Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

you’re back here with

the money before four o’clock.”

 

“Oh, there’ll be no time lost,” she murmured.

 

Ten minutes after Zoe helped her on with a dress and a hat. It

didn’t matter much if she were badly turned out. Just as she was

about to go downstairs there was a new ring at the bell. This time

it was the charcoal dealer. Very well, he might keep the livery-stable keeper company—it would amuse the fellows. Only, as she

dreaded a scene, she crossed the kitchen and made her escape by the

back stairs. She often went that way and in return had only to lift

up her flounces.

 

“When one is a good mother anything’s excusable,” said Mme Maloir

sententiously when left alone with Mme Lerat.

 

“Four kings,” replied this lady, whom the play greatly excited.

 

And they both plunged into an interminable game.

 

The table had not been cleared. The smell of lunch and the

cigarette smoke filled the room with an ambient, steamy vapor. The

two ladies had again set to work dipping lumps of sugar in brandy

and sucking the same. For twenty minutes at least they played and

sucked simultaneously when, the electric bell having rung a third

time, Zoe bustled into the room and roughly disturbed them, just as

if they had been her own friends.

 

“Look here, that’s another ring. You can’t stay where you are. If

many foiks call I must have the whole flat. Now off you go, off you

go!”

 

Mme Maloir was for finishing the game, but Zoe looked as if she was

going to pounce down on the cards, and so she decided to carry them

off without in any way altering their positions, while Mme Lerat

undertook the removal of the brandy bottle, the glasses and the

sugar. Then they both scudded to the kitchen, where they installed

themselves at the table in an empty space between the dishcloths,

which were spread out to dry, and the bowl still full of dishwater.

 

“We said it was three hundred and forty. It’s your turn.”

 

“I play hearts.”

 

When Zoe returned she found them once again absorbed. After a

silence, as Mme Lerat was shuffling, Mme Maloir asked who it was.

 

“Oh, nobody to speak of,” replied the servant carelessly; “a slip of

a lad! I wanted to send him away again, but he’s such a pretty boy

with never a hair on his chin and blue eyes and a girl’s face! So I

told him to wait after all. He’s got an enormous bouquet in his

hand, which he never once consented to put down. One would like to

catch him one—a brat like that who ought to be at school still!”

 

Mme Lerat went to fetch a water bottle to mix herself some brandy

and water, the lumps of sugar having rendered her thirsty. Zoe

muttered something to the effect that she really didn’t mind if she

drank something too. Her mouth, she averred, was as bitter as gall.

 

“So you put him—?” continued Mme Maloir.

 

“Oh yes, I put him in the closet at the end of the room, the little

unfurnished one. There’s only one of my lady’s trunks there and a

table. It’s there I stow the lubbers.”

 

And she was putting plenty of sugar in her grog when the electric

bell made her jump. Oh, drat it all! Wouldn’t they let her have a

drink in peace? If they were to have a peal of bells things

promised well. Nevertheless, she ran off to open the door.

Returning presently, she saw Mme Maloir questioning her with a

glance.

 

“It’s nothing,” she said, “only a bouquet.”

 

All three refreshed themselves, nodding to each other in token of

salutation. Then while Zoe was at length busy clearing the table,

bringing the plates out one by one and putting them in the sink, two

other rings followed close upon one another. But they weren’t

serious, for while keeping the kitchen informed of what was going on

she twice repeated her disdainful expression:

 

“Nothing, only a bouquet.”

 

Notwithstanding which, the old ladies laughed between two of their

tricks when they heard her describe the looks of the creditors in

the anteroom after the flowers had arrived. Madame would find her

bouquets on her toilet table. What a pity it was they cost such a

lot and that you could only get ten sous for them! Oh dear, yes,

plenty of money was wasted!

 

“For my part,” said Mme Maloir, “I should be quite content if every

day of my life I got what the men in Paris had spent on flowers for

the women.”

 

“Now, you know, you’re not hard to please,” murmured Mme Lerat.

“Why, one would have only just enough to buy thread with. Four

queens, my dear.”

 

It was ten minutes to four. Zoe was astonished, could not

understand why her mistress was out so long. Ordinarily when Madame

found herself obliged to go out in the afternoons she got it over in

double-quick time. But Mme Maloir declared that one didn’t always

manage things as one wished. Truly, life was beset with obstacles,

averred Mme Lerat. The best course was to wait. If her niece was

long in coming it was because her occupations detained her; wasn’t

it so? Besides, they weren’t overworked—it was comfortable in the

kitchen. And as hearts were out, Mme Lerat threw down diamonds.

 

The bell began again, and when Zoe reappeared she was burning with

excitement.

 

“My children, it’s fat Steiner!” she said in the doorway, lowering

her voice as she spoke. “I’ve put HIM in the little sitting room.”

 

Thereupon Mme Maloir spoke about the banker to Mme Lerat, who knew

no such gentleman. Was he getting ready to give Rose Mignon the go-by? Zoe shook her head; she knew a thing or two. But once more she

had to go and open the door.

 

“Here’s bothers!” she murmured when she came back. “It’s the

nigger! ‘Twasn’t any good telling him that my lady’s gone out, and

so he’s settled himself in the bedroom. We only expected him this

evening.”

 

At a quarter past four Nana was not in yet. What could she be

after? It was silly of her! Two other bouquets were brought round,

and Zoe, growing bored looked to see if there were any coffee left.

Yes, the ladies would willingly finish off the coffee; it would

waken them up. Sitting hunched up on their chairs, they were

beginning to fall asleep through dint of constantly taking their

cards between their fingers with the accustomed movement. The half-hour sounded. Something must decidedly have happened to Madame.

And they began whispering to each other.

 

Suddenly Mme Maloir forgot herself and in a ringing voice announced:

“I’ve the five hundred! Trumps, Major Quint!”

 

“Oh, do be quiet!” said Zoe angrily. “What will all those gentlemen

think?” And in the silence which ensued and amid the whispered

muttering of the two old women at strife over their game, the sound

of rapid footsteps ascended from the back stairs. It was Nana at

last. Before she had opened the door her breathlessness became

audible. She bounced abruptly in, looking very red in the face.

Her skirt, the string of which must have been broken, was trailing

over the stairs, and her flounces had just been dipped in a puddle

of something unpleasant which had oozed out on the landing of the

first floor, where the servant girl was a regular slut.

 

“Here you are! It’s lucky!” said Mme Lerat, pursing up her lips,

for she was still vexed at Mme Maloir’s “five hundred.” “You may

flatter yourself at the way you keep folks waiting.”

 

“Madame isn’t reasonable; indeed, she isn’t!” added Zoe.

 

Nana was already harassed, and these reproaches exasperated her.

Was that the way people received her after the worry she had gone

through?

 

“Will you blooming well leave me alone, eh?” she cried.

 

“Hush, ma’am, there are people in there,” said the maid.

 

Then in lower tones the young Woman stuttered breathlessly:

 

“D’you suppose I’ve been having a good time? Why, there was no end

to it. I should have liked to see you there! I was boiling with

rage! I felt inclined to smack somebody. And never a cab to come

home in! Luckily it’s only a step from here, but never mind that; I

did just run home.”

 

“You have the money?” asked the aunt.

 

“Dear, dear! That question!” rejoined Nana.

 

She had sat herself down on a chair close up against the stove, for

her legs had failed her after so much running, and without stopping

to take breath she drew from behind her stays an envelope in which

there were four hundred-franc notes. They were visible through a

large rent she had torn with savage fingers in order to be sure of

the contents. The three women round about her stared fixedly at the

envelope, a big, crumpled, dirty receptacle, as it lay clasped in

her small gloved hands.

 

It was too late now—Mme Lerat would not go to Rambouillet till

tomorrow, and Nana entered into long explanations.

 

“There’s company waiting for you,” the lady’s maid repeated.

 

But Nana grew excited again. The company might wait: she’d go to

them all in good time when she’d finished. And as her aunt began

putting her hand out for the money:

 

“Ah no! Not all of it,” she said. “Three hundred francs for the

nurse, fifty for your journey and expenses, that’s three hundred and

fifty. Fifty francs I keep.”

 

The big difficulty was how to find change. There were not ten

francs in the house. But they did not even address themselves to

Mme Maloir who, never having more than a six-sou omnibus fair upon

her, was listening in quite a disinterested manner. At length Zoe

went out of the room, remarking that she would go and look in her

box, and she brought back a hundred francs in hundred-sou pieces.

They were counted out on a corner of the table, and Mme Lerat took

her departure at once after having promised to bring Louiset back

with her the following day.

 

“You say there’s company there?” continued Nana, still sitting on

the chair and resting herself.

 

“Yes, madame, three people.”

 

And Zoe mentioned the banker first. Nana made a face. Did that man

Steiner think she was going to let herself be bored because he had

thrown her a bouquet yesterday evening?

 

“Besides, I’ve had enough of it,” she declared. “I shan’t receive

today. Go and say you don’t expect me now.”

 

“Madame will think the matter over; Madame will receive Monsieur

Steiner,” murmured Zoe gravely, without budging from her place. She

was annoyed to see her mistress on the verge of committing another

foolish mistake.

 

Then she mentioned the Walachian, who ought by now to find time

hanging heavy on his hands in the bedroom. Whereupon Nana grew

furious and more obstinate than ever. No, she would see nobody,

nobody! Who’d sent her such a blooming leech of a man?

 

“Chuck ‘em all out! I—I’m going to play a game of bezique with

Madame Maloir. I prefer doing that.”

 

The bell interrupted her remarks. That was the last straw. Another

of the beggars yet! She forbade Zoe to go and open the door, but

the latter had left the kitchen without listening to her, and when

she reappeared she brought back a couple of cards and said

authoritatively:

 

“I told them that Madame was receiving visitors. The gentlemen are

in the drawing room.”

 

Nana had sprung up, raging, but the names of the Marquis de Chouard

and