There was a moment when the witness had his doubts. It was on the way
back from the cemetery. For a fleeting instant he thought that the
shaking of Helene's body was more from glee than sorrow, and he
momentarily accused her in his mind of hypocrisy. But in the following
days Helene did nothing but talk of "that poor Rose," and M. Bidard,
before her persistence, could only believe he had been mistaken. "Ah!"
Helene said. "I loved her as I did that poor girl who died in the
Bout-du-Monde."
The witness wanted to find some one to take Rose's place. Helene tried
to dissuade him. "Never mind another femme de chambre," she said. "I
will do everything." M. Bidard contented himself with engaging another
girl, Francoise Huriaux, strong neither in intelligence nor will, but
nevertheless a sweet little creature. Not many days passed before Helene
began to make the girl unhappy. "It's a lazy-bones," Helene told the
witness. "She does not earn her keep." ("Le pain qu'elle mange, elle le
vole.") M. Bidard shut her up. That was his affair, he said.
Francoise meantime conceived a fear of Helene. She was so scared of
the older woman that she obeyed all her orders without resistance. The
witness, going into the kitchen one day, found Helene eating her soup
at one end of the table, while Francoise dealt with hers at the other
extreme. He told Helene that in future she was to serve the repast in
common, on a tablecloth, and that it was to include dessert from his
table. This order seemed to vex Helene extremely. "That girl seems to
live without eating," she said, "and she never seems to sleep."
One day the witness noticed that the hands and face of Francoise were
puffy. He spoke to Helene about it, who became angry. She accused her
companion of getting up in the night to make tea, so wasting the sugar,
and she swore she would lock the sugar up. M. Bidard told her to do
nothing of the sort. He said if Francoise had need of sugar she was to
have it. "All right--I see," Helene replied sullenly, obviously put out.
The swelling M. Bidard had seen in the face and hands of Francoise
attacked her legs, and all service became impossible for the girl. The
witness was obliged to entrust Helene with the job of finding another
chambermaid. It was then that she brought Rosalie Sarrazin to him. "A
very good girl," she said. "If her dress is poor it is because she gives
everything to her mother."
The words, M. Bidard commented, were said by Helene with remarkable
sincerity. It was said that Helene had no moral sense. It seemed to
him, from her expressions regarding that poor girl, who, like herself,
devoted herself to her mother, that Helene was far from lacking in that
quality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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