feet. She estimated the situation at a glance; the creditors would
swoop down on her anteroom, would mix themselves up with her love
affairs and threaten to sell her little all unless she continued to
act sensibly. Then, too, there would be no end of disputes and
carking anxieties if she attempted to save her furniture from their
clutches. And so she preferred giving up everything. Besides, the
flat in the Boulevard Haussmann was plaguing her to death. It was
so stupid with its great gilded rooms! In her access of tenderness
for Fontan she began dreaming of a pretty little bright chamber.
Indeed, she returned to the old ideals of the florist days, when her
highest ambition was to have a rosewood cupboard with a plate-glass
door and a bed hung with blue "reps." In the course of two days she
sold what she could smuggle out of the house in the way of
knickknacks and jewelry and then disappeared, taking with her ten
thousand francs and never even warning the porter's wife. It was a
plunge into the dark, a merry spree; never a trace was left behind.
In this way she would prevent the men from coming dangling after
her. Fontain was very nice. He did not say no to anything but just
let her do as she liked. Nay, he even displayed an admirable spirit
of comradeship. He had, on his part, nearly seven thousand francs,
and despite the fact that people accused him of stinginess, he
consented to add them to the young woman's ten thousand. The sum
struck them as a solid foundation on which to begin housekeeping.
And so they started away, drawing from their common hoard, in order
to hire and furnish the two rooms in the Rue Veron, and sharing
everything together like old friends. In the early days it was
really delicious.
On Twelfth Night Mme Lerat and Louiset were the first to arrive. As
Fontan had not yet come home, the old lady ventured to give
expression to her fears, for she trembled to see her niece
renouncing the chance of wealth.
"Oh, Aunt, I love him so dearly!" cried Nana, pressing her hands to
her heart with the prettiest of gestures.
This phrase produced an extraordinary effect on Mme Lerat, and tears
came into her eyes.
"That's true," she said with an air of conviction. "Love before all
things!"
And with that she went into raptures over the prettiness of the
rooms. Nana took her to see the bedroom, the parlor and the very
kitchen. Gracious goodness, it wasn't a vast place, but then, they
had painted it afresh and put up new wallpapers. Besides, the sun
shone merrily into it during the daytime.
Thereupon Mme Lerat detained the young woman in the bedroom, while
Louiset installed himself behind the charwoman in the kitchen in
order to watch a chicken being roasted. If, said Mme Lerat, she
permitted herself to say what was in her mind, it was because Zoe
had just been at her house. Zoe had stayed courageously in the
breach because she was devoted to her mistress. Madame would pay
her later on; she was in no anxiety about that! And amid the
breakup of the Boulevard Haussmann establishment it was she who
showed the creditors a bold front; it was she who conducted a
dignified retreat, saving what she could from the wreck and telling
everyone that her mistress was traveling. She never once gave them
her address. Nay, through fear of being followed, she even deprived
herself of the pleasure of calling on Madame. Nevertheless, that
same morning she had run round to Mme Lerat's because matters were
taking a new turn. The evening before creditors in the persons of
the upholsterer, the charcoal merchant and the laundress had put in
an appearance and had offered to give Madame an extension of time.
Nay, they had even proposed to advance Madame a very considerable
amount if only Madame would return to her flat and conduct herself
like a sensible person. The aunt repeated Zoe's words. Without
doubt there was a gentleman behind it all.
"I'll never consent!" declared Nana in great disgust. "Ah, they're
a pretty lot those tradesmen! Do they think I'm to be sold so that
they can get their bills paid? Why, look here, I'd rather die of
hunger than deceive Fontan."
"That's what I said," averred Mme Lerat. "'My niece,' I said, 'is
too noble-hearted!'"
Nana, however, was much vexed to learn that La Mignotte was being
sold and that Labordette was buying it for Caroline Hequet at an
absurdly low price. It made her angry with that clique. Oh, they
were a regular cheap lot, in spite of their airs and graces! Yes,
by Jove, she was worth more than the whole lot of them!
"They can have their little joke out," she concluded, "but money
will never give them true happiness! Besides, you know, Aunt, I
don't even know now whether all that set are alive or not. I'm much
too happy."
At that very moment Mme Maloir entered, wearing one of those hats of
which she alone understood the shape. It was delightful meeting
again. Mme Maloir explained that magnificence frightened her and
that NOW, from time to time, she would come back for her game of
bezique. A second visit was paid to the different rooms in the
lodgings, and in the kitchen Nana talked of economy in the presence
of the charwoman, who was basting the fowl, and said that a servant
would have cost too much and that she was herself desirous of
looking after things. Louiset was gazing beatifically at the
roasting process.
But presently there was a loud outburst of voices. Fontan had come
in with Bosc and Prulliere, and the company could now sit down to
table. The soup had been already served when Nana for the third
time showed off the lodgings.
"Ah, dear children, how comfortable you are here!" Bosc kept
repeating, simply for the sake of pleasing the chums who were
standing the dinner. At bottom the subject of the "nook," as he
called it, nowise touched him.
In the bedroom he harped still more vigorously on the amiable note.
Ordinarily he was wont to treat women like cattle, and the idea of a
man bothering himself about one of the dirty brutes excited within
him the only angry feelings of which, in his comprehensive, drunken
disdain of the universe, he was still capable.
"Ah, ah, the villains," he continued with a wink, "they've done this
on the sly. Well, you were certainly right. It will be charming,
and, by heaven, we'll come and see you!"
But when Louiset arrived on the scene astride upon a broomstick,
Prulliere chuckled spitefully and remarked:
"Well, I never! You've got a baby already?"
This struck everybody as very droll, and Mme Lerat and Mme Maloir
shook with laughter. Nana, far from being vexed, laughed tenderly
and said that unfortunately this was not the case. She would very
much have liked it, both for the little one's sake and for her own,
but perhaps one would arrive all the same. Fontan, in his role of
honest citizen, took Louiset in his arms and began playing with him
and lisping.
"Never mind! It loves its daddy! Call me 'Papa,' you little
blackguard!"
"Papa, Papa!" stammered the child.
The company overwhelmed him with caresses, but Bosc was bored and
talked of sitting down to table. That was the only serious business
in life. Nana asked her guests' permission to put Louiset's chair
next her own. The dinner was very merry, but Bosc suffered from the
near neighborhood of the child, from whom he had to defend his
plate. Mme Lerat bored him too. She was in a melting mood and kept
whispering to him all sorts of mysterious things about gentlemen of
the first fashion who were still running after Nana. Twice he had
to push away her knee, for she was positively invading him in her
gushing, tearful mood. Prulliere behaved with great incivility
toward Mme Maloir and did not once help her to anything. He was
entirely taken up with Nana and looked annoyed at seeing her with
Fontan. Besides, the turtle doves were kissing so excessively as to
be becoming positive bores. Contrary to all known rules, they had
elected to sit side by side.
"Devil take it! Why don't you eat? You've got plenty of time ahead
of you!" Bosc kept repeating with his mouth full. "Wait till we
are gone!"
But Nana could not restrain herself. She was in a perfect ecstasy
of love. Her face was as full of blushes as an innocent young
girl's, and her looks and her laughter seemed to overflow with
tenderness. Gazing on Fontan, she overwhelmed him with pet names--
"my doggie, my old bear, my kitten"--and whenever he passed her the
water or the salt she bent forward and kissed him at random on lips,
eyes, nose or ear. Then if she met with reproof she would return to
the attack with the cleverest maneuvers and with infinite
submissiveness and the supple cunning of a beaten cat would catch
hold of his hand when no one was looking, in order to kiss it again.
It seemed she must be touching something belonging to him. As to
Fontan, he gave himself airs and let himself be adored with the
utmost condescension. His great nose sniffed with entirely sensual
content; his goat face, with its quaint, monstrous ugliness,
positively glowed in the sunlight of devoted adoration lavished upon
him by that superb woman who was so fair and so plump of limb.
Occasionally he gave a kiss in return, as became a man who is having
all the enjoyment and is yet willing to behave prettily.
"Well, you're growing maddening!" cried Prulliere. "Get away from
her, you fellow there!"
And he dismissed Fontan and changed covers, in order to take his
place at Nana's side. The company shouted and applauded at this and
gave vent to some stiffish epigrammatic witticisms. Fontan
counterfeited despair and assumed the quaint expression of Vulcan
crying for Venus. Straightway Prulliere became very gallant, but
Nana, whose foot he was groping for under the table, caught him a
slap to make him keep quiet. No, no, she was certainly not going to
become his mistress. A month ago she had begun to take a fancy to
him because of his good looks, but now she detested him. If he
pinched her again under pretense of picking up her napkin, she would
throw her glass in his face!
Nevertheless, the evening passed off well. The company had
naturally begun talking about the Varietes. Wasn't that cad of a
Bordenave going to go off the hooks after all? His nasty diseases
kept reappearing and causing him such suffering that you couldn't
come within six yards of him nowadays. The day before during
rehearsal he had been incessantly yelling at Simonne. There was a
fellow whom the theatrical people wouldn't shed many tears over.
Nana announced that if he were to ask her to take another part she
would jolly well send him to the rightabout. Moreover, she began
talking of leaving the stage; the theater was not to compare with
her home. Fontan, who was not in the present piece or in that which
was then being rehearsed, also talked big about the joy of being
entirely at liberty and of passing his evenings with his feet on the
fender in the society of his little pet. And at this the rest
exclaimed delightedly, treating their entertainers as lucky people
and pretending to envy their felicity.
The Twelfth-Night cake had been cut and handed round. The bean had
fallen to the lot of Mme Lerat, who popped it into Bosc's glass.
Whereupon there were shouts of "The king drinks! The king drinks!"
Nana took advantage of this outburst of merriment and went and put
her arms round Fontan's neck again, kissing him and whispering in
his ear. But Prulliere, laughing angrily, as became a pretty man,
declared that they were not playing the game. Louiset, meanwhile,
slept soundly on two chairs. It was nearing one o'clock when the
company separated, shouting au revoir as they went downstairs.
For three weeks the existence of the pair of lovers was really
charming. Nana fancied she was returning to those early days when
her first silk dress had caused her infinite delight. She went out
little and affected a life of solitude and simplicity. One morning
early, when she had gone down to buy fish IN PROPRIA PERSONA in La
Rouchefoucauld Market, she was vastly surprised to meet her old hair
dresser Francis face to face. His getup was as scrupulously careful
as ever: he wore the finest linen, and his frock coat was beyond
reproach; in fact, Nana felt ashamed that he should see her in the
street with a dressing jacket and disordered hair and down-at-heel
shoes. But he had the tact, if possible, to intensify his
politeness toward her. He did not permit himself a single inquiry
and affected to believe that Madame was at present on her travels.
Ah, but Madame had rendered many persons unhappy when she decided to
travel! All the world had suffered loss. The young woman, however,
ended by asking him questions, for a sudden fit of curiosity had
made her forget her previous embarrassment. Seeing that the crowd
was jostling them, she pushed him into a doorway and, still holding
her little basket in one hand, stood chatting in front of him. What
were people saying about her high jinks? Good heavens! The ladies
to whom he went said this and that and all sorts of things. In
fact, she had made a great noise and was enjoying a real boom: And
Steiner? M. Steiner was in a very bad way, would make an ugly
finish if he couldn't hit on some new commercial operation. And
Daguenet? Oh, HE was getting on swimmingly. M. Daguenet was
settling down. Nana, under the exciting influence of various
recollections, was just opening her mouth with a view to a further
