Nana: By Emile Zola - Illustrated

by Emile Zola

  Then, whilst adoring her darling, her dear love, with a passion all the more blinding as it was she who now paid for all, Nana reverted again to the depravity of her early days. She walked the streets as she did when a young girl in quest of a five francs piece. One Sunday, at the Rochefoucauld market, she made it up with Satin, after flying at her and bullying her on account of Madame Robert. But Satin merely replied that when one did not like a thing, one had no right to seek to disgust others with it; and Nana, who was by no means narrow-minded, yielded to the philosophical idea that one never knows how one may end, and forgave her. And her curiosity being awakened, she even questioned her in regard to some details of vice, amazed at learning something fresh at her age, after all she knew. She laughed, and thought it very funny, yet feeling all the time a slight repugnance, for at heart she was rather conservative in her habits. She often went to Laure’s when Fontan dined out. She was amused with the stories she heard there, with the loves and the jealousies which had so much interest for the other customers, though they never caused them to lose a mouthful. However she was never mixed up with them, as she said. Stout Laure, with her maternal affection, often invited her to spend a few days at her villa at Asnieres—a country house where there were rooms for seven ladies. She declined—she was afraid; but Satin having declared to her that she was mistaken, that gentlemen from Paris would swing them and play at different games in the garden with them, she promised to come later on, as soon as she was able to get away.

  At that time Nana was very worried, and was not much inclined for a spree. She was greatly in want of money. When old Tricon had nothing for her, and that occurred only too often, she did not know whom to go to. Then she would wander about with Satin all over Paris, amidst that degrading vice which prowls along the muddy by-streets, beneath the dim glimmer of the gas lamps. Nana returned to the low dancing places of the barriers, where she had first learned to hop about with her dirty skirts. She once more beheld the dark corners of the outer Boulevards, the posts against which men used to kiss her when only fifteen years old, whilst her father was seeking her to give her a hiding. They both hastened along, visiting all the balls and the cafés of a locality, crawling up stairs wet with saliva and spilt beer; or else they walked slowly, following street after street, and standing up every now and then in the doorways. Satin, who had first appeared in the Quartier Latin, took Nana there, to Bullier’s, and to the cafés of the Boulevard Saint-Michel. But it was vacation time, and the quarter was almost deserted; so they returned to the principal Boulevards. It was there that they met with most luck. From the heights of Montmartre to the plateau where the Observatory was situated, they thus rambled about the entire city. Rainy nights when their shoes would become trodden down at heel, warm nights which made their clothes adhere to their skin, long waits and endless wanderings, jostlings and quarrels, brutal abuse from a passer-by enticed into some obscure lodging, down the dirty stairs of which he retired swearing.

  The summer was drawing to a close—a stormy summer, with sultry nights. They would start off together after dinner, about nine o‘clock. Along the pavements of the Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette, two lines of women, keeping close to the shops, holding up their skirts, their noses pointing to the ground, might be seen hastening towards the Boulevards, without bestowing a glance on the displays in the windows, and looking as though they had some most important business on hand. It was the famished onslaught of the Bréda quarter, which commenced with the first glimmer of the gas-light. Nana and Satin passed close to the church, and always went along the Rue le Peletier. Then, at a hundred yards from the Café Riche, having reached the exercising ground, they would let fall the trains of their dresses, which until that moment they had carefully held in their hands; and after then, regardless of the dust, sweeping the pavement and swinging their bodies, they would walk slowly along, moving slower still whenever they came into the flood of light of some large café. Holding their heads high, laughing loudly, and looking back after the men who turned to glance at them, they were in their element. Their whitened faces, spotted with the red of their lips and the black of their eye-lashes, assumed in the shadow the disturbing charm of some imitation Eastern bazaar held in the open street. Until twelve o’clock, in spite of the jostling of the crowd, they promenaded gaily along, merely muttering “stupid fool!” now and again behind the backs of the awkward fellows whose heels caught in their flounces. They exchanged familiar nods with the café waiters, lingered sometimes to talk at the tables, accepting drinks which they swallowed slowly, like persons happy at having the chance to sit down, while waiting till the people came out of the theatres. But, as the night advanced, if they had not made one or two trips to the Rue la Rochefoucauld, their pursuit became more eager—they no longer picked and chose. Beneath the trees of the now gloomy and almost deserted Boulevards, ferocious bargains were made, and occasionally the sound of oaths and blows would be heard; whilst fathers of families, with their wives and daughters, used to such encounters, would pass sedately by without hastening their footsteps.

  Then, after having made the tour ten times from the Opera to the Gymnase Theatre, finding that the men avoided them, and hurried along all the faster in the increasing obscurity, Nana and Satin would adjourn to the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre. There, up till two o’clock in the morning, the lights of the restaurants, of the beer saloons, and of the pork-butchers, blazed away, whilst quite a swarm of women hung about the doors of the cafés; it was the last bright and animated corner of nocturnal Paris, the last open market for the contracts of a night, where business was overtly transacted among the various groups, from one end of the street to the other, the same as in the spacious hall of some public building. And on the nights when they returned home unsuccessful, they wrangled with each other. The Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette appeared dark and deserted, with only the occasional shadow of some woman dragging herself along; it was the tardy return of the poor girls of the neighbourhood, exasperated by an evening of forced idleness, and pertinaciously striving for better luck as they argued in a hoarse voice with some drunkard who had lost his way, and whom they detained at the corner of the Rue Bréda or the Rue Fontaine.

  However, they occasionally had some very good windfalls—louis given them by well-dressed gentlemen, who put their decorations in their pockets as they accompanied them. Satin especially scented them from afar. On wet nights, when dank Paris emitted the unsavoury smell of a vast alcove seldom cleansed, she knew that the dampness of the atmosphere, the fetidness of the low haunts, excited the men. And she watched for those that were the best off; she could see it in their pale eyes. It was like a stroke of carnal madness passing over the city. It is true that she was at times rather frightened, for she knew that the most gentlemanly-looking men were generally the most filthy-minded. All the polish vanished and the brute appeared beneath, exacting in his monstrous tastes and refined in his perversion. So Satin, therefore, had no respect for the great people in their carriages, but would say that their coachmen were far nicer, for they treated women as they should be treated, and did not half kill them with ideas worthy of hell.

  This fall of well-to-do people into the crapulence of vice still astonished Nana, who had reserved certain prejudices of which Satin relieved her. When seriously discussing the subject she would ask, Was there, then, no virtue? From the highest to the lowest, all seemed to grovel in vice. Well! there were some pretty doings in Paris from nine in the evening till three in the morning; and then she would laugh aloud and exclaim that if one were only able to look into all the rooms, one would witness some very queer things—the lower classes going in for a regular treat, and here and there not a few of the upper classes poking their noses even more than the others into the beastly goings-on. She was completing her education.

  One night, on calling for Satin, she recognised the Marquis de Chouard coming down the stairs, leaning heavily on the balustrade, his legs yielding beneath him, and his face ghastly pale. She took out her handkerchief an
d pretended to blow her nose; then, when she found Satin surrounded by the accustomed filth, the room not having been touched for more than a week past, basins and other utensils lying about on all sides, the bed in a most dirty condition, she expressed her astonishment that her friend should know the marquis. Ah, yes! she knew him; in fact, he had been an awful nuisance when she and her pastrycook were living together! Now, he came from time to time; but he pestered her immensely. He sniffed about in every dirty place he could find, even in her slippers.

  “Yes, my dear, in my slippers. Oh! he’s a filthy beast! He’s always wanting things—”

  What most troubled Nana was the sincerity of these low debaucheries. She recalled to mind her comedies of pleasure, during the days of her fast life; whilst she saw the girls about her losing their health at it day by day. Then Satin frightened her terribly with the police. She was full of stories about them. Once she used to keep up an acquaintance with one of the inspectors of public morals, so as to insure being left alone; on two occasions he had prevented her name from being entered in their books, and now she trembled, for she knew what to expect if they caught her a third time. It was shocking to hear her. The police arrested as many women as they possibly could, in order to get bribes, they seized all they came across, and silenced you with a slap in the mouth if you cried out, for they were certain of being upheld and rewarded, even though there happened to be a respectable girl among the number. In the summer they would start off, twelve or fifteen together, and make a round-up on the Boulevards, surrounding one of the footpaths, and securing as many as thirty women in an evening. Satin, however, knew their favourite spots. As soon as ever she caught a glimpse of a policeman, away she bolted, amidst the wild flight of the long trains, through the crowd. There was a dread of the law, a terror of the Prefecture of Police so great that many remained as though paralysed at the doors of the cafés, in spite of the advancing policemen, who swept the road before them. But Satin most dreaded being informed against; her pastry cook had been mean enough to threaten to denounce her when he left her. Yes, some men lived on their mistresses by those means, without counting the dirty women who would betray you through jealousy, if you were better looking than they.

  Nana listened to all these stories which greatly increased her fears. She had always trembled at the name of the law—that unknown power, that vengance of men which could suppress her, without anyone in the world defending her. The prison of Saint-Lazare appeared to her like a tomb, an enormous black hole, in which women were buried alive, after having had their hair cut off. She would say to herself that she had only to give up Fontan to find no end of protectors; and Satin might tell her hundreds of times of certain lists of women, accompanied by their photographs, that the policemen had to consult, and be careful never to interfere with the originals. She was nevertheless dreadfully frightened, she was always seeing herself jostled and dragged off to be inspected on the morrow; and the idea of the inspection filled her with agony and shame, she who had so often thrown her chemise over the house-tops.

  It so happened that one night towards the end of September, as she was walking with Satin along the Boulevard Poissonniere, the latter suddenly started off at full gallop. And as she asked her why she did so:

  “The police!” panted her friend. “Hurry up! hurry up!”

  There was a headlong rush through the crowd; skirts were torn in their flight—there were blows and cries, a woman fell to the ground. The mob laughingly looked on at the brutal onslaught of the police, who rapidly contracted their circle. Nana, however, had soon lost sight of Satin. She felt her legs failing her; she was on the point of being caught, when a man, taking her arm in his, led her off in the face of the infuriated policemen. It was Prullière, who had just at that moment recognised her. Without speaking, he turned with her down the Rue Rougemont, which was almost deserted, where she was able to take breath; but she felt so faint, that he had to support her. She did not even thank him.

  “Well,” said he at length, “you had better come round to my place and rest yourself a bit.”

  He lived close by, in the Rue Bergère. But she pulled herself together at once.

  “No, I won’t.”

  “But everyone does,” he roughly resumed. “Why won’t you?”

  “Because—”

  To her mind that said everything. She loved Fontan too much to deceive him with a friend. The others did not count, as it was from necessity and not pleasure that she listened to them. In the face of such stupid obstinacy, Prullière behaved with the meanness of a handsome man wounded in his pride.

  “Well! please yourself,” said he. “Only I’m not going your way, my dear. Get out of the mess by yourself.”

  And he walked off. All her fright came back again; she returned to Montmartre by a most roundabout way, keeping close to the shops, and turning pale every time a man came near her.

  It was on the morrow that Nana, still feeling the shock of her terrors of the night before, suddenly found herself face to face with Labordette, in a quiet little street at Batignolles, as she was on her way to her aunt’s. At first they both seemed rather uneasy. He, though always most obliging, had some business which he kept to himself. However, he was the first to regain his composure, and express his pleasure at the meeting. Really, every one was still amazed at Nana’s total eclipse. She was inquired after everywhere, her old friends were all pining away. And, becoming paternal, he preached her a little sermon.

  “Now, frankly, my dear, between ourselves, you are making a fool of yourself. One can understand a bit of infatuation, but not being reduced to the point you are, to be eaten up to that extent and then only to pocket kicks and blows! Are you going in for the prize of virtue?”

  She listened to him in an embarrassed manner. But when he spoke to her of Rose, who was triumphing with her conquest of Count Muffat, her eyes sparkled. She murmured:

  “Oh! if I choose—”

  He at once offered his mediation, in his obliging way. But she refused. Then, he attacked her on another subject. He told her that Bordenave was going to bring out a new piece by Fauchery, in which there was a capital part that would suit her splendidly.

  “What! a new piece with a part that would suit me!” she exclaimed in amazement; “but he is in it, and he never told me!”

  She did not name Fontan. Besides, she became calm again almost directly. She would never return to the stage. No doubt Labordette was not convinced, for he insisted with a smile.

  “You know you have nothing to fear with me. I will prepare Muffat, you will return to the theatre, and then I will lead him to you like a lamb.”

  “No!” said she energetically.

  And she left him. Her heroism caused her to bemoan her fate. A cad of a man would not have sacrificed himself like that without trumpeting it abroad. Yet one thing struck her: Labordette had given her exactly the same advice as Francis. That evening, when Fontan returned home she questioned him about Fauchery’s piece. He had been back at the Variety Theatre for two months past. Why had he not told her about the part?

  “What part?” asked he in his cross voice. “Do you happen to mean the part of the grand lady? Really now, do you then think yourself a genius? But, my girl, you could no more play that part than fly. Upon my word, you make me laugh!”

  Her feelings were dreadfully hurt. All night he chaffed her, calling her Mademoiselle Mars. And the more he ridiculed her, the more she stood up for herself, feeling a strange pleasure in that heroic defence of her whim, which, in her own eyes, made her appear very great and very loving. Ever since she had been consorting with other men, for the purpose of feeding him, she loved him the more, in spite of all the fatigue and the loathing which this existence caused her. He became her vice, for which she paid, and which, beneath the sting of the blows, she could not do without. He, seeing her as loving and obedient as an animal, ended by abusing his power. She irritated his nerves. He became seized with a ferocious hatred to such an extent, that he lost si
ght altogether of his own interests. Whenever Bosc made an observation on the subject, he exclaimed, exasperated without any one knowing why, that he did not care a curse for her or her good dinners, and that he would turn her out of the place, just for the sake of spending the seven thousand francs on another woman. And that was indeed the end of their intimacy.

  One night Nana, on coming home about eleven o’clock, found the door bolted on the inside. She knocked a first time, no answer; a second time, still no answer. Yet she could see a light under the door, and Fontan was walking about inside. She knocked again and again without ceasing, and calling to him angrily. At length Fontan said in a slow, thick voice:

  “Go to the devil!”

  She knocked with both her fists.

  “Go to the devil!”

  She knocked louder, almost enough to break the panel.

  “Go to the devil!”

  And for a quarter of an hour the same words answered her like a jeering echo of the blows she hammered on the door. Then, seeing that she did not tire, he suddenly opened it, and standing on the threshold, with his arms crossed, said in the same cold brutal tone of voice:

  “Damnation! have you nearly done? What is it you want? You had better let us go to sleep! You can see very well that I am not alone.”

  And true enough he was not alone. Nana caught a glimpse of the little woman of the Bouffes Theatre, already in her nightdress, with her curly hair that looked like tow, and her eyes like gimlet holes, who was enjoying the fun in the midst of the furniture that Nana had paid for. Fontan stepped out on to the landing, looking terrible, and opening his big fingers said: