On the mantel a prayer-book, whose pages are yellow, and a little note-book, in which have been copied various receipts for preparing encaustic, Bordelaise stew, and mixtures of nicotine and sulphate of iron. Not a letter anywhere; not even an account-book.
Nowhere the slightest trace of any correspondence, either on business, politics, family matters, or love. In the commode, beside worn-out shoes and old hose-nozzles, piles of pamphlets, numerous numbers of the
"Libre Parole."
Under the bed, mouse-traps and rat-traps. I have felt of everything, turned everything upside down, emptied everything,—coats, mattress, linen, and drawers.
There is nothing else.
In the cupboard nothing has been changed. It is just as I left it a week ago, when I put it in order in Joseph's presence.
Is it possible that Joseph has nothing?
Is it possible that he is so lacking in those thousand little intimate and familiar things whereby a man reveals his tastes, his passions, his thoughts, a little of that which dominates his life?
Ah! yes, here! From the back of the table-drawer I take a cigar-box, wrapped in paper and strongly tied with string running four times round. With great difficulty I untie the knots, I open the box, and on a bed of wadding I see five consecrated medals, a little silver crucifix, and a rosary of red beads. Always religion!
My search concluded, I leave the room, filled with nervous irritation at having found nothing of what I was searching for, and having learned nothing of what I wanted to know.
Decidedly, Joseph communicates his impenetrability to everything that he touches. The articles that he possesses are as silent as his lips, as unfathomable as his eyes and brow. The rest of the day I have had before me, really before me, Joseph's face, enigmatical, sneering, and crusty, by turns.
And it has seemed to me that I could hear him saying to me:
"And much farther you have got, my awkward little one, in consequence of your curiosity.
Ah! you can look again, you can search my linen, my trunks, my soul; you will never find anything out."
I do not wish to think of all this any more; I do not wish to think of Joseph any more. My head aches too hard, and I believe that I should go mad. Let us return to my memories. _____
Scarcely had I left the good sisters of Neuilly, when I fell again into the hell of the employment-bureaus.
And yet I had firmly resolved never to apply to them again. But, when one is on the pavements, without money enough to buy even a bit of bread, what is one to do?
Friends, old comrades?
Bah!
They do not even answer you. Advertisements in the newspapers?
They cost a great deal, and involve interminable correspondence,—a great lot of trouble for nothing. And besides, they are very risky. At any rate, one must have something ahead, and Clecle's twenty francs had quickly melted in my hands. Prostitution?
Street-walking?
To take men home with you who are often more destitute than yourself?
Oh! no, indeed.
For pleasure,—yes, as much as you like. But for money?
I cannot; I do not know how; I am always victimized. I was even obliged to hang up some little jewels that I had, in order to pay for my board and lodging.
Inevitably, hard luck brings you back to the agencies of usury and human exploitation.
Oh! the employment-bureaus, what dirty traps they are!
In the first place, one must give ten sous to have her name entered; and then there is the risk of getting a bad place.
In these frightful dens there is no lack of bad places; and, really, one has only the embarrassment of choice between one-eyed hussies and blind hussies. Nowadays, women with nothing at all, keepers of little fourpenny grocery stores, pretend to have servants and to play the role of countess.
What a pity! If, after discussions, and humiliating examinations, and still more humiliating haggling, you succeed in coming to terms with one of these rapacious bourgeoises, you owe to the keeper of the employment-bureau three per cent. of your first year's wages. So much the worse, if you remain but ten days in the place she has procured for you.
That does not concern her; her account is good, and the entire commission is exacted. Oh! they know the trick; they know where they send you, and that you will come back to them soon. Once, for instance, I had seven places in four months and a half.
A run on the black; impossible houses, worse than prisons.
Well, I had to pay the employment-bureau three per cent. of seven years' wages,—that is, including the ten sous required for each fresh entrance of my name, more than ninety francs. And nothing had been accomplished, and all had to be begun over again. Is that just, I want to know?
Is it not abominable robbery?
Robbery?
In whatever direction one turns, one sees nothing but robbery anywhere. Of course it is always those who have nothing who are the most robbed, and robbed by those who have all.
But what is one to do?
One rages and rebels, and then ends by concluding that it is better to be robbed than to die like a dog in the street.
Oh! the world is arranged on a fine plan, that's sure! What a pity it is that General Boulanger did not succeed!
At least he, it seems, loved domestics. _____
The employment-bureau in which I was stupid enough to have my name entered is situated in the Rue du Colisee, at the back of a court-yard, on the third floor of a dark and very old house,—almost a house for working-people.
At the very entrance the narrow and steep staircase, with its filthy steps that stick to your shoes and its damp banister that sticks to your hands, blows into your face an infected air, an odor of sinks and closets, and fills your heart with discouragement. I do not pretend to be fastidious, but the very sight of this staircase turns my stomach and cuts off my legs, and I am seized with a mad desire to run away. The hope which, on the way, has been singing in your head is at once silenced, stifled by this thick and sticky atmosphere, by these vile steps, and these sweating walls that seem to be frequented by glutinous larv? and cold toads.
Really, I do not understand how fine ladies dare to venture into this unhealthy hovel.
Frankly, they are not disgusted. But what is there to-day that disgusts fine ladies?
They would not go into such a house to help a poor person, but to worry a domestic they would go the devil knows where!
This bureau was run by Mme. Paulhat-Durand, a tall woman of almost forty-five years, who, underneath her very black and slightly wavy hair, and in spite of soft flesh crammed into a terrible corset, still preserved remnants of beauty, a majestic deportment,... and such an eye! My! but she must have had fun in her day!
With her austere elegance, always wearing a black watered-silk dress, a long gold chain falling in loops over her prominent bosom, a brown velvet cravat around her neck, and with very pale hands, she seemed the perfection of dignity and even a little haughty.
She lived, outside of marriage, with a city employee, M. Louis. We knew him only by his Christian name.
He was a queer type, extremely near-sighted, with mincing movements, always silent, and presenting a very awkward appearance in a grey jacket that was too short for him.