The Diary of a Chambermaid by Octave Mirbeau Page B

fellow!’
    ‘Swine!’ I couldn’t help muttering under my breath. ‘Madame is very generous today … Some poor people are lucky.’
    And I stressed the word ‘some’ as bitterly as I could.
    ‘Get along with you, quick,’ she ordered, scarcely able to stand still …
    When I got back, Madame, who is not very tidy and often leaves her things lying about all over the room, had torn up the letter, and the last scraps of it were already burning in the fireplace. I never knew for certain just who this fellow was, and I did not see him again. But what I do know, for I saw it with my own eyes, is that that morning Madame didn’t stand looking at herself naked in the glass, nor did she want to know whether I thought her miserable breasts were still firm. She spent the rest of the day at home, restless and nervous, and obviously very scared …
    From that moment, whenever Madame came in late in the evening, I was always terrified lest she’d been murdered in some brothel. And when I sometimes used to mention my fears in the servants’ hall, the butler, a cynical, very ugly old man, with a birthmark on his forehead, used to growl:
    ‘Well, so what? Of course that’s how she’ll end up sooner or later. What do you expect? Instead of chasing off after pimps, why doesn’t the old cow stay at home and fix things up with a man she can trust, someone she can count on?’
    ‘With you maybe?’ I sniggered.
    To which, as everyone burst out laughing, the butler, puffing out his chest, replied: ‘And why not? I’d fix her all right… provided she paid me properly.’
    He was really priceless, that man …

    With my last mistress but one it had been a very different story … Oh, how we used to laugh about her, sitting round the table after the evening meal was finished. Nowadays I can see how wrong this was, for Madame was not really at all a bad sort. She was kind, generous and very unhappy … And she was always giving me presents … Sometimes, I must admit, we were really too beastly about her, but it’s always those who treat us best that suffer most for it.
    This woman’s husband, a kind of scientist and member of some Academy or other, used to neglect her terribly. Not that she was ugly; on the contrary, she was extremely pretty. Nor that he ran after other women; in this respect his behavior was exemplary. But being no longer young, and presumably not very keen on lovemaking—maybe it didn’t even interest him—he used to let month after month go by without thinking of sleeping with his wife. She was in despair. Night after night I used to help her get ready for him … Transparent nightdresses … simply wonderful perfumes … everything. She used to say to me: ‘Perhaps this evening he might come, Célestine? Have you any idea what he’s doing?’
    ‘The master is in the library … working.’
    And with the same despondent gesture she would sigh: ‘The library … always in the library! Still, perhaps he will come all the same …’
    I used to finish titivating her, and proud of this sensual loveliness for which I was partly responsible, would look at her admiringly:
    ‘Well, if he doesn’t, all I can say is he’ll be making a big mistake. Why, just to look at you this evening, Madame, would be enough to make him forget all his worries!’
    ‘Oh, be quiet, be quiet!’ she shuddered.
    And the next day it would be the same old thing all over again … nothing but tears and groans.
    ‘Oh, Célestine, he never came after all. I was waiting for him all night. I don’t think he’ll ever come.’
    I did my best to console her: ‘Oh, I expect he was worn out with work. These scholars, you know what they are … their heads are so full of other things they never have time for love. Have you ever thought of trying him with pictures ma’am? I’ve heard you can get some lovely ones … even the coldest fish couldn’t resist them!’
    ‘No, no, what’s the use?’
    ‘Well, suppose you tried changing the