[16] Pucelle.
“It is true,” thought M. Bergeret, “that my nymph is pretty.”
He felt vexed, and at this moment could scarcely have told whether he was more angry with M. Roux for having found favour in the eyes of the library porteress, or for having seduced Madame Bergeret.
“Your nation,” said Captain Aspertini, “has attained to the highest mental and moral culture. But it still retains, as a relic of the barbarism in which it was so long plunged, a kind of uncertainty and awkwardness in dealing with love affairs. In Italy love is everything to the lovers, but of no concern to the outside world. Society in general feels no interest in a matter which only concerns the chief actors in it. An unbiassed estimate of licence and passion saves us from cruelty and hypocrisy.”
For some considerable time Captain Aspertini continued to entertain his French friend with his views on different points in morals, art and politics. Then he rose to take leave, and catching sight of Marie in the hall, said to M. Bergeret:
“Pray don’t take offence at what I said about your cook. Petrarch also had a servant of rare and peculiar ugliness.”
XIX
As soon as he had removed from Madame Bergeret, deposed, the management of his house, M. Bergeret himself took command, and a very bad job he made of it. Yet in excuse it should be said that the maid Marie never carried out his orders, since she never understood them. But since action is the essential condition of life and one can by no means avoid it, Marie acted, and was led by her natural gifts into the most unlucky decisions and the most noxious deeds. Sometimes, however, the light of her genius was quenched by drunkenness. One day, having drunk all the spirits of wine kept for the lamp, she lay stretched unconscious on the kitchen tiles for forty hours. Her awaking was always terrible, and every movement she made was followed by catastrophe. She succeeded in doing what had been beyond the powers of anyone else—in splitting the marble chimney-piece by dashing a candlestick on it. She took to cooking all the food in a frying-pan, amid deafening clamour and poisonous smells, and nothing that she served was eatable.