The coming of Marie was like the entrance of death into the house. At the very first sight of her, Madame Bergeret knew that her day was over.

EuphÉmie sat for a long while on her caneless chair, silent and motionless, but with flushed cheeks. Her deep-rooted attachment to her employers and her employers’ house was instinctive, but sure, and, like a dog’s love, not dependent on reason. She shed no tears, but fever spots came out on her lips. Her good-bye to Madame Bergeret was said with all the solemnity of a pious, countrified heart. During the five years of her service in the house she had endured at Madame Bergeret’s hands, not only abusive violence, but hard avarice, for she was fed but meagrely; on her side, she had given way to fits of insolence and disobedience, and she had slandered her mistress among the other servants. But she was a Christian, and at the bottom of her heart she revered her pastors and masters as she did her father and mother. Snivelling with grief, she said:

“Good-bye, Madame. I will pray to the good God for you, that He may make you happy. I wish I could have said good-bye to the young ladies.”

Madame Bergeret knew that she was being hunted out of the house, like this young girl, but she would not show how moved she was, for fear of seeming undignified.

“Go, child,” said she, “and settle your wages with Monsieur.”

When M. Bergeret handed her her wages, she slowly counted out the amount and moving her lips as though in prayer, made her calculations three times over. She examined the coins anxiously, not being sure of her bearings among so many different varieties. Then she put this little property, her sole wealth in all the world, into the pocket of her skirt, under her handkerchief. Next she dug her hand deep into her pocket, and having taken all these precautions, said:

“You have always been good to me, Monsieur, and I wish you every happiness. But, all the same, you have driven me away.”

“You think I am a wicked man,” answered M. Bergeret. “But if I send you away, my good girl, I do it regretfully and only because it is absolutely necessary. If I can help you in any way, I shall be very glad to do so.”

EuphÉmie passed the back of her hand over her eyes, sniffed aloud and said softly, with big tears flowing down her cheeks:

“There’s nobody wicked here.”

She went out, closing the door behind her as noiselessly as possible, and M. Bergeret began to picture her standing at the bottom of the waiting-room in Deniseau’s office, with anxious looks fixed on the door, among the melancholy crowd of girls waiting to be hired, in her white head-dress with her blue cotton umbrella stuck between her knees.

Meanwhile Marie, the stable-girl, who had never in her life waited on anything but beasts, was filled with amazement and stupefaction at the ways of these townsfolk, till the terror that she communicated to others began to overwhelm her own mind. She squatted in her kitchen and gazed at the saucepans. Bacon soup was the only thing she could make and dialect the only language she understood. She was not even well recommended, for it turned out that she had not only lived loosely, but was in the habit of drinking brandy and even spirits of wine.

The first visitor to whom she opened the door was Captain Aspertini, who, in passing through the town, had called to see M. Bergeret. She evidently made a deep impression on the Italian savant’s mind, for no sooner had he greeted his host than he began to speak of the maid with that interest which ugliness always inspires when it is overwhelmingly terrible.

“Your maid, Monsieur Bergeret,” said he, “reminds me of that expressive face which Giotto has painted on an arch of the church at Assisi. It represents that Being to whom no one ever opens the door with a smile, and was suggested by a verse in Dante.

“That reminds me,” continued the Italian; “have you seen the portrait of Virgil in mosaic that your compatriots have just discovered at Sousse in Algeria? It is a picture of a Roman with a wide, low forehead, a square head and a strong jaw, and is not in the least like the beautiful youth whom they used to tell us was Virgil. The bust which for a long time was taken for a portrait of the poet is really a Roman copy of a Greek original of the fourth century and represents a young god worshipped in the mysteries of Eleusis. I think I may claim the honour of being the first to give the true explanation of this figure in my pamphlet on the child Triptolemus. But do you know this Virgil in mosaic, Monsieur Bergeret?” “As well as I can judge from the photograph I have seen,” answered M. Bergeret, “this African mosaic seems the copy of an original full of character. This portrait might quite stand for Virgil, and it is by no means impossible that it is an authentic portrait of him. Your Renaissance scholars, Monsieur Aspertini, always depicted the author of the Æneid with the features of a sage. The old Venetian editions of Dante that I have turned over in our library are full of wood engravings in which Virgil wears the beard of a philosopher. The next age made him as beautiful as a young god. Now we have him with a square jaw and wearing a fringe of hair across his forehead in the Roman style. The mental effect produced by his work has varied just as much. Every literary age creates pictures from it which are entirely different according to the period. And without recalling the legends of the Middle Ages about Virgil the necromancer, it is a fact that the Mantuan is admired for reasons that change according to the period. In him Macrobius hailed the Sibyl of the Empire. It was his philosophy that Dante and Petrarch seized upon, while Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo discovered in him the forerunner of Christianity. For my part, being but a juggler with words, I only use his works as a philological pastime. You, Monsieur Aspertini, see him in the guise of a great storehouse of Roman antiquities, and that is perhaps the most solidly valuable part of the Æneid. The truth is that we are in the habit of hanging our ideas upon the letter of these ancient texts. Each generation forms a new conception of these masterpieces of antiquity and thus endows them with a kind of progressive immortality. My colleague Paul Stapfer has said many good things on this head.”

“Very noteworthy things indeed,” answered Captain Aspertini. “But he does not entertain such hopeless views as yours as to the ebb and flow of human opinions.”

Thus did these two good fellows toss from one to the other those glorious and beautiful ideas by which life is embellished.

“Do tell me what has become,” asked Captain Aspertini, “of that soldierly Latinist whom I met here, that charming M. Roux, who seemed to value military glory at its true worth, for he disdained to be a corporal.”

M. Bergeret replied curtly that M. Roux had returned to his regiment.

“When last I passed through the town,” continued Captain Aspertini, “on the second of January I think it was, I caught this young savant under the lime-tree in the courtyard of the library, chatting with the young porteress, whose ears, I remember, were very red. And you know that is a sign that she was listening with pleased excitement. There could be nothing prettier than that dainty little ruby shell clinging above the white neck. With great discretion I pretended not to see them, in order that I might not be like the Pythagorean philosopher who used to harass lovers in Metapontus. That is a very charming young girl, with her red, flame-like hair and her delicate skin, faintly dappled with freckles, yet so pearly that it seems lit up from within. Have you ever noticed her, Monsieur Bergeret?”

M. Bergeret replied by a nod, for he had often noticed her, and found her very much to his taste. He was too honourable a man and had too much prudence and respect for his position ever to have taken any liberty with the young porteress at the library. But the delicate colouring, the thin, supple figure, the graceful beauty of this girl had more than once floated before his eyes in the yellow pages of Servius and Domat, when he had been sitting over them a long while. Her name was Mathilde and she had the reputation of being fond of pretty lads. Although M. Bergeret was usually very indulgent towards lovers, the idea of M. Roux finding favour with Mathilde was distinctly distasteful to him.

“It was in the evening, after I had been reading there,” continued Captain Aspertini. “I had copied three unpublished letters of Muratori, which were not in the catalogue. As I was crossing the court where they keep the remains of ancient buildings in the town, I saw, under the lime-tree near the well and not far from the pillar of the Romano-Gallic boatmen, the young porteress with the golden hair. She was listening with downcast eyes to the remarks of your pupil, M. Roux, while she balanced the great keys at the end of her fingers. What he said was doubtless very like what the herdsman of the Oaristys[15] said to the goat-girl. There was little doubt as to the gist of his remarks. I felt sure, in fact, that he was making an assignation. For, thanks to the skill I have acquired in interpreting the monuments of ancient art, I immediately grasped the meaning of this group.”

He went on with a smile:

“I cannot, Monsieur Bergeret, really feel all the subtleties, all the niceties of your beautiful French tongue, but I do not like to use the word ‘girl’ or ‘young girl’ to describe a child like this porteress of your municipal library. Neither can one use the word maid,[16] which is obsolete and has degenerated in meaning. And I would say in passing, it is a pity that this is the case. It would be ungracious to call her a young person, and I can see nothing but the word nymph to suit her. But, pray, Monsieur Bergeret, do not repeat what I told you about the nymph of the library, lest it should get her into trouble. These secrets need not be divulged to the mayor or the librarians. I should be most distressed, if I thought I had inadvertently done the slightest harm to your nymph.”

“It is true,” thought M. Bergeret, “that my nymph is pretty.”

He felt vexed, and at this moment could scarcely have told whether he was more angry with M. Roux for having found favour in the eyes of the library porteress, or for having seduced Madame Bergeret.

“Your nation,” said Captain Aspertini, “has attained to the highest mental and moral culture. But it still retains, as a relic of the barbarism in which it was so long plunged, a kind of uncertainty and awkwardness in dealing with love affairs. In Italy love is everything to the lovers, but of no concern to the outside world. Society in general feels no interest in a matter which only concerns the chief actors in it. An unbiassed estimate of licence and passion saves us from cruelty and hypocrisy.”

For some considerable time Captain Aspertini continued to entertain his French friend with his views on different points in morals, art and politics. Then he rose to take leave, and catching sight of Marie in the hall, said to M. Bergeret:

“Pray don’t take offence at what I said about your cook. Petrarch also had a servant of rare and peculiar ugliness.”