Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

Nana was

becoming absorbed in contemplation, when it struck her someone had

knocked at the door.

 

She turned round and shouted:

 

“Come in!”

 

At sight of the count she shut the window, for it was not warm, and

there was no need for the eavesdropping Mme Bron to listen. The

pair gazed at one another gravely. Then as the count still kept

standing stiffly in front of her, looking ready to choke with

emotion, she burst out laughing and said:

 

“Well! So you’re here again, you silly big beast!”

 

The tumult going on within him was so great that he seemed a man

frozen to ice. He addressed Nana as “madame” and esteemed himself

happy to see her again. Thereupon she became more familiar than

ever in order to bounce matters through.

 

“Don’t do it in the dignified way! You wanted to see me, didn’t

you? But you didn’t intend us to stand looking at one another like

a couple of chinaware dogs. We’ve both been in the wrong—Oh, I

certainly forgive you!”

 

And herewith they agreed not to talk of that affair again, Muffat

nodding his assent as Nana spoke. He was calmer now but as yet

could find nothing to say, though a thousand things rose

tumultuously to his lips. Surprised at his apparent coldness, she

began acting a part with much vigor.

 

“Come,” she continued with a faint smile, “you’re a sensible man!

Now that we’ve made our peace let’s shake hands and be good friends

in future.”

 

“What? Good friends?” he murmured in sudden anxiety.

 

“Yes; it’s idiotic, perhaps, but I should like you to think well of

me. We’ve had our little explanation out, and if we meet again we

shan’t, at any rate look like a pair of boobies.”

 

He tried to interrupt her with a movement of the hand.

 

“Let me finish! There’s not a man, you understand, able to accuse

me of doing him a blackguardly turn; well, and it struck me as

horrid to begin in your case. We all have our sense of honor, dear

boy.”

 

“But that’s not my meaning!” he shouted violently. “Sit down—

listen to me!” And as though he were afraid of seeing her take her

departure, he pushed her down on the solitary chair in the room.

Then he paced about in growing agitation. The little dressing room

was airless and full of sunlight, and no sound from the outside

world disturbed its pleasant, peaceful, dampish atmosphere. In the

pauses of conversation the shrillings of the canary were alone

audible and suggested the distant piping of a flute.

 

“Listen,” he said, planting himself in front of her, “I’ve come to

possess myself of you again. Yes, I want to begin again. You know

that well; then why do you talk to me as you do? Answer me; tell me

you consent.”

 

Her head was bent, and she was scratching the blood-red straw of the

seat underneath her. Seeing him so anxious, she did not hurry to

answer. But at last she lifted up her face. It had assumed a grave

expression, and into the beautiful eyes she had succeeded in

infusing a look of sadness.

 

“Oh, it’s impossible, little man. Never, never, will I live with

you again.”

 

“Why?” he stuttered, and his face seemed contracted in unspeakable

suffering.

 

“Why? Hang it all, because—It’s impossible; that’s about it. I

don’t want to.”

 

He looked ardently at her for some seconds longer. Then his legs

curved under him and he fell on the floor. In a bored voice she

added this simple advice:

 

“Ah, don’t be a baby!”

 

But he was one already. Dropping at her feet, he had put his arms

round her waist and was hugging her closely, pressing his face hard

against her knees. When he felt her thus—when he once more divined

the presence of her velvety limbs beneath the thin fabric of her

dress—he was suddenly convulsed and trembled, as it were, with

fever, while madly, savagely, he pressed his face against her knees

as though he had been anxious to force through her flesh. The old

chair creaked, and beneath the low ceiling, where the air was

pungent with stale perfumes, smothered sobs of desire were audible.

 

“Well, and after?” Nana began saying, letting him do as he would.

“All this doesn’t help you a bit, seeing that the thing’s

impossible. Good God, what a child you are!”

 

His energy subsided, but he still stayed on the floor, nor did he

relax his hold of her as he said in a broken voice:

 

“Do at least listen to what I came to offer you. I’ve already seen

a town house close to the Parc Monceau—I would gladly realize your

smallest wish. In order to have you all to myself, I would give my

whole fortune. Yes, that would be my only condition, that I should

have you all to myself! Do you understand? And if you were to

consent to be mine only, oh, then I should want you to be the

loveliest, the richest, woman on earth. I should give you carriages

and diamonds and dresses!”

 

At each successive offer Nana shook her head proudly. Then seeing

that he still continued them, that he even spoke of settling money

on her—for he was at loss what to lay at her feet—she apparently

lost patience.

 

“Come, come, have you done bargaining with me? I’m a good sort, and

I don’t mind giving in to you for a minute or two, as your feelings

are making you so ill, but I’ve had enough of it now, haven’t I? So

let me get up. You’re tiring me.”

 

She extricated herself from his clasp, and once on her feet:

 

“No, no, no!” she said. “I don’t want to!”

 

With that he gathered himself up painfully and feebly dropped into a

chair, in which he leaned back with his face in his hands. Nana

began pacing up and down in her turn. For a second or two she

looked at the stained wallpaper, the greasy toilet table, the whole

dirty little room as it basked in the pale sunlight. Then she

paused in front of the count and spoke with quiet directness.

 

“It’s strange how rich men fancy they can have everything for their

money. Well, and if I don’t want to consent—what then? I don’t

care a pin for your presents! You might give me Paris, and yet I

should say no! Always no! Look here, it’s scarcely clean in this

room, yet I should think it very nice if I wanted to live in it with

you. But one’s fit to kick the bucket in your palaces if one isn’t

in love. Ah, as to money, my poor pet, I can lay my hands on that

if I want to, but I tell you, I trample on it; I spit on it!”

 

And with that she assumed a disgusted expression. Then she became

sentimental and added in a melancholy tone:

 

“I know of something worth more than money. Oh, if only someone

were to give me what I long for!”

 

He slowly lifted his head, and there was a gleam of hope in his eyes.

 

“Oh, you can’t give it me,” she continued; “it doesn’t depend on

you, and that’s the reason I’m talking to you about it. Yes, we’re

having a chat, so I may as well mention to you that I should like to

play the part of the respectable woman in that show of theirs.”

 

“What respectable woman?” he muttered in astonishment.

 

“Why, their Duchess Helene! If they think I’m going to play

Geraldine, a part with nothing in it, a scene and nothing besides—

if they think that! Besides, that isn’t the reason. The fact is

I’ve had enough of courtesans. Why, there’s no end to ‘em! They’ll

be fancying I’ve got ‘em on the brain; to be sure they will!

Besides, when all’s said and done, it’s annoying, for I can quite

see they seem to think me uneducated. Well, my boy, they’re jolly

well in the dark about it, I can tell you! When I want to be a

perfect lady, why then I am a swell, and no mistake! Just look at

this.”

 

And she withdrew as far as the window and then came swelling back

with the mincing gait and circumspect air of a portly hen that fears

to dirty her claws. As to Muffat, he followed her movements with

eyes still wet with tears. He was stupefied by this sudden

transition from anguish to comedy. She walked about for a moment or

two in order the more thoroughly to show off her paces, and as she

walked she smiled subtlely, closed her eyes demurely and managed her

skirts with great dexterity. Then she posted herself in front of

him again.

 

“I guess I’ve hit it, eh?”

 

“Oh, thoroughly,” he stammered with a broken voice and a troubled

expression.

 

“I tell you I’ve got hold of the honest woman! I’ve tried at my own

place. Nobody’s got my little knack of looking like a duchess who

don’t care a damn for the men. Did you notice it when I passed in

front of you? Why, the thing’s in my blood! Besides, I want to

play the part of an honest woman. I dream about it day and night—

I’m miserable about it. I must have the part, d’you hear?”

 

And with that she grew serious, speaking in a hard voice and looking

deeply moved, for she was really tortured by her stupid, tiresome

wish. Muffat, still smarting from her late refusals, sat on without

appearing to grasp her meaning. There was a silence during which

the very flies abstained from buzzing through the quiet, empty place.

 

“Now, look here,” she resumed bluntly, “you’re to get them to give

me the part.”

 

He was dumfounded, and with a despairing gesture:

 

“Oh, it’s impossible! You yourself were saying just now that it

didn’t depend on me.”

 

She interrupted him with a shrug of the shoulders.

 

“You’ll just go down, and you’ll tell Bordenave you want the part.

Now don’t be such a silly! Bordenave wants money—well, you’ll lend

him some, since you can afford to make ducks and drakes of it.”

 

And as he still struggled to refuse her, she grew angry.

 

“Very well, I understand; you’re afraid of making Rose angry. I

didn’t mention the woman when you were crying down on the floor—I

should have had too much to say about it all. Yes, to be sure, when

one has sworn to love a woman forever one doesn’t usually take up

with the first creature that comes by directly after. Oh, that’s

where the shoe pinches, I remember! Well, dear boy, there’s nothing

very savory in the Mignon’s leavings! Oughtn’t you to have broken

it off with that dirty lot before coming and squirming on my knees?”

 

He protested vaguely and at last was able to get out a phrase.

 

“Oh, I don’t care a jot for Rose; I’ll give her up at once.”

 

Nana seemed satisfied on this point. She continued:

 

“Well then, what’s bothering you? Bordenave’s master here. You’ll

tell me there’s Fauchery after Bordenave—”

 

She had sunk her voice, for she was coming to the delicate part of

the matter. Muffat sat silent, his eyes fixed on the ground. He

had remained voluntarily ignorant of Fauchery’s assiduous attentions

to the countess, and time had lulled his suspicions and set him

hoping that he had been deceiving himself during that fearful night

passed in a doorway of the Rue Taitbout. But he still felt a dull,

angry repugnance to