was over; she was getting better already. And then it always +killed her to stay in bed. + +The doctor, summoned by mademoiselle's note, came in the evening. He +examined Germinie, and ordered the application of croton oil. The +trouble in the chest was of such a nature that he could say nothing +about it until he had observed the effect of his remedies. + +He returned a few days later, sent Germinie to bed and sounded her chest +for a long while. + +"It's a most extraordinary thing," he said to mademoiselle, when he went +downstairs; "she has had pleurisy upon her and hasn't kept her bed for a +moment! Is she made of iron, in Heaven's name? Oh! the energy of some +women! How old is she?" + +"Forty-one." + +"Forty-one! Oh! it's not possible. Are you sure? She looks fully fifty." + +"Ah! as to that, she looks as old as you please. What can you expect? +Never in good health,--always sick, disappointment, sorrow,--and a +disposition that can't help tormenting itself." + +"Forty-one years old! it's amazing!" the physician repeated. + +After a moment's reflection, he continued: + +"So far as you know, is there any hereditary lung trouble in her family? +Has she had any relatives who have died young?" + +"She lost a sister by pleurisy; but she was older. She was forty-eight, +I think." + +The doctor had become very grave. "However, the lung is getting freer," +he said, in an encouraging tone. "But it is absolutely necessary that +she should have rest. And send her to me once a week. Let her come and +see me. And let her take a pleasant day for it,--a bright, sunny day." + + + + +LIX + + +Mademoiselle talked and prayed and implored and scolded to no purpose: +she could not induce Germinie to lay aside her work for a few days. +Germinie would not even listen to the suggestion that she should have an +assistant to do the heavier work. She declared that it was useless, +impossible; that she could never endure the thought of another woman +approaching her, waiting upon her, attending to her wants; that it would +give her a fever simply to think of such a thing as she lay in bed; that +she was not dead yet; and she begged that she might be allowed to go on +as usual, so long as she could put one foot before the other. She said +it in such an affectionate tone, her eyes were so beseeching, her feeble +voice was so humble and so passionate in making the request, that +mademoiselle had not the courage to force her to accept an assistant. +She simply called her a "blockhead," who believed, like all +country-people, that a few days in bed means death. + +Keeping on her feet, with an apparent improvement due to the physician's +energetic treatment, Germinie continued to make mademoiselle's bed, +accepting her assistance to turn the mattresses. She also continued to +prepare her food, and that was an especially distasteful task to her. + +When she was preparing mademoiselle's breakfast and dinner, she felt as +if she should die in her kitchen, one of the wretched little kitchens +common in great cities, which are the cause of so much pulmonary trouble +in women. The embers that she kindled, and from which a thread of +suffocating smoke slowly arose, began to stir her stomach to revolt; +soon the charcoal that she bought from the charcoal dealer next door, +strong Paris charcoal, full of half-charred wood, enveloped her in its +stifling odor. The dirty, smoking funnel, the low chimney-piece poured +back into her lungs the corroding heat of the waist-high oven. She +suffocated, she felt the fiery heat of all her blood surge upward to her +face and cause red blotches to appear on her forehead. Her head whirled. +In the half-asphyxiated condition of laundresses who pass back and forth +through the vapor of their charcoal stoves, she would rush to the window +and draw a few breaths of the icy outside air. + +She had other motives for suffering on her feet, for keeping constantly +about her work despite her increasing weakness, than the repugnance of +country-people to take to their beds, or her fierce, jealous +determination that no one but herself should attend to mademoiselle's +needs: she had a constant terror of denunciation, which might accompany +the installation of a new servant. It was absolutely necessary that she +should be there, to keep watch on mademoiselle and prevent anyone from +coming near her. It was necessary, too, that she should show herself, +that the quarter should see her, and that she should not appear to her +creditors with the aspect of a dead woman. She must make a pretence of +being strong, she must assume a cheerful, lively demeanor, she must +impart confidence to the whole street with the doctor's studied words, +with a hopeful air, and with the promise not to die. She must appear at +her best in order to reassure her debtors and to prevent apprehensions +on the subject of money from ascending the stairs and applying to +mademoiselle. + +She acted up to her part in this horrible, but necessary, comedy. She +was absolutely heroic in the way she made her whole body lie,--in +drawing up her enfeebled form to its full height as she passed the +shops, whose proprietors' eyes were upon her; in quickening her trailing +footsteps; in rubbing her cheeks with a rough towel before going out in +order to bring back the color of blood to them; in covering the pallor +of her disease and her death-mask with rouge. + +Despite the terrible cough that racked her sleepless nights, despite her +stomach's loathing for food, she passed the whole winter conquering and +overcoming her own weakness and struggling with the ups and downs of her +disease. + +At every visit that he made, the doctor told mademoiselle that he was +unable to find that any of her maid's vital organs were seriously +diseased. The lungs were a little ulcerated near the top; but people +recovered from that. "But her body seems worn out, thoroughly worn out," +he said again and again, in a sad tone, with an almost embarrassed +manner that impressed mademoiselle. And he always had something to say, +at the end of his visit, about a change of air--about the country. + + + + +LX + + +When August arrived, the doctor had nothing but that to advise or +prescribe--the country. Notwithstanding the repugnance of elderly people +to move, to change their abode and the habits and regular hours of their +life; despite her domestic nature and the sort of pang that she felt at +being torn from her hearthstone, mademoiselle decided to take Germinie +into the country. She wrote to the _chick's_ daughter, who lived, with a +brood of children, on a small estate in a village of Brie, and who had +been, for many years, begging her to pay her a long visit. She requested +her hospitality for a month or six weeks for herself and her sick maid. + +They set out. Germinie was delighted. On their arrival she felt +decidedly better. For some days her disease seemed to be diverted by the +change. But the weather that summer was very uncertain, with much rain, +sudden changes, and high winds. Germinie had a chill, and mademoiselle +soon heard again, overhead, just above the room in which she slept, the +frightful cough that had been so painful and hard to bear at Paris. +There were hurried paroxysms of coughing that seemed almost to strangle +her; spasms that would break off for a moment, then begin again; and the +pauses caused the ear and the heart to experience a nervous, anxious +anticipation of what was certain to come next, and always did +come,--racking and tearing, dying away again, but still vibrating in the +ear, even when it had ceased: never silent, never willing to have done. + +And yet Germinie rose from those horrible nights with an energy and +activity that amazed mademoiselle and at times reassured her. She was +out of bed as early as anybody in the house. One morning, at five +o'clock, she went with the man-servant in a _char-a-banc_ to a mill-pond +three leagues away, for fish; at another time she dragged herself to the +saint's day ball, with the maids from the house, and did not return +until they did, at daybreak. She worked all the time; assisted the +servants. She was always sitting on the edge of a chair, in a corner of +the kitchen, doing something with her fingers. Mademoiselle was obliged +to force her to go out, to drive her into the garden to sit. Then +Germinie would sit on the green bench, with her umbrella over her head, +and the sun in her skirts and on her feet. Hardly moving, she would +forget herself utterly as she inhaled the light and air and warmth, +passionately and with a sort of feverish joy. Her distended lips would +part to admit the fresh, clear air. Her eyes burned, but did not move; +and in the light shadow of the silk umbrella her gaunt, wasted, haggard +face stared vacantly into space like an amorous death's head. + +Weary as she was at night, no persuasion could induce her to retire +before her mistress. She insisted upon being at hand to undress her. +Seated by her side, she would rise from time to time to wait upon her as +best she could, assist her to take off a petticoat, then sit down again, +collect her strength for a moment, rise again, and insist upon doing +something for her. Mademoiselle had to force her to sit down and order +her to keep quiet. And all the time that the evening toilet lasted she +had always upon her lips the same tiresome chatter about the servants of +the house. + +"Why, mademoiselle, you haven't an idea of the eyes they make at each +other when they think no one sees them--the cook and the man--I mean. +They keep quiet when I am by; but the other day I surprised them in the +bakery. They were kissing, fancy! Luckily madame here don't suspect it." + +"Ah! there you are again with your tale-bearing! Why, good God!" +mademoiselle would exclaim, "what difference does it make to you whether +they _coo_ or don't _coo_? They're kind to you, aren't they? That's all +that's necessary." + +"Oh! very kind, mademoiselle; as far as that's concerned I haven't a +word to say. Marie got up in the night last night to give me some +water--and as for him, when there's any dessert left, it's always for +me. Oh! he's very polite to me--in fact, Marie don't like it very well +that he thinks so much about me. You understand, mademoiselle----" + +"Come, come! go to bed with all your nonsense!" said her mistress +sharply, sad, and annoyed as well, to find such a keen interest in +others' love-affairs in one so ill. + + + + +LXI + + +When they returned from the country, the doctor, after examining +Germinie, said to Mademoiselle: "It has been very rapid, very rapid. The +left lung is entirely gone. The right has begun to be affected at the +top, and I fear that there is more or less difficulty all through it. +She's a dead woman. She may live six weeks, two months at most." + +"Great Heaven!" said Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, "everyone I have ever +loved will go before me! Tell me, must I wait until everybody has gone?" + +"Have you thought of placing her in some institution?" said the doctor, +after a moment's silence. "You can't keep her here. It's too great a +burden, too great a grief for you to have her with you," he added, at a +gesture from mademoiselle. + +"No, monsieur, no, I haven't thought of it. Oh! yes, I am likely to send +her away. Why you must have seen, monsieur: that girl isn't a maid, she +isn't a servant in my eyes; she's like the family I never had! What +would you have me say to her: 'Be off with you now!' Ah! I never +suffered so much before on account of not being rich and having a +wretched four-sou apartment like this. I, mention such a thing to her! +why, it's impossible! And where could she go? To the Maison Dubois? Oh! +yes, to the Dubois! She went there once to see the maid I had before, +who died there. You might as well kill her! The hospital, then? No, not +there; I don't choose to have her die in that place!" + +"Good God, mademoiselle, she'll be a hundred times better off there than +here. I would get her admitted at Lariboisiere, during the term of +service of a doctor who is a friend of mine. I would recommend her to an +intern, who is under great obligations to me. She would have a very +excellent Sister to nurse her in the hall to which I would have her +sent. If necessary, she could have a private room. But I am sure she +would prefer to be in a common room. It's the essential thing to do, you +see, mademoiselle. She can't stay in that chamber up there. You know +what these horrible servants' quarters are. Indeed, it's my opinion that +the health authorities ought to compel the landlords to show common +humanity in that direction; it's an outrage! The cold weather is coming; +there's no fireplace; with the window and the roof it will be like an +ice-house. You see she still keeps about. She has a marvelous stock of +courage, prodigious nervous vitality. But, in spite of everything, the +bed will claim her in a few days,--she won't get up again. Come, listen +to reason, mademoiselle. Let me speak to her, will you?" + +"No, not yet. I must get used to the idea. And then, when I see her +around me I imagine she isn't going to die so quickly as all that. +There's time enough. Later, we'll see about it,--yes, later." + +"Excuse me, mademoiselle, if I venture to say to you that you are quite +capable of making yourself sick nursing her." + +"I? Oh! as for me!" And Mademoiselle de Varandeuil made a gesture +indicating that her life was of no consequence. + + + + +LXII + + +Amid Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's desperate anxiety concerning her +maid's health, she became conscious of a strange feeling, a sort of fear +in the presence of the new, unfamiliar, mysterious creature that +sickness had made of Germinie. Mademoiselle had a sense of discomfort +beside that hollow, ghostly face, which was almost unrecognizable in its +implacable rigidity, and which seemed to return to itself, to recover +consciousness, only furtively, by fits and starts, in the effort to +produce a pallid smile. The old woman had seen many people die; her +memories of many painful years recalled the expressions of many dear, +doomed faces, of many faces that were sad and desolate and +grief-stricken in death; but no face of all those she remembered had +ever assumed, as the end drew near, that distressing expression of a +face retiring within itself and closing the doors. + +Enveloped in her suffering, Germinie maintained her savage, rigid, +self-contained, impenetrable demeanor. She was as immovable as bronze. +Mademoiselle, as she looked at her, asked herself what it could be that +she brooded over thus without moving; whether it was her life rising in +revolt, the dread of death, or a secret remorse for something in her +past. Nothing external seemed to affect the sick woman. She was no +longer conscious of things about her. Her body became indifferent to +everything, did not ask to be relieved, seemed not to desire to be +cured. She complained of nothing, found no pleasure or diversion in +anything. Even her longing for affection had left her. She no longer +made any motion to bestow or invite a caress, and every day something +human left her body, which seemed to be turning to stone. Often she +would bury herself in profound silence that made one expect a +heart-rending shriek or word; but after glancing about the room, she +would say nothing and begin again to stare fixedly, vacantly, at the +same spot in space. + +When mademoiselle returned from the friend's house with whom she dined, +she would find Germinie in the dark, sunk in an easy-chair with her legs +stretched out upon a chair, her head hanging forward on her breast, and +so profoundly absorbed that sometimes she did not hear the door open. As +she walked forward into the room it seemed to Mademoiselle de Varandeuil +as if she were breaking in upon a ghastly _tete-a-tete_ between Disease +and the Shadow of Death, wherein Germinie was already seeking, in the +terror of the Invisible, the blindness of the grave and the darkness of +death. + + + + +LXIII + + +Throughout the month of October, Germinie obstinately refused to take to +her bed. Each day, however, she was weaker and more helpless than the +day before. She was hardly able to ascend the flight of stairs that led +to her sixth floor, dragging herself along by the railing. One day she +fell on the stairs: the other servants picked her up and carried her to +her chamber. But that did not stop her; the next day she went downstairs +again, with the fitful gleam of strength that invalids commonly have in +the morning. She prepared mademoiselle's breakfast, made a pretence of +working, and kept moving about the apartment, clinging to the chairs and +dragging herself along. Mademoiselle took pity on her; she forced her to +lie down on her own bed. Germinie lay there half an hour, an hour, wide +awake, not speaking, but with her eyes open, fixed, and staring into +vacancy like the eyes of a person in severe pain. + +One morning she did not come down. Mademoiselle climbed to the sixth +floor, turned into a narrow corridor in which the air was heavy with the +odors from servants' water-closets and at last reached Germinie's door, +No. 21. Germinie apologized for having compelled her to come up. It was +impossible for her to put her feet out of the bed. She had terrible +pains in her bowels and they were badly swollen. She begged mademoiselle +to sit down a moment and, to make room for her, removed the candlestick +that stood on the chair at the head of her bed. + +Mademoiselle sat down and remained a few moments, looking about the +wretched room,--one of those where the doctor has to lay his hat on the +bed, and where there is barely room to die! It was a small attic room, +without a chimney, with a scuttle window in the sloping roof, which +admitted the heat of summer and the cold of winter. Old trunks, clothes +bags, a foot-bath, and the little iron bedstead on which Germinie's +niece had slept, were heaped up in a corner under the sloping roof. The +bed, one chair, a little disabled washstand with a broken pitcher, +comprised the whole of the furniture. Above the bed, in an imitation +violet-wood frame, hung a daguerreotype of a man. + +The doctor came during the day. "Aha! peritonitis," he said, when +mademoiselle described Germinie's condition. + +He went up to see the sick woman. "I am afraid," he said, when he came +down, "that there's an abscess in the intestine communicating with an +abscess in the bladder. It's a serious case, very serious. You must tell +her not to move about much in her bed, to turn over with great care. +She might die suddenly in horrible agony. I suggested to her to go to +Lariboisiere,--she agreed at once. She seemed to have no repugnance at +all. But I don't know how she will bear the journey. However, she has +such an unlimited stock of energy; I have never seen anything like it. +To-morrow morning you shall have the order of admission." + +When mademoiselle went up to Germinie's room again, she found her +smiling in her bed, gay as a lark at the idea of going away. + +"It's a matter of six weeks at most, mademoiselle," said she. + + + + +LXIV + + +At two o'clock the next day the doctor brought the order for her +admission to Lariboisiere. The invalid was ready to start. Mademoiselle +suggested that they should send to the hospital for a litter. "Oh! no," +said Germinie, hastily, "I should think I was dead." She was thinking of +her debts; she must show herself to her creditors on the street, alive, +and on her feet to the last! + +She got out of bed. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil assisted her to put on +her petticoat and her dress. As soon as she left her bed, all signs of +life disappeared from her face, the flush from her complexion: it seemed +as if earth suddenly took the place of blood under her skin. She went +down the steep servants' stairway, clinging to the baluster, and reached +her mistress's apartments. She sat down in an arm-chair near the window +in the dining-room. She insisted upon putting on her stockings without +assistance, and as she pulled them on with her poor trembling hands, the +fingers striking against one another, she afforded a glimpse of her +legs, which were so thin as to make one shudder. The housekeeper, +meanwhile, was putting together in a bundle a little linen, a glass, a +cup, and a pewter plate, which she wished to carry with her. When that +was done, Germinie looked about her for a moment; she cast one last +glance around the room, a glance that seemed to long to take everything +away with her. Then, as her eyes rested on the door through which the +housekeeper had just gone out, she said to mademoiselle: "At all events +I leave a good woman with you." + +She rose. The door closed noisily behind her, as if to say adieu, and, +supported by Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, who almost carried her, she +went down the five flights of the main stairway. At every landing she +paused to take breath. In the vestibule she found the concierge, who had +brought her a chair. She fell into it. The vulgar fellow laughingly +promised her that she would be well in six weeks. She moved her head +slightly as she said _yes_, a muffled _yes_. + +She was in the cab, beside her mistress. It was an uncomfortable cab and +jolted over the pavements. She sat forward on the seat to avoid the +concussion of the jolting, and clung to the door with her hand. She +watched the houses pass, but did not speak. When they reached the +hospital gate, she refused to be carried. "Can you walk as far as that?" +said the concierge, pointing to the reception-room some sixty feet +distant. She made an affirmative sign and walked: it was a dead woman +walking, because she was determined to walk! + +At last she reached the great hall, cold and stiff and clean and bare +and horrible, with a circle of wooden benches around the waiting litter. +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil led her to a straw chair near a glazed door. +A clerk opened the door, asked Mademoiselle de Varandeuil Germinie's +name and age, and wrote for a quarter of an hour, covering ten or more +sheets of paper with a religious emblem at the top. That done, +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil kissed her and turned to go; she saw an +attendant take her under the arms, then she saw no more, but turned and +fled, and, throwing herself upon the cushions of the cab, she burst into +sobs and gave vent to all the tears with which her heart had been +suffocated for an hour past. The driver on his box was amazed to hear +such violent weeping. + + + + +LXV + + +On the visiting day, Thursday, mademoiselle started at half-past twelve +to go and see Germinie. It was her purpose to be at her bedside at the +moment the doors were thrown open, at one o'clock precisely. As she rode +through the streets she had passed through four days before, she +remembered the ghastly ride of Monday. It seemed to her as if she were +incommoding a sick person in the cab, of which she was the only +occupant, and she sat close in the corner in order to make room for the +memory of Germinie. In what condition should she find her? Should she +find her at all? Suppose her bed should be empty? + +The cab passed through a narrow street filled with orange carts, and +with women sitting on the sidewalk offering biscuit for sale in baskets. +There was something unspeakably wretched and dismal in this open-air +display of fruit and cakes,--the delicacies of the dying, the _viaticum_ +of invalids, craved by feverish mouths, longed for by the +death-agony,--which workingmen's hands, black with toil, purchase as +they pass, to carry to the hospital and offer death a tempting morsel. +Children carried them with sober faces, almost reverentially, and +without touching them, as if they understood. + +The cab stopped before the gate of the courtyard. It was five minutes to +one. There was a long line of women crowding about the gate, women with +their working clothes on, sorrowful, depressed and silent. Mademoiselle +de Varandeuil took her place in the line, went forward with the others +and was admitted: they searched her. She inquired for Salle +Sainte-Josephine, and was directed to the second wing on the second +floor. She found the hall and the bed, No. 14, which was, as she had +been told, one of the last at the right. Indeed, she was guided thither, +as it were, from the farther end of the hall, by Germinie's smile--the +smile of a sick person in a hospital at an unexpected visit, which says, +so gently, as soon as you enter the room: "Here I am." + +She leaned over the bed. Germinie tried to push her away with a gesture +of humility and the shamefacedness of a servant. + +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil kissed her. + +"Ah!" said Germinie, "the time dragged terribly yesterday. I imagined it +was Thursday and I longed so for you." + +"My poor girl! How are you?" + +"Oh! I'm getting on finely now--the swelling in my bowels has all gone. +I have only three weeks to stay here, mademoiselle, you'll see. +They talk about a month or six weeks, but I know better. And I'm very +comfortable here, I don't mind it at all. I sleep all night now. My! but +I was thirsty, when you brought me here Monday! They wouldn't give me +wine and water." + + +[Illustration: Chapter LXV + +_One and all, after a moment's conversation, leaned over Germinie to +kiss her, and with every kiss Mademoiselle de Varandeuil could hear an +indistinct murmur as of words exchanged; a whispered question from those +who kissed, a hasty reply from her who was kissed._] + + +"What have you there to drink?" + +"Oh! what I had at home--lime-water. Would you mind pouring me out some, +mademoiselle? their pewter things are so heavy!" + +She raised herself with one arm by the aid of the little stick that hung +over the middle of the bed, and putting out the other thin, trembling +arm, left bare by the sleeve falling back from it, she took the glass +mademoiselle held out to her, and drank. + +"There," said she when she had done, and she placed both her arms +outside the bed, on the coverlid. + +"What a pity that I have to put you out in this way, my poor +demoiselle!" she continued. "Things must be in a horribly dirty state at +home!" + +"Don't worry about that." + +There was a moment's silence. A faint smile came to Germinie's lips. "I +am sailing under false colors," she said, lowering her voice; "I have +confessed so as to get well." + +Then she moved her head on the pillow in order to bring her mouth nearer +to Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's ear: + +"There are tales to tell here. I have a funny neighbor yonder." She +indicated with a glance and a movement of her shoulder the patient to +whom her back was turned. "There's a man who comes here to see her. He +talked to her an hour yesterday. I heard them say they'd had a child. +She has left her husband. He was like a madman, the man was, when he was +talking to her." + +As she spoke, Germinie's face lighted up as if she were still full of +the scene of the day before, still stirred up and feverish with +jealousy, so near death as she was, because she had heard love spoken of +beside her! + +Suddenly her expression changed. A woman came toward her bed. She seemed +embarrassed when she saw Mademoiselle de Varandeuil. After a few +moments, she kissed Germinie, and hurriedly withdrew as another woman +came up. The new-comer did the same, kissed Germinie and at once took +her leave. After the women a man came; then another woman. One and all, +after a moment's conversation, leaned over Germinie to kiss her, and +with every kiss Mademoiselle de Varandeuil could hear an indistinct +murmur as of words exchanged; a whispered question from those who +kissed, a hasty reply from her who was kissed. + +"Well!" she said to Germinie, "I hope you are well taken care of!" + +"Oh! yes," Germinie answered in a peculiar tone, "they take excellent +care of me!" + +She had lost the animation that she displayed at the beginning of the +visit. The little blood that had mounted to her cheeks remained there in +one spot only. Her face seemed closed; it was cold and deaf, like a +wall. Her drawn-in lips were sealed, as it were. Her features were +concealed beneath the veil of infinite dumb agony. There was nothing +caressing or eloquent in her staring eyes, absorbed as they were and +filled with one fixed thought. You would have said that all exterior +signs of her ideas were drawn within her by an irresistible power of +concentration, by a last supreme effort of her will, and that her whole +being was clinging in desperation to a sorrow that drew everything to +itself. + +The visitors she had just received were the grocer, the fish-woman, the +butter woman and the laundress--all her debts, incarnate! The kisses +were the kisses of her creditors, who came to keep on the scent of their +claims and to extort money from her death-agony! + + + + +LXVI + + +Mademoiselle had just risen on Saturday morning. She was making a little +package of four jars of Bar preserves, which she intended to carry to +Germinie the next day, when she heard low voices, a colloquy between the +housekeeper and the concierge in the reception room. Almost immediately +the door opened and the concierge came in. + +"Sad news, mademoiselle," he said. + +And he handed her a letter he had in his hand; it bore the stamp of the +Lariboisiere hospital: Germinie was dead; she died at seven o'clock that +morning. + +Mademoiselle took the letter; she saw only the letters that said: "Dead! +dead!" And they repeated the word: "Dead! dead!" to no purpose, for she +could not believe it. As is always the case with a person of whose death +one learns abruptly, Germinie appeared to her instinct with life, and +her body, which was no more, seemed to stand before her with the +awe-inspiring presence of a ghost. Dead! She should never see her more! +So there was no longer a Germinie on earth! Dead! She was dead! And the +person she should hear henceforth moving about in the kitchen would not +be she; somebody else would open the door for her, somebody else would +potter about her room in the morning! "Germinie!" she cried at last, in +the tone with which she was accustomed to call her; then, collecting her +thoughts: "Machine! creature! What's your name?" she cried, savagely, to +the bewildered housekeeper. "My dress--I must go there." + +She was so taken by surprise by this sudden fatal termination of the +disease, that she could not accustom her mind to the thought. She could +hardly realize that sudden, secret, vague death, of which her only +knowledge was derived from a scrap of paper. Was Germinie really dead? +Mademoiselle asked herself the question with the doubt of persons who +have lost a dear one far away, and, not having seen her die, do not +admit that she is dead. Was she not still alive the last time she saw +her? How could it have happened? How could she so suddenly have become a +thing good for nothing except to be put under ground? Mademoiselle dared +not think about it, and yet she kept on thinking. The mystery of the +death-agony, of which she knew nothing, attracted and terrified her. The +anxious interest of her affection turned to her maid's last hours, and +she tried gropingly to take away the veil and repel the feeling of +horror. Then she was seized with an irresistible longing to know +everything, to witness, with the help of what might be told her, what +she had not seen. She felt that she must know if Germinie had spoken +before she died,--if she had expressed any desire, spoken of any last +wishes, uttered one of those sentences which are the final outcry of +life. + +When she reached Lariboisiere, she passed the concierge,--a stout man +reeking with life as one reeks with wine,--passed through the corridors +where pallid convalescents were gliding hither and thither, and rang at +a door, veiled with white curtains, at the extreme end of the hospital. +The door was opened: she found herself in a parlor, lighted by two +windows, where a plaster cast of the Virgin stood upon an altar, between +two views of Vesuvius, which seemed to shiver against the bare wall. +Behind her, through an open door, came the voices of Sisters and little +girls chattering together, a clamor of youthful voices and fresh +laughter, the natural gayety of a cheery room where the sun frolics with +children at play. + +Mademoiselle asked to speak with the _mother_ of Salle Sainte-Josephine. +A short, half-deformed Sister, with a kind, homely face, a face alight +with the grace of God, came in answer to her request. Germinie had died +in her arms. "She hardly suffered at all," the Sister told mademoiselle; +"she was sure that she was better; she felt relieved; she was full of +hope. About seven this morning, just as her bed was being made, she +suddenly began vomiting blood, and passed away without knowing that she +was dying." The Sister added that she had said nothing, asked for +nothing, expressed no wish. + +Mademoiselle rose, delivered from the horrible thoughts she had had. +Germinie had been spared all the tortures of the death-agony that she +had dreamed of. Mademoiselle was grateful for that death by the hand of +God which gathers in the soul at a single stroke. + +As she was going away an attendant came to her and said: "Will you be +kind enough to identify the body?" + +_The body!_ The words gave mademoiselle a terrible shock. Without +awaiting her reply, the attendant led the way to a high yellow door, +over which was written: _Amphitheatre_. He knocked; a man in shirt +sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth, opened the door and bade them wait a +moment. + +Mademoiselle waited. Her thoughts terrified her. Her imagination was on +the other side of that awful door. She tried to anticipate what she was +about to see. And her mind was so filled with confused images, with +fanciful alarms, that she shuddered at the thought of entering the room, +of recognizing that disfigured face among a number of others, if, +indeed, she could recognize it! And yet she could not tear herself away; +she said to herself that she should never see her again! + +The man with the pipe opened the door: mademoiselle saw nothing but a +coffin, the lid of which extended only to the neck, leaving Germinie's +face uncovered, with the eyes open, and the hair erect upon her head. + + + + +LXVII + + +Prostrated by the excitement and by this last spectacle, Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil took to her bed on returning home, after she had given the +concierge the money for the purchase of a burial lot, and for the +burial. And when she was in bed the things she had seen arose before +her. The horrible dead body was still beside her, the ghastly face +framed by the coffin. That never-to-be-forgotten face was engraved upon +her mind; beneath her closed eyelids she saw it and was afraid of it. +Germinie was there, with the distorted features of one who has been +murdered, with sunken orbits and eyes that seemed to have withdrawn into +their holes! She was there with her mouth still distorted by the +vomiting that accompanied her last breath! She was there with her hair, +her terrible hair, brushed back and standing erect upon her head! + +Her hair!--that haunted mademoiselle more persistently than all the +rest. The old maid thought, involuntarily, of things that had come to +her ears when she was a child, of superstitions of the common people +stored away in the background of her memory; she asked herself if she +had not been told that dead people whose hair is like that carry a crime +with them to the grave. And at times it was such hair as that that she +saw upon that head, the hair of crime, standing on end with terror and +stiffened with horror before the justice of Heaven, like the hair of the +condemned man before the scaffold in La Greve! + +On Sunday mademoiselle was too ill to leave her bed. On Monday she tried +to rise and dress, in order to attend the funeral; but she was attacked +with faintness, and was obliged to return to her bed. + + + + +LXVIII + + +"Well! is it all over?" said mademoiselle from her bed, as the concierge +entered her room about eleven o'clock, on his return from the cemetery, +with the black coat and the sanctimonious manner suited to the occasion. + +"_Mon Dieu_, yes, mademoiselle. Thank God! the poor girl is out of +pain." + +"Stay! I have no head to-day. Put the receipts and the rest of the money +on my table. We will settle our accounts some other day." + +The concierge stood before her without moving or evincing any purpose to +go, shifting from one hand to the other a blue velvet cap made from the +dress of one of his daughters. After a moment's reflection, he decided +to speak. + +"This burying is an expensive business, mademoiselle. In the first +place, there's----" + +"Who asked you to give the figures?" Mademoiselle de Varandeuil +interrupted, with the haughty air of superb charity. + +The concierge continued: "And as I was saying, a lot in the cemetery, +which you told me to get, ain't given away. It's no use for you to have +a kind heart, mademoiselle, you ain't any too rich,--everyone knows +that,--and I says to myself: 'Mademoiselle's going to have no small +amount to pay out, and I know mademoiselle, she'll pay.' So it'll do no +harm to economize on that, eh? It'll be just so much saved. The other'll +be just as safe under ground. And then, what will give her the most +pleasure up yonder? Why, to know that she isn't making things hard for +anybody, the excellent girl." + +"Pay? What?" said mademoiselle, out of patience with the concierge's +circumlocution. + +"Oh! that's of no account," he replied; "she was very fond of you, all +the same. And then, when she was very sick, it wasn't the time. Oh! _Mon +Dieu_, you needn't put yourself out--there's no hurry about it--it's +money she owed a long while. See, this is it." + +He took a stamped paper from the inside pocket of his coat. + +"I didn't want her to make a note,--she insisted." + +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil seized the stamped paper and saw at the foot: + + + _"I acknowledge the receipt of the above amount._ + + "GERMINIE LACERTEUX." + + +It was a promise to pay three hundred francs in monthly installments, +which were to be endorsed on the back. + +"There's nothing there, you see," said the concierge, turning the paper +over. + +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil took off her spectacles. "I will pay," she +said. + +The concierge bowed. She glanced at him; he did not move. + +"That is all, I hope?" she said, sharply. + +The concierge had his eyes fixed on a leaf in the carpet. "That's +all--unless----" + +Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had the same feeling of terror as at the +moment she passed through the door on whose other side she was to see +her maid's dead body. + +"But how does she owe all this?" she cried. "I paid her good wages, I +almost clothed her. Where did her money go, eh?" + +"Ah! there you are, mademoiselle. I should rather not have told +you,--but as well to-day as to-morrow. And then, too, it's better that +you should be warned; when you know beforehand you can arrange matters. +There's an account with the poultry woman. The poor girl owed a little +everywhere; she didn't keep things in very good shape these last few +years. The laundress left her book the last time she came. It amounts to +quite a little,--I don't know just how much. It seems there's a note at +the grocer's--an old note--it goes back years. He'll bring you his +book." + +"How much at the grocer's?" + +"Something like two hundred and fifty." + +All these disclosures, falling upon Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, one +after another, extorted exclamations of stupefied surprise from her. +Resting her elbow on her pillow, she said nothing as the veil was torn +away, bit by bit, from this life, as its shameful features were brought +to light one by one. + +"Yes, about two hundred and fifty. There's a good deal of wine, he tells +me." + +"I have always had wine in the cellar." + +"The _cremiere_," continued the concierge, without heeding her remark, +"that's no great matter,--some seventy-five francs. It's for absinthe +and brandy." + +"She drank!" cried Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, everything made clear to +her by those words. + +The concierge did not seem to hear. + +"You see, mademoiselle, knowing the Jupillons was the death of her,--the +young man especially. It wasn't for herself that she did what she did. +And the disappointment, you see. She took to drink. She hoped to marry +him, I ought to say. She fitted up a room for him. When they get to +buying furniture the money goes fast. She ruined herself,--think of it! +It was no use for me to tell her not to throw herself away by drinking +as she did. You don't suppose I was going to tell you, when she came in +at six o'clock in the morning! It was the same with her child. Oh!" the +concierge added, in reply to mademoiselle's gesture, "it was a lucky +thing the little one died. Never mind, you can say she led a gay +life--and a hard one. That's why I say the common ditch. If I was +you--she's cost you enough, mademoiselle, all the time she's been living +on you. And you can leave her where she is--with everybody else." + +"Ah! that's how it is! that's what she was! She stole for men! she ran +in debt! Ah! she did well to die, the hussy! And I must pay! A +child!--think of that: the slut! Yes, indeed, she can rot where she +will! You have done well, Monsieur Henri. Steal! She stole from me! In +the ditch, parbleu! that's quite good enough for her! To think that I +let her keep all my keys--I never kept any account. My God! That's what +comes of confidence. Well! here we are--I'll pay--not on her account, +but on my own. And I gave her my best pair of sheets to be buried in! +Ah! if I'd known I'd have given you the kitchen dish-clout, +_mademoiselle how I am duped_!" + +And mademoiselle continued in this strain for some moments until the +words choked one another in her throat and strangled her. + + + + +LXIX + + +As a result of this scene, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil kept her bed a +week, ill and raging, filled with indignation that shook her whole body, +overflowed through her mouth, and tore from her now and again some +coarse insult which she would hurl with a shriek of rage at her maid's +vile memory. Night and day she was possessed by the same fever of +malediction, and even in her dreams her attenuated limbs were convulsed +with wrath. + +Was it possible! Germinie! her Germinie! She could think of nothing +else. Debts!--a child!--all sorts of shame! The degraded creature! She +abhorred her, she detested her. If she had lived she would have +denounced her to the police. She would have liked to believe in hell so +that she might be consigned to the torments that await the dead. Her +maid was such a creature as that! A girl who had been in her service +twenty years! whom she had loaded down with benefits! Drunkenness! she +had sunk so low as that! The horror that succeeds a bad dream came to +mademoiselle, and all the waves of loathing that flowed from her heart +said: "Out upon the dead woman whose life the grave vomited forth and +whose filth it cast out!" + +How she had deceived her! How the wretch had pretended to love her! And +to make her appear more ungrateful and more despicable Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil recalled her manifestations of affection, her attentions, her +jealousies, which seemed a part of her adoration. She saw her bending +over her when she was ill. She thought of her caresses. It was all a +lie! Her devotion was a lie! The delight with which she kissed her, the +love upon her lips, were lies! Mademoiselle told herself over and over +again, she persuaded herself that it was so; and yet, little by little, +from these reminiscences, from these evocations of the past whose +bitterness she sought to make more bitter, from the far-off sweetness of +days gone by, there arose within her a first sensation of pity. + +She drove away the thoughts that tended to allay her wrath; but +reflection brought them back. Thereupon there came to her mind some +things to which she had paid no heed during Germinie's lifetime, trifles +of which the grave makes us take thought and upon which death sheds +light. She had a vague remembrance of certain strange performances on +the part of her maid, of feverish effusions and frantic embraces, of her +throwing herself on her knees as if she were about to make a confession, +of movements of the lips as if a secret were trembling on their verge. +She saw, with the eyes we have for those who are no more, Germinie's +wistful glances, her gestures and attitudes, the despairing expression +of her face. And now she realized that there were deep wounds beneath, +heart-rending pain, the torment of her anguish and her repentance, the +tears of blood of her remorse, all sorts of suffering forced out of +sight throughout her life, and in her whole being a Passion of shame +that dared not ask forgiveness except with silence! + +Then she would scold herself for the thought and call herself an old +fool. Her instinct of rigid uprightness, the stern conscience and harsh +judgment of a stainless life, the things which cause a virtuous woman to +condemn a harlot and should have caused a saint like Mademoiselle de +Varandeuil to be without pity for her servant--everything within her +rebelled against a pardon. The voice of justice, stifling her kindness +of heart, cried: "Never! never!" And she would expel Germinie's infamous +phantom with a pitiless gesture. + +There were times, indeed, when, in order to make her condemnation and +execration of her memory more irrevocable, she would heap charges upon +her and slander her. She would add to the dead woman's horrible list of +sins. She would reproach Germinie for more than was justly chargeable to +her. She would attribute crimes to her dark thoughts, murderous desires +to her impatient dreams. She would strive to think, she would force +herself to think, that she had desired her mistress's death and had been +awaiting it. + +But at that very moment, amid the blackest of her thoughts and +suppositions, a vision arose and stood in a bright light before her. A +figure approached, that seemed to come to meet her glance, a figure +against which she could not defend herself, and which passed through the +hands with which she sought to force it back. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil +saw her dead maid once more. She saw once more the face of which she had +caught a glimpse in the amphitheatre, the crucified face, the tortured +face to which the blood and agony of a heart had mounted together. She +saw it once more with the faculty which the second sight of memory +separates from its surroundings. And that face, as it became clearer to +her, caused her less terror. It appeared to her, divesting itself, as it +were, of its fear-inspiring, horrifying qualities. Suffering alone +remained, but it was the suffering of expiation, almost of prayer, the +suffering of a dead face that would like to weep. And as its expression +grew ever milder, mademoiselle came at last to see in it a glance of +supplication, of supplication that, at last, compelled her pity. +Insensibly there glided into her reflections indulgent thoughts, +suggestions of apology that surprised herself. She asked herself if the +poor girl was as guilty as others, if she had deliberately chosen the +path of evil, if life, circumstances, the misfortune of her body and her +destiny, had not made her the creature she had been, a creature of love +and sorrow. Suddenly she stopped: she was on the point of forgiving her! + +One morning she leaped out of bed. + +"Here! you--you other!" she cried to her housekeeper, "the devil take +your name! I can't remember it. Give me my clothes, quick! I have to go +out." + +"The idea, mademoiselle--just look at the roofs, they're all white." + +"Well, it snows, that's all." + +Ten minutes later, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil said to the driver of the +cab she had sent for: + +"Montmartre Cemetery!" + + + + +LXX + + +In the distance an enclosure wall extended, perfectly straight, as far +as the eye could see. The thread of snow that marked the outline of its +coping gave it a dirty, rusty color. In a corner at the left three +leafless trees reared their bare black branches against the sky. They +rustled sadly, with the sound of pieces of dead wood stirred by the +south wind. Above these trees, behind the wall and close against it, +arose the two arms from which hung one of the last oil-lamps in Paris. A +few snow-covered roofs were scattered here and there; beyond, the hill +of Montmartre rose sharply, its white shroud broken by oases of brown +earth and sandy patches. Low gray walls followed the slope, surmounted +by gaunt, stunted trees whose branches had a bluish tint in the mist, as +far as two black windmills. The sky was of a leaden hue, with occasional +cold, bluish streaks as if ink had been applied with a brush! over +Montmartre there was a light streak, of a yellow color, like the Seine +water after heavy rains. Above that wintry beam the wings of an +invisible windmill turned and turned,--slow-moving wings, unvarying in +their movement, which seemed to be turning for eternity. + +In front of the wall, against which was planted a thicket of dead +cypresses, turned red by the frost, was a vast tract of land upon which +were two rows of crowded, jostling overturned crosses, like two great +funeral processions. The crosses touched and pushed one another and trod +on one another's heels. They bent and fell and collapsed in the ranks. +In the middle there was a sort of congestion which had caused them to +bulge out on both sides; you could see them lying--covered by the snow +and raising it into mounds with the thick wood of which they were +made--upon the paths, somewhat trampled in the centre, that skirted the +two long files. The broken ranks undulated with the fluctuation of a +multitude, the disorder and wavering course of a long march. The black +crosses with their arms outstretched assumed the appearance of ghosts +and persons in distress. The two disorderly columns made one think of a +human panic, a desperate, frightened army. It was as if one were looking +on at a terrible rout. + +All the crosses were laden with wreaths, wreaths of immortelles, wreaths +of white paper with silver thread, black wreaths with gold thread; but +you could see them beneath the snow, worn out, withered, ghastly things, +souvenirs, as it were, which the other dead would not accept and which +had been picked up in order to make a little toilet for the crosses with +gleanings from the graves. + +All the crosses had a name written in white; but there were other names +that were not even written on a piece of wood,--a broken branch of a +tree, stuck in the ground, with an envelope tied around it--such +tombstones as that were to be seen there! + +On the left, where they were digging a trench for a third row of +crosses, the workman's shovel threw black dirt into the air, which fell +upon the white earth around. Profound silence, the deaf silence of the +snow, enveloped everything, and but two sounds could be heard; the dull +sound made by the clods of earth and the heavy sound of regular +footsteps; an old priest who was waiting there, his head enveloped in a +black cowl, dressed in a black gown and stole, and with a dirty, yellow +surplice, was trying to keep himself warm by stamping his great galoches +on the pavement of the high road, in front of the crosses. + +Such was the common ditch in those days. That tract of land, those +crosses and that priest said this: "Here sleeps the Death of the common +people; this is the poor man's end!" + + * * * * * + +O Paris! thou art the heart of the world, thou art the great city of +humanity, the great city of charity and brotherly love! Thou hast kindly +intentions, old-fashioned habits of compassion, theatres that give alms. +The poor man is thy citizen as well as the rich man. Thy churches speak +of Jesus Christ; thy laws speak of equality; thy newspapers speak of +progress; all thy governments speak of the common people; and this is +where thou castest those who die in thy service, those who kill +themselves ministering to thy luxury, those who perish in the noisome +odors of thy factories, those who have sweated their lives away working +for thee, giving thee thy prosperity, thy pleasures, thy splendors, +those who have furnished thy animation and thy noise, those who have +lengthened with the links of their lives the chain of thy duration as a +capital, those who have been the crowd in thy streets and the common +people of thy grandeur. Each of thy cemeteries has a like shameful +corner, hidden in the angle of a wall, where thou makest haste to bury +them, and where thou castest dirt upon them in such stingy clods, that +one can see the ends of their coffins protruding! One would say that thy +charity stops with their last breath, that thy only free gift is the bed +whereon they suffer, and that, when the hospital can do no more for +them, thou, who art so vast and so superb, hast no place for them! Thou +dost heap them up, crowd them together and mingle them in death, as thou +didst mingle them in the death-agony beneath the sheets of thy hospitals +a hundred years since! As late as yesterday thou hadst only that priest +on sentry duty, to throw a drop of paltry holy water on every comer: not +the briefest prayer! Even that symbol of decency was lacking: God could +not be disturbed for so small a matter! And what the priest blesses is +always the same thing: a trench in which the pine boxes strike against +one another, where the dead enjoy no privacy! Corruption there is common +to all; no one has his own, but each one has that of all the rest: the +worms are owned promiscuously! In the devouring soil a Montfaucon +hastens to make way for the Catacombs. For the dead here have no more +time than room to rot in: the earth is taken from them before it has +finished with them! before their bones have assumed the color and the +ancient appearance, so to speak, of stone, before the passing years have +effaced the last trace of humanity and the memory of a body! The +excavation is renewed when the earth is still themselves, when they are +the damp soil in which the mattock is buried. The earth is loaned to +them, you say? But it does not even confine the odor of death! In +summer, the wind that passes over this scarcely-covered human +charnel-house wafts the unholy miasma to the city of the living. In the +scorching days of August the keepers deny admission to the place: there +are flies that bear upon them the poison of the carrion, pestilential +flies whose sting is deadly! + + * * * * * + +Mademoiselle arrived at this spot after passing the wall that separates +the lots sold in perpetuity from those sold temporarily only. Following +the directions given her by a keeper, she walked along between the +further line of crosses and the newly-opened trench. And there she made +her way over buried wreaths, over the snowy pall, to a hole where the +trench began. It was covered over with old rotten planks and a sheet of +oxidized zinc on which a workman had thrown his blue blouse. The earth +sloped away behind them to the bottom of the trench, where could be seen +the sinister outlines of three wooden coffins: there were one large one +and two smaller ones just behind. The crosses of the past week, of the +day before, of two days before, extended in a line down the slope; they +glided along, plunged suddenly downward, and seemed to be taking long +strides as if they were in danger of being carried over a precipice. + +Mademoiselle began to ascend the path by these crosses, spelling out the +dates and searching for the names with her wretched eyes. She reached +the crosses of the 8th of November: that was the day before her maid's +death, and Germinie should be close by. There were five crosses of the +9th of November, five crosses huddled close together: Germinie was not +in the crush. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil went a little farther on, to +the crosses of the 10th, then to those of the 11th, then to those of the +12th. She returned to the 8th, and looked carefully around in all +directions: there was nothing, absolutely nothing,--Germinie had been +buried without a cross! Not even a bit of wood had been placed in the +ground by which to identify her grave! + +At last the old lady dropped on her knees in the snow, between two +crosses, one of which bore the date of the 9th and the other of the 10th +of November. All that remained of Germinie should be almost in that +spot. That ill-defined space was her ill-defined grave. To pray over her +body it was necessary to pray at random between two dates,--as if the +poor girl's destiny had decreed that there should be no more room on +earth for her body than for her heart! + + + + +NOTES + + +[1] _Canon_ is the French word for cannon; it is also used in +vulgar parlance to mean a glass of wine drunk at the bar. + +[2] _Battre les murailles_--to beat the walls--has a slang +meaning: to be so drunk that you can't see, or can't lie down without +holding on. + +[3] Literally, _red bowels_--common slang for hard drinkers. + +[4] _Cuir_ is an expression used to denote the error in +speaking, which consists--in French--in pronouncing a _t_ for an _s_, +and vice versa at the end of words which are joined in pronunciation to +the next word: _e.g., il etai-z-a la campagne_ for _il etait a la +campagne_. + +[5] In the slang vocabulary, to _console_ one's coffee means to +add brandy to it. + +[6] A _negresse_ is a bottle of red wine, and, as applied to +that article, _morte_ (dead) means empty. + + + + +List of Illustrations + +GERMINIE LACERTEUX + + PAGE + +GERMINIE AND JUPILLON VISIT THEIR CHILD _Fronts._ + +JUPILLON AND GERMINIE AT THE FORTIFICATIONS 116 + +GERMINIE BRINGS MONEY FOR A SUBSTITUTE 204 + +GERMINIE TEMPTED TO MURDER 308 + +GERMINIE AT LARIBOISIERE 356 + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Germinie Lacerteux, by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMINIE LACERTEUX *** + +***** This file should be named 27711.txt or 27711.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/7/1/27711/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Meredith Bach and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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