the dark, a merry spree; never a trace was left behind. In this And with that she went into raptures over the prettiness way she would prevent the men from coming dangling after of the rooms. Nana took her to see the bedroom, the par-her. Fontain was very nice. He did not say no to anything lor and the very kitchen. Gracious goodness, it wasn’t a but just let her do as she liked. Nay, he even displayed an vast place, but then, they had painted it afresh and put up admirable spirit of comradeship. He had, on his part, nearly new wallpapers. Besides, the sun shone merrily into it dur-seven thousand francs, and despite the fact that people acing the daytime.
cused him of stinginess, he consented to add them to the Thereupon Mme Lerat detained the young woman in the young woman’s ten thousand. The sum struck them as a bedroom, while Louiset installed himself behind the char-solid foundation on which to begin housekeeping. And so woman in the kitchen in order to watch a chicken being they started away, drawing from their common hoard, in roasted. If, said Mme Lerat, she permitted herself to say order to hire and furnish the two rooms in the Rue Veron, what was in her mind, it was because Zoe had just been at and sharing everything together like old friends. In the early her house. Zoe had stayed courageously in the breach be-days it was really delicious.
cause she was devoted to her mistress. Madame would On Twelfth Night Mme Lerat and Louiset were the first pay her later on; she was in no anxiety about that! And to arrive. As Fontan had not yet come home, the old lady amid the breakup of the Boulevard Haussmann establish-200
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ment it was she who showed the creditors a bold front; it Mignotte was being sold and that Labordette was buying was she who conducted a dignified retreat, saving what it for Caroline Hequet at an absurdly low price. It made she could from the wreck and telling everyone that her her angry with that clique. Oh, they were a regular cheap mistress was traveling. She never once gave them her ad-lot, in spite of their airs and graces! Yes, by Jove, she was dress. Nay, through fear of being followed, she even de-worth more than the whole lot of them!
prived herself of the pleasure of calling on Madame. Nev-
“They can have their little joke out,” she concluded, “but ertheless, that same morning she had run round to Mme money will never give them true happiness! Besides, you Lerat’s because matters were taking a new turn. The know, Aunt, I don’t even know now whether all that set evening before creditors in the persons of the upholsterer, are alive or not. I’m much too happy.” the charcoal merchant and the laundress had put in an ap-At that very moment Mme Maloir entered, wearing one pearance and had offered to give Madame an extension of of those hats of which she alone understood the shape. It time. Nay, they had even proposed to advance Madame a was delightful meeting again. Mme Maloir explained that very considerable amount if only Madame would return to magnificence frightened her and that now, from time to her flat and conduct herself like a sensible person. The aunt time, she would come back for her game of bezique. A repeated Zoe’s words. Without doubt there was a gentle-second visit was paid to the different rooms in the lodg-man behind it all.
ings, and in the kitchen Nana talked of economy in the
“I’ll never consent!” declared Nana in great disgust. “Ah, presence of the charwoman, who was basting the fowl, they’re a pretty lot those tradesmen! Do they think I’m to and said that a servant would have cost too much and that be sold so that they can get their bills paid? Why, look she was herself desirous of looking after things. Louiset here, I’d rather die of hunger than deceive Fontan.” was gazing beatifically at the roasting process.
“That’s what I said,” averred Mme Lerat. “‘My niece,’ I But presently there was a loud outburst of voices. Fontan said, ‘is too noble-hearted!’”
had come in with Bosc and Prulliere, and the company Nana, however, was much vexed to learn that La could now sit down to table. The soup had been already 201
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served when Nana for the third time showed off the would arrive all the same. Fontan, in his role of honest lodgings.
citizen, took Louiset in his arms and began playing with
“Ah, dear children, how comfortable you are here!” Bosc him and lisping.
kept repeating, simply for the sake of pleasing the chums
“Never mind! It loves its daddy! Call me ‘Papa,’ you who were standing the dinner. At bottom the subject of the little blackguard!”
“nook,” as he called it, nowise touched him.
“Papa, Papa!” stammered the child.
In the bedroom he harped still more vigorously on the The company overwhelmed him with caresses, but Bosc amiable note. Ordinarily he was wont to treat women like was bored and talked of sitting down to table. That was cattle, and the idea of a man bothering himself about one the only serious business in life. Nana asked her guests’
of the dirty brutes excited within him the only angry feel-permission to put Louiset’s chair next her own. The dinner ings of which, in his comprehensive, drunken disdain of was very merry, but Bosc suffered from the near neighbor-the universe, he was still capable.
hood of the child, from whom he had to defend his plate.
“Ah, ah, the villains,” he continued with a wink, “they’ve Mme Lerat bored him too. She was in a melting mood and done this on the sly. Well, you were certainly right. It will kept whispering to him all sorts of mysterious things about be charming, and, by heaven, we’ll come and see you!” gentlemen of the first fashion who were still running after But when Louiset arrived on the scene astride upon a Nana. Twice he had to push away her knee, for she was broomstick, Prulliere chuckled spitefully and remarked: positively invading him in her gushing, tearful mood.
“Well, I never! You’ve got a baby already?” Prulliere behaved with great incivility toward Mme Maloir This struck everybody as very droll, and Mme Lerat and and did not once help her to anything. He was entirely Mme Maloir shook with laughter. Nana, far from being taken up with Nana and looked annoyed at seeing her with vexed, laughed tenderly and said that unfortunately this Fontan. Besides, the turtle doves were kissing so exces-was not the case. She would very much have liked it, both sively as to be becoming positive bores. Contrary to all for the little one’s sake and for her own, but perhaps one known rules, they had elected to sit side by side.
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“Devil take it! Why don’t you eat? You’ve got plenty of willing to behave prettily.
time ahead of you!” Bosc kept repeating with his mouth
“Well, you’re growing maddening!” cried Prulliere. “Get full. “Wait till we are gone!”
away from her, you fellow there!” But Nana could not restrain herself. She was in a perfect And he dismissed Fontan and changed covers, in order to ecstasy of love. Her face was as full of blushes as an inno-take his place at Nana’s side. The company shouted and cent young girl’s, and her looks and her laughter seemed applauded at this and gave vent to some stiffish epigram-to overflow with tenderness. Gazing on Fontan, she over-matic witticisms. Fontan counterfeited despair and assumed whelmed him with pet names—“my doggie, my old bear, the quaint expression of Vulcan crying for Venus. Straight-my kitten”—and whenever he passed her the water or the way Prulliere became very gallant, but Nana, whose foot he salt she bent forward and kissed him at random on lips, was groping for under the table, caught him a slap to make eyes, nose or ear. Then if she met with reproof she would him keep quiet. No, no, she was certainly not going to be-return to the attack with the cleverest maneuvers and with come his mistress. A month ago she had begun to take a infinite submissiveness and the supple cunning of a beaten fancy to him because of his good looks, but now she de-cat would catch hold of his hand when no one was look-tested him. If he pinched her again under pretense of picking ing, in order to kiss it again. It seemed she must be touch-up her napkin, she would throw her glass in his face!
ing something belonging to him. As to Fontan, he gave Nevertheless, the evening passed off well. The company himself airs and let himself be adored with the utmost con-had naturally begun talking about the Varietes. Wasn’t that descension. His great nose sniffed with entirely sensual cad of a Bordenave going to go off the hooks after all? His content; his goat face, with its quaint, monstrous ugliness, nasty diseases kept reappearing and causing him such suf-positively glowed in the sunlight of devoted adoration lav-fering that you couldn’t come within six yards of him nowa-ished upon him by that superb woman who was so fair and days. The day before during rehearsal he had been incesso plump of limb. Occasionally he gave a kiss in return, as santly yelling at Simonne. There was a fellow whom the became a man who is having all the enjoyment and is yet theatrical people wouldn’t shed many tears over. Nana 203
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announced that if he were to ask her to take another part early days when her first silk dress had caused her infinite she would jolly well send him to the rightabout. Moreover, delight. She went out little and affected a life of solitude she began talking of leaving the stage; the theater was not and simplicity. One morning early, when she had gone down to compare with her home. Fontan, who was not in the to buy fish in propria persona in La Rouchefoucauld Mar-present piece or in that which was then being rehearsed, ket, she was vastly surprised to meet her old hair dresser also talked big about the joy of being entirely at liberty and Francis face to face. His getup was as scrupulously careful of passing his evenings with his feet on the fender in the as ever: he wore the finest linen, and his frock coat was society of his little pet. And at this the rest exclaimed de-beyond reproach; in fact, Nana felt ashamed that he should lightedly, treating their entertainers as lucky people and see her in the street with a dressing jacket and disordered pretending to envy their felicity.
hair and down-at-heel shoes. But he had the tact, if pos-The Twelfth-Night cake had been cut and handed round.
sible, to intensify his politeness toward her. He did not per-The bean had fallen to the lot of Mme Lerat, who popped mit himself a single inquiry and affected to believe that it into Bosc’s glass. Whereupon there were shouts of “The Madame was at present on her travels. Ah, but Madame king drinks! The king drinks!” Nana took advantage of had rendered many persons unhappy when she decided to this outburst of merriment and went and put her arms round travel! All the world had suffered loss. The young woman, Fontan’s neck again, kissing him and whispering in his ear.
however, ended by asking him questions, for a sudden fit But Prulliere, laughing angrily, as became a pretty man, of curiosity had made her forget her previous embarrass-declared that they were not playing the game. Louiset, ment. Seeing that the crowd was jostling them, she pushed meanwhile, slept soundly on two chairs. It was nearing him into a doorway and, still holding her little basket in one o’clock when the company separated, shouting au one hand, stood chatting in front of him. What were people revoir as they went downstairs.
saying about her high jinks? Good heavens! The ladies to For three weeks the existence of the pair of lovers was whom he went said this and that and all sorts of things. In really charming. Nana fancied she was returning to those fact, she had made a great noise and was enjoying a real 204
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boom: And Steiner? M. Steiner was in a very bad way, stand it all now: she wanted to have her revenge because I would make an ugly finish if he couldn’t hit on some new got that brute of a Steiner away from her. Ain’t it sly to get commercial operation. And Daguenet? Oh, he was getting a man to come to her when I’ve chucked him out of doors?” on swimmingly. M. Daguenet was settling down. Nana,
“M. Mignon doesn’t tell that tale,” said the hairdresser.
under the exciting influence of various recollections, was
“According to his account, it was Monsieur le Comte who just opening her mouth with a view to a further examina-chucked you out. Yes, and in a pretty disgusting way too—
tion when she felt it would be awkward to utter Muffat’s with a kick on the bottom!”
name. Thereupon Francis smiled and spoke instead of her.
Nana became suddenly very pale.
As to Monsieur le Comte, it was all a great pity, so sad had
“Eh, what?” she cried. “With a kick on my bottom? He’s been his sufferings since Madame’s departure.
going too far, he is! Look here, my little friend, it was I He had been like a soul in pain—you might have met him who threw him downstairs, the cuckold, for he is a cuck-wherever Madame was likely to be found. At last M. Mi-old, I must inform you. His countess is making him one gnon had come across him and had taken him home to his with every man she meets—yes, even with that good-for-own place. This piece of news caused Nana to laugh a nothing of a Fauchery. And that Mignon, who goes loafing good deal. But her laughter was not of the easiest kind.
about the pavement in behalf of his harridan of a wife, whom
“Ah, he’s with Rose now,” she said. “Well then, you must nobody wants because she’s so lean! What a foul lot! What know, Francis, I’ve done with him! Oh, the canting thing!
a foul lot!”
It’s learned some pretty habits—can’t even go fasting for a She was choking, and she paused for breath week now! And to think that he used to swear he wouldn’t
“Oh, that’s what they say, is it? Very well, my little Francis, have any woman after me!”
I’ll go and look ‘em up, I will. Shall you and I go to them She was raging inwardly.
at once? Yes, I’ll go, and we’ll see whether they will have
“My leavings, if you please!” she continued. “A pretty the cheek to go telling about kicks on the bottom. Kick’s!
Johnnie for Rose to go and treat herself to! Oh, I underI never took one from anybody! And nobody’s ever going 205
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to strike me—d’ye see?—for I’d smash the man who laid a were beasts whom it was one’s duty to despise. And from finger on me!”
that moment forth Nana was full of very real disdain.
Nevertheless, the storm subsided at last. After all, they That same evening they went to the Bouffes-Parisiens might jolly well what they liked! She looked upon them as Theatre to see a little woman of Fontan’s acquaintance make so much filth underfoot! It would have soiled her to bother her debut in a part of some ten lines. It was close on one about people like that. She had a conscience of her own, o’clock when they once more trudged up the heights of she had! And Francis, seeing her thus giving herself away, Montmartre. They had purchased a cake, a “mocha,” in what with her housewife’s costume and all, became famil-the Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin, and they ate it in bed, iar and, at parting, made so bold as to give her some good seeing that the night was not warm and it was not worth advice. It was wrong of her to be sacrificing everything for while lighting a fire. Sitting up side by side, with the bed-the sake of an infatuation; such infatuations ruined exist-clothes pulled up in front and the pillows piled up behind, ence. She listened to him with bowed head while he spoke they supped and talked about the little woman. Nana to her with a pained expression, as became a connoisseur thought her plain and lacking in style. Fontan, lying on his who could not bear to see so fine a girl making such a hash stomach, passed up the pieces of cake which had been put of things.
between the candle and the matches on the edge of the
“Well, that’s my affair,” she said at last “Thanks all the night table. But they ended by quarreling.
same, dear boy.” She shook his hand, which despite his per-
“Oh, just to think of it!” cried Nana. “She’s got eyes like fect dress was always a little greasy, and then went off to gimlet holes, and her hair’s the color of tow.” buy her fish. During the day that story about the kick on the
“Hold your tongue, do!” said Fontan. “She has a superb bottom occupied her thoughts. She even spoke about it to head of hair and such fire in her looks! It’s lovely the way Fontan and again posed as a sturdy woman who was not you women always tear each other to pieces!” going to stand the slightest flick from anybody. Fontan, as He looked annoyed.
became a philosophic spirit, declared that all men of fashion
“Come now, we’ve had enough of it!” he said at last in 206
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savage tones. “You know I don’t like being bored. Let’s than she danced again. There were fresh crumbs in the bed!
go to sleep, or things’ll take a nasty turn.”
“By Jove, it was sure to happen!” she cried. “You’ve And he blew out the candle, but Nana was furious and went brought them back again under your feet. I can’t go on like on talking. She was not going to be spoken to in that voice; this! No, I tell you, I can’t go on like this!” she was accustomed to being treated with respect! As he did And with that she was on the point of stepping over him not vouchsafe any further answer, she was silenced, but she in order to jump out of bed again, when Fontan in his long-could not go to sleep and lay tossing to and fro.
ing for sleep grew desperate and dealt her a ringing box on
“Great God, have you done moving about?” cried he sud-the ear. The blow was so smart that Nana suddenly found denly, giving a brisk jump upward.
herself lying down again with her head on the pillow.
“It isn’t my fault if there are crumbs in the bed,” she She lay half stunned.
said curtly.
“Oh!” she ejaculated simply, sighing a child’s big sigh.
In fact, there were crumbs in the bed. She felt them down For a second or two he threatened her with a second to her middle; she was everywhere devoured by them. One slap, asking her at the same time if she meant to move single crumb was scorching her and making her scratch again. Then he put out the light, settled himself squarely herself till she bled. Besides, when one eats a cake isn’t it on his back and in a trice was snoring. But she buried her usual to shake out the bedclothes afterward? Fontan, white face in the pillow and began sobbing quietly to herself. It with rage, had relit the candle, and they both got up and, was cowardly of him to take advantage of his superior barefooted and in their night dresses, they turned down strength! She had experienced very real terror all the same, the clothes and swept up the crumbs on the sheet with so terrible had that quaint mask of Fontan’s become. And their hands. Fontan went to bed again, shivering, and told her anger began dwindling down as though the blow had her to go to the devil when she advised him to wipe the calmed her. She began to feel respect toward him and ac-soles of his feet carefully. And in the end she came back to cordingly squeezed herself against the wall in order to leave her old position, but scarce had she stretched herself out him as much room as possible. She even ended by going to 207
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sleep, her cheek tingling, her eyes full of tears and feeling nor her aunt and Louiset with her, she grew mortally dull.
so deliciously depressed and wearied and submissive that Thus one Sunday, when she was bargaining for some pi-she no longer noticed the crumbs. When she woke up in geons at La Rochefoucauld Market, she was delighted to the morning she was holding Fontain in her naked arms meet Satin, who, in her turn, was busy purchasing a bunch and pressing him tightly against her breast. He would never of radishes. Since the evening when the prince had drunk begin it again, eh? Never again? She loved him too dearly.
Fontan’s champagne they had lost sight of one another.
Why, it was even nice to be beaten if he struck the blow!
“What? It’s you! D’you live in our parts?” said Satin, After that night a new life began. For a mere trifle—a astounded at seeing her in the street at that hour of the yes, a no—Fontan would deal her a blow. She grew accus-morning and in slippers too. “Oh, my poor, dear girl, you’re tomed to it and pocketed everything. Sometimes she shed really ruined then!”
tears and threatened him, but he would pin her up against Nana knitted her brows as a sign that she was to hold her the wall and talk of strangling her, which had the effect of tongue, for they were surrounded by other women who rendering her extremely obedient. As often as not, she sank wore dressing gowns and were without linen, while their down on a chair and sobbed for five minutes on end. But disheveled tresses were white with fluff. In the morning, afterward she would forget all about it, grow very merry, when the man picked up overnight had been newly dis-fill the little lodgings with the sound of song and laughter missed, all the courtesans of the quarter were wont to come and the rapid rustle of skirts. The worst of it was that Fontan marketing here, their eyes heavy with sleep, their feet in was now in the habit of disappearing for the whole day and old down-at-heel shoes and themselves full of the weari-never returning home before midnight, for he was going to ness and ill humor entailed by a night of boredom. From cafes and meeting his old friends again. Nana bore with the four converging streets they came down into the mar-everything. She was tremulous and caressing, her only fear ket, looking still rather young in some cases and very pale being that she might never see him again if she reproached and charming in their utter unconstraint; in others, hideous him. But on certain days, when she had neither Mme Maloir and old with bloated faces and peeling skin. The latter did 208
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not the least mind being seen thus outside working hours, wanted to show her where she lived in the Rue and not one of them deigned to smile when the passers-by Rochefoucauld close by. And the moment they were alone on the sidewalk turned round to look at them. Indeed, they Nana told her of her passion for Fontan. Arrived in front were all very full of business and wore a disdainful expres-of the house, the girl stopped with her bundle of radishes sion, as became good housewives for whom men had ceased under her arm and listened eagerly to a final detail which to exist. Just as Satin, for instance, was paying for her bunch the other imparted to her. Nana fibbed away and vowed of radishes a young man, who might have been a shop-boy that it was she who had turned Count Muffat out of doors going late to his work, threw her a passing greeting: with a perfect hail of kicks on the posterior.
“Good morning, duckie.”
“Oh how smart!” Satin repeated. “How very smart! Kicks, She straightened herself up at once and with the digni-eh? And he never said a word, did he? What a blooming fied manner becoming an offended queen remarked: coward! I wish I’d been there to see his ugly mug! My
“What’s up with that swine there?” dear girl, you were quite right. A pin for the coin! When Then she fancied she recognized him. Three days ago I’M on with a mash I starve for it! You’ll come and see me, toward midnight, as the was coming back alone from the eh? You promise? It’s the left-hand door. Knock three boulevards, she had talked to him at the corner of the Rue knocks, for there’s a whole heap of damned squints about.” Labruyere for nearly half an hour, with a view to persuad-After that whenever Nana grew too weary of life she ing him to come home with her. But this recollection only went down and saw Satin. She was always sure of finding angered her the more.
her, for the girl never went out before six in the evening.
“Fancy they’re brutes enough to shout things to you in Satin occupied a couple of rooms which a chemist had broad daylight!” she continued. “When one’s out on busi-furnished for her in order to save her from the clutches of ness one ought to be respecifully treated, eh?” the police, but in little more than a twelvemonth she had Nana had ended by buying her pigeons, although she cer-broken the furniture, knocked in the chairs, dirtied the curtainly had her doubts of their freshness. After which Satin tains, and that in a manner so furiously filthy and untidy 209
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that the lodgings seemed as though inhabited by a pack of on and the gas was lit outside. Nana felt very comfortable mad cats. On the mornings when she grew disgusted with at Satin’s, sitting doing nothing on the untidy bed, while herself and thought about cleaning up a bit, chair rails and basins stood about on the floor at her feet and petticoats strips of curtain would come off in her hands during her which had been bemired last night hung over the backs of struggle with superincumbent dirt. On such days the place armchairs and stained them with mud. They had long gos-was fouler than ever, and it was impossible to enter it, owing sips together and were endlessly confidential, while Satin to the things which had fallen down across the doorway.
lay on her stomach in her nightgown, waving her legs above At length she ended by leaving her house severely alone.
her head and smoking cigarettes as she listened. Some-When the lamp was lit the cupboard with plate-glass doors, times on such afternoons as they had troubles to retail they the clock and what remained of the curtains still served to treated themselves to absinthe in order, as they termed it, impose on the men. Besides, for six months past her land-
“to forget.” Satin did not go downstairs or put on a petti-lord had been threatening to evict her. Well then, for whom coat but simply went and leaned over the banisters and should she be keeping the furniture nice? For him more shouted her order to the portress’s little girl, a chit of ten, than anyone else, perhaps! And so whenever she got up in who when she brought up the absinthe in a glass would a merry mood she would shout “Gee up!” and give the look furtively at the lady’s bare legs. Every conversation sides of the cupboard and the chest of drawers such a treled up to one subject—the beastliness of the men. Nana mendous kick that they cracked again.
was overpowering on the subject of Fontan. She could not Nana nearly always found her in bed. Even on the days say a dozen words without lapsing into endless repetitions when Satin went out to do her marketing she felt so tired of his sayings and his doings. But Satin, like a good-na-on her return upstairs that she flung herself down on the tured girl, would listen unwearyingly to everlasting accounts bed and went to sleep again. During the day she dragged of how Nana had watched for him at the window, how herself about and dozed off on chairs. Indeed, she did not they had fallen out over a burnt dish of hash and how they emerge from this languid condition till the evening drew had made it up in bed after hours of silent sulking. In her 210
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desire to be always talking about these things Nana had got escort her back to her own door and would linger an hour to tell of every slap that he dealt her. Last week he had given out in the street to see that he did not murder her. And the her a swollen eye; nay, the night before he had given her next day the two women would rejoice over the reconcilia-such a box on the ear as to throw her across the night table, tion the whole afternoon through. Yet though they did not and all because he could not find his slippers. And the other say so, they preferred the days when threshings were, so to woman did not evince any astonishment but blew out ciga-speak, in the air, for then their comfortable indignation was rette smoke and only paused a moment to remark that, for all the stronger.
her part, she always ducked under, which sent the gentle-They became inseparable. Yet Satin never went to Nana’s, man pretty nearly sprawling. Both of them settled down with Fontan having announced that he would have no trollops a will to these anecdotes about blows; they grew supremely in his house. They used to go out together, and thus it was happy and excited over these same idiotic doings about which that Satin one day took her friend to see another woman.
they told one another a hundred times or more, while they This woman turned out to be that very Mme Robert who gave themselves up to the soft and pleasing sense of weari-had interested Nana and inspired her with a certain respect ness which was sure to follow the drubbings they talked of.
ever since she had refused to come to her supper. Mme It was the delight of rediscussing Fontan’s blows and of ex-Robert lived in the Rue Mosnier, a silent, new street in the plaining his works and his ways, down to the very manner in Quartier de l’Europe, where there were no shops, and the which he took off his boots, which brought Nana back daily handsome houses with their small, limited flats were peopled to Satin’s place. The latter, moreover, used to end by grow-by ladies. It was five o’clock, and along the silent pave-ing sympathetic in her turn and would cite even more vio-ments in the quiet, aristocratic shelter of the tall white lent cases, as, for instance, that of a pastry cook who had houses were drawn up the broughams of stock-exchange left her for dead on the floor. Yet she loved him, in spite of it people and merchants, while men walked hastily about, all! Then came the days on