Four Short Stories By Emile Zola. Emile Zola
‘em mildewed!”
La Faloise seemed much annoyed and not a little anxious. Seeing Clarisse making game of him, he grew suspicious of her.
“No humbug, I say,” he muttered. “You’ve taken my handkerchief. Well then, give it back!”
“He’s dreeing us with that handkerchief of his!” she cried. “Why, you ass, why should I have taken it from you?”
“Why should you?” he said suspiciously. “Why, that you may send it to my people and compromise me.”
In the meantime Foucarmont was diligently attacking the liqueurs. He continued to gaze sneeringly at Labordette, who was drinking his coffee in the midst of the ladies. And occasionally he gave vent to fragmentary assertions, as thus: “He’s the son of a horse dealer; some say the illegitimate child of a countess. Never a penny of income, yet always got twenty-five louis in his pocket! Footboy to the ladies of the town! A big lubber, who never goes with any of ‘em! Never, never, never!” he repeated, growing furious. “No, by Jove! I must box his ears.”
He drained a glass of chartreuse. The chartreuse had not the slightest effect upon him; it didn’t affect him “even to that extent,” and he clicked his thumbnail against the edge of his teeth. But suddenly, just as he was advancing upon Labordette, he grew ashy white and fell down in a heap in front of the sideboard. He was dead drunk. Louise Violaine was beside herself. She had been quite right to prophesy that matters would end badly, and now she would have her work cut out for the remainder of the night. Gaga reassured her. She examined the officer with the eye of a woman of experience and declared that there was nothing much the matter and that the gentleman would sleep like that for at least a dozen or fifteen hours without any serious consequences. Foucarmont was carried off.
“Well, where’s Nana gone to?” asked Vandeuvres.
Yes, she had certainly flown away somewhere on leaving the table. The company suddenly recollected her, and everybody asked for her. Steiner, who for some seconds had been uneasy on her account, asked Vandeuvres about the old gentleman, for he, too, had disappeared. But the count reassured him – he had just brought the old gentleman back. He was a stranger, whose name it was useless to mention. Suffice it to say that he was a very rich man who was quite pleased to pay for suppers! Then as Nana was once more being forgotten, Vandeuvres saw Daguenet looking out of an open door and beckoning to him. And in the bedroom he found the mistress of the house sitting up, white-lipped and rigid, while Daguenet and Georges stood gazing at her with an alarmed expression.
“What IS the matter with you?” he asked in some surprise.
She neither answered nor turned her head, and he repeated his question.
“Why, this is what’s the matter with me,” she cried out at length; “I won’t let them make bloody sport of me!”
Thereupon she gave vent to any expression that occurred to her. Yes, oh yes, SHE wasn’t a ninny – she could see clearly enough. They had been making devilish light of her during supper and saying all sorts of frightful things to show that they thought nothing of her! A pack of sluts who weren’t fit to black her boots! Catch her bothering herself again just to be badgered for it after! She really didn’t know what kept her from chucking all that dirty lot out of the house! And with this, rage choked her and her voice broke down in sobs.
“Come, come, my lass, you’re drunk,” said Vandeuvres, growing familiar. “You must be reasonable.”
No, she would give her refusal now; she would stay where she was.
“I am drunk – it’s quite likely! But I want people to respect me!”
For a quarter of an hour past Daguenet and Georges had been vainly beseeching her to return to the drawing room. She was obstinate, however; her guests might do what they liked; she despised them too much to come back among them.
No, she never would, never. They might tear her in pieces before she would leave her room!
“I ought to have had my suspicions,” she resumed.
“It’s that cat of a Rose who’s got the plot up! I’m certain Rose’ll have stopped that respectable woman coming whom I was expecting tonight.”
She referred to Mme Robert. Vandeuvres gave her his word of honor that Mme Robert had given a spontaneous refusal. He listened and he argued with much gravity, for he was well accustomed to similar scenes and knew how women in such a state ought to be treated. But the moment he tried to take hold of her hands in order to lift her up from her chair and draw her away with him she struggled free of his clasp, and her wrath redoubled. Now, just look at that! They would never get her to believe that Fauchery had not put the Count Muffat off coming! A regular snake was that Fauchery, an envious sort, a fellow capable of growing mad against a woman and of destroying her whole happiness. For she knew this – the count had become madly devoted to her! She could have had him!
“Him, my dear, never!” cried Vandeuvres, forgetting himself and laughing loud.
“Why not?” she asked, looking serious and slightly sobered.
“Because he’s thoroughly in the hands of the priests, and if he were only to touch you with the tips of his fingers he would go and confess it the day after. Now listen to a bit of good advice. Don’t let the other man escape you!”
She was silent and thoughtful for a moment or two. Then she got up and went and bathed her eyes. Yet when they wanted to take her into the dining room she still shouted “No!” furiously. Vandeuvres left the bedroom, smiling and without further pressing her, and the moment he was gone she had an access of melting tenderness, threw herself into Daguenet’s arms and cried out:
“Ah, my sweetie, there’s only you in the world. I love you! YES, I love you from the bottom of my heart! Oh, it would be too nice if we could always live together. My God! How unfortunate women are!”
Then her eye fell upon Georges, who, seeing them kiss, was growing very red, and she kissed him too. Sweetie could not be jealous of a baby! She wanted Paul and Georges always to agree, because it would be so nice for them all three to stay like that, knowing all the time that they loved one another very much. But an extraordinary noise disturbed them: someone was snoring in the room. Whereupon after some searching they perceived Bordenave, who, since taking his coffee, must have comfortably installed himself there. He was sleeping on two chairs, his head propped on the edge of the bed and his leg stretched out in front. Nana thought him so funny with his open mouth and his nose moving with each successive snore that she was shaken with a mad fit of laughter. She left the room, followed by Daguenet and Georges, crossed the dining room, entered the drawing room, her merriment increasing at every step.
“Oh, my dear, you’ve no idea!” she cried, almost throwing herself into Rose’s arms. “Come and see it.”
All the women had to follow her. She took their hands coaxingly and drew them along with her willy-nilly, accompanying her action with so frank an outburst of mirth that they all of them began laughing on trust. The band vanished and returned after standing breathlessly for a second or two round Bordenave’s lordly, outstretched form. And then there was a burst of laughter, and when one of them told the rest to be quiet Bordenave’s distant snorings became audible.
It was close on four o’clock. In the dining room a card table had just been set out, at which Vandeuvres, Steiner, Mignon and Labordette had taken their seats. Behind them Lucy and Caroline stood making bets, while Blanche, nodding with sleep and dissatisfied about her night, kept asking Vandeuvres at intervals of five minutes if they weren’t going soon. In the drawing room there was an attempt at dancing. Daguenet was at the piano or “chest of drawers,” as Nana called it. She did not want a “thumper,” for Mimi would play as many waltzes and polkas as the company desired. But the dance was languishing, and the ladies were chatting drowsily together in the corners of sofas. Suddenly, however, there was an outburst of noise. A band of eleven young men had arrived and were laughing loudly in the anteroom and crowding to the drawing room. They had just come from the ball at the Ministry of the Interior and were in evening dress and wore various unknown orders. Nana was annoyed at this riotous entry, called to the waiters who still remained in the kitchen