said simply:
"I'll try."
Silence reigned. She was dressing, and he stood pressing his
forehead against the windowpanes. A minute passed, and he returned
to her and deliberately continued:
"Nana, you ought to marry me."
This notion straightway so tickled the young woman that she was
unable to finish tying on her petticoats.
"My poor pet, you're ill! D'you offer me your hand because I ask
you for ten louis? No, never! I'm too fond of you. Good gracious,
what a silly question!"
And as Zoe entered in order to put her boots on, they ceased talking
of the matter. The lady's maid at once espied the presents lying
broken in pieces on the table. She asked if she should put these
things away, and, Madame having bidden her get rid of them, she
carried the whole collection off in the folds of her dress. In the
kitchen a sorting-out process began, and Madame's debris were shared
among the servants.
That day Georges had slipped into the house despite Nana's orders to
the contrary. Francois had certainly seen him pass, but the
servants had now got to laugh among themselves at their good lady's
embarrassing situations. He had just slipped as far as the little
drawing room when his brother's voice stopped him, and, as one
powerless to tear himself from the door, he overheard everything
that went on within, the kisses, the offer of marriage. A feeling
of horror froze him, and he went away in a state bordering on
imbecility, feeling as though there were a great void in his brain.
It was only in his own room above his mother's flat in the Rue
Richelieu that his heart broke in a storm of furious sobs. This
time there could be no doubt about the state of things; a horrible
picture of Nana in Philippe's arms kept rising before his mind's
eye. It struck him in the light of an incest. When he fancied
himself calm again the remembrance of it all would return, and in
fresh access of raging jealousy he would throw himself on the bed,
biting the coverlet, shouting infamous accusations which maddened
him the more. Thus the day passed. In order to stay shut up in his
room he spoke of having a sick headache. But the night proved more
terrible still; a murder fever shook him amid continual nightmares.
Had his brother lived in the house, he would have gone and killed
him with the stab of a knife. When day returned he tried to reason
things out. It was he who ought to die, and he determined to throw
himself out of the window when an omnibus was passing.
Nevertheless, he went out toward ten o'clock and traversed Paris,
wandered up and down on the bridges and at the last moment felt an
unconquerable desire to see Nana once more. With one word, perhaps,
she would save him. And three o'clock was striking when he entered
the house in the Avenue de Villiers.
Toward noon a frightful piece of news had simply crushed Mme Hugon.
Philippe had been in prison since the evening of the previous day,
accused of having stolen twelve thousand francs from the chest of
his regiment. For the last three months he had been withdrawing
small sums therefrom in the hope of being able to repay them, while
he had covered the deficit with false money. Thanks to the
negligence of the administrative committee, this fraud had been
constantly successful. The old lady, humbled utterly by her child's
crime, had at once cried out in anger against Nana. She knew
Philippe's connection with her, and her melancholy had been the
result of this miserable state of things which kept her in Paris in
constant dread of some final catastrophe. But she had never looked
forward to such shame as this, and now she blamed herself for
refusing him money, as though such refusal had made her accessory to
his act. She sank down on an armchair; her legs were seized with
paralysis, and she felt herself to be useless, incapable of action
and destined to stay where she was till she died. But the sudden
thought of Georges comforted her. Georges was still left her; he
would be able to act, perhaps to save them. Thereupon, without
seeking aid of anyone else--for she wished to keep these matters
shrouded in the bosom of her family--she dragged herself up to the
next story, her mind possessed by the idea that she still had
someone to love about her. But upstairs she found an empty room.
The porter told her that M. Georges had gone out at an early hour.
The room was haunted by the ghost of yet another calamity; the bed
with its gnawed bedclothes bore witness to someone's anguish, and a
chair which lay amid a heap of clothes on the ground looked like
something dead. Georges must be at that woman's house, and so with
dry eyes and feet that had regained their strength Mme Hugon went
downstairs. She wanted her sons; she was starting to reclaim them.
Since morning Nana had been much worried. First of all it was the
baker, who at nine o'clock had turned up, bill in hand. It was a
wretched story. He had supplied her with bread to the amount of a
hundred and thirty-three francs, and despite her royal housekeeping
she could not pay it. In his irritation at being put off he had
presented himself a score of times since the day he had refused
further credit, and the servants were now espousing his cause.
Francois kept saying that Madame would never pay him unless he made
a fine scene; Charles talked of going upstairs, too, in order to get
an old unpaid straw bill settled, while Victorine advised them to
wait till some gentleman was with her, when they would get the money
out of her by suddenly asking for it in the middle of conversation.
The kitchen was in a savage mood: the tradesmen were all kept posted
in the course events were taking, and there were gossiping
consultations, lasting three or four hours on a stretch, during
which Madame was stripped, plucked and talked over with the wrathful
eagerness peculiar to an idle, overprosperous servants' hall.
Julien, the house steward, alone pretended to defend his mistress.
She was quite the thing, whatever they might say! And when the
others accused him of sleeping with her he laughed fatuously,
thereby driving the cook to distraction, for she would have liked to
be a man in order to "spit on such women's backsides," so utterly
would they have disgusted her. Francois, without informing Madame
of it, had wickedly posted the baker in the hall, and when she came
downstairs at lunch time she found herself face to face with him.
Taking the bill, she told him to return toward three o'clock,
whereupon, with many foul expressions, he departed, vowing that he
would have things properly settled and get his money by hook or by
crook.
Nana made a very bad lunch, for the scene had annoyed her. Next
time the man would have to be definitely got rid of. A dozen times
she had put his money aside for him, but it had as constantly melted
away, sometimes in the purchase of flowers, at others in the shape
of a subscription got up for the benefit of an old gendarme.
Besides, she was counting on Philippe and was astonished not to see
him make his appearance with his two hundred francs. It was regular
bad luck, seeing that the day before yesterday she had again given
Satin an outfit, a perfect trousseau this time, some twelve hundred
francs' worth of dresses and linen, and now she had not a louis
remaining.
Toward two o'clock, when Nana was beginning to be anxious,
Labordette presented himself. He brought with him the designs for
the bed, and this caused a diversion, a joyful interlude which made
the young woman forget all her troubles. She clapped her hands and
danced about. After which, her heart bursting wish curiosity, she
leaned over a table in the drawing room and examined the designs,
which Labordette proceeded to explain to her.
"You see," he said, "this is the body of the bed. In the middle
here there's a bunch of roses in full bloom, and then comes a
garland of buds and flowers. The leaves are to be in yellow and the
roses in red-gold. And here's the grand design for the bed's head;
Cupids dancing in a ring on a silver trelliswork."
But Nana interrupted him, for she was beside herself with ecstasy.
"Oh, how funny that little one is, that one in the corner, with his
behind in the air! Isn't he now? And what a sly laugh! They've
all got such dirty, wicked eyes! You know, dear boy, I shall never
dare play any silly tricks before THEM!"
Her pride was flattered beyond measure. The goldsmiths had declared
that no queen anywhere slept in such a bed. However, a difficulty
presented itself. Labordette showed her two designs for the
footboard, one of which reproduced the pattern on the sides, while
the other, a subject by itself, represented Night wrapped in her
veil and discovered by a faun in all her splendid nudity. He added
that if she chose this last subject the goldsmiths intended making
Night in her own likeness. This idea, the taste of which was rather
risky, made her grow white with pleasure, and she pictured herself
as a silver statuette, symbolic of the warm, voluptuous delights of
darkness.
"Of course you will only sit for the head and shoulders," said
Labordette.
She looked quietly at him.
"Why? The moment a work of art's in question I don't mind the
sculptor that takes my likeness a blooming bit!"
Of course it must be understood that she was choosing the subject.
But at this he interposed.
"Wait a moment; it's six thousand francs extra."
"It's all the same to me, by Jove!" she cried, bursting into a
laugh. "Hasn't my little rough got the rhino?"
Nowadays among her intimates she always spoke thus of Count Muffat,
and the gentlemen had ceased to inquire after him otherwise.
"Did you see your little rough last night?" they used to say.
"Dear me, I expected to find the little rough here!"
It was a simple familiarity enough, which, nevertheless, she did not
as yet venture on in his presence.
Labordette began rolling up the designs as he gave the final
explanations. The goldsmiths, he said, were undertaking to deliver
the bed in two months' time, toward the twenty-fifth of December,
and next week a sculptor would come to make a model for the Night.
As she accompanied him to the door Nana remembered the baker and
briskly inquired:
"By the by, you wouldn't be having ten louis about you?"
Labordette made it a solemn rule, which stood him in good stead,
never to lend women money. He used always to make the same reply.
"No, my girl, I'm short. But would you like me to go to your little
rough?"
She refused; it was useless. Two days before she had succeeded in
getting five thousand francs out of the count. However, she soon
regretted her discreet conduct, for the moment Labordette had gone
the baker reappeared, though it was barely half-past two, and with
many loud oaths roughly settled himself on a bench in the hall. The
young woman listened to him from the first floor. She was pale, and
it caused her especial pain to hear the servants' secret rejoicings
swelling up louder and louder till they even reached her ears. Down
in the kitchen they were dying of laughter. The coachman was
staring across from the other side of the court; Francois was
crossing the hall without any apparent reason. Then he hurried off
to report progress, after sneering knowingly at the baker. They
didn't care a damn for Madame; the walls were echoing to their
laughter, and she felt that she was deserted on all hands and
despised by the servants' hall, the inmates of which were watching
her every movement and liberally bespattering her with the filthiest
of chaff. Thereupon she abandoned the intention of borrowing the
hundred and thirty-three francs from Zoe; she already owed the maid
money, and she was too proud to risk a refusal now. Such a burst of
feeling stirred her that she went back into her room, loudly
remarking:
"Come, come, my girl, don't count on anyone but yourself. Your
body's your own property, and it's better to make use of it than to
let yourself be insulted."
And without even summoning Zoe she dressed herself with feverish
haste in order to run round to the Tricon's. In hours of great
embarrassment this was her last resource. Much sought after and
constantly solicited by the old lady, she would refuse or resign
herself according to her needs, and on these increasingly frequent
occasions when both ends would not meet in her royally conducted
establishment, she was sure to find twenty-five louis awaiting her
at the other's house. She used to betake herself to the Tricon's
with the ease born of use, just as the poor go to the pawnshop.
But as she left her own chamber Nana came suddenly upon Georges
standing in the middle of the drawing room. Not noticing his waxen
pallor and the somber fire in his wide eyes, she gave a sigh of
relief.
"Ah, you've come from your brother."
"No," said the lad, growing yet paler.
At this she gave a despairing shrug. What did he want? Why was he
barring her way? She was in a hurry--yes, she was. Then returning
to where he stood:
"You've no money, have you?"
"No."
"That's true. How silly of me! Never a stiver; not even their
omnibus fares Mamma doesn't wish it! Oh, what a set of men!"
And she escaped. But he held her back; he wanted to speak to her.
She was fairly under way and again declared she had no time, but he
stopped her with a word.
"Listen, I know you're going to marry my brother."
