Nana, Émile Zola [reading list txt] 📗

on chairs when they came in, for they were too tired to

think about the dead. At that moment a loud noise came from the

room next door, where people were pushing trunks about and striking

against furniture to an accompaniment of strident, outlandish

syllables. It was a young Austrian couple, and Gaga told how during

her agony the neighbors had played a game of catch as catch can and

how, as only an unused door divided the two rooms, they had heard

them laughing and kissing when one or the other was caught.

 

“Come, it’s time we were off,” said Clarisse. “We shan’t bring her

to life again. Are you coming, Simonne?”

 

They all looked at the bed out of the corners of their eyes, but

they did not budge an inch. Nevertheless, they began getting ready

and gave their skirts various little pats. Lucy was again leaning

out of window. She was alone now, and a sorrowful feeling began

little by little to overpower her, as though an intense wave of

melancholy had mounted up from the howling mob. Torches still kept

passing, shaking out clouds of sparks, and far away in the distance

the various bands stretched into the shadows, surging unquietly to

and fro like flocks being driven to the slaughterhouse at night. A

dizzy feeling emanated from these confused masses as the human flood

rolled them along—a dizzy feeling, a sense of terror and all the

pity of the massacres to come. The people were going wild; their

voices broke; they were drunk with a fever of excitement which sent

them rushing toward the unknown “out there” beyond the dark wall of

the horizon.

 

“A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!”

 

Lucy turned round. She leaned her back against the window, and her

face was very pale.

 

“Good God! What’s to become of us?”

 

The ladies shook their heads. They were serious and very anxious

about the turn events were taking.

 

“For my part,” said Caroline Hequet in her decisive way, “I start

for London the day after tomorrow. Mamma’s already over there

getting a house ready for me. I’m certainly not going to let myself

be massacred in Paris.”

 

Her mother, as became a prudent woman, had invested all her

daughters’ money in foreign lands. One never knows how a war may

end! But Maria Blond grew vexed at this. She was a patriot and

spoke of following the army.

 

“There’s a coward for you! Yes, if they wanted me I should put on

man’s clothes just to have a good shot at those pigs of Prussians!

And if we all die after? What of that? Our wretched skins aren’t

so valuable!”

 

Blanche de Sivry was exasperated.

 

“Please don’t speak ill of the Prussians! They are just like other

men, and they’re not always running after the women, like your

Frenchmen. They’ve just expelled the little Prussian who was with

me. He was an awfully rich fellow and so gentle: he couldn’t have

hurt a soul. It’s disgraceful; I’m ruined by it. And, you know,

you mustn’t say a word or I go and find him out in Germany!”

 

After that, while the two were at loggerheads, Gaga began murmuring

in dolorous tones:

 

“It’s all over with me; my luck’s always bad. It’s only a week ago

that I finished paying for my little house at Juvisy. Ah, God knows

what trouble it cost me! I had to go to Lili for help! And now

here’s the war declared, and the Prussians’ll come and they’ll burn

everything. How am I to begin again at my time of life, I should

like to know?”

 

“Bah!” said Clarisse. “I don’t care a damn about it. I shall

always find what I want.”

 

“Certainly you will,” added Simonne. “It’ll be a joke. Perhaps,

after all, it’ll be good biz.”

 

And her smile hinted what she thought. Tatan Nene and Louise

Violaine were of her opinion. The former told them that she had

enjoyed the most roaring jolly good times with soldiers. Oh, they

were good fellows and would have done any mortal thing for the

girls. But as the ladies had raised their voices unduly Rose

Mignon, still sitting on the chest by the bed, silenced them with a

softly whispered “Hush!” They stood quite still at this and glanced

obliquely toward the dead woman, as though this request for silence

had emanated from the very shadows of the curtains. In the heavy,

peaceful stillness which ensued, a void, deathly stillness which

made them conscious of the stiff dead body lying stretched close by

them, the cries of the mob burst forth:

 

“A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!”

 

But soon they forgot. Lea de Horn, who had a political salon where

former ministers of Louis Philippe were wont to indulge in delicate

epigrams, shrugged her shoulders and continued the conversation in a

low tone:

 

“What a mistake this war is! What a bloodthirsty piece of

stupidity!”

 

At this Lucy forthwith took up the cudgels for the empire. She had

been the mistress of a prince of the imperial house, and its defense

became a point of family honor with her.

 

“Do leave them alone, my dear. We couldn’t let ourselves be further

insulted! Why, this war concerns the honor of France. Oh, you know

I don’t say that because of the prince. He WAS just mean! Just

imagine, at night when he was going to bed he hid his gold in his

boots, and when we played at bezique he used beans, because one day

I pounced down on the stakes for fun. But that doesn’t prevent my

being fair. The emperor was right.”

 

Lea shook her head with an air of superiority, as became a woman who

was repeating the opinions of important personages. Then raising

her voice:

 

“This is the end of all things. They’re out of their minds at the

Tuileries. France ought to have driven them out yesterday. Don’t

you see?”

 

They all violently interrupted her. What was up with her? Was she

mad about the emperor? Were people not happy? Was business doing

badly? Paris would never enjoy itself so thoroughly again.

 

Gaga was beside herself; she woke up and was very indignant.

 

“Be quiet! It’s idiotic! You don’t know what you’re saying. I—

I’ve seen Louis Philippe’s reign: it was full of beggars and misers,

my dear. And then came ‘48! Oh, it was a pretty disgusting

business was their republic! After February I was simply dying of

starvation—yes, I, Gaga. Oh, if only you’d been through it all you

would go down on your knees before the emperor, for he’s been a

father to us; yes, a father to us.”

 

She had to be soothed but continued with pious fervor:

 

“O my God, do Thy best to give the emperor the victory. Preserve

the empire to us!”

 

They all repeated this aspiration, and Blanche confessed that she

burned candles for the emperor. Caroline had been smitten by him

and for two whole months had walked where he was likely to pass but

had failed to attract his attention. And with that the others burst

forth into furious denunciations of the Republicans and talked of

exterminating them on the frontiers so that Napoleon III, after

having beaten the enemy, might reign peacefully amid universal

enjoyment.

 

“That dirty Bismarck—there’s another cad for you!” Maria Blond

remarked.

 

“To think that I should have known him!” cried Simonne. “If only I

could have foreseen, I’m the one that would have put some poison in

his glass.”

 

But Blanche, on whose heart the expulsion of her Prussian still

weighed, ventured to defend Bismarck. Perhaps he wasn’t such a bad

sort. To every man his trade!

 

“You know,” she added, “he adores women.”

 

“What the hell has that got to do with us?” said Clarisse. “We

don’t want to cuddle him, eh?”

 

“There’s always too many men of that sort!” declared Louise Violaine

gravely. “It’s better to do without ‘em than to mix oneself up with

such monsters!”

 

And the discussion continued, and they stripped Bismarck, and, in

her Bonapartist zeal, each of them gave him a sounding kick, while

Tatan Nene kept saying:

 

“Bismarck! Why, they’ve simply driven me crazy with the chap! Oh,

I hate him! I didn’t know that there Bismarck! One can’t know

everybody.”

 

“Never mind,” said Lea de Horn by way of conclusion, “that Bismarck

will give us a jolly good threshing.”

 

But she could not continue. The ladies were all down on her at

once. Eh, what? A threshing? It was Bismarck they were going to

escort home with blows from the butt ends of their muskets. What

was this bad Frenchwoman going to say next?

 

“Hush,” whispered Rose, for so much noise hurt her.

 

The cold influence of the corpse once more overcame them, and they

all paused together. They were embarrassed; the dead woman was

before them again; a dull thread of coming ill possessed them. On

the boulevard the cry was passing, hoarse and wild:

 

“A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!”

 

Presently, when they were making up their minds to go, a voice was

heard calling from the passage:

 

“Rose! Rose!”

 

Gaga opened the door in astonishment and disappeared for a moment.

When she returned:

 

“My dear,” she said, “it’s Fauchery. He’s out there at the end of

the corridor. He won’t come any further, and he’s beside himself

because you still stay near that body.”

 

Mignon had at last succeeded in urging the journalist upstairs.

Lucy, who was still at the window, leaned out and caught sight of

the gentlemen out on the pavement. They were looking up, making

energetic signals to her. Mignon was shaking his fists in

exasperation, and Steiner, Fontan, Bordenave and the rest were

stretching out their arms with looks of anxious reproach, while

Daguenet simply stood smoking a cigar with his hands behind his

back, so as not to compromise himself.

 

“It’s true, dear,” said Lucy, leaving the window open; “I promised

to make you come down. They’re all calling us now.”

 

Rose slowly and painfully left the chest.

 

“I’m coming down; I’m coming down,” she whispered. “It’s very

certain she no longer needs me. They’re going to send in a Sister

of Mercy.”

 

And she turned round, searching for her hat and shawl. Mechanically

she filled a basin of water on the toilet table and while washing

her hands and face continued:

 

“I don’t know! It’s been a great blow to me. We used scarcely to

be nice to one another. Ah well! You see I’m quite silly over it

now. Oh! I’ve got all sorts of strange ideas—I want to die myself—

I feel the end of the world’s coming. Yes, I need air.”

 

The corpse was beginning to poison the atmosphere of the room. And

after long heedlessness there ensued a panic.

 

“Let’s be off; let’s be off, my little pets!” Gaga kept saying. “It

isn’t wholesome here.”

 

They went briskly out, casting a last glance at the bed as they

passed it. But while Lucy, Blanche and Caroline still remained

behind, Rose gave a final look round, for she wanted to leave the

room in order. She drew a curtain across the window, and then it

occurred to her that the lamp was not the proper thing and that a

taper should take its place. So she lit one of the copper

candelabra on the chimney piece and placed it on the night table

beside the corpse. A brilliant light suddenly illumined the dead

woman’s face. The women were horror-struck. They shuddered and

escaped.

 

“Ah, she’s changed; she’s changed!” murmured Rose Mignon,