A Chambermaid's Diary. Octave Mirbeau

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      Evidently this question had never occurred to him, who had eaten everything. A sort of new world, strangely comestible, appeared before him.

      "I will bet," I repeated, ferociously, "that you would not eat your ferret."

      Bewildered, distressed, moved by a mysterious and invincible shock, the old captain had risen from his bench. He was extraordinarily agitated.

      "Just say that again, and see!" he stammered.

      For the third time, violently, separating each word, I said:

      "I will bet that you would not eat your ferret."

      "I would not eat my ferret? What's that you say? You say that I would not eat it? Yes, you say that? Well, you shall see. I tell you that I eat everything."

      He seized the ferret. As one breaks a loaf of bread, he broke the little beast's back with a snap, and threw it, dead without a shock, without a spasm, on the sandy path, shouting to Rose:

      "Make me a stew out of that for dinner!"

      And, madly gesticulating, he ran to shut himself up in the house.

      For some minutes I felt a real and unspeakable horror. Still completely dazed by the abominable action that I had just committed, I rose to go. I was very pale. Rose accompanied me. With a smile she confided to me:

      "I am not sorry for what has just happened. He was too fond of his ferret. I do not wish him to love anything. He loves his flowers already too much to suit me."

      After a short silence, she added:

      "But he will never forgive you for that. He is not a man to be defied. An old soldier, you know!"

      Then, a few steps farther on:

      "Pay attention, my little one. They are beginning to gossip about you in the neighborhood. It seems that you were seen the other day, in the garden, with Monsieur Lanlaire. It is very imprudent, believe me. He will get you into trouble, if he hasn't already done so. You want to look out for yourself."

      And, as she closed the gate behind me:

      "Well, au revoir! Now I must go to make my stew."

      All day long I saw before my eyes the body of the poor little ferret, lying there on the sandy path.

      This evening, at dinner, when dessert was being served, Madame said to me, very severely:

      "If you like prunes, you have only to ask me for them; I will see if I can give you any; but I forbid you to take them."

      I answered:

      "I am not a thief, Madame, and I do not like prunes."

      Madame insisted:

      "I tell you that you have taken some prunes."

      I replied:

      "If Madame thinks me a thief, Madame has only to pay me and let me go."

      Madame snatched the plate of prunes from my hand.

      "Monsieur ate five this morning; there were thirty-two; now there are but twenty-five; then you have taken two. Don't let that happen again."

      It was true. I had eaten two of them. She had counted them!

      Did you ever in your life?

V

       Table of Contents

      September 28.

      My mother is dead. I received the news this morning, in a letter from home. Although I have never had anything but blows from her, the news has given me pain, and I have cried, and cried, and cried. Seeing me crying, Madame said:

      "Again these manners?"

      I answered:

      "My mother, my poor mother, is dead!"

      Then Madame, in her ordinary voice:

      "It is a pity, but I can do nothing about it. At any rate, the work must not suffer."

      And that was all. Oh! indeed, Madame's kindness will never kill her.

      What has made me most unhappy is the fact that I have seen a coincidence between my mother's death and the murder of the little ferret. It seems to me like a punishment from heaven, and that perhaps my mother would not be dead if I had not obliged the captain to kill poor Kléber. In vain have I repeated to myself that my mother died before the ferret. That had no effect; the idea has pursued me all day long, like a remorse.

      I should have liked to go home. But Audierne is so far away—at the end of the world, it seems. And I have no money. When I shall receive my first month's wages, I shall have to pay the employment-bureau. I shall not have enough to even pay the few little debts contracted during the days when I was on the pavement.

      And then, of what use would it be to go? My brother is in the naval service, and his vessel is in China, I believe, for it is a very long time since we had any news from him. And my sister Louise? Where is she now? I do not know. Since she left us to follow Jean le Duff to Concarneau, nothing has been heard from her. She must have rolled hither and thither, the devil knows where! Perhaps she is in a public house; perhaps she, too, is dead. And perhaps, also, my brother is dead.

      Yes, why should I go there? In what way would it help me? There is no one there now who interests me, and surely my mother has left nothing. Her rags and the little furniture that she had certainly will not pay her brandy bill.

      It is queer, all the same; as long as she was living, I almost never thought of her; I felt no desire to see her again. I wrote to her only when I changed my place, and then simply to give her my address. She has beaten me so much! I was so unhappy with her, she being always drunk. And yet, on learning suddenly that she is dead, my soul is plunged in mourning, and I feel more alone than ever.

      And I remember my childhood with singular clearness. I see again all the things and beings among whom I began the stern apprenticeship of life. There is really too much sorrow on one side, too much happiness on the other. The world is not just.

      One night, I remember—I was very small, moreover—I remember that we were awakened with a start by the whistle of the life-saving boat. Oh! those calls in the tempest and in the darkness—how lugubrious they are! Since the night before, the wind had been blowing a gale. The harbor bar was white and furious. Only a few sloops had been able to get back. The others, the poor others, were surely in danger.

      Knowing that my father was fishing in the vicinity of the Ile de Sein, my mother was not too anxious. She hoped that he had put into the island harbor, as he had done so often before. Nevertheless, on hearing the whistle of the life-saving boat, she arose, trembling and very pale, wrapped me hurriedly in a thick woolen shawl, and started for the breakwater. My sister Louise, who was already grown, and my younger brother, followed her, crying:

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