Catherine Axelrad - With a mix of mischief, naivety, pragmatism and curiosity, Célina’s account of her relationship with the ageing writer, Victor Hugo, is an arresting depiction of enduring matters of sexual consent and class relations.

 

Catherine Axelrad, Célina, Trans. by

Philip Terry, Coles Books, 2024

By the age of fifteen, Célina has lost her father to the sea, a brother to suicide, a sister to tuberculosis, her virginity to a wolfish man at the inn where she was waitressing, and the job at the inn when another servant informed on her. In the Channel Islands of the 1850s, Alderney is not yet the tourist paradise filled with luxury cars it is today. When the chance arises to leave and work in Hauteville House for the Victor Hugo household during their exile in Guernsey, it is Célina's first glimpse of a different kind of life. Axelrad sheds a new light on the complexity of Hugo’s persona, and on the sexual and class dynamics at play in the proprietary, yet strangely tender relationship between the maid and le grand homme.

In Philip Terry’s agile translation, which imaginatively draws on the School of New York Poets, Célina’s mischievous spirit is matched by her vivid language. A fictional recreation based on Hugo’s Guernsey Diaries and on letters from his wife, Célina is a miniature literary monument to a forgotten life cut short.

Drawing on Victor Hugo’s cryptic diary entries and letters from his wife, Catherine Axelrad’s Célina builds a snapshot of a teenage chambermaid in the Hugo household during the author’s exile in Guernsey, who was apparently prey to the great man’s gargantuan sexual appetites. With a mix of mischief, naivety, pragmatism and curiosity, Célina’s account of her relationship with the ageing writer is an arresting depiction of enduring matters of sexual consent and class relations. 

‘Pitch-perfect, and so light yet so profound. All of Axelrad's books have at their centre a silent, vulnerable young woman, but also one who is tough and resilient, totally unsentimental but deeply responsive and actually very intelligent. How such a person emerges out of such apparent silence is the wonder of her work. Célina is as quiet and devastating a novel as I have read in a long time. Unforgettable.’ — Gabriel Josipovici, author of 100 Days

‘Seen through Célina’s eyes, told with her curiosity, her wonder, her sharp observations, what we witness unfolding here is not so much Victor Hugo’s life as that of the young narrator. We see the intelligence she brings to bear, playing her few cards just so in a time which may be the most patriarchal in our history: the nineteenth century. Catherine Axelrad describes a quiet young woman who nevertheless hears everything, sees everything, silently appraises her lovers, picks and chooses, and escapes submission in her own way. It’s a joyful read.’ — Colombe Schneck, author of The Paris Trilogy

'Living in exile in the Channel Islands, the irrepressibly philandering author of Les Misérables went through what is called his “Chambermaid Period”. In this moving short novel, Catherine Axelrad gives us the great man and his retinue, his house and his mania for Gothic décor, the island and the threatening sea, all through the eyes of a chambermaid—not a fantasy maid, but the real girl from Alderney whose death in 1861 saddened the whole Hugolian establishment. The poverty, ill-health and exploitation of working folk and especially of the young girls who are brought to life here deepen the understanding of what Hugo’s great novel was really about. In this lively translation by Philip Terry, Axelrad’s portrait of a normal yet unique Victorian household seen from “downstairs” is a true gem.' — David Bellos, author of The Novel of the Century. The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables

“In this remarkable book Catherine Axelrad gives speech to a young woman born in poverty and almost lost to history. Célina is restored to life, emerging as lively, courageous, complex, witty, pragmatic, and joyful. There are moments of great tenderness and longing; despite her exploitation (for relations are often complicated, as Axelrad so subtly weaves), there is a real and delicate relation between her and her master, with whom she discovers the possibility of poetic language. Célina and Célina, woman and book, haunt me.” — Sharon Kivland, author of Reading Nana: An Experimental Novel

'The extraordinary quality of Axelrad’s writing is the silence that envelops it. There is a featherweight lightness to it all that is a supreme contrast to the heavy mournfulness one feels after reaching the final page. Célina is not a submissive character, and life’s blows, including fears of impending death, glance off her, seemingly without leavinga mark. Nor is she subversive (unlike Célestine in Octave Mirbeau’s The Diary of a Chambermaid, whose employer fetishises her boots and ends up dead with one of the boots stuffed in his mouth). She knows that her social standing limits her freedom and the options open to her, and that it’s not, as one character says, ‘a crime to sleep with a servant’. Nevertheless, within those limitations, she is able to exert her individuality and choose her own lovers, including one disastrous final relationship after she leaves Guernsey. At the end, I could almost believe that Axelrad’s Célina could have had some influence on Hugo’s creative life, perhaps as a prototype of Fantine, one of the most attractive characters in Les Misérables, forced to become a prostitute before she, too, dies from tuberculosis.' -- Mark Bostridge, Spectator

‘Catherine Axelrad's exquisite novella Célina, first published in 1997 (now in a transporting English translation by Philip Terry) is a plain, matter-of-fact and consequently very moving diary of a chambermaid. It carries no salaciousness, but stands for itself […] Axelrad's dispassionate depiction of sullied innocence and forced compromise is brutal and devastating.’ — Catherine Taylor, Irish Times

‘A tender, melancholic tale where Catherine Axelrad has managed to avoid all pitfalls. Neither the story of the poor servant; nor that of the great discontent; nor that of the lascivious old man handing out two francs – scrupulously accounted for in his notebook – in return for special favours. No – only the true and touching voice of young Célina Henry, perfectly captured and wondrously restored, which the fine phrases overheard at Hauteville House have, if nothing else, helped liberate from those last sorry days.’ – Mona Ozouf, L’Obs

‘A Victor Hugo whom we do not know, for never had he been presented against this backdrop, nor indeed as part of the banal unfolding of daily life. A discovery, in fact, especially because he is not the book’s main character. This is well and truly the story of Célina Henry, the maid, who discovers – and thereby enables us to discover – a man ultimately like so many others, with his ordinary share of qualities and flaws.’ — Clément Borgal, La République du Centre

 Recently I visited Hauteville House, Victor Hugo’s home on Guernsey, now magnificently restored, where he spent 15 years of exile in opposition to the autocratic regime of Napoleon III. His third-floor eyrie, a crystal cage with walls and ceilings of plate glass, resembles a greenhouse. Hugo wrote there, standing at a small, flat-topped desk, gazing out across the water at the distant coastline of France. He slept in one of two adjacent attic rooms. In the other slept a chambermaid, summoned by her master with a few light taps on the partition wall.

The publication in the 1950s of coded entries in Hugo’s account books revealed payments for sex to a succession of serving maids. One of these was Célina Henry, the narrator of Catherine Axelrad’s novella. Published in France in 1997, the book has been translated into English by Philip Terry with some nice demotic touches.

Axelrad takes the bare facts about Célina – born into poverty on Alderney, joining the Hugo household in the late 1850s, and dying from tuberculosis in 1861 – and weaves them into a story of a vulnerable but resilient young woman who accepts the two francs left under her pillow for a night of sexual favours while eavesdropping during the day on the life taking place above stairs. Célina’s curiosity and intelligence provide her with insights about Hugo’s marriage and his relationship with the mistress he keeps down the street. She adopts the tragedy of Hugo’s family life, the drowning of his elder daughter in the Seine years earlier, as if it were her own. She grows jealous for her intimacy with Hugo when he briefly turns his attention to the local seamstress.

The extraordinary quality of Axelrad’s writing is the silence that envelops it. There is a featherweight lightness to it all that is a supreme contrast to the heavy mournfulness one feels after reaching the final page. Célina is not a submissive character, and life’s blows, including fears of impending death, glance off her, seemingly without leavinga mark. Nor is she subversive (unlike Célestine in Octave Mirbeau’s The Diary of a Chambermaid, whose employer fetishises her boots and ends up dead with one of the boots stuffed in his mouth). She knows that her social standing limits her freedom and the options open to her, and that it’s not, as one character says, ‘a crime to sleep with a servant’. Nevertheless, within those limitations, she is able to exert her individuality and choose her own lovers, including one disastrous final relationship after she leaves Guernsey.

At the end, I could almost believe that Axelrad’s Célina could have had some influence on Hugo’s creative life, perhaps as a prototype of Fantine, one of the most attractive characters in Les Misérables, forced to become a prostitute before she, too, dies from tuberculosis. - Mark Bostridge

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/another-mistress-for-victor-hugo-celina-by-catherine-axelrad-reviewed/

excerpt:

I ARRIVED AT SAINT PETER PORT on the second of May 1858, but I didn’t dare present myself at Hauteville House, as it was already ten minutes after nine when the packet-boat docked. As it was still light I thought I would at least locate the house before finding a bed at the inn, so I could get there sooner the next day and show them I wasn’t afraid of an early start. Round the harbour there were almost as many people as at Granville, but many too who seemed to have nowhere to live, and even some old vagrants who waited for the boats to beg from the passengers. The woman who pointed the way for me was so thin that her legs barely supported her; and when I told her I had nothing to give her she threatened me with a raised fist yelling at me incomprehensibly, and I was afraid she’d put a curse on me. I left at a run, but I didn’t get very far because the street which leads to the upper town is very hard to climb. Today I know this street and this house so well that when I remember how disorientated I felt on arriving, how strange everything seemed and how I lost my footing on the wet cobblestones, I feel it can hardly be the same place as where I’ve lived since.

After passing several houses I found myself in front of a door marked with the letter H. It was the most impressive building in the street, with beautifully painted iron railings and six steps leading to the doorway, but the curtains were already drawn, and I thought it best not to hang around in front of the door, in case someone came out and caught me loitering. Night was beginning to fall and I was hurrying on back, when a little lower down the street, on my left, I noticed a man coming out of a small house which I’d passed on the way up. The door stood half-open for a little while as someone said their goodbyes to him: a large respectably dressed woman who waved her hand out of the door as she blew him kisses and who spoke in a voice as low as a man’s. I heard her quite clearly as she said: ‘Until tomorrow, dearly beloved, have a pleasant night and think of me in your dreams.’ The man waved his hand in turn saying something which I couldn’t make out, and when the door closed behind him he hurriedly made his way up the street.

I don’t know what devil took hold of me. Perhaps it was just that I used to love laughing so much, and that I hadn’t had anything to laugh about for a long time.”

What I’d heard had made me want to burst out laughing, and when the man came level with me he looked at me with surprise. ‘And what are you laughing at, young lady?’ he asked with a frown. He was small and quite fat and what I could see of his face looked rather ugly. I don’t know what devil took hold of me. Perhaps it was just that I used to love laughing so much, and that I hadn’t had anything to laugh about for a long time. I held up my skirts and curtsied, bowing towards him and, in the voice of monsieur le Curé when he speaks from the pulpit on Sundays, I repeated what the large woman had said to him: ‘Until tomorrow, dearly beloved, have a pleasant night and think of me in your dreams.’ Then before he had time to utter a word, I ran off. I hurtled all the way down the road holding my skirts up before I finally dared to stop and laugh out loud, and this prank amused me so much that I laughed again at the thought of it an hour later before going to sleep.

…

Later that morning Rosalie took me on a tour of the downstairs, and I could see what she meant when she talked about a building site. It was almost impossible to move in the anteroom, and in the tapestry room the chairs weren’t even stitched together. ‘All the same, things are moving forward a lot quicker now that

Monsieur has given Mauger and his bunch of layabouts a talking to,’ said Rosalie. ‘They say that everything will be finished in a couple of days, but I’ll believe it when I see it.’ There was as much panelling as in the cathedral at Granville, all over the walls and right up to the ceiling, all carved and blackened. I couldn’t keep myself from touching it, which made Rosalie laugh; she said if I liked rubbing walls, I’d have plenty to keep me happy, for it was going to be my job to wax them. ‘But where on earth do they find it all?’ I asked. Rosalie said the wood came from old chests that Monsieur bought from farms all over the island. ‘There are at least eight in these two rooms alone,’ she added, ‘if it isn’t a crying shame to break up good furniture that’s still fit for use.’

‘So this is the importance you attach to my work!’ said a voice which made the both of us jump. It was Monsieur, who had been standing in the hall and who had overheard Rosalie’s last words. She didn’t let him fluster her though, and answered him without batting an eyelid: ‘Monsieur knows very well what I think of this work, it’s not the first time I’ve said it.’

‘And certainly not the last!’ said Monsieur stepping into the room where we were standing. He was smiling with an amused look on his face, and didn’t seem at all bothered, but as soon as I caught sight of him I thought there was nothing for it but to take the first boat back to Aurigny, for I recognised the man I’d made fun of yesterday in the street. My face went bright red, and I didn’t dare look up. At first he said nothing to me and continued talking to Rosalie.

‘Now that you have someone to help you, I hope that you’ll be as agreeable as your cooking,’ he said. ‘And what does your assistant call herself?’

He turned towards me waiting for me to reply, but I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t bring myself to speak, and it was Rosalie who said to him: ‘This is Célina Henry, Monsieur. She arrived from Aurigny this morning.’

‘This morning, indeed?’ he asked, with exaggerated surprise, from which it was clear that he had recognised me very well. I summoned all the courage I could muster and lifted my head up: ‘To tell the truth, Monsieur, I arrived yesterday evening, but it was too late to present myself.’ I looked at him wondering what he would say, but he just nodded his head saying that he hadn’t thought that any boats had come in this morning, and he gave me a one franc piece to encourage me to work well

Catherine Axelrad lives and works in Paris. She started writing in the late 80s while working as a teacher. Apart from Célina, her published works include three autofiction novels (including The Warszawianka, translated by Sacha Rabinovitch), a short biography of Molière, a pastiche of Proust (Albertine travestie), and a series of three YA novellas under the pseudonym Alice Chambard. In 2011 she left teaching to study Protestant theology, and in 2014 she became a minister of the Église protestante unie de France. Célina, translated by Philip Terry, is published in paperback original by Les Fugitives.