Nana: By Emile Zola - Illustrated

by Emile Zola

  Three o’clock struck, then four o’clock. He could not tear himself away. Each time a shower came down he squeezed up against the door-post, the rain beating on his legs. No one passed by now. Occasionally his eyes closed, as though burnt by the ray of light, on which, with obstinate folly, he persistently fixed them. Twice again did the shadows reappear, going through the same movements, carrying the same gigantic water-can; and each time afterwards all became still as before, whilst the lamp continued to glimmer discreetly. These shadows increased his doubts. Besides, a sudden idea had just appeased him, in deferring the hour of action. He had merely to wait till the woman came out. He would easily recognise Sabine. Nothing could be simpler, there would be no scandal, and he would no longer be in doubt. All he had to do was to remain there. Of all the confused feelings that had hitherto agitated him, he no longer experienced anything but a morbid desire to know. Having nothing to do, however, standing up against that door, soon made him feel drowsy. To keep himself awake, he tried to calculate the time it would be necessary for him to wait. Sabine was to have arrived at the station at about nine o’clock. That gave him almost four and a half hours. He was full of patience. He would never have moved again, finding a charm in fancying that his night vigil would be an eternal one.

  Suddenly, the ray of light disappeared. This very simple occurrence was an unexpected catastrophe for him, something disagreeable and annoying. They had evidently turned out the lamp, and were going to sleep. At such an hour it was only natural. But he felt irritated, because that window, being now in darkness, no longer interested him. He watched it for a quarter of an hour longer, then it tired him, so he left the doorway and took a few steps along the pavement. Until five o’clock, he walked to and fro, occasionally raising his eyes. The window remained in the same dormant state; and at times he would ask himself whether he had not dreamed that he had seen shadows cross those panes. A great fatigue overwhelmed him, which made him forget what he was waiting for at that street-corner, stumbling over the paving-stones, awaking with starts and the cold shiver of a man who no longer knows where he is. What was the good of his bothering himself about the matter? As the people had gone to sleep, all he had to do was to leave them in peace. Why should he mix himself up in their affairs? It was very dark, no one would know of his having waited there; and then all feeling in him, even his curiosity, fled, carried away in a desire to have done with it all, and to seek some solace elsewhere. The cold increased, the street became unbearable. Twice he moved away, then returned slowly, but only to move away again, farther off. It was over, there was nothing more. He went in the direction of the Boulevards, and did not return.

  He wandered silently through the streets. He walked slowly, always with the same step, and keeping close to the wall. His heels resounded on the pavement; he beheld nothing but his shadow, which turned at each lamp-post, becoming larger and smaller. That amused him, mechanically occupying him. Afterwards, he could never recall through what streets he had gone; he seemed to have dragged himself along for hours in a circle. One single recollection remained, and that very clearly. He had found himself, he could not tell how, with his face pressed against the iron railings that closed the Passage des Panoramas, clasping the bars in his hands. He was not shaking them, he was merely trying to see into the Passage, under the influence of an emotion, with which his heart was bursting. But he could distinguish nothing; darkness reigned in the deserted gallery, whilst the wind which entered by the Rue Saint-Marc blew the dampness of a cellar into his face. And a strange infatuation kept him there. Then, awakening as though from a dream, he was filled with surprise, and asked himself what he was seeking at that hour, pressed against those railings with such a force, that the bars had left their marks upon his face. And he resumed his tramp in despair, his heart filled with a great sadness, as if betrayed and alone for evermore in all that darkness.

  Day at length broke, and to the winter night there succeeded that dull light which looks so melancholy on the muddy pavement of Paris. Muffat had returned into the large new roads that were being made around the scaffoldings of the new Opera-house.ap Soaked by the showers, broken up by the heavy carts, the chalky soil had become changed into a miry lake. And, without looking where he placed his feet, he continued walking on, slipping, and with difficulty keeping his legs. The awakening of Paris, the gangs of scavengers and the early groups of workmen, brought him a fresh worry as the day advanced. He was stared at with surprise, with his wild appearance, his muddy clothes, and his hat soaked with the rain. For a long time he sought refuge against the palings, among the scaffolding. In his empty head one idea alone remained, which was that he was very miserable.

  Then his thoughts turned to God. The sudden idea of divine assistance, of a superhuman consolation, surprised him, like something extraordinary and unexpected. It awakened in his mind the picture of M. Venot. He beheld his plump little person, his decayed teeth. For certain, M. Venot, whom for months past he had been grieving by not going near him, would be very happy were he now to knock at his door, and weep on his breast. At other times God had always been merciful to him. At the least sorrow, or the smallest obstacle encountered in life, he would enter a church, and, kneeling, would humble himself before the Supreme Being, and he would come out fortified by prayer, ready to enjoy the sweets of life, with the sole desire for the salvation of his soul; but now, he could only pray by fits and starts, just when a fear of hell seized upon him. He had given way to a great indolence. Nana interfered with his duties, and the thought of God surprised him. Why had he not thought of the Almighty in the first instance, during that frightful crisis in which his weak humanity succumbed?

  Then, with feeble footsteps, he sought a church. He could remember nothing. The early hour seemed to alter the streets. As he turned the corner of the Rue de la Chassée d’Antin, however, he caught sight of the church of the Trinity in the distance, its steeple seen very indistinctly in the fog. The white statues overlooking the naked garden appeared like so many shining Venuses among the faded yellow leaves of a park. Beneath the porch he paused a moment to take breath, fatigued by the ascent of the high flight of steps. Then he entered. The church was very cold, the great stove having been extinguished the previous evening, and the tall arches were filled with a fine mist, which had filtered in through the apertures of the glass windows. A shadow hung over the lower part. Not a soul was there beyond a beadle, who, in the midst of that semi-darkness, dragged his feet over the stones in the sullenness of the awaking hour. Muffat, after knocking up against a number of chairs, feeling lost, his heart fit to burst, had fallen on his knees against the railings of a little side chapel, close to a holy-water font. He had clasped his hands, trying to find a prayer in which he could pour forth his very soul, but his lips alone muttered words. His mind was elsewhere—outside, following the streets, without repose, as though beneath the lash of some implacable necessity; and he repeated: “O Lord help me! O God, do not abandon your creature, who abandons himself to your justice! O merciful Father, I adore you; will you let me perish beneath the blows of your enemies!” Nothing seemed to answer. The shadow and the cold hung about his shoulders. The noise of the beadle walking in the distance continued, and prevented him from praying. He heard nought but that irritating sound in the deserted church, which had not even then been swept, nor had the early mass been performed. Then, holding on to a chair, he raised himself, with a cracking of his knees. God had not yet arrived. Why should he go and weep on M. Venot’s breast? That man could do nothing.

  And he mechanically returned to Nana’s. Outside, having slipped, he felt tears come to his eyes, not with anger against fate, but simply because he felt weak and ill. He was really too tired; he had been out too long in the rain, he felt the cold too much. It froze him to think of going back to his dismal home in the Rue Miromesnil. At Nana’s the street-door was not open, he had to wait till the concierge appeared. As he went up-stairs he smiled, already feeling the pleasant warmth of that nest, where
he would at length be able to stretch himself and sleep.

  When Zoé let him in, she made a gesture of amazement and uneasiness. Madame, having been seized by a violent headache, hadn’t closed her eyes all night. However, she would go and see whether she had fallen asleep or not; and she glided into the bed-room, whilst he sank down on a chair in the drawing-room. But Nana appeared almost instantly. She had jumped out of bed, scarcely taking time to put on a petticoat, and entered with bare feet, her hair hanging about her shoulders, her night dress rumpled and torn, in the disorder of a night of love.

  “What! you here again!” cried she, red with passion. Under the influence of her rage, she was hastening to put him out herself; but seeing him in such a state, so utterly helpless, she was once more moved to pity. “Well! you’re in a nice mess, my poor fellow!” she resumed in a more pleasant tone of voice. “What is the matter with you? Ah! you’ve been watching them, you’ve been having a fine time of it!”

  He said nothing; he looked like a stunned ox. Yet she understood that he had not been able to obtain any proof, as she added, just to bring him to himself again:

  “You see, I was mistaken. Your wife is all right, on my word she is! Now, my boy, you must go home and get to bed. You are in want of sleep.”

  He did not stir.

  “Come, be off; I can’t keep you here. You don’t, I suppose, want to stop at this time of day?”

  “Yes, let us go to sleep,” he muttered.

  She repressed a violent gesture. She was fast losing patience. Was he going crazy?

  “Come, be off,” said she a second time.

  “No.”

  Then, thoroughly exasperated, she broke out in revolt.

  “But it’s disgusting! Understand me, I’ve had a great deal too much of you. Go and find your wife, who’s making a cuckold of you. Yes, she’s making a cuckold of you—it’s I who tell you so, now. There! have you got what you wanted? Will you leave me or not?”

  Muffat’s eyes filled with tears. He clasped his hands.

  “Let us go to sleep.”

  Nana scarcely knew what she did, choking as she was with nervous sobs. It was too much! Did all these matters concern her? She had certainly taken all possible precaution in telling him, so as not to hurt his feelings, and now she was to pay for the broken glass! Oh, no! if you please! She was good-natured, but not to that extent.

  “Damnation! I’ve had enough of it all!” swore she, striking the furniture with her clenched fists. “Ah, well! I who took so much care to keep faithful. Why, my fine fellow! I could be as rich as ever to-morrow, if I only said a word.”

  He raised his head in surprise. He had never given the money question a thought. If she would express a desire, he would gratify it at once. His whole fortune was hers.

  “No, it’s too late,” replied she, furiously. “I like the men who give without being asked. No, were you to offer me a million for one embrace, I would refuse you. It’s all over, I have something better there. Be off, or I will no longer answer for myself. I shall do something dreadful.”

  And she advanced towards him, menacingly; but in the midst of this exasperation of a kind-hearted girl pushed to extremes, and convinced of her right and of her superiority over the worthy people who pestered her, the door suddenly opened and Steiner appeared. This was the last straw. She uttered a terrible cry.

  “Hallo! here’s the other one now!”

  Steiner, bewildered by the noise of her voice, stood still. Muffat’s unexpected presence annoyed him, for he was afraid of an explanation, from which he had kept aloof for three months past. Blinking his eyes, he twisted himself about in an uneasy sort of way, and avoided looking at the count; and he breathed hard, with the red and distorted features of a man who has rushed about Paris to bring some good news, and who finds he has fallen into a catastrophe.

  “What do you want—you, eh?” asked Nana, roughly, speaking familiarly to him, in spite of the count’s presence.

  “I—I—,” he stammered, “I have brought you—you know what.”

  “What’s that?”

  He hesitated. Two days before she had told him not to show himself there again without bringing a thousand francs, which she required to pay a bill. For two days he had been seeking the money, and he had just succeeded in completing the sum that very morning.

  “The thousand francs,” he ended by saying, as he withdrew an envelope from his pocket.

  Nana had forgotten all about them.

  “The thousand francs!” cried she. “Do I ask for charity? Look! see what I do with your thousand francs!”

  And seizing the envelope, she threw it in his face. Like a prudent Jew he picked it up, though painfully. He glanced at the young woman in a stupefied fashion. Muffat exchanged a look of despair with him, whilst Nana placed her hands on her hips in order to shout the louder.

  “I say now, have you nearly finished insulting me? As for you, my boy, I’m glad you’ve also come; for now, look here, I can have a clean sweep. Now then! out you go!” Then, as they did not seem to hurry themselves, but stood as though paralysed, she went on: “What! you say I’m foolish? That’s possible! but you’ve plagued me too much; and, drat it all! I’ve had enough of a fashionable existence! If I bust up, it’s my lookout.

  “One—two—you refuse to go? Well! look here then, I’ve got a friend.”

  With a sudden movement she threw the bedroom door wide open. Then the two men beheld Fontan in the middle of the tumbled bed. He had not expected to be exhibited thus, with his dusky person spread out like a goat in the midst of the crumpled lace, his legs showing under the flying tail of his night shirt. He was not, however, by any means embarrassed, used as he was to the surprises of the stage. After the first shock was over, he was able to make a face which insured him the honours of war. He did the rabbit, as he called it, thrusting out his mouth, curling his nose, and moving all the muscles of his face at the same time. His head, resembling that of a libidinous faun, exuded vice through every pore. It was Fontan whom Nana, seized by that mad infatuation of women for the hideous grimaces of ugly comic actors, had been fetching nightly, for a week past, from the Variety Theatre.

  “There!” said she, pointing to him with a tragic gesture.

  Muffat, who was prepared for almost anything, indignantly resented the affront.

  “Strumpet!” he stammered.

  But Nana, already in the bedroom, returned to have the last word.

  “Strumpet, indeed! Then what about your wife?”

  And, turning on her heel, she loudly banged the door after her and bolted it. The two men, left alone, looked at each other in silence. Zoé then entered the room. She did not hurry them off, but talked very sensibly to them. Like a reasonable being, she thought madame had behaved very foolishly. However, she took her part. Her mania for that wretched stroller wouldn’t last long. All they had to do was to wait till she had got over it. They then withdrew. They had not uttered a word. Outside on the pavement, moved by a sort of fraternal feeling, they silently shook hands; and, turning their backs on each other, and dragging their legs along, they went off in opposite directions.

  When Muffat at length returned to his house in the Rue Miromesnil, his wife had just arrived there. They both met on the broad staircase, the sombre walls of which diffused an icy chill around. Raising their eyes, they beheld each other. The count was still in his muddy clothes, and his face had the frightful pallor of a man returning from a surfeit of vice. The countess, blear-eyed, with her hair all dishevelled, and looking thoroughly exhausted by a night passed in the train, seemed scarcely able to keep awake.

  CHAPTER VIII

  It was in the Rue Véron, at Montmartre, in a little apartment on the fourth floor. Nana and Fontan had invited a few friends to partake of their Twelfth Night cake.aq They had only got settled three days before, and intended having a house-warming.

  Everything had been done hastily, in the first ardour of their honeymoon, without any fixed intention of thei
r living together. On the morrow of her grand brawl, when she had so energetically sent the count and the banker about their business, Nana felt that she had got herself into a fine mess. She saw her position at a glance. The creditors would invade her anteroom, interfere in her love affairs, and talk of selling her up if she was not reasonable. There would be endless quarrels and constant worries, just to keep a few sticks of furniture from their grasp. She preferred to let all go. Besides, she was sick of her apartment in the Boulevard Haussmann. It was unbearable with its great gilded rooms. In her infatuation for Fontan, her dream of her girlhood returned to her—of the days when she was apprenticed to the artificial flower-maker, and longed for nothing more than a pretty bright little room, with a wardrobe of violet ebony with a glass door, and a bed hung with blue rep.ar In two days she sold everything that she could safely remove—nick-nacks, jewels, and the like—and disappeared with about ten thousand francs, without saying a word to the landlord—a perfect header, and not a trace remaining behind. That accomplished, there was no fear of having any men dangling about her petticoats. Fontan was very nice. He didn’t say “no,” he let her do as she liked—in fact, he behaved altogether like a regular chum. He possessed about seven thousand francs, and agreed to put them with Nana’s ten thousand, although he had the reputation of being miserly. That seemed to them something solid to start housekeeping on. And they commenced thus, each taking what he or she required out of the common fund, furnishing the two rooms in the Rue Véron, and sharing everything alike. At the beginning this kind of life was simply delicious.