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service, I bought a postcard, and so that everybody in the house would be able to read it I wrote the following charming message. Yes, I actually had the nerve to say: ‘This is to inform you, Madame, that I am returning to you, carriage paid, all the so-called presents that you have given me. I am only a poor woman, but I have too much self-respect, too much regard for decency, to keep all the filthy rags that you got rid of by passing on to me instead of throwing them into the gutter, which is all they were fit for. You need not imagine that, just because I am penniless, I am prepared to wear your disgusting petticoats, all stained with yellow where you’ve pissed yourself. I have the honour to be, Yours faithfully …’
    So that was that. But it was stupid, and all the more so because, as I’ve said already, Madame had always been generous to me. In fact, only the next day I was able to sell the clothes she had given me—which, of course, I had never had any intention of returning to her—for 400 francs to a second-hand clothes dealer.
    What probably made me do this was that I was furious with myself for having left an unusually agreeable job, the kind that we aren’t often lucky enough to find, in a house that was run on lavish lines and where we were treated like lords. But hang it all, there’s not always time to be fair to our employers. And if the decent ones have to suffer for the bad ones, so much the worse for them.

    But, after all this, what am I going to do here? Stuck in the country with an old cat like Madame Lanlaire, it’s no good dreaming of another such windfall, nor hoping for anything as entertaining. Here, it’s going to be nothing but boring housework—and sewing, which I simply can’t stand. Oh, when I think of the places I have had, it makes my position here seem even more dreary, unbearably dreary. I’ve a good mind to clear out, to make my final bow to this country of savages.

    Just now I passed Monsieur Lanlaire on the stairs. He was going shooting. He looked at me roguishly and once again wanted to know whether ‘I was settling down all right.’ It’s definitely a mania with him.
    I replied: ‘It’s too early to say sir.’ And added, saucily: ‘And what about you sir? Have you settled down?’
    He burst out laughing. Really, he’s a good sort and knows how to take a joke.
    ‘You must settle down, Célestine. You simply must settle down.’
    Feeling in the mood to take liberties, I answered again: ‘I’ll do my best sir … with your help sir!’
    From the sparkle in his eye I think he was on the point of making a pretty cheeky retort. But at that moment Madame Lanlaire appeared at the top of the staircase, so we made off in different directions. Pity!
    That evening, through the drawing-room door, I heard Madame saying to him in the tone of voice you would expect: ‘I disapprove of any familiarity with my servants.’
    Her servants, indeed! As if her servants weren’t also his! Oh well, we shall see.

18 SEPTEMBER
    This morning, being Sunday, I went to mass. I have already explained that without being particularly devout I nevertheless believe in religion. For I don’t care what anybody says, religion is always religion. Maybe the rich can do without it, but for people like us it’s an absolute necessity. I know there are some people who make use of it in funny ways, and that there are plenty of priests and holy sisters who do very little credit to it. But that’s not the point. When you are unhappy—and in our job we have more than our share of unhappiness—there’s nothing like it for helping you to forget your troubles … religion and love. Though of course love brings a different kind of consolation. Anyway, even in the most un-Christian houses, I never miss going to mass. For one thing it’s an outing, a distraction, time won from the daily grind of housework. But the main thing is the friends you meet here, all the stories you hear, and the chance of meeting