Part 22

But Madame Lerat insisted that Nana should at once kiss Louiset, because, she said, the child's happiness lay in his mother's goodness. Louiset was still asleep, sickly, with poor blood. And when Nana bent over his white, scrofulous face, all her worries of the past few months seized her by the throat again and strangled her.

-- Oh! my poor little one, my poor little one! she stammered in a last fit of sobs.

IX

They were rehearsing The Little Duchess at the Variétés. The first act had just been untangled, and they were about to begin the second. At the front of the stage, in old armchairs, Fauchery and Bordenave were arguing, while the prompter, old Cossard, a little hunchback, seated on a straw chair, was leafing through the manuscript, a pencil at his lips.

-- Well! what are we waiting for? suddenly shouted Bordenave, furiously tapping the boards with the tip of his thick cane. Barillot, why don't we begin?

-- It's Monsieur Bosc, he's disappeared, replied Barillot, who was acting as second stage manager.

Then there was a storm. Everyone called for Bosc. Bordenave swore.

-- Goddamn! it's always the same thing. No matter how much we ring, they're always where they shouldn't be... And then they grumble when we keep them past four o'clock.

But Bosc arrived with fine tranquility.

-- Huh? what? what do you want? Ah! it's me! You should have said so... Good! Simonne gives the cue: "Here come the guests," and I enter... Which way should I enter?

-- Through the door, of course, declared Fauchery, annoyed.

-- Yes, but where is the door?

This time Bordenave fell upon Barillot, began swearing again and driving the boards with blows of his cane.

-- Goddamn! I said to put a chair there to stand for the door. Every day we have to redo the set... Barillot? where's Barillot? Another one! they all slip away!

Yet Barillot himself came to place the chair, silent, his back rounded under the storm. And the rehearsal began. Simonne, hatted, covered in her fur, put on the airs of a servant tidying furniture. She broke off to say:

-- You know, I'm not warm, I'm keeping my hands in my muff.

Then, her voice changed, she greeted Bosc with a slight cry:

-- "Well! it's the count. You're the first, Monsieur le Comte, and madame will be very pleased."

Bosc had muddy trousers, a large yellow overcoat, with an immense muffler rolled around the collar. Hands in pockets, an old hat on his head, he said in a muffled voice, not acting, dragging himself:

-- "Don't disturb your mistress, Isabelle; I want to surprise her." The rehearsal continued. Bordenave, scowling, slipped to the back of his armchair, listened with an air of weariness. Fauchery, nervous, shifted position, had every minute an itch to interrupt, which he repressed. But, behind him, in the dark and empty house, he heard a whisper.

-- Is she there? he asked, leaning toward Bordenave.

The latter answered affirmatively, with a nod. Before accepting the role of Géraldine which he offered her, Nana had wanted to see the play, for she hesitated to play yet another tart's role. It was the role of an honest woman that she dreamed of. She was hiding in the shadow of a box with Labordette, who was working for her with Bordenave. Fauchery sought her with a glance, and went back to following the rehearsal.

Only the front of the stage was lit. A stage lamp, a gas flame taken from the junction of the footlights, and whose reflector threw all its light on the front of the stage, seemed a great yellow eye opened in the half-darkness, where it flamed with a sordid sadness. Against the thin stem of the lamp, Cossard raised the manuscript, to see clearly, full in the beam which accentuated the relief of his hump. Then, Bordenave and Fauchery were already drowning in shadow. It was, amid the enormous hull, and over only a few meters, a glimmer of a dark lantern, nailed to the post of a station, in which the actors took on the airs of baroque visions, with their shadows dancing behind them. The rest of the stage filled with a haze, like a demolition yard, like a gutted nave, cluttered with ladders, frames, sets, whose faded paintings made heaps of rubble; and, in the air, the backdrops that hung had the appearance of rags hung from the beams of some vast rag shop. At the very top, a ray of clear sunlight, fallen from a window, cut the night of the flies with a bar of gold.

Meanwhile, at the back of the stage, actors chatted while waiting for their cues. Little by little, they had raised their voices.

-- Ah, will you be quiet! roared Bordenave, who leapt angrily in his armchair. I can't hear a word... Go outside if you have to talk; we others, we're working... Barillot, if anyone speaks again, I'll fine the whole lot of them!

They were silent for a moment. They formed a small group, seated on a bench and rustic chairs, in a garden corner, the first evening set which was there, ready to be put up. Fontan and Prullière listened to Rose Mignon, to whom the director of the Folies-Dramatiques had just made splendid offers. But a voice cried:

-- The duchess!... Saint-Firmin!... Come on, the duchess and Saint-Firmin!

Only at the second call did Prullière remember that he was Saint-Firmin. Rose, who played Duchess Hélène, was already waiting for him for their entrance. Slowly, dragging his feet on the empty and resonant boards, old Bosc went back to sit down. Then Clarisse offered him half the bench.

-- What's he got to bellow about like that? she said, speaking of Bordenave. It's going to be nice in a minute... You can't put on a play now without him having his nerves.

Bosc shrugged his shoulders. He was above all storms. Fontan murmured:

-- He smells a flop. This play seems idiotic to me.

Then, addressing Clarisse, returning to Rose's story:

-- Huh? do you believe the Folies' offers, you?... Three hundred francs a night, and for a hundred performances. Why not a country house with it!... If anyone gave three hundred francs to his wife, Mignon would drop my Bordenave, and stiff!

Clarisse believed in the three hundred francs. This Fontan was always breaking sugar on his comrades' heads! But Simonne interrupted them. She was shivering. All, buttoned up and scarves at their necks, looked up at the ray of sunlight that shone, without descending into the dreary cold of the stage. Outside, it was freezing, under a clear November sky.

-- And there's no fire in the stove! said Simonne. It's disgusting, he's becoming a stingy rat!... Me, I feel like leaving, I don't want to catch something.

-- Silence then! cried Bordenave again in a thunderous voice.

Then, for some minutes, only the confused recitation of the actors was heard. They barely indicated the gestures. They kept a blank voice so as not to tire themselves. However, when they marked an intention, they threw glances at the house. Before them was a gaping hole where a vague shadow floated, like a fine dust enclosed in a high windowless attic. The extinguished house, lit only by the half-light of the stage, had a sleep, a melancholy and troubling effacement. On the ceiling, an opaque night drowned the paintings. From top to bottom of the boxes, right and left, fell immense strips of gray cloth, to protect the hangings; and the covers continued, bands of canvas thrown over the velvet of the rails, girding the galleries with a double shroud, soiling the shadows with their pallid tone. One distinguished, in the general discoloration, only the darker recesses of the boxes, which drew the carcass of the tiers, with the stains of the armchairs, whose red velvet turned black. The chandelier, completely lowered, filled the orchestra with its pendants, made one think of a moving-out, of a departure of the public for a voyage from which it would not return.

And just then Rose, in her role of little duchess lost at a girl's, advanced toward the footlights. She raised her hands, made an adorable pout at that empty and dark house, of a sadness of a house in mourning.

-- "Good Lord! what a funny world!" she said, underscoring the phrase, certain of an effect.

At the back of the box where she hid, Nana, wrapped in a large shawl, listened to the play, eating Rose with her eyes. She turned to Labordette and asked him in a low voice:

-- You're sure he'll come?

-- Quite sure. No doubt he'll arrive with Mignon, to have a pretext... As soon as he appears, you'll go up to Mathilde's box, where I'll take you to him.

They were speaking of Count Muffat. It was a meeting arranged by Labordette on neutral ground. He had had a serious conversation with Bordenave, whom two successive failures had just put in very bad straits. So Bordenave had hastened to lend his theater and offer a role to Nana, wishing to make the count favorable, dreaming of a loan.

-- And this role of Géraldine, what do you say to it? resumed Labordette.

But Nana, motionless, did not answer. After a first act, where the author established that the Duke of Beaurivage cheated on his wife with the blonde Géraldine, an operetta star, one saw, in the second act, Duchess Hélène come to the actress's, on a masked-ball night, to learn by what magical power those ladies conquered and kept their husbands. It was a cousin, the handsome Oscar de Saint-Firmin, who introduced her, hoping to debauch her. And, as a first lesson, to her great surprise, she heard Géraldine make a carter's quarrel with the duke, very supple, enchanted air; which wrung from her this cry: "Ah well! if that's how one must speak to men!" Géraldine had scarcely that scene in the act. As for the duchess, she was soon punished for her curiosity: an old beau, Baron de Tardiveau, took her for a tart and showed himself very lively; while, on the other side, on a chaise longue, Beaurivage made peace with Géraldine by kissing her. As the latter's role was not cast, old Cossard had stood up to read it, and he put intentions into it in spite of himself, he figured, in Bosc's arms. They were at this scene, the rehearsal dragged in a sulky tone, when Fauchery suddenly jumped from his armchair. He had contained himself until then, but his nerves got the better of him.

-- That's not it! he cried.

The actors stopped, hands dangling. Fontan asked, nose pinched, with his air of not giving a damn:

-- What? what isn't it?

-- Nobody's got it! not at all, not at all! resumed Fauchery, who, himself, gesticulating, striding the boards, began to mime the scene. See here, you, Fontan, understand well Tardiveau's infatuation; you must lean, with this gesture, to seize the duchess... And you, Rose, that's when you do your bit, quickly, like that; but not too soon, only when you hear the kiss...

He broke off, he cried to Cossard, in the heat of his explanations:

-- Géraldine, give the kiss... Loud! so it's well heard! Old Cossard, turning toward Bosc, smacked his lips vigorously.

-- Good! there's the kiss, said Fauchery triumphant. Once more, the kiss... You see, Rose, I've had time to pass, and I throw a slight cry: "Ah! she's kissed him." But for that, Tardiveau must go back up... Do you hear, Fontan, you go back up... Come on, try that, and together.

The actors took up the scene again; but Fontan put such ill will into it, that it didn't work at all. Twice, Fauchery had to go back over his directions, miming each time with more warmth. All listened to him with a morose air, looked at one another a moment as if he had asked them to walk on their heads, then awkwardly tried, to stop at once, with the rigidities of puppets whose strings have just been broken.

-- No, it's too much for me, I don't understand, Fontan finally said, in his insolent voice.

Bordenave had not unclenched his lips. Slipped completely to the back of his armchair, he showed no more, in the sordid gleam of the lamp, than the top of his hat, pulled down over his eyes, while his cane, abandoned, barred his belly; and one might have thought he was sleeping. Suddenly he straightened up.

-- My little friend, it's idiotic, he declared to Fauchery, with a calm air.

-- What! idiotic! cried the author, very pale. Idiotic yourself, my dear!

Thereupon Bordenave began to get angry. He repeated the word idiotic, sought something stronger, found imbecile and cretin. They would whistle, the act wouldn't finish. And as Fauchery, exasperated, without otherwise taking offense at these coarse words which came between them at each new play, flatly called him a brute, Bordenave lost all measure. He windmilled with his cane, puffed like an ox, crying:

-- Goddamn! leave me the hell alone... There's a quarter hour lost on stupidities... Yes, stupidities... It hasn't got common sense... And yet it's so simple! You, Fontan, you don't move. You, Rose, you have that little movement, see, no more, and you go down... Come on, move, this time. Give the kiss, Cossard.

Then there was confusion. The scene went no better. In his turn Bordenave mimed, with the graces of an elephant; while Fauchery sneered, shrugging his shoulders in pity. Then Fontan wanted to meddle, Bosc himself ventured advice. Worn out, Rose had ended by sitting on the chair that marked the door. They no longer knew where they were. To crown it, Simonne, having thought she heard her cue, made her entrance too soon, in the midst of the disorder; which enraged Bordenave to such a point, that, his cane launched in a terrible windmill, he gave her a great blow on the behind. Often, he beat the women at rehearsals, when he had slept with them. She fled, pursued by this furious cry:

-- Put that in your pocket, and, goddamn! I'll close the shop if I'm bothered again!

Fauchery had just jammed his hat on his head, making as if to leave the theater; but he stayed at the back of the stage, and came down again, when he saw Bordenave sit back down, in a sweat. He himself took his place in the other armchair. They remained a moment side by side, without moving, while a heavy silence fell in the shadow of the house. The actors waited nearly two minutes. All had a dejection, as if they came out of crushing work.

-- Well! let's continue, said Bordenave at last in his ordinary voice, perfectly calm.

-- Yes, let's continue, repeated Fauchery, we'll settle the scene tomorrow.

And they stretched out, the rehearsal resumed its course of boredom and fine indifference. During the squabble between the director and the author, Fontan and the others had made merry, at the back, on the bench and rustic chairs. They had little laughs, grumblings, fierce words. But, when Simonne returned, with her cane blow on the behind, her voice broken with tears, they turned to drama, they said that in her place they would have strangled that pig. She wiped her eyes, nodding; it was over, she was dropping him, all the more since Steiner, the night before, had offered to launch her. Clarisse remained surprised, the banker hadn't a sou left; but Prullière laughed and recalled the trick of that damned Jew, when he had shown himself with Rose, to float his Landes Saltworks affair on the Bourse. Just then he was peddling a new project, a tunnel under the Bosphorus. Simonne listened, very interested. As for Clarisse, she hadn't been rid of him for a week. Wasn't that animal of a La Faloise, whom she had tossed by sticking him in the venerable arms of Gaga, about to inherit from a very rich uncle! It was made for her, always she had broken the plaster. Then, that shit Bordenave was giving her another snub, a fifty-line role, as if she couldn't have played Géraldine! She dreamed of that role, she hoped Nana would refuse.

-- Well! and me? said Prullière, very pinched, I haven't two hundred lines. I wanted to give back the role... It's unworthy to make me play this Saint-Firmin, a real washout. And what style, children! You know it's going to fall flat.

But Simonne, who was chatting with old Barillot, came back to say, out of breath:

-- By the way, about Nana, she's in the house.

-- Where? asked Clarisse quickly, standing to see. The rumor ran at once. Each leaned forward. The rehearsal was for a moment as if interrupted. But Bordenave came out of his immobility, crying:

-- What? what's happening? Finish the act... And silence over there, it's unbearable!

In the box, Nana still followed the play. Twice, Labordette had wanted to talk; but she had grown impatient, pushing him with her elbow to silence him. They were finishing the second act, when two shadows appeared, at the back of the theater. As they came down on tiptoe, avoiding noise, Nana recognized Mignon and Count Muffat, who came to silently greet Bordenave.

-- Ah! there they are, she murmured, with a sigh of relief.

Rose Mignon gave the last line. Then Bordenave said they must redo this second act, before passing to the third; and, letting go the rehearsal, he welcomed the count with an air of exaggerated politeness, while Fauchery affected to be all with his actors, grouped around him. Mignon whistled, hands behind his back, covering his wife with his eyes, who seemed nervous.

-- Well! shall we go up? asked Labordette of Nana. I'll install you in the box, and I'll come down for him.

Nana left the box at once. She had to feel her way along the corridor of the orchestra seats. But Bordenave guessed her, as she slipped in the shadow, and caught her at the end of the corridor that passed behind the stage, a narrow passage where the gas burned night and day. There, to rush the matter, he got worked up about the tart's role.

-- Huh? what a role! what a dog! It's made for you... Come rehearse tomorrow.

Nana stayed cold. She wanted to know the third act.

-- Oh! superb, the third!... The duchess plays the tart at home, which disgusts Beaurivage and reforms him. With that, a very funny misunderstanding, Tardiveau arriving and thinking he's at a dancer's...

-- And Géraldine in that? interrupted Nana.

-- Géraldine? repeated Bordenave, a bit embarrassed. She has a scene, not long, but very successful... It's made for you, I tell you! Will you sign?

She looked at him fixedly. At last, she answered:

-- Later, we'll see about that.

And she rejoined Labordette who waited for her on the stairs. The whole theater had recognized her. They whispered, Prullière scandalized at this return, Clarisse very worried for the role. As for Fontan, he played indifference, cold air, for it wasn't for him to knock a woman he had loved; at bottom, in his old infatuation turned to hatred, he kept a fierce grudge against her for his devotions, her beauty, that life as a pair of which he no longer wanted, by a perversion of his monster's tastes.

Meanwhile, when Labordette reappeared and approached the count, Rose Mignon, put on alert by Nana's presence, understood all at once. Muffat was crushing her, but the thought of being dropped thus threw her out of herself. She came out of the silence she usually kept on these matters with her husband, she said to him crudely:

-- You see what's happening?... Upon my word, if she starts the Steiner trick again, I'll scratch her eyes out!

Mignon, tranquil and superb, shrugged his shoulders like a man who sees all.

-- Be quiet! he murmured. Huh? do me the pleasure of keeping quiet!

He knew where he stood. He had drained his Muffat, he felt it, at a sign from Nana, ready to stretch out to serve as her rug. One doesn't fight such passions. Also, knowing men, he no longer thought but to draw the best possible profit from the situation. He had to see. And he waited.

-- Rose, on stage! cried Bordenave, we're redoing the second.

-- Go on, said Mignon. Leave it to me.

Then, still a teaser, he found it funny to compliment Fauchery on his play. Very strong, that play; only, why was his great lady so honest? It wasn't natural. And he snickered, asking who had posed for the Duke of Beaurivage, Géraldine's softie. Fauchery, far from getting angry, smiled. But Bordenave, throwing a glance toward Muffat, seemed put out, which struck Mignon, become grave again.

-- Are we beginning, goddamn! bellowed the director. Come on, Barillot!... Huh? Bosc isn't there? Is he making fun of me, finally!

Yet Bosc arrived peaceably. The rehearsal began again, at the moment when Labordette led the count away. The latter was trembling, at the idea of seeing Nana again. After their break, he had felt a great emptiness, he had let himself be taken to Rose's, at a loose end, believing he suffered from the disturbance of his habits. Besides, in the daze he lived in, he wanted to ignore all, defending himself from seeking Nana, fleeing an explanation with the countess. He seemed to owe this forgetting to his dignity. But a dull work was operating, and Nana was reconquering him slowly, by memories, by the cowardices of his flesh, by new sentiments, exclusive, softened, almost paternal. The abominable scene faded; he no longer saw Fontan, he no longer heard Nana throw him out, slapping him with his wife's adultery. All that, were words that flew away; while there remained in his heart a poignant grip, whose sweetness tightened him ever more, to the point of suffocation. Naiveties came to him, he accused himself, imagining she would not have betrayed him, had he really loved her. His anguish became intolerable, he was very unhappy. It was like the smarting of an old wound, no longer that blind and immediate desire, accommodating itself to all, but a jealous passion for that woman, a need of her alone, of her hair, of her mouth, of her body that haunted him. When he recalled the sound of her voice, a shiver ran through his limbs. He desired her with the exigencies of a miser and infinite delicacies. And this love had invaded him so painfully, that, from the first words of Labordette brokering a meeting, he had thrown himself into his arms, with an irresistible movement, ashamed afterward of such ridiculous abandon in a man of his rank. But Labordette knew how to see all. He gave yet a proof of his tact, in leaving the count before the stairs, with these simple words, lightly slipped:

-- On the second floor, the corridor to the right, the door is only ajar.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”