Nana by Émile Zola (top 100 novels of all time .txt) 📕

supper should be served anyhow if it was to be

funny, he opined. Otherwise when elegantly and conventionally done

you might as well feed in good society, where you were not more

bored than here. Had it not been for Bordenave, who was still

bawling away, everybody would have fallen asleep. That rum old

buffer Bordenave, with his leg duly stretched on its chair, was

letting his neighbors, Lucy and Rose, wait on him as though he were

a sultan. They were entirely taken up with him, and they helped him

and pampered him and watched over his glass and his plate, and yet

that did not prevent his complaining.

 

“Who’s going to cut up my meat for me? I can’t; the table’s a

league away.”

 

Every few seconds Simonne rose and took up a position behind his

back in order to cut his meat and his bread. All the women took a

great interest in the things he ate. The waiters were recalled, and

he was stuffed to suffocation. Simonne having wiped his mouth for

him while Rose and Lucy were changing his plate, her act struck him

as very pretty and, deigning at length to show contentment:

 

“There, there, my daughter,” he said, “that’s as it should be.

Women are made for that!”

 

There was a slight reawakening, and conversation became general as

they finished discussing some orange sherbet. The hot roast was a

fillet with truffles, and the cold roast a galantine of guinea fowl

in jelly. Nana, annoyed by the want of go displayed by her guests,

had begun talking with the greatest distinctness.

 

“You know the Prince of Scots has already had a stage box reserved

so as to see the Blonde Venus when he comes to visit the

exhibition.”

 

“I very much hope that all the princes will come and see it,”

declared Bordenave with his mouth full.

 

“They are expecting the shah of Persia next Sunday,” said Lucy

Stewart. Whereupon Rose Mignon spoke of the shah’s diamonds. He

wore a tunic entirely covered with gems; it was a marvel, a flaming

star; it represented millions. And the ladies, with pale faces and

eyes glittering with covetousness, craned forward and ran over the

names of the other kings, the other emperors, who were shortly

expected. All of them were dreaming of some royal caprice, some

night to be paid for by a fortune.

 

“Now tell me, dear boy,” Caroline Hequet asked Vandeuvres, leaning

forward as she did so, “how old’s the emperor of Russia?”

 

“Oh, he’s ‘present time,’” replied the count, laughing. “Nothing to

be done in that quarter, I warn you.”

 

Nana made pretense of being hurt. The witticism appeared somewhat

too stinging, and there was a murmur of protest. But Blanche gave a

description of the king of Italy, whom she had once seen at Milan.

He was scarcely good looking, and yet that did not prevent him

enjoying all the women. She was put out somewhat when Fauchery

assured her that Victor Emmanuel could not come to the exhibition.

Louise Violaine and Lea favored the emperor of Austria, and all of a

sudden little Maria Blond was heard saying:

 

“What an old stick the king of Prussia is! I was at Baden last

year, and one was always meeting him about with Count Bismarck.”

 

“Dear me, Bismarck!” Simonne interrupted. “I knew him once, I did.

A charming man.”

 

“That’s what I was saying yesterday,” cried Vandeuvres, “but nobody

would believe me.”

 

And just as at Countess Sabine’s, there ensued a long discussion

about Bismarck. Vandeuvres repeated the same phrases, and for a

moment or two one was again in the Muffats’ drawing room, the only

difference being that the ladies were changed. Then, just as last

night, they passed on to a discussion on music, after which,

Foucarmont having let slip some mention of the assumption of the

veil of which Paris was still talking, Nana grew quite interested

and insisted on details about Mlle de Fougeray. Oh, the poor child,

fancy her burying herself alive like that! Ah well, when it was a

question of vocation! All round the table the women expressed

themselves much touched, and Georges, wearied at hearing these

things a second time discussed, was beginning to ask Daguenet about

Nana’s ways in private life, when the conversation veered fatefully

back to Count Bismarck. Tatan Nene bent toward Labordette to ask

him privily who this Bismarck might be, for she did not know him.

Whereupon Labordette, in cold blood, told her some portentous

anecdotes. This Bismarck, he said, was in the habit of eating raw

meat and when he met a woman near his den would carry her off

thither on his back; at forty years of age he had already had as

many as thirty-two children that way.

 

“Thirty-two children at forty!” cried Tatan Nene, stupefied and yet

convinced. “He must be jolly well worn out for his age.”

 

There was a burst of merriment, and it dawned on her that she was

being made game of.

 

“You sillies! How am I to know if you’re joking?”

 

Gaga, meanwhile, had stopped at the exhibition. Like all these

ladies, she was delightedly preparing for the fray. A good season,

provincials and foreigners rushing into Paris! In the long run,

perhaps, after the close of the exhibition she would, if her

business had flourished, be able to retire to a little house at

Jouvisy, which she had long had her eye on.

 

“What’s to be done?” she said to La Faloise. “One never gets what

one wants! Oh, if only one were still really loved!”

 

Gaga behaved meltingly because she had felt the young man’s knee

gently placed against her own. He was blushing hotly and lisping as

elegantly as ever. She weighed him at a glance. Not a very heavy

little gentleman, to be sure, but then she wasn’t hard to please.

La Faloise obtained her address.

 

“Just look there,” murmured Vandeuvres to Clarisse. “I think Gaga’s

doing you out of your Hector.”

 

“A good riddance, so far as I’m concerned,” replied the actress.

“That fellow’s an idiot. I’ve already chucked him downstairs three

times. You know, I’m disgusted when dirty little boys run after old

women.”

 

She broke off and with a little gesture indicated Blanche, who from

the commencement of dinner had remained in a most uncomfortable

attitude, sitting up very markedly, with the intention of displaying

her shoulders to the old distinguished-looking gentleman three seats

beyond her.

 

“You’re being left too,” she resumed.

 

Vandeuvres smiled his thin smile and made a little movement to

signify he did not care. Assuredly ‘twas not he who would ever have

prevented poor, dear Blanche scoring a success. He was more

interested by the spectacle which Steiner was presenting to the

table at large. The banker was noted for his sudden flames. That

terrible German Jew who brewed money, whose hands forged millions,

was wont to turn imbecile whenever he became enamored of a woman.

He wanted them all too! Not one could make her appearance on the

stage but he bought her, however expensive she might be. Vast sums

were quoted. Twice had his furious appetite for courtesans ruined

him. The courtesans, as Vandeuvres used to say, avenged public

morality by emptying his moneybags. A big operation in the

saltworks of the Landes had rendered him powerful on ‘change, and so

for six weeks past the Mignons had been getting a pretty slice out

of those same saltworks. But people were beginning to lay wagers

that the Mignons would not finish their slice, for Nana was showing

her white teeth. Once again Steiner was in the toils, and so deeply

this time that as he sat by Nana’s side he seemed stunned; he ate

without appetite; his lip hung down; his face was mottled. She had

only to name a figure. Nevertheless, she did not hurry but

continued playing with him, breathing her merry laughter into his

hairy ear and enjoying the little convulsive movements which kept

traversing his heavy face. There would always be time enough to

patch all that up if that ninny of a Count Muffat were really to

treat her as Joseph did Potiphar’s wife.

 

“Leoville or Chambertin?” murmured a waiter, who came craning

forward between Nana and Steiner just as the latter was addressing

her in a low voice.

 

“Eh, what?” he stammered, losing his head. “Whatever you like—I

don’t care.”

 

Vandeuvres gently nudged Lucy Stewart, who had a very spiteful

tongue and a very fierce invention when once she was set going.

That evening Mignon was driving her to exasperation.

 

“He would gladly be bottleholder, you know,” she remarked to the

count. “He’s in hopes of repeating what he did with little

Jonquier. You remember: Jonquier was Rose’s man, but he was sweet

on big Laure. Now Mignon procured Laure for Jonquier and then came

back arm in arm with him to Rose, as if he were a husband who had

been allowed a little peccadillo. But this time the thing’s going

to fail. Nana doesn’t give up the men who are lent her.”

 

“What ails Mignon that he should be looking at his wife in that

severe way?” asked Vandeuvres.

 

He leaned forward and saw Rose growing exceedingly amorous toward

Fauchery. This was the explanation of his neighbor’s wrath. He

resumed laughingly:

 

“The devil, are you jealous?”

 

“Jealous!” said Lucy in a fury. “Good gracious, if Rose is wanting

Leon I give him up willingly—for what he’s worth! That’s to say,

for a bouquet a week and the rest to match! Look here, my dear boy,

these theatrical trollops are all made the same way. Why, Rose

cried with rage when she read Leon’s article on Nana; I know she

did. So now, you understand, she must have an article, too, and

she’s gaining it. As for me, I’m going to chuck Leon downstairs—

you’ll see!”

 

She paused to say “Leoville” to the waiter standing behind her with

his two bottles and then resumed in lowered tones:

 

“I don’t want to shout; it isn’t my style. But she’s a cocky slut

all the same. If I were in her husband’s place I should lead her a

lovely dance. Oh, she won’t be very happy over it. She doesn’t

know my Fauchery: a dirty gent he is, too, palling up with women

like that so as to get on in the world. Oh, a nice lot they are!”

 

Vandeuvres did his best to calm her down, but Bordenave, deserted by

Rose and by Lucy, grew angry and cried out that they were letting

Papa perish of hunger and thirst. This produced a fortunate

diversion. Yet the supper was flagging; no one was eating now,

though platefuls of cepes a’ l’italienne and pineapple fritters a la

Pompadour were being mangled. The champagne, however, which had

been drunk ever since the soup course, was beginning little by

little to warm the guests into a state of nervous exaltation. They

ended by paying less attention to decorum than before. The women

began leaning on their elbows amid the disordered table

arrangements, while the men, in order to breathe more easily, pushed

their chairs back, and soon the black coats appeared buried between

the light-colored bodices, and bare shoulders, half turned toward

the table, began to gleam as soft as silk. It was too hot, and the

glare of the candles above the table grew ever yellower and duller.

Now and again, when a women bent forward, the back of her neck

glowed golden under a rain of curls, and the glitter of a diamond

clasp lit up a lofty chignon. There was a touch of fire in the

passing jests, in the laughing eyes, in the sudden gleam