Count Muffat, accompanied by his wife
and daughter, had arrived overnight at Les Fondettes,
where Mme Hugon, who was staying there with only her
son Georges, had invited them to come and spend a week.
The house, which had been built at the end of the
eighteenth century, stood in the middle of a huge
square enclosure. It was perfectly unadorned,
but the garden possessed magnificent shady trees and
a chain of tanks fed by running spring water.
It stood at the side of the road which leads from
Orleans to Paris and with its rich verdure and high-embowered
trees broke the monotony of that flat countryside,
where fields stretched to the horizon’s verge.
At eleven o’clock, when the
second lunch bell had called the whole household together,
Mme Hugon, smiling in her kindly maternal way, gave
Sabine two great kisses, one on each cheek, and said
as she did so:
“You know it’s my custom
in the country. Oh, seeing you here makes me
feel twenty years younger. Did you sleep well
in your old room?”
Then without waiting for her reply she turned to Estelle:
“And this little one, has she had a nap too?
Give me a kiss, my child.”
They had taken their seats in the
vast dining room, the windows of which looked out
on the park. But they only occupied one end of
the long table, where they sat somewhat crowded together
for company’s sake. Sabine, in high good
spirits, dwelt on various childish memories which
had been stirred up within her memories
of months passed at Les Fondettes, of long walks,
of a tumble into one of the tanks on a summer evening,
of an old romance of chivalry discovered by her on
the top of a cupboard and read during the winter before
fires made of vine branches. And Georges, who
had not seen the countess for some months, thought
there was something curious about her. Her face
seemed changed, somehow, while, on the other hand,
that stick of an Estelle seemed more insignificant
and dumb and awkward than ever.
While such simple fare as cutlets
and boiled eggs was being discussed by the company,
Mme Hugon, as became a good housekeeper, launched out
into complaints. The butchers, she said, were
becoming impossible. She bought everything at
Orleans, and yet they never brought her the pieces
she asked for. Yet, alas, if her guests had nothing
worth eating it was their own fault: they had
come too late in the season.
“There’s no sense in it,”
she said. “I’ve been expecting you
since June, and now we’re half through September.
You see, it doesn’t look pretty.”
And with a movement she pointed to
the trees on the grass outside, the leaves of which
were beginning to turn yellow. The day was covered,
and the distance was hidden by a bluish haze which
was fraught with a sweet and melancholy peacefulness.
“Oh, I’m expecting company,”
she continued. “We shall be gayer then!
The first to come will be two gentlemen whom Georges
has invited Monsieur Fauchery and Monsieur
Daguenet; you know them, do you not? Then we shall
have Monsieur de Vandeuvres, who has promised me a
visit these five years past. This time, perhaps,
he’ll make up his mind!”
“Oh, well and good!” said
the countess, laughing. “If we only can
get Monsieur de Vandeuvres! But he’s too
much engaged.”
“And Philippe?” queried Muffat.
“Philippe has asked for a furlough,”
replied the old lady, “but without doubt you
won’t be at Les Fondettes any longer when he
arrives.”
The coffee was served. Paris
was now the subject of conversation, and Steiner’s
name was mentioned, at which Mme Hugon gave a little
cry.
“Let me see,” she said;
“Monsieur Steiner is that stout man I met at
your house one evening. He’s a banker, is
he not? Now there’s a detestable man for
you! Why, he’s gone and bought an actress
an estate about a league from here, over Gumieres
way, beyond the Choue. The whole countryside’s
scandalized. Did you know about that, my friend?”
“I knew nothing about it,”
replied Muffat. “Ah, then, Steiner’s
bought a country place in the neighborhood!”
Hearing his mother broach the subject,
Georges looked into his coffee cup, but in his astonishment
at the count’s answer he glanced up at him and
stared. Why was he lying so glibly? The count,
on his side, noticed the young fellow’s movement
and gave him a suspicious glance. Mme Hugon continued
to go into details: the country place was called
La Mignotte. In order to get there one had to
go up the bank of the Choue as far as Gumieres in
order to cross the bridge; otherwise one got one’s
feet wet and ran the risk of a ducking.
“And what is the actress’s name?”
asked the countess.
“Oh, I wasn’t told,”
murmured the old lady. “Georges, you were
there the morning the gardener spoke to us about it.”
Georges appeared to rack his brains.
Muffat waited, twirling a teaspoon between his fingers.
Then the countess addressed her husband:
“Isn’t Monsieur Steiner
with that singer at the Varietés, that Nana?”
“Nana, that’s the name!
A horrible woman!” cried Mme Hugon with growing
annoyance. “And they are expecting her at
La Mignotte. I’ve heard all about it from
the gardener. Didn’t the gardener say they
were expecting her this evening, Georges?”
The count gave a little start of astonishment,
but Georges replied with much vivacity:
“Oh, Mother, the gardener spoke
without knowing anything about it. Directly afterward
the coachman said just the opposite. Nobody’s
expected at La Mignotte before the day after tomorrow.”
He tried hard to assume a natural
expression while he slyly watched the effect of his
remarks on the count. The latter was twirling
his spoon again as though reassured. The countess,
her eyes fixed dreamily on the blue distances of the
park, seemed to have lost all interest in the conversation.
The shadow of a smile on her lips, she seemed to be
following up a secret thought which had been suddenly
awakened within her. Estelle, on the other hand,
sitting stiffly on her chair, had heard all that had
been said about Nana, but her white, virginal face
had not betrayed a trace of emotion.
“Dear me, dear me! I’ve
got no right to grow angry,” murmured Mme Hugon
after a pause, and with a return to her old good humor
she added:
“Everybody’s got a right
to live. If we meet this said lady on the road
we shall not bow to her that’s all!”
And as they got up from table she
once more gently upbraided the Countess Sabine for
having been so long in coming to her that year.
But the countess defended herself and threw the blame
of the delays upon her husband’s shoulders.
Twice on the eve of departure, when all the trunks
were locked, he counterordered their journey on the
plea of urgent business. Then he had suddenly
decided to start just when the trip seemed shelved.
Thereupon the old lady told them how Georges in the
same way had twice announced his arrival without arriving
and had finally cropped up at Les Fondettes the day
before yesterday, when she was no longer expecting
him. They had come down into the garden, and the
two men, walking beside the ladies, were listening
to them in consequential silence.
“Never mind,” said Mme
Hugon, kissing her son’s sunny locks, “Zizi
is a very good boy to come and bury himself in the
country with his mother. He’s a dear Zizi
not to forget me!”
In the afternoon she expressed some
anxiety, for Georges, directly after leaving the table,
had complained of a heavy feeling in his head and now
seemed in for an atrocious sick headache. Toward
four o’clock he said he would go upstairs to
bed: it was the only remedy. After sleeping
till tomorrow morning he would be perfectly himself
again. His mother was bent on putting him to
bed herself, but as she left the room he ran and locked
the door, explaining that he was shutting himself in
so that no one should come and disturb him. Then
caressingly he shouted, “Good night till tomorrow,
little Mother!” and promised to take a nap.
But he did not go to bed again and with flushed cheeks
and bright eyes noiselessly put on his clothes.
Then he sat on a chair and waited. When the dinner
bell rang he listened for Count Muffat, who was on
his way to the dining room, and ten minutes later,
when he was certain that no one would see him, he
slipped from the window to the ground with the assistance
of a rain pipe. His bedroom was situated on the
first floor and looked out upon the rear of the house.
He threw himself among some bushes and got out of
the park and then galloped across the fields with
empty stomach and heart beating with excitement.
Night was closing in, and a small fine rain was beginning
to fall.
It was the very evening that Nana
was due at La Mignotte. Ever since in the preceding
May Steiner had bought her this country place she had
from time to time been so filled with the desire of
taking possession that she had wept hot tears about,
but on each of these occasions Bordenave had refused
to give her even the shortest leave and had deferred
her holiday till September on the plea that he did
not intend putting an understudy in her place, even
for one evening, now that the exhibition was on.
Toward the close of August he spoke of October.
Nana was furious and declared that she would be at
La Mignotte in the middle of September. Nay,
in order to dare Bordenave, she even invited a crowd
of guests in his very presence. One afternoon
in her rooms, as Muffat, whose advances she still
adroitly resisted, was beseeching her with tremulous
emotion to yield to his entreaties, she at length promised
to be kind, but not in Paris, and to him, too, she
named the middle of September. Then on the twelfth
she was seized by a desire to be off forthwith with
Zoe as her sole companion. It might be that Bordenave
had got wind of her intentions and was about to discover
some means of detaining her. She was delighted
at the notion of putting him in a fix, and she sent
him a doctor’s certificate. When once the
idea had entered her head of being the first to get
to La Mignotte and of living there two days without
anybody knowing anything about it, she rushed Zoe
through the operation of packing and finally pushed
her into a cab, where in a sudden burst of extreme
contrition she kissed her and begged her pardon.
It was only when they got to the station refreshment
room that she thought of writing Steiner of her movements.
She begged him to wait till the day after tomorrow
before rejoining her if he wanted to find her quite
bright and fresh. And then, suddenly conceiving
another project, she wrote a second letter, in which
she besought her aunt to bring little Louis to her
at once. It would do Baby so much good! And
how happy they would be together in the shade of the
trees! In the railway carriage between Paris
and Orleans she spoke of nothing else; her eyes were
full of tears; she had an unexpected attack of maternal
tenderness and mingled together flowers, birds and
child in her every sentence.
La Mignotte was more than three leagues
away from the station, and Nana lost a good hour over
the hire of a carriage, a huge, dilapidated calash,
which rumbled slowly along to an accompaniment of rattling
old iron. She had at once taken possession of
the coachman, a little taciturn old man whom she overwhelmed
with questions. Had he often passed by La Mignotte?
It was behind this hill then? There ought to be
lots of trees there, eh? And the house could one
see it at a distance? The little old man answered
with a succession of grunts. Down in the calash
Nana was almost dancing with impatience, while Zoe,
in her annoyance at having left Paris in such a hurry,
sat stiffly sulking beside her. The horse suddenly
stopped short, and the young woman thought they had
reached their destination. She put her head out
of the carriage door and asked:
“Are we there, eh?”
By way of answer the driver whipped
up his horse, which was in the act of painfully climbing
a hill. Nana gazed ecstatically at the vast plain
beneath the gray sky where great clouds were banked
up.
“Oh, do look, Zoe! There’s
greenery! Now, is that all wheat? Good lord,
how pretty it is!”
“One can quite see that Madame
doesn’t come from the country,” was the
servant’s prim and tardy rejoinder. “As
for me, I knew the country only too well when I was
with my dentist. He had a house at Bougival.
No, it’s cold, too, this evening. It’s
damp in these parts.”
They were driving under the shadow
of a wood, and Nana sniffed up the scent of the leaves
as a young dog might. All of a sudden at a turn
of the road she caught sight of the corner of a house
among the trees. Perhaps it was there! And
with that she began a conversation with the driver,
who continued shaking his head by way of saying no.
Then as they drove down the other side of the hill
he contented himself by holding out his whip and muttering,
“’Tis down there.”
She got up and stretched herself almost
bodily out of the carriage door.
“Where is it? Where is
it?” she cried with pale cheeks, but as yet she
saw nothing.
At last she caught sight of a bit
of wall. And then followed a succession of little
cries and jumps, the ecstatic behavior of a woman
overcome by a new and vivid sensation.
“I see it! I see it, Zoe!
Look out at the other side. Oh, there’s
a terrace with brick ornaments on the roof! And
there’s a hothouse down there! But the
place is immense. Oh, how happy I am! Do
look, Zoe! Now, do look!”
The carriage had by this time pulled
up before the park gates. A side door was opened,
and the gardener, a tall, dry fellow, made his appearance,
cap in hand. Nana made an effort to regain her
dignity, for the driver seemed now to be suppressing
a laugh behind his dry, speechless lips. She
refrained from setting off at a run and listened to
the gardener, who was a very talkative fellow.
He begged Madame to excuse the disorder in which she
found everything, seeing that he had only received
Madame’s letter that very morning. But despite
all his efforts, she flew off at a tangent and walked
so quickly that Zoe could scarcely follow her.
At the end of the avenue she paused for a moment in
order to take the house in at a glance. It was
a great pavilion-like building in the Italian manner,
and it was flanked by a smaller construction, which
a rich Englishman, after two years’ residence
in Naples, had caused to be erected and had forthwith
become disgusted with.
“I’ll take Madame over the house,”
said the gardener.
But she had outrun him entirely, and
she shouted back that he was not to put himself out
and that she would go over the house by herself.
She preferred doing that, she said. And without
removing her hat she dashed into the different rooms,
calling to Zoe as she did so, shouting her impressions
from one end of each corridor to the other and filling
the empty house, which for long months had been uninhabited,
with exclamations and bursts of laughter. In
the first place, there was the hall. It was a
little damp, but that didn’t matter; one wasn’t
going to sleep in it. Then came the drawing room,
quite the thing, the drawing room, with its windows
opening on the lawn. Only the red upholsteries
there were hideous; she would alter all that.
As to the dining room-well, it was a lovely dining
room, eh? What big blowouts you might give in
Paris if you had a dining room as large as that!
As she was going upstairs to the first floor it occurred
to her that she had not seen the kitchen, and she
went down again and indulged in ecstatic exclamations.
Zoe ought to admire the beautiful dimensions of the
sink and the width of the hearth, where you might
have roasted a sheep! When she had gone upstairs
again her bedroom especially enchanted her. It
had been hung with delicate rose-colored Louis XVI
cretonne by an Orleans upholsterer. Dear me,
yes! One ought to sleep jolly sound in such a
room as that; why, it was a real best bedroom!
Then came four or five guest chambers and then some
splendid garrets, which would be extremely convenient
for trunks and boxes. Zoe looked very gruff and
cast a frigid glance into each of the rooms as she
lingered in Madame’s wake. She saw Nana
disappearing up the steep garret ladder and said, “Thanks,
I haven’t the least wish to break my legs.”
But the sound of a voice reached her from far away;
indeed, it seemed to come whistling down a chimney.
“Zoe, Zoe, where are you?
Come up, do! You’ve no idea! It’s
like fairyland!”
Zoe went up, grumbling. On the
roof she found her mistress leaning against the brickwork
balustrade and gazing at the valley which spread out
into the silence. The horizon was immeasurably
wide, but it was now covered by masses of gray vapor,
and a fierce wind was driving fine rain before it.
Nana had to hold her hat on with both hands to keep
it from being blown away while her petticoats streamed
out behind her, flapping like a flag.
“Not if I know it!” said
Zoe, drawing her head in at once. “Madame
will be blown away. What beastly weather!”
Madame did not hear what she said.
With her head over the balustrade she was gazing at
the grounds beneath. They consisted of seven or
eight acres of land enclosed within a wall. Then
the view of the kitchen garden entirely engrossed
her attention. She darted back, jostling the
lady’s maid at the top of the stairs and bursting
out:
“It’s full of cabbages!
Oh, such woppers! And lettuces and sorrel and
onions and everything! Come along, make haste!”
The rain was falling more heavily
now, and she opened her white silk sunshade and ran
down the garden walks.
“Madame will catch cold,”
cried Zoe, who had stayed quietly behind under the
awning over the garden door.
But Madame wanted to see things, and
at each new discovery there was a burst of wonderment.
“Zoe, here’s spinach!
Do come. Oh, look at the artichokes! They
are funny. So they grow in the ground, do they?
Now, what can that be? I don’t know it.
Do come, Zoe, perhaps you know.”
The lady’s maid never budged
an inch. Madame must really be raving mad.
For now the rain was coming down in torrents, and the
little white silk sunshade was already dark with it.
Nor did it shelter Madame, whose skirts were wringing
wet. But that didn’t put her out in the
smallest degree, and in the pouring rain she visited
the kitchen garden and the orchard, stopping in front
of every fruit tree and bending over every bed of
vegetables. Then she ran and looked down the well
and lifted up a frame to see what was underneath it
and was lost in the contemplation of a huge pumpkin.
She wanted to go along every single garden walk and
to take immediate possession of all the things she
had been wont to dream of in the old days, when she
was a slipshod work-girl on the Paris pavements.
The rain redoubled, but she never heeded it and was
only miserable at the thought that the daylight was
fading. She could not see clearly now and touched
things with her fingers to find out what they were.
Suddenly in the twilight she caught sight of a bed
of strawberries, and all that was childish in her
awoke.
“Strawberries! Strawberries!
There are some here; I can feel them. A plate,
Zoe! Come and pick strawberries.”
And dropping her sunshade, Nana crouched
down in the mire under the full force of the downpour.
With drenched hands she began gathering the fruit
among the leaves. But Zoe in the meantime brought
no plate, and when the young woman rose to her feet
again she was frightened. She thought she had
seen a shadow close to her.
“It’s some beast!” she screamed.
But she stood rooted to the path in
utter amazement. It was a man, and she recognized
him.
“Gracious me, it’s Baby! What are
you doing there, baby?”
“’Gad, I’ve come that’s
all!” replied Georges.
Her head swam.
“You knew I’d come through
the gardener telling you? Oh, that poor child!
Why, he’s soaking!”
“Oh, I’ll explain that
to you! The rain caught me on my way here, and
then, as I didn’t wish to go upstream as far
as Gumieres, I crossed the Choue and fell into a blessed
hole.”
Nana forgot the strawberries forthwith.
She was trembling and full of pity. That poor
dear Zizi in a hole full of water! And she drew
him with her in the direction of the house and spoke
of making up a roaring fire.
“You know,” he murmured,
stopping her among the shadows, “I was in hiding
because I was afraid of being scolded, like in Paris,
when I come and see you and you’re not expecting
me.”
She made no reply but burst out laughing
and gave him a kiss on the forehead. Up till
today she had always treated him like a naughty urchin,
never taking his declarations seriously and amusing
herself at his expense as though he were a little
man of no consequence whatever. There was much
ado to install him in the house. She absolutely
insisted on the fire being lit in her bedroom, as
being the most comfortable place for his reception.
Georges had not surprised Zoe, who was used to all
kinds of encounters, but the gardener, who brought
the wood upstairs, was greatly nonplused at sight
of this dripping gentleman to whom he was certain
he had not opened the front door. He was, however,
dismissed, as he was no longer wanted.
A lamp lit up the room, and the fire
burned with a great bright flame.
“He’ll never get dry,
and he’ll catch cold,” said Nana, seeing
Georges beginning to shiver.
And there were no men’s trousers
in her house! She was on the point of calling
the gardener back when an idea struck her. Zoe,
who was unpacking the trunks in the dressing room,
brought her mistress a change of underwear, consisting
of a shift and some petticoats with a dressing jacket.
“Oh, that’s first rate!”
cried the young woman. “Zizi can put ’em
all on. You’re not angry with me, eh?
When your clothes are dry you can put them on again,
and then off with you, as fast as fast can be, so as
not to have a scolding from your mamma. Make
haste! I’m going to change my things, too,
in the dressing room.”
Ten minutes afterward, when she reappeared
in a tea gown, she clasped her hands in a perfect
ecstasy.
“Oh, the darling! How sweet
he looks dressed like a little woman!”
He had simply slipped on a long nightgown
with an insertion front, a pair of worked drawers
and the dressing jacket, which was a long cambric
garment trimmed with lace. Thus attired and with
his delicate young arms showing and his bright damp
hair falling almost to his shoulders, he looked just
like a girl.
“Why, he’s as slim as
I am!” said Nana, putting her arm round his waist.
“Zoe, just come here and see how it suits him.
It’s made for him, eh? All except the bodice
part, which is too large. He hasn’t got
as much as I have, poor, dear Zizi!”
“Oh, to be sure, I’m a
bit wanting there,” murmured Georges with a
smile.
All three grew very merry about it.
Nana had set to work buttoning the dressing jacket
from top to bottom so as to make him quite decent.
Then she turned him round as though he were a doll,
gave him little thumps, made the skirt stand well
out behind. After which she asked him questions.
Was he comfortable? Did he feel warm? Zounds,
yes, he was comfortable! Nothing fitted more
closely and warmly than a woman’s shift; had
he been able, he would always have worn one. He
moved round and about therein, delighted with the
fine linen and the soft touch of that unmanly garment,
in the folds of which he thought he discovered some
of Nana’s own warm life.
Meanwhile Zoe had taken the soaked
clothes down to the kitchen in order to dry them as
quickly as possible in front of a vine-branch fire.
Then Georges, as he lounged in an easy chair, ventured
to make a confession.
“I say, are you going to feed
this evening? I’m dying of hunger.
I haven’t dined.”
Nana was vexed. The great silly
thing to go sloping off from Mamma’s with an
empty stomach, just to chuck himself into a hole full
of water! But she was as hungry as a hunter too.
They certainly must feed! Only they would have
to eat what they could get. Whereupon a round
table was rolled up in front of the fire, and the
queerest of dinners was improvised thereon. Zoe
ran down to the gardener’s, he having cooked
a mess of cabbage soup in case Madame should not dine
at Orleans before her arrival. Madame, indeed,
had forgotten to tell him what he was to get ready
in the letter she had sent him. Fortunately the
cellar was well furnished. Accordingly they had
cabbage soup, followed by a piece of bacon. Then
Nana rummaged in her handbag and found quite a heap
of provisions which she had taken the precaution of
stuffing into it. There was a Strasbourg pate,
for instance, and a bag of sweet-meats and some oranges.
So they both ate away like ogres and, while they
satisfied their healthy young appetites, treated one
another with easy good fellowship. Nana kept
calling Georges “dear old girl,” a form
of address which struck her as at once tender and
familiar. At dessert, in order not to give Zoe
any more trouble, they used the same spoon turn and
turn about while demolishing a pot of preserves they
had discovered at the top of a cupboard.
“Oh, you dear old girl!”
said Nana, pushing back the round table. “I
haven’t made such a good dinner these ten years
past!”
Yet it was growing late, and she wanted
to send her boy off for fear he should be suspected
of all sorts of things. But he kept declaring
that he had plenty of time to spare. For the
matter of that, his clothes were not drying well,
and Zoe averred that it would take an hour longer at
least, and as she was dropping with sleep after the
fatigues of the journey, they sent her off to bed.
After which they were alone in the silent house.
It was a very charming evening.
The fire was dying out amid glowing embers, and in
the great blue room, where Zoe had made up the bed
before going upstairs, the air felt a little oppressive.
Nana, overcome by the heavy warmth, got up to open
the window for a few minutes, and as she did so she
uttered a little cry.
“Great heavens, how beautiful
it is! Look, dear old girl!”
Georges had come up, and as though
the window bar had not been sufficiently wide, he
put his arm round Nana’s waist and rested his
head against her shoulder. The weather had undergone
a brisk change: the skies were clearing, and
a full moon lit up the country with its golden disk
of light. A sovereign quiet reigned over the valley.
It seemed wider and larger as it opened on the immense
distances of the plain, where the trees loomed like
little shadowy islands amid a shining and waveless
lake. And Nana grew tenderhearted, felt herself
a child again. Most surely she had dreamed of
nights like this at an epoch which she could not recall.
Since leaving the train every object of sensation the
wide countryside, the green things with their pungent
scents, the house, the vegetables had stirred
her to such a degree that now it seemed to her as
if she had left Paris twenty years ago. Yesterday’s
existence was far, far away, and she was full of sensations
of which she had no previous experience. Georges,
meanwhile, was giving her neck little coaxing kisses,
and this again added to her sweet unrest. With
hesitating hand she pushed him from her, as though
he were a child whose affectionate advances were fatiguing,
and once more she told him that he ought to take his
departure. He did not gainsay her. All in
good time he would go all in good time!
But a bird raised its song and again
was silent. It was a robin in an elder tree below
the window.
“Wait one moment,” whispered
Georges; “the lamp’s frightening him.
I’ll put it out.”
And when he came back and took her waist again he
added:
“We’ll relight it in a minute.”
Then as she listened to the robin
and the boy pressed against her side, Nana remembered.
Ah yes, it was in novels that she had got to know all
this! In other days she would have given her heart
to have a full moon and robins and a lad dying of
love for her. Great God, she could have cried,
so good and charming did it all seem to her! Beyond
a doubt she had been born to live honestly! So
she pushed Georges away again, and he grew yet bolder.
“No, let me be. I don’t
care about it. It would be very wicked at your
age. Now listen I’ll always be
your mamma.”
A sudden feeling of shame overcame
her. She was blushing exceedingly, and yet not
a soul could see her. The room behind them was
full of black night while the country stretched before
them in silence and lifeless solitude. Never
had she known such a sense of shame before. Little
by little she felt her power of resistance ebbing
away, and that despite her embarrassed efforts to
the contrary. That disguise of his, that woman’s
shift and that dressing jacket set her laughing again.
It was as though a girl friend were teasing her.
“Oh, it’s not right; it’s
not right!” she stammered after a last effort.
And with that, in face of the lovely
night, she sank like a young virgin into the arms
of this mere child. The house slept.
Next morning at Les Fondettes, when
the bell rang for lunch, the dining-room table was
no longer too big for the company. Fauchery and
Daguenet had been driven up together in one carriage,
and after them another had arrived with the Count
de Vandeuvres, who had followed by the next train.
Georges was the last to come downstairs. He was
looking a little pale, and his eyes were sunken, but
in answer to questions he said that he was much better,
though he was still somewhat shaken by the violence
of the attack. Mme Hugon looked into his eyes
with an anxious smile and adjusted his hair which
had been carelessly combed that morning, but he drew
back as though embarrassed by this tender little action.
During the meal she chaffed Vandeuvres very pleasantly
and declared that she had expected him for five years
past.
“Well, here you are at last! How have you
managed it?”
Vandeuvres took her remarks with equal
pleasantry. He told her that he had lost a fabulous
sum of money at the club yesterday and thereupon had
come away with the intention of ending up in the country.
“’Pon my word, yes, if
only you can find me an heiress in these rustic parts!
There must be delightful women hereabouts.”
The old lady rendered equal thanks
to Daguenet and Fauchery for having been so good as
to accept her son’s invitation, and then to her
great and joyful surprise she saw the Marquis de Chouard
enter the room. A third carriage had brought
him.
“Dear me, you’ve made
this your trysting place today!” she cried.
“You’ve passed word round! But what’s
happening? For years I’ve never succeeded
in bringing you all together, and now you all drop
in at once. Oh, I certainly don’t complain.”
Another place was laid. Fauchery
found himself next the Countess Sabine, whose liveliness
and gaiety surprised him when he remembered her drooping,
languid state in the austere Rue Miromesnil drawing
room. Daguenet, on the other hand, who was seated
on Estelle’s left, seemed slightly put out by
his propinquity to that tall, silent girl. The
angularity of her elbows was disagreeable to him.
Muffat and Chouard had exchanged a sly glance while
Vandeuvres continued joking about his coming marriage.
“Talking of ladies,” Mme
Hugon ended by saying, “I have a new neighbor
whom you probably know.”
And she mentioned Nana. Vandeuvres
affected the liveliest astonishment.
“Well, that is strange! Nana’s property
near here!”
Fauchery and Daguenet indulged in
a similar demonstration while the Marquis de Chouard
discussed the breast of a chicken without appearing
to comprehend their meaning. Not one of the men
had smiled.
“Certainly,” continued
the old lady, “and the person in question arrived
at La Mignotte yesterday evening, as I was saying she
would. I got my information from the gardener
this morning.”
At these words the gentlemen could
not conceal their very real surprise. They all
looked up. Eh? What? Nana had come down!
But they were only expecting her next day; they were
privately under the impression that they would arrive
before her! Georges alone sat looking at his glass
with drooped eyelids and a tired expression. Ever
since the beginning of lunch he had seemed to be sleeping
with open eyes and a vague smile on his lips.
“Are you still in pain, my Zizi?”
asked his mother, who had been gazing at him throughout
the meal.
He started and blushed as he said
that he was very well now, but the worn-out insatiate
expression of a girl who has danced too much did not
fade from his face.
“What’s the matter with
your neck?” resumed Mme Hugon in an alarmed
tone. “It’s all red.”
He was embarrassed and stammered.
He did not know he had nothing the matter
with his neck. Then drawing his shirt collar up:
“Ah yes, some insect stung me there!”
The Marquis de Chouard had cast a
sidelong glance at the little red place. Muffat,
too, looked at Georges. The company was finishing
lunch and planning various excursions. Fauchery
was growing increasingly excited with the Countess
Sabine’s laughter. As he was passing her
a dish of fruit their hands touched, and for one second
she looked at him with eyes so full of dark meaning
that he once more thought of the secret which had
been communicated to him one evening after an uproarious
dinner. Then, too, she was no longer the same
woman. Something was more pronounced than of
old, and her gray foulard gown which fitted loosely
over her shoulders added a touch of license to her
delicate, high-strung elegance.
When they rose from the table Daguenet
remained behind with Fauchery in order to impart to
him the following crude witticism about Estelle:
“A nice broomstick that to shove into a man’s
hands!” Nevertheless, he grew serious when the
journalist told him the amount she was worth in the
way of dowry.
“Four hundred thousand francs.”
“And the mother?” queried Fauchery.
“She’s all right, eh?”
“Oh, she’ll work the oracle!
But it’s no go, my dear man!”
“Bah! How are we to know? We must
wait and see.”
It was impossible to go out that day,
for the rain was still falling in heavy showers.
Georges had made haste to disappear from the scene
and had double-locked his door. These gentlemen
avoided mutual explanations, though they were none
of them deceived as to the reasons which had brought
them together. Vandeuvres, who had had a very
bad time at play, had really conceived the notion
of lying fallow for a season, and he was counting
on Nana’s presence in the neighborhood as a safeguard
against excessive boredom. Fauchery had taken
advantage of the holidays granted him by Rose, who
just then was extremely busy. He was thinking
of discussing a second notice with Nana, in case country
air should render them reciprocally affectionate.
Daguenet, who had been just a little sulky with her
since Steiner had come upon the scene, was dreaming
of resuming the old connection or at least of snatching
some delightful opportunities if occasion offered.
As to the Marquis de Chouard, he was watching for
times and seasons. But among all those men who
were busy following in the tracks of Venus a
Venus with the rouge scarce washed from her cheeks Muffat
was at once the most ardent and the most tortured
by the novel sensations of desire and fear and anger
warring in his anguished members. A formal promise
had been made him; Nana was awaiting him. Why
then had she taken her departure two days sooner than
was expected?
He resolved to betake himself to La
Mignotte after dinner that same evening. At night
as the count was leaving the park Georges fled forth
after him. He left him to follow the road to Gumieres,
crossed the Choue, rushed into Nana’s presence,
breathless, furious and with tears in his eyes.
Ah yes, he understood everything! That old fellow
now on his way to her was coming to keep an appointment!
Nana was dumfounded by this ebullition of jealousy,
and, greatly moved by the way things were turning
out, she took him in her arms and comforted him to
the best of her ability. Oh no, he was quite
beside the mark; she was expecting no one. If
the gentleman came it would not be her fault.
What a great ninny that Zizi was to be taking on so
about nothing at all! By her child’s soul
she swore she loved nobody except her own Georges.
And with that she kissed him and wiped away his tears.
“Now just listen! You’ll
see that it’s all for your sake,” she went
on when he had grown somewhat calmer. “Steiner
has arrived he’s up above there now.
You know, duckie, I can’t turn him out of
doors.”
“Yes, I know; I’m not talking of him,”
whispered the boy.
“Very well then, I’ve
stuck him into the room at the end. I said I was
out of sorts. He’s unpacking his trunk.
Since nobody’s seen you, be quick and run up
and hide in my room and wait for me.”
Georges sprang at her and threw his
arms round her neck. It was true after all!
She loved him a little! So they would put the
lamp out as they did yesterday and be in the dark
till daytime! Then as the front-door bell sounded
he quietly slipped away. Upstairs in the bedroom
he at once took off his shoes so as not to make any
noise and straightway crouched down behind a curtain
and waited soberly.
Nana welcomed Count Muffat, who, though
still shaken with passion, was now somewhat embarrassed.
She had pledged her word to him and would even have
liked to keep it since he struck her as a serious,
practicable lover. But truly, who could have
foreseen all that happened yesterday? There was
the voyage and the house she had never set eyes on
before and the arrival of the drenched little lover!
How sweet it had all seemed to her, and how delightful
it would be to continue in it! So much the worse
for the gentleman! For three months past she had
been keeping him dangling after her while she affected
conventionality in order the further to inflame him.
Well, well! He would have to continue dangling,
and if he didn’t like that he could go!
She would sooner have thrown up everything than have
played false to Georges.
The count had seated himself with
all the ceremonious politeness becoming a country
caller. Only his hands were trembling slightly.
Lust, which Nana’s skillful tactics daily exasperated,
had at last wrought terrible havoc in that sanguine,
uncontaminated nature. The grave man, the chamberlain
who was wont to tread the state apartments at the
Tuileries with slow and dignified step, was now nightly
driven to plunge his teeth into his bolster, while
with sobs of exasperation he pictured to himself a
sensual shape which never changed. But this time
he was determined to make an end of the torture.
Coming along the highroad in the deep quiet of the
gloaming, he had meditated a fierce course of action.
And the moment he had finished his opening remarks
he tried to take hold of Nana with both hands.
“No, no! Take care!”
she said simply. She was not vexed; nay, she even
smiled.
He caught her again, clenching his
teeth as he did so. Then as she struggled to
get free he coarsely and crudely reminded her that
he had come to stay the night. Though much embarrassed
at this, Nana did not cease to smile. She took
his hands and spoke very familiarly in order to soften
her refusal.
“Come now, darling, do be quiet!
Honor bright, I can’t: Steiner’s
upstairs.”
But he was beside himself. Never
yet had she seen a man in such a state. She grew
frightened and put her hand over his mouth in order
to stifle his cries. Then in lowered tones she
besought him to be quiet and to let her alone.
Steiner was coming downstairs. Things were getting
stupid, to be sure! When Steiner entered the
room he heard Nana remarking:
“I adore the country.”
She was lounging comfortably back
in her deep easy chair, and she turned round and interrupted
herself.
“It’s Monsieur lé
Comte Muffat, darling. He saw a light here while
he was strolling past, and he came in to bid us welcome.”
The two men clasped hands. Muffat,
with his face in shadow, stood silent for a moment
or two. Steiner seemed sulky. Then they chatted
about Paris: business there was at a standstill;
abominable things had been happening on ’change.
When a quarter of an hour had elapsed Muffat took
his departure, and, as the young woman was seeing him
to the door, he tried without success to make an assignation
for the following night. Steiner went up to bed
almost directly afterward, grumbling, as he did so,
at the everlasting little ailments that seemed to afflict
the genus courtesan. The two old boys had been
packed off at last! When she was able to rejoin
him Nana found Georges still hiding exemplarily behind
the curtain. The room was dark. He pulled
her down onto the floor as she sat near him, and together
they began playfully rolling on the ground, stopping
now and again and smothering their laughter with kisses
whenever they struck their bare feet against some piece
of furniture. Far away, on the road to Gumieres,
Count Muffat walked slowly home and, hat in hand,
bathed his burning forehead in the freshness and silence
of the night.
During the days that followed Nana
found life adorable. In the lad’s arms
she was once more a girl of fifteen, and under the
caressing influence of this renewed childhood love’s
white flower once more blossomed forth in a nature
which had grown hackneyed and disgusted in the service
of the other sex. She would experience sudden
fits of shame, sudden vivid emotions, which left her
trembling. She wanted to laugh and to cry, and
she was beset by nervous, maidenly feelings, mingled
with warm desires that made her blush again.
Never yet had she felt anything comparable to this.
The country filled her with tender thoughts. As
a little girl she had long wished to dwell in a meadow,
tending a goat, because one day on the talus of the
fortifications she had seen a goat bleating at the
end of its tether. Now this estate, this stretch
of land belonging to her, simply swelled her heart
to bursting, so utterly had her old ambition been
surpassed. Once again she tasted the novel sensations
experienced by chits of girls, and at night when she
went upstairs, dizzy with her day in the open air
and intoxicated by the scent of green leaves, and
rejoined her Zizi behind the curtain, she fancied
herself a schoolgirl enjoying a holiday escapade.
It was an amour, she thought, with a young cousin
to whom she was going to be married. And so she
trembled at the slightest noise and dread lest parents
should hear her, while making the delicious experiments
and suffering the voluptuous terrors attendant on
a girl’s first slip from the path of virtue.
Nana in those days was subject to
the fancies a sentimental girl will indulge in.
She would gaze at the moon for hours. One night
she had a mind to go down into the garden with Georges
when all the household was asleep. When there
they strolled under the trees, their arms round each
other’s waists, and finally went and laid down
in the grass, where the dew soaked them through and
through. On another occasion, after a long silence
up in the bedroom, she fell sobbing on the lad’s
neck, declaring in broken accents that she was afraid
of dying. She would often croon a favorite ballad
of Mme Lerat’s, which was full of flowers and
birds. The song would melt her to tears, and
she would break off in order to clasp Georges in a
passionate embrace and to extract from him vows of
undying affection. In short she was extremely
silly, as she herself would admit when they both became
jolly good fellows again and sat up smoking cigarettes
on the edge of the bed, dangling their bare legs over
it the while and tapping their heels against its wooden
side.
But what utterly melted the young
woman’s heart was Louiset’s arrival.
She had an access of maternal affection which was as
violent as a mad fit. She would carry off her
boy into the sunshine outside to watch him kicking
about; she would dress him like a little prince and
roll with him in the grass. The moment he arrived
she decided that he was to sleep near her, in the
room next hers, where Mme Lerat, whom the country
greatly affected, used to begin snoring the moment
her head touched the pillow. Louiset did not
hurt Zizi’s position in the least. On the
contrary, Nana said that she had now two children,
and she treated them with the same wayward tenderness.
At night, more than ten times running, she would leave
Zizi to go and see if Louiset were breathing properly,
but on her return she would re-embrace her Zizi and
lavish on him the caresses that had been destined
for the child. She played at being Mamma while
he wickedly enjoyed being dandled in the arms of the
great wench and allowed himself to be rocked to and
fro like a baby that is being sent to sleep.
It was all so delightful, and Nana was so charmed with
her present existence, that she seriously proposed
to him never to leave the country. They would
send all the other people away, and he, she and the
child would live alone. And with that they would
make a thousand plans till daybreak and never once
hear Mme Lerat as she snored vigorously after the
fatigues of a day spent in picking country flowers.
This charming existence lasted nearly
a week. Count Muffat used to come every evening
and go away again with disordered face and burning
hands. One evening he was not even received,
as Steiner had been obliged to run up to Paris.
He was told that Madame was not well. Nana grew
daily more disgusted at the notion of deceiving Georges.
He was such an innocent lad, and he had such faith
in her! She would have looked on herself as the
lowest of the low had she played him false. Besides,
it would have sickened her to do so! Zoe, who
took her part in this affair in mute disdain, believed
that Madame was growing senseless.
On the sixth day a band of visitors
suddenly blundered into Nana’s idyl. She
had, indeed, invited a whole swarm of people under
the belief that none of them would come. And
so one fine afternoon she was vastly astonished and
annoyed to see an omnibus full of people pulling up
outside the gate of La Mignotte.
“It’s us!” cried
Mignon, getting down first from the conveyance and
extracting then his sons Henri and Charles.
Labordette thereupon appeared and
began handing out an interminable file of ladies Lucy
Stewart, Caroline Hequet, Tatan Nene, Maria Blond.
Nana was in hopes that they would end there, when
La Faloise sprang from the step in order to receive
Gaga and her daughter Amelie in his trembling arms.
That brought the number up to eleven people. Their
installation proved a laborious undertaking.
There were five spare rooms at La Mignotte, one of
which was already occupied by Mme Lerat and Louiset.
The largest was devoted to the Gaga and La Faloise
establishment, and it was decided that Amelie should
sleep on a truckle bed in the dressing room at the
side. Mignon and his two sons had the third room.
Labordette the fourth. There thus remained one
room which was transformed into a dormitory with four
beds in it for Lucy, Caroline, Tatan and Maria.
As to Steiner, he would sleep on the divan in the
drawing room. At the end of an hour, when everyone
was duly settled, Nana, who had begun by being furious,
grew enchanted at the thought of playing hostess on
a grand scale. The ladies complimented her on
La Mignotte. “It’s a stunning property,
my dear!” And then, too, they brought her quite
a whiff of Parisian air, and talking all together
with bursts of laughter and exclamation and emphatic
little gestures, they gave her all the petty gossip
of the week just past. By the by, and how about
Bordenave? What had he said about her prank?
Oh, nothing much! After bawling about having
her brought back by the police, he had simply put somebody
else in her place at night. Little Violaine was
the understudy, and she had even obtained a very pretty
success as the Blonde Venus. Which piece of news
made Nana rather serious.
It was only four o’clock in
the afternoon, and there was some talk of taking a
stroll around.
“Oh, I haven’t told you,”
said Nana, “I was just off to get up potatoes
when you arrived.”
Thereupon they all wanted to go and
dig potatoes without even changing their dresses first.
It was quite a party. The gardener and two helpers
were already in the potato field at the end of the
grounds. The ladies knelt down and began fumbling
in the mold with their beringed fingers, shouting
gaily whenever they discovered a potato of exceptional
size. It struck them as so amusing! But
Tatan Nene was in a state of triumph! So many
were the potatoes she had gathered in her youth that
she forgot herself entirely and gave the others much
good advice, treating them like geese the while.
The gentlemen toiled less strenuously. Mignon
looked every inch the good citizen and father and made
his stay in the country an occasion for completing
his boys’ education. Indeed, he spoke to
them of Parmentier!
Dinner that evening was wildly hilarious.
The company ate ravenously. Nana, in a state
of great elevation, had a warm disagreement with her
butler, an individual who had been in service at the
bishop’s palace in Orleans. The ladies
smoked over their coffee. An earsplitting noise
of merrymaking issued from the open windows and died
out far away under the serene evening sky while peasants,
belated in the lanes, turned and looked at the flaring
rooms.
“It’s most tiresome that
you’re going back the day after tomorrow,”
said Nana. “But never mind, we’ll
get up an excursion all the same!”
They decided to go on the morrow,
Sunday, and visit the ruins of the old Abbey of Chamont,
which were some seven kilometers distant. Five
carriages would come out from Orleans, take up the
company after lunch and bring them back to dinner
at La Mignotte at about seven. It would be delightful.
That evening, as his wont was, Count
Muffat mounted the hill to ring at the outer gate.
But the brightly lit windows and the shouts of laughter
astonished him. When, however, he recognized Mignon’s
voice, he understood it all and went off, raging at
this new obstacle, driven to extremities, bent on
some violent act. Georges passed through a little
door of which he had the key, slipped along the staircase
walls and went quietly up into Nana’s room.
Only he had to wait for her till past midnight.
She appeared at last in a high state of intoxication
and more maternal even than on the previous nights.
Whenever she had drunk anything she became so amorous
as to be absurd. Accordingly she now insisted
on his accompanying her to the Abbey of Chamont.
But he stood out against this; he was afraid of being
seen. If he were to be seen driving with her
there would be an atrocious scandal. But she burst
into tears and evinced the noisy despair of a slighted
woman. And he thereupon consoled her and formally
promised to be one of the party.
“So you do love me very much,”
she blurted out. “Say you love me very
much. Oh, my darling old bear, if I were to die
would you feel it very much? Confess!”
At Les Fondettes the near neighborhood
of Nana had utterly disorganized the party. Every
morning during lunch good Mme Hugon returned to the
subject despite herself, told her guests the news the
gardener had brought her and gave evidence of the
absorbing curiosity with which notorious courtesans
are able to inspire even the worthiest old ladies.
Tolerant though she was, she was revolted and maddened
by a vague presentiment of coming ill, which frightened
her in the evenings as thoroughly as if a wild beast
had escaped from a menagerie and were known to be
lurking in the countryside.
She began trying to pick a little
quarrel with her guests, whom she each and all accused
of prowling round La Mignotte. Count Vandeuvres
had been seen laughing on the highroad with a golden-haired
lady, but he defended himself against the accusation;
he denied that it was Nana, the fact being that Lucy
had been with him and had told him how she had just
turned her third prince out of doors. The Marquis
de Chouard used also to go out every day, but his
excuse was doctor’s orders. Toward Daguenet
and Fauchery Mme Hugon behaved unjustly too. The
former especially never left Les Fondettes, for he
had given up the idea of renewing the old connection
and was busy paying the most respectful attentions
to Estelle. Fauchery also stayed with the Muffat
ladies. On one occasion only he had met Mignon
with an armful of flowers, putting his sons through
a course of botanical instruction in a by-path.
The two men had shaken hands and given each other
the news about Rose. She was perfectly well and
happy; they had both received a letter from her that
morning in which she besought them to profit by the
fresh country air for some days longer. Among
all her guests the old lady spared only Count Muffat
and Georges. The count, who said he had serious
business in Orleans, could certainly not be running
after the bad woman, and as to Georges, the poor child
was at last causing her grave anxiety, seeing that
every evening he was seized with atrocious sick headaches
which kept him to his bed in broad daylight.
Meanwhile Fauchery had become the
Countess Sabine’s faithful attendant in the
absence during each afternoon of Count Muffat.
Whenever they went to the end of the park he carried
her campstool and her sunshade. Besides, he amused
her with the original witticisms peculiar to a second-rate
journalist, and in so doing he prompted her to one
of those sudden intimacies which are allowable in
the country. She had apparently consented to
it from the first, for she had grown quite a girl again
in the society of a young man whose noisy humor seemed
unlikely to compromise her. But now and again,
when for a second or two they found themselves alone
behind the shrubs, their eyes would meet; they would
pause amid their laughter, grow suddenly serious and
view one another darkly, as though they had fathomed
and divined their inmost hearts.
On Friday a fresh place had to be
laid at lunch time. M. Theophile Venot, whom
Mme Hugon remembered to have invited at the Muffats’
last winter, had just arrived. He sat stooping
humbly forward and behaved with much good nature,
as became a man of no account, nor did he seem to
notice the anxious deference with which he was treated.
When he had succeeded in getting the company to forget
his presence he sat nibbling small lumps of sugar
during dessert, looking sharply up at Daguenet as
the latter handed Estelle strawberries and listening
to Fauchery, who was making the countess very merry
over one of his anecdotes. Whenever anyone looked
at him he smiled in his quiet way. When the
guests rose from table he took the count’s arm
and drew him into the park. He was known to have
exercised great influence over the latter ever since
the death of his mother. Indeed, singular stories
were told about the kind of dominion which the ex-lawyer
enjoyed in that household. Fauchery, whom his
arrival doubtless embarrassed, began explaining to
Georges and Daguenet the origin of the man’s
wealth. It was a big lawsuit with the management
of which the Jesuits had entrusted him in days gone
by. In his opinion the worthy man was a terrible
fellow despite his gentle, plump face and at this
time of day had his finger in all the intrigues of
the priesthood. The two young men had begun joking
at this, for they thought the little old gentleman
had an idiotic expression. The idea of an unknown
Venot, a gigantic Venot, acting for the whole body
of the clergy, struck them in the light of a comical
invention. But they were silenced when, still
leaning on the old man’s arm, Count Muffat reappeared
with blanched cheeks and eyes reddened as if by recent
weeping.
“I bet they’ve been chatting
about hell,” muttered Fauchery in a bantering
tone.
The Countess Sabine overheard the
remark. She turned her head slowly, and their
eyes met in that long gaze with which they were accustomed
to sound one another prudently before venturing once
for all.
After the breakfast it was the guests’
custom to betake themselves to a little flower garden
on a terrace overlooking the plain. This Sunday
afternoon was exquisitely mild. There had been
signs of rain toward ten in the morning, but the sky,
without ceasing to be covered, had, as it were, melted
into milky fog, which now hung like a cloud of luminous
dust in the golden sunlight. Soon Mme Hugon proposed
that they should step down through a little doorway
below the terrace and take a walk on foot in the direction
of Gumieres and as far as the Choue. She was
fond of walking and, considering her threescore years,
was very active. Besides, all her guests declared
that there was no need to drive. So in a somewhat
straggling order they reached the wooden bridge over
the river. Fauchery and Daguenet headed the column
with the Muffat ladies and were followed by the count
and the marquis, walking on either side of Mme Hugon,
while Vandeuvres, looking fashionable and out of his
element on the highroad, marched in the rear, smoking
a cigar. M. Venot, now slackening, now hastening
his pace, passed smilingly from group to group, as
though bent on losing no scrap of conversation.
“To think of poor dear Georges
at Orleans!” said Mme Hugon. “He was
anxious to consult old Doctor Tavernier, who never
goes out now, on the subject of his sick headaches.
Yes, you were not up, as he went off before seven
o’clock. But it’ll be a change for
him all the same.”
She broke off, exclaiming:
“Why, what’s making them stop on the bridge?”
The fact was the ladies and Fauchery
and Daguenet were standing stock-still on the crown
of the bridge. They seemed to be hesitating as
though some obstacle or other rendered them uneasy
and yet the way lay clear before them.
“Go on!” cried the count.
They never moved and seemed to be
watching the approach of something which the rest
had not yet observed. Indeed the road wound considerably
and was bordered by a thick screen of poplar trees.
Nevertheless, a dull sound began to grow momentarily
louder, and soon there was a noise of wheels, mingled
with shouts of laughter and the cracking of whips.
Then suddenly five carriages came into view, driving
one behind the other. They were crowded to bursting,
and bright with a galaxy of white, blue and pink costumes.
“What is it?” said Mme Hugon in some surprise.
Then her instinct told her, and she
felt indignant at such an untoward invasion of her
road.
“Oh, that woman!” she
murmured. “Walk on, pray walk on. Don’t
appear to notice.”
But it was too late. The five
carriages which were taking Nana and her circle to
the ruins of Chamont rolled on to the narrow wooden
bridge. Fauchery, Daguenet and the Muffat ladies
were forced to step backward, while Mme Hugon and
the others had also to stop in Indian file along the
roadside. It was a superb ride past! The
laughter in the carriages had ceased, and faces were
turned with an expression of curiosity. The rival
parties took stock of each other amid a silence broken
only by the measured trot of the horses. In the
first carriage Maria Blond and Tatan Nene were lolling
backward like a pair of duchesses, their skirts swelling
forth over the wheels, and as they passed they cast
disdainful glances at the honest women who were walking
afoot. Then came Gaga, filling up a whole seat
and half smothering La Faloise beside her so that
little but his small anxious face was visible.
Next followed Caroline Hequet with Labordette, Lucy
Stewart with Mignon and his boys and at the close
of all Nana in a victoria with Steiner and on
a bracket seat in front of her that poor, darling
Zizi, with his knees jammed against her own.
“It’s the last of them,
isn’t it?” the countess placidly asked
Fauchery, pretending at the same time not to recognize
Nana.
The wheel of the victoria came
near grazing her, but she did not step back.
The two women had exchanged a deeply significant glance.
It was, in fact, one of those momentary scrutinies
which are at once complete and definite. As to
the men, they behaved unexceptionably. Fauchery
and Daguenet looked icy and recognized no one.
The marquis, more nervous than they and afraid of
some farcical ebullition on the part of the ladies,
had plucked a blade of grass and was rolling it between
his fingers. Only Vandeuvres, who had stayed
somewhat apart from the rest of the company, winked
imperceptibly at Lucy, who smiled at him as she passed.
“Be careful!” M. Venot
had whispered as he stood behind Count Muffat.
The latter in extreme agitation gazed
after this illusive vision of Nana while his wife
turned slowly round and scrutinized him. Then
he cast his eyes on the ground as though to escape
the sound of galloping hoofs which were sweeping away
both his senses and his heart. He could have
cried aloud in his agony, for, seeing Georges among
Nana’s skirts, he understood it all now.
A mere child! He was brokenhearted at the thought
that she should have preferred a mere child to him!
Steiner was his equal, but that child!
Mme Hugon, in the meantime, had not
at once recognized Georges. Crossing the bridge,
he was fain to jump into the river, but Nana’s
knees restrained him. Then white as a sheet and
icy cold, he sat rigidly up in his place and looked
at no one. It was just possible no one would notice
him.
“Oh, my God!” said the
old lady suddenly. “Georges is with her!”
The carriages had passed quite through
the uncomfortable crowd of people who recognized and
yet gave no sign of recognition. The short critical
encounter seemed to have been going on for ages.
And now the wheels whirled away the carriageloads
of girls more gaily than ever. Toward the fair
open country they went, amid the buffetings of the
fresh air of heaven. Bright-colored fabrics fluttered
in the wind, and the merry laughter burst forth anew
as the voyagers began jesting and glancing back at
the respectable folks halting with looks of annoyance
at the roadside. Turning round, Nana could see
the walking party hesitating and then returning the
way they had come without crossing the bridge.
Mme Hugon was leaning silently on Count Muffat’s
arm, and so sad was her look that no one dared comfort
her.
“I say, did you see Fauchery,
dear?” Nana shouted to Lucy, who was leaning
out of the carriage in front. “What a brute
he was! He shall pay out for that. And Paul,
too, a fellow I’ve been so kind to! Not
a sign! They’re polite, I’m sure.”
And with that she gave Steiner a terrible
dressing, he having ventured to suggest that the gentlemen’s
attitude had been quite as it should be. So then
they weren’t even worth a bow? The first
blackguard that came by might insult them? Thanks!
He was the right sort, too, he was! It couldn’t
be better! One ought always to bow to a woman.
“Who’s the tall one?”
asked Lucy at random, shouting through the noise of
the wheels.
“It’s the Countess Muffat,” answered
Steiner.
“There now! I suspected
as much,” said Nana. “Now, my dear
fellow, it’s all very well her being a countess,
for she’s no better than she should be.
Yes, yes, she’s no better that she should be.
You know, I’ve got an eye for such things, I
have! And now I know your countess as well as
if I had been at the making of her! I’ll
bet you that she’s the mistress of that viper
Fauchery! I tell you, she’s his mistress!
Between women you guess that sort of thing at once!”
Steiner shrugged his shoulders.
Since the previous day his irritation had been hourly
increasing. He had received letters which necessitated
his leaving the following morning, added to which he
did not much appreciate coming down to the country
in order to sleep on the drawing-room divan.
“And this poor baby boy!”
Nana continued, melting suddenly at sight of Georges’s
pale face as he still sat rigid and breathless in front
of her.
“D’you think Mamma recognized me?”
he stammered at last.
“Oh, most surely she did!
Why, she cried out! But it’s my fault.
He didn’t want to come with us; I forced him
to. Now listen, Zizi, would you like me to write
to your mamma? She looks such a kind, decent sort
of lady! I’ll tell her that I never saw
you before and that it was Steiner who brought you
with him for the first time today.”
“No, no, don’t write,”
said Georges in great anxiety. “I’ll
explain it all myself. Besides, if they bother
me about it I shan’t go home again.”
But he continued plunged in thought,
racking his brains for excuses against his return
home in the evening. The five carriages were rolling
through a flat country along an interminable straight
road bordered by fine trees. The country was
bathed in a silvery-gray atmosphere. The ladies
still continued shouting remarks from carriage to carriage
behind the backs of the drivers, who chuckled over
their extraordinary fares. Occasionally one of
them would rise to her feet to look at the landscape
and, supporting herself on her neighbor’s shoulder,
would grow extremely excited till a sudden jolt brought
her down to the seat again. Caroline Hequet in
the meantime was having a warm discussion with Labordette.
Both of them were agreed that Nana would be selling
her country house before three months were out, and
Caroline was urging Labordette to buy it back for
her for as little as it was likely to fetch. In
front of them La Faloise, who was very amorous and
could not get at Gaga’s apoplectic neck, was
imprinting kisses on her spine through her dress,
the strained fabric of which was nigh splitting, while
Amelie, perching stiffly on the bracket seat, was
bidding them be quiet, for she was horrified to be
sitting idly by, watching her mother being kissed.
In the next carriage Mignon, in order to astonish
Lucy, was making his sons recite a fable by La Fontaine.
Henri was prodigious at this exercise; he could spout
you one without pause or hesitation. But Maria
Blond, at the head of the procession, was beginning
to feel extremely bored. She was tired of hoaxing
that blockhead of a Tatan Nene with a story to the
effect that the Parisian dairywomen were wont to fabricate
eggs with a mixture of paste and saffron. The
distance was too great: were they never going
to get to their destination? And the question
was transmitted from carriage to carriage and finally
reached Nana, who, after questioning her driver, got
up and shouted:
“We’ve not got a quarter
of an hour more to go. You see that church behind
the trees down there?”
Then she continued:
“Do you know, it appears the
owner of the Chateau de Chamont is an old lady of
Napoleon’s time? Oh, she was a merry
one! At least, so Joseph told me, and he heard
it from the servants at the bishop’s palace.
There’s no one like it nowadays, and for the
matter of that, she’s become goody-goody.”
“What’s her name?” asked Lucy.
“Madame d’Anglars.”
“Irma d’Anglars I knew her!”
cried Gaga.
Admiring exclamations burst from the
line of carriages and were borne down the wind as
the horses quickened their trot. Heads were stretched
out in Gaga’s direction; Maria Blond and Tatan
Nene turned round and knelt on the seat while they
leaned over the carriage hood, and the air was full
of questions and cutting remarks, tempered by a certain
obscure admiration. Gaga had known her!
The idea filled them all with respect for that far-off
past.
“Dear me, I was young then,”
continued Gaga. “But never mind, I remember
it all. I saw her pass. They said she was
disgusting in her own house, but, driving in her carriage,
she was just smart! And the stunning tales
about her! Dirty doings and money flung about
like one o’clock! I don’t wonder
at all that she’s got a fine place. Why,
she used to clean out a man’s pockets as soon
as look at him. Irma d’Anglars still in
the land of the living! Why, my little pets,
she must be near ninety.”
At this the ladies became suddenly
serious. Ninety years old! The deuce, there
wasn’t one of them, as Lucy loudly declared,
who would live to that age. They were all done
for. Besides, Nana said she didn’t want
to make old bones; it wouldn’t be amusing.
They were drawing near their destination, and the
conversation was interrupted by the cracking of whips
as the drivers put their horses to their best paces.
Yet amid all the noise Lucy continued talking and,
suddenly changing the subject, urged Nana to come
to town with them all to-morrow. The exhibition
was soon to close, and the ladies must really return
to Paris, where the season was surpassing their expectations.
But Nana was obstinate. She loathed Paris; she
wouldn’t set foot there yet!
“Eh, darling, we’ll stay?”
she said, giving Georges’s knees a squeeze,
as though Steiner were of no account.
The carriages had pulled up abruptly,
and in some surprise the company got out on some waste
ground at the bottom of a small hill. With his
whip one of the drivers had to point them out the ruins
of the old Abbey of Chamont where they lay hidden
among trees. It was a great sell! The ladies
voted them silly. Why, they were only a heap of
old stones with briers growing over them and part
of a tumble-down tower. It really wasn’t
worth coming a couple of leagues to see that!
Then the driver pointed out to them the countryseat,
the park of which stretched away from the abbey, and
he advised them to take a little path and follow the
walls surrounding it. They would thus make the
tour of the place while the carriages would go and
await them in the village square. It was a delightful
walk, and the company agreed to the proposition.
“Lord love me, Irma knows how
to take care of herself!” said Gaga, halting
before a gate at the corner of the park wall abutting
on the highroad.
All of them stood silently gazing
at the enormous bush which stopped up the gateway.
Then following the little path, they skirted the park
wall, looking up from time to time to admire the trees,
whose lofty branches stretched out over them and formed
a dense vault of greenery. After three minutes
or so they found themselves in front of a second gate.
Through this a wide lawn was visible, over which two
venerable oaks cast dark masses of shadow. Three
minutes farther on yet another gate afforded them
an extensive view of a great avenue, a perfect corridor
of shadow, at the end of which a bright spot of sunlight
gleamed like a star. They stood in silent, wondering
admiration, and then little by little exclamations
burst from their lips. They had been trying hard
to joke about it all with a touch of envy at heart,
but this decidedly and immeasurably impressed them.
What a genius that Irma was! A sight like this
gave you a rattling notion of the woman! The trees
stretched away and away, and there were endlessly
recurrent patches of ivy along the wall with glimpses
of lofty roofs and screens of poplars interspersed
with dense masses of elms and aspens. Was there
no end to it then? The ladies would have liked
to catch sight of the mansion house, for they were
weary of circling on and on, weary of seeing nothing
but leafy recesses through every opening they came
to. They took the rails of the gate in their
hands and pressed their faces against the ironwork.
And thus excluded and isolated, a feeling of respect
began to overcome them as they thought of the castle
lost to view in surrounding immensity. Soon,
being quite unused to walking, they grew tired.
And the wall did not leave off; at every turn of the
small deserted path the same range of gray stones
stretched ahead of them. Some of them began to
despair of ever getting to the end of it and began
talking of returning. But the more their long
walk fatigued them, the more respectful they became,
for at each successive step they were increasingly
impressed by the tranquil, lordly dignity of the domain.
“It’s getting silly, this
is!” said Caroline Hequet, grinding her teeth.
Nana silenced her with a shrug.
For some moments past she had been rather pale and
extremely serious and had not spoken a single word.
Suddenly the path gave a final turn; the wall ended,
and as they came out on the village square the mansion
house stood before them on the farther side of its
grand outer court. All stopped to admire the proud
sweep of the wide steps, the twenty frontage windows,
the arrangement of the three wings, which were built
of brick framed by courses of stone. Henri IV
had erewhile inhabited this historic mansion, and his
room, with its great bed hung with Genoa velvet, was
still preserved there. Breathless with admiration,
Nana gave a little childish sigh.
“Great God!” she whispered very quietly
to herself.
But the party were deeply moved when
Gaga suddenly announced that Irma herself was standing
yonder in front of the church. She recognized
her perfectly. She was as upright as of old,
the hoary campaigner, and that despite her age, and
she still had those eyes which flashed when she moved
in that proud way of hers! Vespers were just over,
and for a second or two Madame stood in the church
porch. She was dressed in a dark brown silk and
looked very simple and very tall, her venerable face
reminding one of some old marquise who had survived
the horrors of the Great Revolution. In her right
hand a huge Book of Hours shone in the sunlight, and
very slowly she crossed the square, followed some fifteen
paces off by a footman in livery. The church was
emptying, and all the inhabitants of Chamont bowed
before her with extreme respect. An old man even
kissed her hand, and a woman wanted to fall on her
knees. Truly this was a potent queen, full of
years and honors. She mounted her flight of steps
and vanished from view.
“That’s what one attains
to when one has methodical habits!” said Mignon
with an air of conviction, looking at his sons and
improving the occasion.
Then everybody said his say.
Labordette thought her extraordinarily well preserved.
Maria Blond let slip a foul expression and vexed Lucy,
who declared that one ought to honor gray hairs.
All the women, to sum up, agreed that she was a perfect
marvel. Then the company got into their conveyances
again. From Chamont all the way to La Mignotte
Nana remained silent. She had twice turned round
to look back at the house, and now, lulled by the
sound of the wheels, she forgot that Steiner was at
her side and that Georges was in front of her.
A vision had come up out of the twilight, and the
great lady seemed still to be sweeping by with all
the majesty of a potent queen, full of years and of
honors.
That evening Georges re-entered Les
Fondettes in time for dinner. Nana, who had grown
increasingly absent-minded and singular in point of
manner, had sent him to ask his mamma’s forgiveness.
It was his plain duty, she remarked severely, growing
suddenly solicitous for the decencies of family life.
She even made him swear not to return for the night;
she was tired, and in showing proper obedience he was
doing no more than his duty. Much bored by this
moral discourse, Georges appeared in his mother’s
presence with heavy heart and downcast head.
Fortunately for him his brother Philippe,
a great merry devil of a military man, had arrived
during the day, a fact which greatly curtailed the
scene he was dreading. Mme Hugon was content to
look at him with eyes full of tears while Philippe,
who had been put in possession of the facts, threatened
to go and drag him home by the scruff of the neck if
ever he went back into that woman’s society.
Somewhat comforted, Georges began slyly planning how
to make his escape toward two o’clock next day
in order to arrange about future meetings with Nana.
Nevertheless, at dinnertime the house
party at Les Fondettes seemed not a little embarrassed.
Vandeuvres had given notice of departure, for he was
anxious to take Lucy back to Paris with him. He
was amused at the idea of carrying off this girl whom
he had known for ten years yet never desired.
The Marquis de Chouard bent over his plate and meditated
on Gaga’s young lady. He could well remember
dandling Lili on his knee. What a way children
had of shooting up! This little thing was becoming
extremely plump! But Count Muffat especially was
silent and absorbed. His cheeks glowed, and he
had given Georges one long look. Dinner over,
he went upstairs, intending to shut himself in his
bedroom, his pretext being a slight feverish attack.
M. Venot had rushed after him, and upstairs in the
bedroom a scene ensued. The count threw himself
upon the bed and strove to stifle a fit of nervous
sobbing in the folds of the pillow while M. Venot,
in a soft voice, called him brother and advised him
to implore heaven for mercy. But he heard nothing:
there was a rattle in his throat. Suddenly he
sprang off the bed and stammered:
“I am going there. I can’t resist
any longer.”
“Very well,” said the old man, “I
go with you.”
As they left the house two shadows
were vanishing into the dark depths of a garden walk,
for every evening now Fauchery and the Countess Sabine
left Daguenet to help Estelle make tea. Once on
the highroad the count walked so rapidly that his
companion had to run in order to follow him.
Though utterly out of breath, the latter never ceased
showering on him the most conclusive arguments against
the temptations of the flesh. But the other never
opened his mouth as he hurried away into the night.
Arrived in front of La Mignotte, he said simply:
“I can’t resist any longer. Go!”
“God’s will be done then!”
muttered M. Venot. “He uses every method
to assure His final triumph. Your sin will become
His weapon.”
At La Mignotte there was much wrangling
during the evening meal. Nana had found a letter
from Bordenave awaiting her, in which he advised rest,
just as though he were anxious to be rid of her.
Little Violaine, he said, was being encored twice
nightly. But when Mignon continued urging her
to come away with them on the morrow Nana grew exasperated
and declared that she did not intend taking advice
from anybody. In other ways, too, her behavior
at table was ridiculously stuck up. Mme Lerat
having made some sharp little speech or other, she
loudly announced that, God willing, she wasn’t
going to let anyone no, not even her own
aunt make improper remarks in her presence.
After which she dreed her guests with honorable sentiments.
She seemed to be suffering from a fit of stupid right-mindedness,
and she treated them all to projects of religious
education for Louiset and to a complete scheme of
regeneration for herself. When the company began
laughing she gave vent to profound opinions, nodding
her head like a grocer’s wife who knows what
she is saying. Nothing but order could lead to
fortune! And so far as she was concerned, she
had no wish to die like a beggar! She set the
ladies’ teeth on edge. They burst out in
protest. Could anyone have been converting Nana?
No, it was impossible! But she sat quite still
and with absent looks once more plunged into dreamland,
where the vision of an extremely wealthy and greatly
courted Nana rose up before her.
The household were going upstairs
to bed when Muffat put in an appearance. It was
Labordette who caught sight of him in the garden.
He understood it all at once and did him a service,
for he got Steiner out of the way and, taking his
hand, led him along the dark corridor as far as Nana’s
bedroom. In affairs of this kind Labordette was
wont to display the most perfect tact and cleverness.
Indeed, he seemed delighted to be making other people
happy. Nana showed no surprise; she was only
somewhat annoyed by the excessive heat of Muffat’s
pursuit. Life was a serious affair, was it not?
Love was too silly: it led to nothing. Besides,
she had her scruples in view of Zizi’s tender
age. Indeed, she had scarcely behaved quite fairly
toward him. Dear me, yes, she was choosing the
proper course again in taking up with an old fellow.
“Zoe,” she said to the
lady’s maid, who was enchanted at the thought
of leaving the country, “pack the trunks when
you get up tomorrow. We are going back to Paris.”
And she went to bed with Muffat but
experienced no pleasure.