O human misery! There was something more spontaneous than my grief, more powerful than my fear; it was my ignoble prudence and my base calculations. In my terror I had the presence of mind to open the door of thesalon, and then the door of the ante-room, and listen. Not a sound. Everybody in the house was asleep. Then I returned to the bedside. I raised Georges's body, as light as a feather, in my arms. I lifted up his head, maintaining it in an upright position in my hands. The blood continued to flow from his mouth in pitchy filaments; I heard his chest discharging itself through his throat, with the sound of an emptying bottle. His eyes, turned up, showed nothing but their reddish globes between the swollen eyelids.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
Georges did not answer these calls and cries. He did not hear them. He heard nothing more of the cries and calls of earth.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
I let go his body; his body sank upon the bed. I let go his head; his head fell back heavily upon the pillow. I placed my hand upon his heart; his heart had ceased to beat.
"Georges! Georges! Georges!"
The horror of this silence, of these mute lips, of this corpse red and motionless, and of myself, was too much for me. And, crushed with grief, crushed with the frightful necessity of restraining my grief, I fell to the floor in a swoon.
How many minutes did this swoon last, or how many centuries? I do not know. On recovering consciousness, one torturing thought dominated all others,—that of removing every accusing sign. I washed my face, I redressed myself, and—yes, I had the frightful courage,—I put the bed and the room to rights. And, when that was done, I awoke the house; I cried the terrible news through the house.
Oh! that night! That night I suffered all the tortures that hell contains.
And this night here at the Priory reminds me of it. The storm is raging, as it raged there the night when I began my work of destruction on that poor flesh. And the roaring of the wind through the trees in the garden sounds to me like the roaring of the sea against the embankment of the forever-cursed Houlgate villa.
Upon our return to Paris, after M. Georges's funeral, I did not wish to remain in the poor grandmother's service, in spite of her repeated entreaties. I was in a hurry to go away, that I might see no more of that tearful face,—that I might no longer hear the sobs that lacerated my heart. And, above all, I was in a hurry to get away from her gratitude, from the necessity which she felt, in her doting distress, of continually thanking me for my devotion, for my heroism, of calling me her "daughter, her dear little daughter," and of embracing me with madly effusive tenderness. Many times during the fortnight in which I consented to call upon her, in obedience to her request, I had an intense desire to confess, to accuse myself, to tell her everything that was lying so heavily on my soul and often stifling me. But what would have been the use? Would it have given her any relief whatever? It would simply have added a more bitter affliction to her other afflictions, and the horrible thought and the inexpiable remorse that, but for me, her dear child perhaps would not be dead. And then, I must confess that I had not the courage. I left her house with my secret, worshipped by her as if I were a saint, overwhelmed with rich presents and with love.
Now, on the very day of my departure, as I was coming back from Mme. Paulhat-Durand's employment-bureau, I met in the Champs-Elysées a former comrade, a valet, with whom I had served for six months in the same house. It was fully two years since I had seen him. After our first greetings, I learned that he, as well as I, was looking for a place. Only, having for the moment some nickel-plated extra jobs, he was in no hurry to find one.
"This jolly Célestine!" he exclaimed, happy at seeing me again; "as astonishing as ever!"
He was a good fellow, gay, full of fun, and fond of a good time. He proposed:
"Suppose we dine together, eh?"
I needed to divert myself, to drive far away from me a multitude of sad images, a multitude of obsessing thoughts. I accepted.
"Good!" he exclaimed.
He took my arm, and led me to a wine-shop in the Rue Cambon. His heavy gaiety, his coarse jokes, his vulgar obscenity, I keenly appreciated. They did not shock me. On the contrary, I felt a certain rascally joy, a sort of crapulous security, as if I were resuming a lost habit. To tell the truth, I recognized myself, I recognized my own life and my own soul in those dissipated eyelids, in that smooth face, in those shaven lips, which betray the same servile grimace, the same furrow of falsehood, the same taste for passional filth, in the actor, the judge, and the valet.
After dinner we strolled for a time on the boulevards; then he took me to see a cinematograph exhibition. My will was a little weak from having drunk too much Saumur wine. In the darkness of the hall, as the French army was marching across the illuminated screen amid the applause of the spectators, he caught me about the waist, and imprinted a kiss upon the back of my neck which came near loosening my hair.
"You are astonishing!" he whispered. "Oh! how good you smell!"
He accompanied me to my hotel, and we stood for a few minutes on the sidewalk, silent and a little stupid. He was tapping his shoes with the end of his cane; I, with head lowered, my elbows pressed closely against my body, and my hands in my muff, was crushing a bit of orange-peel beneath my feet.
"Well,au revoir!" I said to him.
"Oh! no," he exclaimed, "let me go up with you. Come, Célestine."
I defended myself, in an uncertain fashion, for the sake of form. He insisted.
"Come, what is the matter with you? Heart troubles? Now is the very time...."
He followed me. In this hotel they did not look too closely at the guests who returned at night. With its dark and narrow staircase, its slimy banister, its vile atmosphere, its fetid odors, it seemed like a house for the accommodation of transients and cut-throats. My companion coughed, to give himself assurance. And I, with my soul full of disgust, reflected:
"Oh! indeed! this is not equal to the Houlgate villas or to the warm and richly-adorned mansions in the Rue Lincoln."
What a hussy one is sometimes! Oh, misery me!
And my life began again, with its ups and downs, its changes of front, itsliaisonsas quickly ended as begun, and its sudden leaps from opulent interiors into the street, just as of old.
Singular thing! I, who in my amorous exaltation, my ardent thirst for sacrifice, had sincerely and passionately wished to die, was haunted for long months by the fear of having contracted Monsieur Georges's disease from his kisses. The slightest indisposition, the most fleeting pain, filled me with real terror. Often at night I awoke with mad frights and icy sweats. I felt of my chest, where, by suggestion, I suffered from pains and lacerations; I examined the discharges from my throat, in which I saw red streaks; and I gave myself a fever, by frequent counting of my pulse. It seemed to me, as I looked in the glass, that my eyes were growing hollow, and that my cheeks were growing pinker, with that mortal pink that colored Monsieur Georges's face. One night, as I was leaving a public ball, I took cold, and I coughed for a week. I thought that it was all over with me. I covered my back with plasters, and swallowed all sorts of queer medicines; I even sent a pious offering to Saint Anthony of Padua. Then, as, in spite of my fear, my health remained good, showing that I had equal power to endure the fatigues of toil and of pleasure, it all passed away.
Last year, on the sixth of October, I went to lay flowers on M. Georges's grave, as I had done every year when that sad date came round. He was buried in the Montmartre cemetery. In the main path I saw, a few steps ahead of me, the poor grandmother. Oh! how old she was, and how old also were the two old servants who accompanied her! Arched, bent, tottering, she walked heavily, sustained at the arm-pits by her two old servants, as arched, as bent, as tottering, as their mistress. A porter followed them, carrying a large bunch of red and white roses. I slackened my pace, not wishing to pass them and be recognized. Hidden behind the wall of a high monument, I waited until the poor and sorrowful old woman had placed her flowers, told her beads, and dropped her tears upon her grandson's grave. They came back with the same feeble steps, through the smaller path, brushing against the wall of the vault on the other side of which I was hiding. I concealed myself still more, that I might not see them, for it seemed to me that it was my remorse, the phantoms of my remorse, that were filing by me. Would she have recognized me? Ah! I do not think so. They walked without looking at anything, without seeing even the ground about them. Their eyes had the fixity of the eyes of the blind; their lips moved and moved, and not a word came from them. One would have said that they were three old dead souls, lost in the labyrinth of the cemetery, and looking for their graves. I saw again that tragic night, and my red face, and the blood flowing from Georges's mouth. It sent a shiver to my heart. At last they disappeared.
Where are they to-day, those three lamentable shades? Perhaps they are a little more dead; perhaps they are dead quite. After having wandered on for days and nights, perhaps they have found the hole of silence and of rest of which they were in search.
All the same, it is a queer idea that the unfortunate grandmother had, in choosing me as a nurse for a young and pretty boy like Monsieur Georges. And really, when I think of the matter again, and realize that she never suspected anything, that she never saw anything, that she never understood anything, this seems to me the most astonishing feature of the matter. Ah! one can say it now; they were not very sharp, the three of them. They had an abundance of confidence.
I have seen Captain Mauger again, over the hedge. Crouching before a freshly-dug bed, he was transplanting pansies and gilly-flowers. As soon as he saw me, he left his work, and came to the hedge to talk. He is no longer angry with me for the murder of his ferret. He even seems very gay. Bursting with laughter, he confides to me that this morning he has wrung the neck of the Lanlaires' white cat. Probably the cat avenges the ferret.
"It is the tenth that I have gently killed for them," he cries, with ferocious joy, slapping his thigh, and then rubbing his grimy hands. "Ah! the dirty thing will scratch no more compost from my garden-frames; it will no longer ravage my seed-plots, the camel! And, if I could also wring the necks of your Lanlaire and his female! Oh! the pigs! Oh! oh! oh! that's an idea."
This idea makes him twist with laughter for a moment. And suddenly, his eyes sparkling with a stealthy malice, he asks:
"Why don't you put some smart-weed in their bed? The dirty creatures! Oh! I would give you a package of it for the purpose. That's an idea!"
Then:
"By the way, you know? Kléber? my little ferret?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I ate him. Alas! alas!"
"He was not very good, was he?"
"Alas! he tasted like bad rabbit."
And that was all the funeral sermon that the poor animal got.
The captain tells me also that a week or two ago he caught a hedge-hog under a wood-pile. He is engaged in taming him. He calls him Bourbaki. Ah! that's an idea! An intelligent, comical, extraordinary beast that eats everything!
"Yes, indeed!" he exclaims. "In the same day this confounded hedge-hog has eaten beefsteak, mutton stew, salt bacon, gruyère cheese, and preserves. He is astonishing. It is impossible to satisfy him. He is like me; he eats everything!"
Just then the little domestic passes the path, with a wheelbarrow full of stones, old sardine-boxes, and a heap ofdébris, which he is carrying to the refuse-heap.
"Come here!" calls the captain.
And, as, in answer to his question, I tell him that Monsieur has gone hunting, that Madame has gone to town, and that Joseph has gone on an errand, he takes from the wheelbarrow each of the stones, each bit of thedébris, and, one after another, throws them into the garden, crying in a loud voice:
"There, pig! Take that, you wretch!"
The stones fly, the bits ofdébrisfall upon a freshly-worked bed, where Joseph the day before had planted peas.
"Take that! And this, too! And here is another, in the bargain!"
The bed, soon covered withdébris, becomes a confused heap. The captain's joy finds expression in a sort of hooting and disorderly gestures. Then, turning up his old grey moustache, he says to me, with a triumphant and rakish air:
"Mademoiselle Célestine, you are a fine girl, for sure! You must come and see me, when Rose is no longer here, eh? Ah! that's an idea!"
Well, indeed! He has no cheek!
October 28.
At last I have received a letter from Monsieur Jean. It is very dry, this letter. From reading it, one would think that there never had been any intimacy between us. Not a word of friendship, not a particle of tenderness, not a recollection! He tells me only of himself. If he is to be believed, it seems that Jean has become an important personage. That is to be seen and felt from the patronizing and somewhat contemptuous air which he assumes toward me at the beginning of his letter. In short, he writes to me only to astonish me. I always knew that he was vain,—indeed, he was such a handsome fellow!—but I never realized it so much as to-day. Men cannot stand success or glory.
Jean is still firstvalet de chambrein the house of the Countess Fardin, and at this moment the countess is perhaps the most-talked-of woman in France. To his capacity ofvalet de chambreJean adds theroleof a participant in political manifestations and of royalist conspirator. He manifests with Coppée, Lemaitre, Quesnay de Beaurepaire; he conspires with General Mercier,—and all to overturn the republic. The other evening he accompanied Coppée to a meeting of the "Patrie Française." He strutted on the platform, behind the great patriot, and held his overcoat all the evening. For that matter, he can say that he has held all the overcoats of all the great patriots of this time. That will count for something in his life. Another evening, at the exit of a Dreyfusard meeting, to which the countess had sent him to "smash the jaws of the cosmopolitans," he was arrested and taken to the station-house for having spat upon these people without a country, and shouted at the top of his voice: "Death to the Jews! Long Live the King! Long Live the Army!" The countess threatened the government with an interpellation in the chamber, and Monsieur Jean was at once released. His mistress even added twenty francs a month to his wages, in compensation for this lofty feat of arms. M. Arthur Meyer printed his name in the "Gaulois." His name figures also opposite the sum of a hundred francs in the "Libre Parole," among the subscribers to the fund for a monument for Colonel Henry. Coppée inscribed it there officially. Coppée also made him an honorary member of the "Patrie Française,"—an astonishing society. All the servants in the great houses belong to it. There are also counts, marquises, and dukes. On coming to breakfast yesterday, General Mercier said to Jean: "Well, my brave Jean?" My brave Jean! Jules Guérin, in the "Anti-Juif," has written, under the heading, "Another Victim of the Sheenies!" an article beginning: "Our valiant anti-Semitic comrade, M. Jean," etc. And finally, M. Forain, who now is always at the house, has had Jean pose for a design, which is to symbolize the soul of the country. M. Forain thinks that Jean has "just the mug for that." He receives at this moment an astonishing number of illustrious decorations, of serious tips, and of honorary and extremely flattering distinctions. And if, as there is every reason to believe, General Mercier decides to summon Jean for the coming Zola trial, to give false testimony,—the nature of which the staff will decide upon soon,—nothing will be lacking to complete his glory. This year, in high society, there is nothing so fashionable and effective as false testimony. To be selected for a perjurer, besides bringing certain and swift glory, is as good as winning the capital prize in a lottery. M. Jean clearly perceives that he is making a greater and greater sensation in the neighborhood of the Champs-Elysées. When, in the evening, he goes to the café in the Rue Francois I. to play pool for a turkey, or when he takes the countess's dogs out for an airing, he is the object of universal curiosity and respect; so are the dogs, for that matter. That is why, in view of a celebrity which cannot fail to spread from the neighborhood over Paris, and from Paris over France, he has become a subscriber to a clipping-bureau, just as the countess has done. He will send me the smartest things that are written about him. This is all that he can do for me, for I must understand that he has no time to attend to my affairs. He will see, later,—"when we shall be in power," he writes me, carelessly. Everything that happens to me is my fault; I have never known how to conduct myself; there has never been any sequence in my ideas; I have wasted the best places, without profit. If I had not been such a hot-head, I, too, perhaps, would be on the best terms with General Mercier, Coppée, Déroulède; and perhaps, although I am only a woman, I should see my name sparkling in the columns of the "Gaulois," which is so encouraging for all sorts of domesticity. Etc., etc.
To read this letter almost made me cry, for I felt that Monsieur Jean is quite gone from me, and that I can no longer count on him,—on him or on anybody! He does not tell me a word of my successor. Ah! I see her from here, I see them from here, both of them, in the chamber that I know so well, kissing and caressing each other, and making the round of the public balls and the theatres together, as we used to do so prettily. I see him, in his putty-colored overcoat, returning from the races, after having lost his money, and saying to her, as so many times he has said to me: "Lend me your jewels and your watch, that I may hang them up." Unless his newroleof participant in political manifestations and of royalist conspirator has filled him with new ambitions, and he has abandoned the loves of the servants' hall for the loves of thesalon. He will come back to them.
Is all that happens to me really my fault? Perhaps. And yet it seems to me that a fatality of which I have never been the mistress has weighed upon my entire existence, and has prevented me from ever staying more than six months in the same place. When they did not discharge me, I left, disgusted beyond endurance. It is funny, and it is sad,—I have always been in a hurry to be "elsewhere," I have always entertained a mad hope of "those chimerical elsewheres," which I invest with the vain poesy, the illusory mirage of far-away distances, especially since my stay at Houlgate with poor M. Georges. That stay has left me with a certain anxiety, a certain torturing necessity of reaching fruitlessly after unattainable ideas and forms. I really believe that this too short and sudden glimpse of a world which I had better never have known at all, being unable to know it better, has been very harmful to me. Oh! how disappointing are these ways leading to the unknown! One goes on and on, and it is always the same thing. See that sparkling horizon yonder. It is blue, it is pink, it is fresh, it is as light and luminous as a dream. It must be fine to live there. You approach, you arrive. There is nothing. Sand, pebbles, hills as dismal as walls. There is nothing else. And above this sand, these pebbles, these hills, there is a gray, opaque, heavy sky,—a sky which kills the day, and whose light weeps dirty tears. There is nothing,—nothing of that which one is looking for. Moreover, I do not know what I am looking for; and neither do I know who I am.
A domestic is not a normal being, a social being. He is an incongruous personage, made up of pieces and bits that cannot fit into one another, that can only lie next one another. He is something worse,—a monstrous human hybrid. He is no longer of the people, whence he came; neither is he of thebourgeoisie, among whom he lives and toward whom he tends. He has lost the generous blood and the artless strength of the people that he has denied, and has gained the shameful vices of thebourgeoisie, without having succeeded in acquiring the means of satisfying them,—the vile sentiments, the cowardly fears, the criminal appetites, without the setting, and consequently without the excuse, of wealth. With a soiled soul, he traverses this respectablebourgeoisworld, and, simply from having breathed the mortal odor that rises from these putrid sinks, he loses forever the security of his mind, and even the very form of his personality. At the bottom of all these recollections, amid this host of figures among whom he wanders, a phantom of himself, he finds nothing to work upon but filth,—that is, suffering. He laughs often, but his laugh is forced. This laugh does not come from joy found or from hope realized, and it shows the bitter grimace of rebellion, the hard and contracted curve of sarcasm. Nothing is more sorrowful and ugly than this laugh; it burns and withers. It would have been better, perhaps, if I had wept. And then, I do not know. And then,zut!Come what will.
But nothing comes at all,—never anything. And I cannot accustom myself to that. It is this monotony, this absolute fixity in life, that is the hardest thing for me to endure. I should like to go away from here. Go away? But where and how? I do not know, and I stay.
Madame is always the same; distrustful, methodical, severe, rapacious, without an impulse, without a caprice, without a particle of spontaneity, without a ray of joy upon her marble face. Monsieur has resumed his habits, and I imagine, from certain sullen airs, that he has a spite against me because of my severity; but his spites are not dangerous. After breakfast, armed and gaitered, he starts off on a hunting expedition, returns at night, asks me only to help him in taking off his boots, and goes to bed at nine o'clock. He is still awkward, comical, and irresolute. He is growing fat. How can people as rich as they are be resigned to so dismal an existence? Sometimes I question myself regarding Monsieur. What should I have done with him? He has no money, and would have given me no pleasure. And especially as Madame is not jealous!
The terrible thing about this house is its silence. I cannot get used to it. Yet, in spite of myself, I am beginning to glide, to "walk in the air," as Joseph says. Often in these dark passage-ways, alongside these cold walls, I seem to myself like a spectre, like a ghost. And I am stifling in it all. And I stay.
My sole diversion is to go on Sunday, after mass, to call on Mme. Gouin, the grocer. Disgust holds me back, but ennui, stronger than disgust, takes me there. There at least we are ourselves again,—all of us together. We gossip, we laugh, we tell stories as we sip our little black-currant cocktails. There we find a little of the illusion of life. The time passes. A few Sundays ago I missed a little woman, with running eyes and a rat-like nose, whom I had seen there previously. I inquire about her.
"It is nothing; it is nothing," said the grocer, in a tone to which she tried to impart a certain mystery.
"She is sick, then?"
"Yes, but it is nothing. In two days it will be all gone."
And Mam'zelle Rose looks at me with confirmatory eyes, which seem to say:
"Ah, you see, this is a very skilful woman."
To-day I have learned at the grocer's that a party of hunters found yesterday, in the forest of Raillon, among the briers and dead leaves, the body of a little girl, horribly outraged. It seems that she was the daughter of a road-laborer. She was known in the neighborhood as the little Claire. She was a little bit simple, but sweet and pretty, and she was not twelve years old! A rich windfall, as you can imagine, for a place like the grocer's shop, where they had to content themselves with telling the same stories week after week. Consequently the tongues rattled famously.
According to Rose, always better informed than the others, the little Claire had been cut open with a knife, and her intestines were protruding through the wound. Her neck and throat still bore visible marks of strangling fingers. There was still to be seen in the short heather the trampled and trodden spot where the crime had been committed. It must have happened at least a week ago, for the body was almost entirely decomposed.
The assembled domestics relate a heap of things; they remember that the little Claire was always in the woods. In the spring she gathered there jonquils and lilies of the valley and anemones, of which she made pretty bouquets for the ladies of the town; she also went there to look for morels, which she sold on Sunday at the market. In summer there were mushrooms of all sorts, and other flowers. But at this time of year why did she go to the woods, where there was nothing left to pick?
One says, discreetly:
"Why had the father shown no anxiety regarding the child's disappearance? Perhaps he did it himself?"
To which another no less discreetly replies:
"But, if he had wanted to do it himself, he had no need to take his daughter to the woods; come now."
Mlle. Rose intervenes:
"It all looks very suspicious to me."
With knowing airs, the airs of one who is in possession of terrible secrets, she goes on in a lower voice, a voice of dangerous confidence:
"Oh! I know nothing about it; I make no assertions. But...."
And she leaves our curiosity hanging on this "but."
"What then? what then?" they cry from all sides, with outstretched necks and open mouths.
"But ... I should not be astonished ... if it were...."
We are breathless.
"Monsieur Lanlaire. There, that is what I think, if you want to know," she concludes, with an expression of base and atrocious ferocity.
Several protest; others reserve judgment. I declare that Monsieur Lanlaire is incapable of such a crime, and I cry:
"He, Lord Jesus? Oh, the poor man! He would be too much afraid."
But Rose, with still more hatred, insists:
"Incapable? Ta, ta, ta! And the little Jézureau? And Valentin's little girl? And the little Dougère? Do you remember them? Incapable?"
"It is not the same thing; it is not the same thing."
In their hatred of Monsieur they do not, like Rose, go so far as to make a formal charge of murder. That he outrages little girls who consent to be outraged,—yes, that is possible. That he kills them,—that is scarcely credible. But Rose stormily insists. She froths at the mouth; she pounds the table with her soft, fat hands; she cries, with excited gestures:
"Do I not tell you yes? I am sure of it."
Mme. Gouin, who has been listening in a dreamy fashion, finally declares, in her meaningless voice:
"Oh! indeed, young women, in these matters one can never tell. As for the little Jézureau, it was a famous bit of luck, I assure you, that he did not kill her."
In spite of the authority of the grocer, in spite of the obstinacy of Rose, who will not consent to change the subject, they pass in review, one after another, all the people in the neighborhood who could have done the deed. They find heaps of them,—all those whom they detest, all those of whom they have any jealousy, against whom they have any spite. Finally the pale little woman with the rat-like nose remarks:
"You know that last week there were two capuchins begging around here, who did not present a very inviting appearance, with their dirty beards. May it not have been they?"
A cry of indignation arises:
"Worthy and pious monks? The good God's holy souls! It is abominable!"
And, as we take our departure, after laying everybody under suspicion, Rose, bent on establishing her theory, repeats:
"Do I not tell you that it is he? It is he, be sure!"
Before re-entering the house, I stop a moment in the harness-room, where Joseph is polishing his harnesses. Above a dresser, on which bottles of varnish and boxes of blacking are symmetrically arranged, I see flaming on the pine wainscoting the portrait of Drumont. To give him greater majesty, undoubtedly, Joseph has recently adorned him with a crown of laurel. Opposite, the portrait of the pope is almost entirely hidden by a horse-blanket hung upon a nail. Anti-Jewish pamphlets and patriotic songs are piled up on a shelf, and in a corner Joseph's club stands lonely among the brooms.
Suddenly I say to Joseph, solely from a motive of curiosity:
"Do you know, Joseph, that the little Claire has been found in the woods, murdered and outraged?"
At first Joseph cannot suppress a movement of surprise,—is it really surprise? Rapid and furtive as this movement was, it seems to me that, at the sound of the little Claire's name, a sort of strange shock, something like a shudder, passed through him. He recovers very quickly.
"Yes," he says, in a firm voice, "I know it. I was told so in the neighborhood this morning."
Now he is indifferent and placid. He rubs his harnesses methodically with a thick, black cloth. I admire the muscular development of his bare arms, the harmonious and powerful suppleness of his biceps, the whiteness of his skin. I cannot see his eyes under the lowered lids,—his eyes so obstinately fixed upon his work. But I see his mouth, his large mouth, his enormous jaw, the jaw of a cruel and sensual beast. And I feel a sort of light tremor at my heart. I ask him further:
"Do they know who did it?"
Joseph shrugs his shoulders. Half jesting, half serious, he answers:
"Some vagabonds, undoubtedly; some dirty sheenies."
Then, after a short silence:
"Puuutt! you will see that they will not pinch them. The magistrates are all sold."
He hangs up the finished harnesses, and, pointing to Drumont's portrait, in its laurel halo, he adds:
"If we only had him? Oh, misfortune!"
I know not why I left him with a singular feeling of uneasiness in my soul.
At any rate, this story is going to give us something to talk about, something to divert us a little.
Sometimes, when Madame is out, and I cannot stand the ennui, I go to the iron fence by the roadside, where Mlle. Rose comes to meet me. Always on the watch, nothing that goes on in our place escapes her. She sees all who come in and go out. She is redder, fatter, flabbier than ever. Her lips hang more than they did, and she is more and more haunted by obscene ideas. Every time that we meet, her first look is at my person, and her first words, uttered in her thick voice, are:
"Remember my advice. As soon as you notice anything, go straight to Mme. Gouin; straight."
It is a veritable obsession, a mania. A little annoyed, I reply:
"But why do you expect me to notice anything? I know nobody here."
"Ah!" she exclaims, "a misfortune comes so quickly! A moment of forgetfulness,—it is very natural,—and there you are! Sometimes one does not know how it happens. I have seen some who were as sure as you are, and then it happened all the same. But with Mme. Gouin one can rest easy. So expert a woman is a real blessing to a town. Why, formerly, my dear little one, you saw nothing but children around here. The town was poisoned with children. An abomination! They swarmed in the streets, like chickens in a hen-yard. They bawled on the door-steps, and made a terrible hullaballoo. One saw nothing else. Well, I don't know whether you have noticed it, but to-day there are no more to be seen, almost none at all."
With a more slimy smile, she continues:
"Not that the girls amuse themselves any less. Oh! heavens, no! On the contrary. You never go out in the evening; but, if you were to take a walk at nine o'clock under the chestnut trees, you would see. Everywhere couples on the benches, kissing and caressing. It is a very pretty spectacle. Oh! to me, you know, love is so pretty. I perfectly understand that one cannot live without love. Yes, but it is very annoying also to have a lot of children tagging at one's heels. Well, they have none now; they have no more. And it is to Mme. Gouin that they owe that. Just a disagreeable moment to pass through; after all, it is not like having to swallow the sea. In your place I would not hesitate. A pretty girl like you, so distinguished, and who must have so good a figure,—a child would be a murder."
"Reassure yourself. I have no desire to have one."
"Yes, I know; nobody has any desire to have one. Only ... But, tell me, has Monsieur never made advances to you?"
"Why, no."
"That is astonishing, for he has a great reputation for that. Not even that morning in the garden?"
"I assure you."
Mam'zelle Rose shakes her head.
"You are unwilling to say anything. You distrust me. Well, that is your business. Only, we know what we know."
Peasants pass in the road, and salute Mam'zelle Rose, with respect.
"How do you do, Mam'zelle Rose? And the captain,—is he well?"
"Very well, thank you. He is drawing some wine just now."
Bourgeoispass in the road, and salute Mam'zelle Rose with respect.
"How do you do, Mam'zelle Rose? And the captain?"
"Always vigorous, thank you; you are very good."
The priest passes in the road, with a slow step, wagging his head. At the sight of Rose, he bows, smiles, closes his breviary, and stops.
"Ah! it is you, my dear child? And the captain?"
"Thank you, Father, things are going very nicely. The captain is busy in the cellar."
"So much the better, so much the better! I hope that he has planted some beautiful flowers, and that next year, on Corpus Christi day, we shall have again a superb street altar."
"You may be sure of it, Father."
"All my friendships to the captain, my child."
"And the same to you, Father."
And, as he goes away, his breviary again open:
"Au revoir! au revoir!All that a parish needs is parishioners like you."
And I go back, a little sad, a little discouraged, a little hateful, leaving this abominable Rose to enjoy her triumph, saluted by all, respected by all, fat, happy, hideously happy. Soon, I am sure, the priest will place her in a niche in his church, between two candles, with a nimbus of gold about her, like a saint.
October 25.
Joseph puzzles me. His ways are really mysterious, and I do not know what goes on in this silent and furious soul. But surely something extraordinary. His look sometimes is difficult to endure,—so difficult that mine avoids its intimidating fixity. He has a slow and gliding gait, that frightens me. One would say that he was dragging a ball riveted to his ankle, or, rather, the recollection of a ball. Is this a relic of a prison or of a convent? Both, perhaps. His back, too, frightens me, and also his large, powerful neck, tanned by the sun till it looks like old leather, and stiffened with sinews that stretch and strain like ropes. I have noticed on the back of his neck a collection of hard muscles that stand out in an exaggerated fashion, like those of wolves and wild beasts which have to carry heavy prey in their jaws.
Apart from his anti-Semitic craze, which indicates in Joseph a great violence and a thirst for blood, he is rather reserved concerning all matters. It is even impossible to know what he thinks. He has none of the swagger, and none of the professional humility, by which true domestics are to be recognized. Never a word of complaint, never the slightest disparagement of his masters. He respects his masters, without servility, and seems to be devoted to them, without ostentation. He does not sulk at his work, even when it is most repulsive. He is ingenious; he knows how to do everything, even the most difficult and different things, not a part of his regular work. He treats the Priory as if it were his own, watches it, guards it jealously, defends it. He drives away the poor, the vagrant, and the unfortunate, sniffing and threatening like a bull-dog. He is a type of the old-time servant, of the domestic of the days before the revolution. Of Joseph they say in the neighborhood: "There is nobody like him. A pearl!" I know that they try to get him away from the Lanlaires. From Louviers, from Elbeuf, from Rouen, he receives the most flattering offers. He refuses them, and does not boast of having refused them. Oh, no, indeed! He has been here for fifteen years, and he considers this house as his own. As long as they want him, he will stay. Madame, suspicious as she is, and seeing evil everywhere, places a blind confidence in him. She, who believes in nobody, believes in Joseph, in Joseph's honesty, in Joseph's devotion.
"A pearl! He would throw himself into the fire for us," she says.
And, in spite of her avarice, she overwhelms him with petty generosities and little gifts.
Nevertheless, I distrust this man. He disturbs me, and at the same time he interests me prodigiously. Often I have seen frightful things passing in the troubled water, in the dead water of his eyes. Since I have been observing him, I have changed the opinion that I formed of him when I first entered this house,—the opinion that he is a gross, stupid, and clumsy peasant. I ought to have examined him more attentively. Now I think him singularly shrewd and crafty, and even better than shrewd, worse than clever; I know not how to express myself concerning him. And then—is it because I am in the habit of seeing him every day?—I no longer find him so ugly or so old. Habit, like a fog, tends to palliate things and beings. Little by little it obscures the features of a face and rubs down deformities; if you live with a humpback day in and day out, after a time he loses his hump. But there is something else; I am discovering something new and profound in Joseph, which upsets me. It is not harmony of features or purity of lines that makes a man beautiful to a woman. It is something less apparent, less defined, a sort of affinity, and, if I dare say so, a sort of sexual atmosphere, pungent, terrible, or intoxicating, to the haunting influence of which certain women are susceptible, even in spite of themselves. Well, such an atmosphere emanates from Joseph. The other day I admired him as he was lifting a cask of wine. He played with it like a child with its rubber ball. His exceptional strength, his supple skill, the terrible leverage of his loins, the athletic push of his shoulders, all combined to make me dreamy. The strange and unhealthy curiosity, prompted by fear as much as by attraction, which is excited in me by the riddle of these suspicious manners, of this closed mouth, of this impressing look, is doubled by this muscular power, this bull's back. Without being able to explain it to myself further, I feel that there is a secret correspondence between Joseph and me,—a physical and moral tie that is becoming a little more binding every day.
From the window of the linen-room where I work, I sometimes follow him with my eyes in the garden. There he is, bending over his work, his face almost touching the ground, or else kneeling against the wall where the espaliers stand in line. And suddenly he disappears, he vanishes. Lower your head, and, before you can raise it again, he is gone. Does he bury himself in the ground? Does he pass through the walls? From time to time I have occasion to go to the garden to give him an order from Madame. I do not see him anywhere, and I call him:
"Joseph! Joseph! where are you?"
Suddenly, without a sound, Joseph arises before me, from behind a tree, from behind a vegetable-bed. He rises before me in the sunlight, with his severe and impenetrable mask, his hair glued to his skull, and his open shirt revealing his hairy chest. Where does he come from? From what hole does he spring? From what height has he fallen?
"Oh! Joseph, how you frightened me!"
And over Joseph's lips, and in his eyes, there plays a terrifying smile, which really has the swift, short flashes of a knife. I believe that this man is the devil.
The murder of the little Claire continues to be the all-absorbing topic, and to excite the curiosity of the town. They fight for the local and Paris newspapers that give the news. The "Libre Parole" accuses the Jews squarely and by wholesale, and declares that it was a "ritual murder." The magistrates have visited the spot, made inquiries and examinations, and questioned many people. Nobody knows a thing. Rose's charge, which has been circulating, has been met everywhere with an incredulous shrug of the shoulders. Yesterday the police arrested a poor peddler, who had no trouble in proving that he was not in the vicinity at the time of the crime. The father, to whom public rumor pointed, has been exonerated. Moreover, he bears an excellent reputation. So nowhere is there any clue to put justice on the track of the guilty. It seems that this crime excites the admiration of the magistrates, and was committed with a surprising skill,—undoubtedly by professionals, by Parisians. It seems also that the prosecuting attorney is pushing the affair in a very tame fashion and for the sake of form. The murder of a poor little girl is not a very interesting matter. So there is every reason to believe that no clue will ever be found, and that the case will soon be pigeon-holed, like so many others that have not told their secret.
I should not wonder if Madame believed her husband guilty. That is really comical, and she ought to know him better. She has behaved very queerly ever since the news. She has ways of looking at Monsieur that are not natural. I have noticed that during meals, whenever the bell rings, she gives a little start.
After breakfast to-day, as Monsieur manifested an intention of going out, she prevented him.
"Really, you may as well remain here. Why do you need to be always going out?"
She even walked with Monsieur for a full hour in the garden. Naturally Monsieur perceives nothing; he does not lose a mouthful of food or a puff of tobacco-smoke. What a stupid blockhead!
I had a great desire to know what they could be saying to each other when they were alone,—the two of them. Last night, for more than twenty minutes, I listened at the door of thesalon. I heard Monsieur crumpling a newspaper. Madame, seated at her little desk, was casting up her accounts.
"What did I give you yesterday?" Madame asked.
"Two francs," answered Monsieur.
"You are sure?"
"Why, yes, my pet."
"Well, I am short thirty-eight sous."
"It was not I who took them."
"No, it was the cat."
Of the other matter they said not a word.
In the kitchen Joseph does not like to have us talk about the little Claire. When Marianne or I broach the subject, he immediately changes it, or else takes no part in the conversation. It annoys him. I do not know why, but the idea has come to me—and it is burying itself deeper and deeper in my mind—that it was Joseph who did it. I have no proofs, no clues to warrant my suspicion,—no other clues than his eyes, no other proofs than the slight movement of surprise that escaped him when, on my return from the grocer's, I suddenly, in the harness-room, threw in his face for the first time the name of the little Claire murdered and outraged. And yet this purely intuitive suspicion has grown, first into a possibility, and then into a certainty. Undoubtedly I am mistaken. I try to convince myself that Joseph is a "pearl." I say to myself over and over again that my imagination takes mad flights, obedient to the influence of the romantic perversity that is in me. But all in vain; the impression remains, in spite of myself, never leaves me for a moment, and is assuming the tormenting and grimacing form of a fixed idea. And I have an irresistible desire to ask Joseph:
"Say, Joseph, was it you who outraged the little Claire in the woods? Was it you, old pig?"
The crime was committed on a Saturday. I remember that Joseph, at about that date, went to the forest of Raillon to get some heath mould. He was absent all day, and did not return to the Priory with his load till late in the evening. Of that I am sure. And—an extraordinary coincidence—I remember certain restless movements, certain troubled looks, that he had that evening, when he came back. I took no notice of them then. Why should I have done so? But to-day these facial details come back to me forcibly. But was it on the Saturday of the crime that Joseph went to the forest of Raillon? I seek in vain to fix the date of his absence. And then, had he really the restless movements, the accusing looks, that I attribute to him, and which denounce him to me? Is it not I who am bent upon suggesting to myself the unusual strangeness of those movements and those looks? Am I not determined, without reason and against all probability, that it shall be Joseph—a pearl—who did it? It irritates me, and at the same time confirms me in my apprehensions, that I cannot reconstruct before my eyes the tragedy of the forest. If only the judicial examination had revealed fresh tracks of a cart on the dead leaves and on the heather in the neighborhood? But no; the examination revealed nothing of the kind; it revealed the outrage and murder of a little girl, and that is all. Well, it is precisely that which so excites me. This cleverness of the assassin in leaving not the slightest trace of his crime behind him, this diabolical invisibility,—I feel in it and see in it the presence of Joseph. Enervated, I make bold suddenly, after a silence, to ask him this question:
"Joseph, what day was it that you went to the forest of Raillon to get heath mould? Do you remember?"
Without haste, without a start, Joseph puts down the newspaper that he was reading. Now his soul is steeled against surprises.
"Why do you ask?" he says.
"Because I want to know."
Joseph looks at me with his heavy, searching gaze. Then, without affectation, he seems to be ransacking his memory in search of recollections that are already old. And he answers:
"Indeed, I do not remember exactly; I think, though, that it was on a Saturday."
"The Saturday when the body of the little Claire was found in the woods?" I go on, giving to this inquiry, too quickly uttered, an aggressive tone.
Joseph does not take his eyes from mine. His look has become so sharp and so terrible that, in spite of my customary effrontery, I am obliged to turn away my head.
"Possibly," he says again; "indeed, I really think that it was that Saturday."
And he adds:
"Oh! these confounded women! You would do much better to think of something else. If you read the newspaper, you would see that they have been killing Jews again in Algeria. That at least is something worth while."
Apart from his look, he is calm, natural, almost good-natured. His gestures are easy; his voice no longer trembles. I become silent, and Joseph, picking up the newspaper that he had laid on the table, begins to read again, in the most tranquil fashion in the world.
For my part, I have begun to dream again. Now that I am about it, I should like to find in Joseph's life some act of real ferocity. His hatred of the Jews, his continual threats to torture, kill, and burn them,—all this, perhaps, is nothing but swagger, and political swagger at that. I am looking for something more precise and formal, some unmistakable evidence of Joseph's criminal temperament. And I find nothing but vague and moral impressions, hypotheses to which my desire or my fear that they may be undeniable realities gives an importance and a significance which undoubtedly they do not possess. My desire or my fear? I do not know which of these two sentiments it is that moves me.
But yes. Here is a fact, a real fact, a horrible fact, a revealing fact. I do not invent it; I do not exaggerate it; I did not dream it; it is exactly as I state it. It is one of Joseph's duties to kill the chickens, rabbits, and ducks. He kills the ducks by the old Norman method of burying a pin in their head. He could kill them with a blow, without giving them pain. But he loves to prolong their suffering by skilful refinements of torture. He loves to feel their flesh quiver and their heart beat in his hands; he loves to follow, to count, to hold in his hands, their suffering, their convulsions, their death. Once I saw Joseph kill a duck. He held it between his knees. With one hand he grasped it by the neck, with the other he buried a pin in its head; and then he turned and turned the pin in the head, with a slow and regular movement. One would have thought he was grinding coffee. And, as he turned the pin, Joseph said, with savage joy:
"It is necessary to make it suffer. The more it suffers, the better its blood will taste."
The animal had freed its wings from Joseph's knees; they were beating, beating. Its neck, in spite of Joseph's grasp, twisted into a frightful spiral, and beneath its feathers its flesh heaved. Then Joseph threw the animal upon the stone floor of the kitchen, and, with elbows on his knees and chin in his joined palms, he began to follow, with a look of hideous satisfaction, its bounds, its convulsions, the mad scratching of its yellow claws upon the floor.
"Stop then, Joseph," I cried. "Kill it at once; it is horrible to make animals suffer."
And Joseph answered:
"That amuses me. I like to see that."
I recall this memory; I evoke all its sinister details; I hear all the words that were spoken. And I have a desire, a still more violent desire, to cry to Joseph:
"It was you who outraged the little Claire in the woods. Yes, yes; I am sure of it now; it was you, you, you, old pig."
There is no longer any doubt of it; Joseph must be a tremendous scoundrel. And this opinion that I have of his moral personality, instead of driving me from him, far from placing a wall of horror between us, causes me, not to love him perhaps, but to take an enormous interest in him. It is queer, but I have always had a weakness for scoundrels. There is something unexpected about them that lashes the blood,—a special odor that intoxicates you,—something strong and bitter that attracts you sexually. However infamous scoundrels may be, they are never as infamous as the respectable people. What annoys me about Joseph is that he has the reputation, and, to one who does not know his eyes, the manners, of an honest man. I should like him better if he were a frank and impudent scoundrel. It is true that he would lose that halo of mystery, that prestige of the unknown, which moves and troubles and attracts me—yes, really, attracts me—toward this old monster.
Now I am calmer, because I am certain, and because nothing henceforth can remove the certainty from my mind, that it was he who outraged the little Claire in the woods.
For some time I have noticed that I have made a considerable impression upon Joseph's heart. His bad reception of me is at an end; his silence toward me is no longer hostile or contemptuous, and there is something approaching tenderness in his nudges. His looks have no more hatred in them,—did they ever have any, however?—and, if they are still so terrible at times, it is because he is seeking to know me better, always better, and wishes to try me. Like most peasants, he is extremely distrustful, and avoids trusting himself to others, for he thinks that they are planning to "take him in." He must be in possession of numerous secrets, but he hides them jealously, under a severe, scowling, and brutal mask, as one locks treasures in a strong-box equipped with solid bars and mysterious bolts. However, his distrust of me is lessening. He is charming toward me, in his way. He does all that he can to show his friendship for me, and to please me. He relieves me of my most painful duties; takes upon himself the heavy work that is given me to do; and all without roguishness, without any underlying gallantry, without seeking to provoke my gratitude, without trying to get any profit from it whatsoever. On my side, I keep his affairs in order, mend his stockings and his pantaloons, patch his shirts, and arrange his closet with much more care and coquetry than I do Madame's. And he says to me, with a look of satisfaction:
"That is very well, Célestine. You are a good woman,—an orderly woman. Order, you see, means fortune. And, when one is pretty besides,—when one is a beautiful woman, there is nothing better."
Hitherto we have talked together only for brief moments. At night, in the kitchen, with Marianne, the conversation has to be general. No intimacy is permissible between us two. And, when I see him alone, nothing is more difficult than to make him talk. He refuses all long conversations, fearing, undoubtedly, to compromise himself. A word here, a word there, amiable or crusty, and that is all. But his eyes speak, though his lips are silent. And they prowl around me, and they envelop me, and they descend into me, into my very depths, in order to turn my soul inside out and see what is in it.
For the first time we had a long talk yesterday. It was at night. The masters had gone to bed; Marianne had gone to her room earlier than usual. Not feeling disposed to read or write, it was tiresome for me to remain alone. Still obsessed by the image of the little Claire, I went to find Joseph in the harness-room, where, seated at a little white-wood table, he was sorting seeds by the light of a dark lantern. His friend, the sacristan, was there, standing near him, holding under his two arms packages of little pamphlets, red, green, blue, tricolor. With big round eyes surpassing the arch of the eyebrows, flattened skull, and wrinkled, yellow, and cross-grained skin, he looked like a toad. He had also the bounding heaviness of a toad. Under the table the two dogs, rolled into a ball, were sleeping, with their heads buried in their shaggy skins.
"Ah! it is you, Célestine?" exclaimed Joseph.
The sacristan tried to hide his pamphlets, but Joseph reassured him.
"We can talk before Mademoiselle. She is an orderly woman."
And he gave him directions.
"So, old man, it is understood, isn't it? At Bazoches, at Courtain, at Fleur-sur-Tille. And let them be distributed to-morrow, in the day-time. And try to get subscriptions. And let me tell you again; go everywhere, into all the houses,—even the houses of republicans. Perhaps they will show you the door, but that makes no difference. Keep right on. If you win one of these dirty pigs, it is always so much gained. And then, remember that you get five francs for every republican."
The sacristan nodded his head approvingly. Having tucked the pamphlets under his arms, he started off, Joseph accompanying him as far as the iron fence. When the latter returned, he noticed my curious face, my inquisitive eyes.
"Yes," he said, carelessly, "some songs, and some pictures, and some pamphlets against the Jews, which are being distributed for propagandism. I have made an arrangement with the priests; I work for them. It is in the line of my own ideas, surely; but I must say also that I am well paid."
He sat down again at the little table where he was sorting his seeds. The two dogs, awakened, took a turn about the room, and went to lie down again farther off.
"Yes, yes," he repeated, "I get good pay. Oh! the priests have money enough."
And, as if fearing that he had said too much, he added:
"I tell you this, Célestine, because you are a good woman and an orderly woman, and because I have confidence in you. It is between ourselves, you know."
After a silence:
"What a good idea it was of yours to come out here to-night!" he thanked me; "it is very nice of you; it flatters me."
Never had I seen him so amiable, so talkative. I bent over the little table very near him, and, stirring the sorted seeds in the plate, I answered coquettishly:
"It is true, too; you went away directly after dinner; we had no time to gossip. Shall I help you sort your seeds?"
"Thank you, Célestine, I have finished."
He scratched his head.
"Sacristi!" he exclaimed, with annoyance, "I ought to go and see to my garden-frames. The field-mice do not leave me a salad, the vermin! But then, no, indeed, I must talk with you, Célestine."
Joseph rose, closed the door, which had been left half open, and led me to the back of the harness-room. For a minute I was frightened. The little Claire, whom I had forgotten, appeared before my eyes on the forest heath, frightfully pale and bleeding. But there was nothing wicked in Joseph's looks; they were timid, rather. We could scarcely see each other in this dark room, lighted by the dull and hazy gleams of the lantern. Up to this point Joseph's voice had trembled. Now it suddenly took on assurance, almost gravity.
"For some days I have been wanting to confide this to you, Célestine," he began; "well, here it is. I have a feeling of friendship for you. You are a good woman, an orderly woman. Now I know you very well."
I thought it my duty to assume an archly mischievous smile, and I replied:
"You must admit that it has taken you some time. And why were you so disagreeable with me? You never spoke to me; you were always rough with me. You remember the scenes that you made me when I went through the paths that you had just raked? Oh! how crusty you were!"
Joseph began to laugh, and shrugged his shoulders:
"Oh! yes; why, you know, one cannot get acquainted with people at the very start. And women especially,—it takes the devil to know them. And you came from Paris! Now I know you very well."
"Since you know me so well, Joseph, tell me, then, what I am."
With set lips and serious eyes, he said:
"What you are, Célestine? You are like me."
"I am like you, I?"
"Oh! not in your features, of course. But you and I, in the very depths of the soul, are the same thing. Yes, yes, I know what I say."
Again there was a moment of silence. Then he resumed, in a voice that was less stern:
"I have a feeling of friendship for you, Célestine. And then...."
"And then?..."
"I have some money, too,—a little money."
"Ah?"
"Yes, a little money. Why, one does not serve forty years in good houses without saving something. Is it not so?"
"Surely," I answered, more and more astonished by Joseph's words and manner. "And you have much money?"
"Oh! only a little."
"How much? Let me see."
Joseph gave a slight chuckle.
"You may know well that it is not here. It is in a place where it is making little ones."
"Yes, but how much?"
Then in a low voice, almost a whisper:
"Perhaps fifteen thousand francs; perhaps more."
"My! but you are well fixed, you are!"
"Oh! perhaps less, too. One cannot tell."
Suddenly the two dogs lifted their heads simultaneously, bounded to the door, and began to bark. I made a movement of fright.
"That's nothing," said Joseph, reassuringly, giving each of them a kick in the side; "simply people passing in the road. Why, it is Rose, going home. I know her step."
And, in fact, a few seconds later I heard a sound of dragging steps in the road, and then a more distant sound of a closing gate. The dogs became silent again.
I had sat down on a stool in a corner of the harness-room. Joseph, with his hands in his pockets, walked back and forth in the narrow room, his elbows hitting against the pine wainscoting from which leather straps were hanging. We did not speak, I being horribly embarrassed and regretting that I had come, and Joseph being plainly tormented by what he had still to say to me.
After some minutes he made up his mind.
"There is another thing that I must confide to you, Célestine. I am from Cherbourg. And Cherbourg is a tough town, full of sailors and soldiers, of jolly lascars who do not deny themselves pleasure; business is good there. Well, I know a fine opportunity just now at Cherbourg. It is a matter of a little café near the water. A little café in a first-rate location. The army is drinking a great deal these days; all the patriots are in the street; they shout and bawl and get thirsty. Now is the time to get it. One could make hundreds and thousands, I promise you. Only, you see, there must be a woman there,—an orderly woman, a pretty woman, well equipped, and not afraid of slang and smut. The sailors and soldiers are good-natured and gay and full of fun. They get drunk on the slightest provocation, and they are fond of women, and spend much for them. What do you think about it, Célestine?"
"I?" I exclaimed, stupefied.
"Yes; just suppose the case. Would you like it?"
"I?"
I did not know what he was coming at. I trembled from surprise to surprise. Utterly upset, I could think of no answer to make. He insisted:
"You, of course. And who, then, do you expect to come to the little café? You are a good woman; you are orderly; you are not one of those affected creatures who do not know even how to take a joke; and you are patriotic! And then you are pretty, very nice to look at; you have eyes to drive the whole Cherbourg garrison crazy. Just the cheese! Now that I know you well, now that I know all that you can do, this idea keeps continually running through my head."
"Well? And you?"
"I, too, of course! We would marry, like good friends."
"Then," cried I, with sudden indignation, "you want me to prostitute myself to make money for you?"
Joseph shrugged his shoulders, and said tranquilly:
"All depends on the intention, Célestine. That is understood, is it not?"
Then he came to me, took my hands, pressed them so tightly that I screamed with pain, and stammered:
"I dream of you, Célestine; I dream of you in the little café. I am crazy over you."
And, as I stood in amazement, a little frightened by this confession, and without a gesture or a word, he continued:
"And then, perhaps there are more than fifteen thousand francs. Perhaps more than eighteen thousand francs. One never knows how many little ones this money makes. And then, things ... things ... jewels ... you would be tremendously happy in the little café."
He held my waist clasped in the powerful vise of his arms. And I felt his whole body against me, trembling with desire. If he had wished, he could have taken me and stifled me without the slightest resistance on my part. And he continued to unfold his dream:
"A little café, very pretty, very clean, very shining. And then, at the bar, before a large mirror, a beautiful woman, dressed in the costume of Alsace-Lorraine, with a beautiful silk waist and broad velvet ribbons. Hey, Célestine? Think of that! I will talk with you about it again one of these days; I will talk with you about it again."
I found nothing to say,—nothing, nothing, nothing. I was stupefied by this thing, of which I had never dreamed; but I was also without hatred, without horror, of this man's cynicism. Clasping me with the same hands that had clasped, stifled, strangled, murdered the little Claire in the woods, Joseph repeated:
"I will talk with you about it again. I am old; I am ugly. Possibly. But to fix a woman, Célestine,—mark this well,—there is nobody like me. I will talk with you about it again."
To fix a woman! How he fills one with forebodings! Is it a threat? Is it a promise?
To-day Joseph has resumed his customary silence. One would think nothing had happened last night between us. He goes, he comes, he works, he eats, he reads his paper, just as usual. I look at him, and I should like to detest him. I wish that his ugliness would fill me with such immense disgust as to separate me from him forever. Well, no. Ah! how queer it is! This man sends shivers through me, and I feel no disgust. And it is a frightful thing that I feel no disgust, since it was he who killed and outraged the little Claire in the woods.