Part 32

But the waltz still unfolded its swaying of laughing voluptuousness. It was a higher reprise of pleasure beating the old hôtel like a rising tide. The orchestra swelled the trills of its little flutes, the fainting sighs of its violins; beneath the Genoese velvets, the golds and the paintings, the chandeliers gave off a living warmth, a dust of sunlight; while the crowd of guests, multiplied in the mirrors, seemed to spread wider, with the grown murmur of their voices. Around the salon, the couples who passed, hands at the waist, among the smiles of the seated women, accentuated all the more the rocking of the floors. In the garden, a glow of embers, fallen from the Venetian lanterns, lit with a distant reflection of fire the black shadows of the strollers, seeking a bit of air at the end of the paths. And this quivering of the walls, this red cloud, were like the final blaze, where the ancient honor cracked, burning at the four corners of the house. The timid gaieties, then barely beginning, which Fauchery, one April evening, had heard ring with the sound of crystal breaking, had little by little grown bold, maddened, up to this burst of festival. Now, the fissure widened; it cracked the house, it announced the impending collapse. Among the drunkards of the suburbs, it is by black misery, the sideboard without bread, the madness of alcohol emptying the mattresses, that spoiled families come to an end. Here, upon the ruin of these riches, heaped up and set alight at once, the waltz tolled the knell of an old race; while Nana, invisible, poured out above the ball with her supple limbs, decomposed this world, penetrated it with the ferment of her odor floating in the warm air, to the rascally rhythm of the music.

It was on the evening of the church wedding that Count Muffat presented himself in his wife's bedroom, where he had not entered for two years. The countess, very surprised, drew back at first. But she had her smile, that smile of intoxication which no longer left her. He, very ill at ease, stammered. Then she gave him a little moral lecture. Besides, neither one nor the other risked a clear explanation. It was religion that willed this mutual pardon; and it was agreed between them, by tacit accord, that they would keep their freedom. Before getting into bed, as the countess still seemed to hesitate, they talked business. He first spoke of selling the Bordes. She at once consented. They had great needs, they would divide. That completed the reconciliation. Muffat felt a real relief in his remorse.

Precisely that day, as Nana dozed toward two o'clock, Zoé permitted herself to knock at the bedroom door. The curtains were drawn, a warm breath entered through a window, in the silent coolness of the half-light. Besides, the young woman was getting up now, still a little weak. She opened her eyes, she asked:

-- Who is it?

Zoé was about to answer. But Daguenet, forcing entry, announced himself. Thereupon, she leaned on her elbow on the pillow, and, dismissing the chambermaid:

-- How, it's you! the day you're being married!... What is the matter then?

He, surprised by the darkness, remained in the middle of the room. However, he was getting used to it, he advanced, in evening dress, cravatted and gloved in white. And he repeated:

-- Well! yes, it's me... Don't you remember?

No, she remembered nothing. He had to offer himself outright, with his air of joking.

-- Come now, your brokerage... I bring you the gift of my innocence.

Then, as he was at the edge of the bed, she seized him with her bare arms, shaken by a fine laugh, and almost weeping, so nice did she find that of him.

-- Ah! this Mimi, is he funny!... He thought of it though! And I who no longer knew! So you escaped, you're coming from the church. It's true, you smell of incense... But kiss me then! oh! harder than that, my Mimi! Go on, it's perhaps the last time.

In the dark room, where a vague odor of ether still lingered, their tender laugh expired. The great heat swelled the window curtains, one heard children's voices on the avenue. Then, they joked, jostled by the hour. Daguenet was leaving at once with his wife, after lunch.

XIII

Toward the end of September, Count Muffat, who was to dine at Nana's that evening, came at dusk to warn her of a sudden order he had received for the Tuileries. The hôtel was not yet lit, the domestics laughed very loud in the servants' hall; he slowly mounted the staircase, where the stained-glass windows gleamed in a warm shadow. Upstairs, the salon door made no noise. A pink daylight was dying on the ceiling of the room; the red hangings, the deep divans, the lacquer furniture, that jumble of embroidered stuffs, of bronzes and faience, already slept beneath a slow rain of shadows, which drowned the corners, without a shimmer of ivory, nor a reflection of gold. And there, in that obscurity, upon the alone distinct whiteness of a wide petticoat, he glimpsed Nana thrown back, in the arms of Georges. All denial was impossible. He gave a stifled cry, he remained gaping.

Nana had sprung up, and she pushed him into the bedroom, to give the boy time to slip away.

-- Come in, she murmured, her head lost, I'll tell you...

She was exasperated by this surprise. Never did she yield thus at home, in this salon, the doors open. It had taken a whole story, a quarrel of Georges, enraged with jealousy against Philippe; he sobbed so hard at her neck, that she had let him, not knowing how to calm him, very sorry at bottom. And, for once that she committed the stupidity of forgetting herself thus, with a young rogue who could no longer even bring her bunches of violets, so tightly did his mother hold him, precisely the count arrived and fell right upon them. Truly! no luck! That's what one gained by being a good girl!

Meanwhile, the darkness was complete in the bedroom, where she had pushed Muffat. Then, groping, she rang furiously for a lamp. Also, it was Julien's fault! If there had been a lamp in the salon, none of that would have happened. This fall of night had turned her heart over.

-- I beg you, my cat, be reasonable, said she, when Zoé had brought light.

The count, seated, hands on his knees, looked at the floor, in the stupor of what he had just seen. He found not a cry of anger. He trembled, as taken by a horror that chilled him. This mute sorrow touched the young woman. She tried to console him.

-- Well! yes, I was wrong... It's very bad, what I did... You see, I regret my fault. I am much grieved, since it troubles you... Come, be nice on your side, forgive me.

She had squatted at his feet, seeking his glance with an air of submissive tenderness, to know if he was very angry with her; then, as he recovered, sighing long, she grew more coaxing, she gave a last reason, with a grave kindness:

-- You see, dear, one must understand... I cannot refuse that to my poor friends.

The count let himself be softened. He demanded only the dismissal of Georges. But all illusion was dead, he no longer believed in the sworn fidelity. The next day, Nana would deceive him again; and he remained in the torment of his possession only by a cowardly need, by a dread of life, at the idea of living without her.

It was the epoch of her existence when Nana lit Paris with a redoubled splendor. She grew still larger at the horizon of vice, she dominated the city by the displayed insolence of her luxury, by her contempt for money, which made her publicly melt fortunes. In her hôtel, there was like a blaze of a forge. Her continual desires flamed there, a little breath of her lips changed gold into a fine ash that the wind swept away each hour. Never had one seen such a rage of spending. The hôtel seemed built upon an abyss, the men with their goods, their bodies, even their names, were engulfed there, without leaving the trace of a little dust. This girl, with the tastes of a parakeet, crunching radishes and pralines, picking at meat, had each month for her table accounts of five thousand francs. It was, in the servants' hall, a frenzied waste, a fierce leakage, which gutted the wine barrels, which rolled up bills inflated by three or four successive hands. Victorine and François reigned as masters in the kitchen, where they invited people, outside a little populace of cousins fed at home on cold meats and greasy broth; Julien demanded discounts from the suppliers, the glaziers did not replace a thirty-sou pane without his having twenty added for himself; Charles ate the horses' oats, doubling the supplies, reselling by a back door what entered by the great door; while, in the midst of this general pillage, this sack of a city taken by assault, Zoé, by dint of art, managed to save appearances, covered the thefts of all in order the better to confuse and save her own. But what was lost was worse still, the food of the eve thrown to the gutter, a clogging of provisions of which the domestics grew disgusted, the sugar gumming the glasses, the gas burning at full jets, to the point of making the walls burst; and negligences, and spitefulnesses, and accidents, all that can hasten ruin, in a house devoured by so many mouths. Then, upstairs, at madame's, the debacle blew stronger: dresses of ten thousand francs, worn twice, sold by Zoé; jewels which disappeared, as if crumbled at the bottom of drawers; stupid purchases, the novelties of the day, forgotten the next day in corners, swept into the street. She could not see something very dear without envying it, she thus made around her a continual disaster of flowers, of precious knickknacks, the happier that the caprice of an hour cost the more. Nothing remained in her hands; she broke everything, it faded, it soiled between her little white fingers; a strewing of nameless debris, of twisted rags, of muddy shreds, followed her and marked her passage. Then burst the big settlements, in the midst of this squandering of pocket money: twenty thousand francs at the milliner's, thirty thousand at the linen-draper's, twelve thousand at the bootmaker's; her stable ate fifty thousand of them; in six months, she had at her dressmaker's a bill of a hundred and twenty thousand francs. Without having increased her establishment, estimated by Labordette at four hundred thousand francs on average, she reached that year the million, stupefied herself at this figure, incapable of saying where such a sum could have gone. The men heaped one above the others, the gold emptied by the barrowful, did not succeed in filling the hole which ever dug itself beneath the pavement of her hôtel, in the crackings of her luxury.

Meanwhile, Nana nursed a last caprice. Worked once more by the idea of redoing her bedroom, she believed she had found it: a chamber of tea-pink velvet, with little silver quiltings, hung to the ceiling in the form of a tent, furnished with cords and a gold lace. That seemed to her ought to be rich and tender, a superb ground for her vermilion skin of a redhead. But the chamber, besides, was simply made to serve as a frame for the bed, a prodigy, a dazzlement. Nana dreamed a bed such as did not exist, a throne, an altar, where Paris would come to adore her sovereign nudity. It would be all in repoussé gold and silver, like a great jewel, roses of gold thrown upon a trellis of silver; at the head, a band of Amours, among the flowers, would lean with laughs, watching the voluptuousness in the shadow of the curtains. She had addressed herself to Labordette who had brought her two goldsmiths. They were already occupied with the designs. The bed would cost fifty thousand francs, and Muffat was to give it to her for her New Year's gifts.

What astonished the young woman, it was, in this river of gold, whose flood flowed between her limbs, to be constantly short of money. Certain days, she found herself at bay for ridiculous sums of a few louis. She had to borrow from Zoé, or else she coined money herself, as she could. But, before resigning herself to extreme means, she felt out her friends, drawing from the men what they had on them, down to sous, with an air of joking. For three months, she thus especially emptied Philippe's pockets. He no longer came, in moments of crisis, without leaving his purse. Soon, emboldened, she had asked him for loans, two hundred francs, three hundred francs, never more, for bills, for screaming debts; and Philippe, named in July captain-treasurer, brought the money the next day, excusing himself for not being rich, for good mama Hugon now treated her sons with a singular severity. At the end of three months, these little loans, often renewed, mounted to some ten thousand francs. The captain still had his fine ringing laugh. Yet, he grew thin, distracted at times, a shadow of suffering on his face. But a glance from Nana transfigured him, in a sort of sensual ecstasy. She was very catlike with him, made him drunk with kisses behind doors, possessed him by sudden abandonments, which nailed him behind her skirts, as soon as he could escape his service.

One evening, Nana having said that she was also called Thérèse, and that her feast day fell on October 15, these gentlemen all sent her gifts. Captain Philippe brought his, an old sweetmeat-box in Saxony porcelain, mounted in gold. He found her alone, in her dressing room, out of the bath, clothed only in a large peignoir of white and red flannel, and very busy examining the gifts, spread on a table. She had already broken a rock-crystal flask, in wanting to unstopper it.

-- Oh! you are too kind! said she. What is it? show a bit... Are you a child, to put your sous into little machines like that!

She scolded him, since he was not rich, very content at bottom to see him spend all for her, the only proof of love that touched her. However, she worked the sweetmeat-box, she wanted to see how it was made, opening it, closing it again.

-- Take care, he murmured, it's fragile.

But she shrugged her shoulders. Did he take her for having porter's hands! And, all at once, the hinge remained in her fingers, the lid fell and broke. She remained stupefied, eyes on the pieces, saying:

-- Oh! it's broken!

Then, she began to laugh. The pieces, on the floor, seemed funny to her. It was a nervous gaiety, she had the stupid and mean laugh of a child whom destruction amuses. Philippe was taken with a short revolt; the unhappy woman ignored what anguishes this knickknack cost him. When she saw him upset, she tried to hold herself back.

-- Upon my word, it's not my fault... It was cracked. These old things no longer hold... Also, it's this lid! did you see the caper?

And she set off again with a mad laugh. But, as the young man's eyes grew moist, despite his effort, she threw herself tenderly at his neck.

-- Are you silly! I love you all the same. If one broke nothing, the merchants would sell no more. All that is made to be broken... Look! this fan, is it even glued only!

She had seized a fan, pulling on the sticks; and the silk tore in two. That seemed to excite her. To show that she mocked the other gifts, since she had just spoiled his, she gave herself the treat of a massacre, striking the objects, proving there was not one solid, destroying them all. A gleam lit in her empty eyes, a little curling of the lips showed her white teeth. Then, when all were in pieces, very red, seized again with her laugh, she struck the table with her spread hands, she lisped in a gamine's voice:

-- Finished! no more! no more!

Then Philippe, won over by this intoxication, grew merry and kissed her breast, throwing her backward. She abandoned herself, she hung on his shoulders, so happy, that she did not recall having amused herself so much for a long time. And, without releasing him, in a tone of caress:

-- Say, dear, you should bring me ten louis tomorrow... A bother, a bill from my baker who torments me.

He had grown pale; then, putting a last kiss on her forehead, he said simply:

-- I'll try.

A silence reigned. She dressed. He, leaned his brow against a pane. At the end of a minute, he came back, he resumed slowly:

-- Nana, you should marry me.

Thereupon, this idea so amused the young woman, that she could not finish tying her petticoats.

-- But, my poor dog, are you ill!... Is it because I ask you for ten louis that you offer me your hand?... Never. I love you too much. What a stupidity, upon my word!

And, as Zoé entered to put on her shoes, they spoke no more of that. The chambermaid had at once eyed the gifts in crumbs on the table. She asked if these things should be put away; and madame having said to throw them out, she carried all off in a corner of her skirt. In the kitchen, they crumpled, they shared out madame's debris.

That day, Georges, despite Nana's prohibition, had introduced himself into the hôtel. François had well seen him pass, but the domestics had come to laugh among themselves at the mistress's embarrassments. He had just slipped to the small salon, when his brother's voice stopped him; and, nailed behind the door, he heard the whole scene, the kisses, the offer of marriage. A horror chilled him, he went away, imbecile, with the sensation of a great void beneath his skull. It was only in the rue Richelieu, in his chamber, above his mother's apartment, that his heart burst in furious sobs. This time, he could not doubt. An abominable image always rose before his eyes, Nana in Philippe's arms; and that seemed to him an incest. When he thought himself calmed, the memory returned, a new crisis of jealous rage threw him on his bed, biting the sheets, crying infamous words which maddened him the more. The day passed thus. He spoke of a migraine to stay shut in. But the night was yet more terrible, a murder fever shook him, in continual nightmares. If his brother had lived in the house, he would have gone to kill him with a knife stroke. At daybreak, he wanted to reason. It was he who must die, he would throw himself from the window, when an omnibus passed. Yet, he went out toward ten o'clock; he ran Paris, roamed on the bridges, felt at the last moment the invincible need to see Nana again. Perhaps a word would save him. And three o'clock was striking, as he entered the hôtel on the avenue de Villiers.

Toward noon, an awful news had crushed Madame Hugon. Philippe was in prison since the evening before, he was accused of having stolen twelve thousand francs from his regiment's cashbox. For three months, he had diverted small sums, hoping to replace them, hiding the deficit by false papers; and this fraud always succeeded, thanks to the negligences of the council of administration. The old lady, shattered before her child's crime, had a first cry of anger against Nana; she knew Philippe's liaison, his sadnesses came from this misfortune which kept her in Paris, in fear of a catastrophe; but never had she dreaded so much shame, and now she reproached herself her refusals of money as a complicity. Fallen on an armchair, her legs taken by paralysis, she felt herself useless, incapable of a step, nailed there to die. Yet, the sudden thought of Georges consoled her; Georges remained to her, he could act, save them perhaps. Then, without asking anyone's help, desiring to bury these things among them, she dragged herself and mounted the floor, attached to this idea that she still had a tenderness near her. But, upstairs, she found the chamber empty. The concierge told her that Monsieur Georges had gone out early. A second misfortune blew in this chamber; the bed with its bitten sheets told a whole anguish; a chair thrown to the ground, among clothes, seemed dead. Georges must be at that woman's. And Madame Hugon, dry-eyed, strong-legged, descended. She wanted her sons, she was setting out to claim them.

Since the morning, Nana had bothers. First, it was this baker who, from nine o'clock, had appeared with his bill, a misery, a hundred thirty-three francs of bread that she could not manage to settle, in the midst of the royal train of the hôtel. He had presented himself twenty times, irritated at having been changed, from the day he had cut the credit; and the domestics espoused his cause, François said that madame would never pay him if he did not make a good scene, Charles spoke of mounting also to settle an old account of straw left behind, while Victorine advised to wait for the presence of a gentleman and to draw the money, falling right into the conversation. The kitchen grew passionate, all the suppliers were put in the know, there were three- and four-hour tittle-tattles, madame undressed, picked apart, told, with the relentlessness of an idle domesticity, which burst with well-being. Alone, Julien, the majordomo, affected to defend madame: all the same, she was chic; and when the others accused him of sleeping with her, he laughed with a fat air, which put the cook beside herself, for she would have liked to be a man to spit on the behinds of these women, so much did that disgust her. Maliciously, François had posted the baker in the vestibule, without warning madame. As she descended, madame found him before her, at lunchtime. She took the bill, she told him to come back toward three o'clock. Then, with dirty words, he left, swearing to be exact and to pay himself, no matter how.

Nana lunched very badly, vexed by this scene. This time, it was necessary to get rid of this man. Ten times, she had set aside her money; but the money had always melted, one day for flowers, another day for a subscription made in favor of an old gendarme. Besides, she counted on Philippe, she was even astonished not to see him, with his two hundred francs. It was a true run of ill luck, the day before yesterday she had again fitted out Satin, a whole trousseau, near twelve hundred francs of dresses and linen; and there remained not a louis at her house.

Toward two o'clock, as Nana began to be uneasy, Labordette presented himself. He brought the designs of the bed. It was a diversion, a burst of joy which made the young woman forget all. She clapped her hands, she danced. Then, swollen with curiosity, leaning above a table in the salon, she examined the designs, which Labordette explained to her:

-- You see, this is the boat; in the middle, a tuft of full-blown roses, then a garland of flowers and buds; the foliage will be in green gold and the roses in red gold... And here is the great piece of the headboard, a round of Amours on a trellis of silver.

But Nana interrupted him, carried away by ravishment.

-- Oh! how funny he is, the little one, the one in the corner, who has his behind in the air... Huh? and that sly laugh! They all have a pig's eyes!... You know, my dear, never would I dare do silly things before them!

“Stories of the world, in your language.”