Toward one in the morning, in the
great bed of the Venice point draperies, Nana and
the count lay still awake. He had returned to
her that evening after a three days sulking fit.
The room, which was dimly illumined by a lamp, seemed
to slumber amid a warm, damp odor of love, while the
furniture, with its white lacquer and silver incrustations,
loomed vague and wan through the gloom. A curtain
had been drawn to, so that the bed lay flooded with
shadow. A sigh became audible; then a kiss broke
the silence, and Nana, slipping off the coverlet, sat
for a moment or two, barelegged, on the edge of the
bed. The count let his head fall back on the
pillow and remained in darkness.
“Dearest, you believe in the
good God, don’t you?” she queried after
some moments’ reflection. Her face was serious;
she had been overcome by pious terrors on quitting
her lover’s arms.
Since morning, indeed, she had been
complaining of feeling uncomfortable, and all her
stupid notions, as she phrased it, notions about death
and hell, were secretly torturing her. From time
to time she had nights such as these, during which
childish fears and atrocious fancies would thrill
her with waking nightmares. She continued:
“I say, d’you think I shall go to heaven?”
And with that she shivered, while
the count, in his surprise at her putting such singular
questions at such a moment, felt his old religious
remorse returning upon him. Then with her chemise
slipping from her shoulders and her hair unpinned,
she again threw herself upon his breast, sobbing and
clinging to him as she did so.
“I’m afraid of dying!
I’m afraid of dying!” He had all the trouble
in the world to disengage himself. Indeed, he
was himself afraid of giving in to the sudden madness
of this woman clinging to his body in her dread of
the Invisible. Such dread is contagious, and he
reasoned with her. Her conduct was perfect she
had only to conduct herself well in order one day
to merit pardon. But she shook her head.
Doubtless she was doing no one any harm; nay, she
was even in the constant habit of wearing a medal
of the Virgin, which she showed to him as it hung by
a red thread between her breasts. Only it had
been foreordained that all unmarried women who held
conversation with men would go to hell. Scraps
of her catechism recurred to her remembrance.
Ah, if one only knew for certain, but, alas, one was
sure of nothing; nobody ever brought back any information,
and then, truly, it would be stupid to bother oneself
about things if the priests were talking foolishness
all the time. Nevertheless, she religiously kissed
her medal, which was still warm from contact with
her skin, as though by way of charm against death,
the idea of which filled her with icy horror.
Muffat was obliged to accompany her into the dressing
room, for she shook at the idea of being alone there
for one moment, even though she had left the door open.
When he had lain down again she still roamed about
the room, visiting its several corners and starting
and shivering at the slightest noise. A mirror
stopped her, and as of old she lapsed into obvious
contemplation of her nakedness. But the sight
of her breast, her waist and her thighs only doubled
her terror, and she ended by feeling with both hands
very slowly over the bones of her face.
“You’re ugly when you’re
dead,” she said in deliberate tones.
And she pressed her cheeks, enlarging
her eyes and pushing down her jaw, in order to see
how she would look. Thus disfigured, she turned
toward the count.
“Do look! My head’ll be quite small,
it will!”
At this he grew vexed.
“You’re mad; come to bed!”
He fancied he saw her in a grave,
emaciated by a century of sleep, and he joined his
hands and stammered a prayer. It was some time
ago that the religious sense had reconquered him,
and now his daily access of faith had again assumed
the apoplectic intensity which was wont to leave him
well-nigh stunned. The joints of his fingers used
to crack, and he would repeat without cease these
words only: “My God, my God, my God!”
It was the cry of his impotence, the cry of that sin
against which, though his damnation was certain, he
felt powerless to strive. When Nana returned
she found him hidden beneath the bedclothes; he was
haggard; he had dug his nails into his bosom, and
his eyes stared upward as though in search of heaven.
And with that she started to weep again. Then
they both embraced, and their teeth chattered they
knew not why, as the same imbecile obsession over-mastered
them. They had already passed a similar night,
but on this occasion the thing was utterly idiotic,
as Nana declared when she ceased to be frightened.
She suspected something, and this caused her to question
the count in a prudent sort of way. It might
be that Rose Mignon had sent the famous letter!
But that was not the case; it was sheer fright, nothing
more, for he was still ignorant whether he was a cuckold
or no.
Two days later, after a fresh disappearance,
Muffat presented himself in the morning, a time of
day at which he never came. He was livid; his
eyes were red and his whole man still shaken by a great
internal struggle. But Zoe, being scared herself,
did not notice his troubled state. She had run
to meet him and now began crying:
“Oh, monsieur, do come in!
Madame nearly died yesterday evening!”
And when he asked for particulars:
“Something it’s impossible
to believe has happened a miscarriage,
monsieur.”
Nana had been in the family way for
the past three months. For long she had simply
thought herself out of sorts, and Dr Boutarel had himself
been in doubt. But when afterward he made her
a decisive announcement, she felt so bored thereby
that she did all she possibly could to disguise her
condition. Her nervous terrors, her dark humors,
sprang to some extent from this unfortunate state
of things, the secret of which she kept very shamefacedly,
as became a courtesan mother who is obliged to conceal
her plight. The thing struck her as a ridiculous
accident, which made her appear small in her own eyes
and would, had it been known, have led people to chaff
her.
“A poor joke, eh?” she said. “Bad
luck, too, certainly.”
She was necessarily very sharp set
when she thought her last hour had come. There
was no end to her surprise, too; her sexual economy
seemed to her to have got out of order; it produced
children then even when one did not want them and
when one employed it for quite other purposes!
Nature drove her to exasperation; this appearance of
serious motherhood in a career of pleasure, this gift
of life amid all the deaths she was spreading around,
exasperated her. Why could one not dispose of
oneself as fancy dictated, without all this fuss?
And whence had this brat come? She could not
even suggest a father. Ah, dear heaven, the man
who made him would have a splendid notion had he kept
him in his own hands, for nobody asked for him; he
was in everybody’s way, and he would certainly
not have much happiness in life!
Meanwhile Zoe described the catastrophe.
“Madame was seized with colic
toward four o’clock. When she didn’t
come back out of the dressing room I went in and found
her lying stretched on the floor in a faint.
Yes, monsieur, on the floor in a pool of blood, as
though she had been murdered. Then I understood,
you see. I was furious; Madame might quite well
have confided her trouble to me. As it happened,
Monsieur Georges was there, and he helped me to lift
her up, and directly a miscarriage was mentioned he
felt ill in his turn! Oh, it’s true I’ve
had the hump since yesterday!”
In fact, the house seemed utterly
upset. All the servants were galloping upstairs,
downstairs and through the rooms. Georges had
passed the night on an armchair in the drawing room.
It was he who had announced the news to Madame’s
friends at that hour of the evening when Madame was
in the habit of receiving. He had still been
very pale, and he had told his story very feelingly,
and as though stupefied. Steiner, La Faloise,
Philippe and others, besides, had presented themselves,
and at the end of the lad’s first phrase they
burst into exclamations. The thing was impossible!
It must be a farce! After which they grew serious
and gazed with an embarrassed expression at her bedroom
door. They shook their heads; it was no laughing
matter.
Till midnight a dozen gentlemen had
stood talking in low voices in front of the fireplace.
All were friends; all were deeply exercised by the
same idea of paternity. They seemed to be mutually
excusing themselves, and they looked as confused as
if they had done something clumsy. Eventually,
however, they put a bold face on the matter. It
had nothing to do with them: the fault was hers!
What a stunner that Nana was, eh? One would never
have believed her capable of such a fake! And
with that they departed one by one, walking on tiptoe,
as though in a chamber of death where you cannot laugh.
“Come up all the same, monsieur,”
said Zoe to Muffat. “Madame is much better
and will see you. We are expecting the doctor,
who promised to come back this morning.”
The lady’s maid had persuaded
Georges to go back home to sleep, and upstairs in
the drawing room only Satin remained. She lay
stretched on a divan, smoking a cigarette and scanning
the ceiling. Amid the household scare which had
followed the accident she had been white with rage,
had shrugged her shoulders violently and had made ferocious
remarks. Accordingly, when Zoe was passing in
front of her and telling Monsieur that poor, dear
Madame had suffered a great deal:
“That’s right; it’ll teach him!”
said Satin curtly.
They turned round in surprise, but
she had not moved a muscle; her eyes were still turned
toward the ceiling, and her cigarette was still wedged
tightly between her lips.
“Dear me, you’re charming, you are!”
said Zoe.
But Satin sat up, looked savagely
at the count and once more hurled her remark at him.
“That’s right; it’ll teach him!”
And she lay down again and blew forth
a thin jet of smoke, as though she had no interest
in present events and were resolved not to meddle in
any of them. No, it was all too silly!
Zoe, however, introduced Muffat into
the bedroom, where a scent of ether lingered amid
warm, heavy silence, scarce broken by the dull roll
of occasional carriages in the Avenue de Villiers.
Nana, looking very white on her pillow, was lying
awake with wide-open, meditative eyes. She smiled
when she saw the count but did not move.
“Ah, dear pet!” she slowly
murmured. “I really thought I should never
see you again.”
Then as he leaned forward to kiss
her on the hair, she grew tender toward him and spoke
frankly about the child, as though he were its father.
“I never dared tell you; I felt
so happy about it! Oh, I used to dream about
it; I should have liked to be worthy of you! And
now there’s nothing left. Ah well, perhaps
that’s best. I don’t want to bring
a stumbling block into your life.”
Astounded by this story of paternity,
he began stammering vague phrases. He had taken
a chair and had sat down by the bed, leaning one arm
on the coverlet. Then the young woman noticed
his wild expression, the blood reddening his eyes,
the fever that set his lips aquiver.
“What’s the matter then?” she asked.
“You’re ill too.”
“No,” he answered with extreme difficulty.
She gazed at him with a profound expression.
Then she signed to Zoe to retire, for the latter was
lingering round arranging the medicine bottles.
And when they were alone she drew him down to her and
again asked:
“What’s the matter with
you, darling? The tears are ready to burst from
your eyes I can see that quite well.
Well now, speak out; you’ve come to tell me
something.”
“No, no, I swear I haven’t,”
he blurted out. But he was choking with suffering,
and this sickroom, into which he had suddenly entered
unawares, so worked on his feelings that he burst out
sobbing and buried his face in the bedclothes to smother
the violence of his grief. Nana understood.
Rose Mignon had most assuredly decided to send the
letter. She let him weep for some moments, and
he was shaken by convulsions so fierce that the bed
trembled under her. At length in accents of motherly
compassion she queried:
“You’ve had bothers at your home?”
He nodded affirmatively. She paused anew, and
then very low:
“Then you know all?”
He nodded assent. And a heavy
silence fell over the chamber of suffering. The
night before, on his return from a party given by the
empress, he had received the letter Sabine had written
her lover. After an atrocious night passed in
the meditation of vengeance he had gone out in the
morning in order to resist a longing which prompted
him to kill his wife. Outside, under a sudden,
sweet influence of a fine June morning, he had lost
the thread of his thoughts and had come to Nana’s,
as he always came at terrible moments in his life.
There only he gave way to his misery, for he felt
a cowardly joy at the thought that she would console
him.
“Now look here, be calm!”
the young woman continued, becoming at the same time
extremely kind. “I’ve known it a long
time, but it was certainly not I that would have opened
your eyes. You remember you had your doubts last
year, but then things arranged themselves, owing to
my prudence. In fact, you wanted proofs.
The deuce, you’ve got one today, and I know
it’s hard lines. Nevertheless, you must
look at the matter quietly: you’re not
dishonored because it’s happened.”
He had left off weeping. A sense
of shame restrained him from saying what he wanted
to, although he had long ago slipped into the most
intimate confessions about his household. She
had to encourage him. Dear me, she was a woman;
she could understand everything. When in a dull
voice he exclaimed:
“You’re ill. What’s
the good of tiring you? It was stupid of me to
have come. I’m going ”
“No,” she answered briskly
enough. “Stay! Perhaps I shall be able
to give you some good advice. Only don’t
make me talk too much; the medical man’s forbidden
it.”
He had ended by rising, and he was
now walking up and down the room. Then she questioned
him:
“Now what are you going to do?
“I’m going to box the man’s ears by
heavens, yes!”
She pursed up her lips disapprovingly.
“That’s not very wise. And about
your wife?”
“I shall go to law; I’ve proofs.”
“Not at all wise, my dear boy.
It’s stupid even. You know I shall never
let you do that!”
And in her feeble voice she showed
him decisively how useless and scandalous a duel and
a trial would be. He would be a nine days’
newspaper sensation; his whole existence would be at
stake, his peace of mind, his high situation at court,
the honor of his name, and all for what? That
he might have the laughers against him.
“What will it matter?” he cried.
“I shall have had my revenge.”
“My pet,” she said, “in
a business of that kind one never has one’s
revenge if one doesn’t take it directly.”
He paused and stammered. He was
certainly no poltroon, but he felt that she was right.
An uneasy feeling was growing momentarily stronger
within him, a poor, shameful feeling which softened
his anger now that it was at its hottest. Moreover,
in her frank desire to tell him everything, she dealt
him a fresh blow.
“And d’you want to know
what’s annoying you, dearest? Why, that
you are deceiving your wife yourself. You don’t
sleep away from home for nothing, eh? Your wife
must have her suspicions. Well then, how can you
blame her? She’ll tell you that you’ve
set her the example, and that’ll shut you up.
There, now, that’s why you’re stamping
about here instead of being at home murdering both
of ’em.”
Muffat had again sunk down on the
chair; he was overwhelmed by these home thrusts.
She broke off and took breath, and then in a low voice:
“Oh, I’m a wreck!
Do help me sit up a bit. I keep slipping down,
and my head’s too low.”
When he had helped her she sighed
and felt more comfortable. And with that she
harked back to the subject. What a pretty sight
a divorce suit would be! Couldn’t he imagine
the advocate of the countess amusing Paris with his
remarks about Nana? Everything would have come
out her fiasco at the Varietés, her
house, her manner of life. Oh dear, no! She
had no wish for all that amount of advertising.
Some dirty women might, perhaps, have driven him to
it for the sake of getting a thundering big advertisement,
but she she desired his happiness before
all else. She had drawn him down toward her and,
after passing her arm around his neck, was nursing
his head close to hers on the edge of the pillow.
And with that she whispered softly:
“Listen, my pet, you shall make it up with your
wife.”
But he rebelled at this. It could
never be! His heart was nigh breaking at the
thought; it was too shameful. Nevertheless, she
kept tenderly insisting.
“You shall make it up with your
wife. Come, come, you don’t want to hear
all the world saying that I’ve tempted you away
from your home? I should have too vile a reputation!
What would people think of me? Only swear that
you’ll always love me, because the moment you
go with another woman ”
Tears choked her utterance, and he
intervened with kisses and said:
“You’re beside yourself; it’s impossible!”
“Yes, yes,” she rejoined,
“you must. But I’ll be reasonable.
After all, she’s your wife, and it isn’t
as if you were to play me false with the firstcomer.”
And she continued in this strain,
giving him the most excellent advice. She even
spoke of God, and the count thought he was listening
to M. Venot, when that old gentleman endeavored to
sermonize him out of the grasp of sin. Nana,
however, did not speak of breaking it off entirely:
she preached indulgent good nature and suggested that,
as became a dear, nice old fellow, he should divide
his attentions between his wife and his mistress,
so that they would all enjoy a quiet life, devoid of
any kind of annoyance, something, in fact, in the
nature of a happy slumber amid the inevitable miseries
of existence. Their life would be nowise changed:
he would still be the little man of her heart.
Only he would come to her a bit less often and would
give the countess the nights not passed with her.
She had got to the end of her strength and left off,
speaking under her breath:
“After that I shall feel I’ve
done a good action, and you’ll love me all the
more.”
Silence reigned. She had closed
her eyes and lay wan upon her pillow. The count
was patiently listening to her, not wishing her to
tire herself. A whole minute went by before she
reopened her eyes and murmured:
“Besides, how about the money?
Where would you get the money from if you must grow
angry and go to law? Labordette came for the bill
yesterday. As for me, I’m out of everything;
I have nothing to put on now.”
Then she shut her eyes again and looked
like one dead. A shadow of deep anguish had passed
over Muffat’s brow. Under the present stroke
he had since yesterday forgotten the money troubles
from which he knew not how to escape. Despite
formal promises to the contrary, the bill for a hundred
thousand francs had been put in circulation after being
once renewed, and Labordette, pretending to be very
miserable about it, threw all the blame on Francis,
declaring that he would never again mix himself up
in such a matter with an uneducated man. It was
necessary to pay, for the count would never have allowed
his signature to be protested. Then in addition
to Nana’s novel demands, his home expenses were
extraordinarily confused. On their return from
Les Fondettes the countess had suddenly manifested
a taste for luxury, a longing for worldly pleasures,
which was devouring their fortune. Her ruinous
caprices began to be talked about. Their
whole household management was altered, and five hundred
thousand francs were squandered in utterly transforming
the old house in the Rue Miromesnil. Then there
were extravagantly magnificent gowns and large sums
disappeared, squandered or perhaps given away, without
her ever dreaming of accounting for them. Twice
Muffat ventured to mention this, for he was anxious
to know how the money went, but on these occasions
she had smiled and gazed at him with so singular an
expression that he dared not interrogate her further
for fear of a too-unmistakable answer. If he were
taking Daguenet as son-in-law as a gift from Nana
it was chiefly with the hope of being able to reduce
Estelle’s dower to two hundred thousand francs
and of then being free to make any arrangements he
chose about the remainder with a young man who was
still rejoicing in this unexpected match.
Nevertheless, for the last week, under
the immediate necessity of finding Labordette’s
hundred thousand francs, Muffat had been able to hit
on but one expedient, from which he recoiled.
This was that he should sell the Bordes, a magnificent
property valued at half a million, which an uncle
had recently left the countess. However, her signature
was necessary, and she herself, according to the terms
of the deed, could not alienate the property without
the count’s authorization. The day before
he had indeed resolved to talk to his wife about this
signature. And now everything was ruined; at such
a moment he would never accept of such a compromise.
This reflection added bitterness to the frightful
disgrace of the adultery. He fully understood
what Nana was asking for, since in that ever-growing
self-abandonment which prompted him to put her in
possession of all his secrets, he had complained to
her of his position and had confided to her the tiresome
difficulty he was in with regard to the signature of
the countess.
Nana, however, did not seem to insist.
She did not open her eyes again, and, seeing her so
pale, he grew frightened and made her inhale a little
ether. She gave a sigh and without mentioning
Daguenet asked him some questions.
“When is the marriage?”
“We sign the contract on Tuesday, in five days’
time,” he replied.
Then still keeping her eyelids closed,
as though she were speaking from the darkness and
silence of her brain:
“Well then, pet, see to what
you’ve got to do. As far as I’m concerned,
I want everybody to be happy and comfortable.”
He took her hand and soothed her.
Yes, he would see about it; the important thing now
was for her to rest. And the revolt within him
ceased, for this warm and slumberous sickroom, with
its all-pervading scent of ether, had ended by lulling
him into a mere longing for happiness and peace.
All his manhood, erewhile maddened by wrong, had departed
out of him in the neighborhood of that warm bed and
that suffering woman, whom he was nursing under the
influence of her feverish heat and of remembered delights.
He leaned over her and pressed her in a close embrace,
while despite her unmoved features her lips wore a
delicate, victorious smile. But Dr Boutarel made
his appearance.
“Well, and how’s this
dear child?” he said familiarly to Muffat, whom
he treated as her husband. “The deuce,
but we’ve made her talk!”
The doctor was a good-looking man
and still young. He had a superb practice among
the gay world, and being very merry by nature and ready
to laugh and joke in the friendliest way with the demimonde
ladies with whom, however, he never went farther,
he charged very high fees and got them paid with the
greatest punctuality. Moreover, he would put himself
out to visit them on the most trivial occasions, and
Nana, who was always trembling at the fear of death,
would send and fetch him two or three times a week
and would anxiously confide to him little infantile
ills which he would cure to an accompaniment of amusing
gossip and harebrained anecdotes. The ladies
all adored him. But this time the little ill
was serious.
Muffat withdrew, deeply moved.
Seeing his poor Nana so very weak, his sole feeling
was now one of tenderness. As he was leaving the
room she motioned him back and gave him her forehead
to kiss. In a low voice and with a playfully
threatening look she said:
“You know what I’ve allowed
you to do. Go back to your wife, or it’s
all over and I shall grow angry!”
The Countess Sabine had been anxious
that her daughter’s wedding contract should
be signed on a Tuesday in order that the renovated
house, where the paint was still scarcely dry, might
be reopened with a grand entertainment. Five
hundred invitations had been issued to people in all
kinds of sets. On the morning of the great day
the upholsterers were still nailing up hangings, and
toward nine at night, just when the lusters were going
to be lit, the architect, accompanied by the eager
and interested countess, was given his final orders.
It was one of those spring festivities
which have a delicate charm of their own. Owing
to the warmth of the June nights, it had become possible
to open the two doors of the great drawing room and
to extend the dancing floor to the sanded paths of
the garden. When the first guests arrived and
were welcomed at the door by the count and the countess
they were positively dazzled. One had only to
recall to mind the drawing room of the past, through
which flitted the icy, ghostly presence of the Countess
Muffat, that antique room full of an atmosphere of
religious austerity with its massive First Empire mahogany
furniture, its yellow velvet hangings, its moldy ceiling
through which the damp had soaked. Now from the
very threshold of the entrance hall mosaics set off
with gold were glittering under the lights of lofty
candelabras, while the marble staircase unfurled,
as it were, a delicately chiseled balustrade.
Then, too, the drawing room looked splendid; it was
hung with Genoa velvet, and a huge decorative design
by Boucher covered the ceiling, a design for which
the architect had paid a hundred thousand francs at
the sale of the Chateau de Dampierre. The lusters
and the crystal ornaments lit up a luxurious display
of mirrors and precious furniture. It seemed
as though Sabine’s long chair, that solitary
red silk chair, whose soft contours were so marked
in the old days, had grown and spread till it filled
the whole great house with voluptuous idleness and
a sense of tense enjoyment not less fierce and hot
than a fire which has been long in burning up.
People were already dancing.
The band, which had been located in the garden, in
front of one of the open windows, was playing a waltz,
the supple rhythm of which came softly into the house
through the intervening night air. And the garden
seemed to spread away and away, bathed in transparent
shadow and lit by Venetian lamps, while in a purple
tent pitched on the edge of a lawn a table for refreshments
had been established. The waltz, which was none
other than the quaint, vulgar one in the Blonde Venus,
with its laughing, blackguard lilt, penetrated the
old hotel with sonorous waves of sound and sent a
feverish thrill along its walls. It was as though
some fleshly wind had come up out of the common street
and were sweeping the relics of a vanished epoch out
of the proud old dwelling, bearing away the Muffats’
past, the age of honor and religious faith which had
long slumbered beneath the lofty ceilings.
Meanwhile near the hearth, in their
accustomed places, the old friends of the count’s
mother were taking refuge. They felt out of their
element they were dazzled and they formed
a little group amid the slowly invading mob.
Mme du Joncquoy, unable to recognize the various rooms,
had come in through the dining saloon. Mme Chantereau
was gazing with a stupefied expression at the garden,
which struck her as immense. Presently there
was a sound of low voices, and the corner gave vent
to all sorts of bitter reflections.
“I declare,” murmured
Mme Chantereau, “just fancy if the countess were
to return to life. Why, can you not imagine her
coming in among all these crowds of people! And
then there’s all this gilding and this uproar!
It’s scandalous!”
“Sabine’s out of her senses,”
replied Mme du Joncquoy. “Did you see her
at the door? Look, you can catch sight of her
here; she’s wearing all her diamonds.”
For a moment or two they stood up
in order to take a distant view of the count and countess.
Sabine was in a white dress trimmed with marvelous
English point lace. She was triumphant in beauty;
she looked young and gay, and there was a touch of
intoxication in her continual smile. Beside her
stood Muffat, looking aged and a little pale, but he,
too, was smiling in his calm and worthy fashion.
“And just to think that he was
once master,” continued Mme Chantereau, “and
that not a single rout seat would have come in without
his permission! Ah well, she’s changed
all that; it’s her house now. D’you
remember when she did not want to do her drawing room
up again? She’s done up the entire house.”
But the ladies grew silent, for Mme
de Chezelles was entering the room, followed by a
band of young men. She was going into ecstasies
and marking her approval with a succession of little
exclamations.
“Oh, it’s delicious, exquisite!
What taste!” And she shouted back to her followers:
“Didn’t I say so?
There’s nothing equal to these old places when
one takes them in hand. They become dazzling!
It’s quite in the grand seventeenth-century
style. Well, now she can receive.”
The two old ladies had again sat down
and with lowered tones began talking about the marriage,
which was causing astonishment to a good many people.
Estelle had just passed by them. She was in a
pink silk gown and was as pale, flat, silent and virginal
as ever. She had accepted Daguenet very quietly
and now evinced neither joy nor sadness, for she was
still as cold and white as on those winter evenings
when she used to put logs on the fire. This whole
fête given in her honor, these lights and flowers
and tunes, left her quite unmoved.
“An adventurer,” Mme du
Joncquoy was saying. “For my part, I’ve
never seen him.”
“Take care, here he is,” whispered Mme
Chantereau.
Daguenet, who had caught sight of
Mme Hugon and her sons, had eagerly offered her his
arm. He laughed and was effusively affectionate
toward her, as though she had had a hand in his sudden
good fortune.
“Thank you,” she said,
sitting down near the fireplace. “You see,
it’s my old corner.”
“You know him?” queried
Mme du Joncquoy, when Daguenet had gone. “Certainly
I do a charming young man. Georges
is very fond of him. Oh, they’re a most
respected family.”
And the good lady defended him against
the mute hostility which was apparent to her.
His father, held in high esteem by Louis Philippe,
had been a Préfet up to the time of his death.
The son had been a little dissipated, perhaps; they
said he was ruined, but in any case, one of his uncles,
who was a great landowner, was bound to leave him his
fortune. The ladies, however, shook their heads,
while Mme Hugon, herself somewhat embarrassed, kept
harking back to the extreme respectability of his
family. She was very much fatigued and complained
of her feet. For some months she had been occupying
her house in the Rue Richelieu, having, as she said,
a whole lot of things on hand. A look of sorrow
overshadowed her smiling, motherly face.
“Never mind,” Mme Chantereau
concluded. “Estelle could have aimed at
something much better.”
There was a flourish. A quadrille
was about to begin, and the crowd flowed back to the
sides of the drawing room in order to leave the floor
clear. Bright dresses flitted by and mingled together
amid the dark evening coats, while the intense light
set jewels flashing and white plumes quivering and
lilacs and roses gleaming and flowering amid the sea
of many heads. It was already very warm, and a
penetrating perfume was exhaled from light tulles
and crumpled silks and satins, from which bare
shoulders glimmered white, while the orchestra played
its lively airs. Through open doors ranges of
seated ladies were visible in the background of adjoining
rooms; they flashed a discreet smile; their eyes glowed,
and they made pretty mouths as the breath of their
fans caressed their faces. And guests still kept
arriving, and a footman announced their names while
gentlemen advanced slowly amid the surrounding groups,
striving to find places for ladies, who hung with difficulty
on their arms, and stretching forward in quest of
some far-off vacant armchair. The house kept
filling, and crinolined skirts got jammed together
with a little rustling sound. There were corners
where an amalgam of laces, bunches and puffs would
completely bar the way, while all the other ladies
stood waiting, politely resigned and imperturbably
graceful, as became people who were made to take part
in these dazzling crushes. Meanwhile across the
garden couples, who had been glad to escape from the
close air of the great drawing room, were wandering
away under the roseate gleam of the Venetian lamps,
and shadowy dresses kept flitting along the edge of
the lawn, as though in rhythmic time to the music of
the quadrille, which sounded sweet and distant behind
the trees.
Steiner had just met with Foucarmont
and La Faloise, who were drinking a glass of champagne
in front of the buffet.
“It’s beastly smart,”
said La Faloise as he took a survey of the purple
tent, which was supported by gilded lances. “You
might fancy yourself at the Gingerbread Fair.
That’s it the Gingerbread Fair!”
In these days he continually affected
a bantering tone, posing as the young man who has
abused every mortal thing and now finds nothing worth
taking seriously.
“How surprised poor Vandeuvres
would be if he were to come back,” murmured
Foucarmont. “You remember how he simply
nearly died of boredom in front of the fire in there.
Egad, it was no laughing matter.”
“Vandeuvres oh, let
him be. He’s a gone coon!” La Faloise
disdainfully rejoined. “He jolly well choused
himself, he did, if he thought he could make us sit
up with his roast-meat story! Not a soul mentions
it now. Blotted out, done for, buried that’s
what’s the matter with Vandeuvres! Here’s
to the next man!”
Then as Steiner shook hands with him:
“You know Nana’s just
arrived. Oh, my boys, it was a state entry.
It was too brilliant for anything! First of all
she kissed the countess. Then when the children
came up she gave them her blessing and said to Daguenet,
’Listen, Paul, if you go running after the girls
you’ll have to answer for it to me.’
What, d’you mean to say you didn’t see
that? Oh, it was smart. A success,
if you like!”
The other two listened to him, openmouthed,
and at last burst out laughing. He was enchanted
and thought himself in his best vein.
“You thought it had really happened,
eh? Confound it, since Nana’s made the
match! Anyway, she’s one of the family.”
The young Hugons were passing, and
Philippe silenced him. And with that they chatted
about the marriage from the male point of view.
Georges was vexed with La Faloise for telling an anecdote.
Certainly Nana had fubbed off on Muffat one of her
old flames as son-in-law; only it was not true that
she had been to bed with Daguenet as lately as yesterday.
Foucarmont made bold to shrug his shoulders. Could
anyone ever tell when Nana was in bed with anyone?
But Georges grew excited and answered with an “I
can tell, sir!” which set them all laughing.
In a word, as Steiner put it, it was all a very funny
kettle of fish!
The buffet was gradually invaded by
the crowd, and, still keeping together, they vacated
their positions there. La Faloise stared brazenly
at the women as though he believed himself to be Mabille.
At the end of a garden walk the little band was surprised
to find M. Venot busily conferring with Daguenet,
and with that they indulged in some facile pleasantries
which made them very merry. He was confessing
him, giving him advice about the bridal night!
Presently they returned in front of one of the drawing-room
doors, within which a polka was sending the couples
whirling to and fro till they seemed to leave a wake
behind them among the crowd of men who remained standing
about. In the slight puffs of air which came
from outside the tapers flared up brilliantly, and
when a dress floated by in time to the rat-tat of the
measure, a little gust of wind cooled the sparkling
heat which streamed down from the lusters.
“Egad, they’re not cold in there!”
muttered La Faloise.
They blinked after emerging from the
mysterious shadows of the garden. Then they pointed
out to one another the Marquis de Chouard where he
stood apart, his tall figure towering over the bare
shoulders which surrounded him. His face was
pale and very stern, and beneath its crown of scant
white hair it wore an expression of lofty dignity.
Scandalized by Count Muffat’s conduct, he had
publicly broken off all intercourse with him and was
by way of never again setting foot in the house.
If he had consented to put in an appearance that evening
it was because his granddaughter had begged him to.
But he disapproved of her marriage and had inveighed
indignantly against the way in which the government
classes were being disorganized by the shameful compromises
engendered by modern debauchery.
“Ah, it’s the end of all
things,” Mme du Joncquoy whispered in Mme Chantereau’s
ear as she sat near the fireplace. “That
bad woman has bewitched the unfortunate man.
And to think we once knew him such a true believer,
such a noblehearted gentleman!”
“It appears he is ruining himself,”
continued Mme Chantereau. “My husband has
had a bill of his in his hands. At present he’s
living in that house in the Avenue de Villiers; all
Paris is talking about it. Good heavens!
I don’t make excuses for Sabine, but you must
admit that he gives her infinite cause of complaint,
and, dear me, if she throws money out of the window,
too ”
“She does not only throw money,”
interrupted the other. “In fact, between
them, there’s no knowing where they’ll
stop; they’ll end in the mire, my dear.”
But just then a soft voice interrupted
them. It was M. Venot, and he had come and seated
himself behind them, as though anxious to disappear
from view. Bending forward, he murmured:
“Why despair? God manifests Himself when
all seems lost.”
He was assisting peacefully at the
downfall of the house which he erewhile governed.
Since his stay at Les Fondettes he had been allowing
the madness to increase, for he was very clearly aware
of his own powerlessness. He had, indeed, accepted
the whole position the count’s wild
passion for Nana, Fauchery’s presence, even Estelle’s
marriage with Daguenet. What did these things
matter? He even became more supple and mysterious,
for he nursed a hope of being able to gain the same
mastery over the young as over the disunited couple,
and he knew that great disorders lead to great conversions.
Providence would have its opportunity.
“Our friend,” he continued
in a low voice, “is always animated by the best
religious sentiments. He has given me the sweetest
proofs of this.”
“Well,” said Mme du Joncquoy,
“he ought first to have made it up with his
wife.”
“Doubtless. At this moment
I have hopes that the reconciliation will be shortly
effected.”
Whereupon the two old ladies questioned him.
But he grew very humble again.
“Heaven,” he said, “must be left
to act.” His whole desire in bringing the
count and the countess together again was to avoid
a public scandal, for religion tolerated many faults
when the proprieties were respected.
“In fact,” resumed Mme
du Joncquoy, “you ought to have prevented this
union with an adventurer.”
The little old gentleman assumed an
expression of profound astonishment. “You
deceive yourself. Monsieur Daguenet is a young
man of the greatest merit. I am acquainted with
his thoughts; he is anxious to live down the errors
of his youth. Estelle will bring him back to the
path of virtue, be sure of that.”
“Oh, Estelle!” Mme Chantereau
murmured disdainfully. “I believe the dear
young thing to be incapable of willing anything; she
is so insignificant!”
This opinion caused M. Venot to smile.
However, he went into no explanations about the young
bride and, shutting his eyes, as though to avoid seeming
to take any further interest in the matter, he once
more lost himself in his corner behind the petticoats.
Mme Hugon, though weary and absent-minded, had caught
some phrases of the conversation, and she now intervened
and summed up in her tolerant way by remarking to
the Marquis de Chouard, who just then bowed to her:
“These ladies are too severe.
Existence is so bitter for every one of us! Ought
we not to forgive others much, my friend, if we wish
to merit forgiveness ourselves?”
For some seconds the marquis appeared
embarrassed, for he was afraid of allusions.
But the good lady wore so sad a smile that he recovered
almost at once and remarked:
“No, there is no forgiveness
for certain faults. It is by reason of this kind
of accommodating spirit that a society sinks into the
abyss of ruin.”
The ball had grown still more animated.
A fresh quadrille was imparting a slight swaying motion
to the drawing-room floor, as though the old dwelling
had been shaken by the impulse of the dance. Now
and again amid the wan confusion of heads a woman’s
face with shining eyes and parted lips stood sharply
out as it was whirled away by the dance, the light
of the lusters gleaming on the white skin. Mme
du Joncquoy declared that the present proceedings
were senseless. It was madness to crowd five
hundred people into a room which would scarcely contain
two hundred. In fact, why not sign the wedding
contract on the Place du Carrousel? This was
the outcome of the new code of manners, said Mme Chantereau.
In old times these solemnities took place in the bosom
of the family, but today one must have a mob of people;
the whole street must be allowed to enter quite freely,
and there must be a great crush, or else the evening
seems a chilly affair. People now advertised
their luxury and introduced the mere foam on the wave
of Parisian society into their houses, and accordingly
it was only too natural if illicit proceedings such
as they had been discussing afterward polluted the
hearth. The ladies complained that they could
not recognize more than fifty people. Where did
all this crowd spring from? Young girls with
low necks were making a great display of their shoulders.
A woman had a golden dagger stuck in her chignon,
while a bodice thickly embroidered with jet beads clothed
her in what looked like a coat of mail. People’s
eyes kept following another lady smilingly, so singularly
marked were her clinging skirts. All the luxuriant
splendor of the departing winter was there the
overtolerant world of pleasure, the scratch gathering
a hostess can get together after a first introduction,
the sort of society, in fact, in which great names
and great shames jostle together in the same fierce
quest of enjoyment. The heat was increasing,
and amid the overcrowded rooms the quadrille unrolled
the cadenced symmetry of its figures.
“Very smart the countess!”
La Faloise continued at the garden door. “She’s
ten years younger than her daughter. By the by,
Foucarmont, you must decide on a point. Vandeuvres
once bet that she had no thighs.”
This affectation of cynicism bored
the other gentlemen, and Foucarmont contented himself
by saying:
“Ask your cousin, dear boy. Here he is.”
“Jove, it’s a happy thought!”
cried La Faloise. “I bet ten louis
she has thighs.”
Fauchery did indeed come up.
As became a constant inmate of the house, he had gone
round by the dining room in order to avoid the crowded
doors. Rose had taken him up again at the beginning
of the winter, and he was now dividing himself between
the singer and the countess, but he was extremely
fatigued and did not know how to get rid of one of
them. Sabine flattered his vanity, but Rose amused
him more than she. Besides, the passion Rose
felt was a real one: her tenderness for him was
marked by a conjugal fidelity which drove Mignon to
despair.
“Listen, we want some information,”
said La Faloise as he squeezed his cousin’s
arm. “You see that lady in white silk?”
Ever since his inheritance had given
him a kind of insolent dash of manner he had affected
to chaff Fauchery, for he had an old grudge to satisfy
and wanted to be revenged for much bygone raillery,
dating from the days when he was just fresh from his
native province.
“Yes, that lady with the lace.”
The journalist stood on tiptoe, for as yet he did
not understand.
“The countess?” he said at last.
“Exactly, my good friend. I’ve bet
ten louis now, has she thighs?”
And he fell a-laughing, for he was
delighted to have succeeded in snubbing a fellow who
had once come heavily down on him for asking whether
the countess slept with anyone. But Fauchery,
without showing the very slightest astonishment, looked
fixedly at him.
“Get along, you idiot!” he said finally
as he shrugged his shoulders.
Then he shook hands with the other
gentlemen, while La Faloise, in his discomfiture,
felt rather uncertain whether he had said something
funny. The men chatted. Since the races
the banker and Foucarmont had formed part of the set
in the Avenue de Villiers. Nana was going on much
better, and every evening the count came and asked
how she did. Meanwhile Fauchery, though he listened,
seemed preoccupied, for during a quarrel that morning
Rose had roundly confessed to the sending of the letter.
Oh yes, he might present himself at his great lady’s
house; he would be well received! After long
hesitation he had come despite everything out
of sheer courage. But La Faloise’s imbecile
pleasantry had upset him in spite of his apparent
tranquillity.
“What’s the matter?” asked Philippe.
“You seem in trouble.”
“I do? Not at all. I’ve been
working: that’s why I came so late.”
Then coldly, in one of those heroic
moods which, although unnoticed, are wont to solve
the vulgar tragedies of existence:
“All the same, I haven’t made my bow to
our hosts. One must be civil.”
He even ventured on a joke, for he turned to La Faloise
and said:
“Eh, you idiot?”
And with that he pushed his way through
the crowd. The valet’s full voice was no
longer shouting out names, but close to the door the
count and countess were still talking, for they were
detained by ladies coming in. At length he joined
them, while the gentlemen who were still on the garden
steps stood on tiptoe so as to watch the scene.
Nana, they thought, must have been chattering.
“The count hasn’t noticed
him,” muttered Georges. “Look out!
He’s turning round; there, it’s done!”
The band had again taken up the waltz
in the Blonde Venus. Fauchery had begun by bowing
to the countess, who was still smiling in ecstatic
serenity. After which he had stood motionless
a moment, waiting very calmly behind the count’s
back. That evening the count’s deportment
was one of lofty gravity: he held his head high,
as became the official and the great dignitary.
And when at last he lowered his gaze in the direction
of the journalist he seemed still further to emphasize
the majesty of his attitude. For some seconds
the two men looked at one another. It was Fauchery
who first stretched out his hand. Muffat gave
him his. Their hands remained clasped, and the
Countess Sabine with downcast eyes stood smiling before
them, while the waltz continually beat out its mocking,
vagabond rhythm.
“But the thing’s going on wheels!”
said Steiner.
“Are their hands glued together?”
asked Foucarmont, surprised at this prolonged clasp.
A memory he could not forget brought a faint glow to
Fanchery’s pale cheeks, and in his mind’s
eye he saw the property room bathed in greenish twilight
and filled with dusty bric-a-brac. And Muffat
was there, eggcup in hand, making a clever use of his
suspicions. At this moment Muffat was no longer
suspicious, and the last vestige of his dignity was
crumbling in ruin. Fauchery’s fears were
assuaged, and when he saw the frank gaiety of the
countess he was seized with a desire to laugh.
The thing struck him as comic.
“Aha, here she is at last!”
cried La Faloise, who did not abandon a jest when
he thought it a good one. “D’you see
Nana coming in over there?”
“Hold your tongue, do, you idiot!” muttered
Philippe.
“But I tell you, it is Nana!
They’re playing her waltz for her, by Jove!
She’s making her entry. And she takes part
in the reconciliation, the devil she does! What?
You don’t see her? She’s squeezing
all three of ’em to her heart my
cousin Fauchery, my lady cousin and her husband, and
she’s calling ’em her dear kitties.
Oh, those family scenes give me a turn!”
Estelle had come up, and Fauchery
complimented her while she stood stiffly up in her
rose-colored dress, gazing at him with the astonished
look of a silent child and constantly glancing aside
at her father and mother. Daguenet, too, exchanged
a hearty shake of the hand with the journalist.
Together they made up a smiling group, while M. Venot
came gliding in behind them. He gloated over
them with a beatified expression and seemed to envelop
them in his pious sweetness, for he rejoiced in these
last instances of self-abandonment which were preparing
the means of grace.
But the waltz still beat out its swinging,
laughing, voluptuous measure; it was like a shrill
continuation of the life of pleasure which was beating
against the old house like a rising tide. The
band blew louder trills from their little flutes;
their violins sent forth more swooning notes.
Beneath the Genoa velvet hangings, the gilding and
the paintings, the lusters exhaled a living heat and
a great glow of sunlight, while the crowd of guests,
multiplied in the surrounding mirrors, seemed to grow
and increase as the murmur of many voices rose ever
louder. The couples who whirled round the drawing
room, arm about waist, amid the smiles of the seated
ladies, still further accentuated the quaking of the
floors. In the garden a dull, fiery glow fell
from the Venetian lanterns and threw a distant reflection
of flame over the dark shadows moving in search of
a breath of air about the walks at its farther end.
And this trembling of walls and this red glow of light
seemed to betoken a great ultimate conflagration in
which the fabric of an ancient honor was cracking
and burning on every side. The shy early beginnings
of gaiety, of which Fauchery one April evening had
heard the vocal expression in the sound of breaking
glass, had little by little grown bolder, wilder,
till they had burst forth in this festival. Now
the rift was growing; it was crannying the house and
announcing approaching downfall. Among drunkards
in the slums it is black misery, an empty cupboard,
which put an end to ruined families; it is the madness
of drink which empties the wretched beds. Here
the waltz tune was sounding the knell of an old race
amid the suddenly ignited ruins of accumulated wealth,
while Nana, although unseen, stretched her lithe limbs
above the dancers’ heads and sent corruption
through their caste, drenching the hot air with the
ferment of her exhalations and the vagabond lilt of
the music.
On the evening after the celebration
of the church marriage Count Muffat made his appearance
in his wife’s bedroom, where he had not entered
for the last two years. At first, in her great
surprise, the countess drew back from him. But
she was still smiling the intoxicated smile which she
now always wore. He began stammering in extreme
embarrassment; whereupon she gave him a short moral
lecture. However, neither of them risked a decisive
explanation. It was religion, they pretended,
which required this process of mutual forgiveness,
and they agreed by a tacit understanding to retain
their freedom. Before going to bed, seeing that
the countess still appeared to hesitate, they had a
business conversation, and the count was the first
to speak of selling the Bordes. She consented
at once. They both stood in great want of money,
and they would share and share alike. This completed
the reconciliation, and Muffat, remorseful though
he was, felt veritably relieved.
That very day, as Nana was dozing
toward two in the afternoon, Zoe made so bold as to
knock at her bedroom door. The curtains were drawn
to, and a hot breath of wind kept blowing through
a window into the fresh twilight stillness within.
During these last days the young woman had been getting
up and about again, but she was still somewhat weak.
She opened her eyes and asked:
“Who is it?”
Zoe was about to reply, but Daguenet
pushed by her and announced himself in person.
Nana forthwith propped herself up on her pillow and,
dismissing the lady’s maid:
“What! Is that you?”
she cried. “On the day of your marriage?
What can be the matter?”
Taken aback by the darkness, he stood
still in the middle of the room. However, he
grew used to it and came forward at last. He was
in evening dress and wore a white cravat and gloves.
“Yes, to be sure, it’s
me!” he said. “You don’t remember?”
No, she remembered nothing, and in
his chaffing way he had to offer himself frankly to
her.
“Come now, here’s your
commission. I’ve brought you the handsel
of my innocence!”
And with that, as he was now by the
bedside, she caught him in her bare arms and shook
with merry laughter and almost cried, she thought it
so pretty of him.
“Oh, that Mimi, how funny he
is! He’s thought of it after all! And
to think I didn’t remember it any longer!
So you’ve slipped off; you’re just out
of church. Yes, certainly, you’ve got a
scent of incense about you. But kiss me, kiss
me! Oh, harder than that, Mimi dear! Bah!
Perhaps it’s for the last time.”
In the dim room, where a vague odor
of ether still lingered, their tender laughter died
away suddenly. The heavy, warm breeze swelled
the window curtains, and children’s voices were
audible in the avenue without. Then the lateness
of the hour tore them asunder and set them joking
again. Daguenet took his departure with his wife
directly after the breakfast.