The Diary of a Chambermaid by Octave Mirbeau Page A

air to make as much as possible of her flabby drooping breasts, and say: ‘Look Célestine, they’re still quite firm, aren’t they?’
    It was difficult not to laugh especially as Madame’s body was really the most pathetic sight. By the time she had taken off her corsets, brassière and girdle and stepped out of her chemise, you almost expected it to dissolve all over the carpet. Belly, rump, breasts were like deflated wineskins, sacks that had been emptied, leaving nothing but fat, flabby folds of skin; and her buttocks were as shapeless and pockmarked as an old sponge. And yet, from all this formless ruin one pathetic element of charm survived, the charm, now little more than a memory, of a woman who had once been beautiful, and whose whole life had been devoted to the pursuit of love. Thanks to the providential blindness to which most ageing creatures are subject, she refused to accept the inevitable eclipse of her beauty. In a last appeal to love, she relied more and more upon expensive remedies and all the refinements of coquetry … And love responded … But what kind of love? That was the tragedy!
    Sometimes she would arrive home just before dinner, out of breath and thoroughly embarrassed.
    ‘Quick, quick … I’m late … Help me to change.’
    Where could she have been, with that face so drawn with fatigue and those dark rings under her eyes, and so exhausted that all she could do was to fall like a log on the sofa in her dressing-room? … And the state of her underclothes! … Her chemise crumpled and dirty, her petticoat hurriedly fastened, her stays all unlaced, her suspenders undone, and her stockings in corkscrews … In her uncurled, hurriedly pinned-up hair there were sometimes bits of fluff from a sheet or a feather from a pillow, and the thick makeup of her lips and cheeks smeared by kisses, so that the wrinkles in her face stood out like cruel wounds …
    In an attempt to allay suspicion, she would moan: ‘I don’t know what came over me … But I fainted … suddenly, while I was at the dressmaker’s … They had to undress me … I’m still feeling terrible.’
    Often, out of pity for her, I pretended to be taken in by these stupid explanations.
    One morning while I was attending her the bell rang, and, as the footman was out, I went to open the door. It was a young man, a shady-looking specimen, gloomy and vicious, half worker, half layabout … one of those doubtful characters one sometimes runs into at the dance halls, who get their living from murdering people or from love … He had a very pale face, with a thin black moustache and a red tie. His shoulders were hunched up in a jacket too big for him, and he had the classical swaggering walk of his kind. With an air of troubled surprise he began by inspecting the luxurious furnishing of the hall, the carpets, mirrors, pictures and hangings … Then he handed me a letter for the mistress and, in an oily, drawling voice that was nevertheless a command, said:
    ‘And see I get an answer …’
    Had he come to settle an account, or was he only a messenger? I ruled out the second hypothesis—if he was here on behalf of someone else he would scarcely have such an air of authority.
    ‘I’ll see if Madame is at home,’ I replied cautiously, twisting the letter in my hands.
    ‘She’s at home all right,’ he said. ‘I happen to know … So none of your monkey tricks. It’s urgent.’
    As she read the letter Madame turned almost livid and, forgetting herself in her sudden terror, muttered, stammered:
    ‘He’s here in the house? … You left him alone in the hall? … How ever did he find out my address? …’
    Then, quickly pulling herself together and speaking as casually as possible: ‘It’s nothing … I scarcely know him … He’s just a poor fellow, a very deserving case … His mother is dying.’
    She hurriedly opened her desk, and with a trembling hand took out a 100-franc note: ‘Give him this … Quick, quick, poor