The Diary of a Chambermaid Read Free

underplayed today, Mirbeau was an impassioned artist, seeking to change the world through his writing. He used powerful exaggerations to illustrate the grotesqueries of Western civilisation, which was based, in his view, on an inversion of moral values. His purpose in laying bare the sick organism of French society was not to titillate, but to evoke in the reader a sense of outrage, a necessary impetus for change.

    Richard Ings

FOREWORD
    This book, which I have called The Diary of a Chambermaid, was in fact written by a chambermaid, a certain Mademoiselle Célestine R … When I was asked to revise the manuscript, to correct and re-write parts of it, I at first refused, for it seemed to me that, just as it was, with all its ribaldry, the manuscript had an originality, a special flavour, that any ‘touching up’ by me would only render commonplace. But Mlle Célestine R … was a very pretty woman. She insisted, and, being only a man, eventually I gave in.
    I admit that this was a mistake. By undertaking what she asked of me, that is to say by modifying here and there the tone of the book, I am very much afraid that I may have diluted its almost corrosive elegance, weakened its melancholy power, and above all, transformed the emotion and life of the original into mere literature.
    I say this in order to meet in advance the objections that certain grave and learned—and of course high-minded—critics will certainly not fail to make.

    O.M.

    14 September.

14 SEPTEMBER
    Today, 14 September, at three o’clock in the afternoon of a mild, grey, rainy day, I have started in a new place, the twelfth in two years. Of course that’s not counting all the jobs I’ve had previously. That would be impossible. Oh, I don’t mind telling you I’ve seen the inside of a few houses in my time, and faces, and nasty minds … And there’s more to come. Judging from the really extraordinary, crazy way that I’ve knocked about so far, from houses to offices and offices to houses, from the Bois de Boulogne to the Bastille, from the Observatoire to Montmartre, from the Ternes to the Gobelins, without ever managing to settle down anywhere, anyone might think employers were difficult to please these days … It’s incredible.
    This time everything was fixed up through the small ads in the Figaro, without my having set eyes on my future mistress. We wrote to each other, and that was all: a risky business, which often holds surprises in store for both parties. True, Madame’s letters were well-written, but they revealed a touchy, over meticulous nature. All the explanations she asked for, all the whys and wherefores … I don’t know whether she’s really a miser, but she certainly doesn’t spend much on notepaper … She buys it at the Louvre. Poor as I am, that wouldn’t suit me. I use fine scented paper, pink or pale blue, that I have knocked up at various places I’ve been in. I have even got some with a countess’s coronet on it—that ought to have made her sit up.
    Anyway, here I am in Normandy, at Mesnil-Roy. The house, which is not far from the village, is called The Priory. And that’s about all I know of my future home.

    Now that I find myself, as a result of a sudden impulse, living here at the back of beyond, I cannot help feeling both anxiety and regret. What I’ve seen of it frightens me a bit, and I wonder what is going to become of me. Nothing good, you may be sure; and, as usual, plenty of worries. Worry, that’s the one perquisite we can always count on. For every one of us who is successful, that is to say marries a decent chap or manages to get herself an old one, how many of us are destined to misfortune, to be swept away into the whirlpool of misery? In any case, I had no choice; and this is better than nothing.

    It isn’t the first time I’ve taken a place in the country. Four years ago I had one, though not for long … and in quite exceptional circumstances. I can remember it as though it were