Nana: By Emile Zola - Illustrated

by Emile Zola

  “Look! isn’t it lovely?” she murmured, “the mother-of-pearl one trimmed with feathers.” Then, in a careless tone of voice, she added, “So, you are coming home with me?”

  “Why, of course,” said Muffat, astonished, “as your child is better.”

  She regretted her long-winded story. Perhaps little Louis had had another attack, and she talked of returning to Batignolles: but as he offered to go too, she let the subject drop. One minute she boiled with rage, like a woman who finds herself caught and who is obliged to show herself submissive and gentle. However, she became resigned to her fate, and resolved to gain time; if she could only get rid of the count by midnight, all would go as she wished.

  “Ah! yes; you are a bachelor to-night,” she resumed. “Your wife does not return till to-morrow morning, does she?”

  “No,” replied Muffat, slightly annoyed at hearing her speak of the countess in that familiar way. But she continued to question him, asking the time of the arrival of the train, and wishing to know whether he intended going to the station to meet his wife. She had again slackened her footsteps, as though very much interested in the contents of the shop windows.

  “Oh! Look there!” she exclaimed, stopping in front of a jeweller’s, “what a funny bracelet! ”

  She loved the Passage des Panoramas. Ever since her girlhood she had had a passion for the glitter of Paris gew-gaws, counterfeit jewellery, gilded zinc, and imitation leather. Whenever she passed through it she could not drag herself away from the shops, just the same as when she used to run about the streets, lingering opposite the sweets of a confectioner’s, listening to the playing of an organ next door, smitten above all by the bad taste of the articles that seemed marvels of cheapness—housewives contained in monstrous walnut shells, rag-pickers’ baskets full of toothpicks, Vendome columns and Luxor obelisksan holding thermometers. But that night she was too much upset, she looked without seeing. It bothered her immensely not to have her evening to herself, and, in her secret revolt, she felt a longing to do something foolish. A fat lot of use it was to have men well off! She had just run through the prince and Steiner, indulging all her childish caprices, without in the least knowing where the money had gone to. Her rooms in the Boulevard Haussmann were not even now completely furnished; the drawing-room alone, all in crimson satin, but too full and too lavishly decorated, had a certain effect. At this time, too, her creditors were dunning her more than ever before, when she was quite without means, and this surprised her immensely, for she looked upon herself as a model of economy. For a month past, that old thief Steiner could only find a thousand francs with the greatest difficulty on occasions when she threatened to kick him out of the place if he did not bring the money. As for Muffat, he was a fool; he had no idea of what a man should give a woman like her, so she could not blame him for his stinginess.

  Ah! she would have sent the whole of them to the right about if she had not all day kept repeating to herself a number of wise maxims! One must be reasonable, Zoé was in the habit of saying to her every morning, and she herself had ever present to her mind a sacred recollection, the royal vision of Chamont, constantly invoked and embellished. And that was why, in spite of a tremor of suppressed rage, she walked submissively along, leaning on the count’s arm, going from one shop window to another in the midst of the now less frequent passers-by. Outside, the foot-pavement was gradually drying, a cool breeze entered the Passage, sending before it the hot air collected beneath the glass roof, and creating quite a commotion among the coloured lamps, the rows of gas-jets, and the monstrous fan flaming away like fire-works. A waiter was turning out the lights at the door of the restaurant, whilst in the empty and brilliantly illuminated shops, the immovable shop-women seemed sleeping with their eyes open.

  “Oh! the love!” exclaimed Nana, glancing in at the last window, and returning a few steps to admire a porcelain grey-hound, which was raising its paw over a nest hidden among some roses.

  They at length quitted the Passage, and she would not take a cab. It was very nice out of doors, said she; besides, there was no occasion to hurry, it would be delightful to walk home. Then, when they had got as far as the Café Anglais, she longed to have some oysters, saying that she had eaten nothing since the morning, on account of little Louis’s illness. Muffat did not like to disappoint her. As yet, he had not ventured much about with her in public, so he asked for a private room, and hurried along the corridor. She followed him slowly, like a woman thoroughly acquainted with the establishment, and they were just on the point of entering an apartment of which a waiter had opened the door, when a man suddenly rushed out of an adjoining room, from which issued a regular tempest of shouts and laughter. It was Daguenet.

  “Hallo! Nana!” cried he.

  The count quickly vanished inside his room, leaving the door ajar. But, as his broad back disappeared, Daguenet winked his eye, and added jokingly:

  “The deuce! you are getting on; you take them from the Tuileries now!”

  Nana smiled, and placed her finger on her lips to make him hold his tongue. She saw that he was a bit on, but was happy all the same at meeting him, still keeping a little corner in her heart for him, in spite of his shabby behaviour in not recognizing her when he was in the company of ladies.

  “What are you doing now?” she inquired in a friendly way.

  “I am turning over a new leaf. In fact, I am seriously thinking of getting married.”

  She shrugged her shoulders with a look of pity. But he, continuing his joking tone, said that it was not a life worth living just to earn on the Bourse barely sufficient to pay for the bouquets he gave to his lady friends, in order that they should not think him mean. His three hundred thousand francs had only lasted him eighteen months. He intended to be more practical. He would marry a big dowry and die a prefect like his father. Nana continued to smile incredulously. She nodded her head in the direction of the room he had just left.

  “Whom are you with?”

  “Oh! quite a party,” said he, forgetting his projects in a burst of intoxication. “Just fancy, Léa is relating her journey in Egypt. It’s awfully funny! There’s a certain story of a bath—”

  And he related the story. Nana complaisantly waited to hear it. They had ended by leaning against the walls of the corridor, one in front of the other. Jets of gas were flaring beneath the low ceiling, a vague odour of cookery hung about the folds of the hangings. Now and then, in order to hear themselves above the occasionally increasing noise, they were obliged to put their faces close together. Every few seconds, a waiter laden with dishes, finding the way blocked up, was forced to disturb the pair. But they, without interrupting themselves, squeezed close up against the walls, calmly conversing together amidst the din caused by the customers, and the interruptions of the servants.

  “Look there,” whispered the young man, pointing to the door of the room Muffat had entered.

  They both watched. The door shook softly, as though moved by some gentle breeze; then it slowly closed, without the least sound. They exchanged a silent laugh. The count must cut a funny figure, all alone there by himself.

  “By the way,” asked she, “have you read the article Fauchery has written about me?”

  “Yes, the ‘Golden Fly,’ ” replied Daguenet. “I did not speak of it, as I though you might not like it.”

  “Not like it, why? It’s a very long article.”

  She felt flattered by being written about in the “Figaro.” Without the explanations of Francis, her hairdresser, who had brought her the paper, she would not have known that she was the person alluded to. Daguenet watched her from out the corner of his eye, with a sneer on his face. Well, as she was pleased, every one else ought to be.

  “By your leave!” cried a waiter, as he passed between them, holding in both hands a magnum of champagne in ice.

  Nana moved a step in the direction of the room where Muffat awaited her.

  “Well! good-bye,” said Daguenet. “Go back to your cuckold.
”

  “Why do you call him a cuckold?” she inquired, standing still again.

  “Because he is a cuckold, of course!”

  Very much interested, she returned to him, and, leaning up against the wall as before, merely said, “Ah!”

  “What, didn’t you know it? His wife has succumbed to Fauchery, my dear. It probably first took place when they were staying together in the country. Fauchery left me just now as I was coming here, and I fancy they have arranged a meeting at his place for to-night. They have invented some journey, I believe.”

  For some minutes Nana remained dumb with emotion. “I thought as much!” said she at length, slapping her thighs. “I guessed it the first time I saw her, you recollect, when we passed them on that country road. Is it possible, a respectable woman to deceive her husband, and with such a dirty blackguard as Fauchery! He’ll teach her some fine things.”

  “Oh!” murmured Daguenet maliciously, “this isn’t her first trial by a long way. She knows perhaps as much as he does.”

  “Really? Well, they’re a nice lot! it’s too abominable!” she exclaimed, indignantly.

  “By your leave!” cried another waiter, passing between them, laden with several more bottles of wine.

  Daguenet walked with her towards her room, and then held her for a moment by the hand. He assumed his crystal-toned voice—a voice that sounded like a harmonica, and which was the cause of his great success among the ladies.

  “Good-bye, darling. You know I love you always.”

  She released herself; and smiling on him, her voice drowned by a thunder of cries and bravos which shook the door of the room in which the party was being held, she said:

  “Don’t be a fool; that’s all over now. But, all the same, come and see me one of these days. We can have a long chat.” Then, becoming very serious, she added, in the highly indignant tone of a most respectable woman, “Ah! he’s a cuckold. Well! my boy, that’s a confounded nuisance. I’ve always felt the greatest disgust for a cuckold.”

  When she at length entered the room, she found Muffat, with pale face and trembling hands, resignedly sitting on a narrow sofa. He did not utter a single reproach. She, dreadfully excited, was divided between feelings of pity and contempt. The poor man, who was so shamefully deceived by a wicked woman! She had a longing to put her arms round his neck, and to console him. But yet it was only just; he was such a fool with women, it would be a lesson for him. Her pity, however, got the better of her. She did not send him off, after having her oysters, as she had intended doing. They remained a quarter of an hour longer at the Café Anglais, and then went home together to the Boulevard Haussmann. It was eleven o’clock; by midnight she would easily discover some pleasant means of getting rid of him.

  When she was in the anteroom she prudently gave Zoé some instructions.

  “You must watch for him, and when he comes tell him not to make any noise, if the other one is still with me.”

  “But where shall I put him, madame?”

  “Keep him in the kitchen; that will be the safest.”

  Muffat was taking off his overcoat in the bedroom. A big fire was burning in the grate. It was the same room, with its violet ebony furniture, its hangings and chair coverings of figured damask, large blue flowers on a grey ground. On two occasions Nana had thought of having it altered—the first time she wished it to be all in black velvet, the second in white satin, with rose-coloured ribbons; but as soon as Steiner consented, she squandered the money she obtained from him to pay for it. All she had added was a tiger skin in front of the fire-place, and a crystal lamp that hung from the ceiling.

  “I’m not at all sleepy; I’m not going to bed yet,” said Nana, as soon as they had shut themselves in.

  The count obeyed her with the submission of a man who is no longer afraid of being seen. His sole anxiety was not to anger her.

  “As you please,” he murmured.

  However, he took off his boots, before sitting down in front of the fire. One of Nana’s delights was to undress herself opposite her wardrobe, which had a glass door in which she could see herself full length. She would remove everything, and would then become lost in self-contemplation. A passion which she had for her own person—a rapturous admiration of her satin-like skin and the suppleness of her form—would root her there, serious and attentive, absorbed in a love of herself. The hairdresser would at times enter the room and find her thus occupied, without her even turning her head. Then Count Muffat would fly into a passion, and she would be greatly surprised. What was the matter with him? It wasn’t for the benefit of others that she did it; it was for her own.

  That night she had lighted all the candles, and, as she was about to let her last garment drop from her shoulders, she stood still, pre-occupied for a moment, having a question at the tip of her tongue.

  “Have you read the article in the ‘Figaro’? The paper is there, on the table.” The recollection of Daguenet’s sneering laugh had returned to her; she was filled with a doubt. If that Fauchery had been slandering her, she would have her revenge. “They say that it refers to me,” she resumed, affecting an air of indifference. “Well, what do you think, ducky?”

  And slipping off her chemise she remained naked, waiting until Muffat had finished reading. Muffat read slowly. Fauchery’s article, entitled the “Golden Fly,” was the story of a girl born from four or five generations of drunkards, her blood tainted by a long succession of misery and drink, which, in her, had transformed itself into a nervous decay of her sex. She had sprouted on the pavement of one of the Paris suburbs; and, tall, handsome, of superb flesh, the same as a plant growing on a dunghill, she avenged the rogues and vagabonds from whom she sprung. With her, the putrefaction that was left to ferment among the people, rose and polluted the aristocracy. She became, without herself wishing it, one of nature’s instruments, a ferment of destruction, corrupting and disorganizing Paris. It was at the end of the article that the comparison with the fly occurred—a fly of the colour of the sun, which had flown from out some filth—a fly that gathered death on the carrion left by the roadside, and that, buzzing and dancing, and emitting a sparkle of precious stones, poisoned men by merely touching them in their palaces which it entered by the windows.2

  Muffat raised his head and looked fixedly into the fire.

  “Well, what do you think of it?” asked Nana.

  But he did not answer. He appeared inclined to read the article over again. A cold shudder passed from his head to his shoulders. The article was written in a most diabolical style, with capering phrases, an excess of unexpected words and strange comparisons. However, he remained very much struck by it; it had abruptly aroused in him all that which, for some months past, he had not cared to disturb.

  Then he raised his eyes. Nana was absorbed in her admiration of herself. She had bent her neck and was looking attentively in the glass at a little brown mole on her side, and she touched it with the tip of her finger, making it stand out more by slightly leaning back, thinking, no doubt, that it looked droll and pretty. Then she amused herself by studying other parts of her body with the vicious curiosity of her childhood. It always surprised her thus to see herself; she appeared amazed and fascinated like a young girl on first discovering her puberty. After slowly spreading out her arms to develop her plump Venus-like frame, she ended by swinging herself from right to left, her knees wide apart, her body bent back over her loins, with the continual quivering movement of an almeh dancing the stomach dance.

  Muffat watched her. She frightened him. The newspaper had fallen from his hands. In that moment of clear understanding, he despised himself. It was true. In three months she had corrupted his life, he already felt tainted to his very marrow by an abomination which he would never himself have dreamt of. At that hour everything was beginning to fester within him. For an instant he was conscious of the results of sin, he beheld the disorganization wrought by this ferment, himself poisoned, his family destroyed, a corner of society cracking and tu
mbling into ruins. And, not being able to withdraw his gaze, he watched Nana fixedly, and sought to add to his disgust.

  Nana was not moving now. With an arm passed behind her neck, and one hand clasped in the other, she was leaning back her head, with her elbows wide apart. He caught sight obliquely of her half-closed eyes, her slightly opened mouth, her face covered with a bewitching smile, her firm amazonian breasts with their sturdy muscles quivering beneath the satin of her skin, and behind her her loose yellow hair covering her back with a mane like a lioness. Muffat followed this delicate profile, these flakes of rosy flesh disappearing in a golden shadow, these curves which the light of the candles caused to shine like silk. He thought of his old horror of woman, the monster of Scripture,ao lecherous and bestial. Nana was covered all over with a reddish down which gave to her skin the appearance of velvet; whilst, in her flanks and mare-like thighs, in the thick rolls of flesh which veiled her sex with their troubled shadow, there was something of the beast. It was the golden insect, unconscious of its power, but yet destroying the world with its smell alone. Muffat still continued to look, so completely possessed by the sight that, having for a moment lowered his eyelids and withdrawn his gaze, the animal reappeared in the depths of the darkness, enlarged, terrible, and with its posture exaggerated. And it would remain there, before his eyes in his very flesh, as it were, for evermore.

  Nana was now rolling herself up. A tremor of endearment seemed to have passed through her limbs. With moistened eyes she tried to become smaller, as though to feel herself all the better. Then she unclasped her hands behind her neck, and let them slip slowly down to her breasts, which she pressed in a nervous embrace. And, satiated, melting into a caress of her whole body, she fondlingly rubbed her cheeks, right and left, against her shoulders. Her rapacious mouth breathed desire upon her. She pouted her lips and kissed herself longingly close to her arm-pit, smiling the while at that other Nana who was also kissing herself in the looking-glass.