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You could do what you like with him …

    Dinner, which was far from being luxurious and consisted of left-overs from the day before, passed without incident, almost in silence. The master ate ravenously, while Madame picked at her food sulkily, with a contemptuous expression on her face. But you should see the number of tablets, syrups, drops and pills that she gets through, a regular chemist’s shop, that has to be laid out beside her plate at every meal! They scarcely spoke and, when they did, only about local affairs, which were of very little interest to me. One thing I gathered was that they do very little entertaining. It was obvious that they were not at all interested in what they were saying: they both had their minds fixed on me, and both of them were observing me, though with very different ends in view. The mistress, severe and stiff, contemptuous even, was more and more hostile and already thinking up all the dirty tricks she could play on me; the master never raised his eyes from his plate, but nevertheless they kept flickering in a very significant way, and every now and then, though he tried to conceal it, came to rest on my hands … I have never been able to understand what it is that men seem to find so exciting about my hands … I pretended not to notice what was going on, coming and going, dignified, reserved, attentive and remote … Oh, if only they could have seen into my mind and heard what it was saying, as I saw and heard what was going on in theirs.
    I simply love waiting at table. That is where your employers give themselves away, revealing all the beastliness, all the squalor of their inner natures. Careful at first, and keeping an eye on each other, gradually they begin to expose themselves for what they are, without any pretence. They forget all about the servants lurking in the background, noting down every moral blemish, every iniquity, every secret scar, all the infamous and ignoble dreams concealed in the minds of respectable people. Collecting these revelations, classifying and labelling them against the day of reckoning when they will become a terrible weapon in our hands, is one of the great pleasures of our job, a precious revenge for all the humiliations we endure.
    From this first contact with my new employers I was not able to gather any very distinct and positive impressions. But I did feel that things were not going well between them, that the mistress was boss, while the master counted for nothing, and was as scared of her as a child. Oh, it can’t be much fun for the poor man. He certainly has plenty to put up with from her … I fancy I shall have a good time here now and then.
    During dessert Madame, who throughout the meal had been continually sniffing at my hands and arms, said in a clear, peremptory voice: ‘I do not like people to wear scent.’
    And when I made no reply, pretending not to realize that she was speaking to me, she added: ‘You understand, Célestine?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    I glanced stealthily at the poor master, who takes such pleasure in perfume, at least in mine. Apparently paying no attention, but at heart humiliated and hurt, he was sitting with both elbows on the table, watching a wasp hovering above the fruit dish. And, in the deepening twilight, a mournful hush fell upon the room, and something inexpressibly sad, some unspeakable weight, seemed to have descended upon these two creatures, till I found myself wondering what purpose they really served by their presence here on earth.
    ‘The lamp, Célestine!’
    Madame’s voice, shriller than ever in the shadowy silence, made me jump.
    ‘Surely you can see it’s getting dark. I shouldn’t have to remind you. Don’t let this happen again.’
    As I was lighting the lamp, the one that could only be mended in England, I felt like calling out to the poor master: ‘Just you wait a bit, my beauty. Don’t be so upset. I’ll see you have your fill of the forbidden perfumes you like so much. You