Free The Diary of a Chambermaid by Octave Mirbeau

there’s anything you need, advice or anything … don’t hesitate. I’m fond of young people … We’ll have a little glass of something and a nice chat… A lot of the girls in the neighbourhood come to see me …’
    She stopped for a moment to get her breath, and then in a lower voice, speaking confidentially, she said:
    ‘And look, Mademoiselle Célestine … If you like, it might be advisable to have your letters addressed to us, for I ought to warn you Madame Lanlaire reads other people’s letters, whenever she can lay her hands on them. On one occasion she only just escaped being summonsed for it. So I repeat, don’t you hesitate.’
    I thanked her and we started walking again. Though she was rolling and pitching like an old ship in a high sea, Mademoiselle Rose seemed to be breathing more easily and she continued her stream of gossip:
    ‘Of course, you’ll find it a big change here. In the first place, my dear, they just can’t keep a maid at The Priory … Regular as clockwork … When it’s not Madame who gives them the sack, it’s Monsieur who puts them in the family way. A terrible fellow, that Lanlaire … Pretty or ugly, young or old, it’s all the same to him … and every time, a baby. Oh, that house is well-known … anyone will tell you the same. Not enough to eat, no free time and worked to death … And nothing but scolding and nagging … A hell of a place! But you can see at a glance … a nice, well brought-up girl like you certainly wasn’t made to work for skinflints like them.’
    Everything the draper’s wife had told me was now repeated by Mademoiselle Rose, but with even more distressing variations. So overpowering was her need to talk that she forgot all about her illness: ill-nature proved to be stronger than asthma … Her disparagement of The Priory went on and on and on, mixed up with all sorts of intimate details about local affairs. Although I knew most of it already, Rose’s stories were so gruesome, and her way of telling them so discouraging, that I felt my sadness returning, and I wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to leave at once. What was the use of going on, if I knew myself to be defeated in advance?
    Some of the other women had now joined us out of curiosity, crowding round and greeting each fresh revelation with an energetic ‘Quite true … That’s right enough,’ while Rose, who had now her second wind, chattered away tirelessly.
    ‘Now Monsieur Mauger, there’s a really decent man for you … and nobody else to worry about, my dear. It’s almost like being the mistress there. A retired army captain, you see … so what else would you expect? He hasn’t the slightest idea of running a house. All he wants is someone to look after him and spoil him a bit … to have his clothes properly seen to … his little ways respected, and now and then one of his favourite dishes for supper. If he didn’t have somebody to look after him that he could trust, he’d have everybody sponging on him … God knows there are plenty of thieves in this part of the world!’
    From the intonation of her voice and the way she screwed up her eyes it was clear enough how matters stood in the captain’s house.
    ‘After all, could you expect anything else? A man living on his own, who still has his little ideas … There’s plenty of work to be done all the same. We’re going to get a young lad to give a hand.’
    She’s lucky, this Rose … I’ve often thought of working for an old man. It may be disgusting, but it’s a nice quiet life and there’s always the future to look forward to. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have its difficulties, with a captain who ‘still has his little ideas’… They must be a funny sight, the two of them under the same eiderdown …
    We had to walk right through the village … Not exactly exciting; nothing like the Boulevard Malesherbes. Dirty, winding narrow streets, houses that look as though they’re about to fall down, dark