My resolve had been taken and my preparations made; it only remainedfor me to notify my housekeeper. I must acknowledge it was a long timebefore I could make up my mind to tell her I was going away. I fearedher remonstrances, her railleries, her objurgations, her tears. "She isa good, kind girl," I said to myself; "she is attacked to me; she willwant to prevent me from going; and the Lord knows that when she has hermind set upon anything, gestures and cries cost her no effort. In thisinstance she will be sure to call the concierge, the scrubber, themattress-maker, and the seven sons of the fruit-seller; they will allkneel down in a circle around me; they will begin to cry, and then theywill look so ugly that I shall be obliged to yield, so as not to havethe pain of seeing them any more."
Such were the awful images, the sick dreams, which fear marshaled beforemy imagination. Yes, fear--"fecund Fear," as the poet says--gavebirth to these monstrosities in my brain. For--I may as well make theconfession in these private pages--I am afraid of my housekeeper. I amaware that she knows I am weak; and this fact alone is sufficient todispel all my courage in any contest with her. Contests are of frequentoccurrence; and I invariably succumb.
But for all that, I had to announce my departure to Therese. She cameinto the library with an armful of wood to make a little fire--"uneflambe," she said. For the mornings are chilly. I watched her out of thecorner of my eye while she crouched down at the hearth, with her head inthe opening of the fireplace. I do not know how I then found the courageto speak, but I did so without much hesitation. I got up, and, walkingup and down the room, observed in a careless tone, with that swaggeringmanner characteristic of cowards,
"By the way, Therese, I am going to Sicily."
Having thus spoken, I awaited the consequence with great anxiety.Therese did not reply. Her head and her vast cap remained buried in thefireplace; and nothing in her person, which I closely watched, betrayedthe least emotion. She poked some paper under the wood, and blew up thefire. That was all!
Finally I saw her face again;--it was calm--so calm that it made mevexed. "Surely," I thought to myself, "this old maid has no heart. Shelets me go away without saying so much as AH! Can the absence of her oldmaster really affect her so little?"
"Well, then go, Monsieur," she answered at last, "only be back here bysix o'clock! There is a dish for dinner to-day which will not wait foranybody."