Part 21 (1/2)

”That is all, I hope?” she said, sharply.

The concierge had his eyes fixed on a leaf in the carpet. ”That's all--unless----”

Mademoiselle de Varandeuil had the same feeling of terror as at the moment she pa.s.sed through the door on whose other side she was to see her maid's dead body.

”But how does she owe all this?” she cried. ”I paid her good wages, I almost clothed her. Where did her money go, eh?”

”Ah! there you are, mademoiselle. I should rather not have told you,--but as well to-day as to-morrow. And then, too, it's better that you should be warned; when you know beforehand you can arrange matters.

There's an account with the poultry woman. The poor girl owed a little everywhere; she didn't keep things in very good shape these last few years. The laundress left her book the last time she came. It amounts to quite a little,--I don't know just how much. It seems there's a note at the grocer's--an old note--it goes back years. He'll bring you his book.”

”How much at the grocer's?”

”Something like two hundred and fifty.”

All these disclosures, falling upon Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, one after another, extorted exclamations of stupefied surprise from her.

Resting her elbow on her pillow, she said nothing as the veil was torn away, bit by bit, from this life, as its shameful features were brought to light one by one.

”Yes, about two hundred and fifty. There's a good deal of wine, he tells me.”

”I have always had wine in the cellar.”

”The _cremiere_,” continued the concierge, without heeding her remark, ”that's no great matter,--some seventy-five francs. It's for absinthe and brandy.”

”She drank!” cried Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, everything made clear to her by those words.

The concierge did not seem to hear.

”You see, mademoiselle, knowing the Jupillons was the death of her,--the young man especially. It wasn't for herself that she did what she did.

And the disappointment, you see. She took to drink. She hoped to marry him, I ought to say. She fitted up a room for him. When they get to buying furniture the money goes fast. She ruined herself,--think of it!

It was no use for me to tell her not to throw herself away by drinking as she did. You don't suppose I was going to tell you, when she came in at six o'clock in the morning! It was the same with her child. Oh!” the concierge added, in reply to mademoiselle's gesture, ”it was a lucky thing the little one died. Never mind, you can say she led a gay life--and a hard one. That's why I say the common ditch. If I was you--she's cost you enough, mademoiselle, all the time she's been living on you. And you can leave her where she is--with everybody else.”

”Ah! that's how it is! that's what she was! She stole for men! she ran in debt! Ah! she did well to die, the hussy! And I must pay! A child!--think of that: the s.l.u.t! Yes, indeed, she can rot where she will! You have done well, Monsieur Henri. Steal! She stole from me! In the ditch, parbleu! that's quite good enough for her! To think that I let her keep all my keys--I never kept any account. My G.o.d! That's what comes of confidence. Well! here we are--I'll pay--not on her account, but on my own. And I gave her my best pair of sheets to be buried in!

Ah! if I'd known I'd have given you the kitchen dish-clout, _mademoiselle how I am duped_!”

And mademoiselle continued in this strain for some moments until the words choked one another in her throat and strangled her.

LXIX

As a result of this scene, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil kept her bed a week, ill and raging, filled with indignation that shook her whole body, overflowed through her mouth, and tore from her now and again some coa.r.s.e insult which she would hurl with a shriek of rage at her maid's vile memory. Night and day she was possessed by the same fever of malediction, and even in her dreams her attenuated limbs were convulsed with wrath.

Was it possible! Germinie! her Germinie! She could think of nothing else. Debts!--a child!--all sorts of shame! The degraded creature! She abhorred her, she detested her. If she had lived she would have denounced her to the police. She would have liked to believe in h.e.l.l so that she might be consigned to the torments that await the dead. Her maid was such a creature as that! A girl who had been in her service twenty years! whom she had loaded down with benefits! Drunkenness! she had sunk so low as that! The horror that succeeds a bad dream came to mademoiselle, and all the waves of loathing that flowed from her heart said: ”Out upon the dead woman whose life the grave vomited forth and whose filth it cast out!”

How she had deceived her! How the wretch had pretended to love her! And to make her appear more ungrateful and more despicable Mademoiselle de Varandeuil recalled her manifestations of affection, her attentions, her jealousies, which seemed a part of her adoration. She saw her bending over her when she was ill. She thought of her caresses. It was all a lie! Her devotion was a lie! The delight with which she kissed her, the love upon her lips, were lies! Mademoiselle told herself over and over again, she persuaded herself that it was so; and yet, little by little, from these reminiscences, from these evocations of the past whose bitterness she sought to make more bitter, from the far-off sweetness of days gone by, there arose within her a first sensation of pity.