For there is not a door, not a closet, not a drawer, not a bottle, not an article, that does not cry out to us: "Thief! thief! thief!"
And also the continuous vexation caused by that terrible inequality, that frightful disproportion in our destinies, which, in spite of familiarities, smiles, and presents, places between our mistresses and ourselves an impassable abyss, a whole world of sullen hatreds, suppressed desires, and future vengeances,—a disproportion which is rendered every minute more perceptible, more humiliating, more disgracing, by the caprices, and even by the kindnesses, of those beings that know no justice and feel no love,—the rich. Did you ever think for a moment of the mortal and legitimate hatred, of the murderous—yes, murderous—desires with which we must be filled when we hear one of our masters, in trying to describe something base and ignoble, cry out in our presence, with a disgust that casts us so violently outside the pale of humanity:
"He has the soul of a domestic; that is the sentiment of a domestic." Then what do you expect us to become in these hells?
Do these mistresses really imagine that I should not like to wear fine dresses, ride in fine carriages, have a gay time with lovers, and have servants of my own?
They talk to us of devotion, of honesty, of fidelity. Why; but it would choke you to death, my little chippies! _____
Once, in the Rue Cambon ... how many of these places I have had!... the masters were marrying their daughter.
They gave a grand reception in the evening, at which the wedding-presents were exhibited,—enough of them to fill a furniture-van.
By way of jest I asked Baptiste, the valet de chambre:
"Well, Baptiste, and you? What is your present?"
"My present?" exclaimed Baptiste, with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Yes, tell me, what is it?"
"A can of petroleum lighted under their bed. That is my present."
It was a smart answer.
Moreover, this Baptiste was an astonishing man in politics.
"And yours, Celestine?" he asked, in his turn.
"Mine?"
I contracted my two hands into the shape of talons, and, pretending to claw a face ferociously, I answered:
"My nails, in their eyes!"
The butler, without being asked, remarked quietly, while arranging flowers and fruits in a glass dish with his fastidious fingers:
"I would be satisfied to sprinkle their faces in church with a bottle of good vitriol."
And he stuck a rose between two pears.
Oh! yes, how we love them!
The extraordinary thing is that these revenges are not taken more frequently.
When I think that a cook, for instance, holds her masters' lives in her hands every day; a pinch of arsenic instead of salt, a little dash of strychnine instead of vinegar, and the thing is done.
Well, no, it must be that we have servitude in our very blood!
I have no education, and I write what I think and what I have seen. Well, I say that all this is not beautiful. I say that from the moment when any one installs another under his roof, though he were the last of poor devils, or the lowest of disreputable girls, he owes them protection, he owes them happiness.
I say also that, if the master does not give it to us, we have a right to take it, even from his strong-box, even from his blood.
But enough of this! I do wrong to think of things that make my head ache and turn my stomach. I come back to my little stories. _____
I had much difficulty in leaving the sisters of Our Lady of Thirty-Six Sorrows.
In spite of Clecle's companionship, I was growing old in the box, and beginning to be hungry for liberty.
When they understood that I had made up my mind to go, then the worthy sisters offered me places and places. There were places only for me.
But I am not always a fool, and I have a keen eye for rascalities. All these places I refused. In all of them I found something that did not suit me. You should have seen the heads of these holy women. It was laughable. They had calculated on finding me a place in the house of some old bigot, where they could get back out of my wages the cost of my board with usury, and I enjoyed playing them a trick in my turn.
One day I notified Sister Boniface that it was my intention to go that very evening.
She had the cheek to answer me, raising her arms to heaven:
"But, my dear child, it is impossible."
"How so? Why is it impossible?"
"Why, my dear child, you cannot leave the house like that.
You owe us more than seventy francs. You will have to pay us first these seventy francs."
"And with what?" I replied.
"I have not a sou; you can search me."
Sister Boniface gave me a hateful look, and, then declared, with severe dignity:
"But, Mademoiselle, do you know that this is a robbery?
And to rob poor women like us is worse than robbery; it is a sacrilege, for which the good God will punish you. Reflect."
Then anger got the better of me, and I cried: "Say, then, who is it that steals here,—you or I? No, but you are astonishing, my little mothers."
"Mademoiselle, I forbid you to speak in this way."
"Oh! don't talk to me.
What?
One does your work, one toils like a beast for you from morning to night, one earns enormous money for you, you give us food which dogs would refuse, and then we must pay you into the bargain!
Indeed, you have no cheek!"
Sister Boniface had turned very pale. I felt that coarse, filthy, furious words were on her lips, and ready to leave them; but, not daring to let them go, she stammered: