This evening, through the door of the salon, I heard Madame saying to Monsieur, in the amiable tone that you can imagine:
"I wish no familiarity with my servants."
Her servants? Are not Madame's servants Monsieur's servants? Well, indeed!
III
September 18.
This morning (Sunday) I went to mass.
I have already declared that, without being pious, I have religion all the same. Say and do what you like, religion is always religion. The rich, perhaps, can get along without it, but it is necessary for people like us. I know very well that there are individuals who make use of it in a rather queer fashion,—that many priests and good sisters scarcely do it honor. But never mind. When one is unhappy,—and, in our calling, we get more than our share of unhappiness,—it is the only thing that will soothe you. Only that, and love. Yes, but love, that is another sort of consolation. Consequently, even in impious houses, I never missed mass. In the first place, mass is an excursion, a distraction, time gained from the daily ennui of the household. And, above all, we meet comrades, hear stories, and form acquaintances. Ah! if, on going out of the chapel of the Assumptionists, I had wished to listen to the good-looking old gentlemen who whispered psalms of a curious sort in my ears, perhaps I should not be here to-day.
To-day the weather is improved. There is a beautiful sun,—one of those misty suns that make walking agreeable and sadness less burdensome. I know not why, but, under the influence of this blue and gold morning, I have something like gaiety in my heart.
We are about a mile from the church. The way leading to it is a pleasant one,—a little path winding between hedges. In spring it must be full of flowers, wild cherry trees, and the hawthorns that smell so good. I love the hawthorns. They remind me of things when I was a little girl. Otherwise the country is like the country everywhere else; there is nothing astonishing about it. It is a very wide valley, and then, yonder, at the end of the valley, there are hills. In the valley there is a river, on the hills there is a forest; all covered with a veil of fog, transparent and gilded, which hides the landscape too much to suit me.