Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

she would stretch out her arms with a gesture of immense

weariness the moment she was left alone. Solitude rendered her low

spirited at once, for it brought her face to face with the emptiness

and boredom within her. Extremely gay by nature and profession, she

became dismal in solitude and would sum up her life in the following

ejaculation, which recurred incessantly between her yawns:

 

“Oh, how the men bother me!”

 

One afternoon as she was returning home from a concert, Nana, on the

sidewalk in the Rue Montmartre, noticed a woman trotting along in

down-at-the-heel boots, dirty petticoats and a hat utterly ruined by

the rain. She recognized her suddenly.

 

“Stop, Charles!” she shouted to the coachman and began calling:

“Satin, Satin!”

 

Passers-by turned their heads; the whole street stared. Satin had

drawn near and was still further soiling herself against the

carriage wheels.

 

“Do get in, my dear girl,” said Nana tranquilly, disdaining the

onlookers.

 

And with that she picked her up and carried her off, though she was

in disgusting contrast to her light blue landau and her dress of

pearl-gray silk trimmed with Chantilly, while the street smiled at

the coachman’s loftily dignified demeanor.

 

From that day forth Nana had a passion to occupy her thoughts.

Satin became her vicious foible. Washed and dressed and duly

installed in the house in the Avenue de Villiers, during three days

the girl talked of Saint-Lazare and the annoyances the sisters had

caused her and how those dirty police people had put her down on the

official list. Nana grew indignant and comforted her and vowed she

would get her name taken off, even though she herself should have to

go and find out the minister of the interior. Meanwhile there was

no sort of hurry: nobody would come and search for her at Nana’s—

that was certain. And thereupon the two women began to pass tender

afternoons together, making numberless endearing little speeches and

mingling their kisses with laughter. The same little sport, which

the arrival of the plainclothes men had interrupted in the Rue de

Laval, was beginning again in a jocular sort of spirit. One fine

evening, however, it became serious, and Nana, who had been so

disgusted at Laure’s, now understood what it meant. She was upset

and enraged by it, the more so because Satin disappeared on the

morning of the fourth day. No one had seen her go our. She had,

indeed, slipped away in her new dress, seized by a longing for air,

full of sentimental regret for her old street existence.

 

That day there was such a terrible storm in the house that all the

servants hung their heads in sheepish silence. Nana had come near

beating Francois for not throwing himself across the door through

which Satin escaped. She did her best, however, to control herself,

and talked of Satin as a dirty swine. Oh, it would teach her to

pick filthy things like that out of the gutter!

 

When Madame shut herself up in her room in the afternoon Zoe heard

her sobbing. In the evening she suddenly asked for her carriage and

had herself driven to Laure’s. It had occurred to her that she

would find Satin at the table d’hote in the Rue des Martyrs. She

was not going there for the sake of seeing her again but in order to

catch her one in the face! As a matter of fact Satin was dining at

a little table with Mme Robert. Seeing Nana, she began to laugh,

but the former, though wounded to the quick, did not make a scene.

On the contrary, she was very sweet and very compliant. She paid

for champagne made five or six tablefuls tipsy and then carried off

Satin when Mme Robert was in the closets. Not till they were in the

carriage did she make a mordant attack on her, threatening to kill

her if she did it again.

 

After that day the same little business began again continually. On

twenty different occasions Nana, tragically furious, as only a

jilted woman can be ran off in pursuit of this sluttish creature,

whose flights were prompted by the boredom she suffered amid the

comforts of her new home. Nana began to talk of boxing Mme Robert’s

ears; one day she even meditated a duel; there was one woman too

many, she said.

 

In these latter times, whenever she dined at Laure’s, she donned her

diamonds and occasionally brought with her Louise Violaine, Maria

Blond and Tatan Nene, all of them ablaze with finery; and while the

sordid feast was progressing in the three saloons and the yellow

gaslight flared overhead, these four resplendent ladies would demean

themselves with a vengeance, for it was their delight to dazzle the

little local courtesans and to carry them off when dinner was over.

On days such as these Laure, sleek and tight-laced as ever would

kiss everyone with an air of expanded maternity. Yet

notwithstanding all these circumstances Satin’s blue eyes and pure

virginal face remained as calm as heretofore; torn, beaten and

pestered by the two women, she would simply remark that it was a

funny business, and they would have done far better to make it up at

once. It did no good to slap her; she couldn’t cut herself in two,

however much she wanted to be nice to everybody. It was Nana who

finally carried her off in triumph, so assiduously had she loaded

Satin with kindnesses and presents. In order to be revenged,

however, Mme Robert wrote abominable, anonymous letters to her

rival’s lovers.

 

For some time past Count Muffat had appeared suspicious, and one

morning, with considerable show of feeling, he laid before Nana an

anonymous letter, where in the very first sentences she read that

she was accused of deceiving the count with Vandeuvres and the young

Hugons.

 

“It’s false! It’s false!” she loudly exclaimed in accents of

extraordinary candor.

 

“You swear?” asked Muffat, already willing to be comforted.

 

“I’ll swear by whatever you like—yes, by the head of my child!”

 

But the letter was long. Soon her connection with Satin was

described in the broadest and most ignoble terms. When she had done

reading she smiled.

 

“Now I know who it comes from,” she remarked simply.

 

And as Muffat wanted her denial to the charges therein contained,

she resumed quietly enough:

 

“That’s a matter which doesn’t concern you, dear old pet. How can

it hurt you?”

 

She did not deny anything. He used some horrified expressions.

Thereupon she shrugged her shoulders. Where had he been all this

time? Why, it was done everywhere! And she mentioned her friends

and swore that fashionable ladies went in for it. In fact, to hear

her speak, nothing could be commoner or more natural. But a lie was

a lie, and so a moment ago he had seen how angry she grew in the

matter of Vandeuvres and the young Hugons! Oh, if that had been

true he would have been justified in throttling her! But what was

the good of lying to him about a matter of no consequence? And with

that she repeated her previous expression:

 

“Come now, how can it hurt you?”

 

Then as the scene still continued, she closed it with a rough

speech:

 

“Besides, dear boy, if the thing doesn’t suit you it’s very simple:

the house door’s open! There now, you must take me as you find me!”

 

He hung his head, for the young woman’s vows of fidelity made him

happy at bottom. She, however, now knew her power over him and

ceased to consider his feelings. And from that time forth Satin was

openly installed in the house on the same footing as the gentlemen.

Vandeuvres had not needed anonymous letters in order to understand

how matters stood, and accordingly he joked and tried to pick

jealous quarrels with Satin. Philippe and Georges, on their parts,

treated her like a jolly good fellow, shaking hands with her and

cracking the riskiest jokes imaginable.

 

Nana had an adventure one evening when this slut of a girl had given

her the go-by and she had gone to dine in the Rue des Martyrs

without being able to catch her. While she was dining by herself

Daguenet had appeared on the scene, for although he had reformed, he

still occasionally dropped in under the influence of his old vicious

inclinations. He hoped of course that no one would meet him in

these black recesses, dedicated to the town’s lowest depravity.

Accordingly even Nana’s presence seemed to embarrass him at the

outset. But he was not the man to run away and, coming forward with

a smile, he asked if Madame would be so kind as to allow him to dine

at her table. Noticing his jocular tone, Nana assumed her

magnificently frigid demeanor and icily replied:

 

“Sit down where you please, sir. We are in a public place.”

 

Thus begun, the conversation proved amusing. But at dessert Nana,

bored and burning for a triumph, put her elbows on the table and

began in the old familiar way:

 

“Well, what about your marriage, my lad? Is it getting on all

right?”

 

“Not much,” Daguenet averred.

 

As a matter of fact, just when he was about to venture on his

request at the Muffats’, he had met with such a cold reception from

the count that he had prudently refrained. The business struck him

as a failure. Nana fixed her clear eyes on him; she was sitting,

leaning her chin on her hand, and there was an ironical curve about

her lips.

 

“Oh yes! I’m a baggage,” she resumed slowly. “Oh yes, the future

father-in-law will have to be dragged from between my claws! Dear

me, dear me, for a fellow with NOUS, you’re jolly stupid! What!

D’you mean to say you’re going to tell your tales to a man who

adores me and tells me everything? Now just listen: you shall marry

if I wish it, my little man!”

 

For a minute or two he had felt the truth of this, and now he began

scheming out a method of submission. Nevertheless, he still talked

jokingly, not wishing the matter to grow serious, and after he had

put on his gloves he demanded the hand of Mlle Estelle de Beuville

in the strict regulation manner. Nana ended by laughing, as though

she had been tickled. Oh, that Mimi! It was impossible to bear him

a grudge! Daguenet’s great successes with ladies of her class were

due to the sweetness of his voice, a voice of such musical purity

and pliancy as to have won him among courtesans the sobriquet of

“Velvet-Mouth.” Every woman would give way to him when he lulled

her with his sonorous caresses. He knew this power and rocked Nana

to sleep with endless words, telling her all kinds of idiotic

anecdotes. When they left the table d’hote she was blushing rosy-red; she trembled as she hung on his arm; he had reconquered her.

As it was very fine, she sent her carriage away and walked with him

as far as his own place, where she went upstairs with him naturally

enough. Two hours later, as she was dressing again, she said:

 

“So you hold to this marriage of yours, Mimi?”

 

“Egad,” he muttered, “it’s the best thing I could possibly do after

all! You know I’m stony broke.”

 

She summoned him to button her boots, and after a pause:

 

“Good heavens! I’ve no objection. I’ll shove you on! She’s as dry

as a lath, is that little thing, but since it suits your game—oh,

I’m agreeable: I’ll run the thing through for you.”

 

Then with bosom still uncovered, she began laughing:

 

“Only