Complete Works of Emile Zola (601 page)

“My heart’s own,” he began aloud.

And for more than an hour he applied himself to his task, polishing here, weighing a phrase there, while he sat with his head between his hands and laughed inwardly whenever he hit upon a peculiarly tender expression. Nana had already consumed two cups of tea in silence, when at last he read out the letter in the level voice and with the two or three emphatic gestures peculiar to such performances on the stage. It was five pages long, and he spoke therein of “the delicious hours passed at La Mignotte, those hours of which the memory lingered like subtle perfume.” He vowed “eternal fidelity to that springtide of love” and ended by declaring that his sole wish was to “recommence that happy time if, indeed, happiness can recommence.”

“I say that out of politeness, y’know,” he explained. “The moment it becomes laughable — eh, what! I think she’s felt it, she has!”

He glowed with triumph. But Nana was unskillful; she still suspected an outbreak and now was mistaken enough not to fling her arms round his neck in a burst of admiration. She thought the letter a respectable performance, nothing more. Thereupon he was much annoyed. If his letter did not please her she might write another! And so instead of bursting out in loverlike speeches and exchanging kisses, as their wont was, they sat coldly facing one another at the table. Nevertheless, she poured him out a cup of tea.

“Here’s a filthy mess,” he cried after dipping his lips in the mixture. “You’ve put salt in it, you have!”

Nana was unlucky enough to shrug her shoulders, and at that he grew furious.

“Aha! Things are taking a wrong turn tonight!”

And with that the quarrel began. It was only ten by the clock, and this was a way of killing time. So he lashed himself into a rage and threw in Nana’s teeth a whole string of insults and all kinds of accusations which followed one another so closely that she had no time to defend herself. She was dirty; she was stupid; she had knocked about in all sorts of low places! After that he waxed frantic over the money question. Did he spend six francs when he dined out? No, somebody was treating him to a dinner; otherwise he would have eaten his ordinary meal at home. And to think of spending them on that old procuress of a Maloir, a jade he would chuck out of the house tomorrow! Yes, by jingo, they would get into a nice mess if he and she were to go throwing six francs out of the window every day!

“Now to begin with, I want your accounts,” he shouted. “Let’s see; hand over the money! Now where do we stand?”

All his sordid avaricious instincts came to the surface. Nana was cowed and scared, and she made haste to fetch their remaining cash out of the desk and to bring it him. Up to that time the key had lain on this common treasury, from which they had drawn as freely as they wished.

“How’s this?” he said when he had counted up the money. “There are scarcely seven thousand francs remaining out of seventeen thousand, and we’ve only been together three months. The thing’s impossible.”

He rushed forward, gave the desk a savage shake and brought the drawer forward in order to ransack it in the light of the lamp. But it actually contained only six thousand eight hundred and odd francs. Thereupon the tempest burst forth.

“Ten thousand francs in three months!” he yelled. “By God! What have you done with it all? Eh? Answer! It all goes to your jade of an aunt, eh? Or you’re keeping men; that’s plain! Will you answer?”

“Oh well, if you must get in a rage!” said Nana. “Why, the calculation’s easily made! You haven’t allowed for the furniture; besides, I’ve had to buy linen. Money goes quickly when one’s settling in a new place.”

But while requiring explanations he refused to listen to them.

“Yes, it goes a deal too quickly!” he rejoined more calmly. “And look here, little girl, I’ve had enough of this mutual housekeeping. You know those seven thousand francs are mine. Yes, and as I’ve got ‘em, I shall keep ‘em! Hang it, the moment you become wasteful I get anxious not to be ruined. To each man his own.”

And he pocketed the money in a lordly way while Nana gazed at him, dumfounded. He continued speaking complaisantly:

“You must understand I’m not such a fool as to keep aunts and likewise children who don’t belong to me. You were pleased to spend your own money — well, that’s your affair! But my money — no, that’s sacred! When in the future you cook a leg of mutton I’ll pay for half of it. We’ll settle up tonight — there!”

Straightway Nana rebelled. She could not help shouting:

“Come, I say, it’s you who’ve run through my ten thousand francs. It’s a dirty trick, I tell you!”

But he did not stop to discuss matters further, for he dealt her a random box on the ear across the table, remarking as he did so:

“Let’s have that again!”

She let him have it again despite his blow. Whereupon he fell upon her and kicked and cuffed her heartily. Soon he had reduced her to such a state that she ended, as her wont was, by undressing and going to bed in a flood of tears.

He was out of breath and was going to bed, in his turn, when he noticed the letter he had written to Georges lying on the table. Whereupon he folded it up carefully and, turning toward the bed, remarked in threatening accents:

“It’s very well written, and I’m going to post it myself because I don’t like women’s fancies. Now don’t go moaning any more; it puts my teeth on edge.”

Nana, who was crying and gasping, thereupon held her breath. When he was in bed she choked with emotion and threw herself upon his breast with a wild burst of sobs. Their scuffles always ended thus, for she trembled at the thought of losing him and, like a coward, wanted always to feel that he belonged entirely to her, despite everything. Twice he pushed her magnificently away, but the warm embrace of this woman who was begging for mercy with great, tearful eyes, as some faithful brute might do, finally aroused desire. And he became royally condescending without, however, lowering his dignity before any of her advances. In fact, he let himself be caressed and taken by force, as became a man whose forgiveness is worth the trouble of winning. Then he was seized with anxiety, fearing that Nana was playing a part with a view to regaining possession of the treasury key. The light had been extinguished when he felt it necessary to reaffirm his will and pleasure.

“You must know, my girl, that this is really very serious and that I keep the money.”

Nana, who was falling asleep with her arms round his neck, uttered a sublime sentiment.

“Yes, you need fear nothing! I’ll work for both of us!”

But from that evening onward their life in common became more and more difficult. From one week’s end to the other the noise of slaps filled the air and resembled the ticking of a clock by which they regulated their existence. Through dint of being much beaten Nana became as pliable as fine linen; her skin grew delicate and pink and white and so soft to the touch and clear to the view that she may be said to have grown more good looking than ever. Prulliere, moreover, began running after her like a madman, coming in when Fontan was away and pushing her into corners in order to snatch an embrace. But she used to struggle out of his grasp, full of indignation and blushing with shame. It disgusted her to think of him wanting to deceive a friend. Prulliere would thereupon begin sneering with a wrathful expression. Why, she was growing jolly stupid nowadays! How could she take up with such an ape? For, indeed, Fontan was a regular ape with that great swingeing nose of his. Oh, he had an ugly mug! Besides, the man knocked her about too!

“It’s possible I like him as he is,” she one day made answer in the quiet voice peculiar to a woman who confesses to an abominable taste.

Bosc contented himself by dining with them as often as possible. He shrugged his shoulders behind Prulliere’s back — a pretty fellow, to be sure, but a frivolous! Bosc had on more than one occasion assisted at domestic scenes, and at dessert, when Fontan slapped Nana, he went on chewing solemnly, for the thing struck him as being quite in the course of nature. In order to give some return for his dinner he used always to go into ecstasies over their happiness. He declared himself a philosopher who had given up everything, glory included. At times Prulliere and Fontan lolled back in their chairs, losing count of time in front of the empty table, while with theatrical gestures and intonation they discussed their former successes till two in the morning. But he would sit by, lost in thought, finishing the brandy bottle in silence and only occasionally emitting a little contemptuous sniff. Where was Talma’s tradition? Nowhere. Very well, let them leave him jolly well alone! It was too stupid to go on as they were doing!

One evening he found Nana in tears. She took off her dressing jacket in order to show him her back and her arms, which were black and blue. He looked at her skin without being tempted to abuse the opportunity, as that ass of a Prulliere would have been. Then, sententiously:

“My dear girl, where there are women there are sure to be ructions. It was Napoleon who said that, I think. Wash yourself with salt water. Salt water’s the very thing for those little knocks. Tut, tut, you’ll get others as bad, but don’t complain so long as no bones are broken. I’m inviting myself to dinner, you know; I’ve spotted a leg of mutton.”

But Mme Lerat had less philosophy. Every time Nana showed her a fresh bruise on the white skin she screamed aloud. They were killing her niece; things couldn’t go on as they were doing. As a matter of fact, Fontan had turned Mme Lerat out of doors and had declared that he would not have her at his house in the future, and ever since that day, when he returned home and she happened to be there, she had to make off through the kitchen, which was a horrible humiliation to her. Accordingly she never ceased inveighing against that brutal individual. She especially blamed his ill breeding, pursing up her lips, as she did so, like a highly respectable lady whom nobody could possibly remonstrate with on the subject of good manners.

“Oh, you notice it at once,” she used to tell Nana; “he hasn’t the barest notion of the very smallest proprieties. His mother must have been common! Don’t deny it — the thing’s obvious! I don’t speak on my own account, though a person of my years has a right to respectful treatment, but YOU — how do YOU manage to put up with his bad manners? For though I don’t want to flatter myself, I’ve always taught you how to behave, and among our own people you always enjoyed the best possible advice. We were all very well bred in our family, weren’t we now?”

Nana used never to protest but would listen with bowed head.

“Then, too,” continued the aunt, “you’ve only known perfect gentlemen hitherto. We were talking of that very topic with Zoe at my place yesterday evening. She can’t understand it any more than I can. ‘How is it,’ she said, ‘that Madame, who used to have that perfect gentleman, Monsieur le Comte, at her beck and call’ — for between you and me, it seems you drove him silly — ‘how is it that Madame lets herself be made into mincemeat by that clown of a fellow?’ I remarked at the time that you might put up with the beatings but that I would never have allowed him to be lacking in proper respect. In fact, there isn’t a word to be said for him. I wouldn’t have his portrait in my room even! And you ruin yourself for such a bird as that; yes, you ruin yourself, my darling; you toil and you moil, when there are so many others and such rich men, too, some of them even connected with the government! Ah well, it’s not I who ought to be telling you this, of course! But all the same, when next he tries any of his dirty tricks on I should cut him short with a ‘Monsieur, what d’you take me for?’ You know how to say it in that grand way of yours! It would downright cripple him.”

Thereupon Nana burst into sobs and stammered out:

“Oh, Aunt, I love him!”

The fact of the matter was that Mme Lerat was beginning to feel anxious at the painful way her niece doled out the sparse, occasional francs destined to pay for little Louis’s board and lodging. Doubtless she was willing to make sacrifices and to keep the child by her whatever might happen while waiting for more prosperous times, but the thought that Fontan was preventing her and the brat and its mother from swimming in a sea of gold made her so savage that she was ready to deny the very existence of true love. Accordingly she ended up with the following severe remarks:

“Now listen, some fine day when he’s taken the skin off your back, you’ll come and knock at my door, and I’ll open it to you.”

Soon money began to engross Nana’s whole attention. Fontan had caused the seven thousand francs to vanish away. Without doubt they were quite safe; indeed, she would never have dared ask him questions about them, for she was wont to be blushingly diffident with that bird, as Mme Lerat called him. She trembled lest he should think her capable of quarreling with him about halfpence. He had certainly promised to subscribe toward their common household expenses, and in the early days he had given out three francs every morning. But he was as exacting as a boarder; he wanted everything for his three francs — butter, meat, early fruit and early vegetables — and if she ventured to make an observation, if she hinted that you could not have everything in the market for three francs, he flew into a temper and treated her as a useless, wasteful woman, a confounded donkey whom the tradespeople were robbing. Moreover, he was always ready to threaten that he would take lodgings somewhere else. At the end of a month on certain mornings he had forgotten to deposit the three francs on the chest of drawers, and she had ventured to ask for them in a timid, roundabout way. Whereupon there had been such bitter disputes and he had seized every pretext to render her life so miserable that she had found it best no longer to count upon him. Whenever, however, he had omitted to leave behind the three one-franc pieces and found a dinner awaiting him all the same, he grew as merry as a sandboy, kissed Nana gallantly and waltzed with the chairs. And she was so charmed by this conduct that she at length got to hope that nothing would be found on the chest of drawers, despite the difficulty she experienced in making both ends meet. One day she even returned him his three francs, telling him a tale to the effect that she still had yesterday’s money. As he had given her nothing then, he hesitated for some moments, as though he dreaded a lecture. But she gazed at him with her loving eyes and hugged him in such utter self-surrender that he pocketed the money again with that little convulsive twitch or the fingers peculiar to a miser when he regains possession of that which has been well-nigh lost. From that day forth he never troubled himself about money again or inquired whence it came. But when there were potatoes on the table he looked intoxicated with delight and would laugh and smack his lips before her turkeys and legs of mutton, though of course this did not prevent his dealing Nana sundry sharp smacks, as though to keep his hand in amid all his happiness.