Nana by Émile Zola (top 100 novels of all time .txt) 📕
Then to put an end to the discussion, he introduced his cousin, M.Hector de la Faloise, a young man who had come to finish hiseducation in Paris. The manager took the young man's measure at aglance. But Hector returned his scrutiny with deep interest. This,then, was that Bordenave, that showman of the sex who treated womenlike a convict overseer, that clever fellow who was always at fullsteam over some advertising dodge, that shouting, spitting, thigh-slapping fellow, that cynic with the soul of a policeman! Hectorwas under the impression that he ought to discover some amiableobservation for the occasion.
"Your theater--" he began in dulcet tones.
Bordenave interrupted him with a savage phrase, as becomes a man whodotes on frank situations.
"Call it my brothel!"
At this Fauchery laughed approvingly, while La Faloise stopped with
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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.
Nana had indeed found means to provide for all needs, and the place
on certain days overflowed with good things. Twice a week,
regularly, Bosc had indigestion. One evening as Mme Lerat was
withdrawing from the scene in high dudgeon because she had noticed a
copious dinner she was not destined to eat in process of
preparation, she could not prevent herself asking brutally who paid
for it all. Nana was taken by surprise; she grew foolish and began
crying.
“Ah, that’s a pretty business,” said the aunt, who had divined her
meaning.
Nana had resigned herself to it for the sake of enjoying peace in
her own home. Then, too, the Tricon was to blame. She had come
across her in the Rue de Laval one fine day when Fontan had gone out
raging about a dish of cod. She had accordingly consented to the
proposals made her by the Tricon, who happened just then to be in
difficulty. As Fontan never came in before six o’clock, she made
arrangements for her afternoons and used to bring back forty francs,
sixty francs, sometimes more. She might have made it a matter of
ten and fifteen louis had she been able to maintain her former
position, but as matters stood she was very glad thus to earn enough
to keep the pot boiling. At night she used to forget all her
sorrows when Bosc sat there bursting with dinner and Fontan leaned
on his elbows and with an expression of lofty superiority becoming a
man who is loved for his own sake allowed her to kiss him on the
eyelids.
In due course Nana’s very adoration of her darling, her dear old
duck, which was all the more passionately blind, seeing that now she
paid for everything, plunged her back into the muddiest depths of
her calling. She roamed the streets and loitered on the pavement in
quest of a five-franc piece, just as when
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