Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

agitation gazed after this illusive vision of

Nana while his wife turned slowly round and scrutinized him. Then

he cast his eyes on the ground as though to escape the sound of

galloping hoofs which were sweeping away both his senses and his

heart. He could have cried aloud in his agony, for, seeing Georges

among Nana’s skirts, he understood it all now. A mere child! He

was brokenhearted at the thought that she should have preferred a

mere child to him! Steiner was his equal, but that child!

 

Mme Hugon, in the meantime, had not at once recognized Georges.

Crossing the bridge, he was fain to jump into the river, but Nana’s

knees restrained him. Then white as a sheet and icy cold, he sat

rigidly up in his place and looked at no one. It was just possible

no one would notice him.

 

“Oh, my God!” said the old lady suddenly. “Georges is with her!”

 

The carriages had passed quite through the uncomfortable crowd of

people who recognized and yet gave no sign of recognition. The

short critical encounter seemed to have been going on for ages. And

now the wheels whirled away the carriageloads of girls more gaily

than ever. Toward the fair open country they went, amid the

buffetings of the fresh air of heaven. Bright-colored fabrics

fluttered in the wind, and the merry laughter burst forth anew as

the voyagers began jesting and glancing back at the respectable

folks halting with looks of annoyance at the roadside. Turning

round, Nana could see the walking party hesitating and then

returning the way they had come without crossing the bridge. Mme

Hugon was leaning silently on Count Muffat’s arm, and so sad was her

look that no one dared comfort her.

 

“I say, did you see Fauchery, dear?” Nana shouted to Lucy, who was

leaning out of the carriage in front. “What a brute he was! He

shall pay out for that. And Paul, too, a fellow I’ve been so kind

to! Not a sign! They’re polite, I’m sure.”

 

And with that she gave Steiner a terrible dressing, he having

ventured to suggest that the gentlemen’s attitude had been quite as

it should be. So then they weren’t even worth a bow? The first

blackguard that came by might insult them? Thanks! He was the

right sort, too, he was! It couldn’t be better! One ought always

to bow to a woman.

 

“Who’s the tall one?” asked Lucy at random, shouting through the

noise of the wheels.

 

“It’s the Countess Muffat,” answered Steiner.

 

“There now! I suspected as much,” said Nana. “Now, my dear fellow,

it’s all very well her being a countess, for she’s no better than

she should be. Yes, yes, she’s no better that she should be. You

know, I’ve got an eye for such things, I have! And now I know your

countess as well as if I had been at the making of her! I’ll bet

you that she’s the mistress of that viper Fauchery! I tell you,

she’s his mistress! Between women you guess that sort of thing at

once!”

 

Steiner shrugged his shoulders. Since the previous day his

irritation had been hourly increasing. He had received letters

which necessitated his leaving the following morning, added to which

he did not much appreciate coming down to the country in order to

sleep on the drawing-room divan.

 

“And this poor baby boy!” Nana continued, melting suddenly at sight

of Georges’s pale face as he still sat rigid and breathless in front

of her.

 

“D’you think Mamma recognized me?” he stammered at last.

 

“Oh, most surely she did! Why, she cried out! But it’s my fault.

He didn’t want to come with us; I forced him to. Now listen, Zizi,

would you like me to write to your mamma? She looks such a kind,

decent sort of lady! I’ll tell her that I never saw you before and

that it was Steiner who brought you with him for the first time

today.”

 

“No, no, don’t write,” said Georges in great anxiety. “I’ll explain

it all myself. Besides, if they bother me about it I shan’t go home

again.”

 

But he continued plunged in thought, racking his brains for excuses

against his return home in the evening. The five carriages were

rolling through a flat country along an interminable straight road

bordered by fine trees. The country was bathed in a silvery-gray

atmosphere. The ladies still continued shouting remarks from

carriage to carriage behind the backs of the drivers, who chuckled

over their extraordinary fares. Occasionally one of them would rise

to her feet to look at the landscape and, supporting herself on her

neighbor’s shoulder, would grow extremely excited till a sudden jolt

brought her down to the seat again. Caroline Hequet in the meantime

was having a warm discussion with Labordette. Both of them were

agreed that Nana would be selling her country house before three

months were out, and Caroline was urging Labordette to buy it back

for her for as little as it was likely to fetch. In front of them

La Faloise, who was very amorous and could not get at Gaga’s

apoplectic neck, was imprinting kisses on her spine through her

dress, the strained fabric of which was nigh splitting, while

Amelie, perching stiffly on the bracket seat, was bidding them be

quiet, for she was horrified to be sitting idly by, watching her

mother being kissed. In the next carriage Mignon, in order to

astonish Lucy, was making his sons recite a fable by La Fontaine.

Henri was prodigious at this exercise; he could spout you one

without pause or hesitation. But Maria Blond, at the head of the

procession, was beginning to feel extremely bored. She was tired of

hoaxing that blockhead of a Tatan Nene with a story to the effect

that the Parisian dairywomen were wont to fabricate eggs with a

mixture of paste and saffron. The distance was too great: were they

never going to get to their destination? And the question was

transmitted from carriage to carriage and finally reached Nana, who,

after questioning her driver, got up and shouted:

 

“We’ve not got a quarter of an hour more to go. You see that church

behind the trees down there?”

 

Then she continued:

 

“Do you know, it appears the owner of the Chateau de Chamont is an

old lady of Napoleon’s time? Oh, SHE was a merry one! At least, so

Joseph told me, and he heard it from the servants at the bishop’s

palace. There’s no one like it nowadays, and for the matter of

that, she’s become goody-goody.”

 

“What’s her name?” asked Lucy.

 

“Madame d’Anglars.”

 

“Irma d’Anglars—I knew her!” cried Gaga.

 

Admiring exclamations burst from the line of carriages and were

borne down the wind as the horses quickened their trot. Heads were

stretched out in Gaga’s direction; Maria Blond and Tatan Nene turned

round and knelt on the seat while they leaned over the carriage

hood, and the air was full of questions and cutting remarks,

tempered by a certain obscure admiration. Gaga had known her! The

idea filled them all with respect for that far-off past.

 

“Dear me, I was young then,” continued Gaga. “But never mind, I

remember it all. I saw her pass. They said she was disgusting in

her own house, but, driving in her carriage, she WAS just smart!

And the stunning tales about her! Dirty doings and money flung

about like one o’clock! I don’t wonder at all that she’s got a fine

place. Why, she used to clean out a man’s pockets as soon as look

at him. Irma d’Anglars still in the land of the living! Why, my

little pets, she must be near ninety.”

 

At this the ladies became suddenly serious. Ninety years old! The

deuce, there wasn’t one of them, as Lucy loudly declared, who would

live to that age. They were all done for. Besides, Nana said she

didn’t want to make old bones; it wouldn’t be amusing. They were

drawing near their destination, and the conversation was interrupted

by the cracking of whips as the drivers put their horses to their

best paces. Yet amid all the noise Lucy continued talking and,

suddenly changing the subject, urged Nana to come to town with them

all tomorrow. The exhibition was soon to close, and the ladies

must really return to Paris, where the season was surpassing their

expectations. But Nana was obstinate. She loathed Paris; she

wouldn’t set foot there yet!

 

“Eh, darling, we’ll stay?” she said, giving Georges’s knees a

squeeze, as though Steiner were of no account.

 

The carriages had pulled up abruptly, and in some surprise the

company got out on some waste ground at the bottom of a small hill.

With his whip one of the drivers had to point them out the ruins of

the old Abbey of Chamont where they lay hidden among trees. It was

a great sell! The ladies voted them silly. Why, they were only a

heap of old stones with briers growing over them and part of a

tumble-down tower. It really wasn’t worth coming a couple of

leagues to see that! Then the driver pointed out to them the

countryseat, the park of which stretched away from the abbey, and he

advised them to take a little path and follow the walls surrounding

it. They would thus make the tour of the place while the carriages

would go and await them in the village square. It was a delightful

walk, and the company agreed to the proposition.

 

“Lord love me, Irma knows how to take care of herself!” said Gaga,

halting before a gate at the corner of the park wall abutting on the

highroad.

 

All of them stood silently gazing at the enormous bush which stopped

up the gateway. Then following the little path, they skirted the

park wall, looking up from time to time to admire the trees, whose

lofty branches stretched out over them and formed a dense vault of

greenery. After three minutes or so they found themselves in front

of a second gate. Through this a wide lawn was visible, over which

two venerable oaks cast dark masses of shadow. Three minutes

farther on yet another gate afforded them an extensive view of a

great avenue, a perfect corridor of shadow, at the end of which a

bright spot of sunlight gleamed like a star. They stood in silent,

wondering admiration, and then little by little exclamations burst

from their lips. They had been trying hard to joke about it all

with a touch of envy at heart, but this decidedly and immeasurably

impressed them. What a genius that Irma was! A sight like this

gave you a rattling notion of the woman! The trees stretched away

and away, and there were endlessly recurrent patches of ivy along

the wall with glimpses of lofty roofs and screens of poplars

interspersed with dense masses of elms and aspens. Was there no end

to it then? The ladies would have liked to catch sight of the

mansion house, for they were weary of circling on and on, weary of

seeing nothing but leafy recesses through every opening they came

to. They took the rails of the gate in their hands and pressed

their faces against the ironwork. And thus excluded and isolated, a

feeling of respect began to overcome them as they thought of the

castle lost to view in surrounding immensity. Soon, being quite

unused to walking, they grew tired. And the wall did not leave off;

at every turn of the small deserted path the same range of gray

stones stretched ahead of them. Some of them began to despair of

ever getting to the end of it and began talking of returning. But

the