this in return for contempt and wages ranging from
thirty-five to ninety francs a month. No, it is too
much! Add that we live in perpetual distress of
mind, in a perpetual struggle between the ephemeral
semi-luxury of the places that we fill, and the
anguish which the loss of these places causes us.
Add that we are continually conscious of the
wounding suspicions that follow us everywhere,—
bolting doors, padlocking drawers, marking bottles,
numbering cakes and prunes, and continually
putting us to shame by invasive examination of
our hands, our pockets, and our trunks. For there
is not a door, not a closet, not a drawer, not a
bottle, not an article, that does not cry out to us:
"Thief! thief! thief!" And also the continuous
vexation caused by that terrible inequality, that
frightful disproportion in our destinies, which, in spite of familiarities, smiles, and presents, places
between our mistresses and ourselves an impassable
abyss, a whole world of sullen hatreds, suppressed
desires, and future vengeances,—a disproportion
which is rendered every minute more perceptible,
more humiliating, more disgracing, by the
caprices, and even by the kindnesses, of those
beings that know no justice and feel no love,—
the rich. Did you ever think for a moment of the
mortal and legitimate hatred, of the murderous—
yes, murderous—desires with which we must be
filled when we hear one of our masters, in trying
Page:A chambermaid's diary.djvu/302
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296
A CHAMBERMAID’S DIARY.