seat underneath her. Seeing him so anxious, she did not hurry to
answer. But at last she lifted up her face. It had assumed a grave
expression, and into the beautiful eyes she had succeeded in
infusing a look of sadness.
"Oh, it's impossible, little man. Never, never, will I live with
you again."
"Why?" he stuttered, and his face seemed contracted in unspeakable
suffering.
"Why? Hang it all, because--It's impossible; that's about it. I
don't want to."
He looked ardently at her for some seconds longer. Then his legs
curved under him and he fell on the floor. In a bored voice she
added this simple advice:
"Ah, don't be a baby!"
But he was one already. Dropping at her feet, he had put his arms
round her waist and was hugging her closely, pressing his face hard
against her knees. When he felt her thus--when he once more divined
the presence of her velvety limbs beneath the thin fabric of her
dress--he was suddenly convulsed and trembled, as it were, with
fever, while madly, savagely, he pressed his face against her knees
as though he had been anxious to force through her flesh. The old
chair creaked, and beneath the low ceiling, where the air was
pungent with stale perfumes, smothered sobs of desire were audible.
"Well, and after?" Nana began saying, letting him do as he would.
"All this doesn't help you a bit, seeing that the thing's
impossible. Good God, what a child you are!"
His energy subsided, but he still stayed on the floor, nor did he
relax his hold of her as he said in a broken voice:
"Do at least listen to what I came to offer you. I've already seen
a town house close to the Parc Monceau--I would gladly realize your
smallest wish. In order to have you all to myself, I would give my
whole fortune. Yes, that would be my only condition, that I should
have you all to myself! Do you understand? And if you were to
consent to be mine only, oh, then I should want you to be the
loveliest, the richest, woman on earth. I should give you carriages
and diamonds and dresses!"
At each successive offer Nana shook her head proudly. Then seeing
that he still continued them, that he even spoke of settling money
on her--for he was at loss what to lay at her feet--she apparently
lost patience.
"Come, come, have you done bargaining with me? I'm a good sort, and
I don't mind giving in to you for a minute or two, as your feelings
are making you so ill, but I've had enough of it now, haven't I? So
let me get up. You're tiring me."
She extricated herself from his clasp, and once on her feet:
"No, no, no!" she said. "I don't want to!"
With that he gathered himself up painfully and feebly dropped into a
chair, in which he leaned back with his face in his hands. Nana
began pacing up and down in her turn. For a second or two she
looked at the stained wallpaper, the greasy toilet table, the whole
dirty little room as it basked in the pale sunlight. Then she
paused in front of the count and spoke with quiet directness.
"It's strange how rich men fancy they can have everything for their
money. Well, and if I don't want to consent--what then? I don't
care a pin for your presents! You might give me Paris, and yet I
should say no! Always no! Look here, it's scarcely clean in this
room, yet I should think it very nice if I wanted to live in it with
you. But one's fit to kick the bucket in your palaces if one isn't
in love. Ah, as to money, my poor pet, I can lay my hands on that
if I want to, but I tell you, I trample on it; I spit on it!"
And with that she assumed a disgusted expression. Then she became
sentimental and added in a melancholy tone:
"I know of something worth more than money. Oh, if only someone
were to give me what I long for!"
He slowly lifted his head, and there was a gleam of hope in his eyes.
"Oh, you can't give it me," she continued; "it doesn't depend on
you, and that's the reason I'm talking to you about it. Yes, we're
having a chat, so I may as well mention to you that I should like to
play the part of the respectable woman in that show of theirs."
"What respectable woman?" he muttered in astonishment.
"Why, their Duchess Helene! If they think I'm going to play
Geraldine, a part with nothing in it, a scene and nothing besides--
if they think that! Besides, that isn't the reason. The fact is
I've had enough of courtesans. Why, there's no end to 'em! They'll
be fancying I've got 'em on the brain; to be sure they will!
Besides, when all's said and done, it's annoying, for I can quite
see they seem to think me uneducated. Well, my boy, they're jolly
well in the dark about it, I can tell you! When I want to be a
perfect lady, why then I am a swell, and no mistake! Just look at
this."
And she withdrew as far as the window and then came swelling back
with the mincing gait and circumspect air of a portly hen that fears
to dirty her claws. As to Muffat, he followed her movements with
eyes still wet with tears. He was stupefied by this sudden
transition from anguish to comedy. She walked about for a moment or
two in order the more thoroughly to show off her paces, and as she
walked she smiled subtlely, closed her eyes demurely and managed her
skirts with great dexterity. Then she posted herself in front of
him again.
"I guess I've hit it, eh?"
"Oh, thoroughly," he stammered with a broken voice and a troubled
expression.
"I tell you I've got hold of the honest woman! I've tried at my own
place. Nobody's got my little knack of looking like a duchess who
don't care a damn for the men. Did you notice it when I passed in
front of you? Why, the thing's in my blood! Besides, I want to
play the part of an honest woman. I dream about it day and night--
I'm miserable about it. I must have the part, d'you hear?"
And with that she grew serious, speaking in a hard voice and looking
deeply moved, for she was really tortured by her stupid, tiresome
wish. Muffat, still smarting from her late refusals, sat on without
appearing to grasp her meaning. There was a silence during which
the very flies abstained from buzzing through the quiet, empty place.
"Now, look here," she resumed bluntly, "you're to get them to give
me the part."
He was dumfounded, and with a despairing gesture:
"Oh, it's impossible! You yourself were saying just now that it
didn't depend on me."
She interrupted him with a shrug of the shoulders.
"You'll just go down, and you'll tell Bordenave you want the part.
Now don't be such a silly! Bordenave wants money--well, you'll lend
him some, since you can afford to make ducks and drakes of it."
And as he still struggled to refuse her, she grew angry.
"Very well, I understand; you're afraid of making Rose angry. I
didn't mention the woman when you were crying down on the floor--I
should have had too much to say about it all. Yes, to be sure, when
one has sworn to love a woman forever one doesn't usually take up
with the first creature that comes by directly after. Oh, that's
where the shoe pinches, I remember! Well, dear boy, there's nothing
very savory in the Mignon's leavings! Oughtn't you to have broken
it off with that dirty lot before coming and squirming on my knees?"
He protested vaguely and at last was able to get out a phrase.
"Oh, I don't care a jot for Rose; I'll give her up at once."
Nana seemed satisfied on this point. She continued:
"Well then, what's bothering you? Bordenave's master here. You'll
tell me there's Fauchery after Bordenave--"
She had sunk her voice, for she was coming to the delicate part of
the matter. Muffat sat silent, his eyes fixed on the ground. He
had remained voluntarily ignorant of Fauchery's assiduous attentions
to the countess, and time had lulled his suspicions and set him
hoping that he had been deceiving himself during that fearful night
passed in a doorway of the Rue Taitbout. But he still felt a dull,
angry repugnance to the man.
"Well, what then? Fauchery isn't the devil!" Nana repeated, feeling
her way cautiously and trying to find out how matters stood between
husband and lover. "One can get over his soft side. I promise you,
he's a good sort at bottom! So it's a bargain, eh? You'll tell him
that it's for my sake?"
The idea of taking such a step disgusted the count.
"No, no! Never!" he cried.
She paused, and this sentence was on the verge of utterance:
"Fauchery can refuse you nothing."
But she felt that by way of argument it was rather too much of a
good thing. So she only smiled a queer smile which spoke as plainly
as words. Muffat had raised his eyes to her and now once more
lowered them, looking pale and full of embarrassment.
"Ah, you're not good natured," she muttered at last.
"I cannot," he said with a voice and a look of the utmost anguish.
"I'll do whatever you like, but not that, dear love! Oh, I beg you
not to insist on that!"
Thereupon she wasted no more time in discussion but took his head
between her small hands, pushed it back a little, bent down and
glued her mouth to his in a long, long kiss. He shivered violently;
he trembled beneath her touch; his eyes were closed, and he was
beside himself. She lifted him to his feet.
"Go," said she simply.
He walked off, making toward the door. But as he passed out she
took him in her arms again, became meek and coaxing, lifted her face
to his and rubbed her cheek against his waistcoat, much as a cat
might have done.
"Where's the fine house?" she whispered in laughing embarrassment,
like a little girl who returns to the pleasant things she has
previously refused.
"In the Avenue de Villiers."
"And there are carriages there?"
"Yes."
"Lace? Diamonds?"
"Yes."
"Oh, how good you are, my old pet! You know it was all jealousy
just now! And this time I solemnly promise you it won't be like the
first, for now you understand what's due to a woman. You give all,
don't you? Well then, I don't want anybody but you! Why, look
here, there's some more for you! There and there AND there!"
When she had pushed him from the room after firing his blood with a
rain of kisses on hands and on face, she panted awhile. Good
heavens, what an unpleasant smell there was in that slut Mathilde's
dressing room! It was warm, if you will, with the tranquil warmth
peculiar to rooms in the south when the winter sun shines into them,
but really, it smelled far too strong of stale lavender water, not
to mention other less cleanly things! She opened the window and,
again leaning on the window sill, began watching the glass roof of
the passage below in order to kill time.
Muffat went staggering downstairs. His head was swimming. What
should he say? How should he broach the matter which, moreover, did
not concern him? He heard sounds of quarreling as he reached the
stage. The second act was being finished, and Prulliere was beside
himself with wrath, owing to an attempt on Fauchery's part to cut
short one of his speeches.
"Cut it all out then," he was shouting. "I should prefer that!
Just fancy, I haven't two hundred lines, and they're still cutting
me down. No, by Jove, I've had enough of it; I give the part up."
He took a little crumpled manuscript book out of his pocket and
fingered its leaves feverishly, as though he were just about to
throw it on Cossard's lap. His pale face was convulsed by outraged
vanity; his lips were drawn and thin, his eyes flamed; he was quite
unable to conceal the struggle that was going on inside him. To
think that he, Prulliere, the idol of the public, should play a part
of only two hundred lines!
"Why not make me bring in letters on a tray?" he continued bitterly.
"Come, come, Prulliere, behave decently," said Bordenave, who was
anxious to treat him tenderly because of his influence over the
boxes. "Don't begin making a fuss. We'll find some points. Eh,
Fauchery, you'll add some points? In the third act it would even be
possible to lengthen a scene out."
"Well then, I want the last speech of all," the comedian declared.
"I certainly deserve to have it."
Fauchery's silence seemed to give consent, and Prulliere, still
greatly agitated and discontented despite everything, put his part
back into his pocket. Bosc and Fontan had appeared profoundly
indifferent during the course of this explanation. Let each man
fight for his own hand, they reflected; the present dispute had
nothing to do with them; they had no interest therein! All the
actors clustered round Fauchery and began questioning him and
fishing for praise, while Mignon listened to the last of Prulliere's
complaints without, however, losing sight of Count Muffat, whose
return he had been on the watch for.
Entering in the half-light, the count had paused at the back of the
stage, for he hesitated to interrupt the quarrel. But Bordenave
caught sight of him and ran forward.
"Aren't they a pretty lot?" he muttered. "You can have no idea what
I've got to undergo with that lot, Monsieur le Comte. Each man's
vainer than his neighbor, and they're wretched players all the same,
