Germinie Lacerteux

“ Madame Jupillon, who had become too stout and too heavy to do what it was necessary for her to do at the creamery, notwithstanding all the assistance rendered by Germinie, had sent to her province for a niece of hers. She was the embodiment of the blooming youth of the country, a woman in whom there was still something of the child, active and vivacious, with black eyes full of sunlight, lips as round and red as cherries, the summer heat of her province in her complexion, the warmth of perfect health in her blood. ”

“ When little Germinie Lacerteux arrived in Paris, being then less than fifteen years old, her sister, desirous to have her begin to earn her living at once, and to help to put bread in her hand, obtained a place for her in a small café on the boulevard, where she performed the double duties of lady's maid to the mistress of the café and assistant to the waiters in carrying on the main business of the establishment. ”

“ Never had she heard disdain hurled down from so lofty a height, contempt so tear itself to tatters and gush forth in laughter, a woman's words express such a fierce thirst for vengeance against a man. She ransacked her memory: such play of feature, such intonations, such a dramatic and heart-rending voice as that voice of a consumptive coughing away her life, she could not remember since the days of Mademoiselle Rachel.
At last Germinie awoke abruptly, her eyes filled with the tears of her dream, and jumped down from the bed, seeing that her mistress had returned. ”

“ While the candle was still smoking on mademoiselle's night table, Germinie would be back at the creamery, this time to remain until midnight, until one o'clock; often she did not go until a policeman, noticing the light, tapped on the shutters and made them close up.
In order to be always there and to have the right to be always there, to make herself a part of the shop, to keep her eyes constantly upon the man she loved, to hover about him, to keep him, to be always brushing against him, she had become the servant of the establishment. ”

“ She would take her by the arm and say: "Yes it's me—this is for your life!" And over her face, her throat, her skin, over everything about her that was youthful and attractive and that invited love, Germinie watched the vitriol sear and seam and burn and hiss, transforming her into a horrible object that filled Germinie's heart to overflowing with joy! The bottle was empty, and she laughed! And, in her frightful dream, her body also dreaming, her feet began to move. She walked unconsciously down the passage, into the street and to a grocer's shop. ”

“ I imagined, from the way you acted with me, I thought you cared more for me than that—that you loved me, in fact!" exclaimed the painter, disconcerted by the terrible, stinging irony of Germinie's words.
"Ah! you thought that, too—that I loved you!" And, as if she were suddenly uprooting from the depths of her heart the remorse and suffering of her passions, she continued: "Well, yes! I do love you—I love you as you love me! just as much! and that's all! I love you as one loves something that is close at hand—that one makes use of because it is there! ”

“ Their bewilderment changed to fury. Germinie recovered consciousness under their blows, their insults, the wounds inflicted by their hands, the harsh words that came from their mouths. Her brother-in-law was there, who had never forgiven her the cost of her journey; he glanced at her with a bantering expression, with the cunning, ferocious joy of an Auvergnat, with a sneering laugh that dyed the girl's cheeks a deeper red than her sisters' blows.
She received the blows, she did not repel the insults. She sought neither to defend nor to excuse herself. ”

“ A strange country, where everything was mingled—the smoke from the frying-pan and the evening vapor, the noise of quoits on the head of a cask and the silence shed from the sky, the city barrier and the idyllic rural scene, the odor of manure and the fresh smell of green wheat, the great human Fair and Nature! Germinie enjoyed it, however; and, urging Jupillon to go farther, walking on the very edge of the road, she would constantly step in among the grain to enjoy the fresh, cool sensation of the stalks against her stockings. ”

“ Germinie would not even listen to the suggestion that she should have an assistant to do the heavier work. She declared that it was useless, impossible; that she could never endure the thought of another woman approaching her, waiting upon her, attending to her wants; that it would give her a fever simply to think of such a thing as she lay in bed ”

“ She worked all the time; assisted the servants. She was always sitting on the edge of a chair, in a corner of the kitchen, doing something with her fingers. Mademoiselle was obliged to force her to go out, to drive her into the garden to sit. Then Germinie would sit on the green bench, with her umbrella over her head, and the sun in her skirts and on her feet. Hardly moving, she would forget herself utterly as she inhaled the light and air and warmth, passionately and with a sort of feverish joy. ”

“ Germinie often found her unfeeling; the old woman had simply been hardened by the times in which she had lived and by the circumstances of her life. The shell of her heart was as hard as her body. Never complaining herself, she did not like to hear complaints about her. And by the right of all the tears she had not shed, she detested childish tears in grown persons. ”

“ The smaller ones would amuse themselves by dipping the soles of their shoes in the gutter. And there were some who made a headdress of a cabbage leaf picked up from the ground,—a green cap sent by the good God, beneath which the fresh young face smiled brightly.
Germinie would gaze at them all and walk along with them; she would go in among them in order to feel the rustling of their aprons. She could not take her eyes off the little arms under which the school satchels leaped about, the little pea-green dresses, the little black leggings, the little legs in the little woolen stockings. ”

“ At rare intervals a breath of air from the south passed lazily along, sweeping the ground, one of those enervating, lifeless winds that blow upon the senses and fan the breath of desire into a flame. With no knowledge whence it came, Germinie felt over her whole body a sensation like the tickling of the down on a ripe peach against the skin. ”

“ The air, the keen breath of Quartier Bréda, full of the verve of the artist and the studio, of art and vice, had sharpened these tastes of Germinie's mind and had created in her new needs and demands. Long before her disorderly life began, she had cut loose from the virtuous companionship of decent women of her rank and station, from the worthy creatures who were so uninteresting and stupid. She had quitted the circle of orderly, dull uprightness, of sleep-inducing conversations around the tea-table under the auspices of the old servants of mademoiselle's elderly acquaintances. ”

“ Then she would scold herself for the thought and call herself an old fool. Her instinct of rigid uprightness, the stern conscience and harsh judgment of a stainless life, the things which cause a virtuous woman to condemn a harlot and should have caused a saint like Mademoiselle de Varandeuil to be without pity for her servant—everything within her rebelled against a pardon. The voice of justice, stifling her kindness of heart, cried: "Never! never!" And she would expel Germinie's infamous phantom with a pitiless gesture. ”

“ A faint smile came to Germinie's lips. "I am sailing under false colors," she said, lowering her voice; "I have confessed so as to get well."
Then she moved her head on the pillow in order to bring her mouth nearer to Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's ear: [358]
"There are tales to tell here. I have a funny neighbor yonder." She indicated with a glance and a movement of her shoulder the patient to whom her back was turned. "There's a man who comes here to see her. He talked to her an hour yesterday. I heard them say they'd had a child. She has left her husband. ”

“ Dead! She should never see her more! So there was no longer a Germinie on earth! Dead! She was dead! And the person she should [362] hear henceforth moving about in the kitchen would not be she; somebody else would open the door for her, somebody else would potter about her room in the morning! "Germinie!" she cried at last, in the tone with which she was accustomed to call her; then, collecting her thoughts: "Machine! creature! What's your name?" she cried, savagely, to the bewildered housekeeper. ”

“ I'm not myself at all. I took you because it was a hot day!"
She paused an instant.
"Go on," said Gautruche, "iron me on all the seams. Don't mind me as long as your hand's in."
"So?" continued Germinie, "how enchanted you imagined I was going to be to take up with you! You said to yourself: 'The good-natured fool! she'll be glad of the chance! And all I shall have to do will be to promise to marry her. She'll throw up her place. She'll leave her mistress in the lurch.' The idea! Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle, who has no one but me! Ah! you don't know anything about such things. ”

“ Little by little everything would fade away, be blotted out, lose its form and color in a dying remnant of colorless daylight, and through the increasing darkness the voices of a class whose life begins at night, and the voice of the wine beginning to sing, would arise, mingled with the din of the rattles. Upon the slope the tops of the tall grass waved to and fro in the gentle breeze. Germinie would make up her mind to go. ”

“ As Germinie turned her head she spied Jupillon: he was sitting between two women at a green table in a window-recess, smoking. One of the two was a tall blonde with a small quantity of frizzled flaxen hair, a flat, stupid face and round eyes. A red flannel chemise lay in folds on her back, and she had both hands in the pockets of a black apron which she was flapping up and down on her dark red skirt. ”

“ Meanwhile the boy was growing fast. Germinie did not notice it: in her eyes he was still the child he had always been. From habit she always stooped to kiss him. One day she was summoned before the abbé who was at the head of the school. He spoke to her of expelling Jupillon. Obscene books had been found in his possession. Germinie, trembling at the thought of the blows that awaited the child at his mother's hands, prayed and begged and implored; she succeeded at last in inducing the abbé to forgive the culprit. When she went down into the courtyard again she attempted to scold him ”

“ Germinie found strength to say.
All that endless day she passed standing over hot stewpans and sealing up jars, in the torture known only to those whom the chances of life detain at a distance from the sick bed of those dear to them. She suffered [171] such heart-rending agony as those unhappy creatures suffer who cannot go where their anxiety calls them, and who, in the extremity of despair caused by separation and uncertainty, constantly imagine that death will come in their absence.
As she received no letter Thursday evening and none Friday morning, she took courage. ”

“ Her preoccupation with Jupillon, the work that kept them constantly together, the provincial wonderment that she constantly exhibited, the half-confidences she allowed to come to her lips when the young man had gone, her gayety, her jests, her healthy good-humor—everything helped to exasperate Germinie and to arouse a sullen wrath within her; everything wounded that jealous heart, so jealous that the very animals caused it a bitter pang by seeming to love someone whom it loved. ”

“ Often the whole scheme fell to the ground in an instant: at a word, at a gesture from mademoiselle, Germinie would become herself once more, and would fail to recognize herself. She felt that she was bound to her mistress absolutely and forever, and she had a thrill of horror at having so much as thought of detaching her own life from hers. ”

“ Seeing that other woman make herself at home in the shop and adopt a tone of familiarity with the young man, all Germinie's jealous instincts were aroused and changed to furious rage. Her hatred flew to arms and rebelled, with her disgust, against the shameless, brazen-faced [103] creature, who could be seen on Sunday sitting at table on the outer boulevards with soldiers, and who had blue marks on her face on Monday. She did her utmost to induce Madame Jupillon to turn her away; but she was one of the best customers of the creamery, and the crémière mildly refused to close her doors upon her. ”

“ You can get up two bottles of our Lunel—at two francs—the heady kind. And be sure she comes. Make eyes at her, so that she'll think to-day's the great day. Put on your fine gloves: they'll make you look more dignified."
Germinie arrived at seven o'clock, happy and bright and hopeful, her head filled with blissful dreams by the mysterious air with which Jupillon delivered his mother's invitation. They dined and drank and made merry. Mère Jupillon began to cast glances expressive of deep emotion, drowned in tears, upon the couple sitting opposite her. ”

“ Love, in which poison had long been at work, became decomposed and changed to hate. Germinie began to detest her lover and to seek out every possible pretext for hating him more. And her thoughts recurred to her daughter, to the loss of her child, to the cause of her death, and she persuaded herself that he had killed her. She looked upon him as an assassin. She conceived a horror of him, she avoided him, fled from him as from the evil genius of her life, with the terror that one has of a person who is one's Bane! ”