To-day Joseph has resumed his customary silence. One would think nothing had happened last night between us. He goes, he comes, he works, he eats, he reads his paper, just as usual. I look at him, and I should like to detest him. I wish that his ugliness would fill me with such immense disgust as to separate me from him forever. Well, no. Ah! how queer it is! This man sends shivers through me, and I feel no disgust. And it is a frightful thing that I feel no disgust, since it was he who killed and outraged the little Claire in the woods.
X
November 3.
Nothing gives me so much pleasure as to find in the newspapers the name of a person in whose house I have served. This pleasure I felt this morning more keenly than ever before, in learning from the "Petit Journal" that Victor Charrigaud has just published a new book, which has met with much approval and of which everybody speaks in admiration. This book is entitled, "From Five to Seven," and is a howling success. It is, says the article, a series of brilliant and cutting society studies, which, beneath their light exterior, hide a profound philosophy. Yes, rely upon it! At the same time that they praise Victor Charrigaud for his talent, they also compliment him highly on his elegance, on his distinguished social position, on his salon. Ah! let us say a word of his salon. For eight months I was the Charrigauds' chambermaid, and I really believe that I have never met such boors. God knows, however!
Everybody is familiar with the name Victor Charrigaud. He has already published a series of books that have made a sensation. "Their Little Garters," "How They Sleep," "The Sentimental Bigoudis," "Humming-Birds and Parrots," are among the most celebrated. He is a man of infinite wit, a writer of infinite talent; unhappily, success and wealth have come to him too quickly. His beginnings aroused the greatest hopes. Everybody was struck with his great faculty of observation, with his powerful gift of satire, with his implacable and just irony that penetrated so deeply humanity's ridiculous side. A well-informed and free mind, to which social conventions were nothing but falsehood and servility, a generous and clear-sighted soul, which, instead of bending under the humiliating level of prejudice, bravely directed its impulses toward a pure and elevated social ideal. At least so Victor Charrigaud was described to me by one of his friends, a painter, who was stuck on me, and whom I used sometimes to go to see, and from whom I got the opinions just expressed and the details that are to follow regarding the literature and the life of this illustrious man.
Among the ridiculous things that Charrigaud had lashed so severely, there was none that he had treated so harshly as snobbishness. In his lively conversation, well supported by facts, even more than in his books, he branded its moral cowardice and its intellectual barrenness with a bitter precision in the picturesque, a comprehensive and merciless philosophy, and sharp, profound, terrible words, which, taken up by some and passed on by others, were repeated at the four corners of Paris, and at once became classics, in a way. A complete and astonishing psychology of snobbishness is contained in the impressions, the traits, the concise profiles, the strangely-outlined and life-like silhouettes, of which this prodigal and never-wearying originality was an ever-flowing source. It seems, then, that, if any one should have escaped that sort of moral influenza which rages so violently in the salons, it was Victor Charrigaud, better protected than anybody else against contagion by that admirable antiseptic—irony. But man is nothing but surprise, contradiction, incoherence, and folly.
Scarcely had he felt the first caresses of success, when the snob that was in him—and that was the reason why he was able to paint the snob with such force of expression—revealed itself, exploded, one might say, like an engine that has just received an electric shock. He began by dropping those friends that had become embarrassing or compromising, keeping only those who, some by their recognized talent, others by their position in the press, could be useful to him, and bolster his young fame by their persistent puffery. At the same time he made dress and fashion a subject of most careful consideration. He was seen in frock coats of an audacious Philippism, wearing collars and cravats of the style of 1830 much exaggerated, velvet waistcoats of irresistible cut, and showy jewels; and he took from metal cases, inlaid with too precious stones, cigarettes sumptuously rolled in gilt paper. But, heavy of limb and awkward of movement, he retained, in spite of everything, the unwieldy gait of the Auvergne peasants, his compatriots. Too new in a too sudden elegance in which he did not feel at home, in vain did he study himself and the most perfect models of Parisian style; he could not acquire that ease, that supple, delicate, and upright line which he saw in the young swells at the clubs, at the race-courses, at the theatres, and at the restaurants, and which he envied them with a most violent hatred. It astonished him, for, after all, he patronized only the most select furnishing houses, the most famous tailors, memorable shirt-makers, and what shoemakers! what shoemakers! Examining himself in the glass, he threw insults at himself, in his despair.
"In vain do I cover myself with velvets, silks, and satin; I always look like a boor. There is always something that is not natural."
As for Madame Charrigaud, who previously had dressed very simply and with discreet taste, she, too, sported showy and stunning costumes, with hair too red, jewels too big, silks too rich, giving her the air of a laundry queen, the majesty of a Mardi-Gras empress. They made a great deal of sport of her, sometimes cruelly. Old comrades, at once humiliated and delighted by so much luxury and so much bad taste, avenged themselves by saying jestingly of this poor Victor Charrigaud: