Part 28

The race was drawing to a close, almost unnoticed amid the wait for the Grand Prix, when a cloud burst over the Hippodrome. For a moment now the sun had vanished, a livid light darkened the crowd. The wind rose, and it was a sudden deluge, enormous drops, sheets of water falling. There was a minute of confusion, cries, jests, oaths, amid the every-man-for-himself scramble of pedestrians galloping and taking refuge under the refreshment tents. In the carriages, the women tried to shelter themselves, holding their parasols with both hands, while the bewildered footmen ran to put up the hoods. But the shower was already ceasing, the sun shone resplendent in the rain-dust that still flew. A blue rift opened behind the cloud, swept away above the Bois. And it was like a gaiety of the sky, lifting the laughter of the reassured women; while the sheet of gold, in the shaking of the horses, in the rout and agitation of that drenched crowd which was shaking itself dry, lit up the lawn all streaming with drops of crystal.

-- Ah! poor little Louiset! said Nana. Are you very wet, my darling?

The child, without speaking, let his hands be wiped. The young woman had taken her handkerchief. She then dabbed at Bijou, who was trembling more strongly. It would be nothing, a few spots on the white satin of her dress; but she did not care. The bouquets, refreshed, had a glow of snow; and she was smelling one, happy, wetting her lips as if in dew.

Meanwhile, this shower of rain had suddenly filled the stands. Nana was looking through her opera glasses. At that distance, one could only make out a compact and blurred mass, heaped on the tiers, a dark ground lit by the pale patches of faces. The sun slipped through corners of roofing, clipped the seated crowd with an angle of light, where the dresses seemed to run. But Nana amused herself especially with the ladies whom the shower had driven from the rows of chairs, aligned on the sand at the foot of the stands. As the entrance to the weighing enclosure was absolutely forbidden to girls, Nana made remarks full of bitterness about all those proper women, whom she found dowdy, with funny faces.

A murmur ran through the crowd: the Empress was entering the small central stand, a pavilion in the shape of a chalet, whose wide balcony was furnished with red armchairs.

-- But it is him! said Georges. I did not think he was on duty this week.

The stiff and solemn face of Count Muffat had appeared behind the Empress. Then the young men joked, regretting that Satin was not there, to go and tap him on the belly. But Nana met at the end of her glasses the head of the Prince of Scotland, in the imperial stand.

-- Why! Charles! she cried.

She found him grown fat. In eighteen months, he had broadened. And she gave details: oh! a solidly built fellow.

Around her, in the carriages of those ladies, they were whispering that the Count had dropped her. It was a whole story. The Tuileries were scandalized at the conduct of the chamberlain, since he was making a public display. So, to keep his position, he had just broken it off. La Faloise, bluntly, reported this story to the young woman, offering himself again, calling her "his Juliet." But she gave a fine laugh, she said:

-- That imbecile... You do not know him; I have only to go pst! for him to drop everything.

For a moment now, she had been examining Countess Sabine and Estelle. Daguenet was still near those ladies. Fauchery, who was arriving, disturbed the company to bow to them; and he too stayed there, with a smiling air. Then she continued, showing the stands with a disdainful gesture:

-- Besides, you know, those people no longer impress me!... I know them too well. You should see them when the goods are unpacked!... No more respect! respect is finished! dirt below, dirt above, it is always dirt and company... That is why I will not be bothered.

And her gesture widened, showing the grooms who were bringing the horses onto the track, up to the sovereign chatting with Charles, a prince, but a blackguard all the same.

-- Bravo, Nana!... Very chic, Nana!... cried La Faloise enthusiastically.

Bell strokes were lost in the wind, the races continued. They had just run the Prix d'Ispahan, which Berlingot, a horse from the Méchain stable, had won. Nana called back Labordette, to ask for news of her hundred louis; he began to laugh, he refused to tell her his horses, so as not to disturb his luck, he said. Her money was well placed, she would see in a moment. And as she confessed her bets to him, ten louis on Lusignan and five on Valerio II, he shrugged his shoulders, seeming to say that women nevertheless did stupid things. That surprised her, she no longer understood.

At this moment, the lawn was becoming more animated. Lunches were organizing in the open air, awaiting the Grand Prix. They ate, they drank still more, a little everywhere, on the grass, on the raised benches of the four-in-hands and mail-coaches, in the victorias, coupés, landaus. It was a display of cold meats, a rout of champagne baskets, coming out of the boxes, into the hands of the footmen. The corks went off with faint detonations, carried away by the wind; jokes answered one another, noises of glasses being broken put cracked notes into that nervous gaiety. Gaga and Clarisse were having a serious meal with Blanche, eating sandwiches on a spread blanket, which covered their knees. Louise Violaine, down from her panier, had joined Caroline Héquet; and, at their feet, in the grass, some gentlemen were setting up a refreshment stand, where Tatan, Maria, Simonne and the others came to drink; while, near there, in the air, they were emptying bottles on the mail-coach of Léa de Horn, a whole band getting drunk in the sun, with bravadoes and poses, above the crowd. But soon they pressed especially in front of Nana's landau. Standing, she had begun to pour glasses of champagne for the men who saluted her. One of the footmen, François, passed the bottles, while La Faloise, trying to catch a rakish voice, launched a spiel.

-- Come forward, gentlemen... It is for nothing... Everyone will have some.

-- Do be quiet, my dear, Nana finally said. We look like strolling players.

She found him very funny, she was greatly amused. For an instant, she had the idea of sending Georges with a glass of champagne to Rose Mignon, who affected not to drink. Henri and Charles were bored to death; they would have liked champagne, the little ones. But Georges drank the glass, fearing a quarrel. Then Nana remembered Louiset, whom she was forgetting behind her. Perhaps he was thirsty; and she forced him to take a few drops of wine, which made him cough horribly.

-- Come forward, come forward, gentlemen, repeated La Faloise. It is not two sous, it is not a sou... We are giving it...

But Nana interrupted him with an exclamation.

-- Eh! Bordenave, over there!... Call him, oh! I beg you, run!

It was Bordenave, indeed, walking with his hands behind his back, with a hat that the sun was reddening, and a greasy redingote, whitened at the seams; a Bordenave gone to seed through bankruptcy, but still furious, flaunting his misery among high society, with the bearing of a man always ready to rape fortune.

-- Good Lord! what style! he said, when Nana held out her hand, like a good girl.

Then, after emptying a glass of champagne, he had this word of deep regret:

-- Ah! if I were a woman!... But, damn it! that does no harm! Do you want to come back to the theatre? I have an idea, I am renting the Gaîté, we will knock Paris flat, the two of us... Eh? you owe me that.

And he stayed, grumbling, happy nevertheless to see her again; for, he said, this damned Nana put balm on his heart, merely by living before him. She was his daughter, his true blood.

The circle grew. Now La Faloise was pouring, Philippe and Georges were drumming up friends. A slow push gradually brought the whole lawn near. Nana threw at each one a laugh, a funny word. The bands of drinkers drew closer, all the scattered champagne marched toward her, there was soon only a crowd, only a clamor, around her landau; and she reigned amid the outstretched glasses, with her yellow hair blown loose, her snowy face bathed in sunlight. Then, at the summit, to make the other women who were enraged at her triumph burst, she raised her full glass, in her old pose of victorious Venus.

But someone touched her from behind, and she was surprised, on turning, to perceive Mignon on the seat. She disappeared for an instant, she sat down beside him, for he had come to communicate a grave matter to her. Mignon said everywhere that his wife was ridiculous to bear a grudge against Nana; he found that silly and useless.

-- Here it is, my dear, he murmured. Beware, do not enrage Rose too much... You understand, I prefer to warn you... Yes, she has a weapon, and as she has never forgiven you the affair of the _Petite Duchesse_...

-- A weapon, said Nana, what do I care about that!

-- Listen then, it is a letter she must have found in Fauchery's pocket, a letter written to that blackguard Fauchery by Countess Muffat. And, lord! in there, it is clear, it is in it full... So Rose wants to send the letter to the Count, to revenge herself on him and on you.

-- What do I care about that! repeated Nana. It is funny, that... Ah! there it is, with Fauchery. Well! so much the better, she was irritating me. We are going to laugh.

-- But no, I do not want that, Mignon quickly resumed. A pretty scandal! Besides, we have nothing to gain by it...

He stopped, fearing he had said too much. She was exclaiming that, surely, she would not go fish up a respectable woman. But, as he insisted, she looked at him fixedly. No doubt he was afraid of seeing Fauchery fall back into his household, if he broke with the Countess; that is what Rose wanted, even while revenging herself, for she kept a tenderness for the journalist. And Nana became dreamy, she was thinking of Mr. Venot's visit, a plan was growing in her, while Mignon tried to convince her.

-- Suppose Rose sends the letter, eh? There is a scandal. You are mixed up in that, they say you are the cause of everything... First of all, the Count separates from his wife...

-- Why would he, she said, on the contrary...

In her turn, she interrupted herself. She did not need to think aloud. Finally, she seemed to enter into Mignon's views, to get rid of him; and, as he advised her a submission toward Rose, for example a little visit on the racecourse, before everyone, she answered that she would see, that she would reflect.

A tumult made her stand up again. On the track, horses were arriving, in a gust of wind. It was the Prix de la Ville de Paris, which Cornemuse was winning. Now, the Grand Prix was going to be run, the fever increased, an anxiety whipped the crowd, stamping, undulating, in a need to hasten the minutes. And, at this last hour, a surprise dismayed the bettors, the continuous rise of Nana's odds, the outsider of the Vandeuvres stable. Gentlemen came back each instant with a new quotation: Nana was at thirty, Nana was at twenty-five, then at twenty, then at fifteen. No one understood. A filly beaten on all racecourses, a filly that that morning not a single bettor would take at fifty! What did this sudden panic mean? Some mocked, speaking of a pretty cleaning-out for the fools who fell for that farce. Others, serious, anxious, scented something shady underneath. There was a coup perhaps. They alluded to stories, to the tolerated thefts of the racecourses; but this time the great name of Vandeuvres stopped the accusations, and the skeptics carried the day, in short, when they predicted that Nana would arrive beautifully last.

-- Who is riding Nana? asked La Faloise.

Just then, the real Nana reappeared. Then these gentlemen gave an indecent meaning to the question, bursting into exaggerated laughter. Nana bowed.

-- It is Price, she answered.

And the discussion began again. Price was an English celebrity, unknown in France. Why had Vandeuvres brought this jockey, when Gresham usually rode Nana? Besides, they were astonished to see him entrust Lusignan to this Gresham, who never arrived, according to La Faloise. But all these remarks were drowned in the jokes, the contradictions, the hubbub of an extraordinary medley of opinions. They began again to empty bottles of champagne to kill time. Then, a whisper ran, the groups parted. It was Vandeuvres. Nana affected to be angry.

-- Well! you are nice, arriving at this hour!... Me who is burning to see the weighing enclosure.

-- Then come, he said, there is still time. You will take a turn. I happen to have a lady's pass on me.

And he took her off on his arm, happy at the jealous looks with which Lucy, Caroline and the others followed her. Behind her, the Hugon sons and La Faloise, left in the landau, continued to do the honors of her champagne. She cried to them that she was coming back right away.

But Vandeuvres, having caught sight of Labordette, called him; and a few brief words were exchanged.

-- Have you taken it all up?

-- Yes.

-- For how much?

-- Fifteen hundred louis, a bit everywhere.

As Nana curiously strained her ear, they fell silent. Vandeuvres, very nervous, had his clear eyes, lit with little flames, which frightened her at night, when he spoke of having himself burned with his horses. Crossing the track, she lowered her voice, she used tu with him.

-- Say, explain to me... Why is the odds of your filly rising? It is making a row!

He started, he let escape:

-- Ah! they are talking... What a race, these bettors! When I have a favorite, they all throw themselves on it, and there is no more for me. Then, when an outsider is asked for, they gossip, they cry as if they were being skinned.

-- It is that you should warn me, I have bet, she resumed. Does she have a chance?

A sudden anger seized him, for no reason.

-- Eh? leave me in peace... All horses have a chance. The odds rise, of course! because some have been taken. Who? I do not know... I had rather leave you, if you must bore me with your idiotic questions.

That tone was in neither his temperament nor his habits. She was more astonished than hurt. He, moreover, remained ashamed; and, as she dryly begged him to be polite, he apologized. For some time now, he had had such sudden changes of mood. No one ignored, in the gallant and worldly Paris, that he was playing his last card that day. If his horses did not win, if they still carried off the considerable sums bet on them, it was a disaster, a collapse; the scaffolding of his credit, the high appearances that his existence kept, undermined from below, as if emptied by disorder and debt, would founder in a resounding ruin. And Nana, no one ignored it either, was the man-eater who had finished off that one, come last into that shaken fortune, cleaning out the place. They told of mad caprices, gold sown to the wind, a party at Baden where she had not left him enough to pay the hotel, a handful of diamonds thrown on a brazier, one evening of drunkenness, to see if they burned like coal. Little by little, with her heavy limbs, her rakish laughs of a slum woman, she had imposed herself on that son, so impoverished and so refined, of an ancient race. At this hour, he was risking all, so invaded by his taste for the stupid and the filthy, that he had lost even the strength of his skepticism. A week before, she had made him promise a château on the Norman coast, between Le Havre and Trouville; and he was putting his last honor in keeping his word. Only, she annoyed him, he would have beaten her, so stupid did he feel her.

The guard had let them enter the weighing enclosure, not daring to stop this woman on the arm of the Count. Nana, all swollen with pride at finally setting foot on that forbidden ground, studied herself, walked slowly, before the ladies seated at the foot of the stands. It was, on ten rows of chairs, a deep mass of dresses, mixing their bright colors in the gaiety of the open air; chairs moved apart, familiar circles formed at random of meetings, as under the alternating trees of a public garden, with children let loose, running from one group to another; and, higher up, the stands staged their tiers loaded with crowd, where the light stuffs melted into the fine shadow of the timbers. Nana stared at those ladies. She affected to look fixedly at Countess Sabine. Then, as she passed before the imperial stand, the sight of Muffat, standing near the Empress, in his official stiffness, cheered her.

-- Oh! how stupid he looks! she said very loud to Vandeuvres.

She wanted to visit everything. This bit of park, with its lawns, its shrubberies, did not seem so funny to her. An ice-cream maker had installed a large buffet near the railings. Under a rustic mushroom, covered with thatch, people in heaps gesticulated and cried; it was the ring. Next to it, were empty boxes; and, disappointed, she there discovered only the horse of a gendarme. Then, there was the paddock, a track a hundred meters around, where a stable boy was walking Valerio II, hooded. And that was it! many men on the gravel of the walks, with the orange stain of their card on the buttonhole, a continuous promenade of people in the open galleries of the stands, which interested her for a minute; but, really! it was not worth getting bile over, because they kept you from entering in there.

Daguenet and Fauchery, who were passing, saluted her. She made them a sign, they had to approach. And she dug into the weighing enclosure. Then, interrupting herself:

-- Why! Marquis de Chouard, how he is aging! Is that old man rotting away! Is he still raging, then?

Then Daguenet told the last exploit of the old man, a story of the day before yesterday that no one yet knew. After hanging about for months, he had just bought Gaga's daughter Amélie, thirty thousand francs, it was said.

-- Well! that is clean! cried Nana, revolted. Have daughters, will you!... But I think of it! it must be Lili who is over there, on the lawn, in a coupé, with a lady. Also, I recognized that face... The old man must have taken her out.

Vandeuvres was not listening, impatient, desirous of getting rid of her. But Fauchery having said, as he left, that, if she had not seen the bookmakers, she had seen nothing, the Count had to lead her there, despite a visible repugnance. And, at once, she was pleased; that, indeed, was curious.

A rotunda opened, between lawns bordered with young chestnut trees; and there, forming a vast circle, sheltered under the tender green leaves, a close line of bookmakers waited for the bettors, as in a fair. To dominate the crowd, they hoisted themselves on wooden benches; they posted their odds near them, against the trees; while, eye on the watch, they inscribed bets, at a gesture, at a blink of the eyelids, so rapidly, that curious ones, gaping, looked at them without understanding. It was a confusion, figures cried, tumults welcoming the unexpected changes of odds. And, at moments, redoubling the noise, runners burst in, stopped at the entrance of the rotunda, violently threw a cry, a start, an arrival, which raised long murmurs, in that fever of play beating in the sun.

-- Are they funny! murmured Nana, very amused. They have faces upside down... Look, that big one, I would not want to meet him all alone, at the bottom of a wood.

But Vandeuvres showed her a bookmaker, a haberdasher's clerk, who had won three millions in two years. Slender of build, delicate and blond, he was surrounded with respect; they spoke to him smiling, people stood about to see him.

Finally, they were leaving the rotunda, when Vandeuvres addressed a slight nod to another bookmaker, who then permitted himself to call him. It was one of his former coachmen, enormous, with the shoulders of an ox, the face high in color. Now that he was attempting fortune at the races, with funds of shady origin, the Count tried to push him, charging him with his secret bets, treating him always as a servant whom one does not hide from. Despite this protection, that man had lost heavily, coup on coup, and he too was playing his supreme card that day, eyes full of blood, bursting with apoplexy.

-- Well! Maréchal, Vandeuvres asked in a low voice, for how much did you give?

-- For five thousand louis, Monsieur le Comte, answered the bookmaker, also lowering his voice. Eh? it is pretty... I will confess to you that I lowered the odds, I put them at three.

Vandeuvres looked very annoyed.

-- No, no, I do not want that, put them back at two immediately... I will tell you no more, Maréchal.

-- Oh! now, what can it matter to Monsieur le Comte? resumed the other with a humble smile of an accomplice. I had to attract the public to give your two thousand louis.

Then Vandeuvres silenced him. But, as he moved away, Maréchal, seized by a memory, regretted not having questioned him on the rise of his filly. It would be a fine thing, if the filly had a chance, he who had just given her for two hundred louis at fifty.

Nana, who understood nothing of the words whispered by the Count, nevertheless dared not ask for new explanations. He seemed more nervous, he abruptly entrusted her to Labordette, whom they found before the weighing room.

-- You will bring her back, he said. I have things to do... Good-bye.

And he entered the room, a narrow place, low of ceiling, encumbered with a large scale. It was like a luggage room, in a suburban station. Nana had there again a great disappointment, she who imagined something very vast, a monumental machine to weigh the horses. What! they only weighed the jockeys! Then it was not worth making so much fuss, with their weighing! In the scale, a jockey, looking idiotic, his harness on his knees, waited for a fat man in a redingote to have verified his weight; while a stable boy, at the door, held the horse, Cosinus, around whom the crowd was clustered, silent, absorbed.

They were going to close the track. Labordette hurried Nana; but he came back on his steps to show her a small man, talking with Vandeuvres, apart.

-- Look, there is Price, he said.

-- Ah! yes, the one who rides me, she murmured laughing.

And she found him nicely ugly. All the jockeys seemed cretinous to her; no doubt, she said, because they were prevented from growing. That one, a man of forty, seemed a dried-up old child, with a long thin face, hollowed with folds, hard and dead. The body was so knotty, so reduced, that the blue jacket, with white sleeves, seemed thrown over wood.

-- No, you know, she resumed as she left, he would not make my happiness.

A crush still filled the track, whose grass, wet and trampled, had become black. Before the two indicator boards, very high on their cast-iron column, the crowd pressed, raising the head, welcoming with a hubbub each horse number, which an electric wire, connected to the weighing room, made appear. Some gentlemen pointed on programs; Pichenette, withdrawn by her owner, caused a murmur. Besides, Nana only crossed, on the arm of Labordette. The bell, hung to the mast of the oriflamme, rang with persistence, so that the track be evacuated.

-- Ah! my children, she said as she got back into her landau, a joke, their weighing enclosure!

They acclaimed her, they clapped around her: "Bravo! Nana!... Nana is returned to us!..." How stupid they were! Did they take her for a coward? She was coming back at the right moment. Attention! it was beginning. And the champagne was forgotten, they ceased to drink.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”