Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

After

long hesitation he had come despite everything—out of sheer

courage. But La Faloise’s imbecile pleasantry had upset him in

spite of his apparent tranquillity.

 

“What’s the matter?” asked Philippe. “You seem in trouble.”

 

“I do? Not at all. I’ve been working: that’s why I came so late.”

 

Then coldly, in one of those heroic moods which, although unnoticed,

are wont to solve the vulgar tragedies of existence:

 

“All the same, I haven’t made my bow to our hosts. One must be

civil.”

 

He even ventured on a joke, for he turned to La Faloise and said:

 

“Eh, you idiot?”

 

And with that he pushed his way through the crowd. The valet’s full

voice was no longer shouting out names, but close to the door the

count and countess were still talking, for they were detained by

ladies coming in. At length he joined them, while the gentlemen who

were still on the garden steps stood on tiptoe so as to watch the

scene. Nana, they thought, must have been chattering.

 

“The count hasn’t noticed him,” muttered Georges. “Look out! He’s

turning round; there, it’s done!”

 

The band had again taken up the waltz in the Blonde Venus. Fauchery

had begun by bowing to the countess, who was still smiling in

ecstatic serenity. After which he had stood motionless a moment,

waiting very calmly behind the count’s back. That evening the

count’s deportment was one of lofty gravity: he held his head high,

as became the official and the great dignitary. And when at last he

lowered his gaze in the direction of the journalist he seemed still

further to emphasize the majesty of his attitude. For some seconds

the two men looked at one another. It was Fauchery who first

stretched out his hand. Muffat gave him his. Their hands remained

clasped, and the Countess Sabine with downcast eyes stood smiling

before them, while the waltz continually beat out its mocking,

vagabond rhythm.

 

“But the thing’s going on wheels!” said Steiner.

 

“Are their hands glued together?” asked Foucarmont, surprised at

this prolonged clasp. A memory he could not forget brought a faint

glow to Fanchery’s pale cheeks, and in his mind’s eye he saw the

property room bathed in greenish twilight and filled with dusty

bric-a-brac. And Muffat was there, eggcup in hand, making a clever

use of his suspicions. At this moment Muffat was no longer

suspicious, and the last vestige of his dignity was crumbling in

ruin. Fauchery’s fears were assuaged, and when he saw the frank

gaiety of the countess he was seized with a desire to laugh. The

thing struck him as comic.

 

“Aha, here she is at last!” cried La Faloise, who did not abandon a

jest when he thought it a good one. “D’you see Nana coming in over

there?”

 

“Hold your tongue, do, you idiot!” muttered Philippe.

 

“But I tell you, it is Nana! They’re playing her waltz for her, by

Jove! She’s making her entry. And she takes part in the

reconciliation, the devil she does! What? You don’t see her?

She’s squeezing all three of ‘em to her heart—my cousin Fauchery,

my lady cousin and her husband, and she’s calling ‘em her dear

kitties. Oh, those family scenes give me a turn!”

 

Estelle had come up, and Fauchery complimented her while she stood

stiffly up in her rose-colored dress, gazing at him with the

astonished look of a silent child and constantly glancing aside at

her father and mother. Daguenet, too, exchanged a hearty shake of

the hand with the journalist. Together they made up a smiling

group, while M. Venot came gliding in behind them. He gloated over

them with a beatified expression and seemed to envelop them in his

pious sweetness, for he rejoiced in these last instances of self-abandonment which were preparing the means of grace.

 

But the waltz still beat out its swinging, laughing, voluptuous

measure; it was like a shrill continuation of the life of pleasure

which was beating against the old house like a rising tide. The

band blew louder trills from their little flutes; their violins sent

forth more swooning notes. Beneath the Genoa velvet hangings, the

gilding and the paintings, the lusters exhaled a living heat and a

great glow of sunlight, while the crowd of guests, multiplied in the

surrounding mirrors, seemed to grow and increase as the murmur of

many voices rose ever louder. The couples who whirled round the

drawing room, arm about waist, amid the smiles of the seated ladies,

still further accentuated the quaking of the floors. In the garden

a dull, fiery glow fell from the Venetian lanterns and threw a

distant reflection of flame over the dark shadows moving in search

of a breath of air about the walks at its farther end. And this

trembling of walls and this red glow of light seemed to betoken a

great ultimate conflagration in which the fabric of an ancient honor

was cracking and burning on every side. The shy early beginnings of

gaiety, of which Fauchery one April evening had heard the vocal

expression in the sound of breaking glass, had little by little

grown bolder, wilder, till they had burst forth in this festival.

Now the rift was growing; it was crannying the house and announcing

approaching downfall. Among drunkards in the slums it is black

misery, an empty cupboard, which put an end to ruined families; it

is the madness of drink which empties the wretched beds. Here the

waltz tune was sounding the knell of an old race amid the suddenly

ignited ruins of accumulated wealth, while Nana, although unseen,

stretched her lithe limbs above the dancers’ heads and sent

corruption through their caste, drenching the hot air with the

ferment of her exhalations and the vagabond lilt of the music.

 

On the evening after the celebration of the church marriage Count

Muffat made his appearance in his wife’s bedroom, where he had not

entered for the last two years. At first, in her great surprise,

the countess drew back from him. But she was still smiling the

intoxicated smile which she now always wore. He began stammering in

extreme embarrassment; whereupon she gave him a short moral lecture.

However, neither of them risked a decisive explanation. It was

religion, they pretended, which required this process of mutual

forgiveness, and they agreed by a tacit understanding to retain

their freedom. Before going to bed, seeing that the countess still

appeared to hesitate, they had a business conversation, and the

count was the first to speak of selling the Bordes. She consented

at once. They both stood in great want of money, and they would

share and share alike. This completed the reconciliation, and

Muffat, remorseful though he was, felt veritably relieved.

 

That very day, as Nana was dozing toward two in the afternoon, Zoe

made so bold as to knock at her bedroom door. The curtains were

drawn to, and a hot breath of wind kept blowing through a window

into the fresh twilight stillness within. During these last days

the young woman had been getting up and about again, but she was

still somewhat weak. She opened her eyes and asked:

 

“Who is it?”

 

Zoe was about to reply, but Daguenet pushed by her and announced

himself in person. Nana forthwith propped herself up on her pillow

and, dismissing the lady’s maid:

 

“What! Is that you?” she cried. “On the day of your marriage?

What can be the matter?”

 

Taken aback by the darkness, he stood still in the middle of the

room. However, he grew used to it and came forward at last. He was

in evening dress and wore a white cravat and gloves.

 

“Yes, to be sure, it’s me!” he said. “You don’t remember?”

 

No, she remembered nothing, and in his chaffing way he had to offer

himself frankly to her.

 

“Come now, here’s your commission. I’ve brought you the handsel of

my innocence!”

 

And with that, as he was now by the bedside, she caught him in her

bare arms and shook with merry laughter and almost cried, she

thought it so pretty of him.

 

“Oh, that Mimi, how funny he is! He’s thought of it after all! And

to think I didn’t remember it any longer! So you’ve slipped off;

you’re just out of church. Yes, certainly, you’ve got a scent of

incense about you. But kiss me, kiss me! Oh, harder than that,

Mimi dear! Bah! Perhaps it’s for the last time.”

 

In the dim room, where a vague odor of ether still lingered, their

tender laughter died away suddenly. The heavy, warm breeze swelled

the window curtains, and children’s voices were audible in the

avenue without. Then the lateness of the hour tore them asunder and

set them joking again. Daguenet took his departure with his wife

directly after the breakfast.