Nana made a very bad lunch, for the scene had annoyed her. Next time the man would have to be definitely got rid of. A dozen times she had put his money aside for him, but it had as constantly melted away, sometimes in the purchase of flowers, at others in the shape of a subscription got up for the benefit of an old gendarme. Besides, she was counting on Philippe and was astonished not to see him make his appearance with his two hundred francs. It was regular bad luck, seeing that the day before yesterday she had again given Satin an outfit, a perfect trousseau this time, some twelve hundred francs’ worth of dresses and linen, and now she had not a louis remaining.
Toward two o’clock, when Nana was beginning to be anxious, Labordette presented himself. He brought with him the designs for the bed, and this caused a diversion, a joyful interlude which made the young woman forget all her troubles. She clapped her hands and danced about. After which, her heart bursting wish curiosity, she leaned over a table in the drawing room and examined the designs, which Labordette proceeded to explain to her.
“You see,” he said, “this is the body of the bed. In the middle here there’s a bunch of roses in full bloom, and then comes a garland of buds and flowers. The leaves are to be in yellow and the roses in red-gold. And here’s the grand design for the bed’s head; Cupids dancing in a ring on a silver trelliswork.”
But Nana interrupted him, for she was beside herself with ecstasy.
“Oh, how funny that little one is, that one in the corner, with his behind in the air! Isn’t he now? And what a sly laugh! They’ve all got such dirty, wicked eyes! You know, dear boy, I shall never dare play any silly tricks before them!”
Her pride was flattered beyond measure. The goldsmiths had declared that no queen anywhere slept in such a bed. However, a difficulty presented itself. Labordette showed her two designs for the footboard, one of which reproduced the pattern on the sides, while the other, a subject by itself, represented Night wrapped in her veil and discovered by a faun in all her splendid nudity. He added that if she chose this last subject the goldsmiths intended making Night in her own likeness. This idea, the taste of which was rather risky, made her grow white with pleasure, and she pictured herself as a silver statuette, symbolic of the warm, voluptuous delights of darkness.
“Of course you will only sit for the head and shoulders,” said Labordette.
She looked quietly at him.
“Why? The moment a work of art’s in question I don’t mind the sculptor that takes my likeness a blooming bit!”
Of course it must be understood that she was choosing the subject. But at this he interposed.
“Wait a moment; it’s six thousand francs extra.”
“It’s all the same to me, by Jove!” she cried, bursting into a laugh. “Hasn’t my little rough got the rhino?”
Nowadays among her intimates she always spoke thus of Count Muffat, and the gentlemen had ceased to inquire after him otherwise.
“Did you see your little rough last night?” they used to say.
“Dear me, I expected to find the little rough here!”
It was a simple familiarity enough, which, nevertheless, she did not as yet venture on in his presence.
Labordette began rolling up the designs as he gave the final explanations. The goldsmiths, he said, were undertaking to deliver the bed in two months’ time, toward the twenty-fifth of December, and next week a sculptor would come to make a model for the Night. As she accompanied him to the door Nana remembered the baker and briskly inquired:
“By the by, you wouldn’t be having ten louis about you?”
Labordette made it a solemn rule, which stood him in good stead, never to lend women money. He used always to make the same reply.
“No, my girl, I’m short. But would you like me to go to your little rough?”
She refused; it was useless. Two days before she had succeeded in getting five thousand francs out of the count. However, she soon regretted her discreet conduct, for the moment Labordette had gone the baker reappeared, though it was barely half-past two, and with many loud oaths roughly settled himself on a bench in the hall. The young woman listened to him from the first floor. She was pale, and it caused her especial pain to hear the servants’ secret rejoicings swelling up louder and louder till they even reached her ears. Down in the kitchen they were dying of laughter. The coachman was staring across from the other side of the court; François was crossing the hall without any apparent reason. Then he hurried off to report progress, after sneering knowingly at the baker. They didn’t care a damn for Madame; the walls were echoing to their laughter, and she felt that she was deserted on all hands and despised by the servants’ hall, the inmates of which were watching her every movement and liberally bespattering her with the filthiest of chaff. Thereupon she abandoned the intention of borrowing the hundred and thirty-three francs from Zoé; she already owed the maid money, and she was too proud to risk a refusal now. Such a burst of feeling stirred her that she went back into her room, loudly remarking:
“Come, come, my girl, don’t count on anyone but yourself. Your body’s your own property, and it’s better to make use of it than to let yourself be insulted.”
And without even summoning Zoé she dressed herself with feverish haste in order to run round to the Tricon’s. In hours of great embarrassment this was her last resource. Much sought after and constantly solicited by the old lady, she would refuse or resign herself according to her needs, and on these increasingly frequent occasions when both ends would not meet in her royally conducted establishment, she was sure to find twenty-five louis awaiting her at the other’s house. She used to betake herself to the Tricon’s with the ease born of use, just as the poor go to the pawnshop.
But as she left her own chamber Nana came suddenly upon Georges standing in the middle of the drawing room. Not noticing his waxen pallor and the somber fire in his wide eyes, she gave a sigh of relief.
“Ah, you’ve come from your brother.”
“No,” said the lad, growing yet paler.
At this she gave a despairing shrug. What did he want? Why was he barring her way? She was in a hurry—yes, she was. Then returning to where he stood:
“You’ve no money, have you?”
“No.”
“That’s true. How silly of me! Never a stiver; not even their omnibus fares Mamma doesn’t wish it! Oh, what a set of men!”
And she escaped. But he held her back; he wanted to speak to her. She was fairly under way and again declared she had no time, but he stopped her with a word.
“Listen, I know you’re going to marry my brother.”
Gracious! The thing was too funny! And she let herself down into a chair in order to laugh at her ease.
“Yes,” continued the lad, “and I don’t wish it. It’s me you’re going to marry. That’s why I’ve come.”
“Eh, what? You too?” she cried. “Why, it’s a family disease, is it? No, never! What a fancy, to be sure! Have I ever asked you to do anything so nasty? Neither one nor t’other of you! No, never!”
The lad’s face brightened. Perhaps he had been deceiving himself! He continued:
“Then swear to me that you don’t go to bed with my brother.”
“Oh, you’re beginning to bore me now!” said Nana, who had risen with renewed impatience. “It’s amusing for a little while, but when I tell you I’m in a hurry—I go to bed with your brother if it pleases me. Are you keeping me—are you paymaster here that you insist on my making a report? Yes, I go to bed with your brother.”
He had caught hold of her arm and squeezed it hard enough to break it as he stuttered:
“Don’t say that! Don’t say that!”
With a slight blow she disengaged herself from his grasp.
“He’s mistreating me now! Here’s a young ruffian for you! My chicken, you’ll leave thi
s jolly sharp. I used to keep you about out of niceness. Yes, I did! You may stare! Did you think I was going to be your mamma till I died? I’ve got better things to do than to bring up brats.”
He listened to her stark with anguish, yet in utter submission. Her every word cut him to the heart so sharply that he felt he should die. She did not so much as notice his suffering and continued delightedly to revenge herself on him for the annoyance of the morning.
“It’s like your brother; he’s another pretty Johnny, he is! He promised me two hundred francs. Oh, dear me; yes, I can wait for ’em. It isn’t his money I care for! I’ve not got enough to pay for hair oil. Yes, he’s leaving me in a jolly fix! Look here, d’you want to know how matters stand? Here goes then: it’s all owing to your brother that I’m going out to earn twenty-five louis with another man.”
At these words his head spun, and he barred her egress. He cried; he besought her not to go, clasping his hands together and blurting out:
“Oh no! Oh no!”
“I want to, I do,” she said. “Have you the money?”
No, he had not got the money. He would have given his life to have the money! Never before had he felt so miserable, so useless, so very childish. All his wretched being was shaken with weeping and gave proof of such heavy suffering that at last she noticed it and grew kind. She pushed him away softly.
“Come, my pet, let me pass; I must. Be reasonable. You’re a baby boy, and it was very nice for a week, but nowadays I must look after my own affairs. Just think it over a bit. Now your brother’s a man; what I’m saying doesn’t apply to him. Oh, please do me a favor; it’s no good telling him all this. He needn’t know where I’m going. I always let out too much when I’m in a rage.”
She began laughing. Then taking him in her arms and kissing him on the forehead:
“goodbye, baby,” she said; “it’s over, quite over between us; d’you understand? And now I’m off!”
And she left him, and he stood in the middle of the drawing room. Her last words rang like the knell of a tocsin in his ears: “It’s over, quite over!” And he thought the ground was opening beneath his feet. There was a void in his brain from which the man awaiting Nana had disappeared. Philippe alone remained there in the young woman’s bare embrace forever and ever. She did not deny it: she loved him, since she wanted to spare him the pain of her infidelity. It was over, quite over. He breathed heavily and gazed round the room, suffocating beneath a crushing weight. Memories kept recurring to him one after the other—memories of merry nights at La Mignotte, of amorous hours during which he had fancied himself her child, of pleasures stolen in this very room. And now these things would never, never recur! He was too small; he had not grown up quickly enough; Philippe was supplanting him because he was a bearded man. So then this was the end; he could not go on living. His vicious passion had become transformed into an infinite tenderness, a sensual adoration, in which his whole being was merged. Then, too, how was he to forget it all if his brother remained—his brother, blood of his blood, a second self, whose enjoyment drove him mad with jealousy? It was the end of all things; he wanted to die.
All the doors remained open, as the servants noisily scattered over the house after seeing Madame make her exit on foot. Downstairs on the bench in the hall the baker was laughing with Charles and François. Zoé came running across the drawing room and seemed surprised at sight of Georges. She asked him if he were waiting for Madame. Yes, he was waiting for her; he had forgotten to give her an answer to a question. And when he was alone he set to work and searched. Finding nothing else to suit his purpose, he took up in the dressing room a pair of very sharply pointed scissors with which Nana had a mania for ceaselessly trimming herself, either by polishing her skin or cutting off little hairs. Then for a whole hour he waited patiently, his hand in his pocket and his fingers tightly clasped round the scissors.
“Here’s Madame,” said Zoé, returning. She must have espied her through the bedroom window.
There was a sound of people racing through the house, and laughter died away and doors were shut. Georges heard Nana paying the baker and speaking in the curtest way. Then she came upstairs.
“What, you’re here still!” she said as she noticed him. “Aha! We’re going to grow angry, my good man!”
He followed her as she walked toward her bedroom.
“Nana, will you marry me?”
She shrugged her shoulders. It was too stupid; she refused to answer any more and conceived the idea of slamming the door in his face.
“Nana, will you marry me?”
She slammed the door. He opened it with one hand while he brought the other and the scissors out of his pocket. And with one great stab he simply buried them in his breast.
Nana, meanwhile, had felt conscious that something dreadful would happen, and she had turned round. When she saw him stab himself she was seized with indignation.
“Oh, what a fool he is! What a fool! And with my scissors! Will you leave off, you naughty little rogue? Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
She was scared. Sinking on his knees, the boy had just given himself a second stab, which sent him down at full length on the carpet. He blocked the threshold of the bedroom. With that Nana lost her head utterly and screamed with all her might, for she dared not step over his body, which shut her in and prevented her from running to seek assistance.
“Zoé! Zoé! Come at once. Make him leave off. It’s getting stupid—a child like that! He’s killing himself now! And in my place too! Did you ever see the like of it?”
He was frightening her. He was all white, and his eyes were shut. There was scarcely any bleeding—only a little blood, a tiny stain which was oozing down into his waistcoat. She was making up her mind to step over the body when an apparition sent her starting back. An old lady was advancing through the drawing room door, which remained wide open opposite. And in her terror she recognized Mme Hugon but could not explain her presence. Still wearing her gloves and hat, Nana kept edging backward, and her terror grew so great that she sought to defend herself, and in a shaky voice:
“Madame,” she cried, “it isn’t I; I swear to you it isn’t. He wanted to marry me, and I said no, and he’s killed himself!”
Slowly Mme Hugon drew near—she was in black, and her face showed pale under her white hair. In the carriage, as she drove thither, the thought of Georges had vanished and that of Philippe’s misdoing had again taken complete possession of her. It might be that this woman could afford explanations to the judges which would touch them, and so she conceived the project of begging her to bear witness in her son’s favor. Downstairs the doors of the house stood open, but as she mounted to the first floor her sick feet failed her, and she was hesitating as to which way to go when suddenly horror-stricken cries directed her. Then upstairs she found a man lying on the floor with bloodstained shirt. It was Georges—it was her other child.
Nana, in idiotic tones, kept saying:
“He wanted to marry me, and I said no, and he’s killed himself.”
Uttering no cry, Mme Hugon stooped down. Yes, it was the other one; it was Georges. The one was brought to dishonor, the other murdered! It caused her no surprise, for her whole life was ruined. Kneeling on the carpet, utterly forgetting where she was, noticing no one else, she gazed fixedly at her boy’s face and listened with her hand on his heart. Then she gave a feeble sigh—she had felt the heart beating. And with that she lifted her head and scrutinized the room and the woman and seemed to remember. A fire glowed forth in her vacant eyes, and she looked so great and terrible in her silence that Nana trembled as she continued to defend herself above the body that divided them.
“I swear it, madame! If his brother were here he could explain it to you.”
“His brother has robbed—he is in prison,” said the mother in a hard voice.
Nana felt a choking sensatio
n. Why, what was the reason of it all? The other had turned thief now! They were mad in that family! She ceased struggling in self-defense; she seemed no longer mistress in her own house and allowed Mme Hugon to give what orders she liked. The servants had at last hurried up, and the old lady insisted on their carrying the fainting Georges down to her carriage. She preferred killing him rather than letting him remain in that house. With an air of stupefaction Nana watched the retreating servants as they supported poor, dear Zizi by his legs and shoulders. The mother walked behind them in a state of collapse; she supported herself against the furniture; she felt as if all she held dear had vanished in the void. On the landing a sob escaped her; she turned and twice ejaculated:
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