“So much the worse,” said Nana; “I’ll write to him this
“No, now I remember,” said the young woman, sitting afternoon. And if he doesn’t receive my letter, then tomor-up. “It’s all changed. I wanted to tell him so this morning.
row you will stop him coming in.” He would run against the nigger! We should have a nice In the meantime Zoe was walking softly about the room.
to-do!”
She spoke of yesterday’s great hit. Madame had shown
“Madame did not warn me; I couldn’t be aware of it,” such talent; she sang so well! Ah! Madame need not fret at murmured Zoe. “When Madame changes her days she will all now!
do well to tell me so that I may know. Then the old miser is Nana, her elbow dug into her pillow, only tossed her head no longer due on the Tuesday?”
in reply. Her nightdress had slipped down on her shoul-Between themselves they were wont thus gravely to nick-ders, and her hair, unfastened and entangled, flowed over name as “old miser” and “nigger” their two paying visi-them in masses.
tors, one of whom was a tradesman of economical tenden-
“Without doubt,” she murmured, becoming thoughtful; cies from the Faubourg Saint-Denis, while the other was a
“but what’s to be done to gain time? I’m going to have all Walachian, a mock count, whose money, paid always at sorts of bothers today. Now let’s see, has the porter come the most irregular intervals, never looked as though it had upstairs yet this morning?”
been honestly come by. Daguenet had made Nana give him Then both the women talked together seriously. Nana the days subsequent to the old miser’s visits, and as the owed three quarters’ rent; the landlord was talking of seiz-trader had to be at home by eight o’clock in the morning, ing the furniture. Then, too, there was a perfect downpour 31
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of creditors; there was a livery-stable man, a needlewoman, that poor Mimi, he stands in great need of a loan himself; a a ladies’ tailor, a charcoal dealer and others besides, who fall in stocks has cleaned him out—he can’t even bring me came every day and settled themselves on a bench in the flowers now.”
little hall. The charcoal dealer especially was a dreadful She was speaking of Daguenet. In the self-abandonment fellow—he shouted on the staircase. But Nana’s greatest of her awakening she had no secrets from Zoe, and the cause of distress was her little Louis, a child she had given latter, inured to such confidences, received them with birth to when she was sixteen and now left in charge of a respeciful sympathy. Since Madame condescended to speak nurse in a village in the neighborhood of Rambouillet. This to her of her affairs she would permit herself to say what woman was clamoring for the sum of three hundred francs she thought. Besides, she was very fond of Madame; she before she would consent to give the little Louis back to had left Mme Blanche for the express purpose of taking her. Nana, since her last visit to the child, had been seized service with her, and heaven knew Mme Blanche was strain-with a fit of maternal love and was desperate at the thought ing every nerve to have her again! Situations weren’t lack-that she could not realize a project, which had now being; she was pretty well known, but she would have stayed come a hobby with her. This was to pay off the nurse and with Madame even in narrow circumstances, because she to place the little man with his aunt, Mme Lerat, at the believed in Madame’s future. And she concluded by stat-Batignolles, whither she could go and see him as often as ing her advice with precision. When one was young one she liked.
often did silly things. But this time it was one’s duty to Meanwhile the lady’s maid kept hinting that her mistress look alive, for the men only thought of having their fun.
ought to have confided her necessities to the old miser.
Oh dear, yes! Things would right themselves. Madame had
“To be sure, I told him everything,” cried Nana, “and he only to say one word in order to quiet her creditors and told me in answer that he had too many big liabilities. He find the money she stood in need of.
won’t go beyond his thousand francs a month. The nigger’s
“All that doesn’t help me to three hundred francs,” Nana beggared just at present; I expect he’s lost at play. As to kept repeating as she plunged her fingers into the vagrant 32
Nana
convolutions of her back hair. “I must have three hundred Zoe ushered in a tall old lady who wore ringlets and francs today, at once! It’s stupid not to know anyone who’ll looked like a countess who haunts lawyers’ offices. Then give you three hundred francs.”
she effaced herself, disappearing noiselessly with the lithe, She racked her brains. She would have sent Mme Lerat, serpentine movement wherewith she was wont to with-whom she was expecting that very morning, to Rambouil-draw from a room on the arrival of a gentleman. However, let. The counteraction of her sudden fancy spoiled for her she might have stayed. The Tricon did not even sit down.
the triumph of last night. Among all those men who had Only a brief exchange of words took place.
cheered her, to think that there wasn’t one to bring her
“I have someone for you today. Do you care about it?” fifteen louis! And then one couldn’t accept money in that
“Yes. How much?”
way! Dear heaven, how unfortunate she was! And she kept
“Twenty louis.”
harking back again to the subject of her baby—he had blue
“At what o’clock?”
eyes like a cherub’s; he could lisp “Mamma” in such a funny
“At three. It’s settled then?”
voice that you were ready to die of laughing!
“It’s settled.”
But at this moment the electric bell at the outer door was Straightway the Tricon talked of the state of the weather.
heard to ring with its quick and tremulous vibration. Zoe It was dry weather, pleasant for walking. She had still four returned, murmuring with a confidential air: or five persons to see. And she took her departure after
“It’s a woman.”
consulting a small memorandum book. When she was once She had seen this woman a score of times, only she made more alone Nana appeared comforted. A slight shiver agi-believe never to recognize her and to be quite ignorant of tated her shoulders, and she wrapped herself softly up again the nature of her relations with ladies in difficulties.
in her warm bedclothes with the lazy movements of a cat
“She has told me her name—Madame Tricon.” who is susceptible to cold. Little by little her eyes closed,
“The Tricon,” cried Nana. “Dear me! That’s true. I’d and she lay smiling at the thought of dressing Louiset pret-forgotten her. Show her in.”
tily on the following day, while in the slumber into which 33
Zola
she once more sank last night’s long, feverish dream of
“Perhaps Madame has not seen the papers. There’s a very endlessly rolling applause returned like a sustained accom-nice article in the Figaro.”
paniment to music and gently soothed her lassitude.
He had brought the journal. Mme Lerat put on her spec-At eleven o’clock, when Zoe showed Mme Lerat into tacles and read the article aloud, standing in front of the the room, Nana was still asleep. But she woke at the noise window as she did so. She had the build of a policeman, and cried out at once:
and she drew herself up to her full height, while her nos-
“It’s you. You’ll go to Rambouillet today?” trils seemed to compress themselves whenever she uttered
“That’s what I’ve come for,” said the aunt. “There’s a a gallant epithet. It was a notice by dauchery, written just train at twenty past twelve. I’ve got time to catch it.” after the performance, and it consisted of a couple of very
“No, I shall only have the money by and by,” replied the glowing columns, full of witty sarcasm about the artist and young woman, stretching herself and throwing out her of broad admiration for the woman.
bosom. “You’ll have lunch, and then we’ll see.”
“Excellent!” Francis kept repeating.
Zoe brought a dressing jacket.
Nana laughed good-humoredly at his chaffing her about
“The hairdresser’s here, madame,” she murmured.
her voice! He was a nice fellow, was that Fauchery, and But Nana did not wish to go into the dressing room. And she would repay him for his charming style of writing. Mme she herself cried out:
Lerat, after having reread the notice, roundly declared that
“Come in, Francis.”
the men all had the devil in their shanks, and she refused to A well-dressed man pushed open the door and bowed. Just explain her self further, being fully satisfied with a brisk at that moment Nana was getting out of bed, her bare legs in allusion of which she alone knew the meaning. Francis fin-full view. But she did not hurry and stretched her hands out so ished turning up and fastening Nana’s hair. He bowed and as to let Zoe draw on the sleeves of the dressing jacket. Francis, said:
on his part, was quite at his ease and without turning away
“I’ll keep my eye on the evening papers. At half-past five waited with a sober expression on his face.
as usual, eh?”
34
Nana
“Bring me a pot of pomade and a pound of burnt al-dirty past with things in it which it was as well not to stir monds from Boissier’s,” Nana cried to him across the draw-up every day. She had left off seeing her niece for a long ing room just as he was shutting the door after him.
time because among the family she was accused of ruining Then the two women, once more alone, recollected that herself along with the little thing. Good God, as though they had not embraced, and they planted big kisses on each that were possible! She didn’t ask for confidences; she be-other’s cheeks. The notice warmed their hearts. Nana, who lieved that Nana had always lived decently, and now it was up till now had been half asleep, was again seized with the enough for her to have found her again in a fine position fever of her triumph. Dear, dear, ’twas Rose Mignon that and to observe her kind feelings toward her son. Virtue would be spending a pleasant morning! Her aunt having and hard work were still the only things worth anything in been unwilling to go to the theater because, as she averred, this world.
sudden emotions ruined her stomach, Nana set herself to
“Who is the baby’s father?” she said, interrupting her-describe the events of the evening and grew intoxicated at self, her eyes lit up with an expression of acute curiosity.
her own recital, as though all Paris had been shaken to the Nana was taken by surprise and hesitated a moment.
ground by the applause. Then suddenly interrupting her-
“A gentleman,” she replied.
self, she asked with a laugh if one would ever have imag-
“There now!” rejoined the aunt. “They declared that you ined it all when she used to go traipsing about the Rue de had him by a stonemason who was in the habit of beating la Goutte-d’Or. Mme Lerat shook her head. No, no, one you. Indeed, you shall tell me all about it someday; you never could have foreseen it! And she began talking in her know I’m discreet! Tut, tut, I’ll look after him as though turn, assuming a serious air as she did so and calling Nana he were a prince’s son.”
“daughter.” Wasn’t she a second mother to her since the She had retired from business as a florist and was living first had gone to rejoin Papa and Grandmamma? Nana was on her savings, which she had got together sou by sou, till greatly softened and on the verge of tears. But Mme Lerat now they brought her in an income of six hundred francs a declared that the past was the past—oh yes, to be sure, a year. Nana promised to rent some pretty little lodgings for 35
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her and to give her a hundred francs a month besides. At at her with a sweet expression and a die-away smile. In the the mention of this sum the aunt forgot herself and shrieked meantime Nana, who averred that she was as hungry as a to her niece, bidding her squeeze their throats, since she wolf, threw herself on the radishes and gobbled them up had them in her grasp. She was meaning the men, of course.
without bread. Mme Lerat had become ceremonious; she Then they both embraced again, but in the midst of her refused the radishes as provocative of phlegm. By and by rejoicing Nana’s face, as she led the talk back to the sub-when Zoe had brought in the cutlets Nana just chipped the ject of Louiset, seemed to be overshadowed by a sudden meat and contented herself with sucking the bones. Now recollection.
and again she scrutinized her old friend’s hat out of the
“Isn’t it a bore I’ve got to go out at three o’clock?” she corners of her eyes.
muttered. “It is a nuisance!”
“It’s the new hat I gave you?” she ended by saying.
Just then Zoe came in to say that lunch was on the table.
“Yes, I made it up,” murmured Mme Maloir, her mouth They went into the dining room, where an old lady was full of meat.
already seated at table. She had not taken her hat off, and The hat was smart to distraction. In front it was greatly she wore a dark dress of an indecisive color midway be-exaggerated, and it was adorned with a lofty feather. Mme tween puce and goose dripping. Nana did not seem sur-Maloir had a mania for doing up all her hats afresh; she prised at sight of her. She simply asked her why she hadn’t alone knew what really became her, and with a few stitches come into the bedroom.
she could manufacture a toque out of the most elegant
“I heard voices,” replied the old lady. “I thought you had headgear. Nana, who had bought her this very hat in order company.”
not to be ashamed of her when in her company out of doors, Mme Maloir, a respectable-looking and mannerly woman, was very near being vexed.
was Nana’s old friend, chaperon and companion. Mme
“Push it up, at any rate,” she cried.
Lerat’s presence seemed to fidget her at first. Afterward,
“No, thank you,” replied the old lady with dignity. “It when she became aware that it was Nana’s aunt, she looked doesn’t get in my way; I can eat very comfortably as it is.” 36
Nana
After the cutlets came cauliflowers and the remains of Zoe do? She made believe to tumble as she crossed the a cold chicken. But at the arrival of each successive dish drawing room; the old boy rushed up to her assistance, Nana made a little face, hesitated, sniffed and left her plate-flew to the kitchen to fetch her a glass of water, and M.
ful untouched. She finished her lunch with the help of Octave slipped away.
preserve.
“Oh, she’s a good girl, you bet!” said Nana, who was Dessert took a long time. Zoe did not remove the cloth listening to her with tender interest and a sort of submis-before serving the coffee. Indeed, the ladies simply pushed sive admiration.
back their plates before taking it. They talked continually
“Now I’ve had my troubles,” began Mme Lerat. And of yesterday’s charming evening. Nana kept rolling ciga-edging up to Mme Maloir, she imparted to her certain con-rettes, which she smoked, swinging up and down on her fidential confessions. Both ladies took lumps of sugar backward-tilted chair. And as Zoe had remained behind dipped in cognac and sucked them. But Mme Maloir was and was lounging idly against the sideboard, it came about wont to listen to other people’s secrets without even con-that the company were favored with her history. She said fessing anything concerning herself. People said that she she was the daughter of a midwife at Bercy who had failed lived on a mysterious allowance in a room whither no one in business. First of all she had taken service with a dentist ever penetrated.
and after that with an insurance agent, but neither place All of a sudden Nana grew excited.
suited her, and she thereupon enumerated, not without a
“Don’t play with the knives, Aunt. You know it gives me certain amount of pride, the names of the ladies with whom a turn!”
she had served as lady’s maid. Zoe spoke of these ladies as Without thinking about it Mme Lerat had crossed two one who had had the making of their fortunes. It was very knives on the table in front of her. Notwithstanding this, certain that without her more than one would have had the young woman defended herself from the charge of su-some queer tales to tell. Thus one day, when Mme Blanche perstition. Thus, if the salt were upset, it meant nothing, was with M. Octave, in came the old gentleman. What did even on a Friday; but when it came to knives, that was too 37
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much of a good thing; that had never proved fallacious.
her bedroom. An inkstand consisting of a bottle of ink worth There could be no doubt that something unpleasant was about three sous stood untidily on one of the pieces of going to happen to her. She yawned, and then with an air, furniture, with a pen deep in rust beside it. The letter was of profound boredom:
for Daguenet. Mme Maloir herself wrote in her bold En-
“Two o’clock already. I must go out. What a nuisance!” glish hand, “My darling little man,” and then she told him The two old ladies looked at one another. The three not to come tomorrow because “that could not be” but women shook their heads without speaking. To be sure, hastened to add that “she was with him in thought at every life was not always amusing. Nana had tilted her chair back moment of the day, whether she were near or far away.” anew and lit a cigarette, while the others sat pursing up
“And I end with ‘a thousand kisses,’” she murmured.
their lips discreetly, thinking deeply philosophic thoughts.
Mme Lerat had shown her approval of each phrase with
“While waiting for you to return we’ll play a game of an emphatic nod. Her eyes were sparkling; she loved to bezique,” said Mme Maloir after a short silence. “Does find herself in the midst of love affairs. Nay, she was seized Madame play bezique?”
with a desire to add some words of her own and, assuming Certainly Mme Lerat played it, and that to perfection. It a tender look and cooing like a dove, she suggested: was no good troubling Zoe, who had vanished—a corner
“A thousand kisses on thy beautiful eyes.” of the table would do quite well. And they pushed back the
“That’s the thing: ‘a thousand kisses on thy beautiful tablecloth over the dirty plates. But as Mme Maloir was eyes’!” Nana repeated, while the two old ladies assumed a herself going to take the cards out of a drawer in the side-beatified expression.
board, Nana remarked that before she sat down to her game Zoe was rung for and told to take the letter down to a it would be very nice of her if she would write her a letter.
commissionaire. She had just been talking with the theater It bored Nana to write letters; besides, she was not sure of messenger, who had brought her mistress the day’s playbill her spelling, while her old friend could turn out the most and rehearsal arrangements, which he had forgotten in the feeling epistles. She ran to fetch some good note paper in morning. Nana had this individual ushered in and got him 38
Nana
to take the latter to Daguenet on his return. Then she put
“It would be better, dearie, to give up your expedition at questions to him. Oh yes! M. Bordenave was very pleased; once.”
people had already taken seats for a week to come; Ma-
“No, be quick about it,” said Mme Lerat, shuffling the dame had no idea of the number of people who had been cards. “I shall take the half-past four o’clock train if you’re asking her address since morning. When the man had taken back here with the money before four o’clock.” his departure Nana announced that at most she would only
“Oh, there’ll be no time lost,” she murmured.
be out half an hour. If there were any visitors Zoe would Ten minutes after Zoe helped her on with a dress and a make them wait. As she spoke the electric bell sounded. It hat. It didn’t matter much if she were badly turned out.
was a creditor in the shape of the man of whom she jobbed Just as she was about to go downstairs there was a new her carriages. He had settled himself on the bench in the ring at the bell. This time it was the charcoal dealer. Very anteroom, and the fellow was free to twiddle his thumbs well, he might keep the livery-stable keeper company—it till night—there wasn’t the least hurry now.
would amuse the fellows. Only, as she dreaded a scene,
“Come, buck up!” said Nana, still torpid with laziness she crossed the kitchen and made her escape by the back and yawning and stretching afresh. “I ought to be there stairs. She often went that way and in return had only to now!”
lift up her flounces.
Yet she did not budge but kept watching the play of her
“When one is a good mother anything’s excusable,” said aunt, who had just announced four aces. Chin on hand, she Mme Maloir sententiously when left alone with Mme Lerat.
grew quite engrossed in it but gave a violent start on hear-
“Four kings,” replied this lady, whom the play greatly ing three o’clock strike.
excited.
“Good God!” she cried roughly.
And they both plunged into an interminable game.
Then Mme Maloir, who was counting the tricks she had The table had not been cleared. The smell of lunch and won with her tens and aces, said cheeringly to her in her the cigarette smoke filled the room with an ambient, steamy soft voice:
vapor. The two ladies had again set to work dipping lumps 39
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of sugar in brandy and sucking the same. For twenty min-
“a slip of a lad! I wanted to send him away again, but he’s utes at least they played and sucked simultaneously when, such a pretty boy with never a hair on his chin and blue the electric bell having rung a third time, Zoe bustled into eyes and a girl’s face! So I told him to wait after all. He’s the room and roughly disturbed them, just as if they had got an enormous bouquet in his hand, which he never once been her own friends.
consented to put down. One would like to catch him one—
“Look here, that’s another ring. You can’t stay where a brat like that who ought to be at school still!” you are. If many foiks call I must have the whole flat. Now Mme Lerat went to fetch a water bottle to mix herself off you go, off you go!”
some brandy and water, the lumps of sugar having ren-Mme Maloir was for finishing the game, but Zoe looked dered her thirsty. Zoe muttered something to the effect that as if she was going to pounce down on the cards, and so she really didn’t mind if she drank something too. Her she decided to carry them off without in any way altering mouth, she averred, was as bitter as gall.
their positions, while Mme Lerat undertook the removal
“So you put him—?” continued Mme Maloir.
of the brandy bottle, the glasses and the sugar. Then they
“Oh yes, I put him in the closet at the end of the room, both scudded to the kitchen, where they installed them-the little unfurnished one. There’s only one of my lady’s selves at the table in an empty space between the dish-trunks there and a table. It’s there I stow the lubbers.” cloths, which were spread out to dry, and the bowl still full And she was putting plenty of sugar in her grog when of dishwater.
the electric bell made her jump. Oh, drat it all! Wouldn’t
“We said it was three hundred and forty. It’s your turn.” they let her have a drink in peace? If they were to have a
“I play hearts.”
peal of bells things promised well. Nevertheless, she ran When Zoe returned she found them once again absorbed.
off to open the door. Returning presently, she saw Mme After a silence, as Mme Lerat was shuffling, Mme Maloir Maloir questioning her with a glance.
asked who it was.
“It’s nothing,” she said, “only a bouquet.”
“Oh, nobody to speak of,” replied the servant carelessly; All three refreshed themselves, nodding to each other in 40
Nana
token of salutation. Then while Zoe was at length busy afternoons she got it over in double-quick time. But Mme clearing the table, bringing the plates out one by one and Maloir declared that one didn’t always manage things as putting them in the sink, two other rings followed close one wished. Truly, life was beset with obstacles, averred upon one another. But they weren’t serious, for while keep-Mme Lerat. The best course was to wait. If her niece was ing the kitchen informed of what was going on she twice long in coming it was because her occupations detained repeated her disdainful expression: her; wasn’t it so? Besides, they weren’t overworked—it
“Nothing, only a bouquet.”
was comfortable in the kitchen. And as hearts were out, Notwithstanding which, the old ladies laughed between Mme Lerat threw down diamonds.
two of their tricks when they heard her describe the looks The bell began again, and when Zoe reappeared she was of the creditors in the anteroom after the flowers had ar-burning with excitement.
rived. Madame would find her bouquets on her toilet table.
“My children, it’s fat Steiner!” she said in the doorway, What a pity it was they cost such a lot and that you could lowering her voice as she spoke. “I’ve put him in the little only get ten sous for them! Oh dear, yes, plenty of money sitting room.”
was wasted!
Thereupon Mme Maloir spoke about the banker to Mme
“For my part,” said Mme Maloir, “I should be quite con-Lerat, who knew no such gentleman. Was he getting ready tent if every day of my life I got what the men in Paris had to give Rose Mignon the go-by? Zoe shook her head; she spent on flowers for the women.”
knew a thing or two. But once more she had to go and
“Now, you know, you’re not hard to please,” murmured open the door.
Mme Lerat. “Why, one would have only just enough to
“Here’s bothers!” she murmured when she came back.
buy thread with. Four queens, my dear.”
“It’s the nigger! ’Twasn’t any good telling him that my It was ten minutes to four. Zoe was astonished, could lady’s gone out, and so he’s settled himself in the bedroom.
not understand why her mistress was out so long. Ordi-We only expected him this evening.” narily when Madame found herself obliged to go out in the At a quarter past four Nana was not in yet. What could 41
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she be after? It was silly of her! Two other bouquets were
“Here you are! It’s lucky!” said Mme Lerat, pursing up brought round, and Zoe, growing bored looked to see if her lips, for she was still vexed at Mme Maloir’s “five hun-there were any coffee left. Yes, the ladies would willingly dred.” “You may flatter yourself at the way you keep folks finish off the coffee; it would waken them up. Sitting waiting.”
hunched up on their chairs, they were beginning to fall
“Madame isn’t reasonable; indeed, she isn’t!” added Zoe.
asleep through dint of constantly taking their cards between Nana was already harassed, and these reproaches exas-their fingers with the accustomed movement. The half-hour perated her. Was that the way people received her after the sounded. Something must decidedly have happened to worry she had gone through?
Madame. And they began whispering to each other.
“Will you blooming well leave me alone, eh?” she cried.
Suddenly Mme Maloir forgot herself and in a ringing voice
“Hush, ma’am, there are people in there,” said the maid.
announced: “I’ve the five hundred! Trumps, Major Quint!” Then in lower tones the young Woman stuttered
“Oh, do be quiet!” said Zoe angrily. “What will all those breathlessly:
gentlemen think?” And in the silence which ensued and
“D’you suppose I’ve been having a good time? Why, there amid the whispered muttering of the two old women at was no end to it. I should have liked to see you the