At ten o’clock the next morning Nana was still asleep. She occupied the
second floor of a large new house in the Boulevard Haussmann, the
landlord of which let flats to single ladies in order by their means to
dry the paint. A rich merchant from Moscow, who had come to pass a
winter in Paris, had installed her there after paying six months’ rent
in advance. The rooms were too big for her and had never been
completely furnished. The vulgar sumptuosity of gilded consoles and
gilded chairs formed a crude contrast therein to the bric-a-brac of a
secondhand furniture shop—to mahogany round tables, that is to say, and
zinc candelabras, which sought to imitate Florentine bronze. All of
which smacked of the courtesan too early deserted by her first serious
protector and fallen back on shabby lovers, of a precarious first
appearance of a bad start, handicapped by refusals of credit and
threats of eviction.
Nana was sleeping on her face, hugging in her bare arms a pillow in
which she was burying cheeks grown pale in sleep. The bedroom and the
dressing room were the only two apartments which had been properly
furnished by a neighboring upholsterer. A ray of light, gliding in
under a curtain, rendered visible rosewood furniture and hangings and
chairbacks of figured damask with a pattern of big blue flowers on a
gray ground. But in the soft atmosphere of that slumbering chamber Nana
suddenly awoke with a start, as though surprised to find an empty place
at her side. She looked at the other pillow lying next to hers; there
was the dint of a human head among its flounces: it was still warm. And
groping with one hand, she pressed the knob of an electric bell by her
bed’s head.
“He’s gone then?” she asked the maid who presented herself.
“Yes, madame, Monsieur Paul went away not ten minutes back. As Madame
was tired, he did not wish to wake her. But he ordered me to tell
Madame that he would come tomorrow.”
As she spoke Zoé, the lady’s maid, opened the outer shutter. A flood of
daylight entered. Zoé, a dark brunette with hair in little plaits, had
a long canine face, at once livid and full of seams, a snub nose, thick
lips and two black eyes in continual movement.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow,” repeated Nana, who was not yet wide awake, “is
tomorrow the day?”
“Yes, madame, Monsieur Paul has always come on the Wednesday.”
“No, now I remember,” said the young woman, sitting up. “It’s all
changed. I wanted to tell him so this morning. He would run against the
nigger! We should have a nice to-do!”
“Madame did not warn me; I couldn’t be aware of it,” murmured Zoé.
“When Madame changes her days she will do well to tell me so that I may
know. Then the old miser is no longer due on the Tuesday?”
Between themselves they were wont thus gravely to nickname as “old
miser” and “nigger” their two paying visitors, one of whom was a
tradesman of economical tendencies from the Faubourg Saint-Denis, while
the other was a Walachian, a mock count, whose money, paid always at
the most irregular intervals, never looked as though it had been
honestly come by. Daguenet had made Nana give him the days subsequent
to the old miser’s visits, and as the trader had to be at home by eight
o’clock in the morning, the young man would watch for his departure
from Zoés kitchen and would take his place, which was still quite warm,
till ten o’clock. Then he, too, would go about his business. Nana and
he were wont to think it a very comfortable arrangement.
“So much the worse,” said Nana; “I’ll write to him this afternoon. And
if he doesn’t receive my letter, then tomorrow you will stop him coming
in.”
In the meantime Zoé was walking softly about the room. She spoke of
yesterday’s great hit. Madame had shown such talent; she sang so well!
Ah! Madame need not fret at all now!
Nana, her elbow dug into her pillow, only tossed her head in reply. Her
nightdress had slipped down on her shoulders, and her hair, unfastened
and entangled, flowed over them in masses.
“Without doubt,” she murmured, becoming thoughtful; “but what’s to be
done to gain time? I’m going to have all sorts of bothers today. Now
let’s see, has the porter come upstairs yet this morning?”
Then both the women talked together seriously. Nana owed three
quarters’ rent; the landlord was talking of seizing the furniture.
Then, too, there was a perfect downpour of creditors; there was a
livery-stable man, a needlewoman, a ladies’ tailor, a charcoal dealer
and others besides, who came every day and settled themselves on a
bench in the little hall. The charcoal dealer especially was a dreadful
fellow—he shouted on the staircase. But Nana’s greatest cause of
distress was her little Louis, a child she had given birth to when she
was sixteen and now left in charge of a nurse in a village in the
neighborhood of Rambouillet. This woman was clamoring for the sum of
three hundred francs before she would consent to give the little Louis
back to her. Nana, since her last visit to the child, had been seized
with a fit of maternal love and was desperate at the thought that she
could not realize a project, which had now become a hobby with her.
This was to pay off the nurse and to place the little man with his
aunt, Mme Lerat, at the Batignolles, whither she could go and see him
as often as she liked.
Meanwhile the lady’s maid kept hinting that her mistress ought to have
confided her necessities to the old miser.
“To be sure, I told him everything,” cried Nana, “and he told me in
answer that he had too many big liabilities. He won’t go beyond his
thousand francs a month. The nigger’s beggared just at present; I
expect he’s lost at play. As to that poor Mimi, he stands in great need
of a loan himself; a fall in stocks has cleaned him out—he can’t even
bring me flowers now.”
She was speaking of Daguenet. In the self-abandonment of her awakening
she had no secrets from Zoé, and the latter, inured to such
confidences, received them with respectful sympathy. Since Madame
condescended to speak to her of her affairs she would permit herself to
say what she thought. Besides, she was very fond of Madame; she had
left Mme Blanche for the express purpose of taking service with her,
and heaven knew Mme Blanche was straining every nerve to have her
again! Situations weren’t lacking; she was pretty well known, but she
would have stayed with Madame even in narrow circumstances, because she
believed in Madame’s future. And she concluded by stating her advice
with precision. When one was young one often did silly things. But this
time it was one’s duty to look alive, for the men only thought of
having their fun. Oh dear, yes! Things would right themselves. Madame
had only to say one word in order to quiet her creditors and find the
money she stood in need of.
“All that doesn’t help me to three hundred francs,” Nana kept repeating
as she plunged her fingers into the vagrant convolutions of her back
hair. “I must have three hundred francs today, at once! It’s stupid not
to know anyone who’ll give you three hundred francs.”
She racked her brains. She would have sent Mme Lerat, whom she was
expecting that very morning, to Rambouillet. The counteraction of her
sudden fancy spoiled for her the triumph of last night. Among all those
men who had cheered her, to think that there wasn’t one to bring her
fifteen louis! And then one couldn’t accept money in that way! Dear
heaven, how unfortunate she was! And she kept harking back again to the
subject of her baby—he had blue eyes like a cherub’s; he could lisp
“Mamma” in such a funny voice that you were ready to die of laughing!
But at this moment the electric bell at the outer door was heard to
ring with its quick and tremulous vibration. Zoé returned, murmuring
with a confidential air:
“It’s a woman.”
She had seen this woman a score of times, only she made believe never
to recognize her and to be quite ignorant of the nature of her
relations with ladies in difficulties.
“She has told me her name—Madame Tricon.”
“The Tricon,” cried Nana. “Dear me! That’s true. I’d forgotten her.
Show her in.”
Zoé ushered in a tall old lady who wore ringlets and looked like a
countess who haunts lawyers’ offices. Then she effaced herself,
disappearing noiselessly with the lithe, serpentine movement wherewith
she was wont to withdraw from a room on the arrival of a gentleman.
However, she might have stayed. The Tricon did not even sit down. Only
a brief exchange of words took place.
“I have someone for you today. Do you care about it?”
“Yes. How much?”
“Twenty louis.”
“At what o’clock?”
“At three. It’s settled then?”
“It’s settled.”
Straightway the Tricon talked of the state of the weather. It was dry
weather, pleasant for walking. She had still four or five persons to
see. And she took her departure after consulting a small memorandum
book. When she was once more alone Nana appeared comforted. A slight
shiver agitated her shoulders, and she wrapped herself softly up again
in her warm bedclothes with the lazy movements of a cat who is
susceptible to cold. Little by little her eyes closed, and she lay
smiling at the thought of dressing Louiset prettily on the following
day, while in the slumber into which she once more sank last night’s
long, feverish dream of endlessly rolling applause returned like a
sustained accompaniment to music and gently soothed her lassitude.
At eleven o’clock, when Zoé showed Mme Lerat into the room, Nana was
still asleep. But she woke at the noise and cried out at once:
“It’s you. You’ll go to Rambouillet today?”
“That’s what I’ve come for,” said the aunt. “There’s a train at twenty
past twelve. I’ve got time to catch it.”
“No, I shall only have the money by and by,” replied the young woman,
stretching herself and throwing out her bosom. “You’ll have lunch, and
then we’ll see.”
Zoé brought a dressing jacket.
“The hairdresser’s here, madame,” she murmured.
But Nana did not wish to go into the dressing room. And she herself
cried out:
“Come in, Francis.”
A well-dressed man pushed open the door and bowed. Just at that moment
Nana was getting out of bed, her bare legs in full view. But she did
not hurry and stretched her hands out so as to let Zoé draw on the
sleeves of the dressing jacket. Francis, on his part, was quite at his
ease and without turning away waited with a sober expression on his
face.
“Perhaps Madame has not seen the papers. There’s a very nice article in
the Figaro.”
He had brought the journal. Mme Lerat put on her spectacles and read
the article aloud, standing in front of the window as she did so. She
had the build of a policeman, and she drew herself up to her full
height, while her nostrils seemed to compress themselves whenever she
uttered a gallant epithet. It was a notice by Fauchery, written just
after the performance, and it consisted of a couple of very glowing
columns, full of witty sarcasm about the artist and of broad admiration
for the woman.
“Excellent!” Francis kept repeating.
Nana laughed good-humoredly at his chaffing her about her voice! He was
a nice fellow, was that Fauchery, and she would repay him for his
charming style of writing. Mme Lerat, after having reread the notice,
roundly declared that the men all had the devil in their shanks, and
she refused to explain her self further, being fully satisfied with a
brisk allusion of which she alone knew the meaning. Francis finished
turning up and fastening Nana’s hair. He bowed and said:
“I’ll keep my eye on the evening papers. At half-past five as usual,
eh?”
“Bring me a pot of pomade and a pound of burnt almonds from
Boissier’s,” Nana cried to him across the drawing room just as he was
shutting the door after him.
Then the two women, once more alone, recollected that they had not
embraced, and they planted big kisses on each other’s cheeks. The
notice warmed their hearts. Nana, who up till now had been half asleep,
was again seized with the fever of her triumph. Dear, dear, ’twas Rose
Mignon that would be spending a pleasant morning! Her aunt having been
unwilling to go to the theater because, as she averred, sudden emotions
ruined her stomach, Nana set herself to describe the events of the
evening and grew intoxicated at her own recital, as though all Paris
had been shaken to the ground by the applause. Then suddenly
interrupting herself, she asked with a laugh if one would ever have
imagined it all when she used to go traipsing about the Rue de la
Goutte-d’Or. Mme Lerat shook her head. No, no, one never could have
foreseen it! And she began talking in her turn, assuming a serious air
as she did so and calling Nana “daughter.” Wasn’t she a second mother
to her since the first had gone to rejoin Papa and Grandmamma? Nana was
greatly softened and on the verge of tears. But Mme Lerat declared that
the past was the past—oh yes, to be sure, a dirty past with things in
it which it was as well not to stir up every day. She had left off
seeing her niece for a long time because among the family she was
accused of ruining herself along with the little thing. Good God, as
though that were possible! She didn’t ask for confidences; she believed
that Nana had always lived decently, and now it was enough for her to
have found her again in a fine position and to observe her kind
feelings toward her son. Virtue and hard work were still the only
things worth anything in this world.
“Who is the baby’s father?” she said, interrupting herself, her eyes
lit up with an expression of acute curiosity.
Nana was taken by surprise and hesitated a moment.
“A gentleman,” she replied.
“There now!” rejoined the aunt. “They declared that you had him by a
stonemason who was in the habit of beating you. Indeed, you shall tell
me all about it someday; you know I’m discreet! Tut, tut, I’ll look
after him as though he were a prince’s son.”
She had retired from business as a florist and was living on her
savings, which she had got together sou by sou, till now they brought
her in an income of six hundred francs a year. Nana promised to rent
some pretty little lodgings for her and to give her a hundred francs a
month besides. At the mention of this sum the aunt forgot herself and
shrieked to her niece, bidding her squeeze their throats, since she had
them in her grasp. She was meaning the men, of course. Then they both
embraced again, but in the midst of her rejoicing Nana’s face, as she
led the talk back to the subject of Louiset, seemed to be overshadowed
by a sudden recollection.
“Isn’t it a bore I’ve got to go out at three o’clock?” she muttered.
“It IS a nuisance!”
Just then Zoé came in to say that lunch was on the table. They went
into the dining room, where an old lady was already seated at table.
She had not taken her hat off, and she wore a dark dress of an
indecisive color midway between puce and goose dripping. Nana did not
seem surprised at sight of her. She simply asked her why she hadn’t
come into the bedroom.
“I heard voices,” replied the old lady. “I thought you had company.”
Mme Maloir, a respectable-looking and mannerly woman, was Nana’s old
friend, chaperon and companion. Mme Lerat’s presence seemed to fidget
her at first. Afterward, when she became aware that it was Nana’s aunt,
she looked at her with a sweet expression and a die-away smile. In the
meantime Nana, who averred that she was as hungry as a wolf, threw
herself on the radishes and gobbled them up without bread. Mme Lerat
had become ceremonious; she refused the radishes as provocative of
phlegm. By and by when Zoé had brought in the cutlets Nana just chipped
the meat and contented herself with sucking the bones. Now and again
she scrutinized her old friend’s hat out of the corners of her eyes.
“It’s the new hat I gave you?” she ended by saying.
“Yes, I made it up,” murmured Mme Maloir, her mouth full of meat.
The hat was smart to distraction. In front it was greatly exaggerated,
and it was adorned with a lofty feather. Mme Maloir had a mania for
doing up all her hats afresh; she alone knew what really became her,
and with a few stitches she could manufacture a toque out of the most
elegant headgear. Nana, who had bought her this very hat in order not
to be ashamed of her when in her company out of doors, was very near
being vexed.
“Push it up, at any rate,” she cried.
“No, thank you,” replied the old lady with dignity. “It doesn’t get in
my way; I can eat very comfortably as it is.”
After the cutlets came cauliflowers and the remains of a cold chicken.
But at the arrival of each successive dish Nana made a little face,
hesitated, sniffed and left her plateful untouched. She finished her
lunch with the help of preserve.
Dessert took a long time. Zoé did not remove the cloth before serving
the coffee. Indeed, the ladies simply pushed back their plates before
taking it. They talked continually of yesterday’s charming evening.
Nana kept rolling cigarettes, which she smoked, swinging up and down on
her backward-tilted chair. And as Zoé had remained behind and was
lounging idly against the sideboard, it came about that the company
were favored with her history. She said she was the daughter of a
midwife at Bercy who had failed in business. First of all she had taken
service with a dentist and after that with an insurance agent, but
neither place suited her, and she thereupon enumerated, not without a
certain amount of pride, the names of the ladies with whom she had
served as lady’s maid. Zoé spoke of these ladies as one who had had the
making of their fortunes. It was very certain that without her more
than one would have had some queer tales to tell. Thus one day, when
Mme Blanche was with M. Octave, in came the old gentleman. What did Zoé
do? She made believe to tumble as she crossed the drawing room; the old
boy rushed up to her assistance, flew to the kitchen to fetch her a
glass of water, and M. Octave slipped away.
“Oh, she’s a good girl, you bet!” said Nana, who was listening to her
with tender interest and a sort of submissive admiration.
“Now I’ve had my troubles,” began Mme Lerat. And edging up to Mme
Maloir, she imparted to her certain confidential confessions. Both
ladies took lumps of sugar dipped in cognac and sucked them. But Mme
Maloir was wont to listen to other people’s secrets without even
confessing anything concerning herself. People said that she lived on a
mysterious allowance in a room whither no one ever penetrated.
All of a sudden Nana grew excited.
“Don’t play with the knives, Aunt. You know it gives me a turn!”
Without thinking about it Mme Lerat had crossed two knives on the table
in front of her. Notwithstanding this, the young woman defended herself
from the charge of superstition. Thus, if the salt were upset, it meant
nothing, even on a Friday; but when it came to knives, that was too
much of a good thing; that had never proved fallacious. There could be
no doubt that something unpleasant was going to happen to her. She
yawned, and then with an air, of profound boredom:
“Two o’clock already. I must go out. What a nuisance!”
The two old ladies looked at one another. The three women shook their
heads without speaking. To be sure, life was not always amusing. Nana
had tilted her chair back anew and lit a cigarette, while the others
sat pursing up their lips discreetly, thinking deeply philosophic
thoughts.
“While waiting for you to return we’ll play a game of bezique,” said
Mme Maloir after a short silence. “Does Madame play bezique?”
Certainly Mme Lerat played it, and that to perfection. It was no good
troubling Zoé, who had vanished—a corner of the table would do quite
well. And they pushed back the tablecloth over the dirty plates. But as
Mme Maloir was herself going to take the cards out of a drawer in the
sideboard, Nana remarked that before she sat down to her game it would
be very nice of her if she would write her a letter. It bored Nana to
write letters; besides, she was not sure of her spelling, while her old
friend could turn out the most feeling epistles. She ran to fetch some
good note paper in her bedroom. An inkstand consisting of a bottle of
ink worth about three sous stood untidily on one of the pieces of
furniture, with a pen deep in rust beside it. The letter was for
Daguenet. Mme Maloir herself wrote in her bold English hand, “My
darling little man,” and then she told him not to come tomorrow because
“that could not be” but hastened to add that “she was with him in
thought at every moment of the day, whether she were near or far away.”
“And I end with ‘a thousand kisses,’” she murmured.
Mme Lerat had shown her approval of each phrase with an emphatic nod.
Her eyes were sparkling; she loved to find herself in the midst of love
affairs. Nay, she was seized with a desire to add some words of her own
and, assuming a tender look and cooing like a dove, she suggested:
“A thousand kisses on thy beautiful eyes.”
“That’s the thing: ‘a thousand kisses on thy beautiful eyes’!” Nana
repeated, while the two old ladies assumed a beatified expression.
Zoé was rung for and told to take the letter down to a commissionaire.
She had just been talking with the theater messenger, who had brought
her mistress the day’s playbill and rehearsal arrangements, which he
had forgotten in the morning. Nana had this individual ushered in and
got him to take the latter to Daguenet on his return. Then she put
questions to him. Oh yes! M. Bordenave was very pleased; people had
already taken seats for a week to come; Madame had no idea of the
number of people who had been asking her address since morning. When
the man had taken his departure Nana announced that at most she would
only be out half an hour. If there were any visitors Zoé would make
them wait. As she spoke the electric bell sounded. It was a creditor in
the shape of the man of whom she jobbed her carriages. He had settled
himself on the bench in the anteroom, and the fellow was free to
twiddle his thumbs till night—there wasn’t the least hurry now.
“Come, buck up!” said Nana, still torpid with laziness and yawning and
stretching afresh. “I ought to be there now!”
Yet she did not budge but kept watching the play of her aunt, who had
just announced four aces. Chin on hand, she grew quite engrossed in it
but gave a violent start on hearing three o’clock strike.
“Good God!” she cried roughly.
Then Mme Maloir, who was counting the tricks she had won with her tens
and aces, said cheeringly to her in her soft voice:
“It would be better, dearie, to give up your expedition at once.”
“No, be quick about it,” said Mme Lerat, shuffling the cards. “I shall
take the half-past four o’clock train if you’re back here with the
money before four o’clock.”
“Oh, there’ll be no time lost,” she murmured.
Ten minutes after Zoé helped her on with a dress and a hat. It didn’t
matter much if she were badly turned out. Just as she was about to go
downstairs there was a new ring at the bell. This time it was the
charcoal dealer. Very well, he might keep the livery-stable keeper
company—it would amuse the fellows. Only, as she dreaded a scene, she
crossed the kitchen and made her escape by the back stairs. She often
went that way and in return had only to lift up her flounces.
“When one is a good mother anything’s excusable,” said Mme Maloir
sententiously when left alone with Mme Lerat.
“Four kings,” replied this lady, whom the play greatly excited.
And they both plunged into an interminable game.
The table had not been cleared. The smell of lunch and the cigarette
smoke filled the room with an ambient, steamy vapor. The two ladies had
again set to work dipping lumps of sugar in brandy and sucking the
same. For twenty minutes at least they played and sucked simultaneously
when, the electric bell having rung a third time, Zoé bustled into the
room and roughly disturbed them, just as if they had been her own
friends.
“Look here, that’s another ring. You can’t stay where you are. If many
folks call I must have the whole flat. Now off you go, off you go!”
Mme Maloir was for finishing the game, but Zoé looked as if she was
going to pounce down on the cards, and so she decided to carry them off
without in any way altering their positions, while Mme Lerat undertook
the removal of the brandy bottle, the glasses and the sugar. Then they
both scudded to the kitchen, where they installed themselves at the
table in an empty space between the dishcloths, which were spread out
to dry, and the bowl still full of dishwater.
“We said it was three hundred and forty. It’s your turn.”
“I play hearts.”
When Zoé returned she found them once again absorbed. After a silence,
as Mme Lerat was shuffling, Mme Maloir asked who it was.
“Oh, nobody to speak of,” replied the servant carelessly; “a slip of a
lad! I wanted to send him away again, but he’s such a pretty boy with
never a hair on his chin and blue eyes and a girl’s face! So I told him
to wait after all. He’s got an enormous bouquet in his hand, which he
never once consented to put down. One would like to catch him one—a
brat like that who ought to be at school still!”
Mme Lerat went to fetch a water bottle to mix herself some brandy and
water, the lumps of sugar having rendered her thirsty. Zoé muttered
something to the effect that she really didn’t mind if she drank
something too. Her mouth, she averred, was as bitter as gall.
“So you put him—?” continued Mme Maloir.
“Oh yes, I put him in the closet at the end of the room, the little
unfurnished one. There’s only one of my lady’s trunks there and a
table. It’s there I stow the lubbers.”
And she was putting plenty of sugar in her grog when the electric bell
made her jump. Oh, drat it all! Wouldn’t they let her have a drink in
peace? If they were to have a peal of bells things promised well.
Nevertheless, she ran off to open the door. Returning presently, she
saw Mme Maloir questioning her with a glance.
“It’s nothing,” she said, “only a bouquet.”
All three refreshed themselves, nodding to each other in token of
salutation. Then while Zoé was at length busy clearing the table,
bringing the plates out one by one and putting them in the sink, two
other rings followed close upon one another. But they weren’t serious,
for while keeping the kitchen informed of what was going on she twice
repeated her disdainful expression:
“Nothing, only a bouquet.”
Notwithstanding which, the old ladies laughed between two of their
tricks when they heard her describe the looks of the creditors in the
anteroom after the flowers had arrived. Madame would find her bouquets
on her toilet table. What a pity it was they cost such a lot and that
you could only get ten sous for them! Oh dear, yes, plenty of money was
wasted!
“For my part,” said Mme Maloir, “I should be quite content if every day
of my life I got what the men in Paris had spent on flowers for the
women.”
“Now, you know, you’re not hard to please,” murmured Mme Lerat. “Why,
one would have only just enough to buy thread with. Four queens, my
dear.”
It was ten minutes to four. Zoé was astonished, could not understand
why her mistress was out so long. Ordinarily when Madame found herself
obliged to go out in the afternoons she got it over in double-quick
time. But Mme Maloir declared that one didn’t always manage things as
one wished. Truly, life was beset with obstacles, averred Mme Lerat.
The best course was to wait. If her niece was long in coming it was
because her occupations detained her; wasn’t it so? Besides, they
weren’t overworked—it was comfortable in the kitchen. And as hearts
were out, Mme Lerat threw down diamonds.
The bell began again, and when Zoé reappeared she was burning with
excitement.
“My children, it’s fat Steiner!” she said in the doorway, lowering her
voice as she spoke. “I’ve put HIM in the little sitting room.”
Thereupon Mme Maloir spoke about the banker to Mme Lerat, who knew no
such gentleman. Was he getting ready to give Rose Mignon the go-by? Zoé
shook her head; she knew a thing or two. But once more she had to go
and open the door.
“Here’s bothers!” she murmured when she came back. “It’s the nigger!
’Twasn’t any good telling him that my lady’s gone out, and so he’s
settled himself in the bedroom. We only expected him this evening.”
At a quarter past four Nana was not in yet. What could she be after? It
was silly of her! Two other bouquets were brought round, and Zoé,
growing bored looked to see if there were any coffee left. Yes, the
ladies would willingly finish off the coffee; it would waken them up.
Sitting hunched up on their chairs, they were beginning to fall asleep
through dint of constantly taking their cards between their fingers
with the accustomed movement. The half-hour sounded. Something must
decidedly have happened to Madame. And they began whispering to each
other.
Suddenly Mme Maloir forgot herself and in a ringing voice announced:
“I’ve the five hundred! Trumps, Major Quint!”
“Oh, do be quiet!” said Zoé angrily. “What will all those gentlemen
think?” And in the silence which ensued and amid the whispered
muttering of the two old women at strife over their game, the sound of
rapid footsteps ascended from the back stairs. It was Nana at last.
Before she had opened the door her breathlessness became audible. She
bounced abruptly in, looking very red in the face. Her skirt, the
string of which must have been broken, was trailing over the stairs,
and her flounces had just been dipped in a puddle of something
unpleasant which had oozed out on the landing of the first floor, where
the servant girl was a regular slut.
“Here you are! It’s lucky!” said Mme Lerat, pursing up her lips, for
she was still vexed at Mme Maloir’s “five hundred.” “You may flatter
yourself at the way you keep folks waiting.”
“Madame isn’t reasonable; indeed, she isn’t!” added Zoé.
Nana was already harassed, and these reproaches exasperated her. Was
that the way people received her after the worry she had gone through?
“Will you blooming well leave me alone, eh?” she cried.
“Hush, ma’am, there are people in there,” said the maid.
Then in lower tones the young Woman stuttered breathlessly:
“D’you suppose I’ve been having a good time? Why, there was no end to
it. I should have liked to see you there! I was boiling with rage! I
felt inclined to smack somebody. And never a cab to come home in!
Luckily it’s only a step from here, but never mind that; I did just run
home.”
“You have the money?” asked the aunt.
“Dear, dear! That question!” rejoined Nana.
She had sat herself down on a chair close up against the stove, for her
legs had failed her after so much running, and without stopping to take
breath she drew from behind her stays an envelope in which there were
four hundred-franc notes. They were visible through a large rent she
had torn with savage fingers in order to be sure of the contents. The
three women round about her stared fixedly at the envelope, a big,
crumpled, dirty receptacle, as it lay clasped in her small gloved
hands.
It was too late now—Mme Lerat would not go to Rambouillet till
tomorrow, and Nana entered into long explanations.
“There’s company waiting for you,” the lady’s maid repeated.
But Nana grew excited again. The company might wait: she’d go to them
all in good time when she’d finished. And as her aunt began putting her
hand out for the money:
“Ah no! Not all of it,” she said. “Three hundred francs for the nurse,
fifty for your journey and expenses, that’s three hundred and fifty.
Fifty francs I keep.”
The big difficulty was how to find change. There were not ten francs in
the house. But they did not even address themselves to Mme Maloir who,
never having more than a six-sou omnibus fair upon her, was listening
in quite a disinterested manner. At length Zoé went out of the room,
remarking that she would go and look in her box, and she brought back a
hundred francs in hundred-sou pieces. They were counted out on a corner
of the table, and Mme Lerat took her departure at once after having
promised to bring Louiset back with her the following day.
“You say there’s company there?” continued Nana, still sitting on the
chair and resting herself.
“Yes, madame, three people.”
And Zoé mentioned the banker first. Nana made a face. Did that man
Steiner think she was going to let herself be bored because he had
thrown her a bouquet yesterday evening?
“Besides, I’ve had enough of it,” she declared. “I shan’t receive
today. Go and say you don’t expect me now.”
“Madame will think the matter over; Madame will receive Monsieur
Steiner,” murmured Zoé gravely, without budging from her place. She was
annoyed to see her mistress on the verge of committing another foolish
mistake.
Then she mentioned the Walachian, who ought by now to find time hanging
heavy on his hands in the bedroom. Whereupon Nana grew furious and more
obstinate than ever. No, she would see nobody, nobody! Who’d sent her
such a blooming leech of a man?
“Chuck ’em all out! I—I’m going to play a game of bezique with Madame
Maloir. I prefer doing that.”
The bell interrupted her remarks. That was the last straw. Another of
the beggars yet! She forbade Zoé to go and open the door, but the
latter had left the kitchen without listening to her, and when she
reappeared she brought back a couple of cards and said authoritatively:
“I told them that Madame was receiving visitors. The gentlemen are in
the drawing room.”
Nana had sprung up, raging, but the names of the Marquis de Chouard and
of Count Muffat de Beuville, which were inscribed on the cards, calmed
her down. For a moment or two she remained silent.
“Who are they?” she asked at last. “You know them?”
“I know the old fellow,” replied Zoé, discreetly pursing up her lips.
And her mistress continuing to question her with her eyes, she added
simply:
“I’ve seen him somewhere.”
This remark seemed to decide the young woman. Regretfully she left the
kitchen, that asylum of steaming warmth, where you could talk and take
your ease amid the pleasant fumes of the coffeepot which was being kept
warm over a handful of glowing embers. She left Mme Maloir behind her.
That lady was now busy reading her fortune by the cards; she had never
yet taken her hat off, but now in order to be more at her ease she
undid the strings and threw them back over her shoulders.
In the dressing room, where Zoé rapidly helped her on with a tea gown,
Nana revenged herself for the way in which they were all boring her by
muttering quiet curses upon the male sex. These big words caused the
lady’s maid not a little distress, for she saw with pain that her
mistress was not rising superior to her origin as quickly as she could
have desired. She even made bold to beg Madame to calm herself.
“You bet,” was Nana’s crude answer; “they’re swine; they glory in that
sort of thing.”
Nevertheless, she assumed her princesslike manner, as she was wont to
call it. But just when she was turning to go into the drawing room Zoé
held her back and herself introduced the Marquis de Chouard and the
Count Muffat into the dressing room. It was much better so.
“I regret having kept you waiting, gentlemen,” said the young woman
with studied politeness.
The two men bowed and seated themselves. A blind of embroidered tulle
kept the little room in twilight. It was the most elegant chamber in
the flat, for it was hung with some light-colored fabric and contained
a cheval glass framed in inlaid wood, a lounge chair and some others
with arms and blue satin upholsteries. On the toilet table the
bouquets—roses, lilacs and hyacinths—appeared like a very ruin of
flowers. Their perfume was strong and penetrating, while through the
dampish air of the place, which was full of the spoiled exhalations of
the washstand, came occasional whiffs of a more pungent scent, the
scent of some grains or dry patchouli ground to fine powder at the
bottom of a cup. And as she gathered herself together and drew up her
dressing jacket, which had been ill fastened, Nana had all the
appearance of having been surprised at her toilet: her skin was still
damp; she smiled and looked quite startled amid her frills and laces.
“Madame, you will pardon our insistence,” said the Count Muffat
gravely. “We come on a quest. Monsieur and I are members of the
Benevolent Organization of the district.”
The Marquis de Chouard hastened gallantly to add:
“When we learned that a great artiste lived in this house we promised
ourselves that we would put the claims of our poor people before her in
a very special manner. Talent is never without a heart.”
Nana pretended to be modest. She answered them with little assenting
movements of her head, making rapid reflections at the same time. It
must be the old man that had brought the other one: he had such wicked
eyes. And yet the other was not to be trusted either: the veins near
his temples were so queerly puffed up. He might quite well have come by
himself. Ah, now that she thought of it, it was this way: the porter
had given them her name, and they had egged one another on, each with
his own ends in view.
“Most certainly, gentlemen, you were quite right to come up,” she said
with a very good grace.
But the electric bell made her tremble again. Another call, and that
Zoé always opening the door! She went on:
“One is only too happy to be able to give.”
At bottom she was flattered.
“Ah, madame,” rejoined the marquis, “if only you knew about it! there’s
such misery! Our district has more than three thousand poor people in
it, and yet it’s one of the richest. You cannot picture to yourself
anything like the present distress—children with no bread, women ill,
utterly without assistance, perishing of the cold!”
“The poor souls!” cried Nana, very much moved.
Such was her feeling of compassion that tears flooded her fine eyes. No
longer studying deportment, she leaned forward with a quick movement,
and under her open dressing jacket her neck became visible, while the
bent position of her knees served to outline the rounded contour of the
thigh under the thin fabric of her skirt. A little flush of blood
appeared in the marquis’s cadaverous cheeks. Count Muffat, who was on
the point of speaking, lowered his eyes. The air of that little room
was too hot: it had the close, heavy warmth of a greenhouse. The roses
were withering, and intoxicating odors floated up from the patchouli in
the cup.
“One would like to be very rich on occasions like this,” added Nana.
“Well, well, we each do what we can. Believe me, gentlemen, if I had
known—”
She was on the point of being guilty of a silly speech, so melted was
she at heart. But she did not end her sentence and for a moment was
worried at not being able to remember where she had put her fifty
francs on changing her dress. But she recollected at last: they must be
on the corner of her toilet table under an inverted pomatum pot. As she
was in the act of rising the bell sounded for quite a long time.
Capital! Another of them still! It would never end. The count and the
marquis had both risen, too, and the ears of the latter seemed to be
pricked up and, as it were, pointing toward the door; doubtless he knew
that kind of ring. Muffat looked at him; then they averted their gaze
mutually. They felt awkward and once more assumed their frigid bearing,
the one looking square-set and solid with his thick head of hair, the
other drawing back his lean shoulders, over which fell his fringe of
thin white locks.
“My faith,” said Nana, bringing the ten big silver pieces and quite
determined to laugh about it, “I am going to entrust you with this,
gentlemen. It is for the poor.”
And the adorable little dimple in her chin became apparent. She assumed
her favorite pose, her amiable baby expression, as she held the pile of
five-franc pieces on her open palm and offered it to the men, as though
she were saying to them, “Now then, who wants some?” The count was the
sharper of the two. He took fifty francs but left one piece behind and,
in order to gain possession of it, had to pick it off the young woman’s
very skin, a moist, supple skin, the touch of which sent a thrill
through him. She was thoroughly merry and did not cease laughing.
“Come, gentlemen,” she continued. “Another time I hope to give more.”
The gentlemen no longer had any pretext for staying, and they bowed and
went toward the door. But just as they were about to go out the bell
rang anew. The marquis could not conceal a faint smile, while a frown
made the count look more grave than before. Nana detained them some
seconds so as to give Zoé time to find yet another corner for the
newcomers. She did not relish meetings at her house. Only this time the
whole place must be packed! She was therefore much relieved when she
saw the drawing room empty and asked herself whether Zoé had really
stuffed them into the cupboards.
“Au revoir, gentlemen,” she said, pausing on the threshold of the
drawing room.
It was as though she lapped them in her laughing smile and clear,
unclouded glance. The Count Muffat bowed slightly. Despite his great
social experience he felt that he had lost his equilibrium. He needed
air; he was overcome with the dizzy feeling engendered in that dressing
room with a scent of flowers, with a feminine essence which choked him.
And behind his back, the Marquis de Chouard, who was sure that he could
not be seen, made so bold as to wink at Nana, his whole face suddenly
altering its expression as he did so, and his tongue nigh lolling from
his mouth.
When the young woman re-entered the little room, where Zoé was awaiting
her with letters and visiting cards, she cried out, laughing more
heartily than ever:
“There are a pair of beggars for you! Why, they’ve got away with my
fifty francs!”
She wasn’t vexed. It struck her as a joke that MEN should have got
money out of her. All the same, they were swine, for she hadn’t a sou
left. But at sight of the cards and the letters her bad temper
returned. As to the letters, why, she said “pass” to them. They were
from fellows who, after applauding her last night, were now making
their declarations. And as to the callers, they might go about their
business!
Zoé had stowed them all over the place, and she called attention to the
great capabilities of the flat, every room in which opened on the
corridor. That wasn’t the case at Mme Blanche’s, where people had all
to go through the drawing room. Oh yes, Mme Blanche had had plenty of
bothers over it!
“You will send them all away,” continued Nana in pursuance of her idea.
“Begin with the nigger.”
“Oh, as to him, madame, I gave him his marching orders a while ago,”
said Zoé with a grin. “He only wanted to tell Madame that he couldn’t
come to-night.”
There was vast joy at this announcement, and Nana clapped her hands. He
wasn’t coming, what good luck! She would be free then! And she emitted
sighs of relief, as though she had been let off the most abominable of
tortures. Her first thought was for Daguenet. Poor duck, why, she had
just written to tell him to wait till Thursday! Quick, quick, Mme
Maloir should write a second letter! But Zoé announced that Mme Maloir
had slipped away unnoticed, according to her wont. Whereupon Nana,
after talking of sending someone to him, began to hesitate. She was
very tired. A long night’s sleep—oh, it would be so jolly! The thought
of such a treat overcame her at last. For once in a way she could allow
herself that!
“I shall go to bed when I come back from the theater,” she murmured
greedily, “and you won’t wake me before noon.”
Then raising her voice:
“Now then, gee up! Shove the others downstairs!”
Zoé did not move. She would never have dreamed of giving her mistress
overt advice, only now she made shift to give Madame the benefit of her
experience when Madame seemed to be running her hot head against a
wall.
“Monsieur Steiner as well?” she queried curtly.
“Why, certainly!” replied Nana. “Before all the rest.”
The maid still waited, in order to give her mistress time for
reflection. Would not Madame be proud to get such a rich gentleman away
from her rival Rose Mignon—a man, moreover, who was known in all the
theaters?
“Now make haste, my dear,” rejoined Nana, who perfectly understood the
situation, “and tell him he pesters me.”
But suddenly there was a reversion of feeling. Tomorrow she might want
him. Whereupon she laughed, winked once or twice and with a naughty
little gesture cried out:
“After all’s said and done, if I want him the best way even now is to
kick him out of doors.”
Zoé seemed much impressed. Struck with a sudden admiration, she gazed
at her mistress and then went and chucked Steiner out of doors without
further deliberation.
Meanwhile Nana waited patiently for a second or two in order to give
her time to sweep the place out, as she phrased it. No one would ever
have expected such a siege! She craned her head into the drawing room
and found it empty. The dining room was empty too. But as she continued
her visitation in a calmer frame of mind, feeling certain that nobody
remained behind, she opened the door of a closet and came suddenly upon
a very young man. He was sitting on the top of a trunk, holding a huge
bouquet on his knees and looking exceedingly quiet and extremely well
behaved.
“Goodness gracious me!” she cried. “There’s one of ’em in there even
now!” The very young man had jumped down at sight of her and was
blushing as red as a poppy. He did not know what to do with his
bouquet, which he kept shifting from one hand to the other, while his
looks betrayed the extreme of emotion. His youth, his embarrassment and
the funny figure he cut in his struggles with his flowers melted Nana’s
heart, and she burst into a pretty peal of laughter. Well, now, the
very children were coming, were they? Men were arriving in long
clothes. So she gave up all airs and graces, became familiar and
maternal, tapped her leg and asked for fun:
“You want me to wipe your nose; do you, baby?”
“Yes,” replied the lad in a low, supplicating tone.
This answer made her merrier than ever. He was seventeen years old, he
said. His name was Georges Hugon. He was at the Variétés last night and
now he had come to see her.
“These flowers are for me?”
“Yes.”
“Then give ’em to me, booby!”
But as she took the bouquet from him he sprang upon her hands and
kissed them with all the gluttonous eagerness peculiar to his charming
time of life. She had to beat him to make him let go. There was a
dreadful little dribbling customer for you! But as she scolded him she
flushed rosy-red and began smiling. And with that she sent him about
his business, telling him that he might call again. He staggered away;
he could not find the doors.
Nana went back into her dressing room, where Francis made his
appearance almost simultaneously in order to dress her hair for the
evening. Seated in front of her mirror and bending her head beneath the
hairdresser’s nimble hands, she stayed silently meditative. Presently,
however, Zoé entered, remarking:
“There’s one of them, madame, who refuses to go.”
“Very well, he must be left alone,” she answered quietly.
“If that comes to that they still keep arriving.”
“Bah! Tell ’em to wait. When they begin to feel too hungry they’ll be
off.” Her humor had changed, and she was now delighted to make people
wait about for nothing. A happy thought struck her as very amusing; she
escaped from beneath Francis’ hands and ran and bolted the doors. They
might now crowd in there as much as they liked; they would probably
refrain from making a hole through the wall. Zoé could come in and out
through the little doorway leading to the kitchen. However, the
electric bell rang more lustily than ever. Every five minutes a clear,
lively little ting-ting recurred as regularly as if it had been
produced by some well-adjusted piece of mechanism. And Nana counted
these rings to while the time away withal. But suddenly she remembered
something.
“I say, where are my burnt almonds?”
Francis, too, was forgetting about the burnt almonds. But now he drew a
paper bag from one of the pockets of his frock coat and presented it to
her with the discreet gesture of a man who is offering a lady a
present. Nevertheless, whenever his accounts came to be settled, he
always put the burnt almonds down on his bill. Nana put the bag between
her knees and set to work munching her sweetmeats, turning her head
from time to time under the hairdresser’s gently compelling touch.
“The deuce,” she murmured after a silence, “there’s a troop for you!”
Thrice, in quick succession, the bell had sounded. Its summonses became
fast and furious. There were modest tintinnabulations which seemed to
stutter and tremble like a first avowal; there were bold rings which
vibrated under some rough touch and hasty rings which sounded through
the house with shivering rapidity. It was a regular peal, as Zoé said,
a peal loud enough to upset the neighborhood, seeing that a whole mob
of men were jabbing at the ivory button, one after the other. That old
joker Bordenave had really been far too lavish with her address. Why,
the whole of yesterday’s house was coming!
“By the by, Francis, have you five louis?” said Nana.
He drew back, looked carefully at her headdress and then quietly
remarked:
“Five louis, that’s according!”
“Ah, you know if you want securities . . .” she continued.
And without finishing her sentence, she indicated the adjoining rooms
with a sweeping gesture. Francis lent the five louis. Zoé, during each
momentary respite, kept coming in to get Madame’s things ready. Soon
she came to dress her while the hairdresser lingered with the intention
of giving some finishing touches to the headdress. But the bell kept
continually disturbing the lady’s maid, who left Madame with her stays
half laced and only one shoe on. Despite her long experience, the maid
was losing her head. After bringing every nook and corner into
requisition and putting men pretty well everywhere, she had been driven
to stow them away in threes and fours, which was a course of procedure
entirely opposed to her principles. So much the worse for them if they
ate each other up! It would afford more room! And Nana, sheltering
behind her carefully bolted door, began laughing at them, declaring
that she could hear them pant. They ought to be looking lovely in there
with their tongues hanging out like a lot of bowwows sitting round on
their behinds. Yesterday’s success was not yet over, and this pack of
men had followed up her scent.
“Provided they don’t break anything,” she murmured.
She began to feel some anxiety, for she fancied she felt their hot
breath coming through chinks in the door. But Zoé ushered Labordette
in, and the young woman gave a little shout of relief. He was anxious
to tell her about an account he had settled for her at the justice of
peace’s court. But she did not attend and said:
“I’ll take you along with me. We’ll have dinner together, and afterward
you shall escort me to the Variétés. I don’t go on before half-past
nine.”
Good old Labordette, how lucky it was he had come! He was a fellow who
never asked for any favors. He was only the friend of the women, whose
little bits of business he arranged for them. Thus on his way in he had
dismissed the creditors in the anteroom. Indeed, those good folks
really didn’t want to be paid. On the contrary, if they HAD been
pressing for payment it was only for the sake of complimenting Madame
and of personally renewing their offers of service after her grand
success of yesterday.
“Let’s be off, let’s be off,” said Nana, who was dressed by now.
But at that moment Zoé came in again, shouting:
“I refuse to open the door any more. They’re waiting in a crowd all
down the stairs.”
A crowd all down the stairs! Francis himself, despite the English
stolidity of manner which he was wont to affect, began laughing as he
put up his combs. Nana, who had already taken Labordette’s arm, pushed
him into the kitchen and effected her escape. At last she was delivered
from the men and felt happily conscious that she might now enjoy his
society anywhere without fear of stupid interruptions.
“You shall see me back to my door,” she said as they went down the
kitchen stairs. “I shall feel safe, in that case. Just fancy, I want to
sleep a whole night quite by myself—yes, a whole night! It’s sort of
infatuation, dear boy!”