Germinie Lacerteux
As her faculties failed, she abandoned and neglected her body in a likedegree. She gave no thought to her dress, nor to cleanliness even. Inher indifference she retained nothing of a woman's natural solicitudetouching her personal appearance; she did not dress decently. She woredresses 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 simplywiped them as she would after dusting. Formerly she had had the onecoquettish and luxurious instinct of poor women, a love for clean linen.No one in the house had fresher caps than she. Her simple littlecollars were always of that snowy whiteness that lights up the skin soprettily and makes the whole person clean. Now she wore frayed, dirtycaps 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 youfelt that she was less clean beneath than above. An odor of poverty,rank and musty, arose from her. Sometimes it was so strong thatMademoiselle de Varandeuil could not refrain from saying to her: "Go andchange your clothes, my girl--you smell of the poor!"
In the street she no longer looked as if she belonged to any respectableperson. She had not the appearance of a virtuous woman's maid. She lostthe aspect of a servant who, by dint of displaying her self-esteem andself-respect even in her garb, reflects in her person the honor and thepride of her masters. From day to day she sank nearer to the level ofthat abject, shameless creature whose dress drags in the gutter--a dirtyslattern.
As she neglected herself, so she neglected everything about her. Shekept nothing in order, she did no cleaning or washing. She allowed dirtand disorder to make their way into the apartments, to invademademoiselle's own sanctum, with whose neatness mademoiselle wasformerly so well pleased and so proud. The dust collected there, thespiders spun their webs behind the frames, the mirrors were as ifcovered with a veil; the marble mantels, the mahogany furniture, losttheir lustre; moths flew up from the carpets which were never shaken,worms ensconced themselves where the brush and broom no longer came todisturb them; neglect spread a film of dust over all the sleeping,neglected objects that were formerly awakened and enlivened everymorning by the maid's active hand. A dozen times mademoiselle had triedto spur Germinie's self-esteem to action; but thereupon, for a wholeday, there was such a frantic scrubbing, accompanied by such gusts ofill-humor, that mademoiselle would take an oath never to try again. Oneday, however, she made bold to write Germinie's name with her finger inthe dust on her mirror; Germinie did not forgive her for a week. At lastmademoiselle became resigned. She hardly ventured to remark mildly, whenshe saw that her maid was in good humor: "Confess, Germinie, that thedust is very well treated with us!"
To the wondering observations of the friends who still came to see herand whom Germinie was forced to admit, mademoiselle would reply, in acompassionate, sympathetic tone: "Yes, it is filthy, I know! But whatcan you expect? Germinie's sick, and I prefer that she shouldn't killherself." Sometimes, when Germinie had gone out, she would venture torub a cloth over a commode or touch a frame with the duster, with hergouty hands. She would do it hurriedly, afraid of being scolded, ofhaving a scene, if the maid should return and detect her.
Germinie did almost no work; she barely served mademoiselle's meals. Shehad reduced her mistress's breakfast and dinner to the simplest dishes,those which she could cook most easily and quickly. She made her bedwithout raising the mattress, _a l'Anglaise_. The servant that she hadbeen was not to be recognized in her, did not exist in her, except onthe days when mademoiselle gave a small dinner party, the number ofcovers being always considerable on account of the party of childreninvited. On those days Germinie emerged, as if by enchantment, from herindolence and apathy, and, putting forth a sort of feverish strength,she recovered all her former energy in face of her ovens and thelengthened table. And mademoiselle was dumfounded to see her, all byherself, declining assistance and capable of anything, prepare in a fewhours a dinner for half a score of persons, serve it and clear the tableafterwards, with the nimble hands and all the quick dexterity of heryouth.
XL
"No--not this time, no," said Germinie, rising from the foot ofJupillon's bed where she was sitting. "There's no way. Why, you knowperfectly well that I haven't a sou--anything you can call a sou! You'veseen the stockings I wear, haven't you?"
She lifted her skirt and showed him her stockings, all full of holes andtied 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 herbirthday. 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 tookthem out of mademoiselle's box! I've put them back. But that's donewith. 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 todoing anything of that sort again, never in my life! Whatever else youchoose, but no stealing! I won't do it again. Oh! I know very well whatyou will do. So much the worse!"
"Well! have you worked yourself up enough?" said Jupillon. "If you'dtold 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 onas usual. I fancied it wouldn't put you out to lend me a twenty-francpiece, and I'd have returned it in a week or two with the others. Butyou don't say anything? Oh! well, I'm done, I won't ask you for anymore. But that's no reason we should quarrel, as I can see." And headded, with an indefinable glance at Germinie: "Till Thursday, eh?"
"Till Thursday!" said Germinie, desperately. She longed to throw herselfinto 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 onthe ground floor, she thought she heard a man's hurried step at theother end of the room. The door opened; before her stood Jupillon'scousin with her hair in a net, wearing a red jacket and slippers, andwith 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 onthe 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 otherroom.
"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 doorin 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 beneathher trembling legs.
XLI
When she returned that evening from a christening dinner, which she hadbeen unable to avoid attending, mademoiselle heard talking in her room.She thought that there was someone with Germinie, and, marvelingthereat, 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 accentthat caused emotion, almost fear. The vague solemnity of supernaturalthings, a breath from regions beyond this life, arose in the room, withthose words of sleep, involuntary, fugitive words, palpitating,half-spoken, as if a soul without a body were wandering about a deadman's lips. The voice was slow and deep, and had a far-off sound, withlong pauses of heavy breathing, and words breathed forth like sighs,with now and then a vibrating, painful note that went to the heart,--avoice laden with mystery and with the nervous tremor of the darkness, inwhich the sleeper seemed to be groping for souvenirs of the past andpassing her hand over faces. "Oh! she loved me dearly," mademoiselleheard her say. "And if he had not died we should be very happy now,shouldn't we? No! no! But it's d
one, worse luck, and I don't want totell of it."
The words were followed by a nervous contraction of her features as ifshe sought to seize her secret on the edge of her lips and force itback.
Mademoiselle, with something very like terror, leaned over the poor,forlorn body, powerless to direct its own acts, to which the pastreturned as a ghost returns to a deserted house. She listened to theconfessions that were all ready to rush forth but were instinctivelychecked, to the unconscious mind that spoke without restraint, to thevoice that did not hear itself. A sensation of horror came over her: shefelt 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 conflictbetween the things that were present in her mind, Germinie apparentlyturned her attention to the circumstances of her present life. The wordsthat escaped her, disjointed, incoherent words, were, as far asmademoiselle could understand them, addressed to some person by way ofreproach. And as she talked on, her language became as unrecognizable asher voice, which had taken on the tone and accent of the dreamer. Itrose above the woman, above her ordinary style, above her dailyexpressions. It was the language of the people, purified andtransfigured by passion. Germinie accentuated words according to theirorthography; she uttered them with all their eloquence. The sentencescame from her mouth with their proper rhythm, their heart-rending pathosand their tears, as from the mouth of an admirable actress. There werebursts of tenderness, interlarded with shrieks; then there wereoutbreaks of rebellion, fierce bursts of passion, and the mostextraordinary, biting, implacable irony, always merging into a paroxysmof nervous laughter that repeated the same result and prolonged it fromecho to echo. Mademoiselle was confounded, stupefied, and listened as atthe theatre. Never had she heard disdain hurled down from so lofty aheight, contempt so tear itself to tatters and gush forth in laughter, awoman's words express such a fierce thirst for vengeance against a man.She ransacked her memory: such play of feature, such intonations, such adramatic and heart-rending voice as that voice of a consumptive coughingaway her life, she could not remember since the days of MademoiselleRachel.
At last Germinie awoke abruptly, her eyes filled with the tears of herdream, and jumped down from the bed, seeing that her mistress hadreturned. "Thanks," said mademoiselle, "don't disturb yourself! Wallowabout on my bed all you please!"
"Oh! mademoiselle," said Germinie, "I wasn't lying where you put yourhead. I have made it nice and warm for your feet."
"Indeed! Suppose you tell me what you've been dreaming? There was a manin 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 herdream. 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? Iremember now."
XLII
Soon after this, mademoiselle was amazed to notice an entire change inher maid's manner and habits. Germinie no longer had her sullen, savagemoods, her outbreaks of rebellion, her fits of muttering wordsexpressive of discontent. She suddenly threw off her indolence andbecame once more an energetic worker. She no longer passed hours indoing her marketing; she seemed to avoid the street. She ceased to goout in the evening; indeed, she hardly stirred from mademoiselle's side,hovering about her and watching her from the time she rose in themorning until she went to bed at night, lavishing continuous, incessant,almost irritating attentions upon her, never allowing her to rise oreven to put out her hand for anything, waiting upon her and keepingwatch of her as if she were a child. At times mademoiselle was so wornout with her, so weary of this constant fussing about her person, thatshe would open her mouth to say: "Come, come! aren't you almost ready toclear out!" But Germinie would look up at her with a smile, a smile sosad and sweet that it checked the impatient exclamation on the oldmaid's lips. And so she stayed on with her, going about with a sort offascinated, divinely stolid air, in the impassibility of profoundadoration, buried in almost idiotic contemplation.
At that period all the poor girl's affection turned to mademoiselle. Hervoice, her gestures, her eyes, her silence, her thoughts, went out toher mistress with the fervor of expiation, with the contrition of aprayer, the rapt intensity of a cult. She loved her with all the lovingviolence of her nature. She loved her with all the deceptive ardor ofher passion. She strove to give her all that she had not given her, allthat 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 werethrown about her old age.
XLIII
But the past and its debts were still there, and whispered to her everyhour: "If mademoiselle knew!"
She lived in the constant panic of a guilty woman, trembling with dreadfrom morning till night. There was never a ring at the door that she didnot say to herself: "It has come at last!" Letters in a strangehandwriting filled her with anxiety. She would feel of the wax with herfingers, bury the letters in her pocket, hesitate about delivering them,and the moment when mademoiselle unfolded the terrible paper and scannedits contents with the inexpressive eye of elderly people was as full ofsuspense to her as if she were awaiting sentence of death. She felt thather secret and her falsehood were in everybody's hand. The house hadseen her and might speak. The quarter knew her as she was. Of all abouther, there was no one but her mistress whose esteem she could stillsteal.
As she went in and out, the concierge looked at her with a smile and aglance, that said: "I know." She no longer dared to call him: "MyPipelet." When she returned home he looked into her basket. "I am sofond of that!" his wife would say, when it contained some temptingmorsel. At night she would take down what was left. She ate nothingherself. She ended by supplying them with food.
The whole street frightened her no less than the hall and the porter'slodge. There was a face in every shop that reflected her shame andcommented on her sins. At every step she had to purchase silence bygroveling humility. The dealers she had not been able to repay had herin their clutches. If she said that anything was too dear, she wasreminded in a bantering way that they were her masters, and that shemust pay the price unless she chose to be denounced. A jest or anallusion drove the color from her cheeks. She was bound to them,compelled to trade with them and to allow them to empty her pockets asif they were accomplices. The successor of Madame Jupillon, who had goneinto the grocery business at Bar-sur Aube,--the new _cremiere_,--gaveher bad milk, and when she suggested that mademoiselle complained aboutit, and that she was found fault with every morning, the woman replied:"Much you care for your mademoiselle!" And at the fish-stall, if shesmelt 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, myduck?" Mademoiselle wanted her to go to the _Halle Centrale_ one day forher 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 tosend her account to her mistress. The grocer sold her coffee that smeltof snuff, rotten prunes, dried rice and old biscuit. If she ventured toremonstrate, "Nonsense!" he would say; "an old customer like youwouldn't want to make trouble for me. Don't I tell you I give you goodweight?" And he would coolly give her false weight of the goods that sheordered, 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 foryoung girls, when she went out before dinner to buy an evening paper formademoiselle. She often happened to be at the door when the school wasdismissed; she tried to run away--and stood still.
At first there would be a sound like that made by a swarm of bees, abuzzing and humming, one of those great outbursts of childish joy thatwake the echoes in the streets of Paris. From the dark and narrow
passageway leading to the schoolroom the children would rush forth as ifescaping from an open cage, and run about and frolic in the sunlight.They would push and jostle one another, and toss their empty baskets inthe air. Then some would call to one another and form little groups;tiny hands would go forth to meet other tiny hands; friends would takeone another by the arm or put their arms around one another's waists ornecks, and walk along nibbling at the same tart. Soon the whole bandwould be in motion, walking slowly up the filthy street with loiteringstep. The larger ones, ten years old at most, would stop and talk, likelittle women, at the _portes cocheres_. Others would stop to drink fromtheir luncheon bottles. The smaller ones would amuse themselves bydipping the soles of their shoes in the gutter. And there were some whomade a headdress of a cabbage leaf picked up from the ground,--a greencap sent by the good God, beneath which the fresh young face smiledbrightly.