would find Satin at the table d'hote in the Rue des Martyrs. She
was not going there for the sake of seeing her again but in order to
catch her one in the face! As a matter of fact Satin was dining at
a little table with Mme Robert. Seeing Nana, she began to laugh,
but the former, though wounded to the quick, did not make a scene.
On the contrary, she was very sweet and very compliant. She paid
for champagne made five or six tablefuls tipsy and then carried off
Satin when Mme Robert was in the closets. Not till they were in the
carriage did she make a mordant attack on her, threatening to kill
her if she did it again.
After that day the same little business began again continually. On
twenty different occasions Nana, tragically furious, as only a
jilted woman can be ran off in pursuit of this sluttish creature,
whose flights were prompted by the boredom she suffered amid the
comforts of her new home. Nana began to talk of boxing Mme Robert's
ears; one day she even meditated a duel; there was one woman too
many, she said.
In these latter times, whenever she dined at Laure's, she donned her
diamonds and occasionally brought with her Louise Violaine, Maria
Blond and Tatan Nene, all of them ablaze with finery; and while the
sordid feast was progressing in the three saloons and the yellow
gaslight flared overhead, these four resplendent ladies would demean
themselves with a vengeance, for it was their delight to dazzle the
little local courtesans and to carry them off when dinner was over.
On days such as these Laure, sleek and tight-laced as ever would
kiss everyone with an air of expanded maternity. Yet
notwithstanding all these circumstances Satin's blue eyes and pure
virginal face remained as calm as heretofore; torn, beaten and
pestered by the two women, she would simply remark that it was a
funny business, and they would have done far better to make it up at
once. It did no good to slap her; she couldn't cut herself in two,
however much she wanted to be nice to everybody. It was Nana who
finally carried her off in triumph, so assiduously had she loaded
Satin with kindnesses and presents. In order to be revenged,
however, Mme Robert wrote abominable, anonymous letters to her
rival's lovers.
For some time past Count Muffat had appeared suspicious, and one
morning, with considerable show of feeling, he laid before Nana an
anonymous letter, where in the very first sentences she read that
she was accused of deceiving the count with Vandeuvres and the young
Hugons.
"It's false! It's false!" she loudly exclaimed in accents of
extraordinary candor.
"You swear?" asked Muffat, already willing to be comforted.
"I'll swear by whatever you like--yes, by the head of my child!"
But the letter was long. Soon her connection with Satin was
described in the broadest and most ignoble terms. When she had done
reading she smiled.
"Now I know who it comes from," she remarked simply.
And as Muffat wanted her denial to the charges therein contained,
she resumed quietly enough:
"That's a matter which doesn't concern you, dear old pet. How can
it hurt you?"
She did not deny anything. He used some horrified expressions.
Thereupon she shrugged her shoulders. Where had he been all this
time? Why, it was done everywhere! And she mentioned her friends
and swore that fashionable ladies went in for it. In fact, to hear
her speak, nothing could be commoner or more natural. But a lie was
a lie, and so a moment ago he had seen how angry she grew in the
matter of Vandeuvres and the young Hugons! Oh, if that had been
true he would have been justified in throttling her! But what was
the good of lying to him about a matter of no consequence? And with
that she repeated her previous expression:
"Come now, how can it hurt you?"
Then as the scene still continued, she closed it with a rough
speech:
"Besides, dear boy, if the thing doesn't suit you it's very simple:
the house door's open! There now, you must take me as you find me!"
He hung his head, for the young woman's vows of fidelity made him
happy at bottom. She, however, now knew her power over him and
ceased to consider his feelings. And from that time forth Satin was
openly installed in the house on the same footing as the gentlemen.
Vandeuvres had not needed anonymous letters in order to understand
how matters stood, and accordingly he joked and tried to pick
jealous quarrels with Satin. Philippe and Georges, on their parts,
treated her like a jolly good fellow, shaking hands with her and
cracking the riskiest jokes imaginable.
Nana had an adventure one evening when this slut of a girl had given
her the go-by and she had gone to dine in the Rue des Martyrs
without being able to catch her. While she was dining by herself
Daguenet had appeared on the scene, for although he had reformed, he
still occasionally dropped in under the influence of his old vicious
inclinations. He hoped of course that no one would meet him in
these black recesses, dedicated to the town's lowest depravity.
Accordingly even Nana's presence seemed to embarrass him at the
outset. But he was not the man to run away and, coming forward with
a smile, he asked if Madame would be so kind as to allow him to dine
at her table. Noticing his jocular tone, Nana assumed her
magnificently frigid demeanor and icily replied:
"Sit down where you please, sir. We are in a public place."
Thus begun, the conversation proved amusing. But at dessert Nana,
bored and burning for a triumph, put her elbows on the table and
began in the old familiar way:
"Well, what about your marriage, my lad? Is it getting on all
right?"
"Not much," Daguenet averred.
As a matter of fact, just when he was about to venture on his
request at the Muffats', he had met with such a cold reception from
the count that he had prudently refrained. The business struck him
as a failure. Nana fixed her clear eyes on him; she was sitting,
leaning her chin on her hand, and there was an ironical curve about
her lips.
"Oh yes! I'm a baggage," she resumed slowly. "Oh yes, the future
father-in-law will have to be dragged from between my claws! Dear
me, dear me, for a fellow with NOUS, you're jolly stupid! What!
D'you mean to say you're going to tell your tales to a man who
adores me and tells me everything? Now just listen: you shall marry
if I wish it, my little man!"
For a minute or two he had felt the truth of this, and now he began
scheming out a method of submission. Nevertheless, he still talked
jokingly, not wishing the matter to grow serious, and after he had
put on his gloves he demanded the hand of Mlle Estelle de Beuville
in the strict regulation manner. Nana ended by laughing, as though
she had been tickled. Oh, that Mimi! It was impossible to bear him
a grudge! Daguenet's great successes with ladies of her class were
due to the sweetness of his voice, a voice of such musical purity
and pliancy as to have won him among courtesans the sobriquet of
"Velvet-Mouth." Every woman would give way to him when he lulled
her with his sonorous caresses. He knew this power and rocked Nana
to sleep with endless words, telling her all kinds of idiotic
anecdotes. When they left the table d'hote she was blushing rosy-
red; she trembled as she hung on his arm; he had reconquered her.
As it was very fine, she sent her carriage away and walked with him
as far as his own place, where she went upstairs with him naturally
enough. Two hours later, as she was dressing again, she said:
"So you hold to this marriage of yours, Mimi?"
"Egad," he muttered, "it's the best thing I could possibly do after
all! You know I'm stony broke."
She summoned him to button her boots, and after a pause:
"Good heavens! I've no objection. I'll shove you on! She's as dry
as a lath, is that little thing, but since it suits your game--oh,
I'm agreeable: I'll run the thing through for you."
Then with bosom still uncovered, she began laughing:
"Only what will you give me?"
He had caught her in his arms and was kissing her on the shoulders
in a perfect access of gratitude while she quivered with excitement
and struggled merrily and threw herself backward in her efforts to
be free.
"Oh, I know," she cried, excited by the contest. "Listen to what I
want in the way of commission. On your wedding day you shall make
me a present of your innocence. Before your wife, d'you
understand?"
"That's it! That's it!" he said, laughing even louder than Nana.
The bargain amused them--they thought the whole business very good,
indeed.
Now as it happened, there was a dinner at Nana's next day. For the
matter of that, it was the customary Thursday dinner, and Muffat,
Vandeuvres, the young Hugons and Satin were present. The count
arrived early. He stood in need of eighty thousand francs wherewith
to free the young woman from two or three debts and to give her a
set of sapphires she was dying to possess. As he had already
seriously lessened his capital, he was in search of a lender, for he
did not dare to sell another property. With the advice of Nana
herself he had addressed himself to Labordette, but the latter,
deeming it too heavy an undertaking, had mentioned it to the
hairdresser Francis, who willingly busied himself in such affairs in
order to oblige his lady clients. The count put himself into the
hands of these gentlemen but expressed a formal desire not to appear
in the matter, and they both undertook to keep in hand the bill for
a hundred thousand francs which he was to sign, excusing themselves
at the same time for charging a matter of twenty thousand francs
interest and loudly denouncing the blackguard usurers to whom, they
declared, it had been necessary to have recourse. When Muffat had
himself announced, Francis was putting the last touches to Nana's
coiffure. Labordette also was sitting familiarly in the dressing
room, as became a friend of no consequence. Seeing the count, he
discreetly placed a thick bundle of bank notes among the powders and
pomades, and the bill was signed on the marble-topped dressing
table. Nana was anxious to keep Labordette to dinner, but he
declined--he was taking a rich foreigner about Paris. Muffat,
however, led him aside and begged him to go to Becker, the jeweler,
and bring him back thence the set of sapphires, which he wanted to
present the young woman by way of surprise that very evening.
Labordette willingly undertook the commission, and half an hour
later Julien handed the jewel case mysteriously to the count.
During dinnertime Nana was nervous. The sight of the eighty
thousand francs had excited her. To think all that money was to go
to tradespeople! It was a disgusting thought. After soup had been
served she grew sentimental, and in the splendid dining room,
glittering with plate and glass, she talked of the bliss of poverty.
The men were in evening dress, Nana in a gown of white embroidered
satin, while Satin made a more modest appearance in black silk with
a simple gold heart at her throat, which was a present from her kind
friend. Julien and Francois waited behind the guests and were
assisted in this by Zoe. All three looked most dignified.
"It's certain I had far greater fun when I hadn't a cent!" Nana
repeated.
She had placed Muffat on her right hand and Vandeuvres on her left,
but she scarcely looked at them, so taken up was she with Satin, who
sat in state between Philippe and Georges on the opposite side of
the table.
"Eh, duckie?" she kept saying at every turn. "How we did use to
laugh in those days when we went to Mother Josse's school in the Rue
Polonceau!"
When the roast was being served the two women plunged into a world
of reminiscences. They used to have regular chattering fits of this
kind when a sudden desire to stir the muddy depths of their
childhood would possess them. These fits always occurred when men
were present: it was as though they had given way to a burning
desire to treat them to the dunghill on which they had grown to
woman's estate. The gentlemen paled visibly and looked embarrassed.
The young Hugons did their best to laugh, while Vandeuvres nervously
toyed with his beard and Muffat redoubled his gravity.
"You remember Victor?" said Nana. "There was a wicked little fellow
for you! Why, he used to take the little girls into cellars!"
"I remember him perfectly," replied Satin. "I recollect the big
courtyard at your place very well. There was a portress there with
a broom!"
"Mother Boche--she's dead."
"And I can still picture your shop. Your mother was a great fatty.
One evening when we were playing your father came in drunk. Oh, so
drunk!"
At this point Vandeuvres tried to intercept the ladies'
reminiscences and to effect a diversion,
"I say, my dear, I should be very glad to have some more truffles.
They're simply perfect. Yesterday I had some at the house of the
Duc de Corbreuse, which did not come up to them at all."
"The truffles, Julien!" said Nana roughly.
Then returning to the subject:
"By Jove, yes, Dad hadn't any sense! And then what a smash there
was! You should have seen it--down, down, down we went, starving
away all the time. I can tell you I've had to bear pretty well
everything and it's a miracle I didn't kick the bucket over it, like
Daddy and Mamma."
This time Muffat, who was playing with his knife in a state of
