Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

CHAPTER IV

Since morning Zoe had delivered up the flat to a managing man who

had come from Brebant’s with a staff of helpers and waiters.

Brebant was to supply everything, from the supper, the plates and

dishes, the glass, the linen, the flowers, down to the seats and

footstools. Nana could not have mustered a dozen napkins out of all

her cupboards, and not having had time to get a proper outfit after

her new start in life and scorning to go to the restaurant, she had

decided to make the restaurant come to her. It struck her as being

more the thing. She wanted to celebrate her great success as an

actress with a supper which should set people talking. As her

dining room was too small, the manager had arranged the table in the

drawing room, a table with twenty-five covers, placed somewhat close

together.

 

“Is everything ready?” asked Nana when she returned at midnight.

 

“Oh! I don’t know,” replied Zoe roughly, looking beside herself with

worry. “The Lord be thanked, I don’t bother about anything.

They’re making a fearful mess in the kitchen and all over the flat!

I’ve had to fight my battles too. The other two came again. My

eye! I did just chuck ‘em out!”

 

She referred, of course, to her employer’s old admirers, the

tradesman and the Walachian, to whom Nana, sure of her future and

longing to shed her skin, as she phrased it, had decided to give the

go-by.

 

“There are a couple of leeches for you!” she muttered.

 

“If they come back threaten to go to the police.”

 

Then she called Daguenet and Georges, who had remained behind in the

anteroom, where they were hanging up their overcoats. They had both

met at the stage door in the Passage des Panoramas, and she had

brought them home with her in a cab. As there was nobody there yet,

she shouted to them to come into the dressing room while Zoe was

touching up her toilet. Hurriedly and without changing her dress

she had her hair done up and stuck white roses in her chignon and at

her bosom. The little room was littered with the drawing-room

furniture, which the workmen had been compelled to roll in there,

and it was full of a motley assemblage of round tables, sofas and

armchairs, with their legs in air for the most part. Nana was quite

ready when her dress caught on a castor and tore upward. At this

she swore furiously; such things only happened to her! Ragingly she

took off her dress, a very simple affair of white foulard, of so

thin and supple a texture that it clung about her like a long shift.

But she put it on again directly, for she could not find another to

her taste, and with tears in her eyes declared that she was dressed

like a ragpicker. Daguenet and Georges had to patch up the rent

with pins, while Zoe once more arranged her hair. All three hurried

round her, especially the boy, who knelt on the floor with his hands

among her skirts. And at last she calmed down again when Daguenet

assured her it could not be later than a quarter past twelve, seeing

that by dint of scamping her words and skipping her lines she had

effectually shortened the third act of the Blonde Venus.

 

“The play’s still far too good for that crowd of idiots,” she said.

“Did you see? There were thousands there tonight. Zoe, my girl,

you will wait in here. Don’t go to bed, I shall want you. By gum,

it is time they came. Here’s company!”

 

She ran off while Georges stayed where he was with the skirts of his

coat brushing the floor. He blushed, seeing Daguenet looking at

him. Notwithstanding which, they had conceived a tender regard the

one for the other. They rearranged the bows of their cravats in

front of the big dressing glass and gave each other a mutual dose of

the clothesbrush, for they were all white from their close contact

with Nana.

 

“One would think it was sugar,” murmured Georges, giggling like a

greedy little child.

 

A footman hired for the evening was ushering the guests into the

small drawing room, a narrow slip of a place in which only four

armchairs had been left in order the better to pack in the company.

From the large drawing room beyond came a sound as of the moving of

plates and silver, while a clear and brilliant ray of light shone

from under the door. At her entrance Nana found Clarisse Besnus,

whom La Faloise had brought, already installed in one of the

armchairs.

 

“Dear me, you’re the first of ‘em!” said Nana, who, now that she was

successful, treated her familiarly.

 

“Oh, it’s his doing,” replied Clarisse. “He’s always afraid of not

getting anywhere in time. If I’d taken him at his word I shouldn’t

have waited to take off my paint and my wig.”

 

The young man, who now saw Nana for the first time, bowed, paid her

a compliment and spoke of his cousin, hiding his agitation behind an

exaggeration of politeness. But Nana, neither listening to him nor

recognizing his face, shook hands with him and then went briskly

toward Rose Mignon, with whom she at once assumed a most

distinguished manner.

 

“Ah, how nice of you, my dear madame! I was so anxious to have you

here!”

 

“It’s I who am charmed, I assure you,” said Rose with equal

amiability.

 

“Pray, sit down. Do you require anything?”

 

“Thank you, no! Ah yes, I’ve left my fan in my pelisse, Steiner;

just look in the right-hand pocket.”

 

Steiner and Mignon had come in behind Rose. The banker turned back

and reappeared with the fan while Mignon embraced Nana fraternally

and forced Rose to do so also. Did they not all belong to the same

family in the theatrical world? Then he winked as though to

encourage Steiner, but the latter was disconcerted by Rose’s clear

gaze and contented himself by kissing Nana’s hand.

 

Just then the Count de Vandeuvres made his appearance with Blanche

de Sivry. There was an interchange of profound bows, and Nana with

the utmost ceremony conducted Blanche to an armchair. Meanwhile

Vandeuvres told them laughingly that Fauchery was engaged in a

dispute at the foot of the stairs because the porter had refused to

allow Lucy Stewart’s carriage to come in at the gate. They could

hear Lucy telling the porter he was a dirty blackguard in the

anteroom. But when the footman had opened the door she came forward

with her laughing grace of manner, announced her name herself, took

both Nana’s hands in hers and told her that she had liked her from

the very first and considered her talent splendid. Nana, puffed up

by her novel role of hostess, thanked her and was veritably

confused. Nevertheless, from the moment of Fauchery’s arrival she

appeared preoccupied, and directly she could get near him she asked

him in a low voice:

 

“Will he come?”

 

“No, he did not want to,” was the journalist’s abrupt reply, for he

was taken by surprise, though he had got ready some sort of tale to

explain Count Muffat’s refusal.

 

Seeing the young woman’s sudden pallor, he became conscious of his

folly and tried to retract his words.

 

“He was unable to; he is taking the countess to the ball at the

Ministry of the Interior tonight.”

 

“All right,” murmured Nana, who suspected him of ill will, “you’ll

pay me out for that, my pippin.”

 

She turned on her heel, and so did he; they were angry. Just then

Mignon was pushing Steiner up against Nana, and when Fauchery had

left her he said to her in a low voice and with the good-natured

cynicism of a comrade in arms who wishes his friends to be happy:

 

“He’s dying of it, you know, only he’s afraid of my wife. Won’t you

protect him?”

 

Nana did not appear to understand. She smiled and looked at Rose,

the husband and the banker and finally said to the latter:

 

“Monsieur Steiner, you will sit next to me.”

 

With that there came from the anteroom a sound of laughter and

whispering and