which, a few days after my refusal to go into the
service of the old gentleman in the country, I was
sent, with all sorts of admirable references, by
Mme. Paulhat-Durand. My masters were a very
young couple, without animals or children, living
in an ill-kept interior, though the furniture was
stylish and there was a heavy elegance about the
decorations. Luxury and great waste! A single
glance as I entered showed me all; I saw clearly
with whom I had to deal. It was my dream!
Now then, I was going to forget all my miseries, —M. Xavier, and the good sisters of Neuilly, and
the killing sessions in the ante-room of the
employment-bureau, and the long days of anguish,
and the long nights of solitude and debauchery.
Now then, I was going to plan for myself an agreeable life, with easy work and certain profits. Made happy by this prospect, I promised myself that I would correct my caprices, repress the ardent impulses of my frankness, in order to stay in this place a long, long time. In a twinkling my gloomy ideas vanished; and my hatred of the bourgeois flew away, as if by enchantment. I again became madly and hilariously gay, and, seized anew with a violent love of life, I began to think that the masters are sometimes good. The personnel was not numerous, but it was select,—a cook, a valet de chambre, an old butler, and myself. There was no coachman, the masters having abolished their
