Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

>more, while they gave themselves up to the soft and pleasing sense

of weariness which was sure to follow the drubbings they talked of.

It was the delight of rediscussing Fontan’s blows and of explaining

his works and his ways, down to the very manner in which he took off

his boots, which brought Nana back daily to Satin’s place. The

latter, moreover, used to end by growing sympathetic in her turn and

would cite even more violent cases, as, for instance, that of a

pastry cook who had left her for dead on the floor. Yet she loved

him, in spite of it all! Then came the days on which Nana cried and

declared that things could not go on as they were doing. Satin

would escort her back to her own door and would linger an hour out

in the street to see that he did not murder her. And the next day

the two women would rejoice over the reconciliation the whole

afternoon through. Yet though they did not say so, they preferred

the days when threshings were, so to speak, in the air, for then

their comfortable indignation was all the stronger.

 

They became inseparable. Yet Satin never went to Nana’s, Fontan

having announced that he would have no trollops in his house. They

used to go out together, and thus it was that Satin one day took her

friend to see another woman. This woman turned out to be that very

Mme Robert who had interested Nana and inspired her with a certain

respect ever since she had refused to come to her supper. Mme

Robert lived in the Rue Mosnier, a silent, new street in the

Quartier de l’Europe, where there were no shops, and the handsome

houses with their small, limited flats were peopled by ladies. It

was five o’clock, and along the silent pavements in the quiet,

aristocratic shelter of the tall white houses were drawn up the

broughams of stock-exchange people and merchants, while men walked

hastily about, looking up at the windows, where women in dressing

jackets seemed to be awaiting them. At first Nana refused to go up,

remarking with some constraint that she had not the pleasure of the

lady’s acquaintance. But Satin would take no refusal. She was only

desirous of paying a civil call, for Mme Robert, whom she had met in

a restaurant the day before, had made herself extremely agreeable

and had got her to promise to come and see her. And at last Nana

consented. At the top of the stairs a little drowsy maid informed

them that Madame had not come home yet, but she ushered them into

the drawing room notwithstanding and left them there.

 

“The deuce, it’s a smart show!” whispered Satin. It was a stiff,

middle-class room, hung with dark-colored fabrics, and suggested the

conventional taste of a Parisian shopkeeper who has retired on his

fortune. Nana was struck and did her best to make merry about it.

But Satin showed annoyance and spoke up for Mme Robert’s strict

adherence to the proprieties. She was always to be met in the

society of elderly, grave-looking men, on whose arms she leaned. At

present she had a retired chocolate seller in tow, a serious soul.

Whenever he came to see her he was so charmed by the solid, handsome

way in which the house was arranged that he had himself announced

and addressed its mistress as “dear child.”

 

“Look, here she is!” continued Satin, pointing to a photograph which

stood in front of the clock. Nana scrutinized the portrait for a

second or so. It represented a very dark brunette with a longish

face and lips pursed up in a discreet smile. “A thoroughly

fashionable lady,” one might have said of the likeness, “but one who

is rather more reserved than the rest.”

 

“It’s strange,” murmured Nana at length, “but I’ve certainly seen

that face somewhere. Where, I don’t remember. But it can’t have

been in a pretty place—oh no, I’m sure it wasn’t in a pretty

place.”

 

And turning toward her friend, she added, “So she’s made you promise

to come and see her? What does she want with you?”

 

“What does she want with me? ‘Gad! To talk, I expect—to be with

me a bit. It’s her politeness.”

 

Nana looked steadily at Satin. “Tut, tut,” she said softly. After

all, it didn’t matter to her! Yet seeing that the lady was keeping

them waiting, she declared that she would not stay longer, and

accordingly they both took their departure.

 

The next day Fontan informed Nana that he was not coming home to

dinner, and she went down early to find Satin with a view to

treating her at a restaurant. The choice of the restaurant involved

infinite debate. Satin proposed various brewery bars, which Nana

thought detestable, and at last persuaded her to dine at Laure’s.

This was a table d’hote in the Rue des Martyrs, where the dinner

cost three francs.

 

Tired of waiting for the dinner hour and not knowing what to do out

in the street, the pair went up to Laure’s twenty minutes too early.

The three dining rooms there were still empty, and they sat down at

a table in the very saloon where Laure Piedefer was enthroned on a

high bench behind a bar. This Laure was a lady of some fifty

summers, whose swelling contours were tightly laced by belts and

corsets. Women kept entering in quick procession, and each, in

passing, craned upward so as to overtop the saucers raised on the

counter and kissed Laure on the mouth with tender familiarity, while

the monstrous creature tried, with tears in her eyes, to divide her

attentions among them in such a way as to make no one jealous. On

the other hand, the servant who waited on the ladies was a tall,

lean woman. She seemed wasted with disease, and her eyes were

ringed with dark lines and glowed with somber fire. Very rapidly

the three saloons filled up. There were some hundred customers, and

they had seated themselves wherever they could find vacant places.

The majority were nearing the age of forty: their flesh was puffy

and so bloated by vice as almost to hide the outlines of their

flaccid mouths. But amid all these gross bosoms and figures some

slim, pretty girls were observable. These still wore a modest

expression despite their impudent gestures, for they were only

beginners in their art, who had started life in the ballrooms of the

slums and had been brought to Laure’s by some customer or other.

Here the tribe of bloated women, excited by the sweet scent of their

youth, jostled one another and, while treating them to dainties,

formed a perfect court round them, much as old amorous bachelors

might have done. As to the men, they were not numerous. There were

ten or fifteen of them at the outside, and if we except four tall

fellows who had come to see the sight and were cracking jokes and

taking things easy, they behaved humbly enough amid this whelming

flood of petticoats.

 

“I say, their stew’s very good, ain’t it?” said Satin.

 

Nana nodded with much satisfaction. It was the old substantial

dinner you get in a country hotel and consisted of vol-au-vent a la

financiere, fowl boiled in rice, beans with a sauce and vanilla

creams, iced and flavored with burnt sugar. The ladies made an

especial onslaught on the boiled fowl and rice: their stays seemed

about to burst; they wiped their lips with slow, luxurious

movements. At first Nana had been afraid of meeting old friends who

might have asked her silly questions, but she grew calm at last, for

she recognized no one she knew among that extremely motley throng,

where faded dresses and lamentable hats contrasted strangely with

handsome costumes, the wearers of which fraternized in vice with

their shabbier neighbors. She was momentarily interested, however,

at the sight of a young man with short curly hair and insolent face

who kept a whole tableful of vastly fat women breathlessly attentive

to his slightest caprice. But when the young man began to laugh his

bosom swelled.

 

“Good lack, it’s a woman!”

 

She let a little cry escape as she spoke, and Satin, who was

stuffing herself with boiled fowl, lifted up her head and whispered:

 

“Oh yes! I know her. A smart lot, eh? They do just fight for

her.”

 

Nana pouted disgustingly. She could not understand the thing as

yet. Nevertheless, she remarked in her sensible tone that there was

no disputing about tastes or colors, for you never could tell what

you yourself might one day have a liking for. So she ate her cream

with an air of philosophy, though she was perfectly well aware that

Satin with her great blue virginal eyes was throwing the neighboring

tables into a state of great excitement. There was one woman in

particular, a powerful, fair-haired person who sat close to her and

made herself extremely agreeable. She seemed all aglow with

affection and pushed toward the girl so eagerly that Nana was on the

point of interfering.

 

But at that very moment a woman who was entering the room gave her a

shock of surprise. Indeed, she had recognized Mme Robert. The

latter, looking, as was her wont, like a pretty brown mouse, nodded

familiarly to the tall, lean serving maid and came and leaned upon

Laure’s counter. Then both women exchanged a long kiss. Nana

thought such an attention on the part of a woman so distinguished

looking very amusing, the more so because Mme Robert had quite

altered her usual modest expression. On the contrary, her eye roved

about the saloon as she kept up a whispered conversation. Laure had

resumed her seat and once more settled herself down with all the

majesty of an old image of Vice, whose face has been worn and

polished by the kisses of the faithful. Above the range of loaded

plates she sat enthroned in all the opulence which a hotelkeeper

enjoys after forty years of activity, and as she sat there she

swayed her bloated following of large women, in comparison with the

biggest of whom she seemed monstrous.

 

But Mme Robert had caught sight of Satin, and leaving Laure, she ran

up and behaved charmingly, telling her how much she regretted not

having been at home the day before. When Satin, however, who was

ravished at this treatment, insisted on finding room for her at the

table, she vowed she had already dined. She had simply come up to

look about her. As she stood talking behind her new friend’s chair

she leaned lightly on her shoulders and in a smiling, coaxing manner

remarked:

 

“Now when shall I see you? If you were free—”

 

Nana unluckily failed to hear more. The conversation vexed her, and

she was dying to tell this honest lady a few home truths. But the

sight of a troop of new arrivals paralyzed her. It was composed of

smart, fashionably dressed women who were wearing their diamonds.

Under the influence of perverse impulse they had made up a party to

come to Laure’s—whom, by the by, they all treated with great

familiarity—to eat the three-franc dinner while flashing their

jewels of great price in the jealous and astonished eyes of poor,

bedraggled prostitutes. The moment they entered, talking and

laughing in their shrill, clear tones and seeming to bring sunshine

with them from the outside world, Nana turned her head rapidly away.

Much to her annoyance she had recognized Lucy Stewart and Maria

Blond among them, and for nearly five minutes, during which the

ladies chatted with Laure before passing into the saloon beyond, she

kept her head down and seemed deeply occupied in rolling bread pills

on the cloth