Part 33

She was in a state of extraordinary prideful satisfaction. The goldsmiths had said that not a single queen slept in such a bed. Only, a complication had arisen. Labordette showed her two designs for the footboard: one reproducing the motif of the boats, the other a full subject—Night enveloped in her veils, and a Faun discovering her radiant nudity. He added that, should she choose the subject, the goldsmiths intended to give Night her likeness. This idea, of a risky taste, made her pale with pleasure. She saw herself as a silver statuette, in the symbol of the tepid voluptuousness of shadow.

—Of course, you would only pose for the head and shoulders, said Labordette.

She looked at him calmly.

—Why?... Since it is a work of art, I couldn't care less about the sculptor who takes me!

It was understood: she chose the subject. But he stopped her.

—Wait... It is six thousand francs more.

—Well, that is what I am indifferent to! she cried, bursting into laughter. Doesn't my little mufe have the purse!

Now, with her intimates, she thus called Count Muffat; and these gentlemen no longer questioned her about him otherwise: "Did you see your little mufe last night?... Look! I thought I'd find the little mufe here?" A mere familiarity which, however, she did not yet permit herself in his presence.

Labordette was rolling up the designs, giving final explanations: the goldsmiths undertook to deliver the bed in two months, around December 25; the following week, a sculptor would come for the maquette of Night. As he was seeing her out, Nana remembered the baker. And abruptly:

—By the way, wouldn't you have ten louis on you?

A principle of Labordette's, from which he benefited, was never to lend money to women. He always gave the same answer.

—No, my girl, I'm broke... But shall I go to your little mufe?

She refused; it was useless. Two days before, she had drawn five thousand francs from the count. Yet, she regretted her discretion. Behind Labordette, though it was scarcely half past two, the baker reappeared; and he installed himself on a bench in the vestibule, brutally, swearing very loud. The young woman listened from the first floor. She paled; she suffered above all from hearing rise up to her the dull joy of the servants. They were dying of laughter in the kitchen; the coachman watched from the back of the courtyard, François crossed the vestibule for no reason, then hurried to give news, after throwing at the baker a knowing snicker. They were making fun of madame; the walls burst, she felt all alone in the contempt of the servants' hall, which watched her and splashed her with a filthy joke. Then, as she had had the idea of borrowing the hundred thirty-three francs from Zoé, she abandoned it; she already owed her money, she was too proud to risk a refusal. Such emotion swept her up that she went back into her room, speaking aloud.

—Go on, go on, my girl, count only on yourself... Your body belongs to you, and it is better to make use of it than to suffer an affront.

And, without even calling Zoé, she dressed feverishly to run to la Tricon. It was her supreme resource, in hours of great difficulty. Much in demand, always solicited by the old lady, she refused or resigned herself, according to her needs; and on days, increasingly frequent, when holes opened in her royal train, she was sure to find there twenty-five louis waiting for her. She went to la Tricon's, with the ease of habit, as poor people go to the pawnshop.

But, leaving her room, she bumped into Georges, standing in the middle of the salon. She did not see his waxen pallor, the dark fire of his enlarged eyes. She gave a sigh of relief.

—Ah! You come from your brother!

—No, said the boy, growing even paler.

Then she made a desperate gesture. What did he want? Why did he block her path? Come now, she was in a hurry. Then, coming back:

—You don't have money, you?

—No.

—It's true, how stupid I am! Never a red cent, not even the six sous for their omnibus... Maman won't allow it... What men!

And she slipped away. But he held her back; he wanted to speak to her. She, launched, repeated that she had no time, when with a word he stopped her.

—Listen, I know you are going to marry my brother.

That, now, was comical. She let herself fall into a chair to laugh at her ease.

—Yes, continued the boy. And I won't have it... It is me you are going to marry... I have come for that.

—Eh? How? You too! she cried, is it a family disease?... But, never! what a taste! Did I ask you for such a filthy thing?... Neither one nor the other, never!

Georges's face lit up. If he had been mistaken by chance? He resumed:

—Then, swear to me you don't sleep with my brother.

—Ah! you annoy me, finally! said Nana, who had risen, seized again with impatience. It's funny for a minute, but when I tell you I'm in a hurry!... I sleep with your brother, if it pleases me. Do you keep me, do you pay here, to demand accounts?... Yes, I sleep with him, with your brother...

He had seized her arm, squeezing it to break it, stammering:

—Don't say that... don't say that...

With a slap, she freed herself from his grip.

—He beats me now! Look at the kid!... My little one, you are going to leave, and right away... I kept you out of kindness. Exactly! With your big eyes!... You didn't expect, perhaps, to have me for a mama until death. I have better things to do than raise brats.

He listened to her in an anguish that stiffened him, without revolt. Each word struck his heart, with a great blow, of which he felt himself dying. She, not even seeing his suffering, continued, happy to relieve herself on him of her morning annoyances.

—It's like your brother, another pretty fellow, that one!... He promised me two hundred francs. Ah! not likely! I can wait... It's not that I care about his money! Not enough to pay for my pomade... But he drops me in a difficulty!... See! Want to know? Well! because of your brother, I'm going out to earn twenty-five louis with another man.

Then, his head lost, he barred the door; and he wept, and he begged her, joining his hands, stammering:

—Oh! no, oh! no!

—I would like to, said she. Have you the money?

No, he had no money. He would have given his life to have the money. Never had he felt so miserable, so useless, so much a little boy. All his poor being, shaken with tears, expressed a sorrow so great that she ended by seeing it and by softening. She moved him gently aside.

—Come now, my cat, let me pass, it must be... Be reasonable. You are a baby, and it was nice for a week; but, today, I must think of my affairs. Reflect a little... Your brother at least is a man. I don't say with him... Ah! do me a favor, no use telling him all that. He doesn't need to know where I'm going. I always spill too much, when I'm angry.

She laughed. Then, taking him, kissing him on the forehead:

—Goodbye, baby, it's over, quite over, do you hear... I'm escaping.

And she left him. He was standing in the middle of the salon. The last words rang like a tocsin in his ears: it's over, quite over; and he thought the earth was opening beneath his feet. In the void of his brain, the man who awaited Nana had disappeared; only Philippe remained, in the bare arms of the young woman, continually. She did not deny it, she loved him, since she wanted to spare him the grief of an infidelity. It was over, quite over. He breathed heavily, he looked around the room, suffocated by a weight that crushed him. Memories came back to him one by one: the laughing nights at la Mignotte, hours of caress where he believed himself her child, then voluptuousness stolen in this very room. And never, never again! He was too small, he had not grown fast enough; Philippe replaced him, because he had a beard. Then, it was the end, he could no longer live. His vice had tempered itself with an infinite tenderness, a sensual adoration, where all his being gave itself. Then, how to forget, when his brother would remain there? his brother, a bit of his blood, another self whose pleasure enraged him with jealousy. It was the end, he wanted to die.

All the doors remained open, in the noisy rout of the servants, who had seen madame leave on foot. Below, on the bench of the vestibule, the baker laughed with Charles and François. As Zoé crossed the salon running, she seemed surprised to see Georges and asked him if he was waiting for madame. Yes, he was waiting for her; he had forgotten to give her an answer. And, when he was alone, he began to search. Finding nothing else, he took from the toilet cabinet a pair of very pointed scissors, of which Nana had the continual mania of making use to prune her person, paring skins, cutting hairs. Then, for an hour, he waited, his fingers nervously stuck to the scissors, his hand in his pocket.

—Here is madame, said Zoé, returning, who must have watched for her from the chamber window.

There were runnings in the hotel; laughter died, doors closed. Georges heard Nana paying the baker, in a brief voice. Then, she came up.

—What! you are still here! she said, seeing him. Ah! we are going to quarrel, my good man!

He followed her, while she headed toward the bedroom.

—Nana, will you marry me?

But she shrugged. It was too stupid; she no longer answered. Her idea was to slam the door in his face.

—Nana, will you marry me?

She flung the door. With one hand, he reopened it, while he drew the other hand from his pocket, with the scissors. And, simply, with a great blow, he drove them into his chest.

Meanwhile, Nana had been conscious of a misfortune; she had turned. When she saw him strike himself, she was seized with indignation.

—But is he stupid! but is he stupid! And with my scissors too!... Will you finish, wicked child!... Ah! my God! ah! my God!

She was bewildered. The boy, fallen to his knees, had just dealt himself a second blow, which had thrown him full length on the carpet. He barred the threshold of the bedroom. Then, she completely lost her head, crying with all her strength, not daring to step over this body, which enclosed her and prevented her from running to seek help.

—Zoé! Zoé! do come... Make him finish... It's stupid, finally, a child like that!... There he is killing himself now! and in my house! Has one ever seen!

He frightened her. He was all white, eyes closed. It scarcely bled, barely a little blood, whose thin stain was lost under the waistcoat. She was deciding to step over the body, when an apparition made her recoil. Facing her, through the salon door left wide open, an old lady advanced. And she recognized Madame Hugon, terrified, not explaining this presence. She kept backing away; she still had her gloves and her hat. Her terror became such that she defended herself, her voice stammering.

—Madame, it is not me, I swear to you... He wanted to marry me, I said no, and he killed himself.

Slowly, Madame Hugon approached, dressed in black, her face pale, with her white hair. In the carriage, the idea of Georges had gone away; the fault of Philippe had taken her wholly again. Perhaps this woman could give the judges explanations that would touch them; and the plan came to her to beseech her, so that she would testify in favor of her son. Below, the hotel doors were open; she hesitated on the stairs, with her bad legs, when, all at once, cries of horror had directed her. Then, upstairs, a man lay on the ground, his shirt stained red. It was Georges, it was her other child.

Nana repeated, in an imbecilic tone:

—He wanted to marry me, I said no, and he killed himself.

Without a cry, Madame Hugon bent down. Yes, it was the other, it was Georges. One dishonored, the other assassinated. This did not surprise her, in the collapse of all her life. Kneeling on the carpet, ignorant of where she was, seeing no one, she looked fixedly at Georges's face, she listened, a hand on her heart. Then, she gave a faint sigh. She had felt the heart beat. Then she raised her head, examined this bedroom and this woman, seemed to recall. A flame lit in her empty eyes; she was so tall and so terrible in her silence that Nana trembled, continuing to defend herself, above this body that separated them.

—I swear to you, madame... If his brother were here, he could explain to you...

—His brother has stolen, he is in prison, said the mother harshly.

Nana remained strangled. But why all this? the other had stolen, now! were they then mad, in this family! She no longer struggled, not appearing at home, letting Madame Hugon give orders. Servants had ended by running up; the old lady absolutely wanted them to carry Georges, fainting, down into her carriage. She would rather kill him and carry him from this house. Nana, with her stupefied looks, followed the servants who held poor Zizi by the shoulders and by the legs. The mother walked behind, now exhausted, leaning on the furniture, as cast into the nothingness of all she loved. On the landing, she had a sob; she turned and said twice:

—Ah! you have done us much harm!... You have done us much harm!

That was all. Nana had sat down, in her stupor, still gloved and her hat on her head. The hotel fell back into a heavy silence; the carriage had just left; and she remained motionless, not having an idea, her head buzzing with this story. A quarter of an hour later, Count Muffat found her in the same place. But then she relieved herself with an overflowing flood of words, telling him the misfortune, coming back twenty times to the same details, picking up the bloodstained scissors to redo Zizi's gesture, when he had struck himself. And she had especially at heart to prove her innocence.

—Come, darling, is it my fault? If you were justice, would you condemn me?... I didn't tell Philippe to eat the frog, of course; no more than I pushed this poor boy to massacre himself... In all this, I am the most unhappy. People come do their foolishness at my house, they cause me pain, they treat me like a rogue...

And she began to weep. A nervous release made her soft and aching, very tender, with an immense sorrow.

—You too, you seem not content... Ask Zoé a bit, if I had anything to do with it... Zoé, do speak, explain to monsieur...

For a moment, the chambermaid, who had taken from the cabinet a towel and a basin of water, was scrubbing the carpet to remove a bloodstain, while it was fresh.

—Oh! monsieur, declared she, madame is quite desolate!

Muffat remained stricken, frozen by this drama, his thought full of this mother weeping for her sons. He knew her great heart; he saw her, in her widow's weeds, fading alone at Les Fondettes. But Nana despaired more strongly. Now, the image of Zizi, fallen on the ground, with a red hole on his shirt, threw her out of herself.

—He was so pretty, so sweet, so caressing... Ah! you know, my cat, too bad if it vexes you, I loved him, that baby! I can't hold myself, it's stronger than me... And then, it should do nothing to you, now. He is no longer here. You have what you wanted, you are quite sure not to surprise us again...

And this last idea strangled her with such regret that he ended by consoling her. Come, she must show herself strong; she was right, it was not her fault. But she stopped herself, to say:

—Listen, you are going to run and get me news of him... Right away! I want it!

He took his hat and went for news of Georges. At the end of three quarters of an hour, when he returned, he caught sight of Nana leaning anxiously from a window; and he cried from the sidewalk that the boy was not dead, and that they even hoped to save him. Then, she jumped at once to a great joy; she sang, danced, found existence beautiful. Zoé, however, was not content with her washing. She still looked at the stain; she repeated each time, passing:

—You know, madame, that it hasn't come out.

Indeed, the stain reappeared, of a pale red, on a white rosette of the carpet. It was, at the very threshold of the bedroom, like a streak of blood barring the door.

—Bah! said Nana, happy, it will go under the feet.

From the next day, Count Muffat, too, had forgotten the adventure. For an instant, in the fiacre that took him to rue Richelieu, he had sworn to himself not to return to this woman. Heaven gave him a warning; he looked at the misfortune of Philippe and Georges as the announcement of his own ruin. But neither the spectacle of Madame Hugon in tears nor the sight of the child burning with fever had had the force to make him keep his oath; and, from the brief shiver of this drama, there remained to him only the dull enjoyment of being rid of a rival whose charming youth had always exasperated him. He came now to an exclusive passion, one of those passions of men who have not had a youth. He loved Nana with a need to know her as his alone, to hear her, to touch her, to be in her breath. It was a tenderness widened beyond the senses, up to pure feeling, an anxious affection, jealous of the past, sometimes dreaming of redemption, of pardon received, both kneeling before God the Father. Each day, religion took him more. He practiced again, confessed and communed, ceaselessly combated, doubling with his remorse the joys of sin and of penitence. Then, his director having permitted him to wear out his passion, he had made a habit of this daily damnation, which he bought back with bursts of faith, full of a devout humility. Very naively, he offered to heaven, as an expiatory suffering, the abominable torment he endured. This torment grew still; it mounted his calvary of a believer, of grave and deep heart, fallen into the enraged sensuality of a girl. And what he agonized over above all was the continual infidelities of this woman, unable to accustom himself to sharing, not understanding her imbecilic caprices. He wished for an eternal love, always the same. Yet, she had sworn, and he paid her for that. But he felt her lying, incapable of keeping herself, giving herself to friends, to passersby, a good beast born to live without a shirt.

One morning when he saw Foucarmont leave her house, at a singular hour, he made a scene with her. Thereupon, she grew angry, tired of his jealousy. Already, several times, she had shown herself nice. Thus, the evening he had surprised her with Georges, she had come back first, avowing her wrongs, overwhelming him with caresses and kindly words, to make him swallow that. But, finally, he crushed her with his stubbornness at not understanding women; and she was brutal.

—Well! yes, I slept with Foucarmont. After?... Eh? that takes you down, my little mufe!

It was the first time she threw "my little mufe" in his face. He remained suffocated by the breadth of her avowal; and, as he clenched his fists, she walked toward him, looked him in the face.

—Enough of that, eh?... If that doesn't suit you, you are going to do me the pleasure of leaving... I don't want you to shout in my house... Get well into your nut that I intend to be free. When a man pleases me, I sleep with him. Exactly, that's how it is... And you must decide right away: yes or no, you can leave.

She had gone to open the door. He did not leave. Now, it was her way of attaching him the more; for a trifle, at the least quarrel, she put the bargain in his hands, with abominable reflections. Ah well! she would always find better than him; she had embarrassment of choice; one picked up men outside, as many as one wanted, and men less awkward, whose blood boiled in their veins. He lowered his head; he waited for sweeter hours, when she had a need of money; then, she made herself caressing, and he forgot, a night of tenderness compensated the tortures of a whole week. His rapprochement with his wife had made his home unbearable. The countess, dropped by Fauchery, who fell back under Rose's sway, was stunning herself with other loves, in the anxious fever-fit of her forties, always nervous, filling the hotel with the exasperating whirl of her life. Estelle, since her marriage, no longer saw her father; in this flat and insignificant girl, a woman of iron will had abruptly appeared, so absolute that Daguenet trembled before her; now, he accompanied her to mass, converted, furious against his father-in-law who was ruining them with a creature. Alone, M. Venot remained tender toward the count, watching his hour; he had even come to introduce himself near Nana, he frequented both houses, where one met behind the doors his continual smile. And Muffat, miserable at home, chased by boredom and shame, still preferred to live on avenue de Villiers, amid insults.

Soon, a single question remained between Nana and the count: money. One day, after having formally promised her ten thousand francs, he had dared to present himself empty-handed, at the agreed hour. Since the day before yesterday, she had heated him with caresses. Such a breach of word, so many lost kindnesses, threw her into a rage of coarseness. She was all white.

—Eh? you haven't the change... Then, my little mufe, go back where you came from, and quicker than that! What a camel! he wanted to kiss me still!... No more money, nothing! you hear!

He gave explanations; he would have the sum the day after tomorrow. But she interrupted him violently.

—And my deadlines! They will seize me, I, while monsieur comes here for free... Ah! look at yourself! Do you imagine I love you for your form? When one has a mug like yours, one pays the women who are willing to tolerate you... God's name! if you don't bring me the ten thousand francs this evening, you won't even have to suck the tip of my little finger... Truly! I send you back to your wife!

“Stories of the world, in your language.”