Page:A chambermaid's diary.djvu/312

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306
A CHAMBERMAID’S DIARY.


for you; you should have heard her. In short, I was no longer at home in my own house."

He breathes deeply, noisily, and, with the new and deep joy that a traveler feels on returning from a long journey, he contemplates the sky, the bare grass-plots in the garden, the violet interlacings of the branches of the trees against the light, and his little house.

This joy, so offensive to Rose’s memory, now seems to me very comical. I stimulate the captain to further confidences. And I say to him, in a tone of reproach:

"Captain, I think you are not just to Rose."

"Egad!" he rejoins, quickly. "You do not know; you don’t know anything about it. She did not go to tell you of all the scenes that she made, her tyranny, her jealousy, her egoism. Nothing belonged to me here any longer. Everything in my house was hers. For instance, you would not believe it, my Voltaire arm-chair was never at my disposition. She had it all the time. She had everything, for that matter. To think that I could no longer eat asparagus with oil, because she did not like it! Oh! she did well todie. It was the best thing that could happen to her, for, in some way or other, I should have gotten rid of her. Yes, yes, I should have gotten rid of her. She was becoming too much for me. I had had enough. And let me tell you; if I had died before her, Rose