Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

in front of her. But when at length she was able to

look round, what was her astonishment to observe the chair next to

hers vacant! Satin had vanished.

 

“Gracious, where can she be?” she loudly ejaculated.

 

The sturdy, fair woman who had been overwhelming Satin with civil

attentions laughed ill-temperedly, and when Nana, whom the laugh

irritated, looked threatening she remarked in a soft, drawling way:

 

“It’s certainly not me that’s done you this turn; it’s the other

one!”

 

Thereupon Nana understood that they would most likely make game of

her and so said nothing more. She even kept her seat for some

moments, as she did not wish to show how angry she felt. She could

hear Lucy Stewart laughing at the end of the next saloon, where she

was treating a whole table of little women who had come from the

public balls at Montmartre and La Chapelle. It was very hot; the

servant was carrying away piles of dirty plates with a strong scent

of boiled fowl and rice, while the four gentlemen had ended by

regaling quite half a dozen couples with capital wine in the hope of

making them tipsy and hearing some pretty stiffish things. What at

present most exasperated Nana was the thought of paying for Satin’s

dinner. There was a wench for you, who allowed herself to be amused

and then made off with never a thank-you in company with the first

petticoat that came by! Without doubt it was only a matter of three

francs, but she felt it was hard lines all the same—her way of

doing it was too disgusting. Nevertheless, she paid up, throwing

the six francs at Laure, whom at the moment she despised more than

the mud in the street. In the Rue des Martyrs Nana felt her

bitterness increasing. She was certainly not going to run after

Satin! It was a nice filthy business for one to be poking one’s

nose into! But her evening was spoiled, and she walked slowly up

again toward Montmartre, raging against Mme Robert in particular.

Gracious goodness, that woman had a fine cheek to go playing the

lady—yes, the lady in the dustbin! She now felt sure she had met

her at the Papillon, a wretched public-house ball in the Rue des

Poissonniers, where men conquered her scruples for thirty sous. And

to think a thing like that got hold of important functionaries with

her modest looks! And to think she refused suppers to which one did

her the honor of inviting her because, forsooth, she was playing the

virtuous game! Oh yes, she’d get virtued! It was always those

conceited prudes who went the most fearful lengths in low corners

nobody knew anything about.

 

Revolving these matters, Nana at length reached her home in the Rue

Veron and was taken aback on observing a light in the window.

Fontan had come home in a sulk, for he, too, had been deserted by

the friend who had been dining with him. He listened coldly to her

explanations while she trembled lest he should strike her. It

scared her to find him at home, seeing that she had not expected him

before one in the morning, and she told him a fib and confessed that

she had certainly spent six francs, but in Mme Maloir’s society. He

was not ruffled, however, and he handed her a letter which, though

addressed to her, he had quietly opened. It was a letter from

Georges, who was still a prisoner at Les Fondettes and comforted

himself weekly with the composition of glowing pages. Nana loved to

be written to, especially when the letters were full of grand,

loverlike expressions with a sprinkling of vows. She used to read

them to everybody. Fontan was familiar with the style employed by

Georges and appreciated it. But that evening she was so afraid of a

scene that she affected complete indifference, skimming through the

letter with a sulky expression and flinging it aside as soon as

read. Fontan had begun beating a tattoo on a windowpane; the

thought of going to bed so early bored him, and yet he did not know

how to employ his evening. He turned briskly round:

 

“Suppose we answer that young vagabond at once,” he said.

 

It was the custom for him to write the letters in reply. He was

wont to vie with the other in point of style. Then, too, he used to

be delighted when Nana, grown enthusiastic after the letter had been

read over aloud, would kiss him with the announcement that nobody

but he could “say things like that.” Thus their latent affections

would be stirred, and they would end with mutual adoration.

 

“As you will,” she replied. “I’ll make tea, and we’ll go to bed

after.”

 

Thereupon Fontan installed himself at the table on which pen, ink

and paper were at the same time grandly displayed. He curved his

arm; he drew a long face.

 

“My heart’s own,” he began aloud.

 

And for more than an hour he applied himself to his task, polishing

here, weighing a phrase there, while he sat with his head between

his hands and laughed inwardly whenever he hit upon a peculiarly

tender expression. Nana had already consumed two cups of tea in

silence, when at last he read out the letter in the level voice and

with the two or three emphatic gestures peculiar to such

performances on the stage. It was five pages long, and he spoke

therein of “the delicious hours passed at La Mignotte, those hours

of which the memory lingered like subtle perfume.” He vowed

“eternal fidelity to that springtide of love” and ended by declaring

that his sole wish was to “recommence that happy time if, indeed,

happiness can recommence.”

 

“I say that out of politeness, y’know,” he explained. “The moment

it becomes laughable—eh, what! I think she’s felt it, she has!”

 

He glowed with triumph. But Nana was unskillful; she still

suspected an outbreak and now was mistaken enough not to fling her

arms round his neck in a burst of admiration. She thought the

letter a respectable performance, nothing more. Thereupon he was

much annoyed. If his letter did not please her she might write

another! And so instead of bursting out in loverlike speeches and

exchanging kisses, as their wont was, they sat coldly facing one

another at the table. Nevertheless, she poured him out a cup of

tea.

 

“Here’s a filthy mess,” he cried after dipping his lips in the

mixture. “You’ve put salt in it, you have!”

 

Nana was unlucky enough to shrug her shoulders, and at that he grew

furious.

 

“Aha! Things are taking a wrong turn tonight!”

 

And with that the quarrel began. It was only ten by the clock, and

this was a way of killing time. So he lashed himself into a rage

and threw in Nana’s teeth a whole string of insults and all kinds of

accusations which followed one another so closely that she had no

time to defend herself. She was dirty; she was stupid; she had

knocked about in all sorts of low places! After that he waxed

frantic over the money question. Did he spend six francs when he

dined out? No, somebody was treating him to a dinner; otherwise he

would have eaten his ordinary meal at home. And to think of

spending them on that old procuress of a Maloir, a jade he would

chuck out of the house tomorrow! Yes, by jingo, they would get into

a nice mess if he and she were to go throwing six francs out of the

window every day!

 

“Now to begin with, I want your accounts,” he shouted. “Let’s see;

hand over the money! Now where do we stand?”

 

All his sordid avaricious instincts came to the surface. Nana was

cowed and scared, and she made haste to fetch their remaining cash

out of the desk and to bring it him. Up to that time the key had

lain on this common treasury, from which they had drawn as freely as

they wished.

 

“How’s this?” he said when he had counted up the money. “There are

scarcely seven thousand francs remaining out of seventeen thousand,

and we’ve only been together three months. The thing’s impossible.”

 

He rushed forward, gave the desk a savage shake and brought the

drawer forward in order to ransack it in the light of the lamp. But

it actually contained only six thousand eight hundred and odd

francs. Thereupon the tempest burst forth.

 

“Ten thousand francs in three months!” he yelled. “By God! What

have you done with it all? Eh? Answer! It all goes to your jade

of an aunt, eh? Or you’re keeping men; that’s plain! Will you

answer?”

 

“Oh well, if you must get in a rage!” said Nana. “Why, the

calculation’s easily made! You haven’t allowed for the furniture;

besides, I’ve had to buy linen. Money goes quickly when one’s

settling in a new place.”

 

But while requiring explanations he refused to listen to them.

 

“Yes, it goes a deal too quickly!” he rejoined more calmly. “And

look here, little girl, I’ve had enough of this mutual housekeeping.

You know those seven thousand francs are mine. Yes, and as I’ve got

‘em, I shall keep ‘em! Hang it, the moment you become wasteful I

get anxious not to be ruined. To each man his own.”

 

And he pocketed the money in a lordly way while Nana gazed at him,

dumfounded. He continued speaking complaisantly:

 

“You must understand I’m not such a fool as to keep aunts and

likewise children who don’t belong to me. You were pleased to spend

your own money—well, that’s your affair! But my money—no, that’s

sacred! When in the future you cook a leg of mutton I’ll pay for

half of it. We’ll settle up tonight—there!”

 

Straightway Nana rebelled. She could not help shouting:

 

“Come, I say, it’s you who’ve run through my ten thousand francs.

It’s a dirty trick, I tell you!”

 

But he did not stop to discuss matters further, for he dealt her a

random box on the ear across the table, remarking as he did so:

 

“Let’s have that again!”

 

She let him have it again despite his blow. Whereupon he fell upon

her and kicked and cuffed her heartily. Soon he had reduced her to

such a state that she ended, as her wont was, by undressing and

going to bed in a flood of tears.

 

He was out of breath and was going to bed, in his turn, when he

noticed the letter he had written to Georges lying on the table.

Whereupon he folded it up carefully and, turning toward the bed,

remarked in threatening accents:

 

“It’s very well written, and I’m going to post it myself because I

don’t like women’s fancies. Now don’t go moaning any more; it puts

my teeth on edge.”

 

Nana, who was crying and gasping, thereupon held her breath. When

he was in bed she choked with emotion and threw herself upon his

breast with a wild burst of sobs. Their scuffles always ended thus,

for she trembled at the thought of losing him and, like a coward,

wanted always to feel that he belonged entirely to her, despite

everything. Twice he pushed her magnificently away, but the warm

embrace of this woman who was begging for mercy with great, tearful

eyes, as some faithful brute might do, finally aroused desire. And

he became royally condescending without, however, lowering his

dignity before any of her advances. In fact, he let himself be

caressed and taken by force, as became a man whose forgiveness is

worth the trouble of winning. Then he was seized with anxiety,

fearing that Nana was