Chapter XIII

by Emile Zola

　　Toward the end of September Count Muffat, who was to dine at Nana'sthat evening, came at nightfall to inform her of a summons to theTuileries. The lamps in the house had not been lit yet, and theservants were laughing uproariously in the kitchen regions as hesoftly mounted the stairs, where the tall windows gleamed in warmshadow. The door of the drawing room up-stairs opened noiselessly.A faint pink glow was dying out on the ceiling of the room, and thered hangings, the deep divans, the lacquered furniture, with theirmedley of embroidered fabrics and bronzes and china, were alreadysleeping under a slowly creeping flood of shadows, which drownednooks and corners and blotted out the gleam of ivory and the glintof gold. And there in the darkness, on the white surface of a wide,outspread petticoat, which alone remained clearly visible, he sawNana lying stretched in the arms of Georges. Denial in any shape orform was impossible. He gave a choking cry and stood gaping atthem.Nana had bounded up, and now she pushed him into the bedroom inorder to give the lad time to escape."Come in," she murmured with reeling senses, "I'll explain."She was exasperated at being thus surprised. Never before had shegiven way like this in her own house, in her own drawing room, whenthe doors were open. It was a long story: Georges and she had had adisagreement; he had been mad with jealousy of Philippe, and he hadsobbed so bitterly on her bosom that she had yielded to him, notknowing how else to calm him and really very full of pity for him atheart. And on this solitary occasion, when she had been stupidenough to forget herself thus with a little rascal who could noteven now bring her bouquets of violets, so short did his mother keephim--on this solitary occasion the count turned up and came straightdown on them. 'Gad, she had very bad luck! That was what one gotif one was a good-natured wench!Meanwhile in the bedroom, into which she had pushed Muffat, thedarkness was complete. Whereupon after some groping she rangfuriously and asked for a lamp. It was Julien's fault too! Ifthere had been a lamp in the drawing room the whole affair would nothave happened. It was the stupid nightfall which had got the betterof her heart."I beseech you to be reasonable, my pet," she said when Zoe hadbrought in the lights.The count, with his hands on his knees, was sitting gazing at thefloor. He was stupefied by what he had just seen. He did not cryout in anger. He only trembled, as though overtaken by some horrorwhich was freezing him. This dumb misery touched the young woman,and she tried to comfort him."Well, yes, I've done wrong. It's very bad what I did. You see I'msorry for my fault. It makes me grieve very much because it annoysyou. Come now, be nice, too, and forgive me."She had crouched down at his feet and was striving to catch his eyewith a look of tender submission. She was fain to know whether hewas very vexed with her. Presently, as he gave a long sigh andseemed to recover himself, she grew more coaxing and with gravekindness of manner added a final reason:"You see, dearie, you must try and understand how it is: I can'trefuse it to my poor friends."The count consented to give way and only insisted that Georgesshould be dismissed once for all. But all his illusions hadvanished, and he no longer believed in her sworn fidelity. Next dayNana would deceive him anew, and he only remained her miserablepossessor in obedience to a cowardly necessity and to terror at thethought of living without her.This was the epoch in her existence when Nana flared upon Paris withredoubled splendor. She loomed larger than heretofore on thehorizon of vice and swayed the town with her impudently flauntedsplendor and that contempt of money which made her openly squanderfortunes. Her house had become a sort of glowing smithy, where hercontinual desires were the flames and the slightest breath from herlips changed gold into fine ashes, which the wind hourly swept away.Never had eye beheld such a rage of expenditure. The great houseseemed to have been built over a gulf in which men--their worldlypossessions, their fortunes, their very names--were swallowed upwithout leaving even a handful of dust behind them. This courtesan,who had the tastes of a parrot and gobbled up radishes and burntalmonds and pecked at the meat upon her plate, had monthly tablebills amounting to five thousand francs. The wildest waste went onin the kitchen: the place, metaphorically speaking was one greatriver which stove in cask upon cask of wine and swept great billswith it, swollen by three or four successive manipulators.Victorine and Francois reigned supreme in the kitchen, whither theyinvited friends. In addition to these there was quite a littletribe of cousins, who were cockered up in their homes with coldmeats and strong soup. Julien made the trades-people give himcommissions, and the glaziers never put up a pane of glass at a costof a franc and a half but he had a franc put down to himself.Charles devoured the horses' oats and doubled the amount of theirprovender, reselling at the back door what came in at the carriagegate, while amid the general pillage, the sack of the town after thestorm, Zoe, by dint of cleverness, succeeded in saving appearancesand covering the thefts of all in order the better to slur over andmake good her own. But the household waste was worse than thehousehold dishonesty. Yesterday's food was thrown into the gutter,and the collection of provisions in the house was such that theservants grew disgusted with it. The glass was all sticky withsugar, and the gas burners flared and flared till the rooms seemedready to explode. Then, too, there were instances of negligence andmischief and sheer accident--of everything, in fact, which canhasten the ruin of a house devoured by so many mouths. Upstairs inMadame's quarters destruction raged more fiercely still. Dresses,which cost ten thousand francs and had been twice worn, were sold byZoe; jewels vanished as though they had crumbled deep down in theirdrawers; stupid purchases were made; every novelty of the day wasbrought and left to lie forgotten in some corner the morning afteror swept up by ragpickers in the street. She could not see any veryexpensive object without wanting to possess it, and so sheconstantly surrounded herself with the wrecks of bouquets and costlyknickknacks and was the happier the more her passing fancy cost.Nothing remained intact in her hands; she broke everything, and thisobject withered, and that grew dirty in the clasp of her lithe whitefingers. A perfect heap of nameless debris, of twisted shreds andmuddy rags, followed her and marked her passage. Then amid thisutter squandering of pocket money cropped up a question about thebig bills and their settlement. Twenty thousand francs were due tothe modiste, thirty thousand to the linen draper, twelve thousand tothe bootmaker. Her stable devoured fifty thousand for her, and insix months she ran up a bill of a hundred and twenty thousand francsat her ladies' tailor. Though she had not enlarged her scheme ofexpenditure, which Labordette reckoned at four hundred thousandfrancs on an average, she ran up that same year to a million. Shewas herself stupefied by the amount and was unable to tell whithersuch a sum could have gone. Heaps upon heaps of men, barrowfuls ofgold, failed to stop up the hole, which, amid this ruinous luxury,continually gaped under the floor of her house.Meanwhile Nana had cherished her latest caprice. Once moreexercised by the notion that her room needed redoing, she fanciedshe had hit on something at last. The room should be done in velvetof the color of tea roses, with silver buttons and golden cords,tassels and fringes, and the hangings should be caught up to theceiling after the manner of a tent. This arrangement ought to beboth rich and tender, she thought, and would form a splendidbackground to her blonde vermeil-tinted skin. However, the bedroomwas only designed to serve as a setting to the bed, which was to bea dazzling affair, a prodigy. Nana meditated a bed such as hadnever before existed; it was to be a throne, an altar, whither Pariswas to come in order to adore her sovereign nudity. It was to beall in gold and silver beaten work--it should suggest a great pieceof jewelry with its golden roses climbing on a trelliswork ofsilver. On the headboard a band of Loves should peep forth laughingfrom amid the flowers, as though they were watching the voluptuousdalliance within the shadow of the bed curtains. Nana had appliedto Labordette who had brought two goldsmiths to see her. They werealready busy with the designs. The bed would cost fifty thousandfrancs, and Muffat was to give it her as a New Year's present.What most astonished the young woman was that she was endlesslyshort of money amid a river of gold, the tide of which almostenveloped her. On certain days she was at her wit's end for want ofridiculously small sums--sums of only a few louis. She was drivento borrow from Zoe, or she scraped up cash as well as she could onher own account. But before resignedly adopting extreme measuresshe tried her friends and in a joking sort of way got the men togive her all they had about them, even down to their coppers. Forthe last three months she had been emptying Philippe's pocketsespecially, and now on days of passionate enjoyment he never cameaway but he left his purse behind him. Soon she grew bolder andasked him for loans of two hundred francs, three hundred francs--never more than that--wherewith to pay the interest of bills or tostave off outrageous debts. And Philippe, who in July had beenappointed paymaster to his regiment, would bring the money the dayafter, apologizing at the same time for not being rich, seeing thatgood Mamma Hugon now treated her sons with singular financialseverity. At the close of three months these little oft-renewedloans mounted up to a sum of ten thousand francs. The captain stilllaughed his hearty-sounding laugh, but he was growing visiblythinner, and sometimes he seemed absent-minded, and a shade ofsuffering would pass over his face. But one look from Nana's eyeswould transfigure him in a sort of sensual ecstasy. She had a verycoaxing way with him and would intoxicate him with furtive kissesand yield herself to him in sudden fits of self-abandonment, whichtied him to her apron strings the moment he was able to escape fromhis military duties.One evening, Nana having announced that her name, too, was Thereseand that her fete day was the fifteenth of October, the gentlemenall sent her presents. Captain Philippe brought his himself; it wasan old comfit dish in Dresden china, and it had a gold mount. Hefound her alone in her dressing room. She had just emerged from thebath, had nothing on save a great red-and-white flannel bathing wrapand was very busy examining her presents, which were ranged on atable. She had already broken a rock-crystal flask in her attemptsto unstopper it."Oh, you're too nice!" she said. "What is it? Let's have a peep!What a baby you are to spend your pennies in little fakements likethat!"She scolded him, seeing that he was not rich, but at heart she wasdelighted to see him spending his whole substance for her. Indeed,this was the only proof of love which had power to touch her.Meanwhile she was fiddling away at the comfit dish, opening it andshutting it in her desire to see how it was made."Take care," he murmured, "it's brittle."But she shrugged her shoulders. Did he think her as clumsy as astreet porter? And all of a sudden the hinge came off between herfingers and the lid fell and was broken. She was stupefied andremained gazing at the fragments as she cried:"Oh, it's smashed!"Then she burst out laughing. The fragments lying on the floortickled her fancy. Her merriment was of the nervous kind, thestupid, spiteful laughter of a child who delights in destruction.Philippe had a little fit of disgust, for the wretched girl did notknow what anguish this curio had cost him. Seeing him thoroughlyupset, she tried to contain herself."Gracious me, it isn't my fault! It was cracked; those old thingsbarely hold together. Besides, it was the cover! Didn't you seethe bound it gave?And she once more burst into uproarious mirth.But though he made an effort to the contrary, tears appeared in theyoung man's eyes, and with that she flung her arms tenderly roundhis neck."How silly you are! You know I love you all the same. If one neverbroke anything the tradesmen would never sell anything. All thatsort of thing's made to be broken. Now look at this fan; it's onlyheld together with glue!"She had snatched up a fan and was dragging at the blades so that thesilk was torn in two. This seemed to excite her, and in order toshow that she scorned the other presents, the moment she had ruinedhis she treated herself to a general massacre, rapping eachsuccessive object and proving clearly that not one was solid in thatshe had broken them all. There was a lurid glow in her vacant eyes,and her lips, slightly drawn back, displayed her white teeth. Soon,when everything was in fragments, she laughed cheerily again andwith flushed cheeks beat on the table with the flat of her hands,lisping like a naughty little girl:"All over! Got no more! Got no more!"Then Philippe was overcome by the same mad excitement, and, pushingher down, he merrily kissed her bosom. She abandoned herself to himand clung to his shoulders with such gleeful energy that she couldnot remember having enjoyed herself so much for an age past.Without letting go of him she said caressingly:"I say, dearie, you ought certainly to bring me ten louis tomorrow.It's a bore, but there's the baker's bill worrying me awfully."He had grown pale. Then imprinting a final kiss on her forehead, hesaid simply:"I'll try."Silence reigned. She was dressing, and he stood pressing hisforehead against the windowpanes. A minute passed, and he returnedto her and deliberately continued:"Nana, you ought to marry me."This notion straightway so tickled the young woman that she wasunable to finish tying on her petticoats."My poor pet, you're ill! D'you offer me your hand because I askyou for ten louis? No, never! I'm too fond of you. Good gracious,what a silly question!"And as Zoe entered in order to put her boots on, they ceased talkingof the matter. The lady's maid at once espied the presents lyingbroken in pieces on the table. She asked if she should put thesethings away, and, Madame having bidden her get rid of them, shecarried the whole collection off in the folds of her dress. In thekitchen a sorting-out process began, and Madame's debris were sharedamong the servants.That day Georges had slipped into the house despite Nana's orders tothe contrary. Francois had certainly seen him pass, but theservants had now got to laugh among themselves at their good lady'sembarrassing situations. He had just slipped as far as the littledrawing room when his brother's voice stopped him, and, as onepowerless to tear himself from the door, he overheard everythingthat went on within, the kisses, the offer of marriage. A feelingof horror froze him, and he went away in a state bordering onimbecility, feeling as though there were a great void in his brain.It was only in his own room above his mother's flat in the RueRichelieu that his heart broke in a storm of furious sobs. Thistime there could be no doubt about the state of things; a horriblepicture of Nana in Philippe's arms kept rising before his mind'seye. It struck him in the light of an incest. When he fanciedhimself calm again the remembrance of it all would return, and infresh access of raging jealousy he would throw himself on the bed,biting the coverlet, shouting infamous accusations which maddenedhim the more. Thus the day passed. In order to stay shut up in hisroom he spoke of having a sick headache. But the night proved moreterrible still; a murder fever shook him amid continual nightmares.Had his brother lived in the house, he would have gone and killedhim with the stab of a knife. When day returned he tried to reasonthings out. It was he who ought to die, and he determined to throwhimself out of the window when an omnibus was passing.Nevertheless, he went out toward ten o'clock and traversed Paris,wandered up and down on the bridges and at the last moment felt anunconquerable desire to see Nana once more. With one word, perhaps,she would save him. And three o'clock was striking when he enteredthe house in the Avenue de Villiers.Toward noon a frightful piece of news had simply crushed Mme Hugon.Philippe had been in prison since the evening of the previous day,accused of having stolen twelve thousand francs from the chest ofhis regiment. For the last three months he had been withdrawingsmall sums therefrom in the hope of being able to repay them, whilehe had covered the deficit with false money. Thanks to thenegligence of the administrative committee, this fraud had beenconstantly successful. The old lady, humbled utterly by her child'scrime, had at once cried out in anger against Nana. She knewPhilippe's connection with her, and her melancholy had been theresult of this miserable state of things which kept her in Paris inconstant dread of some final catastrophe. But she had never lookedforward to such shame as this, and now she blamed herself forrefusing him money, as though such refusal had made her accessory tohis act. She sank down on an armchair; her legs were seized withparalysis, and she felt herself to be useless, incapable of actionand destined to stay where she was till she died. But the suddenthought of Georges comforted her. Georges was still left her; hewould be able to act, perhaps to save them. Thereupon, withoutseeking aid of anyone else--for she wished to keep these mattersshrouded in the bosom of her family--she dragged herself up to thenext story, her mind possessed by the idea that she still hadsomeone to love about her. But upstairs she found an empty room.The porter told her that M. Georges had gone out at an early hour.The room was haunted by the ghost of yet another calamity; the bedwith its gnawed bedclothes bore witness to someone's anguish, and achair which lay amid a heap of clothes on the ground looked likesomething dead. Georges must be at that woman's house, and so withdry eyes and feet that had regained their strength Mme Hugon wentdownstairs. She wanted her sons; she was starting to reclaim them.Since morning Nana had been much worried. First of all it was thebaker, who at nine o'clock had turned up, bill in hand. It was awretched story. He had supplied her with bread to the amount of ahundred and thirty-three francs, and despite her royal housekeepingshe could not pay it. In his irritation at being put off he hadpresented himself a score of times since the day he had refusedfurther credit, and the servants were now espousing his cause.Francois kept saying that Madame would never pay him unless he madea fine scene; Charles talked of going upstairs, too, in order to getan old unpaid straw bill settled, while Victorine advised them towait till some gentleman was with her, when they would get the moneyout of her by suddenly asking for it in the middle of conversation.The kitchen was in a savage mood: the tradesmen were all kept postedin the course events were taking, and there were gossipingconsultations, lasting three or four hours on a stretch, duringwhich Madame was stripped, plucked and talked over with the wrathfuleagerness peculiar to an idle, overprosperous servants' hall.Julien, the house steward, alone pretended to defend his mistress.She was quite the thing, whatever they might say! And when theothers accused him of sleeping with her he laughed fatuously,thereby driving the cook to distraction, for she would have liked tobe a man in order to "spit on such women's backsides," so utterlywould they have disgusted her. Francois, without informing Madameof it, had wickedly posted the baker in the hall, and when she camedownstairs at lunch time she found herself face to face with him.Taking the bill, she told him to return toward three o'clock,whereupon, with many foul expressions, he departed, vowing that hewould have things properly settled and get his money by hook or bycrook.Nana made a very bad lunch, for the scene had annoyed her. Nexttime the man would have to be definitely got rid of. A dozen timesshe had put his money aside for him, but it had as constantly meltedaway, sometimes in the purchase of flowers, at others in the shapeof a subscription got up for the benefit of an old gendarme.Besides, she was counting on Philippe and was astonished not to seehim make his appearance with his two hundred francs. It was regularbad luck, seeing that the day before yesterday she had again givenSatin an outfit, a perfect trousseau this time, some twelve hundredfrancs' worth of dresses and linen, and now she had not a louisremaining.Toward two o'clock, when Nana was beginning to be anxious,Labordette presented himself. He brought with him the designs forthe bed, and this caused a diversion, a joyful interlude which madethe young woman forget all her troubles. She clapped her hands anddanced about. After which, her heart bursting wish curiosity, sheleaned over a table in the drawing room and examined the designs,which Labordette proceeded to explain to her."You see," he said, "this is the body of the bed. In the middlehere there's a bunch of roses in full bloom, and then comes agarland of buds and flowers. The leaves are to be in yellow and theroses in red-gold. And here's the grand design for the bed's head;Cupids dancing in a ring on a silver trelliswork."But Nana interrupted him, for she was beside herself with ecstasy."Oh, how funny that little one is, that one in the corner, with hisbehind in the air! Isn't he now? And what a sly laugh! They'veall got such dirty, wicked eyes! You know, dear boy, I shall neverdare play any silly tricks before them!"Her pride was flattered beyond measure. The goldsmiths had declaredthat no queen anywhere slept in such a bed. However, a difficultypresented itself. Labordette showed her two designs for thefootboard, one of which reproduced the pattern on the sides, whilethe other, a subject by itself, represented Night wrapped in herveil and discovered by a faun in all her splendid nudity. He addedthat if she chose this last subject the goldsmiths intended makingNight in her own likeness. This idea, the taste of which was ratherrisky, made her grow white with pleasure, and she pictured herselfas a silver statuette, symbolic of the warm, voluptuous delights ofdarkness."Of course you will only sit for the head and shoulders," saidLabordette.She looked quietly at him."Why? The moment a work of art's in question I don't mind thesculptor that takes my likeness a blooming bit!"Of course it must be understood that she was choosing the subject.But at this he interposed."Wait a moment; it's six thousand francs extra.""It's all the same to me, by Jove!" she cried, bursting into alaugh. "Hasn't my little rough got the rhino?"Nowadays among her intimates she always spoke thus of Count Muffat,and the gentlemen had ceased to inquire after him otherwise."Did you see your little rough last night?" they used to say."Dear me, I expected to find the little rough here!"It was a simple familiarity enough, which, nevertheless, she did notas yet venture on in his presence.Labordette began rolling up the designs as he gave the finalexplanations. The goldsmiths, he said, were undertaking to deliverthe bed in two months' time, toward the twenty-fifth of December,and next week a sculptor would come to make a model for the Night.As she accompanied him to the door Nana remembered the baker andbriskly inquired:"By the by, you wouldn't be having ten louis about you?"Labordette made it a solemn rule, which stood him in good stead,never to lend women money. He used always to make the same reply."No, my girl, I'm short. But would you like me to go to your littlerough?"She refused; it was useless. Two days before she had succeeded ingetting five thousand francs out of the count. However, she soonregretted her discreet conduct, for the moment Labordette had gonethe baker reappeared, though it was barely half-past two, and withmany loud oaths roughly settled himself on a bench in the hall. Theyoung woman listened to him from the first floor. She was pale, andit caused her especial pain to hear the servants' secret rejoicingsswelling up louder and louder till they even reached her ears. Downin the kitchen they were dying of laughter. The coachman wasstaring across from the other side of the court; Francois wascrossing the hall without any apparent reason. Then he hurried offto report progress, after sneering knowingly at the baker. Theydidn't care a damn for Madame; the walls were echoing to theirlaughter, and she felt that she was deserted on all hands anddespised by the servants' hall, the inmates of which were watchingher every movement and liberally bespattering her with the filthiestof chaff. Thereupon she abandoned the intention of borrowing thehundred and thirty-three francs from Zoe; she already owed the maidmoney, and she was too proud to risk a refusal now. Such a burst offeeling stirred her that she went back into her room, loudlyremarking:"Come, come, my girl, don't count on anyone but yourself. Yourbody's your own property, and it's better to make use of it than tolet yourself be insulted."And without even summoning Zoe she dressed herself with feverishhaste in order to run round to the Tricon's. In hours of greatembarrassment this was her last resource. Much sought after andconstantly solicited by the old lady, she would refuse or resignherself according to her needs, and on these increasingly frequentoccasions when both ends would not meet in her royally conductedestablishment, she was sure to find twenty-five louis awaiting herat the other's house. She used to betake herself to the Tricon'swith the ease born of use, just as the poor go to the pawnshop.But as she left her own chamber Nana came suddenly upon Georgesstanding in the middle of the drawing room. Not noticing his waxenpallor and the somber fire in his wide eyes, she gave a sigh ofrelief."Ah, you've come from your brother.""No," said the lad, growing yet paler.At this she gave a despairing shrug. What did he want? Why was hebarring her way? She was in a hurry--yes, she was. Then returningto where he stood:"You've no money, have you?""No.""That's true. How silly of me! Never a stiver; not even theiromnibus fares Mamma doesn't wish it! Oh, what a set of men!"And she escaped. But he held her back; he wanted to speak to her.She was fairly under way and again declared she had no time, but hestopped her with a word."Listen, I know you're going to marry my brother."Gracious! The thing was too funny! And she let herself down into achair in order to laugh at her ease."Yes," continued the lad, "and I don't wish it. It's I you're goingto marry. That's why I've come.""Eh, what? You too?" she cried. "Why, it's a family disease, isit? No, never! What a fancy, to be sure! Have I ever asked you todo anything so nasty? Neither one nor t'other of you! No, never!"The lad's face brightened. Perhaps he had been deceiving himself!He continued:"Then swear to me that you don't go to bed with my brother.""Oh, you're beginning to bore me now!" said Nana, who had risen withrenewed impatience. "It's amusing for a little while, but when Itell you I'm in a hurry--I go to bed with your brother if it pleasesme. Are you keeping me--are you paymaster here that you insist onmy making a report? Yes, I go to bed with your brother."He had caught hold of her arm and squeezed it hard enough to breakit as he stuttered:"Don't say that! Don't say that!"With a slight blow she disengaged herself from his grasp."He's maltreating me now! Here's a young ruffian for you! Mychicken, you'll leave this jolly sharp. I used to keep you aboutout of niceness. Yes, I did! You may stare! Did you think I wasgoing to be your mamma till I died? I've got better things to dothan to bring up brats."He listened to her stark with anguish, yet in utter submission. Herevery word cut him to the heart so sharply that he felt he shoulddie. She did not so much as notice his suffering and continueddelightedly to revenge herself on him for the annoyance of themorning."It's like your brother; he's another pretty Johnny, he is! Hepromised me two hundred francs. Oh, dear me; yes, I can wait for'em. It isn't his money I care for! I've not got enough to pay forhair oil. Yes, he's leaving me in a jolly fix! Look here, d'youwant to know how matters stand? Here goes then: it's all owing toyour brother that I'm going out to earn twenty-five louis withanother man."At these words his head spun, and he barred her egress. He cried;he besought her not to go, clasping his hands together and blurtingout:"Oh no! Oh no!""I want to, I do," she said. "Have you the money?"No, he had not got the money. He would have given his life to havethe money! Never before had he felt so miserable, so useless, sovery childish. All his wretched being was shaken with weeping andgave proof of such heavy suffering that at last she noticed it andgrew kind. She pushed him away softly."Come, my pet, let me pass; I must. Be reasonable. You're a babyboy, and it was very nice for a week, but nowadays I must look aftermy own affairs. Just think it over a bit. Now your brother's aman; what I'm saying doesn't apply to him. Oh, please do me afavor; it's no good telling him all this. He needn't know where I'mgoing. I always let out too much when I'm in a rage."She began laughing. Then taking him in her arms and kissing him onthe forehead:"Good-by, baby," she said; "it's over, quite over between us; d'youunderstand? And now I'm off!"And she left him, and he stood in the middle of the drawing room.Her last words rang like the knell of a tocsin in his ears: "It'sover, quite over!" And he thought the ground was opening beneathhis feet. There was a void in his brain from which the man awaitingNana had disappeared. Philippe alone remained there in the youngwoman's bare embrace forever and ever. She did not deny it: sheloved him, since she wanted to spare him the pain of her infidelity.It was over, quite over. He breathed heavily and gazed round theroom, suffocating beneath a crushing weight. Memories keptrecurring to him one after the other--memories of merry nights at LaMignotte, of amorous hours during which he had fancied himself herchild, of pleasures stolen in this very room. And now these thingswould never, never recur! He was too small; he had not grown upquickly enough; Philippe was supplanting him because he was abearded man. So then this was the end; he could not go on living.His vicious passion had become transformed into an infinitetenderness, a sensual adoration, in which his whole being wasmerged. Then, too, how was he to forget it all if his brotherremained--his brother, blood of his blood, a second self, whoseenjoyment drove him mad with jealousy? It was the end of allthings; he wanted to die.All the doors remained open, as the servants noisily scattered overthe house after seeing Madame make her exit on foot. Downstairs onthe bench in the hall the baker was laughing with Charles andFrancois. Zoe came running across the drawing room and seemedsurprised at sight of Georges. She asked him if he were waiting forMadame. Yes, he was waiting for her; he had for-gotten to give heran answer to a question. And when he was alone he set to work andsearched. Finding nothing else to suit his purpose, he took up inthe dressing room a pair of very sharply pointed scissors with whichNana had a mania for ceaselessly trimming herself, either bypolishing her skin or cutting off little hairs. Then for a wholehour he waited patiently, his hand in his pocket and his fingerstightly clasped round the scissors."Here's Madame," said Zoe, returning. She must have espied herthrough the bedroom window.There was a sound of people racing through the house, and laughterdied away and doors were shut. Georges heard Nana paying the bakerand speaking in the curtest way. Then she came upstairs."What, you're here still!" she said as she noticed him. "Aha!We're going to grow angry, my good man!"He followed her as she walked toward her bedroom."Nana, will you marry me?"She shrugged her shoulders. It was too stupid; she refused toanswer any more and conceived the idea of slamming the door in hisface."Nana, will you marry me?"She slammed the door. He opened it with one hand while he broughtthe other and the scissors out of his pocket. And with one greatstab he simply buried them in his breast.Nana, meanwhile, had felt conscious that something dreadful wouldhappen, and she had turned round. When she saw him stab himself shewas seized with indignation."Oh, what a fool he is! What a fool! And with my scissors! Willyou leave off, you naughty little rogue? Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"She was scared. Sinking on his knees, the boy had just givenhimself a second stab, which sent him down at full length on thecarpet. He blocked the threshold of the bedroom. With that Nanalost her head utterly and screamed with all her might, for she darednot step over his body, which shut her in and prevented her fromrunning to seek assistance."Zoe! Zoe! Come at once. Make him leave off. It's gettingstupid--a child like that! He's killing himself now! And in myplace too! Did you ever see the like of it?"He was frightening her. He was all white, and his eyes were shut.There was scarcely any bleeding--only a little blood, a tiny stainwhich was oozing down into his waistcoat. She was making up hermind to step over the body when an apparition sent her startingback. An old lady was advancing through the drawing-room door,which remained wide open opposite. And in her terror she recognizedMme Hugon but could not explain her presence. Still wearing hergloves and hat, Nana kept edging backward, and her terror grew sogreat that she sought to defend herself, and in a shaky voice:"Madame," she cried, "it isn't I; I swear to you it isn't. Hewanted to marry me, and I said no, and he's killed himself!"Slowly Mme Hugon drew near--she was in black, and her face showedpale under her white hair. In the carriage, as she drove thither,the thought of Georges had vanished and that of Philippe's misdoinghad again taken complete possession of her. It might be that thiswoman could afford explanations to the judges which would touchthem, and so she conceived the project of begging her to bearwitness in her son's favor. Downstairs the doors of the house stoodopen, but as she mounted to the first floor her sick feet failedher, and she was hesitating as to which way to go when suddenlyhorror-stricken cries directed her. Then upstairs she found a manlying on the floor with bloodstained shirt. It was Georges--it washer other child.Nana, in idiotic tones, kept saying:"He wanted to marry me, and I said no, and he's killed himself."Uttering no cry, Mme Hugon stooped down. Yes, it was the other one;it was Georges. The one was brought to dishonor, the othermurdered! It caused her no surprise, for her whole life was ruined.Kneeling on the carpet, utterly forgetting where she was, noticingno one else, she gazed fixedly at her boy's face and listened withher hand on his heart. Then she gave a feeble sigh--she had feltthe heart beating. And with that she lifted her head andscrutinized the room and the woman and seemed to remember. A fireglowed forth in her vacant eyes, and she looked so great andterrible in her silence that Nana trembled as she continued todefend herself above the body that divided them."I swear it, madame! If his brother were here he could explain itto you.""His brother has robbed--he is in prison," said the mother in a hardvoice.Nana felt a choking sensation. Why, what was the reason of it all?The other had turned thief now! They were mad in that family! Sheceased struggling in self-defense; she seemed no longer mistress inher own house and allowed Mme Hugon to give what orders she liked.The servants had at last hurried up, and the old lady insisted ontheir carrying the fainting Georges down to her carriage. Shepreferred killing him rather than letting him remain in that house.With an air of stupefaction Nana watched the retreating servants asthey supported poor, dear Zizi by his legs and shoulders. Themother walked behind them in a state of collapse; she supportedherself against the furniture; she felt as if all she held dear hadvanished in the void. On the landing a sob escaped her; she turnedand twice ejaculated:"Oh, but you've done us infinite harm! You've done us infiniteharm!"That was all. In her stupefaction Nana had sat down; she still woreher gloves and her hat. The house once more lapsed into heavysilence; the carriage had driven away, and she sat motionless, notknowing what to do next. her head swimming after all she had gonethrough. A quarter of an hour later Count Muffat found her thus,but at sight of him she relieved her feelings in an overflowingcurrent of talk. She told him all about the sad incident, repeatedthe same details twenty times over, picked up the bloodstainedscissors in order to imitate Zizi's gesture when he stabbed himself.And above all she nursed the idea of proving her own innocence."Look you here, dearie, is it my fault? If you were the judge wouldyou condemn me? I certainly didn't tell Philippe to meddle with thetill any more than I urged that wretched boy to kill himself. I'vebeen most unfortunate throughout it all. They come and do stupidthings in my place; they make me miserable; they treat me like ahussy."And she burst into tears. A fit of nervous expansiveness renderedher soft and doleful, and her immense distress melted her utterly."And you, too, look as if you weren't satisfied. Now do just askZoe if I'm at all mixed up in it. Zoe, do speak: explain toMonsieur--"The lady's maid, having brought a towel and a basin of water out ofthe dressing room, had for some moments past been rubbing the carpetin order to remove the bloodstains before they dried."Oh, monsieur, " she declared, "Madame is utterly miserable!"Muffat was still stupefied; the tragedy had frozen him, and hisimagination was full of the mother weeping for her sons. He knewher greatness of heart and pictured her in her widow's weeds,withering solitarily away at Les Fondettes. But Nana grew ever moredespondent, for now the memory of Zizi lying stretched on the floor,with a red hole in his shirt, almost drove her senseless."He used to be such a darling, so sweet and caressing. Oh, youknow, my pet--I'm sorry if it vexes you--I loved that baby! I can'thelp saying so; the words must out. Besides, now it ought not tohurt you at all. He's gone. You've got what you wanted; you'requite certain never to surprise us again."And this last reflection tortured her with such regret that he endedby turning comforter. Well, well, he said, she ought to be brave;she was quite right; it wasn't her fault! But she checked herlamentations of her own accord in order to say:"Listen, you must run round and bring me news of him. At once! Iwish it!"He took his hat and went to get news of Georges. When he returnedafter some three quarters of an hour he saw Nana leaning anxiouslyout of a window, and he shouted up to her from the pavement that thelad was not dead and that they even hoped to bring him through. Atthis she immediately exchanged grief for excess of joy and began tosing and dance and vote existence delightful. Zoe, meanwhile, wasstill dissatisfied with her washing. She kept looking at the stain,and every time she passed it she repeated:"You know it's not gone yet, madame."As a matter of fact, the pale red stain kept reappearing on one ofthe white roses in the carpet pattern. It was as though, on thevery threshold of the room, a splash of blood were barring thedoorway."Bah!" said the joyous Nana. "That'l be rubbed out under people'sfeet."After the following day Count Muffat had likewise forgotten theincident. For a moment or two, when in the cab which drove him tothe Rue Richelieu, he had busily sworn never to return to thatwoman's house. Heaven was warning him; the misfortunes of Philippeand Georges were, he opined, prophetic of his proper ruin. Butneither the sight of Mme Hugon in tears nor that of the boy burningwith fever had been strong enough to make him keep his vow, and theshort-lived horror of the situation had only left behind it a senseof secret delight at the thought that he was now well quit of arival, the charm of whose youth had always exasperated him. Hispassion had by this time grown exclusive; it was, indeed, thepassion of a man who has had no youth. He loved Nana as one whoyearned to be her sole possessor, to listen to her, to touch her, tobe breathed on by her. His was now a supersensual tenderness,verging on pure sentiment; it was an anxious affection and as suchwas jealous of the past and apt at times to dream of a day ofredemption and pardon received, when both should kneel before Godthe Father. Every day religion kept regaining its influence overhim. He again became a practicing Christian; he confessed himselfand communicated, while a ceaseless struggle raged within him, andremorse redoubled the joys of sin and of repentance. Afterward,when his director gave him leave to spend his passion, he had made ahabit of this daily perdition and would redeem the same by ecstasiesof faith, which were full of pious humility. Very naively heoffered heaven, by way of expiatory anguish, the abominable tormentfrom which he was suffering. This torment grew and increased, andhe would climb his Calvary with the deep and solemn feelings of abeliever, though steeped in a harlot's fierce sensuality. Thatwhich made his agony most poignant was this woman's continuedfaithlessness. He could not share her with others, nor did heunderstand her imbecile caprices. Undying, unchanging love was whathe wished for. However, she had sworn, and he paid her as havingdone so. But he felt that she was untruthful, incapable of commonfidelity, apt to yield to friends, to stray passers-by, like a good-natured animal, born to live minus a shift.One morning when he saw Foucarmont emerging from her bedroom at anunusual hour, he made a scene about it. But in her weariness of hisjealousy she grew angry directly. On several occasions ere that shehad behaved rather prettily. Thus the evening when he surprised herwith Georges she was the first to regain her temper and to confessherself in the wrong. She had loaded him with caresses and dosedhim with soft speeches in order to make him swallow the business.But he had ended by boring her to death with his obstinate refusalsto understand the feminine nature, and now she was brutal."Very well, yes! I've slept with Foucarmont. What then? That'sflattened you out a bit, my little rough, hasn't it?"It was the first time she had thrown "my little rough" in his teeth.The frank directness of her avowal took his breath away, and when hebegan clenching his fists she marched up to him and looked him fullin the face."We've had enough of this, eh? If it doesn't suit you you'll do methe pleasure of leaving the house. I don't want you to go yellingin my place. Just you get it into your noodle that I mean to bequite free. When a man pleases me I go to bed with him. Yes, I do--that's my way! And you must make up your mind directly. Yes orno! If it's no, out you may walk!"She had gone and opened the door, but he did not leave. That washer way now of binding him more closely to her. For no reasonwhatever, at the slightest approach to a quarrel she would tell himhe might stop or go as he liked, and she would accompany herpermission with a flood of odious reflections. She said she couldalways find better than he; she had only too many from whom tochoose; men in any quantity could be picked up in the street, andmen a good deal smarter, too, whose blood boiled in their veins. Atthis he would hang his head and wait for those gentler moods whenshe wanted money. She would then become affectionate, and he wouldforget it all, one night of tender dalliance making up for thetortures of a whole week. His reconciliation with his wife hadrendered his home unbearable. Fauchery, having again fallen underRose's dominion, the countess was running madly after other loves.She was entering on the forties, that restless, feverish time in thelife of women, and ever hysterically nervous, she now filled hermansion with the maddening whirl of her fashionable life. Estelle,since her marriage, had seen nothing of her father; the undeveloped,insignificant girl had suddenly become a woman of iron will, soimperious withal that Daguenet trembled in her presence. In thesedays he accompanied her to mass: he was converted, and he ragedagainst his father-in-law for ruining them with a courtesan. M.Venot alone still remained kindly inclined toward the count, for hewas biding his time. He had even succeeded in getting into Nana'simmediate circle. In fact, he frequented both houses, where youencountered his continual smile behind doors. So Muffat, wretchedat home, driven out by ennui and shame, still preferred to live inthe Avenue de Villiers, even though he was abused there.Soon there was but one question between Nana and the count, and thatwas "money." One day after having formally promised her tenthousand francs he had dared keep his appointment empty handed. Fortwo days past she had been surfeiting him with love, and such abreach of faith, such a waste of caresses, made her raginglyabusive. She was white with fury."So you've not got the money, eh? Then go back where you came from,my little rough, and look sharp about it! There's a bloody fool foryou! He wanted to kiss me again! Mark my words--no money, nonothing!"He explained matters; he would be sure to have the money the dayafter tomorrow. But she interrupted him violently:"And my bills! They'll sell me up while Monsieur's playing thefool. Now then, look at yourself. D'ye think I love you for yourfigure? A man with a mug like yours has to pay the women who arekind enough to put up with him. By God, if you don't bring me thatten thousand francs tonight you shan't even have the tip of mylittle finger to suck. I mean it! I shall send you back to yourwife!"At night he brought the ten thousand francs. Nana put up her lips,and he took a long kiss which consoled him for the whole day ofanguish. What annoyed the young woman was to have him continuallytied to her apron strings. She complained to M. Venot, begging himto take her little rough off to the countess. Was theirreconciliation good for nothing then? She was sorry she had mixedherself up in it, since despite everything he was always at herheels. On the days when, out of anger, she forgot her own interest,she swore to play him such a dirty trick that he would never againbe able to set foot in her place. But when she slapped her leg andyelled at him she might quite as well have spat in his face too: hewould still have stayed and even thanked her. Then the rows aboutmoney matters kept continually recurring. She demanded moneysavagely; she rowed him over wretched little amounts; she wasodiously stingy with every minute of her time; she kept fiercelyinforming him that she slept with him for his money, not for anyother reasons, and that she did not enjoy it a bit, that, in fact,she loved another and was awfully unfortunate in needing an idiot ofhis sort! They did not even want him at court now, and there wassome talk of requiring him to send in his resignation. The empresshad said, "He is too disgusting." It was true enough. So Nanarepeated the phrase by way of closure to all their quarrels."Look here! You disgust me!"Nowadays she no longer minded her ps and qs; she had regained themost perfect freedom.Every day she did her round of the lake, beginning acquaintanceshipswhich ended elsewhere. Here was the happy hunting ground parexcellence, where courtesans of the first water spread their nets inopen daylight and flaunted themselves amid the tolerating smiles andbrilliant luxury of Paris. Duchesses pointed her out to one anotherwith a passing look--rich shopkeepers' wives copied the fashion ofher hats. Sometimes her landau, in its haste to get by, stopped afile of puissant turnouts, wherein sat plutocrats able to buy up allEurope or Cabinet ministers with plump fingers tight-pressed to thethroat of France. She belonged to this Bois society, occupied aprominent place in it, was known in every capital and asked about byevery foreigner. The splendors of this crowd were enhanced by themadness of her profligacy as though it were the very crown, thedarling passion, of the nation. Then there were unions of a night,continual passages of desire, which she lost count of the morningafter, and these sent her touring through the grand restaurants andon fine days, as often as not, to "Madrid." The staffs of all theembassies visited her, and she, Lucy Stewart, Caroline Hequet andMaria Blond would dine in the society of gentlemen who murdered theFrench language and paid to be amused, engaging them by the eveningwith orders to be funny and yet proving so blase and so worn outthat they never even touched them. This the ladies called "going ona spree," and they would return home happy at having been despisedand would finish the night in the arms of the lovers of theirchoice.When she did not actually throw the men at his head Count Muffatpretended not to know about all this. However, he suffered not alittle from the lesser indignities of their daily life. The mansionin the Avenue de Villiers was becoming a hell, a house full of madpeople, in which every hour of the day wild disorders led to hatefulcomplications. Nana even fought with her servants. One moment shewould be very nice with Charles, the coachman. When she stopped ata restaurant she would send him out beer by the waiter and wouldtalk with him from the inside of her carriage when he slanged thecabbies at a block in the traffic, for then he struck her as funnyand cheered her up. Then the next moment she called him a fool forno earthly reason. She was always squabbling over the straw, thebran or the oats; in spite of her love for animals she thought herhorses ate too much. Accordingly one day when she was settling upshe accused the man of robbing her. At this Charles got in a rageand called her a whore right out; his horses, he said, weredistinctly better than she was, for they did not sleep witheverybody. She answered him in the same strain, and the count hadto separate them and give the coachman the sack. This was thebeginning of a rebellion among the servants. When her diamonds hadbeen stolen Victorine and Francois left. Julien himselfdisappeared, and the tale ran that the master had given him a bigbribe and had begged him to go, because he slept with the mistress.Every week there were new faces in the servants' hall. Never wasthere such a mess; the house was like a passage down which the scumof the registry offices galloped, destroying everything in theirpath. Zoe alone kept her place; she always looked clean, and heronly anxiety was how to organize this riot until she had got enoughtogether to set up on her own account in fulfillment of a plan shehad been hatching for some time past.These, again, were only the anxieties he could own to. The countput up with the stupidity of Mme Maloir, playing bezique with her inspite of her musty smell. He put up with Mme Lerat and herencumbrances, with Louiset and the mournful complaints peculiar to achild who is being eaten up with the rottenness inherited from someunknown father. But he spent hours worse than these. One eveninghe had heard Nana angrily telling her maid that a man pretending tobe rich had just swindled her--a handsome man calling himself anAmerican and owning gold mines in his own country, a beast who hadgone off while she was asleep without giving her a copper and hadeven taken a packet of cigarette papers with him. The count hadturned very pale and had gone downstairs again on tiptoe so as notto hear more. But later he had to hear all. Nana, having beensmitten with a baritone in a music hall and having been thrown overby him, wanted to commit suicide during a fit of sentimentalmelancholia. She swallowed a glass of water in which she had soakeda box of matches. This made her terribly sick but did not kill her.The count had to nurse her and to listen to the whole story of herpassion, her tearful protests and her oaths never to take to any managain. In her contempt for those swine, as she called them, shecould not, however, keep her heart free, for she always had somesweetheart round her, and her exhausted body inclined toincomprehensible fancies and perverse tastes. As Zoe designedlyrelaxed her efforts the service of the house had got to such a pitchthat Muffat did not dare to push open a door, to pull a curtain orto unclose a cupboard. The bells did not ring; men lounged abouteverywhere and at every moment knocked up against one another. Hehad now to cough before entering a room, having almost caught thegirl hanging round Francis' neck one evening that he had just goneout of the dressing room for two minutes to tell the coachman to putthe horses to, while her hairdresser was finishing her hair. Shegave herself up suddenly behind his back; she took her pleasure inevery corner, quickly, with the first man she met. Whether she wasin her chemise or in full dress did not matter. She would come backto the count red all over, happy at having cheated him. As for him,he was plagued to death; it was an abominable infliction!In his jealous anguish the unhappy man was comparatively at peacewhen he left Nana and Satin alone together. He would have willinglyurged her on to this vice, to keep the men off her. But all wasspoiled in this direction too. Nana deceived Satin as she deceivedthe count, going mad over some monstrous fancy or other and pickingup girls at the street corners. Coming back in her carriage, shewould suddenly be taken with a little slut that she saw on thepavement; her senses would be captivated, her imagination excited.She would take the little slut in with her, pay her and send heraway again. Then, disguised as a man, she would go to infamoushouses and look on at scenes of debauch to while away hours ofboredom. And Satin, angry at being thrown over every moment, wouldturn the house topsy-turvy with the most awful scenes. She had atlast acquired a complete ascendancy over Nana, who now respectedher. Muffat even thought of an alliance between them. When hedared not say anything he let Satin loose. Twice she had compelledher darling to take up with him again, while he showed himselfobliging and effaced himself in her favor at the least sign. Butthis good understanding lasted no time, for Satin, too, was a littlecracked. On certain days she would very nearly go mad and wouldsmash everything, wearing herself out in tempest of love and anger,but pretty all the time. Zoe must have excited her, for the maidtook her into corners as if she wanted to tell her about her greatdesign of which she as yet spoke to no one.At times, however, Count Muffat was still singularly revolted. Hewho had tolerated Satin for months, who had at last shut his eyes tothe unknown herd of men that scampered so quickly through Nana'sbedroom, became terribly enraged at being deceived by one of his ownset or even by an acquaintance. When she confessed her relationswith Foucarmont he suffered so acutely, he thought the treachery ofthe young man so base, that he wished to insult him and fight aduel. As he did not know where to find seconds for such an affair,he went to Labordette. The latter, astonished, could not helplaughing."A duel about Nana? But, my dear sir, all Paris would be laughingat you. Men do not fight for Nana; it would be ridiculous."The count grew very pale and made a violent gesture."Then I shall slap his face in the open street."For an hour Labordette had to argue with him. A blow would make theaffair odious; that evening everyone would know the real reason ofthe meeting; it would be in all the papers. And Labordette alwaysfinished with the same expression:"It is impossible; it would be ridiculous."Each time Muffat heard these words they seemed sharp and keen as astab. He could not even fight for the woman he loved; people wouldhave burst out laughing. Never before had he felt more bitterly themisery of his love, the contrast between his heavy heart and theabsurdity of this life of pleasure in which it was now lost. Thiswas his last rebellion; he allowed Labordette to convince him, andhe was present afterward at the procession of his friends, who livedthere as if at home.Nana in a few months finished them up greedily, one after the other.The growing needs entailed by her luxurious way of life only addedfuel to her desires, and she finished a man up at one mouthful.First she had Foucarmont, who did not last a fortnight. He wasthinking of leaving the navy, having saved about thirty thousandfrancs in his ten years of service, which he wished to invest in theUnited States. His instincts, which were prudential, even miserly,were conquered; he gave her everything, even his signature to notesof hand, which pledged his future. When Nana had done with him hewas penniless. But then she proved very kind; she advised him toreturn to his ship. What was the good of getting angry? Since hehad no money their relations were no longer possible. He ought tounderstand that and to be reasonable. A ruined man fell from herhands like a ripe fruit, to rot on the ground by himself.Then Nana took up with Steiner without disgust but without love.She called him a dirty Jew; she seemed to be paying back an oldgrudge, of which she had no distinct recollection. He was fat; hewas stupid, and she got him down and took two bites at a time inorder the quicker to do for this Prussian. As for him, he hadthrown Simonne over. His Bosphorous scheme was getting shaky, andNana hastened the downfall by wild expenses. For a month hestruggled on, doing miracles of finance. He filled Europe withposters, advertisements and prospectuses of a colossal scheme andobtained money from the most distant climes. All these savings, thepounds of speculators and the pence of the poor, were swallowed upin the Avenue de Villiers. Again he was partner in an ironworks inAlsace, where in a small provincial town workmen, blackened withcoal dust and soaked with sweat, day and night strained their sinewsand heard their bones crack to satisfy Nana's pleasures. Like ahuge fire she devoured all the fruits of stock-exchange swindlingand the profits of labor. This time she did for Steiner; shebrought him to the ground, sucked him dry to the core, left him socleaned out that he was unable to invent a new roguery. When hisbank failed he stammered and trembled at the idea of prosecution.His bankruptcy had just been published, and the simple mention ofmoney flurried him and threw him into a childish embarrassment. Andthis was he who had played with millions. One evening at Nana's hebegan to cry and asked her for a loan of a hundred francs wherewithto pay his maidservant. And Nana, much affected and amused at theend of this terrible old man who had squeezed Paris for twentyyears, brought it to him and said:"I say, I'm giving it you because it seems so funny! But listen tome, my boy, you are too old for me to keep. You must find somethingelse to do."Then Nana started on La Faloise at once. He had for some time beenlonging for the honor of being ruined by her in order to put thefinishing stroke on his smartness. He needed a woman to launch himproperly; it was the one thing still lacking. In two months allParis would be talking of him, and he would see his name in thepapers. Six weeks were enough. His inheritance was in landedestate, houses, fields, woods and farms. He had to sell all, oneafter the other, as quickly as he could. At every mouthful Nanaswallowed an acre. The foliage trembling in the sunshine, the widefields of ripe grain, the vineyards so golden in September, the tallgrass in which the cows stood knee-deep, all passed through herhands as if engulfed by an abyss. Even fishing rights, a stonequarry and three mills disappeared. Nana passed over them like aninvading army or one of those swarms of locusts whose flight scoursa whole province. The ground was burned up where her little foothad rested. Farm by farm, field by field, she ate up the man'spatrimony very prettily and quite inattentively, just as she wouldhave eaten a box of sweet-meats flung into her lap betweenmealtimes. There was no harm in it all; they were only sweets! Butat last one evening there only remained a single little wood. Sheswallowed it up disdainfully, as it was hardly worth the troubleopening one's mouth for. La Faloise laughed idiotically and suckedthe top of his stick. His debts were crushing him; he was not wortha hundred francs a year, and he saw that he would be compelled to goback into the country and live with his maniacal uncle. But thatdid not matter; he had achieved smartness; the Figaro had printedhis name twice. And with his meager neck sticking up between theturndown points of his collar and his figure squeezed into all tooshort a coat, he would swagger about, uttering his parrotlikeexclamations and affecting a solemn listlessness suggestive of anemotionless marionette. He so annoyed Nana that she ended bybeating him.Meanwhile Fauchery had returned, his cousin having brought him.Poor Fauchery had now set up housekeeping. After having thrown overthe countess he had fallen into Rose's hands, and she treated him asa lawful wife would have done. Mignon was simply Madame's major-domo. Installed as master of the house, the journalist lied to Roseand took all sorts of precautions when he deceived her. He was asscrupulous as a good husband, for he really wanted to settle down atlast. Nana's triumph consisted in possessing and in ruining anewspaper that he had started with a friend's capital. She did notproclaim her triumph; on the contrary, she delighted in treating himas a man who had to be circumspect, and when she spoke of Rose itwas as "poor Rose." The newspaper kept her in flowers for twomonths. She took all the provincial subscriptions; in fact, shetook everything, from the column of news and gossip down to thedramatic notes. Then the editorial staff having been turned topsy-turvy and the management completely disorganized, she satisfied afanciful caprice and had a winter garden constructed in a corner ofher house: that carried off all the type. But then it was no jokeafter all! When in his delight at the whole business Mignon came tosee if he could not saddle Fauchery on her altogether, she asked himif he took her for a fool. A penniless fellow living by hisarticles and his plays--not if she knew it! That sort offoolishness might be all very well for a clever woman like her poor,dear Rose! She grew distrustful: she feared some treachery onMignon's part, for he was quite capable of preaching to his wife,and so she gave Fauchery his conge as he now only paid her in fame.But she always recollected him kindly. They had both enjoyedthemselves so much at the expense of that fool of a La Faloise!They would never have thought of seeing each other again if thedelight of fooling such a perfect idiot had not egged them on! Itseemed an awfully good joke to kiss each other under his very nose.They cut a regular dash with his coin; they would send him off fullspeed to the other end of Paris in order to be alone and then whenhe came back, they would crack jokes and make allusions he could notunderstand. One day, urged by the journalist, she bet that shewould smack his face, and that she did the very same evening andwent on to harder blows, for she thought it a good joke and was gladof the opportunity of showing how cowardly men were. She called himher "slapjack" and would tell him to come and have his smack! Thesmacks made her hands red, for as yet she was not up to the trick.La Faloise laughed in his idiotic, languid way, though his eyes werefull of tears. He was delighted at such familiarity; he thought itsimply stunning.One night when he had received sundry cuffs and was greatly excited:"Now, d'you know," he said, "you ought to marry me. We should be asjolly as grigs together, eh?"This was no empty suggestion. Seized with a desire to astonishParis, he had been slyly projecting this marriage. "Nana's husband!Wouldn't that sound smart, eh?" Rather a stunning apotheosis that!But Nana gave him a fine snubbing."Me marry you! Lovely! If such an idea had been tormenting me Ishould have found a husband a long time ago! And he'd have been aman worth twenty of you, my pippin! I've had a heap of proposals.Why, look here, just reckon 'em up with me: Philippe, Georges,Foucarmont, Steiner--that makes four, without counting the othersyou don't know. It's a chorus they all sing. I can't be nice, butthey forthwith begin yelling, 'Will you marry me? Will you marryme?'"She lashed herself up and then burst out in fine indignation:"Oh dear, no! I don't want to! D'you think I'm built that way?Just look at me a bit! Why, I shouldn't be Nana any longer if Ifastened a man on behind! And, besides, it's too foul!"And she spat and hiccuped with disgust, as though she had seen allthe dirt in the world spread out beneath her.One evening La Faloise vanished, and a week later it became knownthat he was in the country with an uncle whose mania was botany. Hewas pasting his specimens for him and stood a chance of marrying avery plain, pious cousin. Nana shed no tears for him. She simplysaid to the count:"Eh, little rough, another rival less! You're chortling today. Buthe was becoming serious! He wanted to marry me."He waxed pale, and she flung her arms round his neck and hung there,laughing, while she emphasized every little cruel speech with acaress."You can't marry Nana! Isn't that what's fetching you, eh? Whenthey're all bothering me with their marriages you're raging in yourcorner. It isn't possible; you must wait till your wife kicks thebucket. Oh, if she were only to do that, how you'd come rushinground! How you'd fling yourself on the ground and make your offerwith all the grand accompaniments--sighs and tears and vows!Wouldn't it be nice, darling, eh?"Her voice had become soft, and she was chaffing him in a ferociouslywheedling manner. He was deeply moved and began blushing as he paidher back her kisses. Then she cried:"By God, to think I should have guessed! He's thought about it;he's waiting for his wife to go off the hooks! Well, well, that'sthe finishing touch! Why, he's even a bigger rascal than theothers!"Muffat had resigned himself to "the others." Nowadays he wastrusting to the last relics of his personal dignity in order toremain "Monsieur" among the servants and intimates of the house, theman, in fact, who because he gave most was the official lover. Andhis passion grew fiercer. He kept his position because he paid forit, buying even smiles at a high price. He was even robbed and henever got his money's worth, but a disease seemed to be gnawing hisvitals from which he could not prevent himself suffering. Wheneverhe entered Nana's bedroom he was simply content to open the windowsfor a second or two in order to get rid of the odors the others leftbehind them, the essential smells of fair-haired men and dark, thesmoke of cigars, of which the pungency choked him. This bedroom wasbecoming a veritable thoroughfare, so continually were boots wipedon its threshold. Yet never a man among them was stopped by thebloodstain barring the door. Zoe was still preoccupied by thisstain; it was a simple mania with her, for she was a clean girl, andit horrified her to see it always there. Despite everything hereyes would wander in its direction, and she now never enteredMadame's room without remarking:"It's strange that don't go. All the same, plenty of folk come inthis way."Nana kept receiving the best news from Georges, who was by that timealready convalescent in his mother's keeping at Les Fondettes, andshe used always to make the same reply."Oh, hang it, time's all that's wanted. It's apt to grow paler asfeet cross it."As a matter of fact, each of the gentlemen, whether Foucarmont,Steiner, La Faloise or Fauchery, had borne away some of it on theirbootsoles. And Muffat, whom the bloodstain preoccupied as much asit did Zoe, kept studying it in his own despite, as though in itsgradual rosy disappearance he would read the number of men thatpassed. He secretly dreaded it and always stepped over it out of avivid fear of crushing some live thing, some naked limb lying on thefloor.But in the bedroom within he would grow dizzy and intoxicated andwould forget everything--the mob of men which constantly crossed it,the sign of mourning which barred its door. Outside, in the openair of the street, he would weep occasionally out of sheer shame anddisgust and would vow never to enter the room again. And the momentthe portiere had closed behind him he was under the old influenceonce more and felt his whole being melting in the damp warm air ofthe place, felt his flesh penetrated by a perfume, felt himselfoverborne by a voluptuous yearning for self-annihilation. Pious andhabituated to ecstatic experiences in sumptuous chapels, he therere-encountered precisely the same mystical sensations as when heknelt under some painted window and gave way to the intoxication oforgan music and incense. Woman swayed him as jealously anddespotically as the God of wrath, terrifying him, granting himmoments of delight, which were like spasms in their keenness, inreturn for hours filled with frightful, tormenting visions of helland eternal tortures. In Nana's presence, as in church, the samestammering accents were his, the same prayers and the same fits ofdespair--nay, the same paroxysms of humility peculiar to an accursedcreature who is crushed down in the mire from whence he has sprung.His fleshly desires, his spiritual needs, were confounded togetherand seemed to spring from the obscure depths of his being and tobear but one blossom on the tree of his existence. He abandonedhimself to the power of love and of faith, those twin levers whichmove the world. And despite all the struggles of his reason thisbedroom of Nana's always filled him with madness, and he would sinkshuddering under the almighty dominion of sex, just as he wouldswoon before the vast unknown of heaven.Then when she felt how humble he was Nana grew tyrannouslytriumphant. The rage for debasing things was inborn in her. It didnot suffice her to destroy them; she must soil them too. Herdelicate hands left abominable traces and themselves decomposedwhatever they had broken. And he in his imbecile condition lenthimself to this sort of sport, for he was possessed by vaguelyremembered stories of saints who were devoured by vermin and in turndevoured their own excrements. When once she had him fast in herroom and the doors were shut, she treated herself to a man's infamy.At first they joked together, and she would deal him light blows andimpose quaint tasks on him, making him lisp like a child and repeattags of sentences."Say as I do: 'tonfound it! Ickle man damn vell don't tare aboutit!"He would prove so docile as to reproduce her very accent."'Tonfound it! Ickle man damn vell don't tare about it!"Or again she would play bear, walking on all fours on her rugs whenshe had only her chemise on and turning round with a growl as thoughshe wanted to eat him. She would even nibble his calves for the funof the thing. Then, getting up again:"It's your turn now; try it a bit. I bet you don't play bear likeme."It was still charming enough. As bear she amused him with her whiteskin and her fell of ruddy hair. He used to laugh and go down onall fours, too, and growl and bite her calves, while she ran fromhim with an affectation of terror."Are we beasts, eh?" she would end by saying. "You've no notion howugly you are, my pet! Just think if they were to see you like thatat the Tuileries!"But ere long these little games were spoiled. It was not cruelty inher case, for she was still a good-natured girl; it was as though apassing wind of madness were blowing ever more strongly in the shut-up bedroom. A storm of lust disordered their brains, plunged theminto the delirious imaginations of the flesh. The old pious terrorsof their sleepless nights were now transforming themselves into athirst for bestiality, a furious longing to walk on all fours, togrowl and to bite. One day when he was playing bear she pushed himso roughly that he fell against a piece of furniture, and when shesaw the lump on his forehead she burst into involuntary laughter.After that her experiments on La Faloise having whetted herappetite, she treated him like an animal, threshing him and chasinghim to an accompaniment of kicks."Gee up! Gee up! You're a horse. Hoi! Gee up! Won't you hurryup, you dirty screw?"At other times he was a dog. She would throw her scentedhandkerchief to the far end of the room, and he had to run and pickit up with his teeth, dragging himself along on hands and knees."Fetch it, Caesar! Look here, I'll give you what for if you don'tlook sharp! Well done, Caesar! Good dog! Nice old fellow! Nowbehave pretty!"And he loved his abasement and delighted in being a brute beast. Helonged to sink still further and would cry:"Hit harder. On, on! I'm wild! Hit away!"She was seized with a whim and insisted on his coming to her onenight clad in his magnificent chamberlain's costume. Then how shedid laugh and make fun of him when she had him there in all hisglory, with the sword and the cocked hat and the white breeches andthe full-bottomed coat of red cloth laced with gold and the symbolickey hanging on its left-hand skirt. This key made her especiallymerry and urged her to a wildly fanciful and extremely filthydiscussion of it. Laughing without cease and carried away by herirreverence for pomp and by the joy of debasing him in the officialdignity of his costume, she shook him, pinched him, shouted, "Oh,get along with ye, Chamberlain!" and ended by an accompaniment ofswinging kicks behind. Oh, those kicks! How heartily she rainedthem on the Tuileries and the majesty of the imperial court,throning on high above an abject and trembling people. That's whatshe thought of society! That was her revenge! It was an affair ofunconscious hereditary spite; it had come to her in her blood. Thenwhen once the chamberlain was undressed and his coat lay spread onthe ground she shrieked, "Jump!" And he jumped. She shrieked,"Spit!" And he spat. With a shriek she bade him walk on the gold,on the eagles, on the decorations, and he walked on them. Hi tiddlyhi ti! Nothing was left; everything was going to pieces. Shesmashed a chamberlain just as she smashed a flask or a comfit box,and she made filth of him, reduced him to a heap of mud at a streetcorner.Meanwhile the goldsmiths had failed to keep their promise, and thebed was not delivered till one day about the middle of January.Muffat was just then in Normandy, whither he had gone to sell a laststray shred of property, but Nana demanded four thousand francsforthwith. He was not due in Paris till the day after tomorrow, butwhen his business was once finished he hastened his return andwithout even paying a flying visit in the Rue Miromesnil came directto the Avenue de Villiers. Ten o'clock was striking. As he had akey of a little door opening on the Rue Cardinet, he went upunhindered. In the drawing room upstairs Zoe, who was polishing thebronzes, stood dumfounded at sight of him, and not knowing how tostop him, she began with much circumlocution, informing him that M.Venot, looking utterly beside himself, had been searching for himsince yesterday and that he had already come twice to beg her tosend Monsieur to his house if Monsieur arrived at Madame's beforegoing home. Muffat listened to her without in the leastunderstanding the meaning of her recital; then he noticed heragitation and was seized by a sudden fit of jealousy of which he nolonger believed himself capable. He threw himself against thebedroom door, for he heard the sound of laughter within. The doorgave; its two flaps flew asunder, while Zoe withdrew, shrugging hershoulders. So much the worse for Madame! As Madame was biddinggood-by to her wits, she might arrange matters for herself.And on the threshold Muffat uttered a cry at the sight that waspresented to his view."My God! My God!"The renovated bedroom was resplendent in all its royal luxury.Silver buttons gleamed like bright stars on the tea-rose velvet ofthe hangings. These last were of that pink flesh tint which theskies assume on fine evenings, when Venus lights her fires on thehorizon against the clear background of fading daylight. The goldencords and tassels hanging in corners and the gold lace-worksurrounding the panels were like little flames of ruddy strands ofloosened hair, and they half covered the wide nakedness of the roomwhile they emphasized its pale, voluptuous tone. Then over againsthim there was the gold and silver bed, which shone in all the freshsplendor of its chiseled workmanship, a throne this of sufficientextent for Nana to display the outstretched glory of her nakedlimbs, an altar of Byzantine sumptuousness, worthy of the almightypuissance of Nana's sex, which at this very hour lay nudelydisplayed there in the religious immodesty befitting an idol of allmen's worship. And close by, beneath the snowy reflections of herbosom and amid the triumph of the goddess, lay wallowing a shameful,decrepit thing, a comic and lamentable ruin, the Marquis de Chouardin his nightshirt.The count had clasped his hands together and, shaken by a paroxysmalshuddering, he kept crying:"My God! My God!"It was for the Marquis de Chouard, then, that the golden rosesflourished on the side panels, those bunches of golden rosesblooming among the golden leaves; it was for him that the Cupidsleaned forth with amorous, roguish laughter from their tumbling ringon the silver trelliswork. And it was for him that the faun at hisfeet discovered the nymph sleeping, tired with dalliance, the figureof Night copied down to the exaggerated thighs--which caused her tobe recognizable of all--from Nana's renowned nudity. Cast therelike the rag of something human which has been spoiled and dissolvedby sixty years of debauchery, he suggested the charnelhouse amid theglory of the woman's dazzling contours. Seeing the door open, hehad risen up, smitten with sudden terror as became an infirm oldman. This last night of passion had rendered him imbecile; he wasentering on his second childhood; and, his speech failing him, heremained in an attitude of flight, half-paralyzed, stammering,shivering, his nightshirt half up his skeleton shape, and one legoutside the clothes, a livid leg, covered with gray hair. Despiteher vexation Nana could not keep from laughing."Do lie down! Stuff yourself into the bed," she said, pulling himback and burying him under the coverlet, as though he were somefilthy thing she could not show anyone.Then she sprang up to shut the door again. She was decidedly neverlucky with her little rough. He was always coming when leastwanted. And why had he gone to fetch money in Normandy? The oldman had brought her the four thousand francs, and she had let himhave his will of her. She pushed back the two flaps of the door andshouted:"So much the worse for you! It's your fault. Is that the way tocome into a room? I've had enough of this sort of thing. Ta ta!"Muffat remained standing before the closed door, thunderstruck bywhat he had just seen. His shuddering fit increased. It mountedfrom his feet to his heart and brain. Then like a tree shaken by amighty wind, he swayed to and fro and dropped on his knees, all hismuscles giving way under him. And with hands despairinglyoutstretched he stammered:"This is more than I can bear, my God! More than I can bear!"He had accepted every situation but he could do so no longer. Hehad come to the end of his strength and was plunged in the dark voidwhere man and his reason are together overthrown. In an extravagantaccess of faith he raised his hands ever higher and higher,searching for heaven, calling on God."Oh no, I do not desire it! Oh, come to me, my God! Succor me;nay, let me die sooner! Oh no, not that man, my God! It is over;take me, carry me away, that I may not see, that I may not feel anylonger! Oh, I belong to you, my God! Our Father which art inheaven--"And burning with faith, he continued his supplication, and an ardentprayer escaped from his lips. But someone touched him on theshoulder. He lifted his eyes; it was M. Venot. He was surprised tofind him praying before that closed door. Then as though GodHimself had responded to his appeal, the count flung his arms roundthe little old gentleman's neck. At last he could weep, and heburst out sobbing and repeated:"My brother, my brother."All his suffering humanity found comfort in that cry. He drenchedM. Venot's face with tears; he kissed him, uttering fragmentaryejaculations."Oh, my brother, how I am suffering! You only are left me, mybrother. Take me away forever--oh, for mercy's sake, take me away!"Then M. Venot pressed him to his bosom and called him "brother"also. But he had a fresh blow in store for him. Since yesterday hehad been searching for him in order to inform him that the CountessSabine, in a supreme fit of moral aberration, had but now takenflight with the manager of one of the departments in a large, fancyemporium. It was a fearful scandal, and all Paris was alreadytalking about it. Seeing him under the influence of such religiousexaltation, Venot felt the opportunity to be favorable and at oncetold him of the meanly tragic shipwreck of his house. The count wasnot touched thereby. His wife had gone? That meant nothing to him;they would see what would happen later on. And again he was seizedwith anguish, and gazing with a look of terror at the door, thewalls, the ceiling, he continued pouring forth his singlesupplication:"Take me away! I cannot bear it any longer! Take me away!"M. Venot took him away as though he had been a child. From that dayforth Muffat belonged to him entirely; he again became strictlyattentive to the duties of religion; his life was utterly blasted.He had resigned his position as chamberlain out of respect for theoutraged modesty of the Tuileries, and soon Estelle, his daughter,brought an action against him for the recovery of a sum of sixtythousand francs, a legacy left her by an aunt to which she ought tohave succeeded at the time of her marriage. Ruined and livingnarrowly on the remains of his great fortune, he let himself begradually devoured by the countess, who ate up the husks Nana hadrejected. Sabine was indeed ruined by the example of promiscuityset her by her husband's intercourse with the wanton. She was proneto every excess and proved the ultimate ruin and destruction of hisvery hearth. After sundry adventures she had returned home, and hehad taken her back in a spirit of Christian resignation andforgiveness. She haunted him as his living disgrace, but he grewmore and more indifferent and at last ceased suffering from thesedistresses. Heaven took him out of his wife's hands in order torestore him to the arms of God, and so the voluptuous pleasures hehad enjoyed with Nana were prolonged in religious ecstasies,accompanied by the old stammering utterances, the old prayers anddespairs, the old fits of humility which befit an accursed creaturewho is crushed beneath the mire whence he sprang. In the recessesof churches, his knees chilled by the pavement, he would once moreexperience the delights of the past, and his muscles would twitch,and his brain would whirl deliciously, and the satisfaction of theobscure necessities of his existence would be the same as of old.On the evening of the final rupture Mignon presented himself at thehouse in the Avenue de Villiers. He was growing accustomed toFauchery and was beginning at last to find the presence of hiswife's husband infinitely advantageous to him. He would leave allthe little household cares to the journalist and would trust him inthe active superintendence of all their affairs. Nay, he devotedthe money gained by his dramatic successes to the daily expenditureof the family, and as, on his part, Fauchery behaved sensibly,avoiding ridiculous jealousy and proving not less pliant than Mignonhimself whenever Rose found her opportunity, the mutualunderstanding between the two men constantly improved. In fact,they were happy in a partnership which was so fertile in all kindsof amenities, and they settled down side by side and adopted afamily arrangement which no longer proved a stumbling block. Thewhole thing was conducted according to rule; it suited admirably,and each man vied with the other in his efforts for the commonhappiness. That very evening Mignon had come by Fauchery's adviceto see if he could not steal Nana's lady's maid from her, thejournalist having formed a high opinion of the woman's extraordinaryintelligence. Rose was in despair; for a month past she had beenfalling into the hands of inexperienced girls who were causing hercontinual embarrassment. When Zoe received him at the door heforthwith pushed her into the dining room. But at his openingsentence she smiled. The thing was impossible, she said, for shewas leaving Madame and establishing herself on her own account. Andshe added with an expression of discreet vanity that she was dailyreceiving offers, that the ladies were fighting for her and that MmeBlanche would give a pile of gold to have her back.Zoe was taking the Tricon's establishment. It was an old projectand had been long brooded over. It was her ambition to make herfortune thereby, and she was investing all her savings in it. Shewas full of great ideas and meditated increasing the business andhiring a house and combining all the delights within its walls. Itwas with this in view that she had tried to entice Satin, a littlepig at that moment dying in hospital, so terribly had she done forherself.Mignon still insisted with his offer and spoke of the risks run inthe commercial life, but Zoe, without entering into explanationsabout the exact nature of her establishment, smiled a pinched smile,as though she had just put a sweetmeat in her mouth, and was contentto remark:"Oh, luxuries always pay. You see, I've been with others quite longenough, and now I want others to be with me."And a fierce look set her lip curling. At last she would be"Madame," and for the sake of earning a few louis all those womenwhose slops she had emptied during the last fifteen years wouldprostrate themselves before her.Mignon wished to be announced, and Zoe left him for a moment afterremarking that Madame had passed a miserable day. He had only beenat the house once before, and he did not know it at all. The diningroom with its Gobelin tapestry, its sideboard and its plate filledhim with astonishment. He opened the doors familiarly and visitedthe drawing room and the winter garden, returning thence into thehall. This overwhelming luxury, this gilded furniture, these silksand velvets, gradually filled him with such a feeling of admirationthat it set his heart beating. When Zoe came down to fetch him sheoffered to show him the other rooms, the dressing room, that is tosay, and the bedroom. In the latter Mignon's feelings overcame him;he was carried away by them; they filled him with tender enthusiasm.That damned Nana was simply stupefying him, and yet he thought heknew a thing or two. Amid the downfall of the house and theservants' wild, wasteful race to destruction, massed-up riches stillfilled every gaping hole and overtopped every ruined wall. AndMignon, as he viewed this lordly monument of wealth, began recallingto mind the various great works he had seen. Near Marseilles theyhad shown him an aqueduct, the stone arches of which bestrode anabyss, a Cyclopean work which cost millions of money and ten yearsof intense labor. At Cherbourg he had seen the new harbor with itsenormous works, where hundreds of men sweated in the sun whilecranes filled the sea with huge squares of rock and built up a wallwhere a workman now and again remained crushed into bloody pulp.But all that now struck him as insignificant. Nana excited him farmore. Viewing the fruit of her labors, he once more experienced thefeelings of respect that had overcome him one festal evening in asugar refiner's chateau. This chateau had been erected for therefiner, and its palatial proportions and royal splendor had beenpaid for by a single material--sugar. It was with something quitedifferent, with a little laughable folly, a little delicate nudity--it was with this shameful trifle, which is so powerful as to movethe universe, that she alone, without workmen, without theinventions of engineers, had shaken Paris to its foundations and hadbuilt up a fortune on the bodies of dead men."Oh, by God, what an implement!"Mignon let the words escape him in his ecstasy, for he felt a returnof personal gratitude.Nana had gradually lapsed into a most mournful condition. To beginwith, the meeting of the marquis and the count had given her asevere fit of feverish nervousness, which verged at times onlaughter. Then the thought of this old man going away half dead ina cab and of her poor rough, whom she would never set eyes on againnow that she had driven him so wild, brought on what looked like thebeginnings of melancholia. After that she grew vexed to hear aboutSatin's illness. The girl had disappeared about a fortnight ago andwas now ready to die at Lariboisiere, to such a damnable state hadMme Robert reduced her. When she ordered the horses to be put to inorder that she might have a last sight of this vile little wretchZoe had just quietly given her a week's notice. The announcementdrove her to desperation at once! It seemed to her she was losing amember of her own family. Great heavens! What was to become of herwhen left alone? And she besought Zoe to stay, and the latter, muchflattered by Madame's despair, ended by kissing her to show that shewas not going away in anger. No, she had positively to go: theheart could have no voice in matters of business.But that day was one of annoyances. Nana was thoroughly disgustedand gave up the idea of going out. She was dragging herself wearilyabout the little drawing room when Labordette came up to tell her ofa splendid chance of buying magnificent lace and in the course ofhis remarks casually let slip the information that Georges was dead.The announcement froze her."Zizi dead!" she cried.And involuntarily her eyes sought the pink stain on the carpet, butit had vanished at last; passing footsteps had worn it away.Meanwhile Labordette entered into particulars. It was not exactlyknown how he died. Some spoke of a wound reopening, others ofsuicide. The lad had plunged, they said, into a tank at LesFondettes. Nana kept repeating:"Dead! Dead!"She had been choking with grief since morning, and now she burst outsobbing and thus sought relief. Hers was an infinite sorrow: itoverwhelmed her with its depth and immensity. Labordette wanted tocomfort her as touching Georges, but she silenced him with a gestureand blurted out:"It isn't only he; it's everything, everything. I'm very wretched.Oh yes, I know! They'll again be saying I'm a hussy. To think ofthe mother mourning down there and of the poor man who was groaningin front of my door this morning and of all the other people thatare now ruined after running through all they had with me! That'sit; punish Nana; punish the beastly thing! Oh, I've got a broadback! I can hear them as if I were actually there! 'That dirtywench who lies with everybody and cleans out some and drives othersto death and causes a whole heap of people pain!'"She was obliged to pause, for tears choked her utterance, and in heranguish she flung herself athwart a divan and buried her face in acushion. The miseries she felt to be around her, miseries of whichshe was the cause, overwhelmed her with a warm, continuous stream ofself-pitying tears, and her voice failed as she uttered a littlegirl's broken plaint:"Oh, I'm wretched! Oh, I'm wretched! I can't go on like this: it'schoking me. It's too hard to be misunderstood and to see them allsiding against you because they're stronger. However, when you'vegot nothing to reproach yourself with and your conscious is clear,why, then I say, 'I won't have it! I won't have it!'"In her anger she began rebeling against circumstances, and gettingup, she dried her eyes, and walked about in much agitation."I won't have it! They can say what they like, but it's not myfault! Am I a bad lot, eh? I give away all I've got; I wouldn'tcrush a fly! It's they who are bad! Yes, it's they! I neverwanted to be horrid to them. And they came dangling after me, andtoday they're kicking the bucket and begging and going to ruin onpurpose."Then she paused in front of Labordette and tapped his shoulders."Look here," she said, "you were there all along; now speak thetruth: did I urge them on? Weren't there always a dozen of 'emsquabbling who could invent the dirtiest trick? They used todisgust me, they did! I did all I knew not to copy them: I wasafraid to. Look here, I'll give you a single instance: they allwanted to marry me! A pretty notion, eh? Yes, dear boy, I couldhave been countess or baroness a dozen times over and more, if I'dconsented. Well now, I refused because I was reasonable. Oh yes, Isaved 'em some crimes and other foul acts! They'd have stolen,murdered, killed father and mother. I had only to say one word, andI didn't say it. You see what I've got for it today. There'sDaguenet, for instance; I married that chap off! I made a positionfor the beggarly fellow after keeping him gratis for weeks! And Imet him yesterday, and he looks the other way! Oh, get along, youswine! I'm less dirty than you!"She had begun pacing about again, and now she brought her fistviolently down on a round table."By God it isn't fair! Society's all wrong. They come down on thewomen when it's the men who want you to do things. Yes, I can tellyou this now: when I used to go with them--see? I didn't enjoy it;no, I didn't enjoy it one bit. It bored me, on my honor. Wellthen, I ask you whether I've got anything to do with it! Yes, theybored me to death! If it hadn't been for them and what they made ofme, dear boy, I should be in a convent saying my prayers to the goodGod, for I've always had my share of religion. Dash it, after all,if they have dropped their money and their lives over it, what do Icare? It's their fault. I've had nothing to do with it!""Certainly not," said Labordette with conviction.Zoe ushered in Mignon, and Nana received him smilingly. She hadcried a good deal, but it was all over now. Still glowing withenthusiasm, he complimented her on her installation, but she let himsee that she had had enough of her mansion and that now she hadother projects and would sell everything up one of these days. Thenas he excused himself for calling on the ground that he had comeabout a benefit performance in aid of old Bose, who was tied to hisarmchair by paralysis, she expressed extreme pity and took twoboxes. Meanwhile Zoe announced that the carriage was waiting forMadame, and she asked for her hat and as she tied the strings toldthem about poor, dear Satin's mishap, adding:"I'm going to the hospital. Nobody ever loved me as she did. Oh,they're quite right when they accuse the men of heartlessness! Whoknows? Perhaps I shan't see her alive. Never mind, I shall ask tosee her: I want to give her a kiss."Labordette and Mignon smiled, and as Nana was no longer melancholyshe smiled too. Those two fellows didn't count; they could enterinto her feelings. And they both stood and admired her in silentabstraction while she finished buttoning her gloves. She alone kepther feet amid the heaped-up riches of her mansion, while a wholegeneration of men lay stricken down before her. Like those antiquemonsters whose redoubtable domains were covered with skeletons, sherested her feet on human skulls. She was ringed round withcatastrophes. There was the furious immolation of Vandeuvres; themelancholy state of Foucarmont, who was lost in the China seas; thesmashup of Steiner, who now had to live like an honest man; thesatisfied idiocy of La Faloise, and the tragic shipwreck of theMuffats. Finally there was the white corpse of Georges, over whichPhilippe was now watching, for he had come out of prison butyesterday. She had finished her labor of ruin and death. The flythat had flown up from the ordure of the slums, bringing with it theleaven of social rottenness, had poisoned all these men by merelyalighting on them. It was well done--it was just. She had avengedthe beggars and the wastrels from whose caste she issued. Andwhile, metaphorically speaking, her sex rose in a halo of glory andbeamed over prostrate victims like a mounting sun shining brightlyover a field of carnage, the actual woman remained as unconscious asa splendid animal, and in her ignorance of her mission was the good-natured courtesan to the last. She was still big; she was stillplump; her health was excellent, her spirits capital. But this wentfor nothing now, for her house struck her as ridiculous. It was toosmall; it was full of furniture which got in her way. It was awretched business, and the long and the short of the matter was shewould have to make a fresh start. In fact, she was meditatingsomething much better, and so she went off to kiss Satin for thelast time. She was in all her finery and looked clean and solid andas brand new as if she had never seen service before.