He received the two women, as he was finishing his coffee, with his fat stomach against the table, and turning round said: “What do you want?”
The mother was spokeswoman. “This is our girl Adélaïde, and I have come to ask you to take her as servant, as Monsieur le Curé told us you wanted one.”
Maître Omont looked at the girl, and then he said roughly: “How old is the great she-goat?”
“Twenty last Michaelmas-Day, Monsieur Omont.”
“That is settled, she will have fifteen francs a month and her food. I shall expect her tomorrow, to make my soup in the morning.” And he dismissed the two women.
The next day Adélaïde entered upon her duties, and began to work hard, without saying a word, as she was in the habit of doing at home. About nine o’clock, as she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, Monsieur Omont called her: “Adélaïde!”
She came immediately saying: “Here I am, sir.” As soon as she was opposite him, with her red and neglected hands, and her troubled looks, he said, “Now just listen to me, so that there may be no mistake between us. You are my servant, but nothing else; you understand what I mean. We shall keep our shoes apart.”
“Yes, master.”
“Each in our own place, my girl, you in your kitchen, I in my dining room; and with that exception, everything will be for you just as it is for me. Is that settled?”
“Yes, master.”
“Very well; that is all right, and now go to your work.”
And she went out, to attend to her duties, and at midday she served up her master’s dinner in the little sitting-room with the flowered paper on the walls, and then, when the soup was on the table, she went to tell him. “Dinner is ready, master.”
He went in and sat down, looked round, unfolded his table napkin, hesitated for a moment and then in a voice of thunder he shouted: “Adélaïde!”
She rushed in, terribly frightened, for he had shouted as if he meant to murder her.
“Well, in heaven’s name, where is your place?”
“But, master!”
“I do not like to eat alone,” he roared; “you will sit there, or go to the devil, if you don’t choose to do so. Go and get your plate and glass.”
She brought them in, feeling very frightened, and stammered: “Here I am, master,” and then sat down opposite to him. He grew jovial; clinked glasses with her, rapped the table, and told her stories to which she listened with downcast eyes, without daring to say a word, and from time to time she got up to fetch some bread, cider, or plates. When she brought in the coffee she only put one cup before him, and then he grew angry again, and growled: “Well, what about yourself?”
“I never take any, master.”
“Why not?”
“Because I do not like it.”
Then he burst out afresh: “I am not fond of having my coffee by myself, confound it! If you will not take it here, you can go to the devil. Go and get a cup, and make haste about it.”
So she went and fetched a cup, sat down again, tasted the black liquor and made faces over it, but swallowed it to the last drop, under her master’s furious looks. Then he made her also drink her first glass of brandy as an extra drop, the second as a livener, and the third as a kick behind, and then he told her to go and wash up her plates and dishes, adding, that she was “a good sort of girl.”
It was the same at supper, after which she had to play dominoes with him. Then he sent her to bed, saying that he should come upstairs soon. So she went to her room, a garret under the roof, and after saying her prayers, undressed and got into bed. But very soon she sprang up in a fright, for a furious shout had shaken the house. “Adélaïde!” She opened her door, and replied from her attic: “Here I am, master.”
“Where are you?”
“In bed, of course, master.”
Then he roared out: “Will you come downstairs, in heaven’s name? I do not like to sleep alone, and, by God, if you object, you can just get to the devil out of this.”
Then in her terror she replied from upstairs: “I will come, master.” She looked for her candle, and he soon heard her small clogs pattering down the stairs. When she had got to the bottom steps, he seized her by the arm, and as soon as she had left her light wooden shoes by the side of her master’s heavy boots, he pushed her into his room, growling out: “Quicker than that, confound it!”
And without knowing what she was saying she answered: “Here I am, here I am, master.”
Six months later, when she went to see her parents one Sunday, her father looked at her curiously, and then said: “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
She remained thunderstruck, and looked at her waist, and then said: “No, I do not think so.”
Then he asked her, for he wanted to know everything: “Just tell me, didn’t you mix your clogs together, one night?”
“Yes, I mixed them the first night, and then every other night.”
“Well, then, you are pregnant, you great fool!”
On hearing that, she began to sob, and stammered: “How could I know? How was I to know?” Old Malandain looked at her knowingly, and appeared very pleased, and then he asked: “What did you not know?” And amid tears she replied: “How was I to know how children were made?” And when her mother came back, the man said, without any anger: “There, she is pregnant, now.”
But the woman was furious, her finer instinct revolted, and she called her daughter, who was in tears, every name she could think of—a “trollop” and a “strumpet.” Then, however, the old man made her hold her tongue, and as he took up his cap to go and
