Les Serviteurs

Upstairs, Madame and Monsieur may have disappeared. The servants, cloistered in the kitchen, the pantry, huddled around the figure of the cook, tell each other endlessly about Madame and Monsieur's agony, while continuing the ritual of service: the first chambermaid and valet going upstairs each morning and coming down to the pantry in the evening.

They also evoke the attitude they could have had: rebelling against the masters, "the great summer palace sack", or leaving to remake their lives elsewhere, but it's too late. "The only purpose of the servants was to be servants, perhaps the servants are prolonging their own existence by prolonging the appearance of the masters... Perhaps the floor is now nothing but vile rot, perhaps the servants are now the servants of this rot, how long will this last?