But the waltz still beat out its swinging, laughing, volup-The thing struck him as comic.
tuous measure; it was like a shrill continuation of the life
“Aha, here she is at last!” cried La Faloise, who did not of pleasure which was beating against the old house like a abandon a jest when he thought it a good one. “D’you see rising tide. The band blew louder trills from their little flutes; Nana coming in over there?”
their violins sent forth more swooning notes. Beneath the
“Hold your tongue, do, you idiot!” muttered Philippe.
Genoa velvet hangings, the gilding and the paintings, the
“But I tell you, it is Nana! They’re playing her waltz for lusters exhaled a living heat and a great glow of sunlight, her, by Jove! She’s making her entry. And she takes part in while the crowd of guests, multiplied in the surrounding the reconciliation, the devil she does! What? You don’t see mirrors, seemed to grow and increase as the murmur of her? She’s squeezing all three of ‘em to her heart—my many voices rose ever louder. The couples who whirled cousin Fauchery, my lady cousin and her husband, and she’s round the drawing room, arm about waist, amid the smiles calling ‘em her dear kitties. Oh, those family scenes give of the seated ladies, still further accentuated the quaking me a turn!”
of the floors. In the garden a dull, fiery glow fell from the Estelle had come up, and Fauchery complimented her while Venetian lanterns and threw a distant reflection of flame she stood stiffly up in her rose-colored dress, gazing at him over the dark shadows moving in search of a breath of air with the astonished look of a silent child and constantly glanc-about the walks at its farther end. And this trembling of ing aside at her father and mother. Daguenet, too, exchanged walls and this red glow of light seemed to betoken a great a hearty shake of the hand with the journalist. Together they ultimate conflagration in which the fabric of an ancient made up a smiling group, while M. Venot came gliding in honor was cracking and burning on every side. The shy behind them. He gloated over them with a beatified expres-early beginnings of gaiety, of which Fauchery one April sion and seemed to envelop them in his pious sweetness, for evening had heard the vocal expression in the sound of he rejoiced in these last instances of self-abandonment which breaking glass, had little by little grown bolder, wilder, till were preparing the means of grace.
they had burst forth in this festival. Now the rift was grow-343
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ing; it was crannying the house and announcing approach-of selling the Bordes. She consented at once. They both ing downfall. Among drunkards in the slums it is black stood in great want of money, and they would share and misery, an empty cupboard, which put an end to ruined share alike. This completed the reconciliation, and Muffat, families; it is the madness of drink which empties the remorseful though he was, felt veritably relieved.
wretched beds. Here the waltz tune was sounding the knell That very day, as Nana was dozing toward two in the of an old race amid the suddenly ignited ruins of accumu-afternoon, Zoe made so bold as to knock at her bedroom lated wealth, while Nana, although unseen, stretched her door. The curtains were drawn to, and a hot breath of wind lithe limbs above the dancers’ heads and sent corruption kept blowing through a window into the fresh twilight still-through their caste, drenching the hot air with the ferment ness within. During these last days the young woman had of her exhalations and the vagabond lilt of the music.
been getting up and about again, but she was still someOn the evening after the celebration of the church mar-what weak. She opened her eyes and asked: riage Count Muffat made his appearance in his wife’s bed-
“Who is it?”
room, where he had not entered for the last two years. At Zoe was about to reply, but Daguenet pushed by her and first, in her great surprise, the countess drew back from announced himself in person. Nana forthwith propped her-him. But she was still smiling the intoxicated smile which self up on her pillow and, dismissing the lady’s maid: she now always wore. He began stammering in extreme
“What! Is that you?” she cried. “On the day of your mar-embarrassment; whereupon she gave him a short moral riage? What can be the matter?”
lecture. However, neither of them risked a decisive expla-Taken aback by the darkness, he stood still in the middle nation. It was religion, they pretended, which required this of the room. However, he grew used to it and came for-process of mutual forgiveness, and they agreed by a tacit ward at last. He was in evening dress and wore a white understanding to retain their freedom. Before going to bed, cravat and gloves.
seeing that the countess still appeared to hesitate, they had
“Yes, to be sure, it’s me!” he said. “You don’t remem-a business conversation, and the count was the first to speak ber?”
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No, she remembered nothing, and in his chaffing way he CHAPTER XIII
had to offer himself frankly to her.
“Come now, here’s your commission. I’ve brought you the handsel of my innocence!”
And with that, as he was now by the bedside, she caught TOWARD THE END of September Count Muffat, who was to dine at Nana’s that evening, came at night fall to inform her of a summons to the Tuileries.
him in her bare arms and shook with merry laughter and The lamps in the house had not been lit yet, and the ser-almost cried, she thought it so pretty of him.
vants were laughing uproariously in the kitchen regions as
“Oh, that Mimi, how funny he is! He’s thought of it after he softly mounted the stairs, where the tall windows all! And to think I didn’t remember it any longer! So you’ve gleamed in warm shadow. The door of the drawing room slipped off; you’re just out of church. Yes, certainly, you’ve up-stairs opened noiselessly. A faint pink glow was dying got a scent of incense about you. But kiss me, kiss me! Oh, out on the ceiling of the room, and the red hangings, the harder than that, Mimi dear! Bah! Perhaps it’s for the last deep divans, the lacquered furniture, with their medley of time.”
embroidered fabrics and bronzes and china, were already In the dim room, where a vague odor of ether still lin-sleeping under a slowly creeping flood of shadows, which gered, their tender laughter died away suddenly. The heavy, drowned nooks and corners and blotted out the gleam of warm breeze swelled the window curtains, and children’s ivory and the glint of gold. And there in the darkness, on the voices were audible in the avenue without. Then the late-white surface of a wide, outspread petticoat, which alone ness of the hour tore them asunder and set them joking remained clearly visible, he saw Nana lying stretched in the again. Daguenet took his departure with his wife directly arms of Georges. Denial in any shape or form was impos-after the breakfast.
sible. He gave a choking cry and stood gaping at them.
Nana had bounded up, and now she pushed him into the bedroom in order to give the lad time to escape.
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“Come in,” she murmured with reeling senses, “I’ll explain.” The count, with his hands on his knees, was sitting gaz-She was exasperated at being thus surprised. Never being at the floor. He was stupefied by what he had just seen.
fore had she given way like this in her own house, in her He did not cry out in anger. He only trembled, as though own drawing room, when the doors were open. It was a overtaken by some horror which was freezing him. This long story: Georges and she had had a disagreement; he dumb misery touched the young woman, and she tried to had been mad with jealousy of Philippe, and he had sobbed comfort him.
so bitterly on her bosom that she had yielded to him, not
“Well, yes, I’ve done wrong. It’s very bad what I did.
knowing how else to calm him and really very full of pity You see I’m sorry for my fault. It makes me grieve very for him at heart. And on this solitary occasion, when she much because it annoys you. Come now, be nice, too, and had been stupid enough to forget herself thus with a little forgive me.”
rascal who could not even now bring her bouquets of vio-She had crouched down at his feet and was striving to lets, so short did his mother keep him—on this solitary catch his eye with a look of tender submission. She was occasion the count turned up and came straight down on fain to know whether he was very vexed with her. Pres-them. ‘Gad, she had very bad luck! That was what one got ently, as he gave a long sigh and seemed to recover him-if one was a good-natured wench!
self, she grew more coaxing and with grave kindness of Meanwhile in the bedroom, into which she had pushed manner added a final reason:
Muffat, the darkness was complete. Whereupon after some
“You see, dearie, you must try and understand how it is: groping she rang furiously and asked for a lamp. It was I can’t refuse it to my poor friends.” Julien’s fault too! If there had been a lamp in the drawing The count consented to give way and only insisted that room the whole affair would not have happened. It was Georges should be dismissed once for all. But all his illusions the stupid nightfall which had got the better of her heart.
had vanished, and he no longer believed in her sworn fidelity.
“I beseech you to be reasonable, my pet,” she said when Next day Nana would deceive him anew, and he only remained Zoe had brought in the lights.
her miserable possessor in obedience to a cowardly necessity 346
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and to terror at the thought of living without her.
tribe of cousins, who were cockered up in their homes with This was the epoch in her existence when Nana flared cold meats and strong soup. Julien made the trades-people upon Paris with redoubled splendor. She loomed larger than give him commissions, and the glaziers never put up a pane heretofore on the horizon of vice and swayed the town of glass at a cost of a franc and a half but he had a franc put with her impudently flaunted splendor and that contempt down to himself. Charles devoured the horses’ oats and of money which made her openly squander fortunes. Her doubled the amount of their provender, reselling at the back house had become a sort of glowing smithy, where her door what came in at the carriage gate, while amid the continual desires were the flames and the slightest breath general pillage, the sack of the town after the storm, Zoe, from her lips changed gold into fine ashes, which the wind by dint of cleverness, succeeded in saving appearances and hourly swept away. Never had eye beheld such a rage of covering the thefts of all in order the better to slur over expenditure. The great house seemed to have been built and make good her own. But the household waste was over a gulf in which men—their worldly possessions, their worse than the household dishonesty. Yesterday’s food was fortunes, their very names—were swallowed up without thrown into the gutter, and the collection of provisions in leaving even a handful of dust behind them. This courte-the house was such that the servants grew disgusted with san, who had the tastes of a parrot and gobbled up radit. The glass was all sticky with sugar, and the gas burners ishes and burnt almonds and pecked at the meat upon her flared and flared till the rooms seemed ready to explode.
plate, had monthly table bills amounting to five thousand Then, too, there were instances of negligence and mischief francs. The wildest waste went on in the kitchen: the place, and sheer accident—of everything, in fact, which can has-metaphorically speaking was one great river which stove ten the ruin of a house devoured by so many mouths. Up-in cask upon cask of wine and swept great bills with it, stairs in Madame’s quarters destruction raged more fiercely swollen by three or four successive manipulators. Victorine still. Dresses, which cost ten thousand francs and had been and Francois reigned supreme in the kitchen, whither they twice worn, were sold by Zoe; jewels vanished as though invited friends. In addition to these there was quite a little they had crumbled deep down in their drawers; stupid pur-347
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chases were made; every novelty of the day was brought stop up the hole, which, amid this ruinous luxury, continu-and left to lie forgotten in some corner the morning after ally gaped under the floor of her house.
or swept up by ragpickers in the street. She could not see Meanwhile Nana had cherished her latest caprice. Once any very expensive object without wanting to possess it, more exercised by the notion that her room needed redo-and so she constantly surrounded herself with the wrecks ing, she fancied she had hit on something at last. The room of bouquets and costly knickknacks and was the happier should be done in velvet of the color of tea roses, with the more her passing fancy cost. Nothing remained intact silver buttons and golden cords, tassels and fringes, and in her hands; she broke everything, and this object with-the hangings should be caught up to the ceiling after the ered, and that grew dirty in the clasp of her lithe white manner of a tent. This arrangement ought to be both rich fingers. A perfect heap of nameless debris, of twisted shreds and tender, she thought, and would form a splendid back-and muddy rags, followed her and marked her passage.
ground to her blonde vermeil-tinted skin. However, the Then amid this utter squandering of pocket money cropped bedroom was only designed to serve as a setting to the up a question about the big bills and their settlement. Twenty bed, which was to be a dazzling affair, a prodigy. Nana thousand francs were due to the modiste, thirty thousand meditated a bed such as had never before existed; it was to to the linen draper, twelve thousand to the bootmaker. Her be a throne, an altar, whither Paris was to come in order to stable devoured fifty thousand for her, and in six months adore her sovereign nudity. It was to be all in gold and she ran up a bill of a hundred and twenty thousand francs silver beaten work—it should suggest a great piece of jew-at her ladies’ tailor. Though she had not enlarged her scheme elry with its golden roses climbing on a trelliswork of sil-of expenditure, which Labordette reckoned at four hun-ver. On the headboard a band of Loves should peep forth dred thousand francs on an average, she ran up that same laughing from amid the flowers, as though they were watch-year to a million. She was herself stupefied by the amount ing the voluptuous dalliance within the shadow of the bed and was unable to tell whither such a sum could have gone.
curtains. Nana had applied to Labordette who had brought Heaps upon heaps of men, barrowfuls of gold, failed to two goldsmiths to see her. They were already busy with 348
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the designs. The bed would cost fifty thousand francs, and a sum of ten thousand francs. The captain still laughed his Muffat was to give it her as a New Year’s present.
hearty-sounding laugh, but he was growing visibly thinner, What most astonished the young woman was that she and sometimes he seemed absent-minded, and a shade of was endlessly short of money amid a river of gold, the tide suffering would pass over his face. But one look from of which almost enveloped her. On certain days she was at Nana’s eyes would transfigure him in a sort of sensual echer wit’s end for want of ridiculously small sums—sums of stasy. She had a very coaxing way with him and would only a few louis. She was driven to borrow from Zoe, or intoxicate him with furtive kisses and yield herself to him she scraped up cash as well as she could on her own ac-in sudden fits of self-abandonment, which tied him to her count. But before resignedly adopting extreme measures apron strings the moment he was able to escape from his she tried her friends and in a joking sort of way got the military duties.
men to give her all they had about them, even down to One evening, Nana having announced that her name, too, their coppers. For the last three months she had been emp-was Therese and that her fete day was the fifteenth of Oc-tying Philippe’s pockets especially, and now on days of tober, the gentlemen all sent her presents. Captain Philippe passionate enjoyment he never came away but he left his brought his himself; it was an old comfit dish in Dresden purse behind him. Soon she grew bolder and asked him for china, and it had a gold mount. He found her alone in her loans of two hundred francs, three hundred francs—never dressing room. She had just emerged from the bath, had more than that—wherewith to pay the interest of bills or nothing on save a great red-and-white flannel bathing wrap to stave off outrageous debts. And Philippe, who in July and was very busy examining her presents, which were had been appointed paymaster to his regiment, would bring ranged on a table. She had already broken a rock-crystal the money the day after, apologizing at the same time for flask in her attempts to unstopper it.
not being rich, seeing that good Mamma Hugon now treated
“Oh, you’re too nice!” she said. “What is it? Let’s have a her sons with singular financial severity. At the close of peep! What a baby you are to spend your pennies in little three months these little oft-renewed loans mounted up to fakements like that!”
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She scolded him, seeing that he was not rich, but at heart And she once more burst into uproarious mirth.
she was delighted to see him spending his whole substance But though he made an effort to the contrary, tears ap-for her. Indeed, this was the only proof of love which had peared in the young man’s eyes, and with that she flung her power to touch her. Meanwhile she was fiddling away at arms tenderly round his neck.
the comfit dish, opening it and shutting it in her desire to
“How silly you are! You know I love you all the same. If see how it was made.
one never broke anything the tradesmen would never sell
“Take care,” he murmured, “it’s brittle.” anything. All that sort of thing’s made to be broken. Now But she shrugged her shoulders. Did he think her as look at this fan; it’s only held together with glue!” clumsy as a street porter? And all of a sudden the hinge She had snatched up a fan and was dragging at the blades came off between her fingers and the lid fell and was bro-so that the silk was torn in two. This seemed to excite her, ken. She was stupefied and remained gazing at the frag-and in order to show that she scorned the other presents, ments as she cried:
the moment she had ruined his she treated herself to a gen-
“Oh, it’s smashed!”
eral massacre, rapping each successive object and proving Then she burst out laughing. The fragments lying on the clearly that not one was solid in that she had broken them floor tickled her fancy. Her merriment was of the nervous all. There was a lurid glow in her vacant eyes, and her lips, kind, the stupid, spiteful laughter of a child who delights in slightly drawn back, displayed her white teeth. Soon, when destruction. Philippe had a little fit of disgust, for the everything was in fragments, she laughed cheerily again wretched girl did not know what anguish this curio had and with flushed cheeks beat on the table with the flat of cost him. Seeing him thoroughly upset, she tried to con-her hands, lisping like a naughty little girl: tain herself.
“All over! Got no more! Got no more!”
“Gracious me, it isn’t my fault! It was cracked; those old Then Philippe was overcome by the same mad excite-things barely hold together. Besides, it was the cover! Didn’t ment, and, pushing her down, he merrily kissed her bo-you see the bound it gave?
som. She abandoned herself to him and clung to his shoul-350
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ders with such gleeful energy that she could not remember collection off in the folds of her dress. In the kitchen a having enjoyed herself so much for an age past. Without sorting-out process began, and Madame’s debris were letting go of him she said caressingly: shared among the servants.
“I say, dearie, you ought certainly to bring me ten louis That day Georges had slipped into the house despite tomorrow. It’s a bore, but there’s the baker’s bill worrying Nana’s orders to the contrary. Francois had certainly seen me awfully.”
him pass, but the servants had now got to laugh among He had grown pale. Then imprinting a final kiss on her themselves at their good lady’s embarrassing situations.
forehead, he said simply:
He had just slipped as far as the little drawing room when
“I’ll try.”
his brother’s voice stopped him, and, as one powerless to Silence reigned. She was dressing, and he stood pressing tear himself from the door, he overheard everything that his forehead against the windowpanes. A minute passed, went on within, the kisses, the offer of marriage. A feeling and he returned to her and deliberately continued: of horror froze him, and he went away in a state bordering
“Nana, you ought to marry me.”
on imbecility, feeling as though there were a great void in This notion straightway so tickled the young woman that his brain. It was only in his own room above his mother’s she was unable to finish tying on her petticoats.
flat in the Rue Richelieu that his heart broke in a storm of
“My poor pet, you’re ill! D’you offer me your hand be-furious sobs. This time there could be no doubt about the cause I ask you for ten louis? No, never! I’m too fond of state of things; a horrible picture of Nana in Philippe’s arms you. Good gracious, what a silly question!” kept rising before his mind’s eye. It struck him in the light And as Zoe entered in order to put her boots on, they of an incest. When he fancied himself calm again the re-ceased talking of the matter. The lady’s maid at once es-membrance of it all would return, and in fresh access of pied the presents lying broken in pieces on the table. She raging jealousy he would throw himself on the bed, biting asked if she should put these things away, and, Madame the coverlet, shouting infamous accusations which mad-having bidden her get rid of them, she carried the whole dened him the more. Thus the day passed. In order to stay 351
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shut up in his room he spoke of having a sick headache.
She knew Philippe’s connection with her, and her melan-But the night proved more terrible still; a murder fever choly had been the result of this miserable state of things shook him amid continual nightmares. Had his brother lived which kept her in Paris in constant dread of some final in the house, he would have gone and killed him with the catastrophe. But she had never looked forward to such stab of a knife. When day returned he tried to reason things shame as this, and now she blamed herself for refusing him out. It was he who ought to die, and he determined to money, as though such refusal had made her accessory to throw himself out of the window when an omnibus was his act. She sank down on an armchair; her legs were seized passing. Nevertheless, he went out toward ten o’clock and with paralysis, and she felt herself to be useless, incapable traversed Paris, wandered up and down on the bridges and of action and destined to stay where she was till she died.
at the last moment felt an unconquerable desire to see Nana But the sudden thought of Georges comforted her. Georges once more. With one word, perhaps, she would save him.
was still left her; he would be able to act, perhaps to save And three o’clock was striking when he entered the house them. Thereupon, without seeking aid of anyone else—for in the Avenue de Villiers.
she wished to keep these matters shrouded in the bosom of Toward noon a frightful piece of news had simply crushed her family—she dragged herself up to the next story, her Mme Hugon. Philippe had been in prison since the evening mind possessed by the idea that she still had someone to of the previous day, accused of having stolen twelve thou-love about her. But upstairs she found an empty room. The sand francs from the chest of his regiment. For the last porter told her that M. Georges had gone out at an early three months he had been withdrawing small sums there-hour. The room was haunted by the ghost of yet another from in the hope of being able to repay them, while he had calamity; the bed with its gnawed bedclothes bore witness covered the deficit with false money. Thanks to the negli-to someone’s anguish, and a chair which lay amid a heap of gence of the administrative committee, this fraud had been clothes on the ground looked like something dead. Georges constantly successful. The old lady, humbled utterly by her must be at that woman’s house, and so with dry eyes and child’s crime, had at once cried out in anger against Nana.
feet that had regained their strength Mme Hugon went 352
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downstairs. She wanted her sons; she was starting to re-thing, whatever they might say! And when the others ac-claim them.
cused him of sleeping with her he laughed fatuously, thereby Since morning Nana had been much worried. First of all driving the cook to distraction, for she would have liked to it was the baker, who at nine o’clock had turned up, bill in be a man in order to “spit on such women’s backsides,” so hand. It was a wretched story. He had supplied her with utterly would they have disgusted her. Francois, without bread to the amount of a hundred and thirty-three francs, informing Madame of it, had wickedly posted the baker in and despite her royal housekeeping she could not pay it. In the hall, and when she came downstairs at lunch time she his irritation at being put off he had presented himself a found herself face to face with him. Taking the bill, she score of times since the day he had refused further credit, told him to return toward three o’clock, whereupon, with and the servants were now espousing his cause. Francois many foul expressions, he departed, vowing that he would kept saying that Madame would never pay him unless he have things properly settled and get his money by hook or made a fine scene; Charles talked of going upstairs, too, in by crook.
order to get an old unpaid straw bill settled, while Victorine Nana made a very bad lunch, for the scene had annoyed advised them to wait till some gentleman was with her, her. Next time the man would have to be definitely got rid when they would get the money out of her by suddenly of. A dozen times she had put his money aside for him, but asking for it in the middle of conversation. The kitchen it had as constantly melted away, sometimes in the pur-was in a savage mood: the tradesmen were all kept posted chase of flowers, at others in the shape of a subscription in the course events were taking, and there were gossiping got up for the benefit of an old gendarme. Besides, she consultations, lasting three or four hours on a stretch, dur-was counting on Philippe and was astonished not to see ing which Madame was stripped, plucked and talked over him make his appearance with his two hundred francs. It with the wrathful eagerness peculiar to an idle, was regular bad luck, seeing that the day before yesterday overprosperous servants’ hall. Julien, the house steward, she had again given Satin an outfit, a perfect trousseau this alone pretended to defend his mistress. She was quite the time, some twelve hundred francs’ worth of dresses and 353
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linen, and now she had not a louis remaining.
However, a difficulty presented itself. Labordette showed Toward two o’clock, when Nana was beginning to be her two designs for the footboard, one of which repro-anxious, Labordette presented himself. He brought with duced the pattern on the sides, while the other, a subject by him the designs for the bed, and this caused a diversion, a itself, represented Night wrapped in her veil and discov-joyful interlude which made the young woman forget all ered by a faun in all her splendid nudity. He added that if her troubles. She clapped her hands and danced about. After she chose this last subject the goldsmiths intended making which, her heart bursting wish curiosity, she leaned over a Night in her own likeness. This idea, the taste of which table in the drawing room and examined the designs, which was rather risky, made her grow white with pleasure, and Labordette proceeded to explain to her.
she pictured herself as a silver statuette, symbolic of the
“You see,” he said, “this is the body of the bed. In the warm, voluptuous delights of darkness.
middle here there’s a bunch of roses in full bloom, and then
“Of course you will only sit for the head and shoulders,” comes a garland of buds and flowers. The leaves are to be said Labordette.
in yellow and the roses in red-gold. And here’s the grand She looked quietly at him.
design for the bed’s head; Cupids dancing in a ring on a
“Why? The moment a work of art’s in question I don’t silver trelliswork.”
mind the sculptor that takes my likeness a blooming bit!” But Nana interrupted him, for she was beside herself with Of course it must be understood that she was choosing ecstasy.
the subject. But at this he interposed.
“Oh, how funny that little one is, that one in the corner,
“Wait a moment; it’s six thousand francs extra.” with his behind in the air! Isn’t he now? And what a sly
“It’s all the same to me, by Jove!” she cried, bursting laugh! They’ve all got such dirty, wicked eyes! You know, into a laugh. “Hasn’t my little rough got the rhino?” dear b