Every word is contemptuous of you, every gesture disparaging of you, placing you on a level lower than that of the beasts. And you must say nothing; you must smile and give thanks; unless you would pass for an ingrate or a wicked heart. Sometimes, when doing my mistresses' hair, I have had a mad desire to tear their neck, to scratch their bosom with my nails.
Fortunately one is not always under the influence of these gloomy ideas. One shakes them off, and arranges matters to get all the fun one can, by himself.
This evening, after dinner, Marianne, seeing that I was utterly sad, was moved to pity, and tried to console me. She went to get a bottle of brandy from the depths of the sideboard, where it stood among a heap of old papers and dirty rags.
"You must not grieve like that," she said to me; "you must shake yourself a little, my poor little one; you must console yourself."
And, having poured me out a drink, she sat for an hour, with elbows on the table, and, in a drawling and lamenting voice, told me gloomy stories of sickness, of child-birth, of the death of her mother, of her father, and of her sister. With every minute her voice became thicker; her eyes moistened; and she repeated, as she licked her glass:
"You must not grieve like that. The death of your mamma,—oh! it is a great misfortune! But what do you expect? We are all mortal. Oh! my God! Oh! my poor little one!"
Then she suddenly began to weep and weep, and, while she wept and wept, she did not cease to wail:
"You must not grieve; you must not grieve."
At first it was a plaint; but soon it became a sort of frightful bray, which grew louder and louder. And her big belly, and her big breasts, and her triple chin, shaken by her sobs, heaved in enormous surges.