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148 frightfully drunk in order to forget her troubles, as she said: her husband who beat her and took away her money, and her daughter who was good for nothing.

The waste was enormous, our table very bad and the rest correspondingly so. Whenever we happened to have visitors, Juliette would order from Bignon the rarest and most elaborate dishes. I viewed with displeasure the uncommon intimacy, a sort of bond of friendship, which had sprung up between Juliette and Celestine. When dressing her mistress, the maid told her stories which the former enjoyed immensely; she disclosed improper secrets of the homes where she had served and advised Juliette in all matters. "At Mme. K's they do it this way at Mme. V's they do it that way." That they were "swell places" goes without saying. Juliette often went into the linen room where Celestine was sewing and stayed there for hours, seated on a heap of bed sheets, listening to the inexhaustible gossip of the servant-girl. . . From time to time an argument would arise over some stolen thing or some neglected duty. Celestine would get excited, hurling the grossest insults, knocking the furniture, screaming in her squeaky voice:

"Well! . . Many thanks to youj . . This is some dirty place! . . A goose like that has the nerve to accuse one! . . Well look here, my pretty one, I am going to shake myself free from you and your boob over there who has the face of a dunce."

Juliette would tell her to get out immediately, not wishing her even to stay out her week.

"Yes, yes! Pack up at once, you nasty girl. . . right away!"

She would come to sulk in my presence, pale and trembling:

"Ah! my dear, that vile creature, that wretched woman! . . And I who was so kind to her! . . ."