Nana: By Emile Zola - Illustrated

by Emile Zola

  “Be off, or I’ll strangle you!”

  Then Nana burst into nervous sobs. She was frightened and ran off. This time it was she who was turned out. In her anger she suddenly thought of Muffat, and of how she had treated him; but really it was not for Fontan to avenge him.

  Outside, her first idea was to go and sleep with Satin, if no one else was with her. She met her outside her house, she having been also chucked out, but by her landlord, who had put a padlock on her door, against all legal right, as the furniture was hers. Satin cursed and swore, and talked of having him up before the commissary of police. However, as midnight was striking, the first thing to do was to obtain a bed somewhere. And Satin, thinking it best not to make the policeman acquainted with the state of her affairs, ended by taking Nana to a lady who kept a licensed lodging-house in the Rue de Laval. They obtained a small back room on the first floor overlooking the courtyard.

  “I might have gone to Madame Robert’s,” said Satin. “There is always room there for me; but I couldn’t have taken you. She’s becoming most ridiculously jealous. The other night she beat me.”

  When they had fastened themselves in, Nana, who up till then had not unbosomed herself, burst into tears, and related again and again the dirty trick that Fontan had played her. She listened complaisantly, consoled her, and became even more indignant than she, abusing the men heartily.

  “Oh, the pigs! oh, the pigs! You should have nothing more to do with such pigs!”

  Then she helped Nana to undress. She hovered around her like a gentle and obliging little woman, and kept saying, coaxingly,

  “Let’s get into bed quickly, my dear. We shall be much better there. Ah! how silly you are to be worried! I tell you that they’re a foul set! Don’t think of them any more. You know I love you very much. Now leave off crying—do, for your little darling’s sake.”

  And in bed she at once took Nana in her arms, so as to calm her. She would not hear Fontan’s name mentioned again. Each time that it came to her friend’s lips she stopped it with a kiss, prettily pouting with anger, her hair all loose, and looking childishly beautiful, and full of tenderness. Then, little by little, in this sweet embrace, Nana dried her tears. She was touched; she returned Satin’s caresses. When two o’clock struck the light was still burning. Both were laughing gently, and uttering words of love.

  But suddenly a great noise was heard in the house. Satin, half naked, jumped out of bed and listened.

  “The police!” said she, pale with fear. “Ah! damn it! we’ve no luck. We’re done for!”

  She had told of the searches the policemen made in the hotels and lodging-houses fully twenty times, and yet, when they went to the Rue de Laval that night they had neither of them given the matter a thought. At the word police, Nana lost her wits entirely. She jumped out of bed, and, running across the room, opened the window, with the wild look of a mad woman about to jump out. But, fortunately, the little courtyard was covered in with glass, and over this was a wire net-work on a level with the window. She did not hesitate, but, stepping on to the sill, disappeared in the darkness, her chemise blowing about her, and her bare legs exposed to the keen night air.

  “Stay here,” cried Satin, terrified. “You will kill yourself.”

  Then, as they were knocking at the door, she good-naturedly closed the window, and threw her friend’s clothes into the bottom of a cupboard. She had already resigned herself to her fate, saying to herself that after all, if they did put her on their list, she would no more have occasion for that stupid fright. She pretended to be sound asleep, yawned, parleyed, and ended by opening the door to a big fellow with a dirty beard, who said:

  “Show your hands. You’ve no needle marks on your fingers. You don’t work. Come, dress yourself.”

  “But I’m not a needle-woman, I’m a burnisher,” declared Satin boldly.

  But all the same, she quietly dressed herself, for she knew that it was no use arguing. Cries were heard about the house. One girl held on to the door, refusing to move. Another, who was in bed with her lover, and for whom he became responsible, acted the part of the grossly insulted respectable woman, and threatened to take proceedings against the Prefect of Police. For nearly an hour there was a noise of heavy boots on the stairs, of doors shaken by violent blows, of piercing shrieks ending in sobs, of women’s skirts grazing the walls—all the abrupt awakening and the terrified departure of a flock of women, brutally collared by three policemen, under the charge of a little, fair-haired, and very polite commissary of police. Then a great silence reigned throughout the house.

  No one had betrayed her. Nana was saved. She crept back into the room, shivering and almost dead with fright. Her bare feet were bleeding from the scratches caused by the wire. For a long while she remained, listening, seated on the edge of the bed. Towards morning, however, she fell asleep; but at eight o’clock, when she awoke, she quickly left the house, and hastened to her aunt’s. When Madame Lerat, who happened to be just taking her breakfast with Zoé, saw her at that early hour, dressed in such a slovenly way, and with a scared look about her face, she understood it at once.

  “Ah! and so it’s happened, has it?” she exclaimed. “I told you he would even want the skin of your body. Well, come in, you’re always welcome here.”

  Zoé had risen, and murmured, with respectful familiarity, “At length madame is restored to us. I was expecting madame.”

  But Madame Lerat wished Nana to kiss little Louis at once, because, said she, the child’s happiness consisted in his mother’s good sense. Little Louis was still sleeping, looking sickly through lack of blood; and when Nana leant over his white, scrofulousas face, all her troubles of the last few months returned to her, and seemed to stick in her throat and almost strangle her.

  “Oh! my poor little one, my poor little one!” she stuttered, in a last outburst of sobs.

  CHAPTER IX

  They were rehearsing the “Little Duchess” at the Variety Theatre. The first act had just been gone through, and they were about to commence the second. In two old arm-chairs placed close to the footlights, Fauchery and Bordenave were arguing together; whilst the prompter, old Cossard, a little hunchback, was seated on a rush-bottomed chair, a pencil between his lips, turning over the leaves of the manuscript.

  “Well! what are you all waiting for?” suddenly exclaimed Bordenave, thumping furiously on the boards with his heavy walking-stick. “Barillot, why don’t you begin?”

  “It’s M. Bosc—he’s disappeared,” replied Barillot, who was acting as assistant stage-manager.

  Then there was quite a storm of shouts. Every one called Bosc. Bordenave cursed and swore.

  “Damn it all! it’s always the same. One may ring and call—they’re always where they oughtn’t to be; and then they grumble when they’re kept after four o’clock.”

  Bosc, however, arrived with a serene coolness.

  “Eh? what? who wants me? Ah! it’s time for my entrance! Then why didn’t you say so. Good! Simone, give me my cue, ‘There are the guests arriving,’ and I enter. How am I to enter?”

  “Why, through the door, of course,” shouted Fauchery, losing patience.

  “Yes, but where is the door?”

  This time Bordenave attacked Barillot, cursing and swearing again, and banging his stick on the boards sufficient to split them.

  “Damn it all! I said a chair was to be placed there to represent the door. Every day I have to repeat the same thing. Barillot! where’s Barillot? There’s another! they all bolt off!”

  Barillot, however, bowing beneath the tempest, came and placed the chair without saying a word; and the rehearsal continued. Simone, with her bonnet on, and enveloped in her fur cloak, assumed the airs of a servant arranging some furniture. She interrupted herself to say,

  “You know, I’m not very warm, so I shall keep my hands in my muff.” Then changing her voice, she greeted Bosc with a faint cry, and said, “Why! it’s the count. You are the first, sir, and madame will be very pl
eased.”

  Bosc had on a muddy pair of trousers, a big drab overcoat, and an immense muffler rolled round his neck. With his hands in his pockets, and an old hat on his head, he said in a hollow voice, without any acting but merely dragging himself along,

  “Do not disturb your mistress, Isabella; I wish to give her a surprise. ”

  The rehearsal went on. Bordenave, scowling, and buried in his arm-chair, listened with an air of fatigue. Fauchery, nervous and constantly changing his position, was seized every minute with a desire to interrupt, which, however, he repressed. But he heard whispering behind him in the dark and empty house.

  “Is she there?” he asked, leaning towards Bordenave.

  The latter nodded his head. Before accepting the part of Géraldine which he had offered her, Nana had wished to see the piece; for she hesitated before agreeing to act the part of a gay woman. What she longed for was to appear on the stage as a lady. She was half hidden in the shadow of a box with Labordette, who was exerting himself with Bordenave for her. Fauchery glanced round at her, and then again gave all his attention to the rehearsal.

  Only the front of the stage was lighted up. A large jet of gas issuing from a pipe erected at the junction of the footlights, and the glare of which was disseminated by means of a powerful reflector, looked like a great yellow eye in the semi-obscurity, where it blazed with a sort of dubious sadness. Against the slender gas-pipe stood Cossard, holding up the manuscript close to the light, which vividly exposed the outline of his hump. Then more in the shadow were Fauchery and Bordenave. In the midst of the enormous structure, this light, which illumined the distance of a few yards only, looked like the glimmer of a lantern fixed to a post at some railway station, the actors appearing like so many strange phantoms, with their shadows dancing before them. The rest of the stage, full of a kind of fine dust similar to that which hangs about houses in the course of demolition, resembled a gigantic nave undergoing repair, with its ladders, its frame-works, and its side-scenes, the faded paint on which imitated heaps of rubbish; and the drop-scenes suspended up aloft had an appearance of frippery hanging to the beams of some vast rag warehouse, whilst a ray of sunshine, which had penetrated through some window, intersected the darkness above like a bar of gold.

  At the back of the stage some of the actors were conversing together while waiting for their cues. They had gradually raised their voices.

  “I say there! will you keep quiet?” yelled Bordenave, who sprung from his chair in a rage. “I can’t hear a word. Go outside if you want to talk; we’re working. Barillot, if any one talks again, I’ll fine the whole lot!”

  They held their tongues for a short time. They formed a little group, seated on a bench and some rustic chairs in a bit of a garden—the first scene for the evening which was placed there, ready to be fixed. Fontan and Prullière were listening to Rose Mignon, who had just received a splendid offer from the manager of the Folies-Dramatiques Theatre. But a voice called out,

  “The duchess! Saint-Firmin! Now then, the duchess and Saint-Firmin!”

  Prullière did not recollect till the second call that he was Saint-Firmin. Rose, who played the part of the Duchess Hélène, was waiting for him to make their entrance. Slowly dragging his feet over the vacant, sonorous boards, old Bosc returned to sit down. Then Clarisse offered him half the bench.

  “What does he yell about like that for?” asked she, speaking of Bordenave. “It will be getting unbearable soon. He can’t bring out a new piece now without giving vent to his feelings in that way.”

  Bosc shrugged his shoulders; he was above all those shindies. Fontan whispered:

  “He smells a failure. I think it’s a most idiotic piece.” Then, returning to Rose’s story, he said to Clarisse, “Do you believe it, eh? Three hundred francs a night, and a hundred performances guaranteed. Why not a country house into the bargain? If his wife was offered three hundred francs, Mignon would chuck up Bordenave, and without warning too!”

  Clarisse believed in the truth of the offer. Fontan was always running his comrades down! But Simone interrupted them. She was shivering. All well buttoned up and with scarves round their necks, looked up at the sunbeam which shone without descending into the mournful coldness that hung about the stage. Outside it was freezing beneath a clear November sky.

  “And there’s no fire in the green-room!” said Simone. “It’s disgusting; he’s becoming beastly miserly! I’ve a good mind to go home, I don’t want to be ill.”

  “Silence there!” cried Bordenave again, in a voice of thunder.

  Then for a few minutes nothing was heard but the confused voices of the actors. They scarcely indicated the gestures, and spoke in a quiet voice so as not to tire themselves. However, when they intended to score a point, they glanced at the auditorium. It appeared to them like an enormous hole in which floated a vague shadow, similar to a fine dust confined in a big loft without windows. The house, which was in darkness except for the feeble light transmitted from the stage, seemed wrapped in a troubled and melancholy sleep. The paintings on the ceiling were veiled in obscurity. From the top to the bottom of the stage-boxes, on the right and left, hung immense breadths of coarse grey linen to protect the hangings; and strips of the same material were thrown over the velvet of the balustrades, girdling the balconies with a double winding-sheet, staining, as it were, the gloom with their pale tint. In the general discolouration one could only distinguish the darker recesses of the boxes, which indicated the different storeys, and the breaks caused by the seats, the red velvet of which had a blackish look. The great crystal gasalier, lowered almost to the ground, filled the stalls with its pendants, and gave one the idea of a removal, of a departure of the public on a journey from which it would never return.

  Rose, in her part of the little duchess lost at the house of some fast woman, just then advanced towards the footlights. She raised her hands and pouted adorably to that dark, empty house, which was as sad as though it were in mourning.

  “Good heavens! what curious people!” said she, accentuating the phrase, certain of the effect.

  At the back of the box in which she was seated, Nana, wrapped in a large shawl, was listening to the piece and devouring Rose with her eyes. She turned to Labordette and asked him in a low voice,

  “You’re sure he’s coming?”

  “Quite sure. No doubt he will come with Mignon, as a pretext. As soon as he arrives you must go up into Mathilde’s dressing-room, and I will bring him there to you.”

  They were talking to Count Muffat. It was an interview on neutral ground, arranged by Labordette. He had had a serious talk with Bordenave, whom two successive failures had brought to a very low ebb. And Bordenave had hastened to lend his theatre and offer a part to Nana, wishing to get on good terms with the count, with the view of borrowing some money of him.

  “And the part of Géraldine, what do you think of it?” resumed Labordette.

  But Nana neither answered nor moved. After the first act, in which the author made the Duke de Beaurivage deceive his wife with the fair Géraldine, an operatic star, came the second act, where the Duchess Hélène went to the actress’s on the night of a masked ball, to learn by what magic power such creatures conquered and retained the husbands of better women. It was a cousin, the handsome Oscar de Saint-Firmin, who introduced her there, hoping to seduce her. And, to her great surprise, as a first lesson she heard Géraldine abusing the duke in the language of a navvie, whilst the latter seemed to be delighted; this sight drew from her the cry, “Ah, well! if that’s the way the men must be spoken to!” This was about the only scene Géraldine had in the act. As for the duchess, she was soon punished for her curiousity. An old beau, the Baron de Tardiveau, took her for one of the gay women and attacked her vigorously, whilst, on the other side, Beaurivage made it up with Géraldine, who was reclining in an easy chair, and kissed her. As the part of the latter was not filled up, old Cossard had risen to read it, and he accentuated certain passages in spite of himself, and
acted in Bosc’s arms. They had reached this scene, the rehearsal dragged on tediously, when suddenly Fauchery jumped up from his chair. He had restrained himself till then, but his nerves had at length got the better of him.

  “That isn’t it! he exclaimed.

  The actors paused, their arms dangling beside them. Fontan, screwing up his nose, asked in a sneering way:

  “What? What isn’t it?”

  “You’re all wrong! it’s not that at all, not that at all!” resumed Fauchery, who marched about the stage gesticulating, and went through the scene. “Look here, Fontan, you must understand Tardiveau’s excitement; you lean forward like this, with this gesture, to seize hold of the duchess. And you, Rose, it’s then that you pass, quickly, like this, but not too soon, not till you hear the kiss—” He interrupted himself, and called to Cossard, in the heat of his explanations: “Géraldine, give the kiss—loud! so that it can be well heard!”

  Old Cossard turned towards Bosc, and smacked his lips vigorously.

  “Good! that’s the kiss,” said Fauchery jubilantly. “Give the kiss once more. Now you see, Rose, I’ve had time to pass, and then I utter a faint cry—‘Ah! she has kissed him!’ But, for that, Tardiveau must follow you towards the back of the stage. Do you hear, Fontan? you must follow her to the back of the stage. Now, try it over again, and all together!”

  The actors went through the scene a second time, but Fontan played his part with such ill-will, that it was worse than ever. Twice again Fauchery gave his directions, acting the mimic each time with more warmth. They all listened to him in a mournful way, looked at one another for an instant, as though he had asked them to walk on their heads, and then awkwardly tried again, to stop almost directly with the rigidity of puppets whose strings have just been broken.

  “No, it’s too much for me; I can’t understand it,” Fontan ended by saying in his insolent tone of voice.

  During all this while, Bordenave had not opened his lips. Buried in the depths of his arm-chair, one could only see by the pale light of the gas-jet the top of his hat, which he had pulled over his eyes, and his immense stomach, in front of which was his walking-stick, abandoned between his legs; and one would have thought him asleep. Suddenly he rose up.