got nothing to reproach yourself with and your conscious is clear,
why, then I say, 'I won't have it! I won't have it!'"
In her anger she began rebeling against circumstances, and getting
up, she dried her eyes, and walked about in much agitation.
"I won't have it! They can say what they like, but it's not my
fault! Am I a bad lot, eh? I give away all I've got; I wouldn't
crush a fly! It's they who are bad! Yes, it's they! I never
wanted to be horrid to them. And they came dangling after me, and
today they're kicking the bucket and begging and going to ruin on
purpose."
Then she paused in front of Labordette and tapped his shoulders.
"Look here," she said, "you were there all along; now speak the
truth: did I urge them on? Weren't there always a dozen of 'em
squabbling who could invent the dirtiest trick? They used to
disgust me, they did! I did all I knew not to copy them: I was
afraid to. Look here, I'll give you a single instance: they all
wanted to marry me! A pretty notion, eh? Yes, dear boy, I could
have been countess or baroness a dozen times over and more, if I'd
consented. Well now, I refused because I was reasonable. Oh yes, I
saved 'em some crimes and other foul acts! They'd have stolen,
murdered, killed father and mother. I had only to say one word, and
I didn't say it. You see what I've got for it today. There's
Daguenet, for instance; I married that chap off! I made a position
for the beggarly fellow after keeping him gratis for weeks! And I
met him yesterday, and he looks the other way! Oh, get along, you
swine! I'm less dirty than you!"
She had begun pacing about again, and now she brought her fist
violently down on a round table.
"By God it isn't fair! Society's all wrong. They come down on the
women when it's the men who want you to do things. Yes, I can tell
you this now: when I used to go with them--see? I didn't enjoy it;
no, I didn't enjoy it one bit. It bored me, on my honor. Well
then, I ask you whether I've got anything to do with it! Yes, they
bored me to death! If it hadn't been for them and what they made of
me, dear boy, I should be in a convent saying my prayers to the good
God, for I've always had my share of religion. Dash it, after all,
if they have dropped their money and their lives over it, what do I
care? It's their fault. I've had nothing to do with it!"
"Certainly not," said Labordette with conviction.
Zoe ushered in Mignon, and Nana received him smilingly. She had
cried a good deal, but it was all over now. Still glowing with
enthusiasm, he complimented her on her installation, but she let him
see that she had had enough of her mansion and that now she had
other projects and would sell everything up one of these days. Then
as he excused himself for calling on the ground that he had come
about a benefit performance in aid of old Bose, who was tied to his
armchair by paralysis, she expressed extreme pity and took two
boxes. Meanwhile Zoe announced that the carriage was waiting for
Madame, and she asked for her hat and as she tied the strings told
them about poor, dear Satin's mishap, adding:
"I'm going to the hospital. Nobody ever loved me as she did. Oh,
they're quite right when they accuse the men of heartlessness! Who
knows? Perhaps I shan't see her alive. Never mind, I shall ask to
see her: I want to give her a kiss."
Labordette and Mignon smiled, and as Nana was no longer melancholy
she smiled too. Those two fellows didn't count; they could enter
into her feelings. And they both stood and admired her in silent
abstraction while she finished buttoning her gloves. She alone kept
her feet amid the heaped-up riches of her mansion, while a whole
generation of men lay stricken down before her. Like those antique
monsters whose redoubtable domains were covered with skeletons, she
rested her feet on human skulls. She was ringed round with
catastrophes. There was the furious immolation of Vandeuvres; the
melancholy state of Foucarmont, who was lost in the China seas; the
smashup of Steiner, who now had to live like an honest man; the
satisfied idiocy of La Faloise, and the tragic shipwreck of the
Muffats. Finally there was the white corpse of Georges, over which
Philippe was now watching, for he had come out of prison but
yesterday. She had finished her labor of ruin and death. The fly
that had flown up from the ordure of the slums, bringing with it the
leaven of social rottenness, had poisoned all these men by merely
alighting on them. It was well done--it was just. She had avenged
the beggars and the wastrels from whose caste she issued. And
while, metaphorically speaking, her sex rose in a halo of glory and
beamed over prostrate victims like a mounting sun shining brightly
over a field of carnage, the actual woman remained as unconscious as
a splendid animal, and in her ignorance of her mission was the good-
natured courtesan to the last. She was still big; she was still
plump; her health was excellent, her spirits capital. But this went
for nothing now, for her house struck her as ridiculous. It was too
small; it was full of furniture which got in her way. It was a
wretched business, and the long and the short of the matter was she
would have to make a fresh start. In fact, she was meditating
something much better, and so she went off to kiss Satin for the
last time. She was in all her finery and looked clean and solid and
as brand new as if she had never seen service before.
CHAPTER XIV
Nana suddenly disappeared. It was a fresh plunge, an escapade, a
flight into barbarous regions. Before her departure she had treated
herself to a new sensation: she had held a sale and had made a clean
sweep of everything--house, furniture, jewelry, nay, even dresses
and linen. Prices were cited--the five days' sale produced more
than six hundred thousand francs. For the last time Paris had seen
her in a fairy piece. It was called Melusine, and it played at the
Theatre de la Gaite, which the penniless Bordenave had taken out of
sheer audacity. Here she again found herself in company with
Prulliere and Fontan. Her part was simply spectacular, but it was
the great attraction of the piece, consisting, as it did, of three
POSES PLASTIQUES, each of which represented the same dumb and
puissant fairy. Then one fine morning amid his grand success, when
Bordenave, who was mad after advertisement, kept firing the Parisian
imagination with colossal posters, it became known that she must
have started for Cairo the previous day. She had simply had a few
words with her manager. Something had been said which did not
please her; the whole thing was the caprice of a woman who is too
rich to let herself be annoyed. Besides, she had indulged an old
infatuation, for she had long meditated visiting the Turks.
Months passed--she began to be forgotten. When her name was
mentioned among the ladies and gentlemen, the strangest stories were
told, and everybody gave the most contradictory and at the same time
prodigious information. She had made a conquest of the viceroy; she
was reigning, in the recesses of a palace, over two hundred slaves
whose heads she now and then cut off for the sake of a little
amusement. No, not at all! She had ruined herself with a great big
nigger! A filthy passion this, which had left her wallowing without
a chemise to her back in the crapulous debauchery of Cairo. A
fortnight later much astonishment was produced when someone swore to
having met her in Russia. A legend began to be formed: she was the
mistress of a prince, and her diamonds were mentioned. All the
women were soon acquainted with them from the current descriptions,
but nobody could cite the precise source of all this information.
There were finger rings, earrings, bracelets, a REVIERE of
phenomenal width, a queenly diadem surmounted by a central brilliant
the size of one's thumb. In the retirement of those faraway
countries she began to gleam forth as mysteriously as a gem-laden
idol. People now mentioned her without laughing, for they were full
of meditative respect for this fortune acquired among the
barbarians.
One evening in July toward eight o'clock, Lucy, while getting out of
her carriage in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, noticed Caroline
Hequet, who had come out on foot to order something at a neighboring
tradesman's. Lucy called her and at once burst out with:
"Have you dined? Are you disengaged? Oh, then come with me, my
dear. Nana's back."
The other got in at once, and Lucy continued:
"And you know, my dear, she may be dead while we're gossiping."
"Dead! What an idea!" cried Caroline in stupefaction. "And where
is she? And what's it of?"
"At the Grand Hotel, of smallpox. Oh, it's a long story!"
Lucy had bidden her coachman drive fast, and while the horses
trotted rapidly along the Rue Royale and the boulevards, she told
what had happened to Nana in jerky, breathless sentences.
"You can't imagine it. Nana plumps down out of Russia. I don't
know why--some dispute with her prince. She leaves her traps at the
station; she lands at her aunt's--you remember the old thing. Well,
and then she finds her baby dying of smallpox. The baby dies next
day, and she has a row with the aunt about some money she ought to
have sent, of which the other one has never seen a sou. Seems the
child died of that: in fact, it was neglected and badly cared for.
Very well; Nana slopes, goes to a hotel, then meets Mignon just as
she was thinking of her traps. She has all sorts of queer feelings,
shivers, wants to be sick, and Mignon takes her back to her place
and promises to look after her affairs. Isn't it odd, eh? Doesn't
it all happen pat? But this is the best part of the story: Rose
finds out about Nana's illness and gets indignant at the idea of her
being alone in furnished apartments. So she rushes off, crying, to
look after her. You remember how they used to detest one another--
like regular furies! Well then, my dear, Rose has had Nana
transported to the Grand Hotel, so that she should, at any rate, die
in a smart place, and now she's already passed three nights there
and is free to die of it after. It's Labordette who told me all
about it. Accordingly I wanted to see for myself--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Caroline in great excitement "We'll go up to
her."
They had arrived at their destination. On the boulevard the
coachman had had to rein in his horses amid a block of carriages and
people on foot. During the day the Corps Legislatif had voted for
war, and now a crowd was streaming down all the streets, flowing
along all the pavements, invading the middle of the roadway. Beyond
the Madeleine the sun had set behind a blood-red cloud, which cast a
reflection as of a great fire and set the lofty windows flaming.
Twilight was falling, and the hour was oppressively melancholy, for
now the avenues were darkening away into the distance but were not
as yet dotted over by the bright sparks of the gas lamps. And among
the marching crowds distant voices swelled and grew ever louder, and
eyes gleamed from pale faces, while a great spreading wind of
anguish and stupor set every head whirling.
"Here's Mignon," said Lucy. "He'll give us news."
Mignon was standing under the vast porch of the Grand Hotel. He
looked nervous and was gazing at the crowd. After Lucy's first few
questions he grew impatient and cried out:
"How should I know? These last two days I haven't been able to tear
Rose away from up there. It's getting stupid, when all's said, for
her to be risking her life like that! She'll be charming if she
gets over it, with holes in her face! It'll suit us to a tee!"
The idea that Rose might lose her beauty was exasperating him. He
was giving up Nana in the most downright fashion, and he could not
in the least understand these stupid feminine devotions. But
Fauchery was crossing the boulevard, and he, too, came up anxiously
and asked for news. The two men egged each other on. They
addressed one another familiarly in these days.
"Always the same business, my sonny," declared Mignon. "You ought
to go upstairs; you would force her to follow you."
"Come now, you're kind, you are!" said the journalist. "Why don't
you go upstairs yourself?"
Then as Lucy began asking for Nana's number, they besought her to
make Rose come down; otherwise they would end by getting angry.
Nevertheless, Lucy and Caroline did not go up at once. They had
caught sight of Fontan strolling about with his hands in his pockets
and greatly amused by the quaint expressions of the mob. When he
became aware that Nana was lying ill upstairs he affected sentiment
and remarked:
"The poor girl! I'll go and shake her by the hand. What's the
matter with her, eh?"
"Smallpox," replied Mignon.
The actor had already taken a step or two in the direction of the
court, but he came back and simply murmured with a shiver:
"Oh, damn it!"
The smallpox was no joke. Fontan had been near having it when he
was five years old, while Mignon gave them an account of one of his
nieces who had died of it. As to Fauchery, he could speak of it
from personal experience, for he still bore marks of it in the shape
of three little lumps at the base of his nose, which he showed them.
And when Mignon again egged him on to the ascent, on the pretext
