moved as not to be able to speak. At her side Labordette One after the other the horses reappeared from behind smiled as of old.
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“The Englishman’s in trouble, eh?” said Philippe joyously.
zation, grew ever more distinct:
“He’s going badly.”
“Here they come! Here they come! Here they come!”
“In any case, it’s all up with Lusignan,” shouted La But Nana was still gaining ground, and now Valerio II Faloise. “Valerio II is coming forward. Look, there they was distanced, and she was heading the race, with Spirit are all four together.”
two or three necks behind. The rolling thunder of voices The same phrase was in every mouth.
had increased. They were coming in; a storm of oaths
“What a rush, my dears! By God, what a rush!” greeted them from the landau.
The squad of horses was now passing in front of them
“Gee up, Lusignan, you great coward! The Englishman’s like a flash of lightning. Their approach was perceptible—
stunning! Do it again, old boy; do it again! Oh, that Valerio!
the breath of it was as a distant muttering which increased It’s sickening! Oh, the carcass! My ten louis damned well at every second. The whole crowd had thrown themselves lost! Nana’s the only one! Bravo, Nana! Bravo!” impetuously against the barriers, and a deep clamor issued And without being aware of it Nana, upon her seat, had from innumerable chests before the advance of the horses begun jerking her hips and waist as though she were racing and drew nearer and nearer like the sound of a foaming herself. She kept striking her side—she fancied it was a tide. It was the last fierce outburst of colossal partisanship; help to the filly. With each stroke she sighed with fatigue a hundred thousand spectators were possessed by a single and said in low, anguished tones: passion, burning with the same gambler’s lust, as they gazed
“Go it, go it!”
after the beasts, whose galloping feet were sweeping mil-Then a splendid sight was witnessed. Price, rising in his lions with them. The crowd pushed and crushed—fists were stirrups and brandishing his whip, flogged Nana with an clenched; people gaped, openmouthed; every man was arm of iron. The old shriveled-up child with his long, hard, fighting for himself; every man with voice and gesture was dead face seemed to breath flame. And in a fit of furious madly speeding the horse of his choice. And the cry of all audacity and triumphant will he put his heart into the filly, this multitude, a wild beast’s cry despite the garb of civili-held her up, lifted her forward, drenched in foam, with eyes 317
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of blood. The whole rush of horses passed with a roar of the recesses of faraway avenues and among the people thunder: it took away people’s breaths; it swept the air encamped under the trees, till it spread on and on and at-with it while the judge sat frigidly waiting, his eye adjusted tained its climax in the imperial stand, where the empress to its task. Then there was an immense re-echoing burst of herself had applauded. “Nana! Nana! Nana!” The cry rose acclamation. With a supreme effort Price had just flung heavenward in the glorious sunlight, whose golden rain Nana past the post, thus beating Spirit by a head.
beat fiercely on the dizzy heads of the multitude.
There was an uproar as of a rising tide. “Nana! Nana!
Then Nana, looming large on the seat of her landau, fan-Nana!” The cry rolled up and swelled with the violence of cied that it was she whom they were applauding. For a a tempest, till little by little it filled the distance, the depths moment or two she had stood devoid of motion, stupefied of the Bois as far as Mont Valerien, the meadows of by her triumph, gazing at the course as it was invaded by Longchamps and the Plaine de Boulogne. In all parts of so dense a flood of people that the turf became invisible the field the wildest enthusiasm declared itself. “Vive Nana!
beneath the sea of black hats. By and by, when this crowd Vive la France! Down with England!” The women waved had become somewhat less disorderly and a lane had been their sunshades; men leaped and spun round, vociferating formed as far as the exit and Nana was again applauded as as they did so, while others with shouts of nervous laugh-she went off with Price hanging lifelessly and vacantly over ter threw their hats in the air. And from the other side of her neck, she smacked her thigh energetically, lost all self-the course the enclosure made answer; the people on the possession, triumphed in crude phrases: stands were stirred, though nothing was distinctly visible
“Oh, by God, it’s me; it’s me. Oh, by God, what luck!” save a tremulous motion of the air, as though an invisible And, scarce knowing how to give expression to her over-flame were burning in a brazier above the living mass of whelming joy, she hugged and kissed Louiset, whom she gesticulating arms and little wildly moving faces, where now discovered high in the air on Bordenave’s shoulder.
the eyes and gaping mouths looked like black dots. The
“Three minutes and fourteen seconds,” said the latter as noise did not cease but swelled up and recommenced in he put his watch back in his pocket.
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Nana kept hearing her name; the whole plain was echoing, and her present triumph caused many loiterers to join ing it back to her. Her people were applauding her while her. Indeed, that movement which had made her carriage a she towered above them in the sunlight, in the splendor of center of attraction to the whole field was now ending in an her starry hair and white-and-sky-blue dress. Labordette, apotheosis, and Queen Venus was enthroned amid suddenly as he made off, had just announced to her a gain of two maddened subjects. Bordenave, behind her, was muttering thousand louis, for he had put her fifty on Nana at forty to oaths, for he yearned to her as a father. Steiner himself had one. But the money stirred her less than this unforeseen been reconquered—he had deserted Simonne and had hoisted victory, the fame of which made her queen of Paris. All the himself upon one of Nana’s carriage steps. When the cham-other ladies were losers. With a raging movement Rose pagne had arrived, when she lifted her brimming glass, such Mignon had snapped her sunshade, and Caroline Hequet applause burst forth, and “Nana! Nana! Nana!” was so loudly and Clarisse and Simonne—nay, Lucy Stewart herself, de-repeated that the crowd looked round in astonishment for spite the presence of her son—were swearing low in their the filly, nor could any tell whether it was the horse or the exasperation at that great wench’s luck, while the Tricon, woman that filled all hearts.
who had made the sign of the cross at both start and finish, While this was going on Mignon came hastening up in straightened up her tall form above them, went into an ec-defiance of Rose’s terrible frown. That confounded girl stasy over her intuition and damned Nana admiringly as simply maddened him, and he wanted to kiss her. Then became an experienced matron.
after imprinting a paternal salute on both her cheeks: Meanwhile round the landau the crush of men increased.
“What bothers me,” he said, “is that now Rose is cer-The band of Nana’s immediate followers had made a fierce tainly going to send the letter. She’s raging, too, fearfully.” uproar, and now Georges, choking with emotion, continued
“So much the better! It’ll do my business for me!” Nana shouting all by himself in breaking tones. As the champagne let slip.
had given out, Philippe, taking the footmen with him, had But noting his utter astonishment, she hastily continued: run to the wine bars. Nana’s court was growing and grow-
“No, no, what am I saying? Indeed, I don’t rightly know 319
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what I’m saying now! I’m drunk.”
to inspire respect and to excuse everything.
And drunk, indeed, drunk with joy, drunk with sunshine, But other rumors of a very serious nature were being she still raised her glass on high and applauded herself.
whispered about: they issued in the first instance from the
“To Nana! To Nana!” she cried amid a redoubled uproar enclosure, and the men who returned thence were full of of laughter and bravoes, which little by little overspread exact particulars. Voices were raised; an atrocious scandal the whole Hippodrome.
began to be openly canvassed. That poor fellow Vandeuvres The races were ending, and the Prix Vaublanc was run was done for; he had spoiled his splendid hit with a piece for. Carriages began driving off one by one. Meanwhile, of flat stupidity, an idiotic robbery, for he had commis-amid much disputing, the name of Vandeuvres was again sioned Marechal, a shady bookmaker, to lay two thousand mentioned. It was quite evident now: for two years past louis on his account against Lusignan, in order thereby to Vandeuvres had been preparing his final stroke and had get back his thousand and odd openly wagered louis. It accordingly told Gresham to hold Nana in, while he had was a miserable business, and it proved to be the last rift only brought Lusignan forward in order to make play for necessary to the utter breakup of his fortune. The book-the filly. The losers were vexed; the winners shrugged their maker being thus warned that the favorite would not win, shoulders. After all, wasn’t the thing permissible? An owner had realized some sixty thousand francs over the horse.
was free to run his stud in his own way. Many others had Only Labordette, for lack of exact and detailed instruc-done as he had! In fact, the majority thought Vandeuvres tions, had just then gone to him to put two hundred louis had displayed great skill in raking in all he could get about on Nana, which the bookmaker, in his ignorance of the Nana through the agency of friends, a course of action stroke actually intended, was still quoting at fifty to one which explained the sudden shortening of the odds. People against. Cleared of one hundred thousand francs over the spoke of his having laid two thousand louis on the horse, filly and a loser to the tune of forty thousand, Marechal, which, supposing the odds to be thirty to one against, gave who felt the world crumbling under his feet, had suddenly him twelve hundred thousand francs, an amount so vast as divined the situation when he saw the count and Labordette 320
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talking together in front of the enclosure just after the race in the coarseness and imbecility of the servants’ hall. There was over. Furious, as became an ex-coachman of the was a fierce crush under the festoons of gas lamps, and count’s, and brutally frank as only a cheated man can be, men in evening coats and women in outrageous low-necked he had just made a frightful scene in public, had told the old toilets, which they did not mind soiling, were howling whole story in atrocious terms and had thrown everyone and surging to and fro under the maddening influence of a into angry excitement. It was further stated that the stew-vast drunken fit. At a distance of thirty paces the brass ards were about to meet.
instruments of the orchestra were inaudible. Nobody was Nana, whom Philippe and Georges were whisperingly dancing. Stupid witticisms, repeated no one knew why, putting in possession of the facts, gave vent to a series of were going the round of the various groups. People were reflections and yet ceased not to laugh and drink. After all, straining after wit without succeeding in being funny. Seven it was quite likely; she remembered such things, and then women, imprisoned in the cloakroom, were crying to be that Marechal had a dirty, hangdog look. Nevertheless, she set free. A shallot had been found, put up to auction and was still rather doubtful when Labordette appeared. He knocked down at two louis. Just then Nana arrived, still was very white.
wearing her blue-and-white racecourse costume, and amid
“Well?” she asked in a low voice.
a thunder of applause the shallot was presented to her.
“Bloody well smashed up!” he replied simply.
People caught hold of her in her own despite, and three And he shrugged his shoulders. That Vandeuvres was a gentlemen bore her triumphantly into the garden, across mere child! She made a bored little gesture.
ruined grassplots and ravaged masses of greenery. As the That evening at the Bal Mabille Nana obtained a colossal bandstand presented an obstacle to her advance, it was success. When toward ten o’clock she made her appear-taken by storm, and chairs and music stands were smashed.
ance, the uproar was afready formidable. That classic night A paternal police organized the disorder.
of madness had brought together all that was young and It was only on Tuesday that Nana recovered from the pleasure loving, and now this smart world was wallowing excitements of victory. That morning she was chatting with 321
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Mme Lerat, the old lady having come in to bring her news Vandeuvres in decisive terms. Those old families, he opined, of Louiset, whom the open air had upset. A long story, were worn out and apt to make a stupid ending.
which was occupying the attention of all Paris, interested
“Oh dear no!” said Nana. “It isn’t stupid to burn oneself her beyond measure. Vandeuvres, after being warned off in one’s stable as he did. For my part, I think he made a all racecourses and posted at the Cercle Imperial on the dashing finish; but, oh, you know, I’m not defending that very evening after the disaster, had set fire to his stable on story about him and Marechal. It’s too silly. Just to think the morrow and had burned himself and his horses to death.
that Blanche has had the cheek to want to lay the blame of
“He certainly told me he was going to,” the young woman it on me! I said to her: ‘Did I tell him to steal?’ Don’t you kept saying. “That man was a regular maniac! Oh, how think one can ask a man for money without urging him to they did frighten me when they told me about it yesterday commit crime? If he had said to me, ‘I’ve got nothing left,’
evening! You see, he might easily have murdered me some I should have said to him, ‘All right, let’s part.’ And the fine night. And besides, oughtn’t he to have given me a matter wouldn’t have gone further.” hint about his horse? I should at any rate have made my
“Just so,” said the aunt gravely “When men are obstinate fortune! He said to Labordette that if I knew about the about a thing, so much the worse for them!” matter I would immediately inform my hairdresser and a
“But as to the merry little finish up, oh, that was awfully whole lot of other men. How polite, eh? Oh dear, no, I smart!” continued Nana. “It appears to have been terrible certainly can’t grieve much for him.” enough to give you the shudders! He sent everybody away After some reflection she had grown very angry. Just then and boxed himself up in the place with a lot of petroleum.
Labordette came in; he had seen about her bets and was And it blazed! You should have seen it! Just think, a great now the bearer of some forty thousand francs. This only big affair, almost all made of wood and stuffed with hay added to her bad temper, for she ought to have gained a and straw! The flames simply towered up, and the finest million. Labordette, who during the whole of this episode part of the business was that the horses didn’t want to be had been pretending entire innocence, abandoned roasted. They could be heard plunging, throwing them-322
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selves against the doors, crying aloud just like human be-the gloom. A curtain had been drawn to, so that the bed ings. Yes, people haven’t got rid of the horror of it yet.” lay flooded with shadow. A sigh became audible; then a Labordette let a low, incredulous whistle escape him. For kiss broke the silence, and Nana, slipping off the coverlet, his part, he did not believe in the death of Vandeuvres.
sat for a moment or two, barelegged, on the edge of the Somebody had sworn he had seen him escaping through a bed. The count let his head fall back on the pillow and window. He had set fire to his stable in a fit of aberration, remained in darkness.
but when it had begun to grow too warm it must have
“Dearest, you believe in the good God, don’t you?” she sobered him. A man so besotted about the women and so queried after some moments’ reflection. Her face was se-utterly worn out could not possibly die so pluckily.
rious; she had been overcome by pious terrors on quitting Nana listened in her disillusionment and could only reher lover’s arms.
mark:
Since morning, indeed, she had been complaining of feel-
“Oh, the poor wretch, it was so beautiful!” ing uncomfortable, and all her stupid notions, as she phrased it, notions about death and hell, were secretly torturing CHAPTER XII
her. From time to time she had nights such as these, during which childish fears and atrocious fancies would thrill her with waking nightmares. She continued: TOWARD ONE in the morning, in the great bed of the “I say, d’you think I shall go to heaven?” Venice point draperies, Nana and the count lay And with that she shivered, while the count, in his sur-still awake. He had returned to her that evening prise at her putting such singular questions at such a mo-after a three days sulking fit. The room, which was dimly ment, felt his old religious remorse returning upon him.
illumined by a lamp, seemed to slumber amid a warm, damp Then with her chemise slipping from her shoulders and her odor of love, while the furniture, with its white lacquer hair unpinned, she again threw herself upon his breast, sob-and silver incrustations, loomed vague and wan through bing and clinging to him as she did so.
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“I’m afraid of dying! I’m afraid of dying!” He had all the open. When he had lain down again she still roamed about trouble in the world to disengage himself. Indeed, he was the room, visiting its several corners and starting and shiv-himself afraid of giving in to the sudden madness of this ering at the slightest noise. A mirror stopped her, and as of woman clinging to his body in her dread of the Invisible.
old she lapsed into obvious contemplation of her naked-Such dread is contagious, and he reasoned with her. Her ness. But the sight of her breast, her waist and her thighs conduct was perfect—she had only to conduct herself well only doubled her terror, and she ended by feeling with both in order one day to merit pardon. But she shook her head.
hands very slowly over the bones of her face.
Doubtless she was doing no one any harm; nay, she was
“You’re ugly when you’re dead,” she said in deliberate even in the constant habit of wearing a medal of the Virgin, tones.
which she showed to him as it hung by a red thread be-And she pressed her cheeks, enlarging her eyes and push-tween her breasts. Only it had been foreordained that all ing down her jaw, in order to see how she would look.
unmarried women who held conversation with men would Thus disfigured, she turned toward the count.
go to hell. Scraps of her catechism recurred to her remem-
“Do look! My head’ll be quite small, it will!” brance. Ah, if one only knew for certain, but, alas, one was At this he grew vexed.
sure of nothing; nobody ever brought back any informa-
“You’re mad; come to bed!”
tion, and then, truly, it would be stupid to bother oneself He fancied he saw her in a grave, emaciated by a century about things if the priests were talking foolishness all the of sleep, and he joined his hands and stammered a prayer.
time. Nevertheless, she religiously kissed her medal, which It was some time ago that the religious sense had recon-was still warm from contact with her skin, as though by quered him, and now his daily access of faith had again way of charm against death, the idea of which filled her assumed the apoplectic intensity which was wont to leave with icy horror. Muffat was obliged to accompany her into him well-nigh stunned. The joints of his fingers used to the dressing room, for she shook at the idea of being alone crack, and he would repeat without cease these words only: there for one moment, even though she had left the door
“My God, my God, my God!” It was the cry of his impo-324
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tence, the cry of that sin against which, though his damna-And when he asked for particulars: tion was certain, he felt powerless to strive. When Nana
“Something it’s impossible to believe has happened—a returned she found him hidden beneath the bedclothes; he miscarriage, monsieur.”
was haggard; he had dug his nails into his bosom, and his Nana had been in the family way for the past three months.
eyes stared upward as though in search of heaven. And For long she had simply thought herself out of sorts, and with that she started to weep again. Then they both em-Dr Boutarel had himself been in doubt. But when after-braced, and their teeth chattered they knew not why, as the ward he made her a decisive announcement, she felt so same imbecile obsession over-mastered them. They had bored thereby that she did all she possibly could to dis-already passed a similar night, but on this occasion the thing guise her condition. Her nervous terrors, her dark humors, was utterly idiotic, as Nana declared when she ceased to sprang to some extent from this unfortunate state of things, be frightened. She suspected something, and this caused the secret of which she kept very shamefacedly, as became her to question the count in a prudent sort of way. It might a courtesan mother who is obliged to conceal her plight.
be that Rose Mignon had sent the famous letter! But that The thing struck her as a ridiculous accident, which made was not the case; it was sheer fright, nothing more, for he her appear small in her own eyes and would, had it been was still ignorant whether he was a cuckold or no.
known, have led people to chaff her.
Two days later, after a fresh disappearance, Muffat pre-
“A poor joke, eh?” she said. “Bad luck, too, certainly.” sented himself in the morning, a time of day at which he She was necessarily very sharp set when she thought her never came. He was livid; his eyes were red and his whole last hour had come. There was no end to her surprise, too; man still shaken by a great internal struggle. But Zoe, beher sexual economy seemed to her to have got out of oring scared herself, did not notice his troubled state. She der; it produced children then even when one did not want had run to meet him and now began crying: them and when one employed it for quite other purposes!
“Oh, monsieur, do come in! Madame nearly died yester-Nature drove her to exasperation; this appearance of seri-day evening!”
ous motherhood in a career of pleasure, this gift of life 325
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amid all the deaths she was spreading around, exasperated Madame’s friends at that hour of the evening when Maher. Why could one not dispose of oneself as fancy dic-dame was in the habit of receiving. He had still been very tated, without all this fuss? And whence had this brat come?
pale, and he had told his story very feelingly, and as though She could not even suggest a father. Ah, dear heaven, the stupefied. Steiner, La Faloise, Philippe and others, besides, man who made him would have a splendid notion had he had presented themselves, and at the end of the lad’s first kept him in his own hands, for nobody asked for him; he phrase they burst into exclamations. The thing was impos-was in everybody’s way, and he would certainly not have sible! It must be a farce! After which they grew serious much happiness in life!
and gazed with an embarrassed expression at her bedroom Meanwhile Zoe described the catastrophe.
door. They shook their heads; it was no laughing matter.
“Madame was seized with colic toward four o’clock.
Till midnight a dozen gentlemen had stood talking in low When she didn’t come back out of the dressing room I voices in front of the fireplace. All were friends; all were went in and found her lying stretched on the floor in a deeply exercised by the same idea of paternity. They seemed faint. Yes, monsieur, on the floor in a pool of blood, as to be mutually excusing themselves, and they looked as though she had been murdered. Then I understood, you confused as if they had done something clumsy. Eventu-see. I was furious; Madame might quite well have con-ally, however, they put a bold face on the matter. It had fided her trouble to me. As it happened, Monsieur Georges nothing to do with them: the fault was hers! What a stun-was there, and he helped me to lift her up, and directly a ner that Nana was, eh? One would never have believed her miscarriage was mentioned he felt ill in his turn! Oh, it’s capable of such a fake! And with that they departed one by true I’ve had the hump since yesterday!” one, walking on tiptoe, as though in a chamber of death In fact, the house seemed utterly upset. All the servants where you cannot laugh.
were galloping upstairs, downstairs and through the rooms.
“Come up all the same, monsieur,” said Zoe to Muffat.
Georges had passed the night on an armchair in the draw-
“Madame is much better and will see you. We are expecting room. It was he who had announced the news to ing the doctor, who promised to come back this morning.” 326
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The lady’s maid had persuaded Georges to go back home scarce broken by the dull roll of occasional carriages in the to sleep, and upstairs in the drawing room only Satin re-Avenue de Villiers. Nana, looking very white on her pil-mained. She lay stretched on a divan, smoking a cigarette low, was lying awake with wide-open, meditative eyes. She and scanning the ceiling. Amid the household scare which smiled when she saw the count but did not move.
had followed the accident she had been white with rage,
“Ah, dear pet!” she slowly murmured. “I really thought I had shrugged her shoulders violently and had made fero-should never see you again.”
cious remarks. Accordingly, when Zoe was passing in front Then as he leaned forward to kiss her on the hair, she of her and telling Monsieur that poor, dear Madame had grew tender toward him and spoke frankly about the child, suffered a great deal:
as though he were its father.
“That’s right; it’ll teach him!” said Satin curtly.
“I never dared tell you; I felt so happy about it! Oh, I They turned round in surprise, but she had not moved a used to dream about it; I should have liked to be worthy of muscle; her eyes were still turned toward the ceiling, and you! And now there’s nothing left. Ah well, perhaps that’s her cigarette was still wedged tightly between her lips.
best. I don’t want to bring a stumbling block into your
“Dear me, you’re charming, you are!” said Zoe.
life.”
But Satin sat up, looked savagely at the count and once Astounded by this story of paternity, he began stammer-more hurled her remark at him.
ing vague phrases. He had taken a chair and had sat down
“That’s right; it’ll teach him!”
by the bed, leaning one arm on the coverlet. Then the young And she lay down again and blew forth a thin jet of smoke, woman noticed his wild expression, the blood reddening as though she had no interest in present events and were his eyes, the fever that set his lips aquiver.
resolved not to meddle in any of them. No, it was all too
“What’s the matter then?” she asked. “You’re ill too.” silly!
“No,” he answered with extreme difficulty.
Zoe, however, introduced Muffat into the bedroom, She gazed at him with a profound expression. Then she where a scent of ether lingered amid warm, heavy silence, signed to Zoe to retire, for the latter was lingering round 327
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arranging the medicine bottles. And when they were alone the meditation of vengeance he had gone out in the morn-she drew him down to her and again asked: ing in order to resist a longing which prompted him to kill
“What’s the matter with you, darling? The tears are ready his wife. Outside, under a sudden, sweet influence of a fine to burst from your eyes—I can see that quite well. Well June morning, he had lost the thread of his thoughts and now, speak out; you’ve come to tell me something.” had come to Nana’s, as he always came at terrible mo-
“No, no, I swear I haven’t,” he blurted out. But he was ments in his life. There only he gave way to his misery, for choking with suffering, and this sickroom, into which he he felt a cowardly joy at the thought that she would con-had suddenly entered unawares, so worked on his feelings sole him.
that he burst out sobbing and buried his face in the bed-
“Now look here, be calm!” the young woman continued, clothes to smother the violence of his grief. Nana under-becoming at the same time extremely kind. “I’ve known it stood. Rose Mignon had most assuredly decided to send a long time, but it was certainly not I that would have the letter. She let him weep for some moments, and he was opened your eyes. You remember y