Part 5

-- There, gentlemen, she resumed. Another time, I hope to give more.

They had no further pretext; they bowed and made for the door. But just as they were about to leave, the bell rang out again. The marquis could not hide a pale smile, while a shadow made the count more grave. Nana detained them a few seconds, to allow Zoé time to find another corner. She did not like people meeting at her house. Only, this time, it must be packed. So she was relieved when she saw the drawing room empty. Had Zoé then stuffed them into the wardrobes?

-- Goodbye, gentlemen, she said, stopping on the threshold of the salon.

She enveloped them in her laughter and her clear gaze. Count Muffat bowed, troubled despite his great worldly experience, needing air, carrying away a dizziness from that dressing room, a smell of flower and woman that stifled him. And, behind him, the Marquis de Chouard, certain he was unseen, dared to cast Nana a wink, his face suddenly gone to pieces, tongue on his lip.

When the young woman went back into the dressing room, where Zoé awaited her with letters and visiting cards, she cried, laughing louder:

-- There are some greenhorns who just made my fifty francs!

She was not angry; it seemed funny to her that men should have carried off her money. Still, they were pigs, she had not a sou left. But the sight of the cards and letters restored her ill humor. The letters, that was all right; they came from gentlemen who, after applauding her the night before, sent her declarations. As for the callers, they could go take a walk.

Zoé had put them everywhere; and she pointed out that the apartment was very convenient, each room opening onto the corridor. It was not like at Madame Blanche's, where one had to pass through the salon. So Madame Blanche had had many a trouble.

-- You will send them all away, resumed Nana, who kept to her idea. Begin with the darkie.

-- That one, madame, I sent him off long ago, said Zoé with a smile. He only wanted to tell madame he could not come this evening.

It was a great joy. Nana clapped her hands. He was not coming, what luck! She would be free then! And she heaved sighs of relief, as if she had been spared the most abominable of tortures. Her first thought was for Daguenet. That poor puss, whom she had just written to wait until Thursday! Quick, Madame Maloir was to write a second letter! But Zoé said Madame Maloir had slipped away unnoticed, as was her habit. Then Nana, after speaking of sending someone, remained hesitant. She was very tired. A whole night's sleep, that would be so good! The idea of that treat finally won out. For once, she could afford it.

-- I shall go to bed when I come back from the theatre, she murmured with a greedy air, and you will not wake me before noon.

Then, raising her voice:

-- Whoop! now, shove the others down the stairs!

Zoé did not move. She would not have allowed herself to give madame open advice; only, she managed to let madame profit from her experience, when madame seemed to run away with her bad head.

-- Monsieur Steiner too? she asked in a short voice.

-- Certainly, answered Nana. Him before the others.

The maid waited again, to give madame time to reflect. Would madame not be proud to take from her rival, Rose Mignon, such a rich gentleman, known in all the theatres?

-- Do hurry, my dear, resumed Nana, who understood perfectly, and tell him he bores me.

But suddenly she had a change of mind; tomorrow, she might want him; and she cried with a boy's gesture, laughing, blinking:

-- After all, if I want him, the quickest is still to fling him out the door.

Zoé seemed much struck. She looked at madame, seized with sudden admiration, then went to fling Steiner out the door, without hesitating.

Meanwhile Nana waited a few minutes, to let her sweep the floor, as she said. No idea of such an assault! She stretched her head into the salon; it was empty. The dining room, empty also. But as she continued her inspection, reassured, certain there was no one left, she suddenly came upon a little young man, pushing open a cabinet door. He was sitting atop a trunk, quite calm, looking very proper, with an enormous bouquet on his knees.

-- Ah! my God! she cried. There is still one in there!

The little young man, on seeing her, had jumped to the floor, red as a poppy. And he knew not what to do with his bouquet, which he passed from one hand to the other, strangled by emotion. His youth, his embarrassment, the funny look he had with his flowers, softened Nana, who burst into a fine laugh. So, children now too? Men were coming to her at the swaddling clothes? She gave way, familiar, maternal, slapping her thighs and asking in jest:

-- You want your nose wiped, baby?

-- Yes, answered the lad in a low, supplicating voice.

This answer amused her more. He was seventeen, his name was Georges Hugon. The night before, he was at the Variétés. And he had come to see her.

-- Is that for me, those flowers?

-- Yes.

-- Give them here, silly!

But as she took the bouquet, he jumped on her hands, with the greed of his fine age. She had to beat him to make him let go. There was a brat who went straight! While scolding him, she had turned pink, she smiled. And she sent him away, permitting him to return. He staggered, could no longer find the doors.

Nana went back to her dressing room, where Francis presented himself almost at once to do her hair for good. She only dressed in the evening. Seated before the mirror, lowering her head under the nimble hands of the hairdresser, she remained silent and dreamy, when Zoé entered, saying:

-- Madame, there is one who will not leave.

-- Well! he must be left, she answered tranquilly.

-- With that, they keep coming.

-- Bah! tell them to wait. When they are too hungry, they will go.

Her mind had turned. It delighted her to make the men wait. An idea finished amusing her: she escaped Francis's hands, ran to bolt the doors herself; now they could pile up next door, they would not break through the wall, perhaps. Zoé would enter by the little door leading to the kitchen. Meanwhile, the electric bell worked harder than ever. Every five minutes, the tinkle returned, quick and clear, with the regularity of a well-regulated machine. And Nana counted them, to amuse herself. But she had a sudden recollection.

-- My pralines, I say?

Francis, too, had forgotten the pralines. He drew a bag from a pocket of his frock coat, with the discreet gesture of a man of the world offering a gift to a friend; yet, at every settlement, he put the pralines on his bill. Nana placed the bag between her knees, and began to crunch, turning her head under the light pushes of the hairdresser.

-- Damn! she murmured after a silence, there is a crowd.

Three times, one on top of another, the bell had tingled. The calls of the bell hurried. There were modest ones, stammering with the trembling of a first avowal; bold ones, vibrating under some brutal finger; hurried ones, crossing the air with a rapid shiver. A veritable carillon, as Zoé said, a carillon to revolutionize the quarter, a whole mob of men tapping in line on the ivory button. That joker Bordenave had truly given the address to too many people; all the house from the night before was going to pass through.

-- By the way, Francis, said Nana, have you five louis?

He drew back, examined the hairdo, then tranquilly:

-- Five louis, that depends.

-- Ah! you know, she resumed, if you need guarantees...

And, without finishing the phrase, with a broad gesture, she indicated the neighboring rooms. Francis lent the five louis. Zoé, in moments of respite, came in to prepare madame's toilet. Soon she had to dress her, while the hairdresser waited, wanting to give a last touch to the hair. But the bell, continually, disturbed the chambermaid, who left madame half-laced, shod on one foot only. She was losing her head, despite her experience. After putting men a bit everywhere, using the smallest corners, she had just been forced to stow as many as three and four together, which was contrary to all her principles. Too bad if they ate each other, it would make room! And Nana, well bolted, safe, mocked them, saying she heard them puffing. They must have a fine look, all tongue hanging, like lapdogs sitting in a ring on their haunches. It was her success of the night before continuing; this pack of men had followed her trail.

-- Provided they break nothing, she murmured.

She was beginning to worry, under the warm breaths that passed through the cracks. But Zoé introduced Labordette, and the young woman gave a cry of relief. He wanted to speak to her of an account he had settled for her, at the justice of the peace. She did not listen, repeating:

-- I am taking you along... We dine together... From there, you accompany me to the Variétés. I do not go on until half past nine.

That good Labordette, did he come at the right time! Never did he ask for anything, himself. He was only the friend of women, whose little affairs he trinketed. Thus, in passing, he had just dismissed the creditors, in the antechamber. Besides, those good people did not want to be paid, on the contrary; if they had insisted, it was to compliment madame and make her, in person, new offers of service, after her great success of the night before.

-- Let us flee, let us flee, said Nana, who was dressed.

Just then Zoé came back, crying:

-- Madame, I give up opening... There is a queue on the stairs.

A queue on the stairs! Francis himself, despite the English phlegm he affected, began to laugh, while putting away the combs. Nana, who had taken Labordette's arm, pushed him into the kitchen. And she escaped, delivered from men at last, happy, knowing one could have her alone with oneself, anywhere, without fear of foolishness.

-- You will bring me back to my door, she said as they went down the service stairs. That way, I will be sure... Just imagine I want to sleep a whole night, a whole night of my own. A whim, my dear!

III

The Countess Sabine, as one had taken the habit of naming Madame Muffat de Beuville, to distinguish her from the count's mother, dead the previous year, received every Tuesday, in her hotel on the rue Miromesnil, at the corner of the rue de Penthièvre. It was a vast square building, inhabited by the Muffats for more than a hundred years; on the street, the facade slept, high and black, with the melancholy of a convent, with immense shutters that remained almost always closed; behind, in a patch of damp garden, trees had grown, seeking the sun, so long and so slender, that one saw their branches above the slates.

That Tuesday, toward ten o'clock, there were scarcely a dozen persons in the salon. When she expected only intimates, the countess opened neither the small salon nor the dining room. One was more among oneself, one chatted near the fire. The salon, moreover, was very large, very high; four windows gave onto the garden, whose dampness one felt through that rainy evening of late April, despite the heavy logs burning in the fireplace. Never did the sun descend there; by day, a greenish light barely lit the room; but in the evening, when the lamps and the chandelier were lit, it was only grave, with its Empire furniture of solid mahogany, its hangings and its seats of yellow velvet, with broad satin patterns. One entered into a cold dignity, into old manners, a vanished age exhaling an odor of devotion.

However, opposite the armchair where the count's mother had died, a square armchair, with stiffened wood and hard fabric, on the other side of the fireplace, the Countess Sabine sat on a deep chair, whose padded red silk had the softness of an eiderdown. It was the only modern piece, a corner of fancy introduced into that severity, and which jarred.

-- So, said the young woman, we shall have the shah of Persia...

They were talking of the princes who would come to Paris for the Exhibition. Several ladies made a circle before the fireplace. Madame Du Joncquoy, whose brother, a diplomat, had filled a mission in the Orient, gave details on the court of Nazar-Eddin.

-- Are you unwell, my dear? asked Madame Chantereau, the wife of a master of forges, seeing the countess taken with a slight shiver that paled her.

-- But no, not at all, answered the latter, smiling. I was a little cold... This salon is so long to heat!

And she wandered her black gaze along the walls, up to the heights of the ceiling. Estelle, her daughter, a young person of sixteen, in the awkward age, slim and insignificant, left the stool where she sat, and came silently to lift a log that had rolled. But Madame de Chezelles, a convent friend of Sabine's, younger than her by five years, cried:

-- Ah well! it is I who would like to have a salon like yours! At least, you can receive... One makes nothing but boxes nowadays... If I were in your place!

She spoke heedlessly, with quick gestures, explaining that she would change the hangings, the seats, everything; then, she would give balls to make Paris run. Behind her, her husband, a magistrate, listened with a grave air. It was said she deceived him, without hiding it; but one pardoned her, one received her all the same, because, it was said, she was mad.

-- That Léonide! the Countess Sabine merely murmured, with her pale smile.

A lazy gesture completed her thought. Surely, it would not be after having lived there seventeen years that she would change her salon. Now, it would remain as her mother-in-law had wished to keep it in her lifetime. Then, returning to the conversation:

-- I was assured we shall also have the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia.

-- Yes, very fine festivities are announced, said Madame Du Joncquoy.

The banker Steiner, introduced lately into the house by Léonide de Chezelles, who knew all Paris, chatted on a sofa, between two windows; he questioned a deputy, from whom he tried cleverly to draw news, regarding a movement of the Bourse that he scented; while Count Muffat, standing before them, listened in silence, his face greyer still than usual. Four or five young men made another group, near the door, where they surrounded Count Xavier de Vandeuvres, who, in a half-voice, told them a story, very racy no doubt, for they stifled laughs. In the middle of the room, all alone, seated heavily in an armchair, a stout man, a chief clerk at the Ministry of the Interior, slept with open eyes. But one of the young men having seemed to doubt Vandeuvres's story, the latter raised his voice.

-- You are too skeptical, Foucarmont; you will spoil your pleasures.

And he came back laughing near the ladies. The last of a great race, feminine and witty, he was then eating up a fortune with a rage of appetites that nothing appeased. His racing stable, one of the most celebrated in Paris, cost him a crazy amount of money; his losses at the Cercle Impérial counted each month by a worrying number of louis; his mistresses devoured him, good year, bad year, a farm and some acres of land or forest, a whole strip of his vast domains of Picardy.

-- I advise you to call others skeptics, you who believe in nothing, said Léonide, making him a little place next to her. It is you who spoil your pleasures.

-- Exactly, he answered. I want to let others profit from my experience.

But they imposed silence on him. He scandalized M. Venot. Then, the ladies having drawn apart, one perceived, at the back of a long chair, a little man of sixty, with bad teeth and a fine smile; he was there, installed as at home, listening to everyone, not letting fall a word. With a gesture, he said he was not scandalized. Vandeuvres had resumed his grand air, and he added gravely:

-- Monsieur Venot knows well that I believe what must be believed.

It was an act of religious faith. Léonide herself seemed satisfied. At the back of the room, the young men no longer laughed. The salon was stiff-necked, they amused themselves little there. A cold breath had passed; one heard in the midst of the silence the nasal voice of Steiner, whom the deputy's discretion was finally putting beside himself. An instant, the Countess Sabine looked at the fire; then, she took up the conversation again.

-- I saw the King of Prussia, last year, at Baden. He is still full of vigor for his age.

-- Count Bismarck will accompany him, said Madame Du Joncquoy. Do you know the count? I lunched with him at my brother's, oh! long ago, when he represented Prussia in Paris... There is a man whose recent successes I scarcely understand.

-- Why so? asked Madame Chantereau.

-- My God! how to tell you... He does not please me. He seems brutal and ill-bred. Then, myself, I find him stupid.

Everyone then spoke of Count Bismarck. Opinions were much divided. Vandeuvres knew him and assured he was a fine drinker and a fine player. But, at the height of the discussion, the door opened, Hector de la Faloise appeared. Fauchery, who followed him, approached the countess, and bowing:

-- Madame, I remembered your gracious invitation...

She gave a smile, a kindly word. The journalist, after saluting the count, remained a moment out of his element in the middle of the salon, where he recognized only Steiner. Vandeuvres, having turned, came to give him a handshake. And, at once, happy at the meeting, seized with a need to expand, Fauchery drew him aside, saying in a low voice:

-- It is for tomorrow, are you in?

-- Of course!

-- At midnight, at her place.

-- I know, I know... I am going with Blanche.

He wanted to slip away, to come back near the ladies and give a new argument in favor of M. de Bismarck. But Fauchery held him.

-- You would never guess what invitation she charged me with.

And, with a slight nod, he designated Count Muffat, who at that moment was discussing a point of the budget with the deputy and Steiner.

-- No possible! said Vandeuvres, stupefied and put into gaiety.

-- My word! I had to swear to bring him to her. I come a bit for that.

Both had a silent laugh, and Vandeuvres, hurrying, re-entering the circle of the ladies, cried:

-- I assure you, on the contrary, that Monsieur de Bismarck is very witty... Why, he said, one evening, before me, a charming word...

Meanwhile, la Faloise, having heard the few rapid words, exchanged in half-voice, looked at Fauchery, hoping for an explanation, which did not come. Of whom were they speaking? what was one doing, the next day, at midnight? He no longer let go of his cousin. The latter had gone to sit down. The Countess Sabine especially interested him. One had often pronounced her name before him; he knew that, married at seventeen, she must be thirty-four, and that since her marriage she led a cloistered existence, between her husband and her mother-in-law. In the world, some said she was cold as a devotee, others pitied her, recalling her fine laughs, her great eyes of flame, before she was shut up at the back of that old hotel. Fauchery examined her and hesitated. One of his friends, recently dead a captain in Mexico, had, the very evening before his departure, leaving the table, given him one of those brutal confidences that the most discreet men let escape at certain moments. But his memories remained vague; that evening, one had dined well; and he doubted, seeing the countess in the middle of that antique salon, dressed in black, with her tranquil smile. A lamp, placed behind her, detached her fine profile of a plump brunette, where the mouth alone, a bit thick, put a sort of imperious sensuality.

-- What have they, with their Bismarck! murmured la Faloise, who posed to be bored in the world. One suffocates here. A queer idea you had, to want to come!

Fauchery questioned him abruptly.

-- Say, then? the countess sleeps with no one?

-- Ah! no, ah! no, my dear, he stammered, visibly disconcerted, forgetting his pose. Where do you think you are?

Then, he was conscious that his indignation lacked chic. He added, abandoning himself to the back of the sofa:

-- Well! I say no, but I know no more than that... There is a little fellow, over there, that Foucarmont, one finds in every corner. One has seen stiffer than that, surely. Me, I don't care... In short, what is certain, is that, if the countess amuses herself tumbling, she is still sly, for it does not circulate, no one talks of it.

Then, without Fauchery taking the trouble to question him, he told him what he knew of the Muffats. In the middle of the conversation of those ladies, which continued before the fireplace, both lowered their voices; and one would have believed, seeing them cravatted and gloved in white, that they treated in chosen phrases some grave subject. So, Mamma Muffat, whom la Faloise had much known, was an insupportable old woman, always among the priests; besides, a great air, a gesture of authority that bent all before her. As for Muffat, late son of a general created count by Napoleon I, he had naturally found favor after December 2. He too lacked gaiety; but he passed for a very honest man, of a straight mind. With that, opinions from the other world, and so high an idea of his office at court, of his dignities and his virtues, that he carried his head like a holy sacrament. It was Mamma Muffat who had given him that fine education: every day to confession, no escapades, no youth of any sort. He practiced, he had crises of faith of a sanguine violence, like fits of hot fever. Finally, to paint him with a last detail, la Faloise let fall a word at his cousin's ear.

-- No possible! said the latter.

-- I was sworn it, word of honor!... He still had it, when he married.

Fauchery laughed looking at the count, whose face framed with side-whiskers, without mustaches, seemed squarer and harder, since he was citing figures to Steiner, who struggled.

-- My faith, he has a head for that, he murmured. A pretty gift he made his wife!... Ah! the poor little one, how he must have bored her! She knows nothing of anything, I bet!

Just then, the Countess Sabine spoke to him. He did not hear her, so much did he find the case of Muffat amusing and extraordinary. She repeated her question.

-- Monsieur Fauchery, have you not published a portrait of Monsieur de Bismarck?... You have spoken to him?

He rose quickly, approached the circle of the ladies, trying to collect himself, finding besides an answer with perfect ease.

-- My God! madame, I will confess to you that I wrote that portrait from biographies appeared in Germany... I have never seen Monsieur de Bismarck.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”