Complete Works of Emile Zola (609 page)

One morning when Muffat had not yet left the bedroom Zoe ushered a gentleman into the dressing room, where Nana was changing her underwear. He was trembling violently.

“Good gracious! It’s Zizi!” said the young woman in great astonishment.

It was, indeed, Georges. But when he saw her in her shift, with her golden hair over her bare shoulders, he threw his arms round her neck and round her waist and kissed her in all directions. She began struggling to get free, for she was frightened, and in smothered tones she stammered:

“Do leave off! He’s there! Oh, it’s silly of you! And you, Zoe, are you out of your senses? Take him away and keep him downstairs; I’ll try and come down.”

Zoe had to push him in front of her. When Nana was able to rejoin them in the drawing room downstairs she scolded them both, and Zoe pursed up her lips and took her departure with a vexed expression, remarking that she had only been anxious to give Madame a pleasure. Georges was so glad to see Nana again and gazed at her with such delight that his fine eyes began filling with tears. The miserable days were over now; his mother believed him to have grown reasonable and had allowed him to leave Les Fondettes. Accordingly, the moment he had reached the terminus, he had got a conveyance in order the more quickly to come and kiss his sweet darling. He spoke of living at her side in future, as he used to do down in the country when he waited for her, barefooted, in the bedroom at La Mignotte. And as he told her about himself, he let his fingers creep forward, for he longed to touch her after that cruel year of separation. Then he got possession of her hands, felt about the wide sleeves of her dressing jacket, traveled up as far as her shoulders.

“You still love your baby?” he asked in his child voice.

“Oh, I certainly love him!” answered Nana, briskly getting out of his clutches. “But you come popping in without warning. You know, my little man, I’m not my own mistress; you must be good!”

Georges, when he got out of his cab, had been so dizzy with the feeling that his long desire was at last about to be satisfied that he had not even noticed what sort of house he was entering. But now he became conscious of a change in the things around him. He examined the sumptuous dining room with its lofty decorated ceiling, its Gobelin hangings, its buffet blazing with plate.

“Yes, yes!” he remarked sadly.

And with that she made him understand that he was never to come in the mornings but between four and six in the afternoon, if he cared to. That was her reception time. Then as he looked at her with suppliant, questioning eyes and craved no boon at all, she, in her turn, kissed him on the forehead in the most amiable way.

“Be very good,” she whispered. “I’ll do all I can.”

But the truth was that this remark now meant nothing. She thought Georges very nice and would have liked him as a companion, but as nothing else. Nevertheless, when he arrived daily at four o’clock he seemed so wretched that she was often fain to be as compliant as of old and would hide him in cupboards and constantly allow him to pick up the crumbs from Beauty’s table. He hardly ever left the house now and became as much one of its inmates as the little dog Bijou. Together they nestled among Mistress’s skirts and enjoyed a little of her at a time, even when she was with another man, while doles of sugar and stray caresses not seldom fell to their share in her hours of loneliness and boredom.

Doubtless Mme Hugon found out that the lad had again returned to that wicked woman’s arms, for she hurried up to Paris and came and sought aid from her other son, the Lieutenant Philippe, who was then in garrison at Vincennes. Georges, who was hiding from his elder brother, was seized with despairing apprehension, for he feared the latter might adopt violent tactics, and as his tenderness for Nana was so nervously expansive that he could not keep anything from her, he soon began talking of nothing but his big brother, a great, strong fellow, who was capable of all kinds of things.

“You know,” he explained, “Mamma won’t come to you while she can send my brother. Oh, she’ll certainly send Philippe to fetch me.”

The first time he said this Nana was deeply wounded. She said frigidly:

“Gracious me, I should like to see him come! For all that he’s a lieutenant in the army, Francois will chuck him out in double-quick time!”

Soon, as the lad kept returning to the subject of his brother, she ended by taking a certain interest in Philippe, and in a week’s time she knew him from head to foot — knew him as very tall and very strong and merry and somewhat rough. She learned intimate details, too, and found out that he had hair on his arms and a birthmark on his shoulder. So thoroughly did she learn her lesson that one day, when she was full of the image of the man who was to be turned out of doors by her orders, she cried out:

“I say, Zizi, your brother’s not coming. He’s a base deserter!”

The next day, when Georges and Nana were alone together, Francois came upstairs to ask whether Madame would receive Lieutenant Philippe Hugon. Georges grew extremely white and murmured:

“I suspected it; Mamma was talking about it this morning.”

And he besought the young woman to send down word that she could not see visitors. But she was already on her feet and seemed all aflame as she said:

“Why should I not see him? He would think me afraid. Dear me, we’ll have a good laugh! Just leave the gentleman in the drawing room for a quarter of an hour, Francois; afterward bring him up to me.”

She did not sit down again but began pacing feverishly to and fro between the fireplace and a Venetian mirror hanging above an Italian chest. And each time she reached the latter she glanced at the glass and tried the effect of a smile, while Georges sat nervously on a sofa, trembling at the thought of the coming scene. As she walked up and down she kept jerking out such little phrases as:

“It will calm the fellow down if he has to wait a quarter of an hour. Besides, if he thinks he’s calling on a tottie the drawing room will stun him! Yes, yes, have a good look at everything, my fine fellow! It isn’t imitation, and it’ll teach you to respect the lady who owns it. Respect’s what men need to feel! The quarter of an hour’s gone by, eh? No? Only ten minutes? Oh, we’ve got plenty of time.”

She did not stay where she was, however. At the end of the quarter of an hour she sent Georges away after making him solemnly promise not to listen at the door, as such conduct would scarcely look proper in case the servants saw him. As he went into her bedroom Zizi ventured in a choking sort of way to remark:

“It’s my brother, you know — “

“Don’t you fear,” she said with much dignity; “if he’s polite I’ll be polite.”

Francois ushered in Philippe Hugon, who wore morning dress. Georges began crossing on tiptoe on the other side of the room, for he was anxious to obey the young woman. But the sound of voices retained him, and he hesitated in such anguish of mind that his knees gave way under him. He began imagining that a dread catastrophe would befall, that blows would be struck, that something abominable would happen, which would make Nana everlastingly odious to him. And so he could not withstand the temptation to come back and put his ear against the door. He heard very ill, for the thick portieres deadened every sound, but he managed to catch certain words spoken by Philippe, stern phrases in which such terms as “mere child,” “family,” “honor,” were distinctly audible. He was so anxious about his darling’s possible answers that his heart beat violently and filled his head with a confused, buzzing noise. She was sure to give vent to a “Dirty blackguard!” or to a “Leave me bloody well alone! I’m in my own house!” But nothing happened — not a breath came from her direction. Nana seemed dead in there! Soon even his brother’s voice grew gentler, and he could not make it out at all, when a strange murmuring sound finally stupefied him. Nana was sobbing! For a moment or two he was the prey of contending feelings and knew not whether to run away or to fall upon Philippe. But just then Zoe came into the room, and he withdrew from the door, ashamed at being thus surprised.

She began quietly to put some linen away in a cupboard while he stood mute and motionless, pressing his forehead against a windowpane. He was tortured by uncertainty. After a short silence the woman asked:

“It’s your brother that’s with Madame?”

“Yes,” replied the lad in a choking voice.

There was a fresh silence.

“And it makes you anxious, doesn’t it, Monsieur Georges?”

“Yes,” he rejoined in the same painful, suffering tone.

Zoe was in no hurry. She folded up some lace and said slowly:

“You’re wrong; Madame will manage it all.”

And then the conversation ended; they said not another word. Still she did not leave the room. A long quarter of an hour passed, and she turned round again without seeming to notice the look of exasperation overspreading the lad’s face, which was already white with the effects of uncertainty and constraint. He was casting sidelong glances in the direction of the drawing room.

Maybe Nana was still crying. The other must have grown savage and have dealt her blows. Thus when Zoe finally took her departure he ran to the door and once more pressed his ear against it. He was thunderstruck; his head swam, for he heard a brisk outburst of gaiety, tender, whispering voices and the smothered giggles of a woman who is being tickled. Besides, almost directly afterward, Nana conducted Philippe to the head of the stairs, and there was an exchange of cordial and familiar phrases.

When Georges again ventured into the drawing room the young woman was standing before the mirror, looking at herself.

“Well?” he asked in utter bewilderment.

“Well, what?” she said without turning round. Then negligently:

“What did you mean? He’s very nice, is your brother!”

“So it’s all right, is it?”

“Oh, certainly it’s all right! Goodness me, what’s come over you? One would have thought we were going to fight!”

Georges still failed to understand.

“I thought I heard — that is, you didn’t cry?” he stammered out.

“Me cry!” she exclaimed, looking fixedly at him. “Why, you’re dreaming! What makes you think I cried?”

Thereupon the lad was treated to a distressing scene for having disobeyed and played Paul Pry behind the door. She sulked, and he returned with coaxing submissiveness to the old subject, for he wished to know all about it.

“And my brother then?”

“Your brother saw where he was at once. You know, I might have been a tottie, in which case his interference would have been accounted for by your age and the family honor! Oh yes, I understand those kinds of feelings! But a single glance was enough for him, and he behaved like a well-bred man at once. So don’t be anxious any longer. It’s all over — he’s gone to quiet your mamma!”

And she went on laughingly:

“For that matter, you’ll see your brother here. I’ve invited him, and he’s going to return.”

“Oh, he’s going to return,” said the lad, growing white. He added nothing, and they ceased talking of Philippe. She began dressing to go out, and he watched her with his great, sad eyes. Doubtless he was very glad that matters had got settled, for he would have preferred death to a rupture of their connection, but deep down in his heart there was a silent anguish, a profound sense of pain, which he had no experience of and dared not talk about. How Philippe quieted their mother’s fears he never knew, but three days later she returned to Les Fondettes, apparently satisfied. On the evening of her return, at Nana’s house, he trembled when Francois announced the lieutenant, but the latter jested gaily and treated him like a young rascal, whose escapade he had favored as something not likely to have any consequences. The lad’s heart was sore within him; he scarcely dared move and blushed girlishly at the least word that was spoken to him. He had not lived much in Philippe’s society; he was ten years his junior, and he feared him as he would a father, from whom stories about women are concealed. Accordingly he experienced an uneasy sense of shame when he saw him so free in Nana’s company and heard him laugh uproariously, as became a man who was plunging into a life of pleasure with the gusto born of magnificent health. Nevertheless, when his brother shortly began to present himself every day, Georges ended by getting somewhat used to it all. Nana was radiant.

This, her latest installation, had been involving all the riotous waste attendant on the life of gallantry, and now her housewarming was being defiantly celebrated in a grand mansion positively overflowing with males and with furniture.

One afternoon when the Hugons were there Count Muffat arrived out of hours. But when Zoe told him that Madame was with friends he refused to come in and took his departure discreetly, as became a gallant gentleman. When he made his appearance again in the evening Nana received him with the frigid indignation of a grossly affronted woman.

“Sir,” she said, “I have given you no cause why you should insult me. You must understand this: when I am at home to visitors, I beg you to make your appearance just like other people.”

The count simply gaped in astonishment. “But, my dear — “ he endeavored to explain.

“Perhaps it was because I had visitors! Yes, there were men here, but what d’you suppose I was doing with those men? You only advertise a woman’s affairs when you act the discreet lover, and I don’t want to be advertised; I don’t!”

He obtained his pardon with difficulty, but at bottom he was enchanted. It was with scenes such as these that she kept him in unquestioning and docile submission. She had long since succeeded in imposing Georges on him as a young vagabond who, she declared, amused her. She made him dine with Philippe, and the count behaved with great amiability. When they rose from table he took the young man on one side and asked news of his mother. From that time forth the young Hugons, Vandeuvres and Muffat were openly about the house and shook hands as guests and intimates might have done. It was a more convenient arrangement than the previous one. Muffat alone still abstained discreetly from too-frequent visits, thus adhering to the ceremonious policy of an ordinary strange caller. At night when Nana was sitting on her bearskins drawing off her stockings, he would talk amicably about the other three gentlemen and lay especial stress on Philippe, who was loyalty itself.