“We said it was three hundred and forty. It’s your turn.”
“I play hearts.”
When Zoé returned she found them once again absorbed. After a silence, as Mme Lerat was shuffling, Mme Maloir asked who it was.
“Oh, nobody to speak of,” replied the servant carelessly; “a slip of a lad! I wanted to send him away again, but he’s such a pretty boy with never a hair on his chin and blue eyes and a girl’s face! So I told him to wait after all. He’s got an enormous bouquet in his hand, which he never once consented to put down. One would like to catch him one—a brat like that who ought to be at school still!”
Mme Lerat went to fetch a water bottle to mix herself some brandy and water, the lumps of sugar having rendered her thirsty. Zoé muttered something to the effect that she really didn’t mind if she drank something too. Her mouth, she averred, was as bitter as gall.
“So you put him—?” continued Mme Maloir.
“Oh yes, I put him in the closet at the end of the room, the little unfurnished one. There’s only one of my lady’s trunks there and a table. It’s there I stow the lubbers.”
And she was putting plenty of sugar in her grog when the electric bell made her jump. Oh, drat it all! Wouldn’t they let her have a drink in peace? If they were to have a peal of bells things promised well. Nevertheless, she ran off to open the door. Returning presently, she saw Mme Maloir questioning her with a glance.
“It’s nothing,” she said, “only a bouquet.”
All three refreshed themselves, nodding to each other in token of salutation. Then while Zoé was at length busy clearing the table, bringing the plates out one by one and putting them in the sink, two other rings followed close upon one another. But they weren’t serious, for while keeping the kitchen informed of what was going on she twice repeated her disdainful expression:
“Nothing, only a bouquet.”
Notwithstanding which, the old ladies laughed between two of their tricks when they heard her describe the looks of the creditors in the anteroom after the flowers had arrived. Madame would find her bouquets on her toilet table. What a pity it was they cost such a lot and that you could only get ten sous for them! Oh dear, yes, plenty of money was wasted!
“For my part,” said Mme Maloir, “I should be quite content if every day of my life I got what the men in Paris had spent on flowers for the women.”
“Now, you know, you’re not hard to please,” murmured Mme Lerat. “Why, one would have only just enough to buy thread with. Four queens, my dear.”
It was ten minutes to four. Zoé was astonished, could not understand why her mistress was out so long. Ordinarily when Madame found herself obliged to go out in the afternoons she got it over in double-quick time. But Mme Maloir declared that one didn’t always manage things as one wished. Truly, life was beset with obstacles, averred Mme Lerat. The best course was to wait. If her niece was long in coming it was because her occupations detained her; wasn’t it so? Besides, they weren’t overworked—it was comfortable in the kitchen. And as hearts were out, Mme Lerat threw down diamonds.
The bell began again, and when Zoé reappeared she was burning with excitement.
“My children, it’s fat Steiner!” she said in the doorway, lowering her voice as she spoke. “I’ve put him in the little sitting room.”
Thereupon Mme Maloir spoke about the banker to Mme Lerat, who knew no such gentleman. Was he getting ready to give Rose Mignon the go-by? Zoé shook her head; she knew a thing or two. But once more she had to go and open the door.
“Here’s bothers!” she murmured when she came back. “It’s the nigger! ’Twasn’t any good telling him that my lady’s gone out, and so he’s settled himself in the bedroom. We only expected him this evening.”
At a quarter past four Nana was not in yet. What could she be after? It was silly of her! Two other bouquets were brought round, and Zoé, growing bored looked to see if there were any coffee left. Yes, the ladies would willingly finish off the coffee; it would waken them up. Sitting hunched up on their chairs, they were beginning to fall asleep through dint of constantly taking their cards between their fingers with the accustomed movement. The half-hour sounded. Something must decidedly have happened to Madame. And they began whispering to each other.
Suddenly Mme Maloir forgot herself and in a ringing voice announced: “I’ve the five hundred! Trumps, Major Quint!”
“Oh, do be quiet!” said Zoé angrily. “What will all those gentlemen think?” And in the silence which ensued and amid the whispered muttering of the two old women at strife over their game, the sound of rapid footsteps ascended from the back stairs. It was Nana at last. Before she had opened the door her breathlessness became audible. She bounced abruptly in, looking very red in the face. Her skirt, the string of which must have been broken, was trailing over the stairs, and her flounces had just been dipped in a puddle of something unpleasant which had oozed out on the landing of the first floor, where the servant girl was a regular slut.
“Here you are! It’s lucky!” said Mme Lerat, pursing up her lips, for she was still vexed at Mme Maloir’s “five hundred.” “You may flatter yourself at the way you keep folks waiting.”
“Madame isn’t reasonable; indeed, she isn’t!” added Zoé.
Nana was already harassed, and these reproaches exasperated her. Was that the way people received her after the worry she had gone through?
“Will you blooming well leave me alone, eh?” she cried.
“Hush, ma’am, there are people in there,” said the maid.
Then in lower tones the young Woman stuttered breathlessly:
“D’you suppose I’ve been having a good time? Why, there was no end to it. I should have liked to see you there! I was boiling with rage! I felt inclined to smack somebody. And never a cab to come home in! Luckily it’s only a step from here, but never mind that; I did just run home.”
“You have the money?” asked the aunt.
“Dear, dear! That question!” rejoined Nana.
She had sat herself down on a chair close up against the stove, for her legs had failed her after so much running, and without stopping to take breath she drew from behind her stays an envelope in which there were four hundred-franc notes. They were visible through a large rent she had torn with savage fingers in order to be sure of the contents. The three women round about her stared fixedly at the envelope, a big, crumpled, dirty receptacle, as it lay clasped in her small gloved hands.
It was too late now—Mme Lerat would not go to Rambouillet till tomorrow, and Nana entered into long explanations.
“There’s company waiting for you,” the lady’s maid repeated.
But Nana grew excited again. The company might wait: she’d go to them all in good time when she’d finished. And as her aunt began putting her hand out for the money:
“Ah no! Not all of it,” she said. “Three hundred francs for the nurse, fifty for your journey and expenses, that’s three hundred and fifty. Fifty francs I keep.”
The big difficulty was how to find change. There were not ten francs in the house. But they did not even address themselves to Mme Maloir who, never having more than a six-sou omnibus fair upon her, was listening in quite a disinterested manner. At length Zoé went out of the room, remarking that she would go and look in her box, and she brought back a hundred francs in hundred-sou pieces. They were counted out on a corner of the table, and Mme Lerat took her departure at once after having promised to bring Louiset back with her the following day.
“You say there’s company there?” continued Nana, still sitting on the chair and resting herself.
“Yes, madame, three people.”
And Zoé mentioned the banker first. Nana made a face. Did that man Steiner think she was going to let herself be bored because he had thrown her a bouquet yesterday evening?
“Besides, I’ve had enough of it,” she declared. “I shan’t receive today. Go and say you don’t expect me now.”
“Madame will think the matter over; Madame will receive Monsieur Steiner,” murmured Zoé gravely, without budging from her place. She was annoyed to see her mistress on the verge of committing another foolish mistake.
Then she mentioned the Walachian, who ought by now to find time hanging heavy on his hands in the bedroom. Whereupon Nana grew furious and more obstinate than ever. No, she would see nobody, nobody! Who’d sent her such a blooming leech of a man?
“Chuck ’em all out! I—I’m going to play a game of bezique with Madame Maloir. I prefer doing that.”
The bell interrupted her remarks. That was the last straw. Another of the beggars yet! She forbade Zoé to go and open the door, but the latter had left the kitchen without listening to her, and when she reappeared she brought back a couple of cards and said authoritatively:
“I told them that Madame was receiving visitors. The gentlemen are in the drawing room.”
Nana had sprung up, raging, but the names of the Marquis de Chouard and of Count Muffat de Beuville, which were inscribed on the cards, calmed her down. For a moment or two she remained silent.
“Who are they?” she asked at last. “You know them?”
“I know the old fellow,” replied Zoé, discreetly pursing up her lips.
And her mistress continuing to question her with her eyes, she added simply:
“I’ve seen him somewhere.”
This remark seemed to decide the young woman. Regretfully she left the kitchen, that asylum of steaming warmth, where you could talk and take your ease amid the pleasant fumes of the coffeepot which was being kept warm over a handful of glowing embers. She left Mme Maloir behind her. That lady was now busy reading her fortune by the cards; she had never yet taken her hat off, but now in order to be more at her ease she undid the strings and threw them back over her shoulders.
In the dressing room, where Zoé rapidly helped her on with a tea gown, Nana revenged herself for the way in which they were all boring her by muttering quiet curses upon the male sex. These big words caused the lady’s maid not a little distress, for she saw with pain that her mistress was not rising superior to her origin as quickly as she could have desired. She even made bold to beg Madame to calm herself.
“You bet,” was Nana’s crude answer; “they’re swine; they glory in that sort of thing.”
Nevertheless, she assumed her princess-like manner, as she was wont to call it. But just when she was turning to go into the drawing room Zoé held her back and herself introduced the Marquis de Chouard and the Count Muffat into the dressing room. It was much better so.
“I regret having kept you waiting, gentlemen,” said the young woman with studied politeness.
The two men bowed and seated themselves. A blind of embroidered tulle kept the little room in twilight. It was the most elegant chamber in the flat, for it was hung with some light-colored fabric and contained a cheval glass framed in inlaid wood, a lounge chair and some others with arms and blue satin upholsteries. On the toilet table the bouquets—roses, lilacs and hyacinths—appeared like a very ruin of flowers. Their perfume was strong and penetrating, while through the dampish air of the place, which was full of the spoiled exhalations of the washstand, came occasional whiffs of a more pungent scent, the scent of some grains or dry patchouli ground to fine powder at the bottom of a cup. And as she gathered herself together and drew up her dressing jacket, which had been ill fastened, Nana had all the appearance of having been surprised at her toilet: her skin was still damp; she smiled and looked quite startled amid her frills and laces.
“Madame, you will pardon our insistence,” said the Count Muffat gravely. “We come on a quest. Monsieur and I are members of the Benevolent Organization of the district.”
The Marquis de Chouard hastened gallantly to add:
“When we learned that a great artiste lived in this house we promised ourselves that we would put the claims of our poor people before her in a very special manner. Talent is never without a heart.”
Nana pretended to be modest. She answered them with little assenting movements of her head, making rapid reflections at the same time. It must be the old man that had brought the other one: he had such wicked eyes. And yet the other was not to be trusted either: the veins near his temples were so queerly puffed up. He might quite well have come by himself. Ah, now that she thought of it, it was this way: the porter had given them her name, and they had egged one another on, each with his own ends in view.
“Most certainly, gentlemen, you were quite right to come up,” she said with a very good grace.
But the electric bell made her tremble again. Another call, and that Zoé always opening the door! She went on:
“One is only too happy to be able to give.”
At bottom she was flattered.
“Ah, madame,” rejoined the marquis, “if only you knew about it! there’s such misery! Our district has more than three thousand poor people in it, and yet it’s one of the richest. You cannot picture to yourself anything like the present distress—children with no bread, women ill, utterly without assistance, perishing of the cold!”
“The poor souls!” cried Nana, very much moved.
Such was her feeling of compassion that tears flooded her fine eyes. No longer studying deportment, she leaned forward with a quick movement, and under her open dressing jacket her neck became visible, while the bent position of her knees served to outline the rounded contour of the thigh under the thin fabric of her skirt. A little flush of blood appeared in the marquis’s cadaverous cheeks. Count Muffat, who was on the point of speaking, lowered his eyes. The air of that little room was too hot: it had the close, heavy warmth of a greenhouse. The roses were withering, and intoxicating odors floated up from the patchouli in the cup.
“One would like to be very rich on occasions like this,” added Nana. “Well, well, we each do what we can. Believe me, gentlemen, if I had known—”
She was on the point of being guilty of a silly speech, so melted was she at heart. But she did not end her sentence and for a moment was worried at not being able to remember where she had put her fifty francs on changing her dress. But she recollected at last: they must be on the corner of her toilet table under an inverted pomade pot. As she was in the act of rising the bell sounded for quite a long time. Capital! Another of them still! It would never end. The count and the marquis had both risen, too, and the ears of the latter seemed to be pricked up and, as it were, pointing toward the door; doubtless he knew that kind of ring. Muffat looked at him; then they averted their gaze mutually. They felt awkward and once more assumed their frigid bearing, the one looking square-set and solid with his thick head of hair, the other drawing back his lean shoulders, over which fell his fringe of thin white locks.
“My faith,” said Nana, bringing the ten big silver pieces and quite determined to laugh about it, “I am going to entrust you with this, gentlemen. It is for the poor.”
And the adorable little dimple in her chin became apparent. She assumed her favorite pose, her amiable baby expression, as she held the pile of five-franc pieces on her open palm and offered it to the men, as though she were saying to them, “Now then, who wants some?” The count was the sharper of the two. He took fifty francs but left one piece behind and, in order to gain possession of it, had to pick it off the young woman’s very skin, a moist, supple skin, the touch of which sent a thrill through him. She was thoroughly merry and did not cease laughing.
“Come, gentlemen,” she continued. “Another time I hope to give more.”
The gentlemen no longer had any pretext for staying, and they bowed and went toward the door. But just as they were about to go out the bell rang anew. The marquis could not conceal a faint smile, while a frown made the count look
more grave than before. Nana detained them some seconds so as to give Zoé time to find yet another corner for the newcomers. She did not relish meetings at her house. Only this time the whole place must be packed! She was therefore much relieved when she saw the drawing room empty and asked herself whether Zoé had really stuffed them into the cupboards.
“Au revoir, gentlemen,” she said, pausing on the threshold of the drawing room.
It was as though she lapped them in her laughing smile and clear, unclouded glance. The Count Muffat bowed slightly. Despite his great social experience he felt that he had lost his equilibrium. He needed air; he was overcome with the dizzy feeling engendered in that dressing room with a scent of flowers, with a feminine essence which choked him. And behind his back, the Marquis de Chouard, who was sure that he could not be seen, made so bold as to wink at Nana, his whole face suddenly altering its expression as he did so, and his tongue nigh lolling from his mouth.
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