Germinie Lacerteux

  Germinie was very soon ensnared and moved to pity by this wheedling,talkative _cremiere_, who was always in a state of intense emotion,calling upon others to open their hearts to her, and apparently soaffectionate. After three months hardly anything passed mademoiselle'sdoors that did not come from Mere Jupillon. Germinie procuredeverything, or almost everything there. She passed hours in the shop.Once there it was hard work for her to leave; she remained there,unable to rise from her chair. A sort of instinctive cowardice detainedher. At the door she would stop and talk on, in order to delay herdeparture. She felt bound to the _cremiere_ by the invisible charm offamiliar places to which you constantly return, and which end byembracing you like things that would love you. And then, too, in hereyes the shop meant Madame Jupillon's three dogs, three wretched curs;she always had them on her knees, she scolded them and kissed them andtalked to them; and when she was warm with their warmth, she would feelin the depths of her heart the contentment of a beast rubbing againsther little ones. Again, the shop to her meant all the gossip of thequarter, the rendezvous of all the scandals,--how this one had failed topay her note and that one had received a carriage load of flowers; itmeant a place that was on the watch for everything, even to the lace_peignoir_ going to town on the maid's arm.

  In a word everything tended to attach her to the place. Her intimacywith the _cremiere_ was strengthened by all the mysterious bonds offriendship between women of the people, by the continual chatter, thedaily exchange of the trivial affairs of life, the conversation for thesake of conversing, the repetition of the same _bonjour_ and the same_bonsoir_, the division of caresses among the same animals, the napsside by side and chair against chair. The shop at last became herregular place for idling away her time, a place where her thoughts, herwords, her body and her very limbs were marvelously at ease. There camea time when her happiness consisted in sitting drowsily of an evening ina straw arm-chair, beside Mere Jupillon--sound asleep with herspectacles on her nose--and holding the dogs rolled in a ball in theskirt of her dress; and while the lamp, almost dying, burned pale uponthe counter, she would sit idly there, letting her glance lose itself atthe back of the shop, and gradually grow dim, with her ideas, as hereyes rested vaguely upon a triumphal arch of snail shells joinedtogether with old moss, beneath which stood a little copper Napoleon,with his hands behind his back.

  VIII

  Madame Jupillon, who claimed to have been married and signed herself_Widow Jupillon_, had a son. He was still a child. She had placed him atSaint-Nicholas, the great religious establishment where, for thirtyfrancs a month, rudimentary instruction and a trade are furnished to thechildren of the common people, and to many natural children. Germiniefell into the way of accompanying Madame Jupillon when she went to see_Bibi_ on Thursdays. This visit became a means of distraction to her,something to look forward to. She would urge the mother to hurry, wouldalways arrive first at the omnibus office, and was content to sit withher arms resting on a huge basket of provisions all the way.

  It happened that Mere Jupillon had trouble with her leg--a carbunclethat prevented her from walking for nearly eighteen months. Germiniewent alone to Saint-Nicholas, and as she was promptly and easily led todevote herself to others, she took as deep an interest in that child asif he were connected with her in some way. She did not miss a singleThursday and always arrived with her hands full of the last week'sdesserts, and with cakes and fruit and sweetmeats she had bought. Shewould kiss the urchin, inquire for his health, and feel to see if he hadhis knitted vest under his blouse; she would notice how flushed he wasfrom running, would wipe his face with her handkerchief and make himshow her the soles of his shoes so that she could see if there were anyholes in them. She would ask if his teachers were satisfied with him, ifhe attended to his duties and if he had had many good marks. She wouldtalk to him of his mother and bid him love the good Lord, and until theclock struck two she would walk with him in the courtyard: the childwould offer her his arm, as proud as you please to be with a woman muchbetter dressed than the majority of those who came there--with a womanin silk. He was anxious to learn the flageolet. It cost only five francsa month, but his mother would not give them. Germinie carried him thehundred sous every month, on the sly. It was a humiliating thing to himto wear the little uniform blouse when he went out to walk, and on thetwo or three occasions during the year when he went to see his mother.On his birthday, one year, Germinie unfolded a large parcel before him:she had had a tunic made for him; it is doubtful if twenty of hiscomrades in the whole school belonged to families in sufficiently easycircumstances to wear such garments.

  She spoiled him thus for several years, not allowing him to suffer witha longing for anything, encouraging the caprices and the pride ofwealthy children in the poor child, softening for him the privations andhardships of that trade school, where children were formed for alaboring life, wore blouses and ate off plates of brown earthenware; aschool that by its toilsome apprenticeship hardened the children of thepeople to lives of toil. Meanwhile the boy was growing fast. Germiniedid not notice it: in her eyes he was still the child he had alwaysbeen. From habit she always stooped to kiss him. One day she wassummoned before the abbe who was at the head of the school. He spoke toher of expelling Jupillon. Obscene books had been found in hispossession. Germinie, trembling at the thought of the blows that awaitedthe child at his mother's hands, prayed and begged and implored; shesucceeded at last in inducing the abbe to forgive the culprit. When shewent down into the courtyard again she attempted to scold him; but atthe first word of her moral lecture, Bibi suddenly cast in her face aglance and smile in which there was no trace of the child that he wasthe day before. She lowered her eyes, and she was the one to blush. Afortnight passed before she went again to Saint-Nicholas.

  IX

  About the time that young Jupillon left the boarding-school, a maid inthe service of a kept woman who lived on the floor below mademoisellesometimes passed the evening with Germinie at Madame Jupillon's. Anative of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which supplies Paris with coupedrivers and lorettes' waiting-maids, this girl was what is called invulgar parlance: "a great _bringue_;" she was an awkward, wild-eyedcreature, with the eyebrows of a water carrier. She soon fell into thehabit of going there every evening. She treated everybody to cakes andliquors, amused herself by showing off little Jupillon, playingpat-a-cake with him, sitting on his knee, telling him to his face thathe was a beauty, treating him like a child, playing the wanton with himand joking him because he was not a man. The boy, happy and proud ofthese attentions from the first woman who had ever taken notice of him,manifested before long his preference for Adele: so was the new-comercalled.

  Germinie was passionately jealous. Jealousy was the foundation of hernature; it was the dregs of her affection and gave it its bitter taste.Those whom she loved she wished to have entirely to herself, to possessthem absolutely. She demanded that they should love no one but her. Shecould not permit them to take from her and bestow upon others theslightest fragment of their affection: as she had earned it, it nolonger belonged to them; they were no longer entitled to dispose of it.She detested the people whom her mistress seemed to welcome morecordially than others, and with whom she was on most intimate terms. Byher ill-humor and her sullen manner she had offended, had almost drivenfrom the house, two or three of mademoiselle's old friends, whose visitswounded her; as if the old ladies came there for the purpose ofabstracting something from the rooms, of taking a little of her mistressfrom her. People of whom she had once been fond became odious to her:she did not consider that they were fond enough of her; she hated themfor all the love she wanted from them. Her heart was despotic andexacting in everything. As it gave all, it demanded all in return. Atthe least sign of coldness, at the slightest indication that she had arival, she would fly into a rage, tear her hair, pass her nights inweeping, and execrate the whole world.

  Seeing that other woman make herself at home in the shop and adopt atone of familiarity with the young man, all Germinie's j
ealous instinctswere aroused and changed to furious rage. Her hatred flew to arms andrebelled, with her disgust, against the shameless, brazen-facedcreature, who could be seen on Sunday sitting at table on the outerboulevards with soldiers, and who had blue marks on her face on Monday.She did her utmost to induce Madame Jupillon to turn her away; but shewas one of the best customers of the creamery, and the _cremiere_ mildlyrefused to close her doors upon her. Germinie had recourse to the sonand told him that she was a miserable creature. But that only served toattach the young man the closer to the vile woman, whose evil reputationdelighted him. Moreover, he had the cruel mischievous instinct of youth,and he redoubled his attentions to her simply to see "the nose" thatGerminie made and to enjoy her despair. Soon Germinie discovered thatthe woman's intentions were more serious than she had at first supposed:she began to understand what she wanted of the child,--for the tallyouth of seventeen was still a child in her eyes. Thenceforward she hungupon their steps; she was always beside them, never left them alone fora moment, made one at all their parties, at the theatre or in thecountry, joined them in all their walks, was always at hand and in theway, seeking to hold Adele back, and to restore her sense of decency bya word in an undertone: "A mere boy! ain't you ashamed?" she would sayto her. And the other would laugh aloud, as if it were a good joke.

  When they left the theatre, enlivened and heated by the feverishexcitement of the performance and the place; when they returned from anexcursion to the country, laden with a long day's sunshine, intoxicatedwith the blue sky and the pure air, excited by the wine imbibed atdinner, amid the sportive liberties in which the woman of the people,drunk with enjoyment and with the delights of unlimited good cheer, andwith the senses keyed up to the highest pitch of joviality, makes boldto indulge at night, Germinie tried to be always between the maid andJupillon. She never relaxed her efforts to break the lovers' hold uponeach other's arms, to unbind them, to uncouple them. Never wearying ofthe task, she was forever separating them, luring them away from eachother. She placed her body between those bodies that were groping foreach other. She glided between the hands outstretched to touch eachother; she glided between the lips that were put forth in search ofother proffered lips. But of all this that she prevented she felt thebreath and the shock. She felt the pressure of the hands she held apart,the caresses that she caught on the wing and that missed their mark andwent astray upon her. The hot breath of the kisses she intercepted blewupon her cheek. Involuntarily, and with a feeling of horror, she becamea party to the embracing, she was infected with the desires aroused bythis constant friction and struggling, which diminished day by day theyoung man's restraint and respect for her person.

  It happened one day that she was less strong against herself than shehad previously been. On that occasion she did not elude his advances soabruptly as usual. Jupillon felt that she stopped short. Germinie feltit even more keenly than he; but she was at the end of her efforts,exhausted with the torture she had undergone. The love which, comingfrom another, she had turned aside from Jupillon, had slowly taken fullpossession of her own heart. Now it was firmly rooted there, and,bleeding with jealousy, she found that she was incapable of resistance,weak and fainting, like a person fatally wounded, in presence of the joythat had come to her.

  She repelled the young man's audacious attempts, however, without aword. She did not dream of belonging to him otherwise than as a friend,or giving way farther than she had done. She lived upon the thought oflove, believing that she could live upon it always. And in the ecstaticexaltation of her thoughts, she put aside all memory of her fall, andrepressed her desires. She remained shuddering and pure, lost andsuspended in abysses of affection, neither enjoying nor wishing foraught from the lover but a caress, as if her heart were made only forthe joy of kissing.

  X

  This happy though unsatisfied love produced a strange physiologicalphenomenon in Germinie's physical being. One would have said that thepassion that was alive within her renewed and transformed her lymphatictemperament. She did not seem, as before, to extract her life, drop bydrop, from a penurious spring: it flowed through her arteries in a full,generous stream; she felt the tingling sensation of rich blood over herwhole body. She seemed to be filled with the warm glow of health, andthe joy of living beat its wings in her breast like a bird in thesunlight.

  A marvelous animation had come to her. The miserable nervous energy thatonce sustained her had given place to healthy activity, to bustling,restless, overflowing gayety. She had no trace now of the weakness, thedejection, the prostration, the supineness, the sluggishness thatformerly distinguished her. The heavy, drowsy feeling in the morning wasa thing of the past; she awoke feeling fresh and bright, and alive in aninstant to the cheer of the new day. She dressed in haste, playfully;her agile fingers moved of themselves, and she was amazed to be sobright and full of activity during the hours of faintness beforebreakfast, when she had so often felt her heart upon her lips. Andthroughout the day she had the same consciousness of physicalwell-being, the same briskness of movement. She must be always on themove, walking, running, doing something, expending her strength. Attimes all that she had lived through seemed to have no existence; thesensations of living that she had hitherto experienced seemed to herlike a far-off dream, or as if dimly seen in the background of asleeping memory. The past lay behind her, as if she had traversed it,covered with a veil like one in a swoon, or with the unconsciousness ofa somnambulist. It was the first time that she had experienced thefeeling, the impression, at once bitter and sweet, violent andcelestial, of the game of life brilliant in its plenitude, itsregularity and its power.

  She ran up and downstairs for a nothing. At a word from mademoiselle shewould trip down the whole five flights. When she was seated, her feetdanced on the floor. She brushed and scrubbed and beat and shook andwashed and set to rights, without rest or reprieve, always at work,filling the apartment with her goings and comings, and the incessantbustle that followed her about.--"Mon Dieu!" her mistress would say,stunned by the uproar she made, just like a child,--"you're turningthings upside down, Germinie! that will do for that!"

  One day, when she went into Germinie's kitchen, mademoiselle saw alittle earth in a cigar box on the leads.--"What's that?" sheasked.--"That's grass--that I planted--to look at," said Germinie.--"Soyou're in love with grass now, eh? All you need now is to havecanaries!"

  XI

  In the course of a few months, Germinie's life, her whole life belongedto the _cremiere_. Mademoiselle's service was not exacting and took butlittle time. A whiting or a cutlet--that was all the cooking there wasto be done. Mademoiselle might have kept her with her in the evening forcompany: she preferred, however, to send her away, to drive her out ofdoors, to force her to take a little air and diversion. She asked onlythat she would return at ten o'clock to help her to bed; and yet whenGerminie was a little late, mademoiselle undressed herself and went tobed alone very comfortably. Every hour that her mistress left her atleisure, Germinie passed in the shop. She fell into the habit of goingdown to the creamery in the morning, when the shutters were removed, andgenerally carried them inside; she would take her _cafe au lait_ thereand remain until nine o'clock, when she would go back and givemademoiselle her chocolate; and between breakfast and dinner she foundexcuses for returning two or three times, delaying and chattering in theback-shop on the slightest pretext. "What a magpie you are getting tobe!" mademoiselle would say, in a scolding voice, but with a smilingface.

  At half past five, when her mistress's little dinner was cleared away,she would run down the stairs four at a time, install herself at MereJupillon's, wait until ten o'clock, clamber up the five flights, and infive minutes undress her mistress, who submitted unresistingly, albeitshe was somewhat astonished that Germinie should be in such haste to goto bed; she remembered the time when she had a mania for moving hersleepy body from one easy-chair to another, and was never willing to goup to her room. While the candle was still smoking on mademoiselle'snight table, Germinie would be back
at the creamery, this time to remainuntil midnight, until one o'clock; often she did not go until apoliceman, noticing the light, tapped on the shutters and made themclose up.

  In order to be always there and to have the right to be always there, tomake herself a part of the shop, to keep her eyes constantly upon theman she loved, to hover about him, to keep him, to be always brushingagainst him, she had become the servant of the establishment. She sweptthe shop, she prepared the old woman's meals and the food for the dogs.She waited upon the son; she made his bed, she brushed his clothes, shewaxed his boots, happy and proud to touch what he touched, thrillingwith pleasure when she placed her hand where he placed his body, andready to kiss the mud upon the leather of his boots, because it washis!

  She did the menial work, she kept the shop, she served the customers.Madame Jupillon rested everything upon her shoulders; and while thegood-natured girl was working and perspiring, the bulky matron, assumingthe majestic, leisurely air of an annuitant, anchored upon a chair inthe middle of the sidewalk and inhaling the fresh air of the street,fingered and rattled the precious coin in the capacious pocket beneathher apron--the coin that rings so sweetly in the ears of the pettytradesmen of Paris, that the retired shopkeeper is melancholy beyondwords at first, because he no longer has the chinking and the tinklingunder his hand.

  XII

  When the spring came, Germinie said to Jupillon almost every evening:"Suppose we go as far as the beginning of the fields?"

  Jupillon would put on his flannel shirt with red and black squares, andhis black velvet cap; and they would start for what the people of thequarter call "the beginning of the fields."