Thereupon Nana became a smart woman, mistress of all that is foolish
and filthy in man, marquise in the ranks of her calling. It was a
sudden but decisive start, a plunge into the garish day of gallant
notoriety and mad expenditure and that daredevil wastefulness peculiar
to beauty. She at once became queen among the most expensive of her
kind. Her photographs were displayed in shopwindows, and she was
mentioned in the papers. When she drove in her carriage along the
boulevards the people would turn and tell one another who that was with
all the unction of a nation saluting its sovereign, while the object of
their adoration lolled easily back in her diaphanous dresses and smiled
gaily under the rain of little golden curls which ran riot above the
blue of her made-up eyes and the red of her painted lips. And the
wonder of wonders was that the great creature, who was so awkward on
the stage, so very absurd the moment she sought to act the chaste
woman, was able without effort to assume the role of an enchantress in
the outer world. Her movements were lithe as a serpent’s, and the
studied and yet seemingly involuntary carelessness with which she
dressed was really exquisite in its elegance. There was a nervous
distinction in all she did which suggested a wellborn Persian cat; she
was an aristocrat in vice and proudly and rebelliously trampled upon a
prostrate Paris like a sovereign whom none dare disobey. She set the
fashion, and great ladies imitated her.
Nana’s fine house was situated at the corner of the Rue Cardinet, in
the Avenue de Villiers. The avenue was part of the luxurious quarter at
that time springing up in the vague district which had once been the
Plaine Monceau. The house had been built by a young painter, who was
intoxicated by a first success, and had been perforce resold almost as
soon as it was habitable. It was in the palatial Renaissance manner and
had fantastic interior arrangements which consisted of modern
conveniences framed in a setting of somewhat artificial originality.
Count Muffat had bought the house ready furnished and full of hosts of
beautiful objects—lovely Eastern hangings, old credences, huge chairs
of the Louis XIII epoch. And thus Nana had come into artistic
surroundings of the choicest kind and of the most extravagantly various
dates. But since the studio, which occupied the central portion of the
house, could not be of any use to her, she had upset existing
arrangements, establishing a small drawing room on the first floor,
next to her bedroom and dressing room, and leaving a conservatory, a
large drawing room and a dining room to look after themselves
underneath. She astonished the architect with her ideas, for, as became
a Parisian workgirl who understands the elegancies of life by instinct,
she had suddenly developed a very pretty taste for every species of
luxurious refinement. Indeed, she did not spoil her house overmuch;
nay, she even added to the richness of the furniture, save here and
there, where certain traces of tender foolishness and vulgar
magnificence betrayed the ex-flower seller who had been wont to dream
in front of shopwindows in the arcades.
A carpet was spread on the steps beneath the great awning over the
front door in the court, and the moment you entered the hall you were
greeted by a perfume as of violets and a soft, warm atmosphere which
thick hangings helped to produce. A window, whose yellow-and
rose-colored panes suggested the warm pallor of human flesh, gave light
to the wide staircase, at the foot of which a Negro in carved wood held
out a silver tray full of visiting cards and four white marble women,
with bosoms displayed, raised lamps in their uplifted hands. Bronzes
and Chinese vases full of flowers, divans covered with old Persian
rugs, armchairs upholstered in old tapestry, furnished the entrance
hall, adorned the stairheads and gave the first-floor landing the
appearance of an anteroom. Here men’s overcoats and hats were always in
evidence, and there were thick hangings which deadened every sound. It
seemed a place apart: on entering it you might have fancied yourself in
a chapel, whose very air was thrilling with devotion, whose very
silence and seclusion were fraught with mystery.
Nana only opened the large and somewhat too-sumptuous Louis XVI drawing
room on those gala nights when she received society from the Tuileries
or strangers of distinction. Ordinarily she only came downstairs at
mealtimes, and she would feel rather lost on such days as she lunched
by herself in the lofty dining room with its Gobelin tapestry and its
monumental sideboard, adorned with old porcelain and marvelous pieces
of ancient plate. She used to go upstairs again as quickly as possible,
for her home was on the first floor, in the three rooms, the bed,
dressing and small drawing room above described. Twice already she had
done the bedchamber up anew: on the first occasion in mauve satin, on
the second in blue silk under lace. But she had not been satisfied with
this; it had struck her as “nohowish,” and she was still unsuccessfully
seeking for new colors and designs. On the elaborately upholstered bed,
which was as low as a sofa, there were twenty thousand francs’ worth of
POINT DE VENISE lace. The furniture was lacquered blue and white under
designs in silver filigree, and everywhere lay such numbers of white
bearskins that they hid the carpet. This was a luxurious caprice on
Nana’s part, she having never been able to break herself of the habit
of sitting on the floor to take her stockings off. Next door to the
bedroom the little saloon was full of an amusing medley of exquisitely
artistic objects. Against the hangings of pale rose-colored silk—a
faded Turkish rose color, embroidered with gold thread—a whole world of
them stood sharply outlined. They were from every land and in every
possible style. There were Italian cabinets, Spanish and Portuguese
coffers, models of Chinese pagodas, a Japanese screen of precious
workmanship, besides china, bronzes, embroidered silks, hangings of the
finest needlework. Armchairs wide as beds and sofas deep as alcoves
suggested voluptuous idleness and the somnolent life of the seraglio.
The prevailing tone of the room was old gold blended with green and
red, and nothing it contained too forcibly indicated the presence of
the courtesan save the luxuriousness of the seats. Only two “biscuit”
statuettes, a woman in her shift, hunting for fleas, and another with
nothing at all on, walking on her hands and waving her feet in the air,
sufficed to sully the room with a note of stupid originality.
Through a door, which was nearly always ajar, the dressing room was
visible. It was all in marble and glass with a white bath, silver jugs
and basins and crystal and ivory appointments. A drawn curtain filled
the place with a clear twilight which seemed to slumber in the warm
scent of violets, that suggestive perfume peculiar to Nana wherewith
the whole house, from the roof to the very courtyard, was penetrated.
The furnishing of the house was a most important undertaking. Nana
certainly had Zoé with her, that girl so devoted to her fortunes. For
months she had been tranquilly awaiting this abrupt, new departure, as
became a woman who was certain of her powers of prescience, and now she
was triumphant; she was mistress of the house and was putting by a
round sum while serving Madame as honestly as possible. But a solitary
lady’s maid was no longer sufficient. A butler, a coachman, a porter
and a cook were wanted. Besides, it was necessary to fill the stables.
It was then that Labordette made himself most useful. He undertook to
perform all sorts of errands which bored the count; he made a
comfortable job of the purchase of horses; he visited the
coachbuilders; he guided the young woman in her choice of things. She
was to be met with at the shops, leaning on his arm. Labordette even
got in the servants—Charles, a great, tall coachman, who had been in
service with the Duc de Corbreuse; Julien, a little, smiling,
much-becurled butler, and a married couple, of whom the wife Victorine
became cook while the husband Francois was taken on as porter and
footman. The last mentioned in powder and breeches wore Nana’s livery,
which was a sky-blue one adorned with silver lace, and he received
visitors in the hall. The whole thing was princely in the correctness
of its style.
At the end of two months the house was set going. The cost had been
more than three hundred thousand francs. There were eight horses in the
stables, and five carriages in the coach houses, and of these five one
was a landau with silver embellishments, which for the moment occupied
the attention of all Paris. And amid this great wealth Nana began
settling down and making her nest. After the third representation of
the Petite Duchesse she had quitted the theater, leaving Bordenave to
struggle on against a bankruptcy which, despite the count’s money, was
imminent. Nevertheless, she was still bitter about her failure. It
added to that other bitterness, the lesson Fontan had given her, a
shameful lesson for which she held all men responsible. Accordingly she
now declared herself very firm and quite proof against sudden
infatuations, but thoughts of vengeance took no hold of her volatile
brain. What did maintain a hold on it in the hours when she was not
indignant was an ever-wakeful lust of expenditure, added to a natural
contempt for the man who paid and to a perpetual passion for
consumption and waste, which took pride in the ruin of her lovers.
At starting Nana put the count on a proper footing and clearly mapped
out the conditions of their relationship. The count gave twelve
thousand francs monthly, presents excepted, and demanded nothing in
return save absolute fidelity. She swore fidelity but insisted also on
being treated with the utmost consideration, on enjoying complete
liberty as mistress of the house and on having her every wish
respected. For instance, she was to receive her friends every day, and
he was to come only at stated times. In a word, he was to repose a
blind confidence in her in everything. And when he was seized with
jealous anxiety and hesitated to grant what she wanted, she stood on
her dignity and threatened to give him back all he had given or even
swore by little Louiset to perform what she promised. This was to
suffice him. There was no love where mutual esteem was wanting. At the
end of the first month Muffat respected her.
But she desired and obtained still more. Soon she began to influence
him, as became a good-natured courtesan. When he came to her in a moody
condition she cheered him up, confessed him and then gave him good
advice. Little by little she interested herself in the annoyances of
his home life, in his wife, in his daughter, in his love affairs and
financial difficulties; she was very sensible, very fair and
right-minded. On one occasion only did she let anger get the better of
her, and that was when he confided to her that doubtless Daguenet was
going to ask for his daughter Estelle in marriage. When the count began
making himself notorious Daguenet had thought it a wise move to break
off with Nana. He had treated her like a base hussy and had sworn to
snatch his future father-in-law out of the creature’s clutches. In
return Nana abused her old Mimi in a charming fashion. He was a
renegade who had devoured his fortune in the company of vile women; he
had no moral sense. True, he did not let them pay him money, but he
profited by that of others and only repaid them at rare intervals with
a bouquet or a dinner. And when the count seemed inclined to find
excuses for these failings she bluntly informed him that Daguenet had
enjoyed her favors, and she added disgusting particulars. Muffat had
grown ashen-pale. There was no question of the young man now. This
would teach him to be lacking in gratitude!
Meanwhile the house had not been entirely furnished, when one evening
after she had lavished the most energetic promises of fidelity on
Muffat Nana kept the Count Xavier de Vandeuvres for the night. For the
last fortnight he had been paying her assiduous court, visiting her and
sending presents of flowers, and now she gave way not so much out of
sudden infatuation as to prove that she was a free woman. The idea of
gain followed later when, the day after, Vandeuvres helped her to pay a
bill which she did not wish to mention to the other man. From
Vandeuvres she would certainly derive from eight to ten thousand francs
a month, and this would prove very useful as pocket money. In those
days he was finishing the last of his fortune in an access of burning,
feverish folly. His horses and Lucy had devoured three of his farms,
and at one gulp Nana was going to swallow his last château, near
Amiens. He seemed in a hurry to sweep everything away, down to the
ruins of the old tower built by a Vandeuvres under Philip Augustus. He
was mad for ruin and thought it a great thing to leave the last golden
bezants of his coat of arms in the grasp of this courtesan, whom the
world of Paris desired. He, too, accepted Nana’s conditions, leaving
her entire freedom of action and claiming her caresses only on certain
days. He was not even naively impassioned enough to require her to make
vows. Muffat suspected nothing. As to Vandeuvres, he knew things would
take place for a certainty, but he never made the least allusion to
them and pretended total ignorance, while his lips wore the subtle
smile of the skeptical man of pleasure who does not seek the
impossible, provided he can have his day and that Paris is aware of it.
From that time forth Nana’s house was really properly appointed. The
staff of servants was complete in the stable, in the kitchen and in my
lady’s chamber. Zoé organized everything and passed successfully
through the most unforeseen difficulties. The household moved as easily
as the scenery in a theater and was regulated like a grand
administrative concern. Indeed, it worked with such precision that
during the early months there were no jars and no derangements. Madame,
however, pained Zoé extremely with her imprudent acts, her sudden fits
of unwisdom, her mad bravado. Still the lady’s maid grew gradually
lenient, for she had noticed that she made increased profits in seasons
of wanton waste when Madame had committed a folly which must be made up
for. It was then that the presents began raining on her, and she fished
up many a louis out of the troubled waters.
One morning when Muffat had not yet left the bedroom Zoé ushered a
gentleman into the dressing room, where Nana was changing her
underwear. He was trembling violently.
“Good gracious! It’s Zizi!” said the young woman in great astonishment.
It was, indeed, Georges. But when he saw her in her shift, with her
golden hair over her bare shoulders, he threw his arms round her neck
and round her waist and kissed her in all directions. She began
struggling to get free, for she was frightened, and in smothered tones
she stammered:
“Do leave off! He’s there! Oh, it’s silly of you! And you, Zoé, are you
out of your senses? Take him away and keep him downstairs; I’ll try and
come down.”
Zoé had to push him in front of her. When Nana was able to rejoin them
in the drawing room downstairs she scolded them both, and Zoé pursed up
her lips and took her departure with a vexed expression, remarking that
she had only been anxious to give Madame a pleasure. Georges was so
glad to see Nana again and gazed at her with such delight that his fine
eyes began filling with tears. The miserable days were over now; his
mother believed him to have grown reasonable and had allowed him to
leave Les Fondettes. Accordingly, the moment he had reached the
terminus, he had got a conveyance in order the more quickly to come and
kiss his sweet darling. He spoke of living at her side in future, as he
used to do down in the country when he waited for her, barefooted, in
the bedroom at La Mignotte. And as he told her about himself, he let
his fingers creep forward, for he longed to touch her after that cruel
year of separation. Then he got possession of her hands, felt about the
wide sleeves of her dressing jacket, traveled up as far as her
shoulders.
“You still love your baby?” he asked in his child voice.
“Oh, I certainly love him!” answered Nana, briskly getting out of his
clutches. “But you come popping in without warning. You know, my little
man, I’m not my own mistress; you must be good!”
Georges, when he got out of his cab, had been so dizzy with the feeling
that his long desire was at last about to be satisfied that he had not
even noticed what sort of house he was entering. But now he became
conscious of a change in the things around him. He examined the
sumptuous dining room with its lofty decorated ceiling, its Gobelin
hangings, its buffet blazing with plate.
“Yes, yes!” he remarked sadly.
And with that she made him understand that he was never to come in the
mornings but between four and six in the afternoon, if he cared to.
That was her reception time. Then as he looked at her with suppliant,
questioning eyes and craved no boon at all, she, in her turn, kissed
him on the forehead in the most amiable way.
“Be very good,” she whispered. “I’ll do all I can.”
But the truth was that this remark now meant nothing. She thought
Georges very nice and would have liked him as a companion, but as
nothing else. Nevertheless, when he arrived daily at four o’clock he
seemed so wretched that she was often fain to be as compliant as of old
and would hide him in cupboards and constantly allow him to pick up the
crumbs from Beauty’s table. He hardly ever left the house now and
became as much one of its inmates as the little dog Bijou. Together
they nestled among Mistress’s skirts and enjoyed a little of her at a
time, even when she was with another man, while doles of sugar and
stray caresses not seldom fell to their share in her hours of
loneliness and boredom.
Doubtless Mme Hugon found out that the lad had again returned to that
wicked woman’s arms, for she hurried up to Paris and came and sought
aid from her other son, the Lieutenant Philippe, who was then in
garrison at Vincennes. Georges, who was hiding from his elder brother,
was seized with despairing apprehension, for he feared the latter might
adopt violent tactics, and as his tenderness for Nana was so nervously
expansive that he could not keep anything from her, he soon began
talking of nothing but his big brother, a great, strong fellow, who was
capable of all kinds of things.
“You know,” he explained, “Mamma won’t come to you while she can send
my brother. Oh, she’ll certainly send Philippe to fetch me.”
The first time he said this Nana was deeply wounded. She said frigidly:
“Gracious me, I should like to see him come! For all that he’s a
lieutenant in the army, Francois will chuck him out in double-quick
time!”
Soon, as the lad kept returning to the subject of his brother, she
ended by taking a certain interest in Philippe, and in a week’s time
she knew him from head to foot—knew him as very tall and very strong
and merry and somewhat rough. She learned intimate details, too, and
found out that he had hair on his arms and a birthmark on his shoulder.
So thoroughly did she learn her lesson that one day, when she was full
of the image of the man who was to be turned out of doors by her
orders, she cried out:
“I say, Zizi, your brother’s not coming. He’s a base deserter!”
The next day, when Georges and Nana were alone together, Francois came
upstairs to ask whether Madame would receive Lieutenant Philippe Hugon.
Georges grew extremely white and murmured:
“I suspected it; Mamma was talking about it this morning.”
And he besought the young woman to send down word that she could not
see visitors. But she was already on her feet and seemed all aflame as
she said:
“Why should I not see him? He would think me afraid. Dear me, we’ll
have a good laugh! Just leave the gentleman in the drawing room for a
quarter of an hour, Francois; afterward bring him up to me.”
She did not sit down again but began pacing feverishly to and fro
between the fireplace and a Venetian mirror hanging above an Italian
chest. And each time she reached the latter she glanced at the glass
and tried the effect of a smile, while Georges sat nervously on a sofa,
trembling at the thought of the coming scene. As she walked up and down
she kept jerking out such little phrases as:
“It will calm the fellow down if he has to wait a quarter of an hour.
Besides, if he thinks he’s calling on a tottie the drawing room will
stun him! Yes, yes, have a good look at everything, my fine fellow! It
isn’t imitation, and it’ll teach you to respect the lady who owns it.
Respect’s what men need to feel! The quarter of an hour’s gone by, eh?
No? Only ten minutes? Oh, we’ve got plenty of time.”
She did not stay where she was, however. At the end of the quarter of
an hour she sent Georges away after making him solemnly promise not to
listen at the door, as such conduct would scarcely look proper in case
the servants saw him. As he went into her bedroom Zizi ventured in a
choking sort of way to remark:
“It’s my brother, you know—”
“Don’t you fear,” she said with much dignity; “if he’s polite I’ll be
polite.”
Francois ushered in Philippe Hugon, who wore morning dress. Georges
began crossing on tiptoe on the other side of the room, for he was
anxious to obey the young woman. But the sound of voices retained him,
and he hesitated in such anguish of mind that his knees gave way under
him. He began imagining that a dread catastrophe would befall, that
blows would be struck, that something abominable would happen, which
would make Nana everlastingly odious to him. And so he could not
withstand the temptation to come back and put his ear against the door.
He heard very ill, for the thick portières deadened every sound, but he
managed to catch certain words spoken by Philippe, stern phrases in
which such terms as “mere child,” “family,” “honor,” were distinctly
audible. He was so anxious about his darling’s possible answers that
his heart beat violently and filled his head with a confused, buzzing
noise. She was sure to give vent to a “Dirty blackguard!” or to a
“Leave me bloody well alone! I’m in my own house!” But nothing
happened—not a breath came from her direction. Nana seemed dead in
there! Soon even his brother’s voice grew gentler, and he could not
make it out at all, when a strange murmuring sound finally stupefied
him. Nana was sobbing! For a moment or two he was the prey of
contending feelings and knew not whether to run away or to fall upon
Philippe. But just then Zoé came into the room, and he withdrew from
the door, ashamed at being thus surprised.
She began quietly to put some linen away in a cupboard while he stood
mute and motionless, pressing his forehead against a windowpane. He was
tortured by uncertainty. After a short silence the woman asked:
“It’s your brother that’s with Madame?”
“Yes,” replied the lad in a choking voice.
There was a fresh silence.
“And it makes you anxious, doesn’t it, Monsieur Georges?”
“Yes,” he rejoined in the same painful, suffering tone.
Zoé was in no hurry. She folded up some lace and said slowly:
“You’re wrong; Madame will manage it all.”
And then the conversation ended; they said not another word. Still she
did not leave the room. A long quarter of an hour passed, and she
turned round again without seeming to notice the look of exasperation
overspreading the lad’s face, which was already white with the effects
of uncertainty and constraint. He was casting sidelong glances in the
direction of the drawing room.
Maybe Nana was still crying. The other must have grown savage and have
dealt her blows. Thus when Zoé finally took her departure he ran to the
door and once more pressed his ear against it. He was thunderstruck;
his head swam, for he heard a brisk outburst of gaiety, tender,
whispering voices and the smothered giggles of a woman who is being
tickled. Besides, almost directly afterward, Nana conducted Philippe to
the head of the stairs, and there was an exchange of cordial and
familiar phrases.
When Georges again ventured into the drawing room the young woman was
standing before the mirror, looking at herself.
“Well?” he asked in utter bewilderment.
“Well, what?” she said without turning round. Then negligently:
“What did you mean? He’s very nice, is your brother!”
“So it’s all right, is it?”
“Oh, certainly it’s all right! Goodness me, what’s come over you? One
would have thought we were going to fight!”
Georges still failed to understand.
“I thought I heard—that is, you didn’t cry?” he stammered out.
“Me cry!” she exclaimed, looking fixedly at him. “Why, you’re dreaming!
What makes you think I cried?”
Thereupon the lad was treated to a distressing scene for having
disobeyed and played Paul Pry behind the door. She sulked, and he
returned with coaxing submissiveness to the old subject, for he wished
to know all about it.
“And my brother then?”
“Your brother saw where he was at once. You know, I might have been a
tottie, in which case his interference would have been accounted for by
your age and the family honor! Oh yes, I understand those kinds of
feelings! But a single glance was enough for him, and he behaved like a
well-bred man at once. So don’t be anxious any longer. It’s all
over—he’s gone to quiet your mamma!”
And she went on laughingly:
“For that matter, you’ll see your brother here. I’ve invited him, and
he’s going to return.”
“Oh, he’s going to return,” said the lad, growing white. He added
nothing, and they ceased talking of Philippe. She began dressing to go
out, and he watched her with his great, sad eyes. Doubtless he was very
glad that matters had got settled, for he would have preferred death to
a rupture of their connection, but deep down in his heart there was a
silent anguish, a profound sense of pain, which he had no experience of
and dared not talk about. How Philippe quieted their mother’s fears he
never knew, but three days later she returned to Les Fondettes,
apparently satisfied. On the evening of her return, at Nana’s house, he
trembled when Francois announced the lieutenant, but the latter jested
gaily and treated him like a young rascal, whose escapade he had
favored as something not likely to have any consequences. The lad’s
heart was sore within him; he scarcely dared move and blushed girlishly
at the least word that was spoken to him. He had not lived much in
Philippe’s society; he was ten years his junior, and he feared him as
he would a father, from whom stories about women are concealed.
Accordingly he experienced an uneasy sense of shame when he saw him so
free in Nana’s company and heard him laugh uproariously, as became a
man who was plunging into a life of pleasure with the gusto born of
magnificent health. Nevertheless, when his brother shortly began to
present himself every day, Georges ended by getting somewhat used to it
all. Nana was radiant.
This, her latest installation, had been involving all the riotous waste
attendant on the life of gallantry, and now her housewarming was being
defiantly celebrated in a grand mansion positively overflowing with
males and with furniture.
One afternoon when the Hugons were there Count Muffat arrived out of
hours. But when Zoé told him that Madame was with friends he refused to
come in and took his departure discreetly, as became a gallant
gentleman. When he made his appearance again in the evening Nana
received him with the frigid indignation of a grossly affronted woman.
“Sir,” she said, “I have given you no cause why you should insult me.
You must understand this: when I am at home to visitors, I beg you to
make your appearance just like other people.”
The count simply gaped in astonishment. “But, my dear—” he endeavored
to explain.
“Perhaps it was because I had visitors! Yes, there were men here, but
what d’you suppose I was doing with those men? You only advertise a
woman’s affairs when you act the discreet lover, and I don’t want to be
advertised; I don’t!”
He obtained his pardon with difficulty, but at bottom he was enchanted.
It was with scenes such as these that she kept him in unquestioning and
docile submission. She had long since succeeded in imposing Georges on
him as a young vagabond who, she declared, amused her. She made him
dine with Philippe, and the count behaved with great amiability. When
they rose from table he took the young man on one side and asked news
of his mother. From that time forth the young Hugons, Vandeuvres and
Muffat were openly about the house and shook hands as guests and
intimates might have done. It was a more convenient arrangement than
the previous one. Muffat alone still abstained discreetly from
too-frequent visits, thus adhering to the ceremonious policy of an
ordinary strange caller. At night when Nana was sitting on her
bearskins drawing off her stockings, he would talk amicably about the
other three gentlemen and lay especial stress on Philippe, who was
loyalty itself.
“It’s very true; they’re nice,” Nana would say as she lingered on the
floor to change her shift. “Only, you know, they see what I am. One
word about it and I should chuck ’em all out of doors for you!”
Nevertheless, despite her luxurious life and her group of courtiers,
Nana was nearly bored to death. She had men for every minute of the
night, and money overflowed even among the brushes and combs in the
drawers of her dressing table. But all this had ceased to satisfy her;
she felt that there was a void somewhere or other, an empty place
provocative of yawns. Her life dragged on, devoid of occupation, and
successive days only brought back the same monotonous hours. Tomorrow
had ceased to be; she lived like a bird: sure of her food and ready to
perch and roost on any branch which she came to. This certainty of food
and drink left her lolling effortless for whole days, lulled her to
sleep in conventual idleness and submission as though she were the
prisoner of her trade. Never going out except to drive, she was losing
her walking powers. She reverted to low childish tastes, would kiss
Bijou from morning to night and kill time with stupid pleasures while
waiting for the man whose caresses she tolerated with an appearance of
complaisant lassitude. Amid this species of self-abandonment she now
took no thought about anything save her personal beauty; her sole care
was to look after herself, to wash and to perfume her limbs, as became
one who was proud of being able to undress at any moment and in face of
anybody without having to blush for her imperfections.
At ten in the morning Nana would get up. Bijou, the Scotch griffon dog,
used to lick her face and wake her, and then would ensue a game of play
lasting some five minutes, during which the dog would race about over
her arms and legs and cause Count Muffat much distress. Bijou was the
first little male he had ever been jealous of. It was not at all
proper, he thought, that an animal should go poking its nose under the
bedclothes like that! After this Nana would proceed to her dressing
room, where she took a bath. Toward eleven o’clock Francois would come
and do up her hair before beginning the elaborate manipulations of the
afternoon.
At breakfast, as she hated feeding alone, she nearly always had Mme
Maloir at table with her. This lady would arrive from unknown regions
in the morning, wearing her extravagantly quaint hats, and would return
at night to that mysterious existence of hers, about which no one ever
troubled. But the hardest to bear were the two or three hours between
lunch and the toilet. On ordinary occasions she proposed a game of
bezique to her old friend; on others she would read the Figaro, in
which the theatrical echoes and the fashionable news interested her.
Sometimes she even opened a book, for she fancied herself in literary
matters. Her toilet kept her till close on five o’clock, and then only
she would wake from her daylong drowse and drive out or receive a whole
mob of men at her own house. She would often dine abroad and always go
to bed very late, only to rise again on the morrow with the same
languor as before and to begin another day, differing in nothing from
its predecessor.
The great distraction was to go to the Batignolles and see her little
Louis at her aunt’s. For a fortnight at a time she forgot all about
him, and then would follow an access of maternal love, and she would
hurry off on foot with all the modesty and tenderness becoming a good
mother. On such occasions she would be the bearer of snuff for her aunt
and of oranges and biscuits for the child, the kind of presents one
takes to a hospital. Or again she would drive up in her landau on her
return from the Bois, decked in costumes, the resplendence of which
greatly excited the dwellers in the solitary street. Since her niece’s
magnificent elevation Mme Lerat had been puffed up with vanity. She
rarely presented herself in the Avenue de Villiers, for she was pleased
to remark that it wasn’t her place to do so, but she enjoyed triumphs
in her own street. She was delighted when the young woman arrived in
dresses that had cost four or five thousand francs and would be
occupied during the whole of the next day in showing off her presents
and in citing prices which quite stupefied the neighbors. As often as
not, Nana kept Sunday free for the sake of “her family,” and on such
occasions, if Muffat invited her, she would refuse with the smile of a
good little shopwoman. It was impossible, she would answer; she was
dining at her aunt’s; she was going to see Baby. Moreover, that poor
little man Louiset was always ill. He was almost three years old,
growing quite a great boy! But he had had an eczema on the back of his
neck, and now concretions were forming in his ears, which pointed, it
was feared, to decay of the bones of the skull. When she saw how pale
he looked, with his spoiled blood and his flabby flesh all out in
yellow patches, she would become serious, but her principal feeling
would be one of astonishment. What could be the matter with the little
love that he should grow so weakly? She, his mother, was so strong and
well!
On the days when her child did not engross attention Nana would again
sink back into the noisy monotony of her existence, with its drives in
the Bois, first nights at the theater, dinners and suppers at the
Maison-d’Or or the Café Anglais, not to mention all the places of
public resort, all the spectacles to which crowds rushed—Mabille, the
reviews, the races. But whatever happened she still felt that stupid,
idle void, which caused her, as it were, to suffer internal cramps.
Despite the incessant infatuations that possessed her heart, 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
out. 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 Zoé 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’hôte 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’hôte 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 what will you give me?”
He had caught her in his arms and was kissing her on the shoulders in a
perfect access of gratitude while she quivered with excitement and
struggled merrily and threw herself backward in her efforts to be free.
“Oh, I know,” she cried, excited by the contest. “Listen to what I want
in the way of commission. On your wedding day you shall make me a
present of your innocence. Before your wife, d’you understand?”
“That’s it! That’s it!” he said, laughing even louder than Nana.
The bargain amused them—they thought the whole business very good,
indeed.
Now as it happened, there was a dinner at Nana’s next day. For the
matter of that, it was the customary Thursday dinner, and Muffat,
Vandeuvres, the young Hugons and Satin were present. The count arrived
early. He stood in need of eighty thousand francs wherewith to free the
young woman from two or three debts and to give her a set of sapphires
she was dying to possess. As he had already seriously lessened his
capital, he was in search of a lender, for he did not dare to sell
another property. With the advice of Nana herself he had addressed
himself to Labordette, but the latter, deeming it too heavy an
undertaking, had mentioned it to the hairdresser Francis, who willingly
busied himself in such affairs in order to oblige his lady clients. The
count put himself into the hands of these gentlemen but expressed a
formal desire not to appear in the matter, and they both undertook to
keep in hand the bill for a hundred thousand francs which he was to
sign, excusing themselves at the same time for charging a matter of
twenty thousand francs interest and loudly denouncing the blackguard
usurers to whom, they declared, it had been necessary to have recourse.
When Muffat had himself announced, Francis was putting the last touches
to Nana’s coiffure. Labordette also was sitting familiarly in the
dressing room, as became a friend of no consequence. Seeing the count,
he discreetly placed a thick bundle of bank notes among the powders and
pomades, and the bill was signed on the marble-topped dressing table.
Nana was anxious to keep Labordette to dinner, but he declined—he was
taking a rich foreigner about Paris. Muffat, however, led him aside and
begged him to go to Becker, the jeweler, and bring him back thence the
set of sapphires, which he wanted to present the young woman by way of
surprise that very evening. Labordette willingly undertook the
commission, and half an hour later Julien handed the jewel case
mysteriously to the count.
During dinnertime Nana was nervous. The sight of the eighty thousand
francs had excited her. To think all that money was to go to
tradespeople! It was a disgusting thought. After soup had been served
she grew sentimental, and in the splendid dining room, glittering with
plate and glass, she talked of the bliss of poverty. The men were in
evening dress, Nana in a gown of white embroidered satin, while Satin
made a more modest appearance in black silk with a simple gold heart at
her throat, which was a present from her kind friend. Julien and
Francois waited behind the guests and were assisted in this by Zoé. All
three looked most dignified.
“It’s certain I had far greater fun when I hadn’t a cent!” Nana
repeated.
She had placed Muffat on her right hand and Vandeuvres on her left, but
she scarcely looked at them, so taken up was she with Satin, who sat in
state between Philippe and Georges on the opposite side of the table.
“Eh, duckie?” she kept saying at every turn. “How we did use to laugh
in those days when we went to Mother Josse’s school in the Rue
Polonceau!”
When the roast was being served the two women plunged into a world of
reminiscences. They used to have regular chattering fits of this kind
when a sudden desire to stir the muddy depths of their childhood would
possess them. These fits always occurred when men were present: it was
as though they had given way to a burning desire to treat them to the
dunghill on which they had grown to woman’s estate. The gentlemen paled
visibly and looked embarrassed. The young Hugons did their best to
laugh, while Vandeuvres nervously toyed with his beard and Muffat
redoubled his gravity.
“You remember Victor?” said Nana. “There was a wicked little fellow for
you! Why, he used to take the little girls into cellars!”
“I remember him perfectly,” replied Satin. “I recollect the big
courtyard at your place very well. There was a portress there with a
broom!”
“Mother Boche—she’s dead.”
“And I can still picture your shop. Your mother was a great fatty. One
evening when we were playing your father came in drunk. Oh, so drunk!”
At this point Vandeuvres tried to intercept the ladies’ reminiscences
and to effect a diversion,
“I say, my dear, I should be very glad to have some more truffles.
They’re simply perfect. Yesterday I had some at the house of the Duc de
Corbreuse, which did not come up to them at all.”
“The truffles, Julien!” said Nana roughly.
Then returning to the subject:
“By Jove, yes, Dad hadn’t any sense! And then what a smash there was!
You should have seen it—down, down, down we went, starving away all the
time. I can tell you I’ve had to bear pretty well everything and it’s a
miracle I didn’t kick the bucket over it, like Daddy and Mamma.”
This time Muffat, who was playing with his knife in a state of infinite
exasperation, made so bold as to intervene.
“What you’re telling us isn’t very cheerful.”
“Eh, what? Not cheerful!” she cried with a withering glance. “I believe
you; it isn’t cheerful! Somebody had to earn a living for us dear boy.
Oh yes, you know, I’m the right sort; I don’t mince matters. Mamma was
a laundress; Daddy used to get drunk, and he died of it! There! If it
doesn’t suit you—if you’re ashamed of my family—”
They all protested. What was she after now? They had every sort of
respect for her family! But she went on:
“If you’re ashamed of my family you’ll please leave me, because I’m not
one of those women who deny their father and mother. You must take me
and them together, d’you understand?”
They took her as required; they accepted the dad, the mamma, the past;
in fact, whatever she chose. With their eyes fixed on the tablecloth,
the four now sat shrinking and insignificant while Nana, in a transport
of omnipotence, trampled on them in the old muddy boots worn long since
in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. She was determined not to lay down the
cudgels just yet. It was all very fine to bring her fortunes, to build
her palaces; she would never leave off regretting the time when she
munched apples! Oh, what bosh that stupid thing money was! It was made
for the tradespeople! Finally her outburst ended in a sentimentally
expressed desire for a simple, openhearted existence, to be passed in
an atmosphere of universal benevolence.
When she got to this point she noticed Julien waiting idly by.
“Well, what’s the matter? Hand the champagne then!” she said. “Why
d’you stand staring at me like a goose?”
During this scene the servants had never once smiled. They apparently
heard nothing, and the more their mistress let herself down, the more
majestic they became. Julien set to work to pour out the champagne and
did so without mishap, but Francois, who was handing round the fruit,
was so unfortunate as to tilt the fruit dish too low, and the apples,
the pears and the grapes rolled on the table.
“You bloody clumsy lot!” cried Nana.
The footman was mistaken enough to try and explain that the fruit had
not been firmly piled up. Zoé had disarranged it by taking out some
oranges.
“Then it’s Zoé that’s the goose!” said Nana.
“Madame—” murmured the lady’s maid in an injured tone.
Straightway Madame rose to her feet, and in a sharp voice and with
royally authoritative gesture:
“We’ve had enough of this, haven’t we? Leave the room, all of you! We
don’t want you any longer!”
This summary procedure calmed her down, and she was forthwith all
sweetness and amiability. The dessert proved charming, and the
gentlemen grew quite merry waiting on themselves. But Satin, having
peeled a pear, came and ate it behind her darling, leaning on her
shoulder the while and whispering sundry little remarks in her ear, at
which they both laughed very loudly. By and by she wanted to share her
last piece of pear with Nana and presented it to her between her teeth.
Whereupon there was a great nibbling of lips, and the pear was finished
amid kisses. At this there was a burst of comic protest from the
gentlemen, Philippe shouting to them to take it easy and Vandeuvres
asking if one ought to leave the room. Georges, meanwhile, had come and
put his arm round Satin’s waist and had brought her back to her seat.
“How silly of you!” said Nana. “You’re making her blush, the poor,
darling duck. Never mind, dear girl, let them chaff. It’s our own
little private affair.”
And turning to Muffat, who was watching them with his serious
expression:
“Isn’t it, my friend?”
“Yes, certainly,” he murmured with a slow nod of approval.
He no longer protested now. And so amid that company of gentlemen with
the great names and the old, upright traditions, the two women sat face
to face, exchanging tender glances, conquering, reigning, in tranquil
defiance of the laws of sex, in open contempt for the male portion of
the community. The gentlemen burst into applause.
The company went upstairs to take coffee in the little drawing room,
where a couple of lamps cast a soft glow over the rosy hangings and the
lacquer and old gold of the knickknacks. At that hour of the evening
the light played discreetly over coffers, bronzes and china, lighting
up silver or ivory inlaid work, bringing into view the polished
contours of a carved stick and gleaming over a panel with glossy silky
reflections. The fire, which had been burning since the afternoon, was
dying out in glowing embers. It was very warm—the air behind the
curtains and hangings was languid with warmth. The room was full of
Nana’s intimate existence: a pair of gloves, a fallen handkerchief, an
open book, lay scattered about, and their owner seemed present in
careless attire with that well-known odor of violets and that species
of untidiness which became her in her character of good-natured
courtesan and had such a charming effect among all those rich
surroundings. The very armchairs, which were as wide as beds, and the
sofas, which were as deep as alcoves, invited to slumber oblivious of
the flight of time and to tender whispers in shadowy corners.
Satin went and lolled back in the depths of a sofa near the fireplace.
She had lit a cigarette, but Vandeuvres began amusing himself by
pretending to be ferociously jealous. Nay, he even threatened to send
her his seconds if she still persisted in keeping Nana from her duty.
Philippe and Georges joined him and teased her and badgered her so
mercilessly that at last she shouted out:
“Darling! Darling! Do make ’em keep quiet! They’re still after me!”
“Now then, let her be,” said Nana seriously. “I won’t have her
tormented; you know that quite well. And you, my pet, why d’you always
go mixing yourself up with them when they’ve got so little sense?”
Satin, blushing all over and putting out her tongue, went into the
dressing room, through the widely open door of which you caught a
glimpse of pale marbles gleaming in the milky light of a gas flame in a
globe of rough glass. After that Nana talked to the four men as
charmingly as hostess could. During the day she had read a novel which
was at that time making a good deal of noise. It was the history of a
courtesan, and Nana was very indignant, declaring the whole thing to be
untrue and expressing angry dislike to that kind of monstrous
literature which pretends to paint from nature. “Just as though one
could describe everything,” she said. Just as though a novel ought not
to be written so that the reader may while away an hour pleasantly! In
the matter of books and of plays Nana had very decided opinions: she
wanted tender and noble productions, things that would set her dreaming
and would elevate her soul. Then allusion being made in the course of
conversation to the troubles agitating Paris, the incendiary articles
in the papers, the incipient popular disturbances which followed the
calls to arms nightly raised at public meetings, she waxed wroth with
the Republicans. What on earth did those dirty people who never washed
really want? Were folks not happy? Had not the emperor done everything
for the people? A nice filthy lot of people! She knew ’em; she could
talk about ’em, and, quite forgetting the respect which at dinner she
had just been insisting should be paid to her humble circle in the Rue
de la Goutte-d’Or, she began blackguarding her own class with all the
terror and disgust peculiar to a woman who had risen successfully above
it. That very afternoon she had read in the Figaro an account of the
proceedings at a public meeting which had verged on the comic. Owing to
the slang words that had been used and to the piggish behavior of a
drunken man who had got himself chucked, she was laughing at those
proceedings still.
“Oh, those drunkards!” she said with a disgusted air. “No, look you
here, their republic would be a great misfortune for everybody! Oh, may
God preserve us the emperor as long as possible!”
“God will hear your prayer, my dear,” Muffat replied gravely. “To be
sure, the emperor stands firm.”
He liked her to express such excellent views. Both, indeed, understood
one another in political matters. Vandeuvres and Philippe Hugon
likewise indulged in endless jokes against the “cads,” the quarrelsome
set who scuttled off the moment they clapped eyes on a bayonet. But
Georges that evening remained pale and somber.
“What can be the matter with that baby?” asked Nana, noticing his
troubled appearance.
“With me? Nothing—I am listening,” he muttered.
But he was really suffering. On rising from table he had heard Philippe
joking with the young woman, and now it was Philippe, and not himself,
who sat beside her. His heart, he knew not why, swelled to bursting. He
could not bear to see them so close together; such vile thoughts
oppressed him that shame mingled with his anguish. He who laughed at
Satin, who had accepted Steiner and Muffat and all the rest, felt
outraged and murderous at the thought that Philippe might someday touch
that woman.
“Here, take Bijou,” she said to comfort him, and she passed him the
little dog which had gone to sleep on her dress.
And with that Georges grew happy again, for with the beast still warm
from her lap in his arms, he held, as it were, part of her.
Allusion had been made to a considerable loss which Vandeuvres had last
night sustained at the Imperial Club. Muffat, who did not play,
expressed great astonishment, but Vandeuvres smilingly alluded to his
imminent ruin, about which Paris was already talking. The kind of death
you chose did not much matter, he averred; the great thing was to die
handsomely. For some time past Nana had noticed that he was nervous and
had a sharp downward droop of the mouth and a fitful gleam in the
depths of his clear eyes. But he retained his haughty aristocratic
manner and the delicate elegance of his impoverished race, and as yet
these strange manifestations were only, so to speak, momentary fits of
vertigo overcoming a brain already sapped by play and by debauchery.
One night as he lay beside her he had frightened her with a dreadful
story. He had told her he contemplated shutting himself up in his
stable and setting fire to himself and his horses at such time as he
should have devoured all his substance. His only hope at that period
was a horse, Lusignan by name, which he was training for the Prix de
Paris. He was living on this horse, which was the sole stay of his
shaken credit, and whenever Nana grew exacting he would put her off
till June and to the probability of Lusignan’s winning.
“Bah! He may very likely lose,” she said merrily, “since he’s going to
clear them all out at the races.”
By way of reply he contented himself by smiling a thin, mysterious
smile. Then carelessly:
“By the by, I’ve taken the liberty of giving your name to my outsider,
the filly. Nana, Nana—that sounds well. You’re not vexed?”
“Vexed, why?” she said in a state of inward ecstasy.
The conversation continued, and same mention was made of an execution
shortly to take place. The young woman said she was burning to go to it
when Satin appeared at the dressing-room door and called her in tones
of entreaty. She got up at once and left the gentlemen lolling lazily
about, while they finished their cigars and discussed the grave
question as to how far a murderer subject to chronic alcoholism is
responsible for his act. In the dressing room Zoé sat helpless on a
chair, crying her heart out, while Satin vainly endeavored to console
her.
“What’s the matter?” said Nana in surprise.
“Oh, darling, do speak to her!” said Satin. “I’ve been trying to make
her listen to reason for the last twenty minutes. She’s crying because
you called her a goose.”
“Yes, madame, it’s very hard—very hard,” stuttered Zoé, choked by a
fresh fit of sobbing.
This sad sight melted the young woman’s heart at once. She spoke
kindly, and when the other woman still refused to grow calm she sank
down in front of her and took her round the waist with truly cordial
familiarity:
“But, you silly, I said ‘goose’ just as I might have said anything
else. How shall I explain? I was in a passion—it was wrong of me; now
calm down.”
“I who love Madame so,” stuttered Zoé; “after all I’ve done for
Madame.”
Thereupon Nana kissed the lady’s maid and, wishing to show her she
wasn’t vexed, gave her a dress she had worn three times. Their quarrels
always ended up in the giving of presents! Zoé plugged her handkerchief
into her eyes. She carried the dress off over her arm and added before
leaving that they were very sad in the kitchen and that Julien and
Francois had been unable to eat, so entirely had Madame’s anger taken
away their appetites. Thereupon Madame sent them a louis as a pledge of
reconciliation. She suffered too much if people around her were
sorrowful.
Nana was returning to the drawing room, happy in the thought that she
had patched up a disagreement which was rendering her quietly
apprehensive of the morrow, when Satin came and whispered vehemently in
her ear. She was full of complaint, threatened to be off if those men
still went on teasing her and kept insisting that her darling should
turn them all out of doors for that night, at any rate. It would be a
lesson to them. And then it would be so nice to be alone, both of them!
Nana, with a return of anxiety, declared it to be impossible. Thereupon
the other shouted at her like a violent child and tried hard to
overrule her.
“I wish it, d’you see? Send ’em away or I’m off!”
And she went back into the drawing room, stretched herself out in the
recesses of a divan, which stood in the background near the window, and
lay waiting, silent and deathlike, with her great eyes fixed upon Nana.
The gentlemen were deciding against the new criminological theories.
Granted that lovely invention of irresponsibility in certain
pathological cases, and criminals ceased to exist and sick people alone
remained. The young woman, expressing approval with an occasional nod,
was busy considering how best to dismiss the count. The others would
soon be going, but he would assuredly prove obstinate. In fact, when
Philippe got up to withdraw, Georges followed him at once—he seemed
only anxious not to leave his brother behind. Vandeuvres lingered some
minutes longer, feeling his way, as it were, and waiting to find out
if, by any chance, some important business would oblige Muffat to cede
him his place. Soon, however, when he saw the count deliberately taking
up his quarters for the night, he desisted from his purpose and said
good-by, as became a man of tact. But on his way to the door, he
noticed Satin staring fixedly at Nana, as usual. Doubtless he
understood what this meant, for he seemed amused and came and shook
hands with her.
“We’re not angry, eh?” he whispered. “Pray pardon me. You’re the nicer
attraction of the two, on my honor!”
Satin deigned no reply. Nor did she take her eyes off Nana and the
count, who were now alone. Muffat, ceasing to be ceremonious, had come
to sit beside the young woman. He took her fingers and began kissing
them. Whereupon Nana, seeking to change the current of his thoughts,
asked him if his daughter Estelle were better. The previous night he
had been complaining of the child’s melancholy behavior—he could not
even spend a day happily at his own house, with his wife always out and
his daughter icily silent.
In family matters of this kind Nana was always full of good advice, and
when Muffat abandoned all his usual self-control under the influence of
mental and physical relaxation and once more launched out into his
former plaints, she remembered the promise she had made.
“Suppose you were to marry her?” she said. And with that she ventured
to talk of Daguenet. At the mere mention of the name the count was
filled with disgust. “Never,” he said after what she had told him!
She pretended great surprise and then burst out laughing and put her
arm round his neck.
“Oh, the jealous man! To think of it! Just argue it out a little. Why,
they slandered me to you—I was furious. At present I should be ever so
sorry if—”
But over Muffat’s shoulder she met Satin’s gaze. And she left him
anxiously and in a grave voice continued:
“This marriage must come off, my friend; I don’t want to prevent your
daughter’s happiness. The young man’s most charming; you could not
possibly find a better sort.”
And she launched into extraordinary praise of Daguenet. The count had
again taken her hands; he no longer refused now; he would see about it,
he said, they would talk the matter over. By and by, when he spoke of
going to bed, she sank her voice and excused herself. It was
impossible; she was not well. If he loved her at all he would not
insist! Nevertheless, he was obstinate; he refused to go away, and she
was beginning to give in when she met Satin’s eyes once more. Then she
grew inflexible. No, the thing was out of the question! The count,
deeply moved and with a look of suffering, had risen and was going in
quest of his hat. But in the doorway he remembered the set of
sapphires; he could feel the case in his pocket. He had been wanting to
hide it at the bottom of the bed so that when she entered it before him
she should feel it against her legs. Since dinnertime he had been
meditating this little surprise like a schoolboy, and now, in trouble
and anguish of heart at being thus dismissed, he gave her the case
without further ceremony.
“What is it?” she queried. “Sapphires? Dear me! Oh yes, it’s that set.
How sweet you are! But I say, my darling, d’you believe it’s the same
one? In the shopwindow it made a much greater show.”
That was all the thanks he got, and she let him go away. He noticed
Satin stretched out silent and expectant, and with that he gazed at
both women and without further insistence submitted to his fate and
went downstairs. The hall door had not yet closed when Satin caught
Nana round the waist and danced and sang. Then she ran to the window.
“Oh, just look at the figure he cuts down in the street!” The two women
leaned upon the wrought-iron window rail in the shadow of the curtains.
One o’clock struck. The Avenue de Villiers was deserted, and its double
file of gas lamps stretched away into the darkness of the damp March
night through which great gusts of wind kept sweeping, laden with rain.
There were vague stretches of land on either side of the road which
looked like gulfs of shadow, while scaffoldings round mansions in
process of construction loomed upward under the dark sky. They laughed
uncontrollably as they watched Muffat’s rounded back and glistening
shadow disappearing along the wet sidewalk into the glacial, desolate
plains of new Paris. But Nana silenced Satin.
“Take care; there are the police!”
Thereupon they smothered their laughter and gazed in secret fear at two
dark figures walking with measured tread on the opposite side of the
avenue. Amid all her luxurious surroundings, amid all the royal
splendors of the woman whom all must obey, Nana still stood in horror
of the police and did not like to hear them mentioned any oftener than
death. She felt distinctly unwell when a policeman looked up at her
house. One never knew what such people might do! They might easily take
them for loose women if they heard them laughing at that hour of the
night. Satin, with a little shudder, had squeezed herself up against
Nana. Nevertheless, the pair stayed where they were and were soon
interested in the approach of a lantern, the light of which danced over
the puddles in the road. It was an old ragpicker woman who was busy
raking in the gutters. Satin recognized her.
“Dear me,” she exclaimed, “it’s Queen Pomare with her wickerwork
shawl!”
And while a gust of wind lashed the fine rain in their faces she told
her beloved the story of Queen Pomare. Oh, she had been a splendid girl
once upon a time: all Paris had talked of her beauty. And such devilish
go and such cheek! Why, she led the men about like dogs, and great
people stood blubbering on her stairs! Now she was in the habit of
getting tipsy, and the women round about would make her drink absinthe
for the sake of a laugh, after which the street boys would throw stones
at her and chase her. In fact, it was a regular smashup; the queen had
tumbled into the mud! Nana listened, feeling cold all over.
“You shall see,” added Satin.
She whistled a man’s whistle, and the ragpicker, who was then below the
window, lifted her head and showed herself by the yellow flare of her
lantern. Framed among rags, a perfect bundle of them, a face looked out
from under a tattered kerchief—a blue, seamed face with a toothless,
cavernous mouth and fiery bruises where the eyes should be. And Nana,
seeing the frightful old woman, the wanton drowned in drink, had a
sudden fit of recollection and saw far back amid the shadows of
consciousness the vision of Chamont—Irma d’Anglars, the old harlot
crowned with years and honors, ascending the steps in front of her
château amid abjectly reverential villagers. Then as Satin whistled
again, making game of the old hag, who could not see her:
“Do leave off; there are the police!” she murmured in changed tones.
“In with us, quick, my pet!”
The measured steps were returning, and they shut the window. Turning
round again, shivering, and with the damp of night on her hair, Nana
was momentarily astounded at sight of her drawing room. It seemed as
though she had forgotten it and were entering an unknown chamber. So
warm, so full of perfume, was the air she encountered that she
experienced a sense of delighted surprise. The heaped-up wealth of the
place, the Old World furniture, the fabrics of silk and gold, the
ivory, the bronzes, were slumbering in the rosy light of the lamps,
while from the whole of the silent house a rich feeling of great luxury
ascended, the luxury of the solemn reception rooms, of the comfortable,
ample dining room, of the vast retired staircase, with their soft
carpets and seats. Her individuality, with its longing for domination
and enjoyment and its desire to possess everything that she might
destroy everything, was suddenly increased. Never before had she felt
so profoundly the puissance of her sex. She gazed slowly round and
remarked with an expression of grave philosophy:
“Ah well, all the same, one’s jolly well right to profit by things when
one’s young!”
But now Satin was rolling on the bearskins in the bedroom and calling
her.
“Oh, do come! Do come!”
Nana undressed in the dressing room, and in order to be quicker about
it she took her thick fell of blonde hair in both hands and began
shaking it above the silver wash hand basin, while a downward hail of
long hairpins rang a little chime on the shining metal.