Part 30

It was only on Tuesday that Nana recovered from the emotions of her victory. She was talking in the morning with Madame Lerat, who had come to give her news of Louiset, made ill by the open air. A whole story that was occupying Paris fascinated her. Vandeuvres excluded from the racecourses, executed that very evening at the Cercle Impérial, had the next day set fire to his stable, with his horses.

—He had told me so, the young woman repeated. A real madman, that man!... It was I who had a fright, when they told me about it, last night! You understand, he could very well have murdered me, one night... And then, wasn't he supposed to warn me about his horse? I would have made my fortune, at least!... He said to Labordette that, if I knew the affair, I would at once inform my hairdresser and a lot of men. How polite!... Ah! no, really, I can't regret him much.

After reflection, she had become furious. Just then, Labordette came in; he had settled his bets, he brought her some forty thousand francs. That only increased her ill humor, for she ought to have won a million. Labordette, who was playing innocent in the whole adventure, flatly abandoned Vandeuvres. Those old families were emptied out, they were ending in a stupid way.

—Eh! no, said Nana, it isn't stupid, to set oneself alight like that, in a stable. I think he ended it gallantly... Oh! you know, I don't defend his story with Maréchal. It's imbecile. When I think that Blanche had the cheek to want to lay that at my door! I answered: 'Did I tell him to steal!' Isn't that so? One can ask a man for money, without pushing him to crime... If he had said to me: 'I have nothing left,' I would have said: 'Very well, let us part.' And it wouldn't have gone any further.

—No doubt, said the aunt gravely. When men persist, so much the worse for them!

—But as for the little finale, oh! very fine! resumed Nana. It seems it was terrible, enough to give you gooseflesh. He had sent everyone away, he had locked himself in there, with petroleum... And it burned, you should have seen! Just think, a great machine almost all wood, full of straw and hay!... The flames rose like towers... The finest was the horses who didn't want to roast. You could hear them kicking, throwing themselves against the doors, letting out real human cries... Yes, some people kept the shivers on their skin from it.

Labordette let escape a slight breath of incredulity. He, did not believe in Vandeuvres's death. Someone swore to having seen him escape by a window. He had set fire to his stable, in a derangement of the brain. Only, as soon as it got too hot, that must have sobered him up. A man so stupid with women, so emptied out, could not die with such gallantry.

Nana listened to him, disillusioned. And she found only this phrase:

—Oh! the wretch! it was so fine!

XII

Toward one in the morning, in the great bed draped with Venetian point lace, Nana and the count were not yet asleep. He had come back in the evening, after a sulk of three days. The room, faintly lit by a lamp, was dozing, warm and all moist with an odor of love, with the vague pallors of its white lacquer furniture, inlaid with silver. A drawn curtain drowned the bed in a flood of shadow. There was a sigh, then a kiss cut the silence, and Nana, slipping from the covers, remained a moment seated at the edge of the sheets, her bare legs. The count, his head fallen back on the pillow, stayed in the dark.

—Dear, do you believe in God? she asked after a moment of reflection, her face grave, invaded by a religious dread, on leaving her lover's arms.

Since the morning, she had complained of a discomfort, and all her silly ideas, as she said, ideas of death and hell, were working on her subtly. It was sometimes, in her, nights when childish fears, atrocious imaginings shook her with nightmares, eyes open. She resumed:

—Eh? do you think I'll go to heaven?

And she had a shudder, while the count, surprised by these singular questions at such a moment, felt his Catholic remorse awaken. But, her shift slipped from her shoulders, her hair unbound, she fell back on his chest, sobbing, clinging to him.

—I'm afraid of dying... I'm afraid of dying...

He had all the trouble in the world to disengage himself. He himself feared yielding to the fit of madness of this woman, glued against his body, in the contagious fright of the invisible; and he reasoned with her, she was perfectly well, she simply must behave well to merit pardon one day. But she shook her head; no doubt she did harm to no one; even she always wore a medal of the Virgin, which she showed him, hung on a red thread, between her breasts; only, it was settled in advance, all women who were not married and who saw men went to hell. Fragments of her catechism came back to her. Ah! if one only knew for sure; but there, one knew nothing, no one brought back news; and, really! it would be stupid to restrain oneself, if the priests talked nonsense. Yet, she devoutly kissed the medal, all warm from her skin, like a conjuration against death, whose idea filled her with a cold horror.

He had to accompany Nana into the dressing room; she trembled to stay there a minute alone, even leaving the door open. When he had gone back to bed, she still roamed the room, visiting the corners, starting at the slightest noise. A mirror stopped her, she forgot herself as formerly, in the spectacle of her nudity. But the sight of her bosom, her hips and her thighs redoubled her fear. She ended by feeling the bones of her face, at length, with both hands.

—One is ugly, when one is dead, she said in a slow voice.

And she pinched her cheeks, widened her eyes, sank her jaw to see how she would be. Then, turning toward the count, thus disfigured:

—Look, I'll have a tiny head, me.

Then, he grew angry.

—You are mad, come to bed.

He saw her in a grave, with the wasting of a century of sleep; and his hands had joined, he stammered a prayer. For some time, religion had reconquered him; his crises of faith, each day, took up again this violence of fits of apoplexy, which left him as if stunned. The fingers of his hands cracked, he repeated these only words, continually: 'My God... my God... my God.' It was the cry of his impotence, the cry of his sin, against which he remained without strength, despite the certainty of his damnation. When she came back, she found him under the cover, haggard, his nails in his chest, his eyes in the air as if to seek heaven. And she began to weep again, both embraced, chattering their teeth without knowing why, rolling to the bottom of the same imbecile obsession. They had already spent a similar night; only, this time, it was completely idiotic, as Nana declared, when she was no longer afraid. A suspicion made her question the count with prudence: perhaps Rose Mignon had sent the famous letter. But it was not that, it was stage fright, no more, for he was still ignorant of his cuckolding.

Two days later, after a new disappearance, Muffat presented himself in the morning, at an hour when he never came. He was livid, his eyes reddened, still all shaken by a great inner struggle. But Zoé, alarmed herself, did not notice his trouble. She had run to meet him, she cried to him:

—Oh! sir, do come! madame nearly died, yesterday evening.

And, as he asked for details:

—Something unbelievable... A miscarriage, sir!

Nana was three months pregnant. For a long time she had believed it an indisposition; Doctor Boutarel himself doubted. Then, when he pronounced clearly, she felt such annoyance, that she did everything in the world to hide her pregnancy. Her nervous fears, her black moods came a little from this adventure, whose secret she kept, with the shame of a unwed mother forced to conceal her condition. It seemed to her a ridiculous accident, something that diminished her and about which she would have been teased. Eh? a nasty joke! no luck, really! She had to be caught, when she thought it was over. And she had a continual surprise, as if disturbed in her sex; so it made children, even when one no longer wanted to and employed it for other business? Nature exasperated her, this grave maternity which rose in her pleasure, this life given amid all the deaths she sowed around her. Ought one not to be able to dispose of oneself at one's fancy, without so much ado? Thus, from where did this brat fall? She could not even say. Ah! God! he who had made it would have had a rich idea in keeping it for himself, for no one claimed it, it hindered everyone, and it would surely not have much happiness in existence!

Meanwhile, Zoé was telling the catastrophe.

—Madame was taken with colics toward four o'clock. When I went into the dressing room, not seeing her come back, I found her stretched on the floor, fainted. Yes, sir, on the floor, in a pool of blood, as if she had been murdered... Then, I understood, didn't I? I was furious, madame might well have confided her misfortune to me... Just then, Monsieur Georges was there. He helped me lift her, and at the first word of miscarriage, there he fainted in his turn... Truly! I've been worrying since yesterday!

Indeed, the hotel seemed overturned. All the servants were galloping across the stairs and rooms. Georges had just spent the night on an armchair in the salon. It was he who had announced the news to madame's friends, in the evening, at the hour when madame usually received. He remained very pale, he told the story, full of stupor and emotion. Steiner, La Faloise, Philippe, others still, had presented themselves. At the first phrase, they uttered an exclamation; impossible! it must be a joke! Then, they became serious, they looked at the chamber door, with an annoyed air, shaking their heads, finding it not funny. Until midnight, a dozen gentlemen had talked low before the fireplace, all friends, all worked by the same idea of paternity. They seemed to excuse themselves to each other, with confused faces of awkward fellows. Then, they rounded their backs, it didn't concern them, it came from her; eh? stunning, this Nana! never would one have believed such a joke on her part! And they had gone off one by one, on tiptoe, as in the room of a dead person, where one can no longer laugh.

—Go up all the same, sir, said Zoé to Muffat. Madame is much better, she will receive you... We are expecting the doctor who promised to come back this morning.

The chambermaid had decided Georges to return home to sleep. Upstairs, in the salon, there remained only Satin, stretched on a divan, smoking a cigarette, eyes in the air. Since the accident, amid the bewilderment of the hotel, she showed a cold rage, with shrugs, ferocious words. So, as Zoé passed before her, repeating to monsieur that this poor madame had suffered much:

—It serves her right, that will teach her! she let fall in a short voice.

They turned, surprised. Satin had not moved, eyes still on the ceiling, her cigarette nervously pinched between her lips.

—Well! you are good, you! said Zoé.

But Satin sat up, looked furiously at the count, planting her phrase again in his face:

—It serves her right, that will teach her!

And she lay down again, blew a thin jet of smoke, as disinterested and resolved to meddle with nothing. No, it was too stupid!

Zoé, however, had just shown Muffat into the chamber. An odor of ether lingered there, amid a tepid silence, which the rare carriages of the avenue de Villiers scarcely troubled with a dull rumble. Nana, very white on the pillow, did not sleep, eyes wide open and pensive. She smiled, without moving, on perceiving the count.

—Ah! my cat, she murmured in a slow voice, I truly thought I would never see you again.

Then, when he leaned to kiss her on the hair, she softened, she spoke to him of the child, in good faith, as if he were the father.

—I dared not tell you... I felt so happy! Oh! I had dreams, I would have wished it worthy of you. And there, there is nothing left... At least, that is perhaps better. I do not intend to put an embarrassment in your life.

He, astonished at this paternity, stammered phrases. He had taken a chair and sat against the bed, an arm resting on the covers. Then, the young woman noticed his devastated face, the blood reddening his eyes, the fever whose trembling was on his lips.

—What is the matter with you? she asked. You are ill, you too?

—No, he said painfully.

She looked at him with a deep air. Then, with a sign, she sent away Zoé, who lingered to arrange the phials. And, when they were alone, she drew him to her, repeating:

—What is it, dear?... Your eyes are bursting with tears, I see it well... Come, speak, you came to tell me something.

—No, no, I swear to you, he stammered.

But, strangled with suffering, still softened by this sickroom where he fell without knowing, he burst into sobs, he buried his face in the sheets, to stifle the explosion of his grief. Nana had understood. Surely Rose Mignon had decided to send the letter. She let him weep a moment, shaken by such rude convulsions, that he moved her in the bed. Finally, in an accent of maternal compassion:

—You had troubles at home?

He nodded yes. She made a new pause, then very low:

—So, you know all?

He nodded yes. And silence fell again, a heavy silence in the aching chamber. It was the eve, on returning from an evening at the empress's, that he had received the letter written by Sabine to her lover. After an atrocious night, passed dreaming of vengeance, he had gone out in the morning, to resist the need to kill his wife. Outside, seized by the sweetness of a beautiful June morning, he no longer found his ideas, he had come to Nana, as he came at all the terrible hours of his existence. There only, he abandoned himself in his misery, with the cowardly joy of being consoled.

—Come, calm yourself, resumed the young woman making herself very good. I have known it a long time. But, surely, it is not I who would have opened your eyes. You remember, last year, you had had doubts. Then, thanks to my prudence, things had arranged themselves. Finally, you lacked proofs... Lord! today, if you have one, it is hard, I understand it. Yet, one must make oneself reason. One is not dishonored for that.

He no longer wept. A shame held him, though he had long since slipped into the most intimate confidences about his household. She had to encourage him. Come, she was a woman, she could hear all. As he let escape in a sour voice:

—You are ill. What good to tire you!... It is stupid to have come. I am going.

—But no, she said quickly. Stay. I will perhaps give you good advice. Only, do not make me talk too much, the doctor forbade it.

He had finally risen, he walked in the chamber. Then, she questioned him.

—Now, what will you do?

—I will slap that man, of course!

She made a moue of disapproval.

—That, that is not strong... And your wife?

—I will sue, I have a proof.

—Not strong at all, my dear. It is even stupid... You know, I will never let you do that.

And, calmly, in her weak voice, she demonstrated the useless scandal of a duel and a trial. For eight days, he would be the fable of the newspapers; it was his whole existence that he would play, his tranquility, his high situation at court, the honor of his name; and why? to set the laughers against him.

—What does it matter! he cried, I will have avenged myself.

—My cat, she said, when one does not avenge oneself at once in those affairs, one never avenges oneself.

He stopped, stammering. Certainly, he was not a coward; but he felt that she was right; a discomfort grew in him, something impoverished and shameful which had come to soften him, in the rush of his anger. Besides, she dealt him a new blow, with a frankness decided to say all.

—And do you want to know what embarrasses you, dear?... It is that you yourself deceive your wife. Eh? you don't spend the night out to string pearls. Your wife must suspect it. So, what reproach can you make her? She will answer that you gave her the example, which will shut your mouth... There, dear, is why you are here tramping, instead of being there to massacre them both.

Muffat had fallen back on the chair, overwhelmed under this brutality of words. She was silent, catching her breath; then, half-voice:

—Oh! I am broken... Do help me to raise myself a little. I always slip, my head is too low.

When he had helped her, she sighed, finding herself better. And she came back to the fine spectacle of a separation trial. Did he see the countess's lawyer amusing Paris, in speaking of Nana? All would have passed there, her failure at the Variétés, her hotel, her life. Ah! no, for example, she did not care for so much publicity! Dirty women might perhaps have pushed him, to beat the big drum on her back; but she, above all, wanted her happiness. She had drawn him to her, she held him now, the head at the edge of the pillow, near hers, an arm passed around his neck; and she breathed softly to him:

—Listen, my cat, you are going to make it up with your wife.

He revolted. Never! His heart burst, it was too much shame. She, however, insisted with tenderness.

—You are going to make it up with your wife... Come, you do not want to hear it said everywhere that I turned you from your household? That would give me too ugly a reputation, what would one think of me?... Only, swear that you will always love me, because, from the moment you go with another...

Tears suffocated her. He interrupted her with kisses, repeating:

—You are mad, it is impossible!

—Yes, yes, she resumed, it must be... I will make myself reason. After all, she is your wife. It is not as if you deceived me with the first comer.

And she continued thus, giving him the best advice. Even she spoke of God. He thought he heard M. Venot, when the old man sermonized him, to tear him from sin. She, however, did not speak of breaking; she preached complaisances, a good-fellow sharing between his wife and his mistress, a life of tranquility, without bother for anyone, something like a happy sleep in the inevitable filth of existence. It would change nothing in their life, he would remain her preferred little cat, only he would come a little less often and give the countess the nights he did not spend with her. She was at the end of her strength, she finished, in a little breath:

—Finally, I will have the conscience of having done a good deed... You will love me the more.

A silence reigned. She had closed her eyes, paling still more on the pillow. Now, he listened to her, under the pretext that he did not wish to tire her. At the end of a great minute, she reopened her eyes, she murmured:

—And money, besides? Where will you take the money, if you get angry?... Labordette came yesterday for the note... Me, I lack everything, I have nothing left to put on my body.

Then, closing her lids again, she seemed dead. A shadow of deep anguish had passed over Muffat's face. In the blow that struck him, he had forgotten since the eve embarrassments of money, from which he knew not how to emerge. Despite formal promises, the note of a hundred thousand francs, renewed a first time, had just been put in circulation; and Labordette, affecting despair, threw all on Francis, said that he would never again compromise himself in an affair, with a man of little education. It had to be paid, never would the count have let his signature be protested. Then, besides Nana's new demands, it was at his home a mess of extraordinary expenses. On return from the Fondettes, the countess had abruptly shown a taste for luxury, an appetite for worldly enjoyments, which devoured their fortune. They were beginning to speak of her ruinous caprices, a whole new household train, five hundred thousand francs squandered to transform the old hotel in the rue Miromesnil, and excessive toilettes, and considerable sums disappeared, melted, perhaps given, without her caring to account for them. Twice, Muffat had permitted himself observations, wanting to know; but she had looked at him with such a singular air, smiling, that he dared no longer question her, for fear of too clear an answer. If he accepted Daguenet as son-in-law from Nana's hand, it was especially with the idea of being able to reduce Estelle's dowry to two hundred thousand francs, free to take arrangements with the young man for the rest, still happy with this unhoped marriage.

However, for a week, in this immediate necessity of finding the hundred thousand francs of Labordette, Muffat had imagined but one expedient, before which he recoiled. It was to sell Les Bordes, a magnificent property, estimated at half a million, which an uncle had just left to the countess. Only, it required the signature of the latter, who herself, by her contract, could not alienate the property, without the authorization of the count. The eve finally, he had resolved to speak of this signature with his wife. And all was crumbling, never at this hour would he accept such a compromise. This thought drove deeper the frightful blow of adultery. He well understood what Nana asked; for, in the growing abandonment which pushed him to put her in half of everything, he had complained of his situation, he had confided to her his annoyance about this signature of the countess.

Yet, Nana did not seem to insist. She no longer reopened her eyes. Seeing her so pale, he was afraid, he made her take a little ether. And she sighed, she questioned him, without naming Daguenet.

—When is the marriage?

—The contract is signed Tuesday, in five days, he answered.

Then, the eyelids always closed, as if she spoke in the night of her thoughts:

—Finally, my cat, see what you have to do... Me, I want everyone to be happy.

He calmed her, taking a hand. Yes, one would see, the important thing was that she rest. And he no longer revolted, this sickroom, so tepid and so asleep, steeped in ether, had finished lulling him in a need of happy peace. All his virility, enraged by the insult, had gone at the warmth of this bed, near this suffering woman, whom he tended, with the excitement of his fever and the remembrance of their voluptuousness. He leaned toward her, he held her in an embrace; while, the face immobile, she had on her lips a fine smile of victory. But Doctor Boutarel appeared.

—Well! and this dear child? he said familiarly to Muffat, whom he treated as a husband. Zounds! we have made her talk!

“Stories of the world, in your language.”