by Emile Zola
“I must go and pay my respects to Countess Muffat,” said La Faloise.
“Very well,” replied Fauchery; “and you can introduce me. We can go outside afterwards.”
But it was not such an easy matter to reach the balcony boxes, as the crowd in the passages was almost impenetrable. To pass through the different groups, it was necessary to use one’s elbows rather freely. Leaning against the wall, beneath a brass gas-bracket, the stout critic was giving his opinion of the piece to an attentive circle. People, as they passed, lingered and told their friends in a low voice who he was. It was rumoured that he had laughed during the whole act; however, he now showed himself very severe, and talked of good taste and morality. Farther on, the critic with the thin lips was most favourable, but his remarks had an unpleasant after-taste, like milk turned sour. Fauchery searched the different boxes with a glance through the small round windows in the doors. But the Count de Vandeuvres stopped him to ask him some questions. When he learnt that the two cousins intended paying their respects to the Muffats, he directed them to their box, No. 7, which he had just left. Then he whispered in the journalist’s ear:
“I say, old fellow, this Nana is surely the girl we met one night at the corner of the Rue de Provence.”
“Why, of course! you are right,” exclaimed Fauchery. “I was sure I had met her somewhere!”
La Faloise introduced his cousin to Count Muffat de Beuville, whose manner was cool in the extreme. But on hearing Fauchery’s name, the countess looked up quickly and complimented him on his articles in the “Figaro” in a well-turned phrase. Leaning against the velvet-covered balustrade, she half turned towards him with a graceful movement of her shoulders. They talked for a few minutes, and the conversation fell upon the Exhibition.
“It will certainly be very fine,” said the count, whose square face and regular features preserved a certain official gravity. “I visited the Champ de Marsm to-day and I returned filled with wonder. ”
“I am told, however, that it will not be ready in time,” observed La Faloise. “Something has gone wrong—”
“It will be ready! The emperor insists upon it!” interrupted the count in his stern voice.
Fauchery told gaily how he had been almost lost in the aquarium, during its building one day when he had gone there in search of materials for an article. The countess smiled. She looked from time to time about the house, raising an arm with its long white glove reaching to the elbow, and fanning herself slowly. The seats were now mostly unoccupied; a few gentlemen who had remained in the stalls were reading the evening papers; and several women were receiving their friends much as if they were at home. There was now no sound above a well-bred whisper beneath the crystal gasalier, the brightness of which was dimmed by the fine dust raised by the stir at the end of the act. About the doors, some men lingered to inspect the few women who remained seated; and for a minute they stood quite motionless, stretching their necks, and displaying their white shirt fronts.
“We shall expect to see you next Tuesday,” said the countess to La Faloise.
And she extended her invitation to Fauchery, who thanked her with a low bow. The play was not alluded to, nor was the name of Nana pronounced. The count’s manner was so icy and dignified, that one might have supposed him to be at a meeting of the Corps Législatif.n He took occasion to say, as if to explain their presence, that his father-in-law had an especial fondness for the theatre. The door of the box had remained open, and the Marquis de Chouard, who had gone out to leave room for the visitors, now stood tall and erect in the doorway, his pale, flabby face shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, as he followed with his dim eyes the women who passed. As soon as the countess had given her invitation, Fauchery retired, feeling that under the circumstances it would not be in good taste to discuss the play. La Faloise left the box the last. He had just noticed in Count de Vandeuvres’s stage-box the fair-haired Labordette, quite at his ease, and conversing intimately with Blanche de Sivry.
“I say,” said he, as he joined his cousin, “this Labordette appears to know all the women. He’s with Blanche now.”
“Know them all! Of course he does,” answered Fauchery, coolly. “Why, wherever have you sprung from, young man?”
The passage was not nearly so crowded now. Fauchery was on the point of going down the stairs when Lucy Stewart called him. She was standing just outside the door of her box. The heat, she said, was intolerable inside; so, in company of Caroline Héquet and her mother, she blocked up the whole width of the passage, crunching burnt almonds. One of the box-openers was conversing with them in a maternal manner. Lucy began at once to pick a quarrel with the journalist. He was a nice fellow—he was in a precious hurry to go and see the other women, but he couldn’t even come and ask them to have a drink! Then, suddenly dropping the subject, she said lightly:
“I say, old fellow, I think Nana a big hit.”
She wanted him to be in her box for the last act; but he escaped, promising to see them at the end of the piece. Outside, in front of the theatre, Fauchery and La Faloise lit their cigarettes. A small crowd blocked the pavement, formed of a part of the male portion of the audience, who had come down the steps to breathe the fresh night air, amidst the growing stillness of the Boulevard.
In the meanwhile Mignon had dragged Steiner to the Café des Variétés. Seeing Nana’s success, he spoke of her enthusiastically, all the time watching the banker from out of the corner of his eye. He knew him; twice had he assisted him in deceiving Rose, and when the caprice was over, had brought him back to her, faithful and penitent. Inside the café the too numerous customers were squeezing round the marble tables, and some men, standing up, were drinking hastily; the large mirrors reflected this mass of heads ad infinitum, and increased inordinately the size of the narrow saloon with its three gasaliers, its mole-skin-covered seats, and its winding staircase draped with red. Steiner seated himself at a table in the outer room, which was quite open on to the Boulevard, the frontage having been removed a little too early for the season. As Fauchery and his cousin passed, the banker stopped them.
“Come and take a glass of beer with us,” he said.
He himself, however, was absorbed with an idea which had just occurred to him; he wanted to have a bouquet thrown to Nana. At length he called one of the waiters, whom he familiarly named Augustus. Mignon, who was listening to all he said, looked at him so straight in the eyes that he became quite disconcerted as he faltered, “Two bouquets, Augustus, and give them to one of the attendants. One for each of the ladies, at the right moment, you understand.”
At the other end of the room, with her head supported against the frame of a mirror, a girl, who could not have been more than eighteen, sat motionless before an empty glass, as though benumbed by a long and useless waiting. Beneath the natural curls of her beautiful fair hair appeared the face of a virgin with a pair of velvety eyes looking so gentle and honest. She wore a dress of faded green silk, with a round hat which had been knocked in by sundry blows. The chilly evening air made her look quite white.
“Hallo! why, there’s Satin,” murmured Fauchery as he caught sight of her.
La Faloise questioned him. Oh! she was nobody. Only a wretched street-walker; but she was so foul-mouthed, it was rare fun to make her talk. And the journalist raised his voice: “Whatever are you doing there, Satin?”
“Wearing my guts out,” she quietly replied, without moving.
The four men, highly delighted, burst out laughing. Mignon assured the others that there was no need to hurry; it would take at least twenty minutes to set up the scenery of the third act. But the two cousins, who had finished their beer, wished to return to the theatre; they felt cold. Then Mignon, left alone with Steiner, leaned both elbows on the table, and, looking him full in the face, said, “Well then, it’s quite understood, we will call on her, and I will introduce you. You know, it’s quite between ourselves; my wife need not know anything about it.”
Back in their places, Fau
chery and La Faloise noticed in the second tier of boxes a very pretty woman, very quietly dressed. She was accompanied by a solemn-looking gentleman, the head of a department at the Ministry of the Interior, whom La Faloise knew from having met him at the Muffats’. As for Fauchery, he said he believed she was called Madame Robert—a worthy woman who had a lover, but never more than one, and he was always a highly respectable person. As they turned round, Daguenet smiled at them. Now that Nana had proved a success, he no longer kept himself in the background; he had just returned from wandering about the house and enjoying her triumph. The youngster, fresh from college, beside him had not once quitted his seat, so overpowering was the state of admiration into which the sight of Nana had plunged him. So that, then, was woman! and he blushed deeply, and kept taking off and putting on his gloves mechanically. At last, as his neighbour had talked about Nana, he ventured to question him.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but this lady, who is playing—do you happen to know her?”
“Yes—a little—” murmured Daguenet in surprise, and with some hesitation.
“Then you know her address?”
The question came so abruptly, and so strangely, as addressed to him, that Daguenet felt like slapping the lad’s face.
“I do not,” he answered coldly, and turned his back.
The youngster understood that he had been guilty of some impropriety; he blushed all the more, and was mortified beyond expression.
The three knocks resounded throughout the house, and some of the attendants, their arms full of opera-cloaks and overcoats, were obstinately endeavouring to restore the various garments to their owners, who were hastening back to their seats. The claque applauded the scenery, which represented a grotto in Mount Etna,o hollowed out of a silver mine, with sides that glittered like newly coined crown pieces; at the back was Vulcan’s forge, with all the tints of a sunset. In the second scene Diana arranged everything with the god, who was to pretend to go on a journey so as to leave the coast clear for Venus and Mars. Then scarcely was Diana left alone, than Venus arrived. A thrill ran through the audience. Nana was next to naked. She appeared in her nakedness with a calm audacity, confident in the all-powerfulness of her flesh. A slight gauze enveloped her; her round shoulders, her amazonian breasts, the rosy tips of which stood out straight and firm as lances, her broad hips swayed by the most voluptuous movements, her plump thighs, in fact, her whole body could be divined, nay, seen, white as the foam, beneath the transparent covering. It was Venus rising from the sea, with no other veil than her locks. And when Nana raised her arms, the glare of the footlights displayed to every gaze the golden hairs of her armpits. There was no applause. No one laughed now. The grave faces of the men were bent forward, their nostrils contracted, their mouths parched and irritated. A gentle breath, laden with an unknown menace, seemed to have passed over all. Out of this laughing girl there had suddenly emerged a woman, appalling all who beheld her, crowning all the follies of her sex, displaying to the world the hidden secrets of inordinate desire. Nana still preserved her smile, but it was the mocking one of a destroyer of men.
“The devil!” said Fauchery to La Faloise.
Mars, in the meantime, hurrying to the meeting, with his big hat and plume, found himself caught between the two goddesses. Then there ensued a scene in which Prullière played very ingeniously. Fondled by Diana, who wished to make a last attempt to bring him back into the right path before delivering him up to Vulcan’s vengeance, cajoled by Venus, whom the presence of her rival stimulated, he abandoned himself to all these endearments with the happy expression of a donkey in a field of clover. The scene ended with a grand trio, and it was at this moment that an attendant entered Lucy Stewart’s box, and threw two enormous bouquets of white lilac on to the stage. Every one applauded, and Nana and Rose Mignon curtsied their acknowledgments, whilst Prullière picked up the flowers. Some of the occupants of the stalls turned smilingly in the direction of the box occupied by Steiner and Mignon. The banker, all inflamed, moved his chin convulsively as though something had stuck in his throat. The acting which followed quite took the house by storm. Diana having gone off furious, Venus, seated on a bed of moss, at once called Mars to her side. Never before had so warm a scene of seduction been risked upon the stage. Nana, her arms around Prullière’s neck, was slowly drawing him to her, when Fontan, grotesquely imitating the most awful fury, exaggerating the looks of an outraged husband who surprises his wife in the very act, appeared at the back of the grotto. In his hands he held his famous iron net; for a moment he poised it like a fisherman about to throw, then, by some ingenious device, Venus and Mars were ensnared, the net covered them, and held them fast in their guilty posture.
Then arose a murmur resembling one huge sigh. A few hands clapped, and every opera-glass was fixed on Venus. Little by little Nana had gained possession of the audience and now every man succumbed to her. The lust she inspired, similar to an animal in heat, had grown more and more till it filled the house. Now, her slightest movements fanned the desire; the raising of her little finger caused all the flesh beholding her to quiver. Backs were arched, vibrating as though the muscles, like so many fiddle-strings, were being played on by some invisible hand; on the napes of the outstretched necks the down fluttered beneath the warm and errant breath escaped from some women’s lips. Fauchery beheld in front of him the youngster fresh from college start from his seat in his agitation. He had the curiosity to look at the Count de Vandeuvres, who was very pale, with tightly pressed lips—the stout Steiner, whose apoplectic face seemed bursting—Labordette examining through his eyeglass with the astonished look of a jockey admiring a thorough-bred mare—Daguenet, whose ears were flaming red, and trembling with enjoyment. Then, for an instant, he turned round, and was amazed at what he saw in the Muffats’ box: behind the countess, who was looking pale and serious, the count had raised himself up, his mouth wide open, and his face blurred with red blotches; whilst, beside him, in the shadow, the troubled eyes of the Marquis de Chouard had become cat-like in appearance, full of phosphorescence and flecked with gold.
The heat was suffocating; even the hair weighed heavily on the perspiring heads. During the three hours that the piece had lasted, the foul breath had given the atmosphere an odour of human flesh. In the blaze of light the dust now appeared thicker, and seemed suspended, motionless, beneath the big crystal gasalier. The audience, tired and excited, seized with those drowsy, midnight desires which murmur their wishes in the depths of alcoves, vacillated, and was gradually becoming dazed. And Nana, facing this half-swooning crowd, these fifteen hundred persons, packed one above the other, and sinking with emotion and the nervous excitement of an approaching finale, remained victorious with her marble flesh, her sex alone strong enough to conquer them all and remain scathless.
The play was rapidly drawing to an end. In answer to Vulcan’s triumphant calls, all Olympus defiled before the lovers, uttering cries of stupefaction or indulging in broad remarks. Jupiter said, “My son, I consider you are very foolish to call us to see this.” Then there was a sudden change of feeling in favour of Venus. The deputation of cuckolds, again introduced by Iris, beseeched the master of the gods not to give heed to their petition, for since their wives passed their evenings at home they made their lives unbearable, so they preferred to be deceived and happy, which was the moral of the piece. Venus, therefore, was set free. Vulcan obtained a judicial separation. Mars made it up again with Diana. Jupiter, for the sake of peace and quietness at home, sent the little washerwoman into a constellation; and Cupid was at last released from his prison, where he had been making paper fowls, instead of conjugating the verb “to love.” The curtain fell on an apotheosis, the deputation of cuckolds kneeling and singing a hymn of gratitude to Venus, smiling and exalted in her sovereign nudity.
The spectators had already risen from their seats, and were hastily making for the doors. The authors were named, and there was a double call in the midst of a thunder of applause. The cry
, “Nana! Nana!” re-echoed again and again. Then, before the house was fairly empty, it became quite dark. The foot-lights were turned out, the lights of the gasalier were lowered, and long grey coverings were drawn over the gilding of the balconies; and the heat and the noise suddenly gave place to a death-like stillness, and an odour of dust and mildew. At the door of her box stood the Countess Muffat, wrapped in her furs and gazing into the darkness, as she waited for the crowd to pass away. In the passages the jostled attendants were fast losing their senses among the piles of cloaks and other garments. Fauchery and La Faloise had hurried to see the people come out. In the vestibule several gentlemen were waiting in a row, while down the double staircase descended two interminable and compact processions.
Steiner, led away by Mignon, was one of the first to leave. The Count de Vandeuvres went off with Blanche de Sivry on his arm. For a moment, Gaga and her daughter seemed embarrassed, but Labordette hastened to secure them a cab, and gallantly saw them into it. No one noticed Daguenet leave. As the youngster fresh from college, with his cheeks all aglow, bent upon waiting at the stage door, hastened to the Passage des Panoramas,p the gate of which he found closed, Satin, loitering on the pavement, came and grazed him lightly with her skirts; but he, quite broken-hearted, roughly declined her advances, and disappeared in the crowd, with tears of powerless longing in his eyes. Some of the spectators, lighting cigars, went off humming the song—“When Venus takes an evening stroll.” Satin had returned to the Café des Variétés, where Augustus was allowing her to eat the lumps of sugar left by the customers. A stout man, who was greatly excited, having just quitted the theatre, at length took her off into the darkness of the now gradually hushed Boulevard.