Part 17

Out of prudence, in the antechamber, she gave Zoe an order.

-- You will keep watch for him, you will tell him to make no noise, if the other is still with me.

-- But where shall I put him, madame?

-- Keep him in the kitchen. It is safer.

Muffat, in the bedroom, was already taking off his frock coat. A large fire was burning. It was still the same room, with its rosewood furniture, its hangings and its seats of brocaded damask, with large blue flowers on a grey ground. Twice Nana had dreamed of redoing it, the first time all in black velvet, the second in white satin, with pink bows; but as soon as Steiner consented, she demanded the money it would cost, to spend it. She had only had the whim of a tiger skin before the fireplace, and of a crystal night-light, hanging from the ceiling.

-- I, I am not sleepy, I am not going to bed, she said, when they had locked themselves in.

The count obeyed her with the submission of a man who no longer fears being seen. His only concern was not to anger her.

-- As you wish, he murmured.

Yet he removed his boots as well, before sitting down before the fire. One of Nana's pleasures was to undress facing her wardrobe mirror, where she saw herself full length. She let everything fall to her chemise; then, quite naked, she forgot herself, she looked at herself for a long time. It was a passion for her body, a rapture of the satin of her skin and the supple line of her waist, which kept her serious, attentive, absorbed in a love of herself. Often the hairdresser found her thus, without her turning her head. Then Muffat grew angry, and she remained surprised. What had come over him? It was not for others, it was for herself.

That evening, wanting to see herself better, she lit the six candles of the sconces. But, as she let her chemise slip, she stopped, preoccupied for a moment, having a question on the tip of her lips.

-- You have not read the article in the Figaro?... The newspaper is on the table.

Daguenet's laugh came back to her memory, she was troubled by a doubt. If this Fauchery had run her down, she would take revenge.

-- They say it is about me, in there, she resumed, affecting an air of indifference. Eh? darling, what is your opinion?

And, letting go of the chemise, waiting for Muffat to finish his reading, she remained naked. Muffat read slowly. Fauchery's chronicle, entitled The Golden Fly, was the story of a girl, born of four or five generations of drunkards, her blood spoiled by a long heredity of misery and drink, who was transformed in herself into a nervous derangement of her woman's sex. She had grown up in a suburb, on the Parisian pavement; and, tall, beautiful, of superb flesh like a plant of rich manure, she avenged the wretches and the abandoned whose product she was. With her, the rot that was left to ferment among the people rose and rotted the aristocracy. She became a force of nature, a ferment of destruction, without willing it herself, corrupting and disorganizing Paris between her snowy thighs, turning it as women, each month, turn milk. And it was at the end of the article that the comparison of the fly was found, a fly the colour of the sun, flown from the filth, a fly that took death upon the carrion tolerated along the roads, and which, humming, dancing, casting a sparkle of jewels, poisoned men merely by alighting on them, in the palaces where she entered by the windows.

Muffat raised his head, his eyes fixed, looking at the fire.

-- Well? asked Nana.

But he did not answer. He seemed to want to reread the chronicle. A sensation of cold flowed from his skull to his shoulders. This chronicle was written recklessly, with capers of phrases, an excess of unforeseen words and baroque juxtapositions. However, he remained struck by his reading, which, suddenly, had just awakened in him all that he did not like to stir up these past few months.

Then he raised his eyes. Nana had become absorbed in her rapture of herself. She bent her neck, looking attentively in the mirror at a little brown mark that she had above her right hip; and she touched it with the tip of her finger, she made it stand out by leaning back further, finding it no doubt funny and pretty, in that place. Then, she studied other parts of her body, amused, taken again by her vicious curiosities of a child. It always surprised her to see herself; she had the astonished and seduced air of a young girl who discovers her puberty. Slowly, she opened her arms to develop her torso of a fat Venus, she bent her waist, examining herself from back and front, stopping at the profile of her bosom, at the fleeing roundness of her thighs. And she ended by taking pleasure in the singular game of swaying, to the right, to the left, her knees apart, her waist rolling on her loins, with the continual quiver of an almeh dancing the belly dance.

Muffat contemplated her. She frightened him. The newspaper had fallen from his hands. In this minute of clear vision, he despised himself. It was that: in three months, she had corrupted his life, he felt himself already spoiled to the marrow by filth that he would not have suspected. Everything was going to rot in him, at this hour. For an instant he had consciousness of the accidents of the evil, he saw the disorganization brought by this ferment, himself poisoned, his family destroyed, a corner of society that cracked and collapsed. And, unable to turn his eyes away, he looked at her fixedly, he tried to fill himself with disgust at her nakedness.

Nana no longer moved. One arm behind her nape, one hand held in the other, she threw back her head, her elbows apart. He saw in foreshortening her half-closed eyes, her half-open mouth, her face drowned in an amorous laugh; and, from behind, her loosened chignon of yellow hair covered her back with a lioness's pelt. Bent and with flank stretched, she showed the solid loins, the hard bosom of a warrior, with strong muscles under the satiny grain of the skin. A fine line, barely undulated by the shoulder and the hip, ran from one of her elbows to her foot. Muffat followed this so tender profile, these flights of blonde flesh drowning in golden gleams, these roundnesses where the flame of the candles put reflections of silk. He thought of his former horror of woman, of the monster of Scripture, lewd, smelling of the wild beast. Nana was all hairy, a down of a redhead made of her body a velvet; while, in her rump and her thighs of a mare, in the fleshy swellings hollowed by deep folds, which gave the sex the troubling veil of their shadow, there was the beast. It was the golden beast, unconscious like a force, and whose odour alone spoiled the world. Muffat kept looking, obsessed, possessed, to the point that having closed his eyelids, to see no more, the animal reappeared at the bottom of the darkness, grown, terrible, exaggerating its posture. Now, it would be there, before his eyes, in his flesh, forever.

But Nana curled up on herself. A shiver of tenderness seemed to have passed through her limbs. Her eyes moist, she made herself small, as if to feel herself better. Then, she unclasped her hands, lowered them along herself with a sliding, to her breasts, which she crushed in a nervous embrace. And bridling, melting into a caress of all her body, she rubbed her cheeks to the right, to the left, against her shoulders, with coquetry. Her greedy mouth breathed upon herself desire. She lengthened her lips, she kissed herself for a long time near the armpit, laughing at the other Nana, who, she too, was kissing herself in the mirror.

Then Muffat gave a low and prolonged sigh. This solitary pleasure exasperated him. Suddenly, everything was swept away in him, as by a great wind. He took Nana bodily, in a burst of brutality, and threw her on the carpet.

-- Let me be, she cried, you are hurting me!

He was conscious of his defeat, he knew her stupid, filthy and lying, and he wanted her, even poisoned.

-- Oh! it is silly! she said, furious, when he let her get up.

Yet she calmed down. Now, he would go. After putting on a nightgown trimmed with lace, she came to sit on the floor, before the fire. It was her favourite place. As she questioned him again on Fauchery's chronicle, Muffat answered vaguely, desirous of avoiding a scene. Besides, she declared that she had Fauchery somewhere. Then, she fell into a long silence, reflecting on the means of sending the count away. She would have liked an amiable manner, for she remained a good girl, and it bored her to hurt people; all the more so as that one was cuckolded, an idea that had ended by softening her.

-- So, she said at last, is it tomorrow morning that you expect your wife?

Muffat had stretched out in the armchair, with a drowsy air, his limbs weary. He said yes, with a sign. Nana looked at him, serious, with a dull working of the head. Seated on one thigh, in the light crumpling of her lace, she held one of his bare feet between her two hands; and, mechanically, she turned it, turned it over.

-- Have you been married long? she asked.

-- Nineteen years, answered the count.

-- Ah!... And your wife, is she pleasant? Do you get on well together?

He was silent. Then, with an embarrassed air:

-- You know that I asked you never to speak of those things.

-- Why, for goodness' sake? she cried, already vexed. I shan't eat your wife, surely, for speaking of her... My dear, all women are equal...

But she stopped, for fear of saying too much. Only, she took a superior air, because she thought herself very good. This poor man, he had to be spared. Besides, a gay idea had come to her, she smiled as she examined him. She resumed:

-- I say, I haven't told you the story that Fauchery is spreading about you... There's a viper for you! I don't bear him ill will, since his article is possible; but he's a true viper all the same.

And, laughing louder, letting go of his foot, she dragged herself and came to lean her breast against the count's knees.

-- Just imagine, he swears that you still had it, when you married your wife... Eh? you still had it?... Eh? is it true?

She pressed him with her gaze, she had raised her hands to his shoulders, and shook him to wring this confession from him.

-- No doubt, he answered at last in a grave tone.

Then she fell again at his feet, in a fit of wild laughter, stammering, giving him little slaps.

-- No, it is priceless, there is only you, you are a phenomenon... But, my poor dog, you must have been such a fool! When a man doesn't know, it is always so funny! For instance, I would have liked to see you!... And did it go all right? Tell me a bit, oh! I beg you, tell.

She overwhelmed him with questions, asking everything, demanding details. And she laughed so well, with sudden bursts that made her twist, her shift slipped and hitched up, her skin gilded by the great fire, that the count, little by little, told her his wedding night. He no longer felt any uneasiness. It ended by amusing him himself, to explain, in the proper expression, "how he had lost it". He only chose the words, from a remaining shame. The young woman, launched, questioned him on the countess. She was marvellously made, but a true icicle, according to him.

-- Oh! go on, he murmured basely, you have no need to be jealous.

Nana had ceased laughing. She took her place again, her back to the fire, bringing with her two joined hands her knees under her chin. And, serious, she declared:

-- My dear, it is no good to look like a booby before one's wife, the first evening.

-- Why? asked the count, surprised.

-- Because, she answered slowly, with a doctoral air.

She lectured, she nodded her head. However, she deigned to explain herself more clearly.

-- You see, I know how it goes... Well! my little one, women do not like men to be fools. They say nothing, because of modesty, you understand... But be sure they think a good deal. And sooner or later, when one hasn't known how, they go and arrange things elsewhere... That's it, my wolf.

He seemed not to understand. Then, she made it precise. She became maternal, she gave him this lesson, as a comrade, out of goodness of heart. Since she knew he was cuckolded, this secret embarrassed her, she had a mad desire to talk of that with him.

-- My God! I speak of things that don't concern me... What I say of it, is because everyone should be happy... We are talking, aren't we? Come, you will answer quite frankly.

But she interrupted herself to change position. She was burning.

-- Eh? it is jolly warm. My back is cooked... Wait, I am going to cook my belly a bit... That's what is good for aches!

And, when she had turned, her breast to the fire, her feet folded under her thighs:

-- Come, you no longer sleep with your wife?

-- No, I swear it to you, said Muffat, fearing a scene.

-- And you believe she is a true block of wood?

He answered affirmatively, lowering his chin.

-- And is it for that you love me?... Do answer! I shan't get angry.

He repeated the same sign.

-- Very well! she concluded. I suspected as much. Ah! this poor dog!... You know my aunt Lerat? When she comes, have her tell you the story of the fruiterer who is opposite her place... Just imagine that this fruiterer... Damn it! this fire is hot. I must turn. I am going to cook my left side now.

In presenting her hip to the flame, a drollery came to her, and she mocked herself, like a good beast, happy to see herself so fat and so pink, in the reflection of the brazier.

-- Eh? I look like a goose... Oh! that's it, a goose on the spit... I turn, I turn. Truly, I am cooking in my own juice.

She was taken again by a fine laugh, when there was a noise of voices and banging doors. Muffat, astonished, questioned her with his eyes. She became serious again, with a worried air. It was surely Zoe's cat, a cursed animal that broke everything. Half past midnight. Where had she got the idea of working for the happiness of her cuckold? Now that the other was there, he had to be sent off, and quickly.

-- What were you saying? asked the count complaisantly, delighted to see her so nice.

But, in her desire to send him away, jumping to another humour, she was brutal, no longer sparing words.

-- Ah! yes, the fruiterer and his wife... Well! my dear, they have never touched each other, not that!... She was very inclined that way, you understand. He, booby, didn't know how... So that, believing her of wood, he went elsewhere, with drabs who regaled him with all sorts of horrors, while she, on her side, treated herself to some just as stiff with lads smarter than her gherkin of a husband... And it keeps on like that, for want of understanding each other. I know it well, I do!

Muffat, paling, understanding at last the allusions, wanted to silence her. But she was launched.

-- No, leave me in peace!... If you weren't louts, you would be as nice with your wives as with us; and if your wives weren't turkeys, they would give themselves to keep you, the trouble we take to have you... All that, it is manners... There, my little one, put that in your pocket.

-- Do not speak of honest women, he said harshly. You do not know them.

Thereupon, Nana rose on her knees.

-- I don't know them!... But they are not even clean, your honest women! No, they are not clean! I defy you to find one who dares show herself as I am here... Truly, you make me laugh, with your honest women! Don't push me to the limit, don't force me to tell you things that I would regret afterwards.

The count, for all answer, silently chewed an insult. In her turn, Nana turned white. She looked at him some seconds without speaking. Then, in her clear voice:

-- What would you do, if your wife deceived you?

He made a threatening gesture.

-- Well! and I, if I deceived you?

-- Oh! you, he murmured with a shrug of the shoulders.

Certainly, Nana was not wicked. Since the first words, she had resisted the desire to throw her cuckolding in his face. She would have liked to confess him on that, quietly. But, at the end, he exasperated her; it had to finish.

-- So, my little one, she resumed, I don't know what you are doing at my place... You have been boring me for two hours... Go find your wife, who is doing it with Fauchery. Yes, exactly, rue Taitbout, at the corner of the rue de Provence... I give you the address, you see.

Then, triumphant, seeing Muffat stand up with the wobbling of a stunned ox:

-- If honest women meddle and take our lovers from us!... Truly, they are fine, the honest women!

But she could not continue. With a terrible movement, he had thrown her to the ground, at full length; and, raising his heel, he wanted to crush her head to silence her. For an instant, she had a frightful fear. Blinded, like a madman, he had begun to beat the room. Then, the strangled silence that he kept, the struggle of which he was shaken, touched her to tears. She felt a mortal regret. And, curling up before the fire to cook her right side, she undertook to console him.

-- I swear to you, darling, I thought you knew. Otherwise, I would not have spoken, surely... Then, it is not true, perhaps. I affirm nothing. I was told that, the world says so; but what does that prove?... Ah! go on, you are quite wrong to worry. If I were a man, it is I who would not care for women! Women, you see, high and low, are all equal: all merrymakers and company.

She belaboured women, by self-abnegation, wanting to make the blow less cruel for him. But he did not listen to her, did not hear her. While stamping, he had put on his boots and his frock coat. For a moment still, he beat the room. Then, in a last rush, as if he finally found the door, he fled. Nana was very vexed.

-- Well! good journey! she continued aloud, though alone. He is still polite, that one, when one speaks to him!... And me who was exerting myself! I gave in first, I have made enough apologies, I think!... Besides, he was there, irritating me!

Yet she remained dissatisfied, scratching her legs with both hands. But she made up her mind.

-- Ah! damn it! It is not my fault, if he is cuckolded!

And, cooked on all sides, warm as a quail, she went to bury herself in her bed, ringing Zoe, so that she would let in the other, who was waiting in the kitchen.

Outside, Muffat walked violently. A fresh shower had just fallen. He slipped on the greasy pavement. As he looked up, with a mechanical movement, he saw rags of clouds, the colour of soot, running before the moon. At this hour, on the boulevard Haussmann, passers-by were becoming rare. He skirted the building sites of the Opera, seeking the dark, stammering disconnected words. This girl lied. She had invented that out of stupidity and cruelty. He should have crushed her head, when he held her under his heel. At the end, it was too much shame, never would he see her again, never would he touch her; or he must be very base. And he breathed strongly, with an air of deliverance. Ah! this naked monster, stupid, roasting like a goose, slavering over all that he had respected for forty years! The moon had uncovered itself, a white sheet bathed the deserted street. He grew afraid and burst into sobs, suddenly desperate, distraught, as fallen into an immense void.

-- My God! he stammered, it is finished, there is nothing left.

Along the boulevards, belated people hastened their step. He tried to calm himself. The story of this girl kept beginning again in his burning head, he would have liked to reason the facts. It was in the morning that the countess was to return from the chateau of madame de Chezelles. Nothing, in fact, would have prevented her from returning to Paris, the previous evening, and spending the night at this man's. He recalled now certain details of their stay at the Fondettes. One evening, he had surprised Sabine under the trees, so moved, that she could not answer. The man was there. Why would she not be at his place, now? As he thought of it, the story became possible. He ended by finding it natural and necessary. While he was stripping to his shirt at a harlot's, his wife was undressing in a lover's bedroom; nothing simpler nor more logical. And, reasoning thus, he strove to remain cold. It was a sensation of falling into the madness of the flesh widening, gaining and carrying away the world, around him. Hot images pursued him. Nana naked, suddenly, evoked Sabine naked. At this vision, which brought them together in a kinship of shamelessness, under a same breath of desire, he stumbled. On the roadway, a cab had nearly crushed him. Women, come out of a cafe, jostled him with laughs. Then, gained again by tears, despite his effort, not wanting to sob before people, he threw himself into a black and empty street, the rue Rossini, where, along the silent houses, he wept like a child.

-- It is finished, he said in a hollow voice. There is nothing left, there is nothing left.

He wept so violently, that he leaned against a door, his face in his wet hands. A noise of steps chased him. He felt a shame, a fear, which made him flee before the world, with the anxious walk of a night prowler. When passers-by crossed him on the pavement, he tried to take a free gait, imagining that one read his story in the swinging of his shoulders. He had followed the rue de la Grange-Bateliere to the rue du Faubourg-Montmartre. The glare of lights surprised him, he retraced his steps. For nearly an hour, he ran thus the quarter, choosing the darkest holes. He had no doubt a goal where his feet went of themselves, patiently, by a path ceaselessly complicated with detours. At last, at the bend of a street, he raised his eyes. He had arrived. It was the corner of the rue Taitbout and the rue de Provence. He had taken an hour to come there, in the painful rumbling of his brain, when in five minutes he could have gone there. One morning, last month, he remembered having gone up to Fauchery's to thank him for a chronicle on a ball at the Tuileries, where the journalist had named him. The apartment was on the entresol, small square windows, half hidden behind the colossal sign of a shop. Toward the left, the last window was cut by a band of vivid clarity, a ray of lamp that passed between the half-open curtains. And he remained with his eyes fixed on this luminous slit, absorbed, waiting for something.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”