Nana: By Emile Zola - Illustrated

by Emile Zola

  From that night their life entirely changed. For a “yes” or a “no” Fontan struck her. She, getting used to it, submitted. Occasionally she cried out or menaced him; but he forced her against the wall, and talked of strangling her, and that made her yield. More frequently she fell on to a chair and sobbed for five minutes. Then she forgot all about it, becoming very gay, and singing and laughing and skipping about the room. The worst was that Fontan now disappeared all day and never came home before midnight; he frequented the cafés where he was likely to meet his friends. Nana tremblingly and caressingly submitted to everything, not daring to utter a reproach for fear of never seeing him again. But some days, when she had neither Madame Maloir nor her aunt with little Louis to help her pass away the time, she felt very wretched indeed. Therefore, one Sunday, when she had gone to the Rochefoucauld market to purchase some pigeons, she was delighted to come across Satin, who was buying a bunch of radishes. Ever since the evening when the prince had partaken of Fontan’s champagne, they had lost sight of each other.

  “What! it’s you! you live in this neighbourhood?” asked Satin, amazed at seeing her out of doors in her slippers at that time of day. “Ah! my poor girl, you must be down in your luck! ”

  Nana frowned at her to make her leave off, because there were some other women there, women in dressing-gowns, and who did not appear to have any underclothes on, whose hair was all dishevelled and whose faces were smothered with powder. Every morning all the loose women of the neighbourhood, having scarcely got rid of the men picked up the night before, came to make their purchases, dragging their old shoes over the pavement, their eyes heavy with want of sleep, and in the bad temper caused by the fatigue of a night of dissipation. Down every street leading to the market they could be seen coming, all looking very pale, some quite young girls most seductive in appearance, others regular old hags, both fat and flabby, not minding in the least to be seen thus outside their business hours; whilst the passers-by might turn to look at them without even one of them deigning to smile, for they were all in too much of a hurry for that, and went about their errands with the disdainful airs of thrifty women who have no dealings with men whatever. Just as Satin was paying for her bunch of radishes, a young man, some clerk who was late, called to her as he passed, “Good-morning, darling.” She at once drew herself up with the dignity of an offended queen, saying,

  “What’s the matter with that pig there?”

  Then she thought she knew him. Three days before, as she was returning from the Boulevards about midnight, she had spoken to him for about half-an-hour at the corner of the Rue Labruyère before he would make up his mind. But the recollection only annoyed her the more.

  “What fools men are to call out such things in the daytime,” she resumed. “When one goes out on one’s private business, one ought to be respected.”

  Nana had at length selected her pigeons, though she had doubts as to their freshness. Then Satin wanted to show her where she lived; it was close by in the Rue Rochefoucauld. And, as soon as they were alone together, Nana related the story of her love for Fontan. When she reached her door, the little one stood with her radishes under her arm, interested by the final particulars given by the other, who was lying in her turn, saying that she had sent Count Muffat out of her place with a kick behind.

  “Oh! that was grand, very grand!” observed Satin. “A kick behind—oh, splendid! And he didn’t dare say a word, did he? Men are such cowards! I should have liked to have been there to have seen his mug. My dear, you were right. Drat their money! I, when I’ve a fancy, I’d die for it. Well, you’ll come and see me, won’t you? The door on the left. Knock three times, for there are always a lot of people who come to bother me.”

  After that day, whenever Nana felt dull, she went to see Satin. She was always certain of finding her in, for the little one never went out before six in the evening. Satin had two rooms, which a chemist had furnished for her so that she should be safe from the police; but, in less than thirteen months, she had broken the furniture, destroyed the seats of the chairs, soiled the curtains, and got everything into such a state of dirt and disorder that the rooms looked as though they were occupied by a troop of mad tabbies. The mornings when she herself, quite disgusted, started cleaning, legs of chairs and shreds of curtains remained in her hands, so hard was the battle she had to fight with the filth. On those days everything looked dirtier still and it was impossible to enter the rooms, for all manner of things were piled up in the doorways. At length she ended by neglecting her home altogether.

  In the lamp-light the wardrobe with its mirror, the clock, and what remained of the curtains, looked sufficiently well to satisfy the men who came to see her. Besides, for six months past, her landlord had been threatening to turn her out; so why should she trouble herself by looking after the place? and for him, perhaps; not if she knew it! And whenever she got up in a bad temper she shouted out, “Gee up! gee up!” giving formidable kicks on the sides of the wardrobe and the chest of drawers, which were cracking all over.

  Nana nearly always found her in bed. Even the days when Satin went out on her errands, she was always so tired on her return that she would fall asleep again on the edge of the bed. During the daytime she merely dragged herself about, dozing on the chairs, and never rousing from this state of languor till the evening when the gas-lamps were lit. And Nana always felt very comfortable there, sitting doing nothing in the midst of the untidy bed, of the basins full of dirty water, placed on the floor, and of the muddy skirts, cast off the night before, soiling the chairs on which they had been carelessly thrown. She would cackle and talk of her private affairs without ceasing, whilst Satin, in her shift and sprawling on the bed with her feet in the air, listened to her, and smoked cigarettes. Sometimes on the afternoons, when they had troubles which they wanted to forget, as they said, they treated each other to absinthe. Then, without going downstairs, or even putting on a petticoat, Satin would call over the balusters for what she wanted, to the concierge’s little girl, a youngster of ten, who looked at the lady’s naked legs when she brought up the absinthe in a glass. All the conversation of the two women had reference to men’s abominable ways. Nana was quite unendurable with her Fontan; she could not utter ten words without alluding to something he had said or done. But Satin good-naturedly listened to these eternal stories of watchings at the window, of quarrels about a burned stew, and of reconciliations in bed after hours of sulking. Through a hankering always to talk about him, Nana ended by recounting all the blows that he gave her. Only the previous week he had blackened her eye, and the evening before, not being able to find his slippers, he had given her a blow which had sent her reeling against the night-table. And the other expressed no surprise, quietly puffing her cigarette, and only interrupting Nana to say that for her part she always ducked, with the result of sending the gentleman and his blow to the other end of the room.

  They both became deeply interested in these stories of beatings, feeling happy and diverted by the constant repetition of the same stupid incidents, and yielding over again to the warm and sluggish lassitude occasioned by the infamous thrashings of which they spoke. It was the enjoyment of discussing Fontan’s blows, of always talking about him, even to describing his way of taking off his boots, that brought Nana there every day, the more especially as Satin invariably sympathised with her. She told in return of things that happened to her which were even worse—of a pastry cook who would leave her on the ground for dead, and whom all the same she loved more than ever. Then came the days when Nana cried, and declared that she could not put up with it any longer. Satin accompanied her to her door, and waited an hour in the street to see if Fontan didn’t murder her; and, on the morrow, the two women enjoyed the afternoon, discussing the reconciliation, preferring, however, though without saying so, the days when there was a good row on because that impassioned them the more.

  They became inseparable. Yet, Satin never went to Nana‘s, Fontan having declared that he would not
have any strumpets in his place. They would walk out together, and it was thus that one day Satin took her to call on a woman, who turned out to be the Madame Robert whom Nana often thought about with a certain respect ever since she had declined to come to her supper. Madame Robert lived in the Rue Mosnier, one of the new and quiet streets near the Place de l’Europe, not containing a single shop, and the handsome houses of which, with their tiny suites of apartments, are entirely occupied by ladies. It was five o’clock; down the silent thoroughfare, amidst the aristocratic quietude of the tall white houses, the broughams of stock-jobbers and merchants awaited, whilst men hurried along the foot pavements, raising their eyes to the windows, where women in dressing-gowns seemed to be watching for them. Nana at first would not go upstairs, saying stiffly that she was not acquainted with the lady; but Satin insisted. One could always take a friend with one. She was merely paying a visit of politeness. Madame Robert, whom she had met the day before in a restaurant, had behaved very nicely to her, and had made her promise to come and see her. So Nana at length gave in. Upstairs, a little servant, half asleep, said that her mistress was out. However, she ushered them into the drawing-room, and left them there.

  “By Jove! how handsome!” murmured Satin.

  It was furnished in the severe style of the middle classes, and the hangings were of sombre hue, whilst the whole had that appearance of gentility usually to be seen in the surroundings of the Parisian shopkeeper who has retired on a fortune. Nana, drawing her own conclusions from all this, began to make a few broad remarks; but Satin got angry, and answered for Madame Robert’s virtue. She was always to be met in company with grave elderly gentlemen, with whom she walked arm-in-arm. Just now she had a retired chocolate manufacturer, who was of a most serious turn of mind. He was so delighted with the genteel appearance of the establishment, that, whenever he visited there, he always made the servant announce him, and addressed Madame Robert as his child.

  “But look, that’s she!” said Satin, pointing to a photograph placed in front of the clock.

  Nana studied the portrait for a minute. It represented a very dark woman, with a long face, and lips smiling discreetly. One would at once have said, a lady of fashion, but more reserved.

  “It’s funny,” murmured she, at length, “I’ve certainly seen that face somewhere. Where, I no longer recollect; but it could not have been in a respectable place. Oh! no, it was decidedly not in a respectable place;” and she added, turning towards her friend, “So she made you promise to come and see her. What does she want with you?”

  “What does she want with me? Why, to have a chat, no doubt; to be a little while together. It’s mere politeness.”

  Nana looked at Satin straight in the eyes, then she slightly smacked her tongue. Well, it didn’t matter to her. However, as the lady was a long time in coming, she declared that she would not wait any further, and they both went away.

  On the morrow, Fontan having told Nana that he would not be home to dinner, she started off early to find Satin, in order to treat her to a feast at a restaurant. The selection of the restaurant was a weighty affair. Satin suggested various places, all of which Nana thought abominable. At last she induced her to try Laure’s. It was an ordinary in the Rue des Martyrs, where the charge for dinner was three francs a-head. Tired of waiting until the time when it began, and not knowing how to occupy themselves in the streets, they went to Laure’s fully twenty minutes too soon. The three rooms were still empty. They seated themselves at a table in the room where Laure Piedefer sat throned behind a high counter. Laure was a person about fifty years old, of a most massive figure, which was kept in shape by the aid of tightly laced stays and waist-bands. A number of women quickly began to arrive, and, standing on tip-toe, and leaning over the piles of little salvers filled with lumps of sugar, they kissed Laure on the mouth with tender familiarity; whilst the fat monster, with moist eyes, tried to divide her attentions, so as not to occasion any jealousies. The maid who waited on the guests, unlike her mistress, was tall and scraggy, with an emaciated look about her, and black eyelids, beneath which her eyes were lighted up with a sombre fire.

  The three rooms rapidly filled. There were about a hundred customers, disseminated according to the hazard of the tables, most of them about forty years old, enormous in size, overloaded with flesh, and with faces bloated by vice; and mingling with this assemblage of turgid breasts and stomachs, were a few slim, pretty girls, looking still ingenuous in spite of their brazen gestures—beginners, picked up at low dancing establishments, and brought by some of the customers to Laure’s, where the multitude of big, flabby women, thrown quite into a flutter by the sight of their youth, jostled one another, and formed a court around them, like a crowd of anxious old boys, while treating them to all sorts of dainties. As for the men, they were few in number—ten or fifteen at the most—and they all looked very humble amidst the overwhelming shoal of skirts, with the exception of four fellows, who had merely come to see the show, and who joked about it very much at their ease.

  “It’s very good, their stew, isn’t it?” asked Satin.

  Nana nodded her head with an air of satisfaction. It was a solid dinner, such as used to be given in country hotels—volau-vent, stewed fowl and rice, haricot beans with gravy, and iced vanilla cream. The ladies went in especially for the stewed fowl and rice, almost bursting in their stays, and slowly wiping their lips. At first, Nana was afraid of meeting some of her old acquaintances, who might have asked her stupid questions—but she grew more easy as she noticed no one she knew amongst that very mixed crowd, in which faded dresses and weather-beaten bonnets were to be seen side by side with the most elegant costumes in the fraternity of the same corruption. For a minute she was interested in a young man, with short, curly hair, and an impudent-looking face, who kept a whole table of women, bursting with fat, and bent on satisfying his every whim, in a breathless state of anxiety. But on the young man laughing, his breasts rose.

  “Why, it’s a woman!” Nana exclaimed, with a smothered cry.

  Satin, who was stuffing herself with fowl, raised her head, and then whispered,

  “Ah! yes, I know her; she’s quite the go! They’re all after her.”

  Nana pouted with disgust. She couldn’t understand that. Yet she said, in her reasonable sort of way, that it was no use arguing about tastes and colours, for one never knew what one might like some day; and she ate her ice cream with a philosophical air, perfectly aware of the sensation Satin was causing among the neighbouring tables with her big, blue, virgin-like eyes. She more especially noticed a large, fair-haired person seated near her, who was making herself most amiable. She gave such glances, and edged up so close, that Nana was on the point of interfering.

  But just at that moment a woman entered the room, who caused her a great surprise. She had recognised Madame Robert. The latter, with her pretty look of a little brown mouse, nodded familiarly to the tall, scraggy maid, and then went and leaned against Laure’s counter, and they both kissed each other a long time. Nana thought this caress rather peculiar on the part of so lady-like a woman, the more especially as Madame Robert no longer had her modest look, but the contrary. She glanced about the room, as she conversed in a low tone of voice. Laure had just sat down again, once more throning herself with the majesty of an old idol of vice, with face worn and polished by the kisses of the faithful; and, from above the plates of viands, she reigned over her connection of big, bloated women, bulkier than even the most enormous of them, and enjoying the fortune that had rewarded forty years of labour.

  Madame Robert, however, had caught sight of Satin. So leaving Laure, she hastened to her, and was most amiable, saying she regretted extremely having been out on the previous day; and as Satin, quite charmed, insisted on making room for her at the table, she declared that she had dined. She had merely come to look about. As she talked, standing up behind her new friend, she leant on her shoulders, and, in a smiling, wheedling way, kept saying,

  “Well, w
hen shall I see you? Do you happen to be free—”

  Nana, unfortunately, was unable to hear more. The conversation annoyed her, and she was burning to give that respectable woman a bit of her mind; but the sight of a troop of people just arrived paralysed her. It consisted of some very stylish women, in gorgeous dresses and diamonds. Displaying their hundreds of francs’ worth of precious stones on their persons, and seized with an inclination to visit the old haunt, they had come in a party to Laure’s, whom they treated most familiarly, to dine there at three francs a head, amidst the jealous astonishment of the other poor, mud-bedabbled women. When they entered, with loud voices and clear, ringing laughter, bringing, as it were, a ray of sunshine from the outside, Nana quickly turned her head, greatly annoyed at seeing Lucy Stewart and Maria Blond amongst them. For close upon five minutes, during the whole time these ladies were conversing with Laure, before passing into the next room, she kept her face bent down, pretending to be very busy in rolling some bread crumbs over the cloth. Then, when she was at length able to turn round, she was aghast at seeing that the chair next to her was empty. Satin had disappeared.

  “Whatever has become of her?” she unconsciously exclaimed aloud.

  The big, fair-haired woman, who had been so attentive to Satin, laughed ill-humouredly; and as Nana, irritated by the laugh, gave her a menacing look, she said softly, in a drawling tone of voice,

  “It’s certainly not I who’ve run away with her, it’s the other one.”

  And Nana, understanding that she would only get laughed at, held her tongue. She even remained seated a short time longer, not wishing to show her annoyance. From the other room she could hear the voice of Lucy Stewart, who was standing treat to a whole table of girls, who had come from the dancing places of Montmartre and La Chapelle. It was very warm. The maid was removing piles of dirty plates, smelling strongly of the stewed fowl and rice, whilst the four gentlemen had ended by standing some strong wine to several different parties of women, in hope of making them drunk, and of hearing something smutty. What exasperated Nana was having to pay for Satin’s dinner. She was a nice hussy to allow herself to be well stuffed, and then to go off with the first who asked her, without even saying “Thank you!” It was, it is true, only three francs, but she thought it hard, all the same. It was such a dirty trick to play. She paid, however, banging her six francs down before Laure, whom she despised then more than the mud in the gutter.