Part 23

Muffat was alone, in the silence of that corner of the house. As he passed before the artists' foyer, he had caught sight, through the open doors, of the dilapidation of the vast room, ashamed of its stains and wear in broad daylight. But what surprised him, coming out of the darkness and tumult of the stage, was the white clarity, the profound calm of that stairwell, which he had seen one evening filled with gas smoke and echoing with the gallop of women loosed across the floors. One felt the deserted dressing rooms, the empty corridors, not a soul, not a sound; while, through the square windows level with the steps, the pale November sun entered, casting yellow pools where dust danced, in the dead peace falling from above. He was glad of this calm and this silence; he slowly climbed, trying to catch his breath; his heart beat in great throbs, a fear came over him of behaving like a child, with sighs and tears.

Then, on the landing of the first floor, he leaned against the wall, certain of not being seen; and, his handkerchief to his lips, he looked at the warped steps, the iron rail polished by the friction of hands, the scraped whitewash, all that misery of a brothel, crudely displayed at that wan hour of the afternoon when the girls sleep. Yet, as he reached the second floor, he had to step over a big red cat, curled up on a step. Its eyes half closed, the cat alone kept the house, overcome with drowsiness amid the enclosed and cooled odors that the women left there every evening.

In the right-hand corridor, indeed, the door of the dressing room was simply ajar. Nana was waiting. This little Mathilde, a slatternly ingénue, kept her room very dirty, with a disorder of chipped pots, a greasy toilet set, a chair stained red, as if someone had bled on the straw. The paper, glued to the walls and ceiling, was splashed to the top with drops of soapy water. It smelled so bad, a lavender perfume turned sour, that Nana opened the window. And she remained leaning for a minute, breathing, bending to see, below, Madame Bron, whose broom she heard savaging the greened flagstones of the narrow courtyard, sunk in shadow. A canary, hung against a shutter, threw out piercing trills. One heard neither the carriages of the boulevard nor of the neighboring streets; there was a provincial peace, a broad space where the sun slept. Raising her eyes, she caught sight of the small buildings and the shining panes of the passage galleries, then beyond, facing her, the tall houses of the Rue Vivienne, whose rear façades rose, mute and as if empty. Terraces stepped up; a photographer had perched on a roof a great cage of blue glass. It was very gay. Nana was forgetting herself, when it seemed to her that someone had knocked. She turned, she cried:

“Come in!”

Seeing the count, she closed the window again. It was not warm, and that curious Madame Bron had no need to hear. They looked at each other, seriously. Then, as he remained very stiff, with a strangled air, she began to laugh, she said:

“Well! so here you are, you big beast!”

His emotion was so strong, that he seemed frozen. He called her madame; he counted himself happy to see her again. Then, to rush things, she showed herself still more familiar.

“Don't put on the dignity. Since you wanted to see me, huh? it's not to look at each other like two china dogs... We were both in the wrong. Oh! as for me, I forgive you!”

And it was agreed that they would speak of it no more. He, nodded approval. He was calming down, still finding nothing to say, in the tumultuous flood rising to his lips. Surprised at this coldness, she played the grand game.

“Come, you are reasonable,” she resumed with a thin smile. “Now that we have made peace, let us shake hands, and remain good friends.”

“How, good friends?” he murmured, suddenly uneasy.

“Yes, it's perhaps idiotic, but I cared about your esteem... At this hour, we have explained ourselves, and at least, if we meet, we won't look like a couple of boobies...”

He made a gesture to interrupt her.

“Let me finish... Not a man, do you hear, has a dirty thing to reproach me with. Well! it annoyed me to begin with you... Everyone their honor, my dear.”

“But that's not it!” he cried violently. “Sit down, listen to me.”

And, as if he had feared to see her leave, he pushed her onto the only chair. He, walked, in growing agitation. The little room, closed and full of sunlight, had a tepid softness, a moist peace, troubled by no outside noise. In the moments of silence, one heard only the shrill trills of the canary, like the warbles of a distant flute.

“Listen,” he said, planting himself before her, “I came to take you back... Yes, I want to begin again. You know it well, why do you talk to me as you do?... Answer. Do you consent?”

She had lowered her head, she scratched with her nail the red straw, which bled beneath her. And, seeing him anxious, she did not hurry. At last, she lifted her face, grown grave, her beautiful eyes where she had managed to put some sadness.

“Oh! impossible, my little one. Never will I stick myself back with you.”

“Why?” he stammered, while a contraction of unspeakable suffering passed over his face.

“Why?... well! because... It's impossible, that's all. I don't want to.”

He looked at her a few seconds more, ardently. Then, his legs cut from under him, he fell onto the tiles. She, with an air of boredom, merely added:

“Ah! don't be a child!”

But he was already doing it. Fallen at her feet, he had taken her by the waist, he held her tightly, his face between her knees, which he dug into the flesh. When he felt her thus, when he found her again with the velvet of her limbs, under the thin stuff of her dress, a convulsion shook him; and he shivered with fever, distraught, bruising himself further against her legs, as if he had wanted to enter into her. The old chair creaked. Sobbings of desire stifled beneath the low ceiling, in the air made sour by former perfumes.

“Well! after that?” said Nana, letting him do it. “All that gets you nowhere. Since it's not possible... My God! how young you are!”

He grew quiet. But he stayed on the floor, he did not let her go, saying in a broken voice:

“At least listen to what I came to offer you... Already, I have seen a hotel, near the Parc Monceau. I would realize all your desires. To have you without sharing, I would give my fortune... Yes! that would be the single condition: without sharing, do you hear! And if you consented to be only mine, oh! I would want you the most beautiful, the richest, carriages, diamonds, dresses...”

Nana, at each offer, shook her head no, superbly. Then, as he continued, as he spoke of settling money on her, no longer knowing what to lay at her feet, she seemed to lose patience.

“Come, have you finished pawing me?... I'm a good girl, I don't mind a moment, since it makes you so ill; but that's enough, isn't it?... Let me get up. You're tiring me.”

She freed herself. When she was standing:

“No, no, no... I don't want to.”

Then, he gathered himself up, painfully; and, without strength, he fell onto the chair, elbows on the back, face in his hands. Nana walked in her turn. For a moment, she looked at the stained paper, the greasy toilet set, that dirty hole bathing in a pale sun. Then, stopping before the count, she spoke with a tranquil assurance.

“It's funny, rich men imagine they can have everything for their money... Well! and if I don't want to?... I don't care a fig for your gifts. You could give me Paris, it would be no, always no... You see, it's hardly clean, here. Well! I would find that very nice, if it pleased me to live here with you; while one dies in your palaces, if the heart isn't in it... Ah! money! my poor dog, I have some of it somewhere! You see, I dance on money, I spit on it!”

And she put on a disgusted look. Then, she turned sentimental, she added in a melancholy tone:

“I know something that's worth more than money... Ah! if someone would give me what I desire...”

He slowly raised his head, his eyes had a gleam of hope.

“Oh! you can't give it to me,” she resumed; “it doesn't depend on you, and that's why I speak to you of it... Anyway, we're talking... I would like to have the part of the honest woman, in their machine.”

“What honest woman?” he murmured, astonished.

“Their Duchess Hélène, of course!... If they think I'm going to play Géraldine again, not likely! A nothing part, one scene, and barely that!... Besides, that's not it. I've had enough of the cocottes. Always cocottes, one would really think I only have cocottes in my belly. In the end, it's annoying, for I see clearly, they seem to think me badly brought up... Ah well! my little one, there are some who've got their finger in their eye! When I want to be distinguished, I'm a perfect chic!... Look! just look at this.”

And she stepped back to the window, then came forward again, tossing her head, measuring her strides, with the circumspect airs of a fat hen hesitating to dirty her feet. He, followed her, eyes still full of tears, stunned by this sudden comedy scene crossing his grief. She walked a moment, to show herself well in all her play, with fine smiles, flutterings of eyelid, swayings of skirt; and, planted again before him:

“Eh? that's it, I think!”

“Oh! quite,” he stammered, still strangled, his gaze troubled.

“When I tell you I've got the honest woman! I tried at home, not one of them has my little air of a duchess who doesn't give a damn for men; did you notice, when I passed before you, giving you the eye? One has that air in the veins... And then, I want to play an honest woman; I dream of it, I'm unhappy about it, I must have the part, do you hear!”

She had become serious, her voice hard, very moved, really suffering from her stupid desire. Muffat, still under the blow of her refusals, waited, without understanding. There was a silence. Not a fly's wing troubled the peace of the empty house.

“You don't know,” she went on bluntly, “you are going to get me the part.”

He remained stupefied. Then, with a despairing gesture:

“But it's impossible! You said yourself it didn't depend on me.”

She cut him off with a shrug.

“You are going to go down and you'll tell Bordenave that you want the part... Don't be so naive! Bordenave needs money. Well! you'll lend him some, since you have it to throw out the windows.”

And, as he still struggled, she grew angry.

“Very well, I understand: you're afraid of angering Rose... I didn't speak to you of that one, when you were crying on the floor; I'd have too much to say... Yes, when one has sworn to a woman to love her always, one doesn't take up with the first comer the next day. Oh! the wound is there, I remember!... Besides, my dear, the rest of the Mignons isn't appetizing! Didn't you, before making a fool of yourself on my knees, ought to have broken with that dirty crowd!”

He protested, he ended by being able to slip in a phrase.

“Eh! I don't care a fig for Rose, I'm going to drop her right away.”

Nana seemed satisfied on this point. She resumed:

“Then, what's bothering you? Bordenave is the master... You'll tell me there's Fauchery, after Bordenave...”

She had slowed her voice, she was coming to the delicate point of the affair. Muffat, eyes lowered, was silent. He had remained in a voluntary ignorance about Fauchery's attentions to the countess, reassuring himself in the long run, hoping he had been mistaken, during that awful night passed under a door in the Rue Taitbout. But he kept against the man a repulsion, a sullen anger.

“Well! what, Fauchery, he's not the devil!” repeated Nana, feeling the ground, wanting to know where things stood between the husband and the lover. “We'll get the better of Fauchery. At bottom, I assure you, he's a good fellow... Eh? it's understood, you'll tell him it's for me.”

The idea of such a step revolted the count.

“No, no, never!” he cried.

She waited. This phrase rose to her lips: “Fauchery has nothing to refuse you”; but she felt that would be a bit stiff as an argument. Only, she had a smile, and that smile, which was funny, said the phrase. Muffat, having raised his eyes to her, lowered them again, embarrassed and pale.

“Ah! you're not accommodating,” she murmured at last.

“I can't!” he said, full of anguish. “Anything you want, but not that, my love, oh! I beg you!”

Then, she did not linger to discuss. With her little hands, she tipped his head back, then, bending, pressed her mouth to his mouth, in a long kiss. A shudder shook him, he quivered beneath her, distraught, eyes closed. And she set him on his feet.

“Go,” she said, simply.

He walked, he headed toward the door. But, as he went out, she took him again in her arms, making herself humble and coaxing, face lifted, rubbing her cat's chin on his waistcoat.

“Where's the hotel?” she asked very low, with the confused and laughing air of a child returning to good things she had not wanted.

“Avenue de Villiers.”

“And there are carriages?”

“Yes.”

“Lace? diamonds?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! how good you are, my cat! You know, just now, it was out of jealousy... And this time, I swear to you, it won't be like the first, since now you understand what a woman needs. You give everything, don't you? so I need no one... See! it's only for you now! This, and this, and this again!”

When she had pushed him outside, after heating him with a rain of kisses on his hands and face, she breathed a moment. My God! how bad it smelled, in the dressing room of that careless Mathilde! It was pleasant there, one of those tranquil heats of Provençal rooms, in the winter sun; but, really, it smelled too much of spoiled lavender water, with other unclean things. She opened the window, she leaned on it again, examining the panes of the passage to deceive her waiting.

On the stairs, Muffat was descending, staggering, his head buzzing. What was he going to say? in what way would he broach this affair that did not concern him? He arrived on the stage, when he heard a quarrel. They were finishing the second act, Prullière was flying into a rage, Fauchery having wanted to cut one of his lines.

“Cut everything then,” he cried, “I'd rather that!... What! I haven't two hundred lines, and they cut more off me!... No, I've had enough, I give up the part.”

He took from his pocket a crumpled little book, turned it in his feverish hands, making as if to throw it on Cossard's knees. His suffering vanity convulsed his pale face, lips thinned, eyes inflamed, without his being able to hide this inward revolution. He, Prullière, the idol of the public, play a part of two hundred lines!

“Why not have letters brought to me on a tray?” he resumed with bitterness.

“Come, Prullière, be nice,” said Bordenave, who humored him, because of his pull on the boxes. “Don't start your scenes... We'll find you effects. Isn't that so? Fauchery, you'll add effects... In the third act, we could even lengthen a scene.”

“Then,” declared the actor, “I want the curtain-line... I'm owed that much, at least.”

Fauchery seemed to consent by his silence, and Prullière put the part back in his pocket, still shaken, dissatisfied all the same. Bosc and Fontan, during the explanation, had put on an air of deep indifference: every man for himself, it didn't concern them, they washed their hands of it. And all the actors surrounded Fauchery, questioning him, fishing for praise, while Mignon listened to Prullière's last complaints, without losing sight of Count Muffat, whose return he had watched for.

The count, in this darkness he was re-entering, had stopped at the back of the stage, hesitating to fall into the quarrel. But Bordenave caught sight of him and rushed over.

“Eh? what a crew!” he murmured. “You can't imagine, Monsieur le Comte, the trouble I have with that crew. All more vain than the others; and cheats with it, nasty as the itch, always in dirty stories, delighted if I broke my back... Pardon, I'm getting worked up.”

He fell silent, a silence reigned. Muffat sought a transition. But he found nothing, he ended by saying bluntly, to get it over quicker:

“Nana wants the part of the duchess.”

Bordenave gave a start, crying:

“Come now! it's mad!”

Then, as he looked at the count, he found him so pale, so upset, that he calmed down at once.

“The devil!” he simply said.

And the silence began again. At bottom, he didn't care. It might even be funny, that fat Nana in the duchess's part. Besides, with this business, he held Muffat solidly. Also his decision was soon taken. He turned and called:

“Fauchery!”

The count had made a gesture to stop him. Fauchery did not hear. Pushed against the harlequin mantel by Fontan, he had to undergo explanations on the way the actor understood Tardiveau. Fontan saw Tardiveau as a Marseillais, with an accent; and he imitated the accent. Whole replies went by; was it like that? He seemed only to submit ideas, of which he himself doubted. But Fauchery showing cold and making objections, he took offense at once. Very well! From the moment the spirit of the part escaped him, it would be better for everyone that he not play it.

“Fauchery!” cried Bordenave again.

Then, the young man escaped, happy to get away from the actor, who remained wounded by so prompt a retreat.

“Let's not stay here,” resumed Bordenave. “Come, gentlemen.”

To shield himself from curious ears, he led them into the property storeroom, behind the stage. Mignon, surprised, watched them disappear. One went down a few steps. It was a square room, whose two windows gave onto the courtyard. A cellar light entered through the dirty panes, wan under the low ceiling. There, in shelves that encumbered the room, trailed a hodgepodge of objects of all sorts, the unpacking of a Rue de Lappe dealer who was liquidating, a nameless jumble of plates, of cups in gilded cardboard, of old red umbrellas, of Italian jugs, of clocks of every style, of trays and inkstands, of firearms and syringes; all under a layer of dust an inch thick, unrecognizable, chipped, broken, piled up. And an unbearable smell of ironware, of rags, of damp cardboard, rose from these heaps, where the debris of played pieces had accumulated for fifty years.

“Come in,” repeated Bordenave. “We'll be alone at least.”

The count, very embarrassed, took a few steps to let the director risk the proposal alone. Fauchery was astonished.

“What then?” he asked.

“Here it is,” said Bordenave at last. “An idea has come to us... Above all, don't jump. It's very serious... What do you think of Nana in the duchess's part?”

The author remained dumbfounded. Then he burst out.

“Ah! no, isn't it? it's a joke... One would laugh too much.”

“Well! it's already not so bad, when one laughs!... Think it over, my dear... The idea pleases Monsieur le Comte greatly.”

Muffat, for something to do, had just taken from a board, in the dust, an object he did not seem to recognize. It was an eggcup whose foot had been remade in plaster. He kept it, without being aware of it, and advanced to murmur:

“Yes, yes, it would be very good.”

Fauchery turned toward him, with a gesture of sudden impatience. The count had nothing to do in his play. And he said plainly:

“Never!... Nana as a cocotte, as much as you like, but as a society woman, no, really!”

“You are mistaken, I assure you,” resumed Muffat, gaining boldness. “Just so, she was just making the honest woman...”

“Where?” asked Fauchery, whose surprise increased.

“Up there, in a dressing room... Well! it was that. Oh! a distinction! She has above all a certain look... You know, in passing, in that style...”

And, his eggcup in hand, he wanted to imitate Nana, forgetting himself in a passionate need to convince these gentlemen. Fauchery looked at him, stupefied. He had understood, he was no longer angry. The count, who felt his gaze, where there was mockery and pity, stopped, seized with a faint redness.

“My God! it's possible,” murmured the author out of complaisance. “She might be very good... Only, the part is given. We cannot take it back from Rose.”

“Oh! if that's all,” said Bordenave, “I'll undertake to arrange the affair.”

But then, seeing them both against him, understanding that Bordenave had a hidden interest, the young man, so as not to weaken, rebelled with a redoubled violence, so as to break off the interview.

“Eh! no, eh! no! Even if the part were free, never would I give it to her... There, is that clear? Leave me alone... I've no wish to kill my play.”

An embarrassed silence fell. Bordenave, judging he was superfluous, drew away. The count kept his head low. He raised it with effort, he said in a voice that altered:

“My dear, if I asked you that as a favor?”

“I cannot, I cannot,” repeated Fauchery, struggling.

Muffat's voice grew harder.

“I beg you... I want it!”

And he looked at him fixedly. Before that black gaze, where he read a threat, the young man gave in all at once, stammering confused words:

“Do it, after all, I don't care... Ah! you abuse it. You'll see, you'll see...”

The embarrassment was then greater. Fauchery had leaned against a shelf, tapping his foot nervously. Muffat seemed to examine attentively the eggcup, which he still turned.

“It's an eggcup,” came to say Bordenave obligingly.

“Why! yes, it's an eggcup,” repeated the count.

“Excuse me, you've got yourself full of dust,” the director continued, replacing the object on a board. “You understand, if one had to dust every day, it would never end... So it's hardly clean. Eh? what a mess!... Well! believe me if you will, there's still money's worth in it. Look, look at all that.”

He paraded Muffat before the shelves, in the greenish light coming from the courtyard, naming him utensils, wanting to interest him in his ragpicker's inventory, as he said laughing. Then, in a light tone, when they were back near Fauchery:

“Listen, since we are all agreed, we are going to finish this affair... Just so, there's Mignon.”

“Stories of the world, in your language.”