Rose

The two young women appeared to be buried beneath a blanket of flowers. They sat alone on the carriage laden with flowers like a giant basket. On the little bench at the front, two wicker baskets covered with white satin were full of violets from Nice, and on the bear-skin that was draped over the girls' laps a mountain of  roses, mimosas, wallflowers, tuberoses, margaritas, and blossom from orange trees, tied together with silk ribbons, seemed to crush the two delicate bodies, allowing just their shoulders, arms and a little of their blouses - one white and one blue - to surface from this perfumed and brimming bed.
     The coachman's whip has a sheath of anemones around it, the rains of the horses are upholstered with flowers too, the axes of the wheels are decorated with reseda; and instead of lanterns, two round and enormous bouquets hang there in their place, looking like the wheeled and flowered beast's two strange eyes.
     The carriage is cantering along the road, the rue d'Antibes, preceded, followed, accompanied by a crowd of other vehicles covered in flowers, full of women underneath a wave of violets. Because today is the fête des fleurs in Cannes.
     They come to the boulevard de la Fonciere, where the battle takes place. All along the immense avenue, a double line of crews covered in decorations come and go like an endless ribbon. Flowers are thrown to everyone. They fly through the air like bullets, hit the fresh faces, float around and fall back into the ground where an army of kids collects them.
     Watching everything is a compact, loud and calm crowd, lined up on the pavement. It was contained by mounted policemen who went up and down the line with brutish intentions, pushing the curious members of the crowd back with their feet, as if they were there to prevent the masses from contaminating the rich.
     In the carts people recognise each other, call each other, chuck flowers at each other. A carriage full of pretty women dressed in red like devils attracts and seduces the eyes. A man who resembles the portraits of Henry IV, with an ardent happiness, throws a huge bouquet attached to him with some elastic. Expecting the blow, women protect their eyes and men duck their heads, but the gracious, speedy and docile projectile projectile comes back to its master who throws it immediately towards a new target.
     The two young women fill and empty their arms of their arsenal and receive a hail of bouquets in return; then, after an hour of battle, finally a little weary, they ask the coachman to follow the road along the Golfe-Juan, which hugs the coast.
     The sun was disappearing behind Esterel, painting in black, beneath a fiery sunset, the serrated silhouette of the long mountain. The calm sea stretches, blue and clear, the the horizon where it mingles with the sky, and the fleet, anchored in the middle of the gulf, appears to be a group of monstrous beasts, immobile on the water, like apocalyptic animals, armoured and crooked, topped with spindly masts like feathers, and with eyes that light up when the night comes.
     The young women, stretched out on the heavy bear-skin, watched the countryside languidly. One eventually said, "Oh how there are such delicious evenings, where everything seems good. Isn't that right, Margot?"
     The other replied, "Yes, it is good. But it's still missing something." The first said, smiling, "A little love?"
     "Yes"
     They fell quiet, looking in front of them, then the one called Marguerite murmured, "Life seems intolerable without that, I need to be loved, and I haven't been apart from my do. We are the same, wouldn't you say, Simone?"
     "Why no, my darling. I much prefer not being loved by anyone than being loved by whoever. Do you believe that it would be pleasant for me if, for example, someone loved me like... like..."
     She looked around for someone who could love her, casting her eye over the vast countryside. Her gaze, having gone along the horizon, fell on the two metal buttons that shined off the back of the coachman, and she said,laughing, "like my coachman."
     Mme Margot smiled thinly and said in a low voice, "I assure you that it is very amusing being loved by a servant. That has happened to me two or three times. They roll their eyes in such a funny way you just die laughing. Naturally, one has to appear all the more strict the more they fall in love, then one shows them the door, one day, under the first pretext that comes to mind, because it would become ridiculous if someone noticed."
     Mme Simone listened, with her gaze fixed ahead, then declared, "No. The heart of my valet does not seem sufficient to me. Tell me then how you know they loved you."
     "I know just as I do with other men; it's when they become stupid."
     "The other men don't seem too stupid to me, when they love me."
     "Idiots, my love, incapable of talking, of responding, of understanding anything."
     "But how did it feel being loved by a servant? Were you moved, flattered?"
     "Moved? No. Flattered, yes, a little. One is always flattered by the love of a man, whoever he may be."
     "Oh come now, Margot!"
     "It's true, my darling. Listen, I'll tell you a little story of mine. You will see how strange and curious the feelings we have are when this sort of thing happens."

     Four years ago in the autumn I found myself without a chambermaid. I had trialled five or six one after the other who were completely inept, and I was becoming desperate when I read, in the little newspaper adverts, that a young girl proficient in sewing, embroidery and hairdressing was looking for work, and that she would be an excellent chambermaid. She spoke English, too.
    I wrote to the given address and the next day, the person in question came to my house. She was quite tall, thin, a little pale, and of a very timid disposition. She had beautiful black eyes, an excellent complexion and I liked her straight away. I asked for her references, and she gave me one in English because she had just come from, she said, the house of Lady Rymwell, where she had worked for ten years.
     The reference confirmed that the young girl had left of her own will to return to France and that she had nothing to reproach her for, except for a slight French coquettish attitude.
     The prudish nature of this English phrase even made me smile a little and I hired her on the spot.
     She moved into my house that very same day; she was called Rose.
     One month later, I absolutely adored her. She was an veritable find, a pearl, a phenomenon.
     She knew how to style hair with a taste that knew no bounds; she could shape the rim of a hat better than the best stylists and even knew how to make dresses.
     I was left astounded by her faculties. I had never been served so well.
     She clothed me quickly and with a lightness of touch that was astonishing. I never felt her fingers on my skin, and nothing is more unpleasant than the feel of a maid's hand on one's skin. I soon fell into excessively lazy habits because it was so lovely to be dressed from head to toe, and from shirt to gloves by this tall timid girl, still a little bashful and who never spoke. When I came out of the bath she massaged me until I was half-asleep on my divan. Goodness, I considered her an inferior friend rather than a simple servant.
     One day, however, my concierge in a very mysterious tone asked to speak to me. I was surprised and let him enter. He was a very serious man, an ex-soldier, and he used to be my husband's orderly.
     He appeared disturbed by what he was about to say. Eventually, he mumbled, "Madame, the town's police commissioner is downstairs."
     Brusquely, I asked him, "What does he want?"
     "He wants to do a search of the hotel."
     Of course, the police are very useful, but I detest them. I find that it is not a noble profession, and I replied, both irritated and insulted in equal measure, "Why? For what end? He's not coming in."
     "He believes that there is a criminal hiding here."
     Now I was scared and asked him to allow the commissioner to come up in order to obtain some explanation. He was quite a well-educated man, and had been decorated with the Legion of Honour. He apologized and begged his pardon then said that I had a criminal among my workforce!
     I was disgusted; I replied that I vouched for the whole staff in the hotel and would go through the list.
     "The concierge, Pierre Courtin, ex-serviceman."
     "It's not him."
     "The coachman, Francois Pingau, a peasant from Champagne, the son of my father's farmer."
     "It's not him."
     "A stable valet, from Champagne also, and also the son of peasants who I know, and the valet whom you have just seen."
     "It's not him."
     "In which case, Monsieur, you see that you are mistaken."
     "Pardon me, madame, but I am sure that is not the case. As it is a formidable criminal, would you mind bringing out all your staff in front of you and me?"
     I resisted at first, but gave in eventually, and made all my staff, male and female, line up in front of him. The commissioner took one look at them and said, "This is not all of them."
     "Excuse me, Monsieur, all that remains is my chambermaid, a young girl who you could not confuse with a criminal."
     "May I see her too?"
     "Certainly", and I called Rose who came immediately. As soon as she came in the commissioner made a gesture and two men whom I had not seen hidden behind a door jumped on her, grabbed her hands and tied them up with rope.
     I screamed with fury and I wanted to jump in to defend her. The commissioner stopped me, saying, "This girl, madame, is a man who goes by the name of Jean-Nicolas Lecapet, condemned to death in 1879 for rape and murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. He has been on the run for four months. We have been looking for him ever since."
     I was completely stunned, motionless. I did not believe it. The commissioner laughed, "I can prove it to you. He has a tattoo on his right arm." He lifted his sleeve, revealing his right arm to indeed be tattooed.
     The policeman added with a certain malice, "Leave the rest to us for the other bits of evidence," and they took my chambermaid away.
   
     "So, if you can believe it, what I truly felt was not anger for having been used, tricked and ridiculed. It was not the shame of having been dressed, undressed, massaged and touched by this man... but a... profound humiliation... a woman's humiliation. Do you understand?"
     "I'm afraid I don't"
     "Ok, think about it. He had been convicted... for rape, this man... and I thought... about the woman he had raped and that... humiliated me. There, do you understand now?"
     And Madame Margot did not reply. She was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed gaze, at the two shining buttons on the livery, wearing that sphinx-like smile that women wear from time to time.