Nana: By Emile Zola - Illustrated

by Emile Zola

  However, the obscurity in the bed-room, where she had 389 pushed the count, was complete. Then, feeling her way, she went and rang furiously for a lamp. After all, it was that Julien’s fault! If there had been a light in the parlour, nothing of all this would have happened. That stupid darkness which had come on had played the deuce with her heart.

  “I beg of you, ducky, be reasonable,” said she, when Zoé brought a light.

  The count, sitting down, his hands on his knees, looked on the ground, overcome by what he had just seen. He could not utter a word of anger. He trembled, as though seized with a horror which froze him. This silent anguish deeply affected the young woman. She tried to console him.

  “Well! yes, I was wrong. It was very naughty of me. You see, I am sorry for my fault. I am very grieved, as it annoys you so much. Come now; you, too, be nice, and forgive me.”

  She had sat down at his feet, and was seeking his glance with a look of submissive tenderness, to see if he was very angry with her. Then as, heaving a deep sigh, he recovered himself, she became more wheedling.

  The count yielded to her entreaties. He merely insisted on George being sent away. But all illusion was gone; he could no longer believe in Nana’s sworn fidelity. On the morrow Nana would deceive him again; and he remained in the torment of possessing her simply through cowardice—through his fright at the idea of living without her.

  This was the epoch of her existence when Nana brightened Paris with an increase of splendour. She became more imposing still on the horizon of vice; she domineered over the city with the insolent display of her luxury, with her contempt for money, which caused her to publicly melt away fortunes. In her mansion there was like the glare of a furnace. Her continual desires fed it. The least breath from her lips would change the gold into fine ashes, which the wind swept away at every hour. Never before had such a mania for expense been seen. The house seemed built over an abyss, into which men with their wealth, their bodies, even their names, were precipitated, without leaving the trace of a little dust behind. This girl with the tastes of a parrot, nibbling radishes and burnt almonds, playing with her meat, had bills to the extent of five thousand francs a month for her table. In the servants’ hall there was unbridled waste, a ferocious leakage, which emptied the casks of wine, and ran up bills increased by three or four hands through which they passed. Victorine and François reigned supreme in the kitchen, where they invited their friends, not to speak of a host of cousins whom they fed at their own homes with cold joints and meat soups. Julien exacted commissions from all the tradespeople. A glazier did not put in a thirty sou pane of glass but the butler had twenty added on for himself. Charles devoured the oats for the horses, ordering double the necessary supply, selling by a back door what came in by the front one; whilst in the midst of this universal pillage, of this sack of a town taken by assault, Zoé, by great art, succeeded in saving appearances, covering the thefts of all the others the better to hide and secure her own. But what was wasted was still worse—the food of the previous day thrown in the gutter, an incumbrance of victuals at which the servants turned up their noses, the glasses all sticky with sugar, gas-jets blazing away, turned on recklessly, sufficient to blow up the place; and negligences, and spitefulness, and accidents, all that can hasten ruin in an establishment devoured by so many mouths.

  Then, upstairs in madame’s rooms, the downfall was even greater still. Dresses costing ten thousand francs, worn only twice, and sold by Zoé; jewels which disappeared as though they had crumbled away at the bottoms of the drawers; idiotic purchases, novelties of the day, forgotten in a corner on the morrow, and swept into the street. She could never see anything costing a great deal without desiring it; she thus created around her a continual devastation of flowers and precious knick-knacks, being all the more delighted in proportion to the price paid for them. Nothing remained perfect in her hands; she broke everything, or it faded or became soiled between her little white fingers; a strewing of nameless remnants, of crumpled rags, of muddy tatters, followed in her wake. Then the heavy settlements burst out in the midst of this waste of pocket-money. Twenty thousand francs owing to the milliner, thirty thousand to the linendraper, twelve thousand to the bootmaker, her stable had swallowed fifty thousand, in six months her dressmaker’s bill had run up to a hundred thousand francs. Without her having added to her household, which Labordette had estimated would cost on an average four hundred thousand francs yearly, she reached that year a million, amazed herself at the sum, and quite incapable of saying where all the money could possibly have gone to. Men piled up one upon the other, gold emptied out in barrowfuls, were unable to fill that chasm which was for ever opening deeper and deeper beneath the foundations of her house, in the disruption of her luxury.

  Nana, however, still nursed a last caprice. Agitated once more with the idea of re-decorating her bed-room, she thought she had at last found something to suit her fancy—a room hung in tea-rose velvet, padded and reaching up to the ceiling, in the shape of a tent, ornamented with little silver buttons and with gold lace and cords. It seemed to her that this would look both rich and tender, a superb background to her fair skin. But the room, however, was merely to serve as a framework to the bed, a prodigy of dazzling brightness. Nana dreamed of a bed such as was never seen before—a throne, an altar, to which all Paris would come to adore her sovereign nudity. It was to be entirely of gold and silver, like an immense jewel, golden roses scattered over a silver network; at the head, a band of cupids amongst the flowers would be glancing down, with laughter on their faces, watching the voluptuous pleasures in the shadow of the curtains. She had consulted Labordette, who had brought two goldsmiths to see her. They were already preparing the drawings. The bed was to cost fifty thousand francs, and Muffat was to present her with it as a new year gift.

  What surprised the young woman was that in this ever-flowing river of gold she was constantly without money. Some days she scarcely knew what to do for want of the most ridiculous sums, of a few louis. She had to borrow of Zoé or else raise funds any way she could. But before resigning herself to extreme measures, she would sound her friends, getting out of the men whatever they had about them, even sous, in a jocular sort of way. For three months past she had especially been emptying Philippe’s pockets in this manner. He now never called, whenever there was a crisis at hand, without leaving his purse behind him on leaving. Soon, becoming bolder, Nana had begun to ask him for loans—two hundred francs, three hundred francs, never more—for bills becoming due, or debts that could not remain longer unpaid; and Philippe, who, in July, had been made a captain, and pay-master of his regiment, would bring the money on the morrow, with the excuse that he was not rich, for good Madame Hugon now treated her sons with singular harshness. At the end of three months these little loans, often repeated, amounted to some ten thousand francs. The captain still laughed in his hearty, sonorous way, yet he was growing thin, appearing absent-minded at times, with a look of suffering on his face; but a glance from Nana transfigured him, in a sort of sensual ecstasy. She was very playful with him, intoxicating him with kisses behind doors, bewitching him with sudden abandonments of herself, which tied him to her petticoats the whole time he was off duty.

  One night, Nana having mentioned that her name was also Thérèse, and that her saint’s-day was on the 15th October, the gentlemen all sent her presents. Captain Philippe brought his—an old Saxon china comfit-box,bd mounted with gold. He found her alone in her dressing-room, having just come out of her bath, clothed only in a loose scarlet and white flannel dressing-gown, and very busy examining the presents spread out on a table. She had already broken a scent bottle in rock crystal in trying to take the stopper out.

  “Oh! you are too nice,” said she. “Whatever is it? show me. What a child you are to spend your money in things like this!”

  She scolded him, because he was not rich, although really very pleased to see him spend all he had on her, the only proof of love which ever touched her. However
, she handled the comfit-box, wishing to see how it was made, opening and shutting it.

  “Take care,” he murmured; “it’s not very strong.”

  But she shrugged her shoulders. Did he think she had the hands of a railway porter? And suddenly the hinge remained between her fingers, whilst the lid fell to the ground and broke. She stood lost in amazement, with her eyes fixed on the pieces.

  “Oh! it’s broken!” said she.

  Then she began to laugh. The pieces on the floor looked funny to her. It was a nervous gaiety. She had the stupid and cruel laugh of a child who finds amusement in destruction. Philippe was seized for a moment with a feeling of indignation. The wretched woman did not know what agony that trifle had cost him. When she saw him looking so upset, she endeavoured to restrain herself.

  “Anyhow, it wasn’t my fault. It was cracked. Those old things never keep together. It was the lid! Did you see the stupid way in which it fell off?”

  And she burst out laughing again. But as the young man’s eyes filled with tears, in spite of his efforts to restrain them, she lovingly threw her arms round his neck.

  “How silly you are! I love you all the same. If nothing was ever broken, the dealers would never sell anything. It’s all made to be broken. Look at this fan! it isn’t even stuck together!”

  She seized hold of a fan and roughly pulled it open. The silk tore in two. That seemed to excite her. To show that she did not care anything for the other presents, as she had spoilt his, she regaled herself with a general massacre, knocking the different things about, proving, as she destroyed them all, there was not one of them that was solid. A glimmer lighted up her vacant eyes, a slight curl of her lips displayed her white teeth. Then when all the things were in pieces, she struck the table with her open hands, looking very red, and laughing louder than ever, and stammered forth in a childish voice,

  “All gone! no more! no more!”

  Then Philippe, yielding to the intoxication, cheered up, and pressing against her, kissed her on the neck and bosom. She abandoned herself to him, clinging to his shoulders, feeling so happy that she could not recollect having ever enjoyed herself so much before. And without leaving go of him, she caressingly said,

  “I say, darling; you might manage to bring me ten louis to-morrow. It’s an awful nuisance—a baker’s bill which is worrying me.”

  He became very pale; then kissing her for a last time on the forehead, he merely said,

  “I will do my best.”

  A pause ensued. She was dressing herself. He was pressing his face against the window pane. At the end of a minute he returned to where she stood, and said slowly,

  “Nana, you ought to marry me.”

  The idea seemed so ludicrous to the young woman, that she could not finish fastening her petticoats.

  “But, my poor fellow, you must be ill! Is it because I’ve asked you for ten louis that you offer me your hand? Never, I love you too much for that. What a stupid idea to get into your head!”

  And, as Zoé entered the room to put madame’s boots on, they dropped the subject. The maid had at once caught sight of the remnants of the presents scattered over the table. She asked if they were to be put anywhere; and madame having said that they could be thrown away, she gathered them up in her apron. Down in the kitchen, the servants quarrelled together as they shared madame’s leavings.

  That day George, in spite of having been forbidden by Nana to do so, had sneaked into the house. François had plainly enough seen him come in, but now the servants merely laughed among themselves over their mistress’s embarrassments. He had crept into the parlour, when the sound of his brother’s voice arrested his advance; and, with his ear at the key-hole, he had heard all that had taken place—the kisses, the offer of marriage. A feeling of horror froze him, he went off, idiotic and with a sensation of emptiness in his head. It was only when he reached the Rue Richelieu, in his room over his mother‘s, that his heart found relief in furious sobs. This time, doubt was impossible. An abominable vision kept appearing before his eyes—Nana in Philippe’s arms; and it seemed to him an incest. When he thought himself calmed, memory returned, and in a fresh fit of jealous rage, he threw himself on his bed, biting the sheets and uttering horrible oaths, which increased his passion. The rest of the day passed thus. He complained of a headache, so as to be able to remain in his room. But the night was more terrible still: a murderous fever shook his frame in a continuous nightmare. If his brother had lived in the house, he would have gone and stabbed him with a knife. When day returned, he tried to reason with himself. It was he who ought to die, he would throw himself from the window as an omnibus passed. However, towards ten o’clock he went out; he wandered about Paris, rambled over the bridges, and then at last felt an invincible longing to see Nana. Perhaps with a word she would save him. And three o’clock was striking as he entered the house in the Avenue de Villiers.

  Towards midday some shocking news had quite overwhelmed Madame Hugon. Philippe had been in prison since the previous evening, accused of having stolen twelve thousand francs from the regimental chest. For three months past he had been embezzling small sums, hoping to replace them, and hiding the deficit by means of false accounts; and this fraud had succeeded, thanks to the negligence of the managing council. The old lady, crushed by her child’s crime, uttered at first a cry of rage against Nana. She knew of Philippe’s intimacy with the young woman. Her sadness came from this misfortune, which was the cause of her remaining in Paris, through the fear of some catastrophe; but never had she dreaded such shame, and now she reproached herself for having refused him money, as though she had been an accomplice. Having sunk into an arm-chair, her legs, so to say, paralysed, she felt herself useless, incapable of doing anything, only fit to die; but the sudden thought of George consoled her. George was left her—he might do something, perhaps save them both. Then, without asking help from anyone, desirous of hiding all this amongst themselves, she dragged herself along and ascended the stairs, fortified by the thought that she still had one love remaining. But the room above was empty. The door-keeper told her that Monsieur George had gone out early. The signs of a second misfortune hovered about the room. The bed, with its torn and crumpled sheets, told an unmistakable tale of anguish; a chair knocked over on the ground amongst some clothes, seemed to forebode death. George was probably at that woman’s, and Madame Hugon, with dry eyes and a firm step, descended the staircase. She wanted her sons, she was going to demand them.

  Ever since the morning Nana had had nothing but worry. First of all there was that baker, who, as early as nine o‘clock had called with his bill, a mere nothing—a hundred and thirty-three, francs’ worth of bread, which she had been unable to settle for, in the midst of her regal style of living. He had called twenty times, exasperated at having lost the custom on the day he had declined to give further credit; and the servants espoused his cause. François said that madame would never pay him if he did not make a great fuss; Charles talked of going upstairs to get an old bill for straw settled; whilst Victorine advised them to wait till some gentleman called, and to get the money by going to the drawing-room when he was there. The servants’ hall was deeply interested, all the tradespeople were kept informed of what was going on. There were gossipings of three and four hours’ duration. Madame was disrobed, pulled to pieces, talked about, with the rancour of idle menials bursting with good living. Julien, the butler, alone pretended to take madame’s part. She was, all the same, a fine woman; and when the others accused him of having enjoyed some of her favours, he laughed in a foppish sort of way, which put the cook beside herself, for she would have liked to have been a man to spit on such women, they disgusted her so much. François had maliciously left the baker waiting in the hall, without informing madame. As she came downstairs at lunch-time, she found herself face to face with him. She took his bill, and told him to call again about three o’clock. Then, muttering a number of filthy expressions, he went off, swearing to be punctual, and to pay himself
some way or other.

  Nana made a very poor lunch, being upset by this scene. This time she would have to satisfy the man. On ten different occasions at least, she had put the money for him on one side; but somehow or other it had always dribbled away—one day for flowers, or another day for a subscription for an old gendarme. She was, however, counting on Philippe, and was even surprised that he had not already been with his two hundred francs. It was awful ill-luck. Two days before she had again rigged out Satin, a regular trousseau, spending nearly twelve hundred francs in dresses and underclothing, and she had not a louis left.

  Towards two o’clock, as Nana was beginning to be anxious, Labordette called. He brought the designs for the bedstead. It was a diversion, and produced a fit of joy which caused the young woman to forget everything else. She clapped her hands, she danced; then, brimful of curiosity, leaning over a table in the parlour, she examined the drawings, which Labordette explained to her.

  “You see, this is the boat; in the centre a bunch of full-blown roses, then a garland of flowers and buds; the leaves will be in green gold and the roses in red gold. And this is the great design for the head—a troop of cupids dancing in a circle against a silver trellis.”

  But Nana interrupted him, carried away by rapture.

  “Oh! isn’t he funny, the little one, the one in the corner, turning a somersault? And look at his saucy laugh! They’ve all got such wicked eyes! I say, my boy, I shall have to be careful of what I do before them!”

  She was in an extraordinary state of satisfied pride. The goldsmiths had said that no queen ever slept on such a bedstead. Only there was a slight complication. Labordette showed her two designs for the piece at the foot, the one which reproduced the subject of the boat and cupids, the other which was altogether a new design—a female figure representing Night enveloped in her veil, which a faun was drawing aside, displaying her radiant nudity. He added that if she selected this second design, the goldsmiths intended to make the figure representing Night like her. This idea, which was in questionable taste, made her turn pale with pleasure. She saw herself as a little silver statue, the symbol of the tepid, voluptuous pleasures of darkness,