A Chambermaid's Diary

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Although I have never had anything but blows from her, the news has given me

these m

nsw

my poor moth

, in her or

nothing about it. At any rat

indeed, Madame's kindn

ms to me like a punishment from heaven, and that perhaps my mother would not be dead if I had not obliged the captain to kill poor Kléber. In

e no money. When I shall receive my first month's wages, I shall have to pay the employment-bureau. I sha

news from him. And my sister Louise? Where is she now? I do not know. Since she left us to follow Jean le Duff to Concarneau, nothing has been heard from her. S

here now who interests me, and surely my mother has left nothing. Her rags

her only when I changed my place, and then simply to give her my address. She has beaten me so much! I was so unhappy with her, she

nd beings among whom I began the stern apprenticeship of life. There is really to

. Oh! those calls in the tempest and in the darkness,-how lugubrious they are! Since the night before, the wind had been blowing a gale

or, as he had done so often before. Nevertheless, on hearing the whistle of the life-saving boat, she arose, trembling and very pale, wrapped me hur

irgin! Oh!

e, too

irgin! Oh!

gin! Oh! Our Jesus!...." took the path that winds around the estuary to the light-house. Everything was black on land, and on the sea, which was black also, could be seen, from time to time, in the distance, by the rays from the light-house, the white breaking of enormous waves. In spite of the shocks ... "Oh! Holy Virgin! Oh! Our Jesus!...." in spite of the shocks and in a way lulled by them, in spite of the wind and

lannels and forcing air into his mouth. There was the mayor; there was the rector; there was the captain of customs; there was the marine policeman. I was frightened;

shments, but, as she was always drunk, none of her employers would keep her. Then she stayed at home to intoxicate hers

and covered with thick bushes, I misbehaved with the little boys, among the hawthorns. On returning at night, I generally found my mother stretched on the tile floor across the threshold, inert, her mouth covered with vomit, and a broken bottle in her han

r hide! I'll h

I thought I

, filling the room with a strong odor of sea-salt and fish. He lay down, remained an hour, and went away. And another came, after him, lay down also, remained

eople drove us with stones from their houses, to which we went, sometimes to steal, sometimes to beg. One day my sister Louise, who

ted, my physical development had been very rapid. In spite of deprivations and blows, living continually in the open sea air, free and strong,

thing occurred one Sunday, after high mass, near the beach, on the Saint Jean side, in a recess in the cliff, in a dark hole among the rocks where the sea-gulls came to build their nests, and where the sailors sometimes hid the wreckage wh

often do,-how happens it that it is never with a feeling of detestation for him, never with a disposition to curse him? At this recollection, which I call up with satisfaction

ffer here, humble though I am, my personal

o him this case of passional psychology. I had not dared. Do not be too much astonished at the gravity of such preoccupations. They are not usual among domestics, I admit. But in the salons of the countess they never talked of anything but psychology. It is an admitted fact that our mind is modeled on

e reply himself. Then I made bold to put to him the question that tormented me, pretending, howeve

woman of the people? A p

like myself, ill

n, appeared on M. Bourget's face. Ah

"These are too little souls. They are not even sou

one begins to be a soul only with a

e house. When I asked him the same question, he

l, that is all. And, if she resembles you, I would s

merry-making faun, put on no airs; and he was good-na

benefit, as often happens in such establishments, which carry human exploitation to the point of crime. They were poor, candid, timid, charitable little beings, who were not rich, and who did not even dare to extend their hands to passers-by or to beg at the doors of houses. There was sometimes much poverty among them, but t

And maniacs, too! Never a smile on their faces, never a sign of joy in their garments, which were always black. The colonel had had a lathe put in at the top of the house, and there, all day long, he turned egg cups out of box-wood, or else those oval balls, called "eggs," which housewives use in mending stockings. Madame drew up petition after petition, in order

jeweled women. And, when, at night, I went to bed in the sixth story, I envied the other domestics of the house, and their pranks which I found charming, and their stories which left me in a state of marvelous surprise. Though I remained in the house but a short t

and dreams. Oh! the dreams! Stupidities! I have supped on them, in the words of

w I have rolled! It is fr

respected interior, all that a respectable family, can hide in the way of filth, shameful vices, and base crimes, beneath the appearance of virtue,-ah! I know it well. It makes no difference if they are rich, if they

not consist in living alone; it consists in living with others, with people who take no interest in you, with whom you count for less than a dog gorged with goodi

rotten. Finish this chicken

s. And you must say nothing; you must smile and give thanks; unless you would pass for an ingrate or a wicked heart. Som

f these gloomy ideas. One shakes them off, and arra

to pity, and tried to console me. She went to get a bottle of brandy from the d

o me; "you must shake yourself a little, my

voice, told me gloomy stories of sickness, of child-birth, of the death of her mother, of her father, and of her

,-oh! it is a great misfortune! But what do you expect?

and weep, and, while she wept an

grieve; you mu

, which grew louder and louder. And her big belly, and her big breast

," I said to her; "Madame

to me, and, crying loud

ortune! what a g

heart moved by Marianne's tears, began to sob like

getting tired. I should like to get a place in the hou