by Emile Zola
Their eyes blinked on coming from out of the mysterious shadows of the garden; and they drew each other’s attention to the Marquis de Chouard, who, standing all alone, and stretched to the full height of his tall figure, overlooked the bare shoulders around him. His pale face appeared very severe, and bore an expression of haughty dignity beneath his crown of scanty white locks. Scandalized by Count Muffat’s conduct, he had publicly broken off all connection with him, and affected not to visit at the house. If he had consented to appear on this occasion, it was on account of the earnest entreaties of his grand-daughter, whose marriage, however, he disapproved of in indignant language against the disorganisation of the upper classes by the shameful compromises of modern debauchery.
“Ah! the end is at hand,” Madame du Joncquoy, beside the fire-place, was whispering to Madame Chantereau. “That hussy has so bewitched the unhappy fellow. We who used to know him so staunch a believer—so noble!”
“It appears that he’s ruining himself,” continued Madame Chantereau. “My husband has had a note of his. He lives now altogether in that mansion of the Avenue de Villiers. All Paris is talking about him. Really! I cannot excuse Sabine either, though we must admit that he gives her a great many causes for complaint; and, well! if she also throws the money out of the window—”
“She does not only throw money,” interrupted the other. “Well, as they are both at work, they will reach the end all the sooner. A regular drowning in the mire, my dear.”
But a gentle voice interrupted them. It was M. Venot. He had come and seated himself behind them, as though desirous of being out of the way; and leaning towards them, he murmured,
“Why despair? God manifests Himself when all seems lost.”
He was peacefully assisting at the downfall of that house which once upon a time he had governed. Ever since his sojourn at Les Fondettes, he had quietly allowed the undermining to go on, fully aware of how powerless he was to cope with it. He had accepted everything—the count’s mad infatuation for Nana, Fauchery’s close attendance on the countess, even Daguenet’s marriage with Estelle. What mattered those things? And he showed himself more supple, more mysterious, entertaining the idea of influencing the young couple the same as he had the now disunited one, knowing that great disorders lead to great devotions. Providence would have its hour.
“Our friend,” continued he in a low voice, “is still animated with the best religious sentiments. He has given me the sweetest proofs.”
“Well, then!” said Madame du Joncquoy; “he should first of all make it up with his wife.”
“No doubt. Just now I happen to have the hope that their reconciliation will not be long in coming about.”
Then the two old ladies questioned him; but he became very humble again. They must let Heaven accomplish it in its own way. His sole desire in bringing the count and countess closer together was to avoid a public scandal. Religion tolerated many failings when appearances were kept up.
“At any rate,” resumed Madame du Joncquoy, “you ought to have prevented this marriage with this adventurer.”
“You are mistaken; M. Daguenet is a very worthy young man. I am acquainted with his ideas. He wishes to cause his youthful errors to be forgotten. Estelle will bring him into the right path, you may be sure.”
“Oh, Estelle!” disdainfully murmured Madame Chantereau. “I think the dear child is quite without any will whatever. She is altogether so insignificant! ”
This expression of opinion caused M. Venot to smile. However, he did not explain himself respecting the young bride. Closing his eyes, as though to withdraw from the conversation, he again hid himself in his corner behind the skirts. Madame Hugon, in the midst of her absent-minded weariness, had overheard a few words. She joined in, and as she addressed herself to the Marquis de Chouard, who had come to greet her, thus concluded with her tolerating air:
“You ladies are too severe. Existence is already so bad for everyone. Eh! my friend? we ought to forgive a great deal in others, when we wish to be ourselves worthy of pardon.”
The marquis remained embarrassed for a few moments, fearing an allusion to himself. But the good lady had so sad a smile, that he soon regained his composure, and said,
“No, certain faults deserve no pardon. It is by such complaisances that society totters on its foundations.”
The ball had become more animated than ever. Another quadrille gave a kind of gentle swing to the floor of the drawing-room, as though the old house had staggered beneath the commotion of the merry-making. Now and again, in the mixed paleness of the faces, there stood out a woman’s countenance, carried away by the dance, with sparkling eyes and parted lips, and the full light of a chandelier shining on her white skin. Madame du Joncquoy declared that the count and countess must have been out of their senses. It was madness to squeeze five hundred people into a room that could scarcely hold two hundred. Why not have the contract signed on the Place du Carrousel at once? It was the result of new manners, Madame Chantereau said. In her younger days such solemnities took place in the bosom of one’s family; now one must have a mob, the whole street being freely allowed to enter. Unless one had such a crush, the entertainment would be considered quiet and uneventful. One advertised one’s luxury, one introduced into one’s abode the very scum of Paris; and there was nothing more natural if such promiscuousness ended by corrupting the home. The two ladies complained that they did not know more than fifty of the persons present. How was it so? Young girls in low-neck dresses displayed their bare shoulders; a woman wore a golden dagger stuck in her chignon, whilst the body of her dress, embroidered with jet black beads, looked like a coat of mail; another was being smilingly followed about, her skirts so tight fitting that they gave her a most singular appearance. All the luxury of the close of the winter season was there, the world of pleasure with its tolerations, all that which the mistress of a house picks from her acquaintances of a day, a society where great names and great infamies elbowed each other in the same appetite for pleasure. The heat was increasing, the quadrille unrolled the cadenced symmetry of its figures amidst the overcrowded rooms.
“The countess is stunning!” resumed La Faloise at the garden door. “She looks ten years younger than her daughter. By the way, Foucarmont, you can give us some information. Vandeuvres used to bet that she had no thighs worth speaking of.”
This affectation of cynicism bored the other gentlemen. Foucarmont contented himself with replying,
“Consult your cousin, my boy. He’s just coming this way. ”
“Yes! that’s an idea,” cried La Faloise. “I’ll bet ten louis that her thighs are good.”
Fauchery was indeed just arriving. As an intimate friend of the house, he had passed through the dining-room so as to avoid the crush at the doors. Taken up again by Rose at the beginning of the winter, he now divided himself between the singer and the countess, feeling very wearied, not knowing how to break off with one of the two. Sabine flattered his vanity, but Rose amused him more. The latter, too, entertained a genuine affection for him, a tenderness of really conjugal fidelity, which grieved Mignon immensely.
“Listen, we want some information,” said La Faloise, squeezing his cousin’s arm. “You see that lady in white silk?”
Ever since his inheritance had given him an insolent assurance, he affected to poke fun at Fauchery, having an old spite to gratify, wishing to be revenged for the banterings of the time when he first arrived from the country.
“Yes, that lady who has a lot of lace about her.”
The journalist stood on tiptoe, not yet understanding. “The countess?” he ended by saying.
“Just so, my boy. I’ve bet ten louis. Are her thighs good?”
And he burst out laughing, delighted at having succeeded in taking down a peg that fellow who had once amazed him so much when he asked him if the countess had a lover. But Fauchery, without showing the least surprise, looked him straight in the face.
“You idiot! said he at last,
shrugging his shoulders.
Then he shook hands with the other gentlemen, whilst La Faloise, quite put out of countenance, was no longer very sure of having said something funny. They stood conversing together. Ever since the races, the banker and Foucarmont had joined the set at the Avenue de Villiers. Nana was much better; the count called every evening to see how she was progressing. However, Fauchery, who merely listened, seemed preoccupied. That morning, during a quarrel, Rose had deliberately told him that she had sent the letter. Yes, he might go and call on his grand lady, he would be well received. After hesitating for a long time, he had courageously made up his mind to come. But La Faloise’s stupid joke had upset him, in spite of his apparent serenity.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Philippe. “You don’t seem well.”
“I? oh! I’m all right. I’ve been working, that’s why I’m so late.” Then, coolly, with one of those unknown heroisms which unravel the common tragedies of life, he added, “With all that, I’ve not paid my respects to our hosts. One must be polite.”
He even dared to joke, and turning to La Faloise, said, “Am I not right, idiot?”
And he made a passage for himself through the crowd. The footman was no longer bawling out the names. The count and countess, however, were still near the door, conversing with some ladies who had just entered. At length he reached the spot where they stood, whilst the gentlemen he had just left on the steps leading into the garden stood up on tiptoe to have a good view of the scene. Nana must have been gossiping.
“The count does not see him,” murmured George. “Attention! he’s turning round. There, now they’re at it.”
The orchestra was again playing the waltz of the “Blonde Venus.” First of all, Fauchery bowed to the countess, who continued to smile, serenely delighted. Then he stood for a moment immovable, calmly waiting, behind the count’s back. The count that night maintained his haughty gravity—the official bearing of a high dignitary. When at length he lowered his eyes towards the journalist, he exaggerated still more his majestic attitude. For some seconds the two men looked at each other; and it was Fauchery who first held out his hand. Muffat clasped it. Their hands were locked one in the other. Countess Sabine smiled in front of them, her eyes cast on the ground; whilst the waltz continued to unroll its saucy rhythm.
“But it’s going splendidly!” said Steiner.
“Are their hands glued together?” asked Foucarmont, amazed at the length of time they remained clasped.
An invincible recollection brought a rosy blush to Fauchery’s pale cheeks. He again beheld the property-room, with its greenish light and its odd assortment of things smothered with dust; and Muffat was there, holding the egg-cup, and taking advantage of his suspicions. Now, Muffat no longer had any doubts; it was a last shred of dignity collapsing. Fauchery, relieved of his fright, seeing the countess’s evident gaiety, was seized with a desire to laugh. It seemed to him so comic.
“Ah! this time it is indeed she!” exclaimed La Faloise, who stuck to a joke when once he thought it a good one. “There’s Nana over there. Look, she’s entering the room!”
“Shut up, you idiot!” murmured Philippe.
“I tell you it is she! They’re playing her waltz! She comes; and, besides, she’s had a share in the reconciliation. Dash it all! What! you don’t see her! She’s pressing them all to her heart—my male cousin, my female cousin and her spouse—and calling them her little ducky darlings. They always upset me, these family scenes.”
Estelle had drawn near. Fauchery complimented her, whilst she, looking very stiff in her pink dress, watched him with the surprised air of a silent child, glancing also at her father and mother. Daguenet, too, heartily shook hands with the journalist. They formed a smiling group; and M. Venot glided behind, looking tenderly on them, enveloping them all with his devout meekness, happy at beholding these last defections, which were preparing the ways of Providence.
But the waltz still continued its voluptuous whirl. It was an increase of the wave of pleasure, overtaking the old mansion like a rising tide. The orchestra swelled the trills of its little flutes, the rapturous sighs of its violins; beneath the Genoa velvet hangings, the gildings and the paintings, the chandeliers gave out a life-like warmth, a light as bright as sunshine; whilst the crowd of guests reflected in the mirrors, seemed to increase with the louder murmur of the voices. Around the drawing-room, the couples which passed with arms encircling waists, amidst the smiles of seated women, accentuated the shaking of the flooring. In the garden the ember-like glimmer of the Venetian lanterns lighted up the dark shadows of the promenaders seeking a breath of air along the walks, as though with the distant reflection of a fire. And this trembling of the walls, this ruddy cloud, was like the blazing of the end, in which the ancient family honour fell to pieces, burning at the four corners of the home. The timid gaieties, then scarcely beginning, which one April evening Fauchery had heard ring with a sound of breaking glass, had little by little become emboldened, maddened, to burst forth into the resplendency of that entertainment. Now, the crack increased; it attacked the house, and gave warning of its approaching destruction. Amongst the drunkards of the slums, it is by the blackest misery—the cupboard without bread, the craving for alcohol eating up the last sticks—that corrupted families reach their end. Here, over the downfall of these riches, heaped together and set fire to at one fell swoop, the waltz sounded the knell of an ancient race; whilst Nana, invisible, but hovering above the ball with her supple limbs, polluted all those people, penetrating them with the ferment of her odour floating in the warm air upon the wings of the saucy rhythm of the music.4
It was on the night of the wedding at the church that Count Muffat appeared in his wife’s bed-room, which he had not entered for two years past. The countess, greatly surprised, drew back at first, but she preserved her smile—that smile of intoxication which now never left her. He, very much embarrassed, could only stutter a few words. Then she gave him a little lecture. But neither the one nor the other ventured on a complete explanation. It was religion that required this mutual forgiveness; and it was tacitly agreed between them that they should retain their liberty. Before going to bed, as the countess still seemed to hesitate, they discussed business matters. He, the first, talked of selling Les Bordes. She at once consented. They both had great want of money; they would share the proceeds. That completed the reconciliation. Muffat experienced a real relief in spite of his remorse.
That day, too, as Nana was dozing, towards two o’clock, Zoé ventured to knock at the door of her bed-room. The curtains were drawn, a warm breeze entered by one of the windows, in the still freshness of the subdued light. The young woman got up a little now, though still rather weak. She opened her eyes and asked,
“Who is it?”
Zoé was about to reply, but Daguenet, forcing his way in, announced himself. On hearing him, she leant upon the pillow, and, sending the maid away, said,
“What, it’s you! on your wedding day! Whatever is the matter?”
He, not seeing clearly, remained standing in the middle of the room. However, he soon got used to the obscurity, and advanced forward in his dress clothes, with a white tie and gloves; and he kept saying,
“Well! yes, it’s I. Don’t you recollect?”
No, she remembered nothing. So he had to crudely refresh her memory, in his jocular way.
“Why, your commission. I’ve brought you the handsel of my innocence. ”
Then, as he was close to the bed, she seized hold of him with her bare arms, shaking with laughter and, almost weeping, for she thought it so nice of him.
“Ah! my Mimi, how funny he is! He has not forgotten it! and I who no longer remembered! So you’ve given them the slip, you’ve just come from the church? It’s true—you’ve an odour of incense about you. But kiss me—! oh! more than that, my Mimi! It will perhaps be for the last time.”
Their tender laugh expired in the darkened room, about which there still hung a vague smel
l of ether. The close warmth swelled the window curtains, children’s voices sounded in the Avenue. Then they made merry, though pressed for time. Daguenet was to leave with his wife, directly after the wedding breakfast.
CHAPTER XIII
Towards the end of September, Count Muffat, who was to dine at Nana’s that evening, came at dusk to inform her of a sudden order he had received to be at the Tuileries. The house was not yet lighted up, the servants were laughing very loudly in the kitchen. He slowly ascended the staircase, the windows of which shone in the prevailing warm shadow. Upstairs, the parlour door made no noise as he opened it. A rosy daylight was fading from the ceiling of the room. The crimson hangings, the capacious sofas, the lacquer furniture, all that medley of embroidered stuffs, of bronzes and of china, was already disappearing beneath a slowly deepening veil of gloom, which penetrated the corners, hiding alike the brilliancy of the ivory and the glitter of the gold. And there, in this obscurity, by the aid alone of the light colour of her dress, he beheld Nana reclining in George’s arms. All denial on their part was impossible. He uttered a suppressed cry, and stood as one lost.
Nana sprang to her feet and pushed him into the bedroom, to give the youngster time to get off.
“Come in here,” she murmured, scarcely knowing what she said. “I will explain—”
She was exasperated at being caught like that. She had never before given way in such a manner at home, in that parlour with the doors unfastened. A number of things had tended to bring it about—a quarrel with George, who was madly jealous of Philippe. He sobbed so bitterly on her neck that she could not resist, scarcely knowing how to calm him, and pitying him in her heart. And, on the one occasion when she was so foolish as to forget herself thus—with a youngster who could not even bring her bunches of violets now, as his mother guarded him so strictly—the count must needs come and catch them. Really, she had no luck! That was all one got by being a good-natured girl!