How he must enjoy himself at the table!
And at the confessional, too,—the dirty things that he must say!
Rose, perceiving that I am watching him, bends toward me, and says, in a very low voice:
"That is the new vicar. I recommend him to you.
There is no one like him to confess the women.
The curate is a holy man, certainly, but he is looked upon as too strict. Whereas the new vicar...."
She clacks her tongue, and goes back to her prayer, her head bent over the prie-Dieu.
Well, he would not please me, the new vicar; he has a dirty and brutal air; he looks more like a ploughman than a priest.
For my part, I require delicacy, poetry, the beyond, and white hands.
I like men to be gentle and chic, as Monsieur Jean was.
After mass Rose drags me to the grocery store.
With a few mysterious words she explains to me that it is necessary to be on good terms with the woman who keeps it, and that all the domestics pay her assiduous court.
Another little dump,—decidedly, this is the country of fat women.
Her face is covered with freckles, and, through her thin, light, flaxen hair, which is lacking in gloss, can be seen portions of her skull, on top of which a chignon stands up in a ridiculous fashion, like a little broom.
At the slightest movement her breast, beneath her brown cloth waist, shakes like a liquid in a bottle.
Her eyes, bordered with red circles, are bloodshot, and her ignoble mouth makes of her every smile a grimace. Rose introduces me:
"Madame Gouin, I bring you the new chambermaid at the Priory."
The grocer observes me attentively, and I notice that her eyes fasten themselves upon my waist with an embarrassing obstinacy.
She says in a meaningless voice:
"Mademoiselle is at home here. Mademoiselle is a pretty girl. Mademoiselle is a Parisienne, undoubtedly?"
"It is true, Madame Gouin, I come from Paris."
"That is to be seen; that is to be seen directly. One need not look at you twice. I am very fond of the Parisiennes; they know what it is to live. I too served in Paris, when I was young. I served in the house of a midwife in the Rue Guenegaud,—Madame Tripier. Perhaps you know her?"
"No."
"That makes no difference. Oh! it was a long time ago.
But come in, Mademoiselle Celestine."
She escorts us, with ceremony, into the back shop, where four other domestics are already gathered about a round table.
"Oh! you will have an anxious time of it, my poor young woman," groaned the grocer, as she offered me a chair.
"It is not because they do not patronize me at the chateau; but I can truly say that it is an infernal house, infernal! Is it not so, Mesdemoiselles?"
"For sure!" answer in chorus, with like gestures and like grimaces, the four domestics thus appealed to.
Madame Gouin continues:
"Oh! thank you, I would not like to sell to people who are continually haggling, and crying out, like pole-cats, that they are being robbed, that they are being injured.
They may go where they like."
The chorus of servants responds:
"Surely they may go where they like."
To which Madame Gouin, addressing Rose more particularly, adds, in a firm tone:
"They do not run after them, do they, Mam'zelle Rose?
Thank God! we have no need of them, do we?"
Rose contents herself with a shrug of her shoulders, putting into this gesture all the concentrated gall, spite, and contempt at her command.
And the huge musketeer hat emphasizes the energy of these violent sentiments by the disorderly swaying of its black plumes.
Then, after a silence:
"Oh! well, let us talk no more about these people. Every time that I speak of them it turns my stomach."
Thereupon the stories and gossip begin again.
An uninterrupted flow of filth is vomited from these sad mouths, as from a sewer.
The back-shop seems infected with it.
The impression is the more disagreeable because the room is rather dark and the faces take on fantastic deformities.
It is lighted only by a narrow window opening on a damp and filthy court,—a sort of shaft formed by moss-eaten walls.
An odor of pickle, of rotting vegetables, of red herring, persists around us, impregnating our garments. It is intolerable.
Then each of these creatures, heaped up on their chairs like bundles of dirty linen, plunges into the narration of some dirty action, some scandal, some crime.
Coward that I am, I try to smile with them, to applaud with them; but I feel something insurmountable, something like frightful disgust.
A nausea turns my stomach, forces its way to my throat, leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and presses my temples. I should like to go away. I cannot, and I remain there, like an idiot, heaped up like them on my chair, making the same gestures that they make,—I remain there, stupidly listening to these shrill voices that sound to me like dish-water gurgling and dripping through sinks and pipes.