Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

in fact, the door opened every

few moments, and men in white gloves and official garb presented

themselves. They were still coming from the ball at the Ministry.

Fauchery jestingly inquired whether the minister was not coming,

too, but Nana answered in a huff that the minister went to the

houses of people she didn’t care a pin for. What she did not say

was that she was possessed with a hope of seeing Count Muffat enter

her room among all that stream of people. He might quite have

reconsidered his decision, and so while talking to Rose she kept a

sharp eye on the door.

 

Five o’clock struck. The dancing had ceased, and the cardplayers

alone persisted in their game. Labordette had vacated his seat, and

the women had returned into the drawing room. The air there was

heavy with the somnolence which accompanies a long vigil, and the

lamps cast a wavering light while their burned-out wicks glowed red

within their globes. The ladies had reached that vaguely melancholy

hour when they felt it necessary to tell each other their histories.

Blanche de Sivry spoke of her grandfather, the general, while

Clarisse invented a romantic story about a duke seducing her at her

uncle’s house, whither he used to come for the boar hunting. Both

women, looking different ways, kept shrugging their shoulders and

asking themselves how the deuce the other could tell such whoppers!

As to Lucy Stewart, she quietly confessed to her origin and of her

own accord spoke of her childhood and of the days when her father,

the wheel greaser at the Northern Railway Terminus, used to treat

her to an apple puff on Sundays.

 

“Oh, I must tell you about it!” cried the little Maria Blond

abruptly. “Opposite to me there lives a gentleman, a Russian, an

awfully rich man! Well, just fancy, yesterday I received a basket

of fruit—oh, it just was a basket! Enormous peaches, grapes as big

as that, simply wonderful for the time of year! And in the middle

of them six thousand-franc notes! It was the Russian’s doing. Of

course I sent the whole thing back again, but I must say my heart

ached a little—when I thought of the fruit!”

 

The ladies looked at one another and pursed up their lips. At her

age little Maria Blond had a pretty cheek! Besides, to think that

such things should happen to trollops like her! Infinite was their

contempt for her among themselves. It was Lucy of whom they were

particularly jealous, for they were beside themselves at the thought

of her three princes. Since Lucy had begnn taking a daily morning

ride in the Bois they all had become Amazons, as though a mania

possessed them.

 

Day was about to dawn, and Nana turned her eyes away from the door,

for she was relinquishing all hope. The company were bored to

distraction. Rose Mignon had refused to sing the “Slipper” and sat

huddled up on a sofa, chatting in a low voice with Fauchery and

waiting for Mignon, who had by now won some fifty louis from

Vandeuvres. A fat gentleman with a decoration and a serious cast of

countenance had certainly given a recitation in Alsatian accents of

“Abraham’s Sacrifice,” a piece in which the Almighty says, “By My

blasted Name” when He swears, and Isaac always answers with a “Yes,

Papa!” Nobody, however, understood what it was all about, and the

piece had been voted stupid. People were at their wits’ end how to

make merry and to finish the night with fitting hilarity. For a

moment or two Labordette conceived the idea of denouncing different

women in a whisper to La Faloise, who still went prowling round each

individual lady, looking to see if she were hiding his handkerchief

in her bosom. Soon, as there were still some bottles of champagne

on the sideboard, the young men again fell to drinking. They

shouted to one another; they stirred each other up, but a dreary

species of intoxication, which was stupid enough to drive one to

despair, began to overcome the company beyond hope of recovery.

Then the little fair-haired fellow, the man who bore one of the

greatest names in France and had reached his wit’s end and was

desperate at the thought that he could not hit upon something really

funny, conceived a brilliant notion: he snatched up his bottle of

champagne and poured its contents into the piano. His allies were

convulsed with laughter.

 

“La now! Why’s he putting champagne into the piano?” asked Tatan

Nene in great astonishment as she caught sight of him.

 

“What, my lass, you don’t know why he’s doing that?” replied

Labordette solemnly. “There’s nothing so good as champagne for

pianos. It gives ‘em tone.”

 

“Ah,” murmured Tatan Nene with conviction.

 

And when the rest began laughing at her she grew angry. How should

she know? They were always confusing her.

 

Decidedly the evening was becoming a big failure. The night

threatened to end in the unloveliest way. In a corner by themselves

Maria Blond and Lea de Horn had begun squabbling at close quarters,

the former accusing the latter of consorting with people of

insufficient wealth. They were getting vastly abusive over it,

their chief stumbling block being the good looks of the men in

question. Lucy, who was plain, got them to hold their tongues.

Good looks were nothing, according to her; good figures were what

was wanted. Farther off, on a sofa, an attache had slipped his arm

round Simonne’s waist and was trying to kiss her neck, but Simonne,

sullen and thoroughly out of sorts, pushed him away at every fresh

attempt with cries of “You’re pestering me!” and sound slaps of the

fan across his face. For the matter of that, not one of the ladies

allowed herself to be touched. Did people take them for light

women? Gaga, in the meantime, had once more caught La Faloise and

had almost hoisted him upon her knees while Clarisse was

disappearing from view between two gentlemen, shaking with nervous

laughter as women will when they are tickled. Round about the piano

they were still busy with their little game, for they were suffering

from a fit of stupid imbecillty, which caused each man to jostle his

fellow in his frantic desire to empty his bottle into the

instrument. It was a simple process and a charming one.

 

“Now then, old boy, drink a glass! Devil take it, he’s a thirsty

piano! Hi! ‘Tenshun! Here’s another bottle! You mustn’t lose a

drop!”

 

Nana’s back was turned, and she did not see them. Emphatically she

was now falling back on the bulky Steiner, who was seated next to

her. So much the worse! It was all on account of that Muffat, who

had refused what was offered him. Sitting there in her white

foulard dress, which was as light and full of folds as a shift,

sitting there with drooped eyelids and cheeks pale with the touch of

intoxication from which she was suffering, she offered herself to

him with that quiet expression which is peculiar to a good-natured

courtesan. The roses in her hair and at her throat had lost their

leaves, and their stalks alone remained. Presently Steiner withdrew

his hand quickly from the folds of her skirt, where he had come in

contact with the pins that Georges had stuck there. Some drops of

blood appeared on his fingers, and one fell on Nana’s dress and

stained it.

 

“Now the bargain’s struck,” said Nana gravely.

 

The day was breaking apace. An uncertain glimmer of light, fraught

with a poignant melancholy, came stealing through the windows. And

with that the guests began to take their departure. It was a most

sour and uncomfortable retreat. Caroline Hequet, annoyed at the

loss of her night, announced that it was high time to be off unless

you were anxious to assist at some pretty scenes. Rose pouted as if

her womanly character had been compromised. It was always so with

these girls; they didn’t know how to behave and were guilty of

disgusting conduct when they made their first appearance in society!

And Mignon having cleaned Vandeuvres out completely, the family took

their departure. They did not trouble about Steiner but renewed

their invitation for tomorrow to Fauchery. Lucy thereupon refused

the journalist’s escort home and sent him back shrilly to his

“strolling actress.” At this Rose turned round immediately and

hissed out a “Dirty sow” by way of answer. But Mignon, who in

feminine quarrels was always paternal, for his experience was a long

one and rendered him superior to them, had already pushed her out of

the house, telling her at the same time to have done. Lucy came

downstairs in solitary state behind them. After which Gaga had to

carry off La Faloise, ill, sobbing like a child, calling after

Clarisse, who had long since gone off with her two gentlemen.

Simonne, too, had vanished. Indeed, none remained save Tatan, Lea

and Maria, whom Labordette complaisantly took under his charge.

 

“Oh, but I don’t the least bit want to go to bed!” said Nana. “One

ought to find something to do.”

 

She looked at the sky through the windowpanes. It was a livid sky,

and sooty clouds were scudding across it. It was six o’clock in the

morning. Over the way, on the opposite side of the Boulevard

Haussmann, the glistening roofs of the still-slumbering houses were

sharply outlined against the twilight sky while along the deserted

roadway a gang of street sweepers passed with a clatter of wooden

shoes. As she viewed Paris thus grimly awakening, she was overcome

by tender, girlish feelings, by a yearning for the country, for

idyllic scenes, for things soft and white.

 

“Now guess what you’re to do,” she said, coming back to Steiner.

“You’re going to take me to the Bois de Boulogne, and we’ll drink

milk there.”

 

She clapped her hands in childish glee. Without waiting for the

banker’s reply—he naturally consented, though he was really rather

bored and inclined to think of other things—she ran off to throw a

pelisse over her shoulders. In the drawing room there was now no

one with Steiner save the band of young men. These had by this time

dropped the very dregs of their glasses into the piano and were

talking of going, when one of their number ran in triumphantly. He

held in his hands a last remaining bottle, which he had brought back

with him from the pantry.

 

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” he shouted. “Here’s a bottle of

chartreuse; that’ll pick him up! And now, my young friends, let’s

hook it. We’re blooming idiots.”

 

In the dressing room Nana was compelled to wake up Zoe, who had

dozed off on a chair. The gas was still alight, and Zoe shivered as

she helped her mistress on with her hat and pelisse.

 

“Well, it’s over; I’ve done what you wanted me to,” said Nana,

speaking familiarly to the maid in a sudden burst of expansive

confidence and much relieved at the thought that she had at last

made her election. “You were quite right; the banker’s as good as

another.”

 

The maid was cross, for she was still heavy with sleep. She

grumbled something to the effect that Madame ought to have come to a

decision the first evening. Then following her into the bedroom,

she asked what she was going to do with “those two,” meaning

Bordenave, who was snoring away as usual, and Georges, who had

slipped in slyly, buried his head in a pillow and, finally falling

asleep there, was now breathing as lightly and regularly as a

cherub. Nana in reply told her that she was to let them sleep on.

But seeing Daguenet come into the room, she again