In a twinkling my gloomy ideas vanished; and my hatred of the bourgeois flew away, as if by enchantment.
I again became madly and hilariously gay, and, seized anew with a violent love of life, I began to think that the masters are sometimes good. The personnel was not numerous, but it was select,—a cook, a valet de chambre, an old butler, and myself.
There was no coachman, the masters having abolished their stable a short time before, preferring to hire their teams from a livery-man.
We became friends directly.
That very evening they gave me welcome by opening a bottle of champagne.
"My!" I exclaimed, clapping my hands; "they do things well here."
The valet de chambre smiled, and shook a bunch of keys musically in the air.
He had the keys to the cellar; he had all the keys.
He was the trusted servant of the house.
"Say, will you lend them to me?" I asked, by way of a joke.
Giving me a tender look, he answered:
"Yes, if you are nice with Baby. You will have to be nice with Baby."
Oh! he was a chic man, and he knew how to talk to women. He had an English name,—William. What a pretty name!
During the meal, which lasted for some time, the old butler did not say a word, but ate and drank a great deal.
They paid no attention to him, and he seemed a little dopy.
As for William, he was charming, gallant, and assiduous; he paid me delicate attentions under the table; and, when we were drinking our coffee, he offered me Russian cigarettes, of which his pockets were full.
Then, drawing me to him,—the tobacco had made me a little dizzy, and I was a little drunk too, and my hair was disarranged,—he seated me upon his knees, and whispered audacious things in my ear. Oh! but he was bold!
Eugenie, the cook, did not seem scandalized by these remarks and these performances.
Anxious and dreamy, she kept her neck continually inclined toward the door, pricked up her ears at the slightest sound, as if she were expecting some one, and, with a very uncertain eye, kept on guzzling wine, glass after glass. She was a woman of about forty-five, with a large bust, fleshy, sensual lips, languishing and passionate eyes, and an air of great kindness mingled with melancholy.
At last there came a discreet knock at the door.
Eugenie's face lighted up; she rose with a bound, and went to open the door.
Not being familiar with the habits of this servants' hall, I wanted to assume a more decorous attitude, but William held me more tightly than before, pressing me close against him with a firm embrace.
"That's nothing," he remarked, quietly.
"That is the little one."
Meantime a young man had entered, almost a child.
Very slender, very blonde, with a very white skin underlying the dark beginnings of a beard, scarcely eighteen, he was as pretty as a love.
He wore an entirely new and elegant jacket, which set off his trim and slender bust, and a pink cravat. He was the son of the janitor in the next house.
He came, it seems, every evening.
Eugenie adored him, was mad over him.
Every day she put aside, in a big basket, tureens full of bouillon, fine slices of meat, bottles of wine, cakes, and delicious fruits, which the little one carried to his parents.
"Why are you so late to-night?" asked Eugenie.
The little one excused himself in a drawling voice.
"I had to look out for the lodge. Mamma had gone on an errand."
"Your mother, your mother ... are you telling me the truth, young scamp?"
She sighed, and, with her eyes gazing into the child's eyes, and her two hands resting on his shoulders, she continued, in a mournful tone:
"When you are late, I am always afraid something has happened. I do not want you to be late, my darling. You will say to your mother that, if that continues,—well, I will give you nothing more ... for her."
Then, with quivering nostrils and her whole body shaken by a thrill, she said:
"How pretty you are, my love!
Oh! your little phiz! your little phiz!
Why did you not wear your pretty yellow shoes?
I want you to look your best when you come to see me. And those eyes, those big eyes, you little brigand!
Ah! I'll bet they have been looking at another woman.
And your lips! your lips!
What have those lips been doing?"
He smilingly reassured her, with a slightly swaying motion of his body:
"No, indeed, I assure you, Nini, that's straight. Mamma had gone on an errand,—yes, truly."
Eugenie repeated several times:
"Oh! you scamp, you scamp, I do not want you to be looking at other women. Your little phiz for me, your little mouth for me, your big eyes for me!
Say, do you really love me?"
"Oh, yes, surely." "Say it again." "Oh! surely." She leaped upon his neck, and, panting, led him into the adjoining room, stammering words of love. William said to me: "How she holds him! And what a pile this little chap costs her! Last week she gave him a complete new outfit. You would not love me like that." This scene had stirred me deeply, and I promptly vowed a sister's friendship for the poor Eugenie. This boy resembled M. Xavier. At least there was a moral similarity between these two beings,—so pretty, though so rotten. And this reminder made me sad,—oh! infinitely sad! I saw myself again in M. Xavier's room, the night when I gave him the ninety francs. Oh! your little phiz! your little mouth! your big eyes! They were the same cold and cruel eyes, there was the same undulation of the body, there was the same vice shining in the pupils and imparting a sort of benumbing poison to the lips. I released myself from William's arms, and, as I was arranging my disordered hair, I remarked: "Well, I must say, you don't lose any time." Of course I did not want to change anything in the habits of the house, or in the service. William did the housework, in a go-as-you-please fashion. A stroke of the broom here, a stroke of the duster there, and the thing was done. The rest of the time he babbled, ransacked drawers and closets, and read the letters that were dragging about on every hand and in every corner. I did as he did. I allowed the dust to accumulate upon and under the furniture, and I took good care not to disturb the disorder of the salons and the chambers. If I had been in the masters' place, I should have been ashamed to live in so untidy an interior. But they did not know how to command, and, being timid and fearing scenes, they never dared to say anything. If sometimes, after an omission that was too patent or too embarrassing, they ventured to stammer: "It seems to me that you have not done this or that," we had only to answer, in a tone whose firmness did not exclude insolence: "I really ask Madame's pardon; Madame is mistaken. And, if Madame is not content...." Then they insisted no further, and that was the end of it. Never in my life have I met masters having less authority over their servants, or such ninnies! Really, one is not to be led by the nose as they were. It is necessary to do William this justice,—that he had known how to put things on a good footing in the box. William had a passion that is common among servants,—the passion for the races. He knew all the jockeys, all the trainers, all the bookmakers, and also some very sporty gentlemen, barons and viscounts, who showed a certain friendship for him, knowing that he had astonishing tips from time to time. This passion, whose maintenance and satisfaction require numerous suburban excursions, does not harmonize with a restricted and sedentary calling, like that of a valet de chambre. Now, William had regulated his life in this way; after breakfast, he dressed and went out. How chic he was in his black and white check pantaloons, his highly-polished shoes, his putty-colored overcoat, and his hats! Oh! William's hats, hats the color of deep water, in which skies, trees, streets, rivers, crowds, hippodromes, succeeded one another in prodigious reflections! He came back just in time to dress his master, and often, in the evening, after dinner, he went out again, saying that he had an important rendezvous with the English. I did not see him again until very late at night, when he always came home a little drunk, from having taken too many cocktails. Every week he invited friends to dinner,—coachmen, valets de chambre, race-track people,—these latter very comical and weird with their twisted legs, their deformed knees, and their appearance of crapulous cynicism and ambiguous sex.