Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

Tomorrow she might

want him. Whereupon she laughed, winked once or twice and with a

naughty little gesture cried out:

 

“After all’s said and done, if I want him the best way even now is

to kick him out of doors.”

 

Zoe seemed much impressed. Struck with a sudden admiration, she

gazed at her mistress and then went and chucked Steiner out of doors

without further deliberation.

 

Meanwhile Nana waited patiently for a second or two in order to give

her time to sweep the place out, as she phrased it. No one would

ever have expected such a siege! She craned her head into the

drawing room and found it empty. The dining room was empty too.

But as she continued her visitation in a calmer frame of mind,

feeling certain that nobody remained behind, she opened the door of

a closet and came suddenly upon a very young man. He was sitting on

the top of a trunk, holding a huge bouquet on his knees and looking

exceedingly quiet and extremely well behaved.

 

“Goodness gracious me!” she cried. “There’s one of ‘em in there

even now!” The very young man had jumped down at sight of her and

was blushing as red as a poppy. He did not know what to do with his

bouquet, which he kept shifting from one hand to the other, while

his looks betrayed the extreme of emotion. His youth, his

embarrassment and the funny figure he cut in his struggles with his

flowers melted Nana’s heart, and she burst into a pretty peal of

laughter. Well, now, the very children were coming, were they? Men

were arriving in long clothes. So she gave up all airs and graces,

became familiar and maternal, tapped her leg and asked for fun:

 

“You want me to wipe your nose; do you, baby?”

 

“Yes,” replied the lad in a low, supplicating tone.

 

This answer made her merrier than ever. He was seventeen years old,

he said. His name was Georges Hugon. He was at the Varietes last

night and now he had come to see her.

 

“These flowers are for me?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then give ‘em to me, booby!”

 

But as she took the bouquet from him he sprang upon her hands and

kissed them with all the gluttonous eagerness peculiar to his

charming time of life. She had to beat him to make him let go.

There was a dreadful little dribbling customer for you! But as she

scolded him she flushed rosy-red and began smiling. And with that

she sent him about his business, telling him that he might call

again. He staggered away; he could not find the doors.

 

Nana went back into her dressing room, where Francis made his

appearance almost simultaneously in order to dress her hair for the

evening. Seated in front of her mirror and bending her head beneath

the hairdresser’s nimble hands, she stayed silently meditative.

Presently, however, Zoe entered, remarking:

 

“There’s one of them, madame, who refuses to go.”

 

“Very well, he must be left alone,” she answered quietly.

 

“If that comes to that they still keep arriving.”

 

“Bah! Tell ‘em to wait. When they begin to feel too hungry they’ll

be off.” Her humor had changed, and she was now delighted to make

people wait about for nothing. A happy thought struck her as very

amusing; she escaped from beneath Francis’ hands and ran and bolted

the doors. They might now crowd in there as much as they liked;

they would probably refrain from making a hole through the wall.

Zoe could come in and out through the little doorway leading to the

kitchen. However, the electric bell rang more lustily than ever.

Every five minutes a clear, lively little ting-ting recurred as

regularly as if it had been produced by some well-adjusted piece of

mechanism. And Nana counted these rings to while the time away

withal. But suddenly she remembered something.

 

“I say, where are my burnt almonds?”

 

Francis, too, was forgetting about the burnt almonds. But now he

drew a paper bag from one of the pockets of his frock coat and

presented it to her with the discreet gesture of a man who is

offering a lady a present. Nevertheless, whenever his accounts came

to be settled, he always put the burnt almonds down on his bill.

Nana put the bag between her knees and set to work munching her

sweetmeats, turning her head from time to time under the

hairdresser’s gently compelling touch.

 

“The deuce,” she murmured after a silence, “there’s a troop for

you!”

 

Thrice, in quick succession, the bell had sounded. Its summonses

became fast and furious. There were modest tintinnabulations which

seemed to stutter and tremble like a first avowal; there were bold

rings which vibrated under some rough touch and hasty rings which

sounded through the house with shivering rapidity. It was a regular

peal, as Zoe said, a peal loud enough to upset the neighborhood,

seeing that a whole mob of men were jabbing at the ivory button, one

after the other. That old joker Bordenave had really been far too

lavish with her address. Why, the whole of yesterday’s house was

coming!

 

“By the by, Francis, have you five louis?” said Nana.

 

He drew back, looked carefully at her headdress and then quietly

remarked:

 

“Five louis, that’s according!”

 

“Ah, you know if you want securities…” she continued.

 

And without finishing her sentence, she indicated the adjoining

rooms with a sweeping gesture. Francis lent the five louis. Zoe,

during each momentary respite, kept coming in to get Madame’s things

ready. Soon she came to dress her while the hairdresser lingered

with the intention of giving some finishing touches to the

headdress. But the bell kept continually disturbing the lady’s

maid, who left Madame with her stays half laced and only one shoe

on. Despite her long experience, the maid was losing her head.

After bringing every nook and corner into requisition and putting

men pretty well everywhere, she had been driven to stow them away in

threes and fours, which was a course of procedure entirely opposed

to her principles. So much the worse for them if they ate each

other up! It would afford more room! And Nana, sheltering behind

her carefully bolted door, began laughing at them, declaring that

she could hear them pant. They ought to be looking lovely in there

with their tongues hanging out like a lot of bowwows sitting round

on their behinds. Yesterday’s success was not yet over, and this

pack of men had followed up her scent.

 

“Provided they don’t break anything,” she murmured.

 

She began to feel some anxiety, for she fancied she felt their hot

breath coming through chinks in the door. But Zoe ushered

Labordette in, and the young woman gave a little shout of relief.

He was anxious to tell her about an account he had settled for her

at the justice of peace’s court. But she did not attend and said:

 

“I’ll take you along with me. We’ll have dinner together, and

afterward you shall escort me to the Varietes. I don’t go on before

half-past nine.”

 

Good old Labordette, how lucky it was he had come! He was a fellow

who never asked for any favors. He was only the friend of the

women, whose little bits of business he arranged for them. Thus on

his way in he had dismissed the creditors in the anteroom. Indeed,

those good folks really didn’t want to be paid. On the contrary, if

they HAD been pressing for payment it was only for the sake of

complimenting Madame and of personally renewing their offers of

service after her grand success of yesterday.

 

“Let’s be off, let’s be off,” said Nana, who was dressed by now.

 

But at that moment Zoe came in again, shouting:

 

“I refuse to open the door any more. They’re waiting in a crowd all

down the stairs.”

 

A crowd all down the stairs! Francis himself, despite the English

stolidity of manner which he was wont to affect, began laughing as

he put up his combs. Nana, who had already taken Labordette’s arm,

pushed him into the kitchen and effected her escape. At last she

was delivered from the men and felt happily conscious that she might

now enjoy his society anywhere without fear of stupid interruptions.

 

“You shall see me back to my door,” she said as they went down the

kitchen stairs. “I shall feel safe, in that case. Just fancy, I

want to sleep a whole night quite by myself—yes, a whole night!

It’s sort of infatuation, dear boy!”