Gracious! The thing was too funny! And she let herself down into a
chair in order to laugh at her ease.
"Yes," continued the lad, "and I don't wish it. It's I you're going
to marry. That's why I've come."
"Eh, what? You too?" she cried. "Why, it's a family disease, is
it? No, never! What a fancy, to be sure! Have I ever asked you to
do anything so nasty? Neither one nor t'other of you! No, never!"
The lad's face brightened. Perhaps he had been deceiving himself!
He continued:
"Then swear to me that you don't go to bed with my brother."
"Oh, you're beginning to bore me now!" said Nana, who had risen with
renewed impatience. "It's amusing for a little while, but when I
tell you I'm in a hurry--I go to bed with your brother if it pleases
me. Are you keeping me--are you paymaster here that you insist on
my making a report? Yes, I go to bed with your brother."
He had caught hold of her arm and squeezed it hard enough to break
it as he stuttered:
"Don't say that! Don't say that!"
With a slight blow she disengaged herself from his grasp.
"He's maltreating me now! Here's a young ruffian for you! My
chicken, you'll leave this jolly sharp. I used to keep you about
out of niceness. Yes, I did! You may stare! Did you think I was
going to be your mamma till I died? I've got better things to do
than to bring up brats."
He listened to her stark with anguish, yet in utter submission. Her
every word cut him to the heart so sharply that he felt he should
die. She did not so much as notice his suffering and continued
delightedly to revenge herself on him for the annoyance of the
morning.
"It's like your brother; he's another pretty Johnny, he is! He
promised me two hundred francs. Oh, dear me; yes, I can wait for
'em. It isn't his money I care for! I've not got enough to pay for
hair oil. Yes, he's leaving me in a jolly fix! Look here, d'you
want to know how matters stand? Here goes then: it's all owing to
your brother that I'm going out to earn twenty-five louis with
another man."
At these words his head spun, and he barred her egress. He cried;
he besought her not to go, clasping his hands together and blurting
out:
"Oh no! Oh no!"
"I want to, I do," she said. "Have you the money?"
No, he had not got the money. He would have given his life to have
the money! Never before had he felt so miserable, so useless, so
very childish. All his wretched being was shaken with weeping and
gave proof of such heavy suffering that at last she noticed it and
grew kind. She pushed him away softly.
"Come, my pet, let me pass; I must. Be reasonable. You're a baby
boy, and it was very nice for a week, but nowadays I must look after
my own affairs. Just think it over a bit. Now your brother's a
man; what I'm saying doesn't apply to him. Oh, please do me a
favor; it's no good telling him all this. He needn't know where I'm
going. I always let out too much when I'm in a rage."
She began laughing. Then taking him in her arms and kissing him on
the forehead:
"Good-by, baby," she said; "it's over, quite over between us; d'you
understand? And now I'm off!"
And she left him, and he stood in the middle of the drawing room.
Her last words rang like the knell of a tocsin in his ears: "It's
over, quite over!" And he thought the ground was opening beneath
his feet. There was a void in his brain from which the man awaiting
Nana had disappeared. Philippe alone remained there in the young
woman's bare embrace forever and ever. She did not deny it: she
loved him, since she wanted to spare him the pain of her infidelity.
It was over, quite over. He breathed heavily and gazed round the
room, suffocating beneath a crushing weight. Memories kept
recurring to him one after the other--memories of merry nights at La
Mignotte, of amorous hours during which he had fancied himself her
child, of pleasures stolen in this very room. And now these things
would never, never recur! He was too small; he had not grown up
quickly enough; Philippe was supplanting him because he was a
bearded man. So then this was the end; he could not go on living.
His vicious passion had become transformed into an infinite
tenderness, a sensual adoration, in which his whole being was
merged. Then, too, how was he to forget it all if his brother
remained--his brother, blood of his blood, a second self, whose
enjoyment drove him mad with jealousy? It was the end of all
things; he wanted to die.
All the doors remained open, as the servants noisily scattered over
the house after seeing Madame make her exit on foot. Downstairs on
the bench in the hall the baker was laughing with Charles and
Francois. Zoe came running across the drawing room and seemed
surprised at sight of Georges. She asked him if he were waiting for
Madame. Yes, he was waiting for her; he had for-gotten to give her
an answer to a question. And when he was alone he set to work and
searched. Finding nothing else to suit his purpose, he took up in
the dressing room a pair of very sharply pointed scissors with which
Nana had a mania for ceaselessly trimming herself, either by
polishing her skin or cutting off little hairs. Then for a whole
hour he waited patiently, his hand in his pocket and his fingers
tightly clasped round the scissors.
"Here's Madame," said Zoe, returning. She must have espied her
through the bedroom window.
There was a sound of people racing through the house, and laughter
died away and doors were shut. Georges heard Nana paying the baker
and speaking in the curtest way. Then she came upstairs.
"What, you're here still!" she said as she noticed him. "Aha!
We're going to grow angry, my good man!"
He followed her as she walked toward her bedroom.
"Nana, will you marry me?"
She shrugged her shoulders. It was too stupid; she refused to
answer any more and conceived the idea of slamming the door in his
face.
"Nana, will you marry me?"
She slammed the door. He opened it with one hand while he brought
the other and the scissors out of his pocket. And with one great
stab he simply buried them in his breast.
Nana, meanwhile, had felt conscious that something dreadful would
happen, and she had turned round. When she saw him stab himself she
was seized with indignation.
"Oh, what a fool he is! What a fool! And with my scissors! Will
you leave off, you naughty little rogue? Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"
She was scared. Sinking on his knees, the boy had just given
himself a second stab, which sent him down at full length on the
carpet. He blocked the threshold of the bedroom. With that Nana
lost her head utterly and screamed with all her might, for she dared
not step over his body, which shut her in and prevented her from
running to seek assistance.
"Zoe! Zoe! Come at once. Make him leave off. It's getting
stupid--a child like that! He's killing himself now! And in my
place too! Did you ever see the like of it?"
He was frightening her. He was all white, and his eyes were shut.
There was scarcely any bleeding--only a little blood, a tiny stain
which was oozing down into his waistcoat. She was making up her
mind to step over the body when an apparition sent her starting
back. An old lady was advancing through the drawing-room door,
which remained wide open opposite. And in her terror she recognized
Mme Hugon but could not explain her presence. Still wearing her
gloves and hat, Nana kept edging backward, and her terror grew so
great that she sought to defend herself, and in a shaky voice:
"Madame," she cried, "it isn't I; I swear to you it isn't. He
wanted to marry me, and I said no, and he's killed himself!"
Slowly Mme Hugon drew near--she was in black, and her face showed
pale under her white hair. In the carriage, as she drove thither,
the thought of Georges had vanished and that of Philippe's misdoing
had again taken complete possession of her. It might be that this
woman could afford explanations to the judges which would touch
them, and so she conceived the project of begging her to bear
witness in her son's favor. Downstairs the doors of the house stood
open, but as she mounted to the first floor her sick feet failed
her, and she was hesitating as to which way to go when suddenly
horror-stricken cries directed her. Then upstairs she found a man
lying on the floor with bloodstained shirt. It was Georges--it was
her other child.
Nana, in idiotic tones, kept saying:
"He wanted to marry me, and I said no, and he's killed himself."
Uttering no cry, Mme Hugon stooped down. Yes, it was the other one;
it was Georges. The one was brought to dishonor, the other
murdered! It caused her no surprise, for her whole life was ruined.
Kneeling on the carpet, utterly forgetting where she was, noticing
no one else, she gazed fixedly at her boy's face and listened with
her hand on his heart. Then she gave a feeble sigh--she had felt
the heart beating. And with that she lifted her head and
scrutinized the room and the woman and seemed to remember. A fire
glowed forth in her vacant eyes, and she looked so great and
terrible in her silence that Nana trembled as she continued to
defend herself above the body that divided them.
"I swear it, madame! If his brother were here he could explain it
to you."
"His brother has robbed--he is in prison," said the mother in a hard
voice.
Nana felt a choking sensation. Why, what was the reason of it all?
The other had turned thief now! They were mad in that family! She
ceased struggling in self-defense; she seemed no longer mistress in
her own house and allowed Mme Hugon to give what orders she liked.
The servants had at last hurried up, and the old lady insisted on
their carrying the fainting Georges down to her carriage. She
preferred killing him rather than letting him remain in that house.
With an air of stupefaction Nana watched the retreating servants as
they supported poor, dear Zizi by his legs and shoulders. The
mother walked behind them in a state of collapse; she supported
herself against the furniture; she felt as if all she held dear had
vanished in the void. On the landing a sob escaped her; she turned
and twice ejaculated:
"Oh, but you've done us infinite harm! You've done us infinite
harm!"
That was all. In her stupefaction Nana had sat down; she still wore
her gloves and her hat. The house once more lapsed into heavy
silence; the carriage had driven away, and she sat motionless, not
knowing what to do next. her head swimming after all she had gone
through. A quarter of an hour later Count Muffat found her thus,
but at sight of him she relieved her feelings in an overflowing
current of talk. She told him all about the sad incident, repeated
the same details twenty times over, picked up the bloodstained
scissors in order to imitate Zizi's gesture when he stabbed himself.
And above all she nursed the idea of proving her own innocence.
"Look you here, dearie, is it my fault? If you were the judge would
you condemn me? I certainly didn't tell Philippe to meddle with the
till any more than I urged that wretched boy to kill himself. I've
been most unfortunate throughout it all. They come and do stupid
things in my place; they make me miserable; they treat me like a
hussy."
And she burst into tears. A fit of nervous expansiveness rendered
her soft and doleful, and her immense distress melted her utterly.
"And you, too, look as if you weren't satisfied. Now do just ask
Zoe if I'm at all mixed up in it. Zoe, do speak: explain to
Monsieur--"
The lady's maid, having brought a towel and a basin of water out of
the dressing room, had for some moments past been rubbing the carpet
in order to remove the bloodstains before they dried.
"Oh, monsieur, " she declared, "Madame is utterly miserable!"
Muffat was still stupefied; the tragedy had frozen him, and his
imagination was full of the mother weeping for her sons. He knew
her greatness of heart and pictured her in her widow's weeds,
withering solitarily away at Les Fondettes. But Nana grew ever more
despondent, for now the memory of Zizi lying stretched on the floor,
with a red hole in his shirt, almost drove her senseless.
"He used to be such a darling, so sweet and caressing. Oh, you
know, my pet--I'm sorry if it vexes you--I loved that baby! I can't
help saying so; the words must out. Besides, now it ought not to
hurt you at all. He's gone. You've got what you wanted; you're
quite certain never to surprise us again."
And this last reflection tortured her with such regret that he ended
by turning comforter. Well, well, he said, she ought to be brave;
she was quite right; it wasn't her fault! But she checked her
lamentations of her own accord in order to say:
"Listen, you must run round and bring me news of him. At once! I
wish it!"
He took his hat and went to get news of Georges. When he returned
after some three quarters of an hour he saw Nana leaning anxiously
out of a window, and he shouted up to her from the pavement that the
lad was not dead and that they even hoped to bring him through. At
this she immediately exchanged grief for excess of joy and began to
sing and dance and vote existence delightful. Zoe, meanwhile, was
