A Chambermaid's Diary. Octave Mirbeau

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СКАЧАТЬ and the captain, squatting on the grass, and wearing an old foraging-cap on his head, was stopping the leaks in a garden-hose which had burst the night before.

      They welcomed me enthusiastically, and Rose ordered the little servant, who was weeding a bed of marguerites, to go for the bottle of peach brandy and some glasses.

      The first courtesies exchanged, the captain asked:

      "Well, he has not yet croaked, then, your Lanlaire? Oh! you can boast of serving in a famous den! I really pity you, my dear young woman."

      He explained to me that formerly Monsieur and he had lived as good neighbors, as inseparable friends. A discussion apropos of Rose had brought on a deadly quarrel. Monsieur, it seems, reproached the captain with not maintaining his dignity with his servant—with admitting her to his table.

      Interrupting his story, the captain forced my testimony:

      "To my table! Well, have I not the right? Is it any of his business?"

      "Certainly not, captain."

      Rose, in a modest voice, sighed:

      "A man living all alone; it is very natural isn't it?"

      Since this famous discussion, which had come near ending in blows, the two old friends had passed their time in lawsuits and tricks. They hated each other savagely.

      "As for me," declared the captain, "when I find any stones in my garden, I throw them over the hedge into Lanlaire's. So much the worse if they fall on his bell-glasses and on his garden-frames! Or, rather, so much the better! Oh! the pig! Wait now, let me show you."

      Having noticed a stone in the path, he rushed to pick it up, approached the hedge cautiously, creeping like a trapper, and threw the stone into our garden with all his might. We heard a noise of breaking glass. Then, returning to us triumphantly, shaking, stifled, twisted with laughter, he exclaimed:

      "Another square broken! The glazier will have to come again."

      Rose looked at him with a sort of maternal admiration, and said:

      "Is he not droll? What a child! And how young, for his age!"

      After we had sipped a little glass of brandy, Captain Mauger desired to do me the honors of the garden. Rose excused herself for her inability to accompany us, because of her asthma, and counselled us not to stay too long.

      "Besides," said she, jokingly, "I am watching you."

      The captain took me through the paths, among the beds bordered with box and filled with flowers. He told me the names of the prettiest ones, remarking each time that there were no such to be seen in the garden of that pig of a Lanlaire. Suddenly he plucked a little orange-colored flower, odd and charming, twirled the stem gently in his fingers, and asked me:

      "Did you ever eat any of these?"

      I was so surprised by this preposterous question that I stood with mouth closed. The captain declared:

      "Well, I have eaten them. They are perfect to the taste. I have eaten all the flowers that are here. Some are good; some are not so good; and some don't amount to much. But, as for me, I eat everything."

      He winked, clacked his tongue, tapped his belly, and repeated in a louder voice, in which an accent of defiance was uppermost:

      "I eat everything, I do."

      The way in which the captain had just proclaimed this strange confession of faith revealed to me that his vanity in life was to eat everything. I amused myself in humoring his mania.

      "And you are right, Captain."

      "Surely," he answered, not without pride. "And it is not only plants that I eat; I eat animals also—animals that nobody else has eaten—animals that are not known. I eat everything, I do."

      We continued our walk among the flower-beds, through the narrow paths where pretty corollas, blue, yellow, and red, were swaying in the breeze. And, as he looked at the flowers, it seemed to me that the captain's belly gave little starts of joy. His tongue passed over his chapped lips with a slight smack.

      He said to me further:

      "And I am going to confess to you. There are no insects, no birds, no earth-worms that I have not eaten. I have eaten skunks and snakes, rats and crickets and caterpillars. I have eaten everything. It is well known in the neighborhood. When they find a beast, dead or alive, a beast unknown to anybody, they say to themselves: 'I must take it to Captain Mauger.' They bring it to me, and I eat it. In winter especially, when it is very cold, unknown birds pass this way, coming from America, or from a greater distance perhaps. They bring them to me, and I eat them. I will bet that there is not a man in the world who has eaten as many things as I have. I eat everything."

      The walk over, we returned to sit down under the acacia. And I was getting ready to leave, when the captain cried:

      "Oh! I must show you something curious—something that you have never seen, I am sure."

      And he called in a loud voice:

      "Kléber! Kléber!"

      Between two calls he explained to me:

      "Kléber is my ferret. A phenomenon!"

      And he called again:

      "Kléber! Kléber!"

      Then, on a branch above us, between green and golden leaves, there appeared a pink snout and two little black, sharp, bright eyes.

      "Oh! I knew well that he was not far away. Come, come here, Kléber! Psstt!"

      The animal crept along the branch, ventured upon the trunk, and descended carefully, burying its claws in the bark. His body, covered with white fur and marked with pale yellow spots, had the supple movements, the graceful undulations, of a serpent. He touched ground, and in two bounds was on the knees of the captain, who began to caress him joyfully.

      "Oh! the good Kléber! Oh! the charming little Kléber!"

      He turned to me:

      "Did you ever see a ferret as tame as that? He follows me about the garden everywhere, like a little dog. I have only to call him, and he is there directly, his tail frisking, his head lifted. He eats with us, sleeps with us. Indeed, I love the little beast as if he were a person. Why, Mademoiselle Célestine, I have refused three hundred francs for him. I would not sell him for a thousand francs—no, not for two thousand francs. Here, Kléber."

      The animal lifted its head toward its master; then it climbed upon him, mounted his shoulders, and, after a thousand caresses and a thousand pretty tricks, rolled itself around the captain's neck, like a handkerchief. Rose said nothing. She seemed vexed.

      Then an infernal idea flashed into my mind.

      "I will bet you," I said, suddenly—"I will bet you, Captain, that you would not eat your ferret."

      The captain looked at me with profound astonishment, and then with infinite sadness. His eyes became round, his lips quivered.

      "Kléber?" СКАЧАТЬ