The Diary of a Chambermaid Read Free Page A

yesterday. The details of what happened may be rather sordid, even horrible, but I am going to describe them. And here I may as well warn anybody who thinks of reading this diary that, in writing it, I don’t intend to hold anything back, either as regards myself or other people. On the contrary, I mean to put into it all the frankness that is in my nature and, where necessary, all the brutality that exists in life. It is not my fault if, when one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people’s souls give off such a pungent smell of decay.
    This is what happened then:
    I had been engaged at a registry office, by a kind of housekeeper, as chambermaid for a certain Monsieur Rabour who lived in Touraine. Having come to terms, it was agreed that I should take the train at a certain time on a certain day for a certain station; and this was done as arranged. Having given up my ticket at the barrier, outside the station I found a coachman of sorts, a man with a red, loutish face, who asked me if I was M. Rabour’s new chambermaid.
    ‘Yes, I am.’
    ‘Have you got a trunk?’
    ‘Yes, I have.’
    ‘Then give me the ticket for it and wait for me here.’
    He went on to the platform where the porters treated him with considerable respect, addressing him in a friendly way as ‘Monsieur Louis’. He found my trunk amongst a pile of baggage and got one of the porters to put it into the dogcart which was standing in the station yard.
    ‘Aren’t you going to get up then?’
    I took my place beside him on the driving seat, and we set off. The coachman began looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and I did the same. I could see straight away that he was nothing but a country bumpkin, little better than a peasant; a fellow without the slightest style, who had certainly never seen service in a decent establishment. This was a bore for I love fine liveries—there’s nothing I find more exciting than a pair of well-shaped thighs in close-fitting, white breeches. But this Louis just didn’t know what elegance means. He had no driving gloves, and was wearing a suit of grey-blue serge, much too big for him, with a flat patent leather cap decorated with gold braid. Really, they’re all behind the times in this part of the world. To crown everything he had a scowling brutal expression, though maybe he was not such a bad chap at heart. I know the type. When there’s a new maid they start by showing off, but later on things get fixed up between them—often a good deal better fixed than they intended.
    For a long time neither of us said a word. He was pretending to be a real coachman, holding the reins high in the air and flourishing his whip. Oh, he was a scream! As for me, I just sat there in a dignified way looking at the countryside, though there was nothing very special about it—fields, trees, houses, like anywhere else. When we came to a hill, he pulled up the horse to a walk and, with a mocking smile, suddenly asked me: ‘Well, I suppose you’ve brought a good supply of boots with you!’
    ‘Naturally,’ I replied, surprised by such a pointless question, and even more by the curious tone of his voice.
    ‘Why should you want to know? It’s rather a stupid question to ask, my man, isn’t it?’
    He nudged me lightly in the ribs and, running his eyes over me with a strange expression on his face, a mixture of acute irony and jovial obscenity that puzzled me, he said with a sneer: ‘Get along with you! As if you didn’t know what I was talking about, you blooming humbug, you!’
    Then he clicked his tongue and the horse broke into a trot once more. I was intrigued. What could all this mean? Maybe nothing at all. I decided the fellow must be a bit of a booby, who just didn’t know how to talk to a woman and thought this was a way of starting a conversation. However, I felt it best not to pursue the matter.
    M. Rabour’s property was a fine big place, with a pretty house, painted light green and surrounded by huge