Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

CHAPTER V

At the Varietes they were giving the thirty-fourth performance of

the Blonde Venus. The first act had just finished, and in the

greenroom Simonne, dressed as the little laundress, was standing in

front of a console table, surmounted by a looking glass and situated

between the two corner doors which opened obliquely on the end of

the dressing-room passage. No one was with her, and she was

scrutinizing her face and rubbing her finger up and down below her

eyes with a view to putting the finishing touches to her make-up.

The gas jets on either side of the mirror flooded her with warm,

crude light.

 

“Has he arrived?” asked Prulliere, entering the room in his Alpine

admiral’s costume, which was set off by a big sword, enormous top

boots and a vast tuft of plumes.

 

“Who d’you mean?” said Simonne, taking no notice of him and laughing

into the mirror in order to see how her lips looked.

 

“The prince.”

 

“I don’t know; I’ve just come down. Oh, he’s certainly due here

tonight; he comes every time!”

 

Prulliere had drawn near the hearth opposite the console table,

where a coke fire was blazing and two more gas jets were flaring

brightly. He lifted his eyes and looked at the clock and the

barometer on his right hand and on his left. They had gilded

sphinxes by way of adornment in the style of the First Empire. Then

he stretched himself out in a huge armchair with ears, the green

velvet of which had been so worn by four generations of comedians

that it looked yellow in places, and there he stayed, with moveless

limbs and vacant eyes, in that weary and resigned attitude peculiar

to actors who are used to long waits before their turn for going on

the stage.

 

Old Bosc, too, had just made his appearance. He came in dragging

one foot behind the other and coughing. He was wrapped in an old

box coat, part of which had slipped from his shoulder in such a way

as to uncover the gold-laced cloak of King Dagobert. He put his

crown on the piano and for a moment or two stood moodily stamping

his feet. His hands were trembling slightly with the first

beginnings of alcoholism, but he looked a sterling old fellow for

all that, and a long white beard lent that fiery tippler’s face of

his a truly venerable appearance. Then in the silence of the room,

while the shower of hail was whipping the panes of the great window

that looked out on the courtyard, he shook himself disgustedly.

 

“What filthy weather!” he growled.

 

Simonne and Prulliere did not move. Four or five pictures—a

landscape, a portrait of the actor Vernet—hung yellowing in the hot

glare of the gas, and a bust of Potier, one of the bygone glories of

the Varietes, stood gazing vacant-eyed from its pedestal. But just

then there was a burst of voices outside. It was Fontan, dressed

for the second act. He was a young dandy, and his habiliments, even

to his gloves, were entirely yellow.

 

“Now say you don’t know!” he shouted, gesticulating. “Today’s my

patron saint’s day!”

 

“What?” asked Simonne, coming up smilingly, as though attracted by

the huge nose and the vast, comic mouth of the man. “D’you answer

to the name of Achille?”

 

“Exactly so! And I’m going to get ‘em to tell Madame Bron to send

up champagne after the second act.”

 

For some seconds a bell had been ringing in the distance. The long-drawn sound grew fainter, then louder, and when the bell ceased a

shout ran up the stair and down it till it was lost along the

passages. “All on the stage for the second act! All on the stage

for the second act!” The sound drew near, and a little pale-faced

man passed by the greenroom doors, outside each of which he yelled

at the top of his shrill voice, “On the stage for the second act!”

 

“The deuce, it’s champagne!” said Prulliere without appearing to

hear the din. “You’re prospering!”

 

“If I were you I should have it in from the cafe,” old Bosc slowly

announced. He was sitting on a bench covered with green velvet,

with his head against the wall.

 

But Simonne said that it was one’s duty to consider Mme Bron’s small

perquisites. She clapped her hands excitedly and devoured Fontan

with her gaze while his long goatlike visage kept up a continuous

twitching of eyes and nose and mouth.

 

“Oh, that Fontan!” she murmured. “There’s no one like him, no one

like him!”

 

The two greenroom doors stood wide open to the corridor leading to

the wings. And along the yellow wall, which was brightly lit up by

a gas lamp out of view, passed a string of rapidly moving shadows—

men in costume, women with shawls over their scant attire, in a

word, the whole of the characters in the second act, who would

shortly make their appearance as masqeuraders in the ball at the

Boule Noire. And at the end of the corridor became audible a

shuffling of feet as these people clattered down the five wooden

steps which led to the stage. As the big Clarisse went running by

Simonne called to her, but she said she would be back directly.

And, indeed, she reappeared almost at once, shivering in the thin

tunic and scarf which she wore as Iris.

 

“God bless me!” she said. “It isn’t warm, and I’ve left my furs in

my dressing room!”

 

Then as she stood toasting her legs in their warm rose-colored

tights in front of the fireplace she resumed:

 

“The prince has arrived.”

 

“Oh!” cried the rest with the utmost curiosity.

 

“Yes, that’s why I ran down: I wanted to see. He’s in the first

stage box to the right, the same he was in on Thursday. It’s the

third time he’s been this week, eh? That’s Nana; well, she’s in

luck’s way! I was willing to wager he wouldn’t come again.”

 

Simonne opened her lips to speak, but her remarks were drowned by a

fresh shout which arose close to the greenroom. In the passage the

callboy was yelling at the top of his shrill voice, “They’ve

knocked!”

 

“Three times!” said Simonne when she was again able to speak. “It’s

getting exciting. You know, he won’t go to her place; he takes her

to his. And it seems that he has to pay for it too!”

 

“Egad! It’s a case of when one ‘has to go out,’” muttered Prulliere

wickedly, and he got up to have a last look at the mirror as became

a handsome fellow whom the boxes adored.

 

“They’ve knocked! They’ve knocked!” the callboy kept repeating in

tones that died gradually away in the distance as he passed through

the various stories and corridors.

 

Fontan thereupon, knowing how it had all gone off on the first

occasion the prince and Nana met, told the two women the whole story

while they in their turn crowded against him and laughed at the tops

of their voices whenever he stooped to whisper certain details in

their ears. Old Bosc had never budged an inch—he was totally

indifferent. That sort of thing no longer interested him now. He

was stroking a great tortoise-shell cat which was lying curled up on

the bench. He did so quite beautifully and ended by taking her in

his arms with the tender good nature becoming a wornout monarch.

The cat arched its back and then, after a prolonged sniff at the big

white beard, the gluey odor of which doubtless disgusted her, she

turned and, curling herself up, went to sleep again on the bench

beside him. Bosc remained grave and absorbed.

 

“That’s all right, but if I were you I should drink the champagne at

the restaurant—its better there,” he said, suddenly addressing

Fontan when he had finished his recital.

 

“The curtain’s up!” cried the callboy in cracked and long-drawn

accents “The curtain’s up! The curtain’s up!”

 

The shout sounded for some moments, during which there had been a

noise of rapid footsteps. Through the suddenly opened door of the

passage came a burst of music and a far-off murmur of voices, and

then the door shut to again and you could hear its dull thud as it

wedged itself into position once more.

 

A heavy, peaceful, atmosphere again pervaded the greenroom, as

though the place were situated a hundred leagues from the house

where crowds were applauding. Simonne and Clarisse were still on

the topic of Nana. There was a girl who never hurried herself!

Why, yesterday she had again come on too late! But there was a

silence, for a tall damsel had just craned her head in at the door

and, seeing that she had made a mistake, had departed to the other

end of the passage. It was Satin. Wearing a hat and a small veil

for the nonce she was affecting the manner of a lady about to pay a

call.

 

“A pretty trollop!” muttered Prulliere, who had been coming across

her for a year past at the Cafe des Varietes. And at this Simonne

told them how Nana had recognized in Satin an old schoolmate, had

taken a vast fancy to her and was now plaguing Bordenave to let her

make a first appearance on the stage.

 

“How d’ye do?” said Fontan, shaking hands with Mignon and Fauchery,

who now came into the room.

 

Old Bosc himself gave them the tips of his fingers while the two

women kissed Mignon.

 

“A good house this evening?” queried Fauchery.

 

“Oh, a splendid one!” replied Prulliere. “You should see ‘em

gaping.”

 

“I say, my little dears,” remarked Mignon, “it must be your turn!”

 

Oh, all in good time! They were only at the fourth scene as yet,

but Bosc got up in obedience to instinct, as became a rattling old

actor who felt that his cue was coming. At that very moment the

callboy was opening the door.

 

“Monsieur Bosc!” he called. “Mademoiselle Simonne!”

 

Simonne flung a fur-lined pelisse briskly over her shoulders and

went out. Bosc, without hurrying