Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

women on the pavements scattered in consternation and fled

through the surrounding crowd. The dread of the law and of the

magistracy was such that certain women would stand as though

paralyzed in the doorways of the cafes while the raid was sweeping

the avenue without. But Satin was even more afraid of being

denounced, for her pastry cook had proved blackguard enough to

threaten to sell her when she had left him. Yes, that was a fake by

which men lived on their mistresses! Then, too, there were the

dirty women who delivered you up out of sheer treachery if you were

prettier than they! Nana listened to these recitals and felt her

terrors growing upon her. She had always trembled before the law,

that unknown power, that form of revenge practiced by men able and

willing to crush her in the certain absence of all defenders.

Saint-Lazare she pictured as a grave, a dark hole, in which they

buried live women after they had cut off their hair. She admitted

that it was only necessary to leave Fontan and seek powerful

protectors. But as matters stood it was in vain that Satin talked

to her of certain lists of women’s names, which it was the duty of

the plainclothes men to consult, and of certain photographs

accompanying the lists, the originals of which were on no account to

be touched. The reassurance did not make her tremble the less, and

she still saw herself hustled and dragged along and finally

subjected to the official medical inspection. The thought of the

official armchair filled her with shame and anguish, for had she not

bade it defiance a score of times?

 

Now it so happened that one evening toward the close of September,

as she was walking with Satin in the Boulevard Poissonniere, the

latter suddenly began tearing along at a terrible pace. And when

Nana asked her what she meant thereby:

 

“It’s the plainclothes men!” whispered Satin. “Off with you! Off

with you!” A wild stampede took place amid the surging crowd.

Skirts streamed out behind and were torn. There were blows and

shrieks. A woman fell down. The crowd of bystanders stood

hilariously watching this rough police raid while the plainclothes

men rapidly narrowed their circle. Meanwhile Nana had lost Satin.

Her legs were failing her, and she would have been taken up for a

certainty had not a man caught her by the arm and led her away in

front of the angry police. It was Prulliere, and he had just

recognized her. Without saying a word he turned down the Rue

Rougemont with her. It was just then quite deserted, and she was

able to regain breath there, but at first her faintness and

exhaustion were such that he had to support her. She did not even

thank him.

 

“Look here,” he said, “you must recover a bit. Come up to my

rooms.”

 

He lodged in the Rue Bergere close by. But she straightened herself

up at once.

 

“No, I don’t want to.”

 

Thereupon he waxed coarse and rejoined:

 

“Why don’t you want to, eh? Why, everybody visits my rooms.”

 

“Because I don’t.”

 

In her opinion that explained everything. She was too fond of

Fontan to betray him with one of his friends. The other people

ceased to count the moment there was no pleasure in the business,

and necessity compelled her to it. In view of her idiotic obstinacy

Prulliere, as became a pretty fellow whose vanity had been wounded,

did a cowardly thing.

 

“Very well, do as you like!” he cried. “Only I don’t side with you,

my dear. You must get out of the scrape by yourself.”

 

And with that he left her. Terrors got hold of her again, and

scurrying past shops and turning white whenever a man drew nigh, she

fetched an immense compass before reaching Montmartre.

 

On the morrow, while still suffering from the shock of last night’s

terrors, Nana went to her aunt’s and at the foot of a small empty

street in the Batignolles found herself face to face with

Labordette. At first they both appeared embarrassed, for with his

usual complaisance he was busy on a secret errand. Nevertheless, he

was the first to regain his self-possession and to announce himself

fortunate in meeting her. Yes, certainly, everybody was still

wondering at Nana’s total eclipse. People were asking for her, and

old friends were pining. And with that he grew quite paternal and

ended by sermonizing.

 

“Frankly speaking, between you and me, my dear, the thing’s getting

stupid. One can understand a mash, but to go to that extent, to be

trampled on like that and to get nothing but knocks! Are you

playing up for the ‘Virtue Prizes’ then?”

 

She listened to him with an embarrassed expression. But when he

told her about Rose, who was triumphantly enjoying her conquest of

Count Muffat, a flame came into her eyes.

 

“Oh, if I wanted to—” she muttered.

 

As became an obliging friend, he at once offered to act as

intercessor. But she refused his help, and he thereupon attacked

her in an opposite quarter.

 

He informed her that Bordenave was busy mounting a play of

Fauchery’s containing a splendid part for her.

 

“What, a play with a part!” she cried in amazement. “But he’s in it

and he’s told me nothing about it!”

 

She did not mention Fontan by name. However, she grew calm again

directly and declared that she would never go on the stage again.

Labordette doubtless remained unconvinced, for he continued with

smiling insistence.

 

“You know, you need fear nothing with me. I get your Muffat ready

for you, and you go on the stage again, and I bring him to you like

a little dog!”

 

“No!” she cried decisively.

 

And she left him. Her heroic conduct made her tenderly pitiful

toward herself. No blackguard of a man would ever have sacrificed

himself like that without trumpeting the fact abroad. Nevertheless,

she was struck by one thing: Labordette had given her exactly the

same advice as Francis had given her. That evening when Fontan came

home she questioned him about Fauchery’s piece. The former had been

back at the Varietes for two months past. Why then had he not told

her about the part?

 

“What part?” he said in his ill-humored tone. “The grand lady’s

part, maybe? The deuce, you believe you’ve got talent then! Why,

such a part would utterly do for you, my girl! You’re meant for

comic business—there’s no denying it!”

 

She was dreadfully wounded. All that evening he kept chaffing her,

calling her Mlle Mars. But the harder he hit the more bravely she

suffered, for she derived a certain bitter satisfaction from this

heroic devotion of hers, which rendered her very great and very

loving in her own eyes. Ever since she had gone with other men in

order to supply his wants her love for him had increased, and the

fatigues and disgusts encountered outside only added to the flame.

He was fast becoming a sort of pet vice for which she paid, a

necessity of existence it was impossible to do without, seeing that

blows only stimulated her desires. He, on his part, seeing what a

good tame thing she had become, ended by abusing his privileges.

She was getting on his nerves, and he began to conceive so fierce a

loathing for her that he forgot to keep count of his real interests.

When Bosc made his customary remarks to him he cried out in

exasperation, for which there was no apparent cause, that he had had

enough of her and of her good dinners and that he would shortly

chuck her out of doors if only for the sake of making another woman

a present of his seven thousand francs. Indeed, that was how their

liaison ended.

 

One evening Nana came in toward eleven o’clock and found the door

bolted. She tapped once—there was no answer; twice—still no

answer. Meanwhile she saw light under the door, and Fontan inside

did not trouble to move. She rapped again unwearyingly; she called

him and began to get annoyed. At length Fontan’s voice became

audible; he spoke slowly and rather unctuously and uttered but this

one word.

 

“MERDE!”

 

She beat on the door with her fists.

 

“MERDE!”

 

She banged hard enough to smash in the woodwork.

 

“MERDE!”

 

And for upward of a quarter of an hour the same foul expression

buffeted her, answering like a jeering echo to every blow wherewith

she shook the door. At length, seeing that she was not growing

tired, he opened sharply, planted himself on the threshold, folded

his arms and said in the same cold, brutal voice:

 

“By God, have you done yet? What d’you want? Are you going to let

us sleep in peace, eh? You can quite see I’ve got company tonight.”

 

He was certainly not alone, for Nana perceived the little woman from

the Bouffes with the untidy tow hair and the gimlet-hole eyes,

standing enjoying herself in her shift among the furniture she had

paid for. But Fontan stepped out on the landing. He looked

terrible, and he spread out and crooked his great fingers as if they

were pincers.

 

“Hook it or I’ll strangle you!”

 

rhereupon Nana burst into a nervous fit of sobbing. She was

frightened and she made off. This time it was she that was being

kicked out of doors. And in her fury the thought of Muffat suddenly

occurred to her. Ah, to be sure, Fontan, of all men, ought never to

have done her such a turn!

 

When she was out in the street her first thought was to go and sleep

with Satin, provided the girl had no one with her. She met her in

front of her house, for she, too, had been turned out of doors by

her landlord. He had just had a padlock affixed to her door—quite

illegally, of course, seeing that she had her own furniture. She

swore and talked of having him up before the commissary of police.

In the meantime, as midnight was striking, they had to begin

thinking of finding a bed. And Satin, deeming it unwise to let the

plainclothes men into her secrets, ended by taking Nana to a woman

who kept a little hotel in the Rue de Laval. Here they were

assigned a narrow room on the first floor, the window of which

opened on the courtyard. Satin remarked:

 

“I should gladly have gone to Mme Robert’s. There’s always a corner

there for me. But with you it’s out of the question. She’s getting

absurdly jealous; she beat me the other night.”

 

When they had shut themselves in, Nana, who had not yet relieved her

feelings, burst into tears and again and again recounted Fontan’s

dirty behavior. Satin listened complaisantly, comforted her, grew

even more angry than she in denunciation of the male sex.

 

“Oh, the pigs, the pigs! Look here, we’ll have nothing more to do

with them!”

 

Then she helped Nana to undress with all the small, busy attentions,

becoming a humble little friend. She kept saying coaxingly:

 

“Let’s go to bed as fast as we can, pet. We shall be better off

there! Oh, how silly you are to get crusty about things! I tell

you, they’re dirty brutes. Don’t think any more about ‘em. I—I

love you very much. Don’t cry, and oblige your own little darling

girl.”

 

And once in bed, she forthwith took Nana in her arms and soothed and

comforted her. She refused to hear Fontan’s name mentioned again,

and each time it recurred to her friend’s lips she stopped it with a

kiss. Her lips pouted in pretty indignation;