Baroness Picpus's Chambermaid
"But, my dear
chap, I met somebody delightful recently, Baroness Picpus's
chambermaid. She is a majestic blonde, the prettiest girl I have
ever seen, too much the lady, with an insolence second to none,
but a marvel. Along with that she is a girl who has retained
something of the vicious peasant, who was brought up in the
country where she spent all of her childhood in the company of
farm boys. As a result she is relatively virtuous, but only
relatively. But I assure you that she tells us all about it and
makes us see things that are in no way banal."
My head was beginning to be turned towards
Baroness Picpus's chambermaid. I was seriously thinking about how
to meet her when I read in the paper: "Baroness Picpus and
her retinue are leaving for Venice where she has rented the
palace of X. She is going to spend three months there before
embarking for the West Indies." There was nothing more for
it, I was in love with Baroness Picpus's chambermaid. But she was
leaving for Venice! Had she left already? Perhaps her chambermaid
would not be joining her until the next day? Perhaps she was
still in Paris? It would be enough for me to get to know her, to
give her money, for her to think well of me, so that she would
leave me keeping a place, a flattering place in her head. That
would be enough for me, and on her return we should see. But I
must hurry! Tomorrow may be too late. I did not know the
chambermaid's name... But it was time to write to Montargis, they
might all have left. I sent a trustworthy man to the Picpus's
town house. I waited outside in a motor car. The porter had gone
to bed, it took an hour before the door was opened. The Baroness
had left; her chambermaid was still there and was leaving the
next morning, but she was in bed, my man came back to tell me. I
sent him back, he rang the bell again. The porter, after having
to get up again, insulted him. He said he absolutely must go up
and speak to the chambermaid on behalf of one of her cousins:
after ten minutes he came back in a rage, telling us to leave
immediately, that he had been insulted and threatened us with the
police. From then on I had only one thought in mind, to go to
Venice with an introduction to Mme de Picpus, see her chambermaid
at her house, scorn the insolent creature, make friends with her
as though despite myself, and afterwards we should see.
I went for a walk alone in the Bois. By the
restaurants a Venetian air brought tears to my eyes and all I
could read were guides to Italy. "You always want things of
the moment, Montargis told me, you have offended this girl, I
told you that she puts on more airs than a duchess. Stay calm, I
promise I'll bring her to you. Why do you want to go to Venice
just for that!"
The following year I was no longer thinking
about her when he told me that she had had her face burned in a
fire on a steamboat and that she would be permanently disfigured.
He saw her from time to time. He arranged a meeting with her for
me. But she was dreadful to look at and on seeing her body one
could only think how lovely she must have been.
"I would never accept a rendezvous with
somebody I didn't know, she told me (fortunately she did not know
and was never to know that I was the one who had got her up that
night), but since you say you are a friend of Robert's (she did
not know the name Montargis but his recommendation to her
appeared to be sufficient), I thought there couldn't be any harm
in it, eh? How is he? When will he be coming?" I stupidly
replied: "I don't know, I met him at his aunt de Guermantes.
- De Guermantes, you say? isn't that the de Guermantes château
in l'Eure-et-Loire? - But how come you know the de Guermantes
château? - Because I'm from near there; the village where I was
brought up is ten kilometres from the château de Guermantes. I'm
telling you this, I think I can trust you as a friend of
Robert's, eh? - Which village? - Maybe you've heard of
Méséglise? It's near Brou. - Brou! so you must know Combray? -
Oh yes, I know Combray very well; as for going there I have never
been, but my parents used to go there every week for the market.
There is a gentleman from near Combray who seduced me, while I
was in service at the château de Mérouville, it's because of
all that that I never went there. But I often visited nearby,
because I had a friend who liked to go fishing in Combray,
because it is famous for its trout." I had the feeling that
I would soon find out who this fisherman was. But I was unable to
find out where her friend went fishing. She knew that it was on
the river near Combray but did not know where.
"Oh, but if you know Combray, she
exclaimed joyfully, you must have come across Théodule the young
chemist who had a lovely voice and used to sing in the
church?" Yes, I remember him! He was the one who used to
bring us the consecrated bread. "Well then, she cried,
brimming over with happiness, he is married to my sister. He
doesn't live in Combray now, he is the chemist in our village, in
Brou. But you wouldn't recognize him now! He has a big black
beard. You never knew him with a beard, eh? Oh he is a holy fool.
And besides he has no respect for anything, she added lowering
her eyes. But I am still very pleased to have found him, because
he told me that he could heal this", she said, indicating
her poor scarred face.
We calculated that we were the same age. The
thought that while I was wearing myself out in my solitary
pleasures in the little turret in Combray, at Brou where by a
chance of fate I never wanted to stop and where one year when I
was ill I was encouraged to rent a room in order to spend the
winter in the fresh air, when Combray would have been all closed
down, the thought that this wonderful girl, drunk with desire,
was prostituting herself with peasants in barns, drove me mad.
Forgetting her face I threw myself upon her and I felt that her
violent caresses had been taught to her by young swains, so that
I had the impression of no longer being myself, but of being a
young peasant that a bolder and already knowing young peasant
girl was rolling in the hay.
"Did you learn all that
from young peasant lads? I asked her. - No, I can speak plainly
to you can't I? I learned all that from Robert, but I told them I
learned it from the peasant lads because that kept them happy.
But I never speak to people of my class now. I only go with
society people." Our conversation flagged. I talked about
Mme de Picpus whom she found proud. "She is w-w-watching
you, she said. And even though I am only a servant I know as much
as her, and more than her, eh?" At every turn she started
talking about Brou again, where she was going to spend a month
during the summer. "Maybe I should tell Théodule about all
this. We could send you some post cards, eh?" I told her
that I was intending to visit the area around Combray in a motor
car, and that I could take her for a trip. This idea pleased her
enormously: "I love motor cars, she said. I love nothing
more than motor cars, cards, clothes and trips. That's the way to
get round me, eh?" I thought that by this simple estimate
any serious lady of the house would be happy to engage her as a
chambermaid.
At that moment the door opened. "It's my
aunt", she said eagerly, and I saw come in a lady I
recognized immediately: the black dress, the red face, the
majestic bearing, the mother of a pianist, the worthy woman
"so pleasant when you are alone with her", from Mme
Verdurin's. She recognized me too, and immediately her majesty
took on proportions unknown at the Verdurins' house. She no
longer had the air of wanting only to pay respect to dear
memories, a sombre and unhappy past. She protested indignantly
against the outrage that anybody would have wished to suffer
them. She would bear herself up through "the immense majesty
of her widow's sorrow" as if the fact of my recognizing her
and her recognizing me was an insult to her, then a hollow
rattling made itself heard, a few words emerged: "Ke, ke,
ke, seems t'me... looks familiar, must be mistaken." It
seemed to me that in reality I could not have been unknown to
her, the previous year she dined with me every week, and as I was
the only one who ever talked to her I was always placed next to
her. At this point these rites of astonishment appeared to have
been completed for her, as if she had no half-way stage between
severity and pleasantry, she thought she was at her niece's and
it was time to make a joke and with a lecherous laugh she said:
"Ke, Mme Verdurin would be astonished, ke, ke, ke, so we
meet again, ke, ke." She asked me why I was never seen at
the Verdurins' now. I saw that she detested Verdurin, because he
had said to her once (she must have been mistaken): "My name
is M. Verdurin. - Well, she said haughtily, now finding her words
once more, I looked him in the eye and said: and my name is Mme
Maudouillard. Ha! Well, all the same you can't let yourself be
treated like that. That told him. We never had a peep out of him
for the rest of the evening." She found Mme Verdurin a good
woman, but with "undistinguished manners",
"tradesman-like". I could see that she was not in the
slightest bit moved by their kindness, that she was contemptuous
of their simplicity and that she attributed to them a thousand
vindictive intentions that were totally in her imagination. Swann
alone had made a great impression on her: you could see he was a
man of the world, a man used to the finest manners. And even with
all that, such simplicity! She was convinced that he was a
Prussian spy and that his moustache was false.
It was decided that all three of us would dine
together at a restaurant. But it was insufferable. As soon as we
arrived she began progressively to lose the use of her words,
went in wafting her widow's veils with an irritated majesty,
finding insolence in the waiter's every remark, in every look of
our dining companions, convinced that at every table these people
who were "trying to impress" were all concierges on a
spree. She even thought she recognized them. We had hardly
arrived when she needed the lavatory, asked the way and was
displeased by the tone of the waiter: "Did you hear his
tone? I mean... really..." As soon as we began to eat, we
could hear nothing else from her but the dull rattling of her
throat from which emerged from time to time: "As far as I am
concerned, he is the guilty one, but he's not the only one. -
There's nothing I like better when I'm hungry than a good, rare
steak. - I only take homeopathic remedies, because they're not so
hard on the stomach." She ate a mouthful as she pronounced a
word, every five minutes, making use of the moments we were not
looking at her for fear of eating rudely and the rest of the time
making solemn gestures with her fork in the air and rearranging
her veils. She asked the waiter to put her napkin around her neck
and when I offered to do it myself she told me: "I think
that's what he's here for."
All at once I noticed with dismay that the
Guermantes were dining with the young Villeparisis family at the
far end of the restaurant. I pretended not to have seen them. But
Mme Maudouillard, who did not know who they were, never stopped
staring at them, sneering: "What a way to carry on in a
restaurant! No doubt a shop girl on a spree, I think I recognize
her actually. At least she hasn't paid for her blouse, nor her
hat. And those gaudy colours! No! She even puts her elbows on the
table and holds her glass in both hands. Really, some people! And
what a racket they're making, anyone would think they were at
home. Just look, you would think we were at a show." I was
obliged to say that I dare not look because I thought I had
recognized the gentleman. "He must be her one-night-stand,
she added finally. You don't need pay him any respects on my
behalf."
I left this dour family and I never saw the
poor burned girl again, but every summer I received post cards
from Brou asking me if I was not coming "to see
Théodule".
This an early version of the episode about Baroness Putbus's chambermaid, written about 1909 - 1910. This fragment dates from before the publication of Swann where the name Montargis becomes Saint-Loup.