Affairs had reached that point when mademoiselle fell ill. Throughouther illness, as Germinie did not want to leave her, she did not attendmass. And on the first Sunday--when mademoiselle, being fully recovered,did not require her care, she was greatly surprised to find that "herdevotee" remained at home and did not run away to church.
"Oho!" said she, "so you don't go and see your cures nowadays? What havethey 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 gothat evening to the wedding ball of her grocer's sister, who had chosenher for her maid-of-honor, and she had come to exhibit herself _engrande 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 bookto mark her place, and exclaimed:
"What, my little bigot, you at a ball! Do you know, my girl, this seemsto me downright nonsense! You and the hornpipe! Faith, all you need nowis to want to get married! A deuce of a want, that! But if you marry, Iwarn you that I won't keep you--mind that! I've no desire to wait onyour brats! Come a little nearer----Oho! why----bless my soul!Mademoiselle Show-all! We're getting to be a bit of a flirt lately, Ifind----"
"Why no, mademoiselle," Germinie tried to say.
"And then," continued Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, following out herthought, "among you people, the men are such sweet creatures! They'llspend all you have--to say nothing of the blows. But marriage--I am surethat that nonsensical idea of getting married buzzes around in your headwhen 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," saidMademoiselle de Varandeuil, with an abrupt change of tone to one thatwas almost caressing; and placing her thin hands on the arms of hereasy-chair, crossing her legs and moving her foot back and forth, sheset 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 atyou.----Good God, yes!----But----but----" She mumbled more vagueexclamations between her teeth.----"Where the deuce did you get that muglike 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 uponher shiny _bandeaux_. Her smooth, narrow, swelling brow protruded abovethe shadow of the deep sockets in which her eyes were buried and sunkento such a depth as almost to denote disease; small, bright, sparklingeyes they were, made to seem smaller and brighter by a constant girlishtwinkle that softened and lighted up their laughter. They were neitherbrown eyes nor blue eyes, but were of an undefinable, changing gray, agray that was not a color, but a light! Emotion found expression thereinin the flame of fever, pleasure in the flashing rays of a sort ofintoxication, passion in phosphorescence. Her short, turned-up nose,with large, dilated, palpitating nostrils, was one of those noses ofwhich the common people say that it rains inside: upon one side, at thecorner of the eye was a thick, swollen blue vein. The square head of theLorraine race was emphasized in her broad, high, prominent cheek-bones,which were well-covered with the traces of small-pox. The mostnoticeable defect in her face was the too great distance between thenose and mouth. This lack of proportion gave an almost apish characterto the lower part of the head, where the expansive mouth, with whiteteeth and full lips that looked as if they had been crushed, they wereso 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 herswarthy face. It was a lymphatic sort of whiteness, the whiteness, atonce unhealthy and angelic, of flesh in which there is no life. She hadlet her arms fall by her sides--round, smooth arms with a pretty dimpleat the elbow. Her wrists were delicate; her hands, which did not betraythe servant, were embellished with a lady's fingernails. And lazily,with graceful sloth, she allowed her indolent figure to curve andsway;--a figure that a garter might span, and that was made even moreslender to the eye by the projection of the hips and the curve of thehoops that gave the balloon-like roundness to her skirt;--an impossiblewaist, absurdly small but adorable, like everything in woman thatoffends one's sense of proportion by its diminutiveness.
From this ugly woman emanated a piquant, mysterious charm. Light andshadow, jostling and intercepting each other on her face on whichhollows and protuberances abounded, imparted to it that suggestion oflibertinism which the painter of love scenes gives to the rough sketchof his mistress. Everything about her,--her mouth, her eyes, her veryplainness--was instinct with allurement and solicitation. Her personexhaled an aphrodisiac charm, which challenged and laid fast hold of theother sex. It unloosed desire, and caused an electric shock. Sensualthoughts were naturally and involuntarily aroused by her, by hergestures, her gait, her slightest movement--even by the air in which herbody had left one of its undulations. Beside her, one felt as if he werenear one of those disturbing, disquieting creatures, burning with thelove disease and communicating it to others, whose face appears to manin his restless hours, torments his listless noonday thoughts, hauntshis nights and trespasses upon his dreams.
In the midst of Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's scrutiny, Germinie stoopedover her, and covered her hand with hurried kisses.
"There--there--enough of that," said Mademoiselle. "You would soon wearout 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 herknees, stared at the fire and stirred the burning wood with the tongs.Then, as she was accustomed to do when deeply preoccupied, she struckherself two or three sharp little blows on the neck with the flat of herhand, and thereby set her black cap all awry.
VI
When she mentioned the subject of marriage to Germinie, Mademoiselle deVarandeuil touched upon the real cause of her trouble. She placed herhand upon the seat of her _ennui_. Her maid's uneven temper, herdistaste for life, the languor, the emptiness, the discontent of herexistence, arose from that disease which medical science calls the_melancholia of virgins_. The torment of her twenty-four years was theardent, excited, poignant longing for marriage, for that state which wastoo holy and honorable for her, and which seemed impossible ofattainment in face of the confession her womanly probity would insistupon making of her fall and her unworthiness. Family losses andmisfortunes forcibly diverted her mind from her own troubles.
Her brother-in-law, her sister the concierge's husband, had dreamed thedream of all Auvergnats: he had undertaken to increase his earnings asconcierge by the profits of a dealer in bric-a-brac. He had begunmodestly with a stall in the street, at the doors of the marts whereexecutors' sales are held; and there you could see, set out upon bluepaper, plated candlesticks, ivory napkin rings, colored lithographswith frames of gold lace on a black ground, and three or four oddvolumes of Buffon. His profit on the plated candlesticks intoxicatedhim. He hired a dark shop on a passage way, opposite an umbrellamender's, and began to trade upon the credulity that goes in and out ofthe lower rooms in the Auction Exchange. He sold _assiettes a coq_,pieces of Jean Jacques Rousseau's wooden shoe, and water-colors byBallue, 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, inorder 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 fewmonths she caught cold in the corridors of the theatre, and an attack ofpleurisy laid her low and carried her off in six weeks. The poor womanleft
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 theloft, where the child had breathed for more than a month air poisoned bythe breath of her dying mother. The father had gone into the country totry and borrow money. He married again there. Nothing more was heard ofhim.
When returning from her sister's burial Germinie ran to the house of anold woman who made a living in those curious industries which preventpoverty from absolutely starving to death in Paris. This old womancarried on several trades. Sometimes she cut bristles into equal lengthsfor brushes, sometimes she sorted out bits of gingerbread. When thoseindustries failed, she did cooking and washed the faces of pedlars'children. In Lent she rose at four o'clock in the morning, went and tookpossession of a chair at Notre-Dame, and sold it for ten or twelve souswhen the crowd arrived. In order to procure fuel to warm herself, in theden where she lived on Rue Saint-Victor, she would go, at nightfall, tothe Luxembourg and peel the bark off the trees. Germinie, who knew herfrom having given her the crusts from the kitchen every week, hired aservant's room on the sixth floor of the house, and took up her abodethere with the little one. She did it on the impulse of the moment,without reflection. She did not remember her sister's harsh treatment ofher when she was _enceinte_, so that she had no need to forgive it.
Thenceforth Germinie had but one thought, her niece. She determined torescue her from death and restore her to life by dint of carefulnursing. She would rush away from Mademoiselle at every moment, run upthe stairs to the sixth floor four at a time, kiss the child, give herher draught, arrange her comfortably in bed, look at her, and rush downagain, all out of breath and red with pleasure. Care, caresses, thebreath from the heart with which we revive a tiny flame on the point ofdying out, consultations, doctor's visits, costly medicines, theremedies of the wealthy,--Germinie spared nothing for the little one andgave her everything. Her wages flowed through that channel. For almost ayear she gave her beef juice every morning: sleepyhead that she was, sheleft her bed at five o'clock in the morning to prepare it, and awokewithout being called, as mothers do. The child was out of danger atlast, when Germinie received a visit one morning from her sister thedressmaker, who had been married two or three years to a machinist, andwho came now to bid her adieu: her husband was going to accompany somefellow-workmen who had been hired to go to Africa. She was going withhim and she proposed to Germinie that they should take the little onewith them as a playmate for their own child. They offered to take heroff her hands. Germinie, they said, would have to pay only for thejourney. It was a separation she would have to make up her mind tosooner 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 induceGerminie to give them the child, with whom she and her husband expected,after their arrival in Africa, to move Germinie to pity, to getpossession of her wages, to play upon her heart and her purse.
It cost Germinie very dear to part with her niece. She had staked aportion of her existence upon the child. She was attached to her by heranxiety and her sacrifices. She had disputed possession of her withdisease and had won the day; the girl's life was her miracle. And yetshe realized that she could never take her to mademoiselle's apartments;that mademoiselle, at her age, with the burden of her years, and an agedperson's need of tranquillity, could never endure the constant noise andmovement of a child. And then, the little girl's presence in the housewould cause idle gossip and set the whole street agog: people would sayshe was her child. Germinie made a confidante of her mistress.Mademoiselle de Varandeuil knew the whole story. She knew that she hadtaken charge of her niece, although she had pretended not to know it;she had chosen to see nothing in order to permit everything. She advisedGerminie to entrust her niece to her sister, pointing out to her all thedifficulties in the way of keeping her herself, and she gave her moneyto pay for the journey of the whole family.
The parting was a heart-breaking thing to Germinie. She found herselfleft alone and without occupation. Not having the child, she knew notwhat to love; her heart was weary, and she had such a feeling of theemptiness of life without the little one, that she turned once more toreligion 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, andthreads of pathos, a despairing picture of his position, with the burialto pay for, attacks of fever that prevented him from working, two youngchildren, without counting the little girl, and a household with no wifeto heat the soup. Germinie wept over the letter; then her thoughtsturned to living in that house, beside that poor man, among the poorchildren, in that horrible Africa; and a vague longing to sacrificeherself began to awaken within her. Other letters followed, in which,while thanking her for her assistance, her brother-in-law gave to hispoverty, to his desolate plight, to the misery that enveloped him, astill more dramatic coloring--the coloring that the common people impartto trifles, with its memories of the Boulevard du Crime and itsfragments of vile books. Once caught by the _blague_ of this misery,Germinie could not cut loose from it. She fancied she could hear thecries of the children calling her. She became completely absorbed,buried in the project and resolution of going to them. She was hauntedby the idea and by the word Africa, which she turned over and overincessantly in the depths of her mind, without a word. Mademoiselle deVarandeuil, noticing her thoughtfulness and melancholy, asked her whatthe matter was, but in vain: Germinie did not speak. She was pulled thisway and that, tormented between what seemed to her a duty and whatseemed to her ingratitude, between her mistress and her sisters' blood.She thought that she could not leave mademoiselle. And again she said toherself that God did not wish her to abandon her family. She would lookabout the apartment and mutter: "And yet I must go!" Then she would fearthat mademoiselle might be sick when she was not there. Another maid! Atthat thought she was seized with jealousy and fancied that she couldalready see someone stealing her mistress. At other moments, when herreligious ideas impelled her to thoughts of self-sacrifice, she was allready to devote her existence to this brother-in-law. She determined togo and live with this man, whom she detested, with whom she had alwaysbeen 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 sheanticipated, all that she dreaded, the certainty of all she would haveto suffer and her shrinking fear of it, served to exalt and inflame herimagination, to urge her on to the sacrifice with the greater impatienceand ardor. Often the whole scheme fell to the ground in an instant: at aword, at a gesture from mademoiselle, Germinie would become herself oncemore, and would fail to recognize herself. She felt that she was boundto her mistress absolutely and forever, and she had a thrill of horrorat having so much as thought of detaching her own life from hers. Shestruggled 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-lawhad 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'sillusions being wholly dispelled by that revelation, she was cured onthe spot. She hardly remembered that she had ever thought of goingaway.
VII
About this time a small creamery at the end of the street, with fewcustomers, changed hands, as a result of the sale of the real estate byorder of court. The shop was renovated and repainted. The front windowswere embellished with inscriptions in yellow letters. Pyramids ofchocolate from the Compagnie Coloniale, and coffee-cups filled withflowers, alternating with small liqueur glasses, were displayed upon theshelves. At the door glistened the sign--a copper milk jug divided inthe middle.
The woman who thus endeavored to re-establish the concern, the new_cremiere_, was a person of about fifty years of age, whose corpulencepassed all bounds, and who still retained some _debris_ of beauty, halfsubmerged in fat. It was said in the quarter that she had set hers
elf upin business with the money of an old gentleman, whose servant she hadbeen until his death, in her native province, near Langres; for ithappened that she was a countrywoman of Germinie, not from the samevillage, but from a small place near by; and although she andmademoiselle'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 thatthey had acquaintances in common and could compare memories of the sameplaces. The stout woman was a flattering, affected, fawning creature.She said: "My love" to everybody, talked in a piping voice, and playedthe child with the querulous languor of corpulent persons. She detestedvulgar remarks and would blush and take alarm at trifles. She adoredsecrets, twisted everything into a confidential communication, inventedstories and always whispered in your ear. Her life was passed ingossiping and groaning. She pitied others and she pitied herself; shelamented her ill fortune and her stomach. When she had eaten too muchshe would say dramatically: "I am dying!" and nothing ever was sopathetic as her indigestion. She was constantly moved to tears: she weptindiscriminately for a maltreated horse, for someone who had died, formilk that had curdled. She wept over the various items in thenewspapers, she wept for the sake of weeping.