Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

>it if you do.”

 

“Frangipane’s a screw,” Philippe declared. “He’s been utterly blown

upon already. You’ll see the canter.”

 

The horses had gone up to the right, and they now started for the

preliminary canter, passing in loose order before the stands.

Thereupon there was a passionate fresh burst of talk, and people all

spoke at once.

 

“Lusignan’s too long in the back, but he’s very fit. Not a cent, I

tell you, on Valerio II; he’s nervous—gallops with his head up—

it’s a bad sign. Jove! Burne’s riding Spirit. I tell you, he’s

got no shoulders. A well-made shoulder—that’s the whole secret.

No, decidedly, Spirit’s too quiet. Now listen, Nana, I saw her

after the Grande Poule des Produits, and she was dripping and

draggled, and her sides were trembling like one o’clock. I lay

twenty louis she isn’t placed! Oh, shut up! He’s boring us with

his Frangipane. There’s no time to make a bet now; there, they’re

off!”

 

Almost in tears, La Faloise was struggling to find a bookmaker. He

had to be reasoned with. Everyone craned forward, but the first go-off was bad, the starter, who looked in the distance like a slim

dash of blackness, not having lowered his flag. The horses came

back to their places after galloping a moment or two. There were

two more false starts. At length the starter got the horses

together and sent them away with such address as to elicit shouts of

applause.

 

“Splendid! No, it was mere chance! Never mind—it’s done it!”

 

The outcries were smothered by the anxiety which tortured every

breast. The betting stopped now, and the game was being played on

the vast course itself. Silence reigned at the outset, as though

everyone were holding his breath. White faces and trembling forms

were stretched forward in all directions. At first Hazard and

Cosinus made the running at the head of the rest; Valerio II

followed close by, and the field came on in a confused mass behind.

When they passed in front of the stands, thundering over the ground

in their course like a sudden stormwind, the mass was already some

fourteen lengths in extent. Frangipane was last, and Nana was

slightly behind Lusignan and Spirit.

 

“Egad!” muttered Labordette, “how the Englishman is pulling it off

out there!”

 

The whole carriageload again burst out with phrases and

exclamations. Everyone rose on tiptoe and followed the bright

splashes of color which were the jockeys as they rushed through the

sunlight.

 

At the rise Valerio II took the lead, while Cosinus and Hazard lost

ground, and Lusignan and Spirit were running neck and neck with Nana

still behind them.

 

“By jingo, the Englishman’s gained! It’s palpable!” said Bordenave.

“Lusignan’s in difficulties, and Valerio II can’t stay.”

 

“Well, it will be a pretty biz if the Englishman wins!” cried

Philippe in an access of patriotic grief.

 

A feeling of anguish was beginning to choke all that crowded

multitude. Another defeat! And with that a strange ardent prayer,

which was almost religious, went up for Lusignan, while people

heaped abuse on Spirit and his dismal mute of a jockey. Among the

crowd scattered over the grass the wind of excitement put up whole

groups of people and set their boot soles flashing in air as they

ran. Horsemen crossed the green at a furious gallop. And Nana, who

was slowly revolving on her own axis, saw beneath her a surging

waste of beasts and men, a sea of heads swayed and stirred all round

the course by the whirlwind of the race, which clove the horizon

with the bright lightning flash of the jockeys. She had been

following their movement from behind while the cruppers sped away

and the legs seemed to grow longer as they raced and then diminished

till they looked slender as strands of hair. Now the horses were

running at the end of the course, and she caught a side view of them

looking minute and delicate of outline against the green distances

of the Bois. Then suddenly they vanished behind a great clump of

trees growing in the middle of the Hippodrome.

 

“Don’t talk about it!” cried Georges, who was still full of hope.

“It isn’t over yet. The Englishman’s touched.”

 

But La Faloise was again seized with contempt for his country and

grew positively outrageous in his applause of Spirit. Bravo! That

was right! France needed it! Spirit first and Frangipane second—

that would be a nasty one for his native land! He exasperated

Labordette, who threatened seriously to throw him off the carriage.

 

“Let’s see how many minutes they’ll be about it,” said Bordenave

peaceably, for though holding up Louiset, he had taken out his

watch.

 

One after the other the horses reappeared from behind the clump of

trees. There was stupefaction; a long murmur arose among the crowd.

Valerio II was still leading, but Spirit was gaining on him, and

behind him Lusignan had slackened while another horse was taking his

place. People could not make this out all at once; they were

confused about the colors. Then there was a burst of exclamations.

 

“But it’s Nana! Nana? Get along! I tell you Lusignan hasn’t

budged. Dear me, yes, it’s Nana. You can certainly recognize her

by her golden color. D’you see her now? She’s blazing away.

Bravo, Nana! What a ripper she is! Bah, it doesn’t matter a bit:

she’s making the running for Lusignan!”

 

For some seconds this was everybody’s opinion. But little by little

the filly kept gaining and gaining, spurting hard all the while.

Thereupon a vast wave of feeling passed over the crowd, and the tail

of horses in the rear ceased to interest. A supreme struggle was

beginning between Spirit, Nana, Lusignan and Valerio II. They were

pointed out; people estimated what ground they had gained or lost in

disconnected, gasping phrases. And Nana, who had mounted up on the

coach box, as though some power had lifted her thither, stood white

and trembling and so deeply moved as not to be able to speak. At

her side Labordette smiled as of old.

 

“The Englishman’s in trouble, eh?” said Philippe joyously. “He’s

going badly.”

 

“In any case, it’s all up with Lusignan,” shouted La Faloise.

“Valerio II is coming forward. Look, there they are all four

together.”

 

The same phrase was in every mouth.

 

“What a rush, my dears! By God, what a rush!”

 

The squad of horses was now passing in front of them like a flash of

lightning. Their approach was perceptible—the breath of it was as

a distant muttering which increased at every second. The whole

crowd had thrown themselves impetuously against the barriers, and a

deep clamor issued from innumerable chests before the advance of the

horses and drew nearer and nearer like the sound of a foaming tide.

It was the last fierce outburst of colossal partisanship; a hundred

thousand spectators were possessed by a single passion, burning with

the same gambler’s lust, as they gazed after the beasts, whose

galloping feet were sweeping millions with them. The crowd pushed

and crushed—fists were clenched; people gaped, openmouthed; every

man was fighting for himself; every man with voice and gesture was

madly speeding the horse of his choice. And the cry of all this

multitude, a wild beast’s cry despite the garb of civilization, grew

ever more distinct:

 

“Here they come! Here they come! Here they come!”

 

But Nana was still gaining ground, and now Valerio II was distanced,

and she was heading the race, with Spirit two or three necks behind.

The rolling thunder of voices had increased. They were coming in; a

storm of oaths greeted them from the landau.

 

“Gee up, Lusignan, you great coward! The Englishman’s stunning! Do

it again, old boy; do it again! Oh, that Valerio! It’s sickening!

Oh, the carcass! My ten louis damned well lost! Nana’s the only

one! Bravo, Nana! Bravo!”

 

And without being aware of it Nana, upon her seat, had begun jerking

her hips and waist as though she were racing herself. She kept

striking her side—she fancied it was a help to the filly. With

each stroke she sighed with fatigue and said in low, anguished

tones:

 

“Go it, go it!”

 

Then a splendid sight was witnessed. Price, rising in his stirrups

and brandishing his whip, flogged Nana with an arm of iron. The old

shriveled-up child with his long, hard, dead face seemed to breath

flame. And in a fit of furious audacity and triumphant will he put

his heart into the filly, held her up, lifted her forward, drenched

in foam, with eyes of blood. The whole rush of horses passed with a

roar of thunder: it took away people’s breaths; it swept the air

with it while the judge sat frigidly waiting, his eye adjusted to

its task. Then there was an immense re-echoing burst of

acclamation. With a supreme effort Price had just flung Nana past

the post, thus beating Spirit by a head.

 

There was an uproar as of a rising tide. “Nana! Nana! Nana!” The

cry rolled up and swelled with the violence of a tempest, till

little by little it filled the distance, the depths of the Bois as

far as Mont Valerien, the meadows of Longchamps and the Plaine de

Boulogne. In all parts of the field the wildest enthusiasm declared

itself. “Vive Nana! Vive la France! Down with England!” The

women waved their sunshades; men leaped and spun round, vociferating

as they did so, while others with shouts of nervous laughter threw

their hats in the air. And from the other side of the course the

enclosure made answer; the people on the stands were stirred, though

nothing was distinctly visible save a tremulous motion of the air,

as though an invisible flame were burning in a brazier above the

living mass of gesticulating arms and little wildly moving faces,

where the eyes and gaping mouths looked like black dots. The noise

did not cease but swelled up and recommenced in the recesses of

faraway avenues and among the people encamped under the trees, till

it spread on and on and attained its climax in the imperial stand,

where the empress herself had applauded. “Nana! Nana! Nana!” The

cry rose heavenward in the glorious sunlight, whose golden rain beat

fiercely on the dizzy heads of the multitude.

 

Then Nana, looming large on the seat of her landau, fancied that it

was she whom they were applauding. For a moment or two she had

stood devoid of motion, stupefied by her triumph, gazing at the

course as it was invaded by so dense a flood of people that the turf

became invisible beneath the sea of black hats. By and by, when

this crowd had become somewhat less disorderly and a lane had been

formed as far as the exit and Nana was again applauded as she went

off with Price hanging lifelessly and vacantly over her neck, she

smacked her thigh energetically, lost all self-possession, triumphed

in crude phrases:

 

“Oh, by God, it’s me; it’s me. Oh, by God, what luck!”

 

And, scarce knowing how to give expression to her overwhelming joy,

she hugged and kissed Louiset, whom she now discovered high in the

air on Bordenave’s shoulder.

 

“Three minutes and fourteen seconds,” said the latter as he put his

watch back in his pocket.

 

Nana kept hearing her name; the whole plain was echoing it back to

her. Her people were applauding her while she towered above them in

the sunlight, in the splendor of her starry hair and white-and-sky-blue dress. Labordette, as he made off, had just announced to her a

gain of two thousand louis, for he had put her fifty on Nana at

forty to one. But the money stirred