the consequence was dubourg became nothing if not more insolent; he laid upon me the blame for his weakness' mistakes, wanted to repair them with new outrages and yet more mortifying invectives; there was nothing he did not say to me, nothing he did not attempt, nothing his perfidious imagination, his adamantine character and the depravation of his manners did not lead him to undertake. my clumsiness made him impatient: i was far from wishing to participate in the thing, to lend myself to it was as much as i could do, my remorse remained lively. however, it was all for naught, submitting to him, i ceased to inflame him; in vain he passed successively from tenderness to rigor... from groveling to tyranny... from an air of decency to the profligate's excesses, in vain, i say, there was nothing for it, we were both exhausted, and happily he was unable to recover what he needed to deliver more dangerous assaults. he gave it up, made me promise to come the next day, and to be sure of me he refused absolutely to give me anything above the sum i owed desroches. greatly humiliated by the adventure and firmly resolved, whatever might happen to me, not to expose myself a third time, i returned to where i was lodging. i announced my intentions to desroches, paid her, and heaped maledictions upon the criminal capable of so cruelly exploiting my misery. but my imprecations, far from drawing the wrath of god down upon him, only added to his good fortune; and a week later i learned this signal libertine had just obtained a general trusteeship from the government, which would augment his revenues by more than five hundred thousand pounds per annum. i was absorbed in the reflections such unexpected inconsistencies of fate inevitably give rise to, when a momentary ray of hope seemed to shine in my eyes.
desroches came to tell me one day that she had finally located a house into which i could be received with pleasure provided my comportment remained of the best. "great heaven, madame," i cried, transported, throwing myself into her arms, "that condition is the one i would stipulate myself you may imagine how happy i am to accept it." the man i was to serve was a famous parisian usurer who had become rich, not only by lending money upon collateral, but even by stealing from the public every time he thought he could do so in safety. he lived in the rue quincampoix, had a third-story flat, and shared it with a creature of fifty years he called his wife and who was at least as wicked as he.
"therese," this miser said to me (such was the name i had taken in order to hide my own), "therese, the primary virtue in this house is probity; if ever you make off with the tenth part of a penny, i'll have you hanged, my child, d'ye see. the modest ease my wife and i enjoy is the fruit of our immense labors, and of our perfect sobriety.... do you eat much, little one?"
"a few ounces of bread each day, monsieur," i replied, "water, and a little soup when i am lucky enough to get it."
"soup! bleeding christ! soup! behold, deary," said the usurer to his dame, "behold and tremble at the progress of luxury: it's looking for circumstances, it's been dying of hunger for a year, and now it wants to eat soup; we scarcely have it once a week, on sunday, we who work like galley slaves: you'll have three ounces of bread a day, my daughter, plus half a bottle of river water, plus one of my wife's old dresses every eighteen months, plus three crowns' wages at the end of each year, if we are content with your services, if your economy responds to our own and if, finally, you make the house prosper through orderliness and arrangement. your duties are mediocre, they're done in jig time; 'tis but a question of washing and cleaning this six-room apartment thrice a week, of making our beds, answering the door, powdering my wig, dressing my wife's hair, looking after the dog and the parakeet, lending a hand in the kitchen, washing the utensils, helping my wife whenever she prepares us a bite to eat, and daily devoting four or five hours to the washing, to mending stockings, hats, and other little house-hold odds and ends; you observe, therese, 'tis nothing at all, you will have ample free time to yourself, we will permit you to employ it to your own interest, provided, my child, you are good, discreet and, above all, thrifty, that's of the essence."
you may readily imagine, madame, that one had to be in the frightful state i indeed was in to accept such a position; not only was there infinitely more work to be done than my strength permitted me to undertake, but should i be able to live upon what was offered me? however, i was careful to raise no difficulties and was installed that same evening.
were my cruel situation to permit me to amuse you for an instant, madame, when i must think of nothing but gaining your compassion, i should dare describe some of the symptoms or avarice i witnessed while in that house; but a catastrophe so terrible for me was awaiting me during my second year there that it is by no means easy to linger over entertaining details before making you acquainted with my miseries.
nevertheless, you will know, madame, that, for light in monsieur du harpin's apartment, there was never any but what he got from the street lamp which, happily, was placed opposite his room; never did monsieur or madame use linen; what i washed was hoarded away, it was never touched; on the sleeves of monsieur's coat, as well as upon madame's dress, were old gauntlet cuffs sewn over the material, and these i removed and washed every saturday evening; no sheets; no towels, and that to avoid laundry expenses. never was wine drunk in her house, clear water being, declared madame du harpin, the natural drink of man, the healthiest and least dangerous. every time bread was sliced, a basket was put beneath the knife so that whatever fell would not be lost; into this container went, also, and with exactitude all the scraps and leavings that might survive the meal, and this compound, fried up on sunday together with a little butter, made a banquet for the day of rest; never was one to beat clothing or too energetically dust the furniture for fear of wearing it out, instead, very cautiously, one tickled about with a feather. monsieur's shoes, and madame's as well, were double-soled with iron, they were the same shoes that had served them on their wedding day; but a much more unusual custom was the one they had me practice once a week: there was in the apartment a rather large room whose walls were not papered; i was expected to take a knife and scrape and shave away a certain quantity of plaster, and this i next passed through a fine sieve; what resulted from this operation became the powder wherewith every morning i sprinkled monsieur's peruke and madame's hair, done up in a bun. ah! wouldst to god those had been the only turpitudes of which this evil pair had made habits! nothing's more normal than the desire to conserve one's property; but what is not normal is the desire to augment it by the accession of the property of others. and it was not long before i perceived that it was only thus du harpin acquired his wealth.
above us there lodged a solitary individual of considerable means who was the owner of some handsome jewels, and whose belongings, whether because of their proximity or because they had passed through my master's hands, were very well known to him; i often heard him express regrets to his wife over the loss of a certain gold box worth fifty or sixty louis, which article would infallibly have remained his, said he, had he proceeded with greater cleverness. in order to console himself for the sale of the said box, the good monsieur du harpin projected its theft, and it was to me he entrusted the execution of his plan.
after having delivered a long speech upon the indifference of robbery, upon, indeed, its usefulness in the world, since it maintains a sort of equilibrium which totally confounds the inequality of property; upon the infrequence of punishment, since out of every twenty thieves it could be proven that not above two dies on the gallows; after having demonstrated to me, with an erudition of which i had not dreamt monsieur du harpin capable, that theft was honored throughout greece, that several races yet acknowledge it, favor it, and reward it for a bold deed simultaneously giving proof of courage and skill (two virtues indispensable to a warlike nation), after having, in a word, exalted his personal influence which would extricate me from all embarrassments in the event i should be detected, monsieur du harpin tendered me two lock picks, one to open the neighbor's front door, the other his secretary within which lay the box in question; incessantly he enjoined me to get him this box and, in return for so important a service, i could expect, for two years, to receive an additional crown.
"oh monsieur!" i exclaimed, shuddering at his proposal, "is it possible a master dare thus corrupt his domestic ! what prevents me from turning against you the weapons you put into my hands? du harpin, much confused, fell back on a lame subterfuge; what he was doing, said he, was being done with the simple intention of testing me; how fortunate that i had resisted this temptation, he added... how i should have been doomed had i succumbed, etc. i scoffed at this lie; but i was soon enough aware of what a mistake it had been to answer him with such asperity: malefactors do not like to find resistance in those they seek to seduce; unfortunately, there is no middle ground or median attitude when one is so unlucky as to have been approached by them: one must necessarily thereupon become either their accomplices, which is exceedingly dangerous, or their enemies, which is even more so. had i been a little experienced, i would have quit the house forthwith, but it was already written in heaven that every one of the honest gestures that was to emanate from me would be answered by misfortunes.
