The Kill - Emile Zola [161]
But the chambermaid dismissed all these fine words with a calm but insistent wave.
Finally she broke her silence. “Madame, if you offered me all the gold in Peru, I wouldn’t stay one week longer. You don’t know me at all! . . . I’ve been with you for eight years, haven’t I? Well, on my first day I said to myself, ‘As soon as I’ve saved up 5,000 francs, I’ll go back home. I’ll buy the house in Lagache and live quite happily.’ That’s the promise I made myself, you see. And yesterday, when you paid me my wages, I had those 5,000 francs.”
Renée’s blood ran cold. She had a vision of Céleste passing behind her and Maxime while they were kissing, and she recognized the maid’s indifference, her complete detachment, as she dreamt of her 5,000 francs. She nevertheless tried to dissuade her, terrified as she was of the void in which she would soon find herself living, dreaming in spite of everything of keeping with her this stubborn mule whom she had thought devoted but who had turned out to be merely selfish. The maid smiled, shook her head, and muttered, “No, it’s not possible. Even if you were my mother, I would refuse. . . . I’m going to buy two cows. I may open a small hat shop. . . . It’s a very nice town I come from. I’d be happy if you came to see me. It’s near Caen. I’ll leave you the address.”
Renée dropped her opposition. When she was alone, she cried hot tears. The next day, acting on a sick woman’s caprice, she insisted on driving Céleste to the Gare de l’Ouest in her coupé. She gave her one of her travel blankets as well as a sum of money and made a fuss over her as a mother might over a daughter about to embark on a long and difficult journey. In the coupé she gazed at her former maid with moist eyes. Céleste chatted about this and that and said how glad she was to be leaving. Then, feeling bold, she opened up and offered advice to her mistress.
“Personally, madame, I could never look at life the way you do. Plenty of times when I found you with M. Maxime, I used to say to myself, ‘How can any woman make such a fool of herself for a man!’ It always ends badly. . . . I’ve always been suspicious of them, but that’s me.”
She laughed and pressed herself back into a corner of the carriage.
“My money would have danced right out the door!” she went on. “And today I’d be crying my eyes out. So whenever I saw a man, I’d pick up a broomstick. . . . I never dared tell you any of that. Anyway, it was none of my business. You were free to do as you pleased, and for me it was an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”
At the station, Renée insisted on paying for her ticket and bought her a seat in first class. Since they had arrived early, she wouldn’t let the servant go but held her by the hand and kept repeating, “Look after yourself, my good Céleste, take good care of yourself.”
Céleste allowed herself to be caressed. She remained happy though her mistress’s eyes filled with tears, and her face looked cool and radiant. Renée spoke again about the past. Then, suddenly, Céleste burst out, “I almost forgot. I haven’t told you the story of Baptiste, Monsieur’s manservant. . . . Nobody wanted to tell you.”
The young woman admitted that she knew nothing.
“Well, you remember his stuck-up airs and snotty looks? You’ve mentioned them to me. . . . Well, that was all a charade. . . . He didn’t like women. He never went down to the kitchen when we were there. And I can tell you this now, he even said that the drawing room was disgusting because of the low-cut gowns. I’m sure he didn’t care for women!”
And she leaned over to whisper in Renée’s ear. She made her mistress blush, yet her own placid sense of propriety remained unperturbed.
“When the new stable boy told Monsieur everything, Monsieur chose to dismiss Baptiste rather than press charges against him. It seems that disgusting things of that sort had been going on in the stables for years. . . . And to think that the big fellow pretended he liked horses! It was the grooms he was after.”
The bell interrupted her. She hastily gathered up the eight