Erotic Classics I

by Various Authors

  They all protested. What was she after now? They had every sort of respect for her family! But she went on:

  “If you’re ashamed of my family you’ll please leave me, because I’m not one of those women who deny their father and mother. You must take me and them together, d’you understand?”

  They took her as required; they accepted the dad, the mamma, the past; in fact, whatever she chose. With their eyes fixed on the tablecloth, the four now sat shrinking and insignificant while Nana, in a transport of omnipotence, trampled on them in the old muddy boots worn long since in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or. She was determined not to lay down the cudgels just yet. It was all very fine to bring her fortunes, to build her palaces; she would never leave off regretting the time when she munched apples! Oh, what bosh that stupid thing money was! It was made for the tradespeople! Finally her outburst ended in a sentimentally expressed desire for a simple, openhearted existence, to be passed in an atmosphere of universal benevolence.

  When she got to this point she noticed Julien waiting idly by.

  “Well, what’s the matter? Hand the champagne then!” she said. “Why d’you stand staring at me like a goose?”

  During this scene the servants had never once smiled. They apparently heard nothing, and the more their mistress let herself down, the more majestic they became. Julien set to work to pour out the champagne and did so without mishap, but François, who was handing round the fruit, was so unfortunate as to tilt the fruit dish too low, and the apples, the pears and the grapes rolled on the table.

  “You bloody clumsy lot!” cried Nana.

  The footman was mistaken enough to try and explain that the fruit had not been firmly piled up. Zoé had disarranged it by taking out some oranges.

  “Then it’s Zoé that’s the goose!” said Nana.

  “Madame—” murmured the lady’s maid in an injured tone.

  Straightway Madame rose to her feet, and in a sharp voice and with royally authoritative gesture:

  “We’ve had enough of this, haven’t we? Leave the room, all of you! We don’t want you any longer!”

  This summary procedure calmed her down, and she was forthwith all sweetness and amiability. The dessert proved charming, and the gentlemen grew quite merry waiting on themselves. But Satin, having peeled a pear, came and ate it behind her darling, leaning on her shoulder the while and whispering sundry little remarks in her ear, at which they both laughed very loudly. By and by she wanted to share her last piece of pear with Nana and presented it to her between her teeth. Whereupon there was a great nibbling of lips, and the pear was finished amid kisses. At this there was a burst of comic protest from the gentlemen, Philippe shouting to them to take it easy and Vandeuvres asking if one ought to leave the room. Georges, meanwhile, had come and put his arm round Satin’s waist and had brought her back to her seat.

  “How silly of you!” said Nana. “You’re making her blush, the poor, darling duck. Never mind, dear girl, let them chaff. It’s our own little private affair.”

  And turning to Muffat, who was watching them with his serious expression:

  “Isn’t it, my friend?”

  “Yes, certainly,” he murmured with a slow nod of approval.

  He no longer protested now. And so amid that company of gentlemen with the great names and the old, upright traditions, the two women sat face to face, exchanging tender glances, conquering, reigning, in tranquil defiance of the laws of sex, in open contempt for the male portion of the community. The gentlemen burst into applause.

  The company went upstairs to take coffee in the little drawing room, where a couple of lamps cast a soft glow over the rosy hangings and the lacquer and old gold of the knickknacks. At that hour of the evening the light played discreetly over coffers, bronzes and china, lighting up silver or ivory inlaid work, bringing into view the polished contours of a carved stick and gleaming over a panel with glossy silky reflections. The fire, which had been burning since the afternoon, was dying out in glowing embers. It was very warm—the air behind the curtains and hangings was languid with warmth. The room was full of Nana’s intimate existence: a pair of gloves, a fallen handkerchief, an open book, lay scattered about, and their owner seemed present in careless attire with that well-known odor of violets and that species of untidiness which became her in her character of good-natured courtesan and had such a charming effect among all those rich surroundings. The very armchairs, which were as wide as beds, and the sofas, which were as deep as alcoves, invited to slumber oblivious of the flight of time and to tender whispers in shadowy corners.

  Satin went and lolled back in the depths of a sofa near the fireplace. She had lit a cigarette, but Vandeuvres began amusing himself by pretending to be ferociously jealous. Nay, he even threatened to send her his seconds if she still persisted in keeping Nana from her duty. Philippe and Georges joined him and teased her and badgered her so mercilessly that at last she shouted out:

  “Darling! Darling! Do make ’em keep quiet! They’re still after me!”

  “Now then, let her be,” said Nana seriously. “I won’t have her tormented; you know that quite well. And you, my pet, why d’you always go mixing yourself up with them when they’ve got so little sense?”

  Satin, blushing all over and putting out her tongue, went into the dressing room, through the widely open door of which you caught a glimpse of pale marbles gleaming in the milky light of a gas flame in a globe of rough glass. After that Nana talked to the four men as charmingly as hostess could. During the day she had read a novel which was at that time making a good deal of noise. It was the history of a courtesan, and Nana was very indignant, declaring the whole thing to be untrue and expressing angry dislike to that kind of monstrous literature which pretends to paint from nature. “Just as though one could describe everything,” she said. Just as though a novel ought not to be written so that the reader may while away an hour pleasantly! In the matter of books and of plays Nana had very decided opinions: she wanted tender and noble productions, things that would set her dreaming and would elevate her soul. Then allusion being made in the course of conversation to the troubles agitating Paris, the incendiary articles in the papers, the incipient popular disturbances which followed the calls to arms nightly raised at public meetings, she waxed wroth with the Republicans. What on earth did those dirty people who never washed really want? Were folks not happy? Had not the emperor done everything for the people? A nice filthy lot of people! She knew ’em; she could talk about ’em, and, quite forgetting the respect which at dinner she had just been insisting should be paid to her humble circle in the Rue de la Goutte-d’Or, she began blackguarding her own class with all the terror and disgust peculiar to a woman who had risen successfully above it. That very afternoon she had read in the Figaro an account of the proceedings at a public meeting which had verged on the comic. Owing to the slang words that had been used and to the piggish behavior of a drunken man who had got himself chucked, she was laughing at those proceedings still.

  “Oh, those drunkards!” she said with a disgusted air. “No, look you here, their republic would be a great misfortune for everybody! Oh, may God preserve us the emperor as long as possible!”

  “God will hear your prayer, my dear,” Muffat replied gravely. “To be sure, the emperor stands firm.”

  He liked her to express such excellent views. Both, indeed, understood one another in political matters. Vandeuvres and Philippe Hugon likewise indulged in endless jokes against the “cads,” the quarrelsome set who scuttled off the moment they clapped eyes on a bayonet. But Georges that evening remained pale and somber.

  “What can be the matter with that baby?” asked Nana, noticing his troubled appearance.

  “With me? Nothing—I am listening,” he muttered.

  But he was really suffering. On rising from table he had heard Philippe joking with the young woman, and now it was P
hilippe, and not himself, who sat beside her. His heart, he knew not why, swelled to bursting. He could not bear to see them so close together; such vile thoughts oppressed him that shame mingled with his anguish. He who laughed at Satin, who had accepted Steiner and Muffat and all the rest, felt outraged and murderous at the thought that Philippe might someday touch that woman.

  “Here, take Bijou,” she said to comfort him, and she passed him the little dog which had gone to sleep on her dress.

  And with that Georges grew happy again, for with the beast still warm from her lap in his arms, he held, as it were, part of her.

  Allusion had been made to a considerable loss which Vandeuvres had last night sustained at the Imperial Club. Muffat, who did not play, expressed great astonishment, but Vandeuvres smilingly alluded to his imminent ruin, about which Paris was already talking. The kind of death you chose did not much matter, he averred; the great thing was to die handsomely. For some time past Nana had noticed that he was nervous and had a sharp downward droop of the mouth and a fitful gleam in the depths of his clear eyes. But he retained his haughty aristocratic manner and the delicate elegance of his impoverished race, and as yet these strange manifestations were only, so to speak, momentary fits of vertigo overcoming a brain already sapped by play and by debauchery. One night as he lay beside her he had frightened her with a dreadful story. He had told her he contemplated shutting himself up in his stable and setting fire to himself and his horses at such time as he should have devoured all his substance. His only hope at that period was a horse, Lusignan by name, which he was training for the Prix de Paris. He was living on this horse, which was the sole stay of his shaken credit, and whenever Nana grew exacting he would put her off till June and to the probability of Lusignan’s winning.

  “Bah! He may very likely lose,” she said merrily, “since he’s going to clear them all out at the races.”

  By way of reply he contented himself by smiling a thin, mysterious smile. Then carelessly:

  “By the by, I’ve taken the liberty of giving your name to my outsider, the filly. Nana, Nana—that sounds well. You’re not vexed?”

  “Vexed, why?” she said in a state of inward ecstasy.

  The conversation continued, and same mention was made of an execution shortly to take place. The young woman said she was burning to go to it when Satin appeared at the dressing room door and called her in tones of entreaty. She got up at once and left the gentlemen lolling lazily about, while they finished their cigars and discussed the grave question as to how far a murderer subject to chronic alcoholism is responsible for his act. In the dressing room Zoé sat helpless on a chair, crying her heart out, while Satin vainly endeavored to console her.

  “What’s the matter?” said Nana in surprise.

  “Oh, darling, do speak to her!” said Satin. “I’ve been trying to make her listen to reason for the last twenty minutes. She’s crying because you called her a goose.”

  “Yes, madame, it’s very hard—very hard,” stuttered Zoé, choked by a fresh fit of sobbing.

  This sad sight melted the young woman’s heart at once. She spoke kindly, and when the other woman still refused to grow calm she sank down in front of her and took her round the waist with truly cordial familiarity:

  “But, you silly, I said ‘goose’ just as I might have said anything else. How shall I explain? I was in a passion—it was wrong of me; now calm down.”

  “I who love Madame so,” stuttered Zoé; “after all I’ve done for Madame.”

  Thereupon Nana kissed the lady’s maid and, wishing to show her she wasn’t vexed, gave her a dress she had worn three times. Their quarrels always ended up in the giving of presents! Zoé plugged her handkerchief into her eyes. She carried the dress off over her arm and added before leaving that they were very sad in the kitchen and that Julien and François had been unable to eat, so entirely had Madame’s anger taken away their appetites. Thereupon Madame sent them a louis as a pledge of reconciliation. She suffered too much if people around her were sorrowful.

  Nana was returning to the drawing room, happy in the thought that she had patched up a disagreement which was rendering her quietly apprehensive of the morrow, when Satin came and whispered vehemently in her ear. She was full of complaint, threatened to be off if those men still went on teasing her and kept insisting that her darling should turn them all out of doors for that night, at any rate. It would be a lesson to them. And then it would be so nice to be alone, both of them! Nana, with a return of anxiety, declared it to be impossible. Thereupon the other shouted at her like a violent child and tried hard to overrule her.

  “I wish it, d’you see? Send ’em away or I’m off!”

  And she went back into the drawing room, stretched herself out in the recesses of a divan, which stood in the background near the window, and lay waiting, silent and deathlike, with her great eyes fixed upon Nana.

  The gentlemen were deciding against the new criminological theories. Granted that lovely invention of irresponsibility in certain pathological cases, and criminals ceased to exist and sick people alone remained. The young woman, expressing approval with an occasional nod, was busy considering how best to dismiss the count. The others would soon be going, but he would assuredly prove obstinate. In fact, when Philippe got up to withdraw, Georges followed him at once—he seemed only anxious not to leave his brother behind. Vandeuvres lingered some minutes longer, feeling his way, as it were, and waiting to find out if, by any chance, some important business would oblige Muffat to cede him his place. Soon, however, when he saw the count deliberately taking up his quarters for the night, he desisted from his purpose and said goodbye, as became a man of tact. But on his way to the door, he noticed Satin staring fixedly at Nana, as usual. Doubtless he understood what this meant, for he seemed amused and came and shook hands with her.

  “We’re not angry, eh?” he whispered. “Pray pardon me. You’re the nicer attraction of the two, on my honor!”

  Satin deigned no reply. Nor did she take her eyes off Nana and the count, who were now alone. Muffat, ceasing to be ceremonious, had come to sit beside the young woman. He took her fingers and began kissing them. Whereupon Nana, seeking to change the current of his thoughts, asked him if his daughter Estelle were better. The previous night he had been complaining of the child’s melancholy behavior—he could not even spend a day happily at his own house, with his wife always out and his daughter icily silent.

  In family matters of this kind Nana was always full of good advice, and when Muffat abandoned all his usual self-control under the influence of mental and physical relaxation and once more launched out into his former plaints, she remembered the promise she had made.

  “Suppose you were to marry her?” she said. And with that she ventured to talk of Daguenet. At the mere mention of the name the count was filled with disgust. “Never,” he said after what she had told him!

  She pretended great surprise and then burst out laughing and put her arm round his neck.

  “Oh, the jealous man! To think of it! Just argue it out a little. Why, they slandered me to you—I was furious. At present I should be ever so sorry if—”

  But over Muffat’s shoulder she met Satin’s gaze. And she left him anxiously and in a grave voice continued:

  “This marriage must come off, my friend; I don’t want to prevent your daughter’s happiness. The young man’s most charming; you could not possibly find a better sort.”

  And she launched into extraordinary praise of Daguenet. The count had again taken her hands; he no longer refused now; he would see about it, he said, they would talk the matter over. By and by, when he spoke of going to bed, she sank her voice and excused herself. It was impossible; she was not well. If he loved her at all he would not insist! Nevertheless, he was obstinate; he refused to go away, and she was beginning to give in when she met Satin’s eyes once more. Then she grew inflex
ible. No, the thing was out of the question! The count, deeply moved and with a look of suffering, had risen and was going in quest of his hat. But in the doorway he remembered the set of sapphires; he could feel the case in his pocket. He had been wanting to hide it at the bottom of the bed so that when she entered it before him she should feel it against her legs. Since dinnertime he had been meditating this little surprise like a schoolboy, and now, in trouble and anguish of heart at being thus dismissed, he gave her the case without further ceremony.

  “What is it?” she queried. “Sapphires? Dear me! Oh yes, it’s that set. How sweet you are! But I say, my darling, d’you believe it’s the same one? In the shop window it made a much greater show.”

  That was all the thanks he got, and she let him go away. He noticed Satin stretched out silent and expectant, and with that he gazed at both women and without further insistence submitted to his fate and went downstairs. The hall door had not yet closed when Satin caught Nana round the waist and danced and sang. Then she ran to the window.

  “Oh, just look at the figure he cuts down in the street!” The two women leaned upon the wrought-iron window rail in the shadow of the curtains. One o’clock struck. The Avenue de Villiers was deserted, and its double file of gas lamps stretched away into the darkness of the damp March night through which great gusts of wind kept sweeping, laden with rain. There were vague stretches of land on either side of the road which looked like gulfs of shadow, while scaffoldings round mansions in process of construction loomed upward under the dark sky. They laughed uncontrollably as they watched Muffat’s rounded back and glistening shadow disappearing along the wet sidewalk into the glacial, desolate plains of new Paris. But Nana silenced Satin.