It was not till the Tuesday that Nana felt quite recovered from the emotions of her victory. She was talking that morning with Madame Lerat, come to give her news of little Louis, who had been unwell ever since his outing. She was highly interested in an event which at that moment was occupying Paris. Vandeuvres, warned off all the race-courses, his name withdrawn the same night from the list of members of the Cercle Imperial, had on the morrow set fire to his stable, and had been burned with his horses.
“He told me he would,” the young woman was saying. “Ah! the young fellow was a regular madman. It gave me such a fright last night when I heard of it! You see he might very well have murdered me one night; and, besides, oughtn’t he to have told me about his horse? I should, at least, have made my fortune! He said to Labordette that if I was let into the secret I would at once tell my hairdresser, and a host of other men. How very polite! Ah, no! really, I can’t regret him much.”
After thinking the matter over, she had become furious. At that moment Labordette entered the room. He had been collecting her winnings for her, and brought her about forty thousand francs. That only added to her ill-humour, for she ought to have won a million. Labordette, who pretended to be very innocent in the matter, boldly forsook Vandeuvres altogether. Those ancient families were all done for; they always came to grief in a ridiculous manner.
“Oh, no!” said Nana; “it is not ridiculous to set oneself afire like that in a stable. I think he ended grandly. Oh! you know, I’m not defending his affair with Mérachal. Now, that was ridiculous. When I think that Blanche had the idiocy to pretend that I was the cause of it all! I said to her, ‘Did I tell him to steal?’ I suppose one may ask a man for money without driving him to commit a crime. If he had said to me, ‘I’ve nothing more,’ I should have rejoined, ‘Very well, we’d better part.’ And that would have been the end of it.”
“No doubt,” observed the aunt gravely. “When men become obstinate, it is so much the worse for them!”
“But as for the closing scene—oh! it was indeed grand!” resumed Nana. “It seems that it was terrible; the thought of it makes my flesh creep. He got everybody out of the way, and shut himself inside, with some petroleum. And it blazed away—ah! it must have been a sight! Just fancy, a big place like that nearly all of wood, and full of hay and straw! The flames, they say, rose nearly as high as steeples. The best part was the horses, who didn’t want to be roasted. They were heard kicking and flinging themselves against the doors, and uttering cries like human beings. Some of the people there nearly died from fright.”
Labordette gave a low whistle of incredulity. He did not believe in Vandeuvres’s death. One person swore that he had seen him get out through a window. He had set fire to his stable in a fit of madness, only as soon as it began to get warm, it probably brought him to his senses again. A man who behaved so stupidly with women, so empty-headed, was not capable of dying in such a grand style.
Nana’s illusions were dispelled as she listened to him; and she merely made this remark,
“Oh! the wretch! it was such a grand ending!”
CHAPTER XII
It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, and Nana and the count, in the big bed hung with Venetian lace, were not yet asleep. He had returned that evening, after sulking for three days. The room, which was only feebly lighted by a lamp, was wrapped in silence, and felt warm and moist with an odor of love; whilst the white lacquer furniture, inlaid with silver, was only vaguely visible. A drawn curtain half hid the bed in a flood of shadow. There was a sigh, and then the sound of a kiss broke the silence; and Nana, gliding from under the clothes, remained seated for an instance on the edge of the bed, with her legs bare. The count, his head fallen back on the pillow, continued in the shadow.
“Darling, do you believe in God?” she asked, after a moment of reflection, with a grave look on her face, and filled with a religious terror on leaving her lover’s arms.
Ever since the morning she had complained of an uneasiness, and all her stupid ideas, as she called them, ideas of death and hell, had been secretly tormenting her. On some nights, childish frights and the most horrible fancies seized upon her, with her eyes open. She resumed,
“Do you think I shall go to heaven?”
And she shivered, whilst the count, surprised at these singular questions at such a time, felt all his religious remorse awakened within him. But, with her night-dress slipped from her shoulders, her hair hanging loose about her, she fell upon his chest, sobbing and clinging to him.
“I’m afraid to die—I’m afraid to die.”
He had all the difficulty in the world to get free from her. He himself was afraid of succumbing to the attack of madness from which that woman, pressed to his body in the contagious fear of the invisible, was suffering; and he reasoned with her. She was in very good health, all she had to do was to conduct herself well, to merit pardon hereafter. But she shook her head. No doubt she never did harm to anyone; she even always wore a medal of the Virgin, which she showed him hanging to a red ribbon between her breasts; only it was settled beforehand, all women, who, without being married, had anything to do with men, went to hell. Fragments of her catechism were returning to her. Ah! if one only knew for certain; but there, one knew nothing, no one ever returned with news, and, really, it would be stupid to put oneself out if the priests were only talking nonsense. Yet she devoutly kissed her medal, which was all warm from its contact with her body, as a conjuration against death, the thought of which filled her with an icy terror.
Muffat had to go with her into the dressing-room; she trembled at being alone for a minute, even with the door open. When he had got into bed again, she wandered about the room looking into all the corners, and starting at the least sound. As she came to a mirror, she stopped before it as in the old days, lost in the contemplation of her nudity. But the sight only increased her fear. She ended by leisurely feeling the bones of her face with both her hands.
“How ugly one looks when one’s dead!” said she slowly.
And she drew in her cheeks, opened wide her eyes, and dropped her jaw to see how she would look. Then, with her features thus distorted, she turned to the count and said,
“Just look, my head will be so small,”
Then he grew angry. “You are mad; come to bed.”
He could picture her in a grave, with the emaciation of a century; and, joining his hands, he muttered a prayer. For some time past religion had regained possession of him, his attacks of faith, every day, had the violence of apoplectic fits, and left him without the least strength. His fingers snapped, and he continually repeated these words: “My God—my God—my God.” It was the cry of his impotence, the cry of his sin, against which he was powerless to resist, in spite of the certainty of his damnation. When Nana returned to the bed she found him lying under the clothes with a haggard look on his face, his nails digging into his chest, and his eyes gazing upwards as though seeking for heaven. And she burst out crying again; they embraced each other, their teeth chattering without their knowing it, both being oppressed by the same absurd nightmare. They had once before passed a similar night, only this time they were utterly idiotic, as Nana herself declared when she had got over her fright. A suspicion caused her to skilfully question the count; perhaps Rose Mignon had sent the famous letter. But it wasn’t that, it was merely his nerves, nothing more, for he was still without proofs of his cuckoldom.
Two days later, after a fresh disappearance, Muffat called one morning, a time at which he had never come before. He was livid, his eyes were red with weeping, and his whole frame was still shaking from a great internal struggle. But Zoé herself, utterly scared, did not notice his agitation. She ran to meet him, and cried,
“Oh, sir! be quick! Madame very nearly died last night.”
And, as he asked for particulars, she added, “Oh! something incredible, sir! A miscarriage!”
Nana was three months enceinte. For a long time she had thought she was merely unwell;
Dr. Boutarel himself had doubts. Then, when he was able to say for certain, she was so vexed that she did everything she could to hide her condition. It seemed to her a most ridiculous mishap, something which lowered her in her own estimation, and about which everyone would have chaffed her. What a wretched joke! she had no luck, really! It was just her misfortune to be caught when she thought she was quite safe. And she experienced a constant surprise, as though disturbed in her sex. What! one got children even when one did not want them, and had another object in view? Nature exasperated her—that grave maternity which rose in the midst of her pleasures, that new life quickening when she was sowing so many deaths around her. Ought not one to be able to dispose of oneself as one liked without all that fuss? Now, who did the brat spring from? She could not for the soul of her tell. No one had asked for it, it was in everybody’s way, and it would not meet with much happiness in life, that was quite certain!
Zoé gave the story of the catastrophe.
“Madame was seized with colics towards four o’clock. When I went into the dressing-room, not having seen her for some time, I found her lying on the ground in a swoon. Yes, sir, on the ground, in a pool of blood, as though she had been murdered. Then, you know, I understood what had happened. I was furious: madame ought to have told me of her mishap. M. George happened to be here. He helped me to raise her, but when I told him she had had a miscarriage, he became unwell also. Really! I’ve been in an awful stew ever since yesterday! ”
And indeed the house seemed topsy-turvy. All the servants were continually running about the rooms and up and down stairs. George had passed the night on a chair in the drawing-room. It was he who had told the news to madame’s friends who had called in the evening at the time when madame usually received. He was very pale, and he related the story full of astonishment and emotion. Steiner, La Faloise, Philippe, and several others had called. At his first words they uttered exclamations. It could not be! it must be a joke! Then they became very serious. They glanced at the bed-room door, looking very much put out, shaking their heads, no longer thinking it a funny matter. Up to midnight a dozen gentlemen had conversed in undertones in front of the fire-place, all of them friends, and each one wondering if he were the father. They seemed to be apologising to one another, with the confused looks of awkward people. Then they assumed their airs again. It was nothing to do with them; it was her fault entirely. She was a scorcher, that Nana! One would never have expected such a joke from her! And they went off one by one, on tiptoe, the same as in the chamber of death, where one must never laugh.
“But you had better go up all the same, sir,” said Zoé to Muffat. “Madame is much better; she will see you. We are expecting the doctor, who promised to call again this morning.”
The maid had persuaded George to go home to obtain some sleep. Upstairs in the drawing-room there was only Satin, reclining on a sofa, smoking a cigarette, and gazing at the ceiling. Since the accident, in the midst of the distraction of the household, she had displayed a cold rage, shrugging her shoulders, and saying most ferocious things. So as Zoé passed before her, telling Muffat that her mistress’s sufferings had been very great;
“It serves her right; it will be a lesson for her!” she sharply exclaimed.
They turned around in surprise. Satin had not moved. Her eyes were still fixed on the ceiling; her cigarette was held nervously between her lips.
“Well, you haven’t much feeling, you haven’t!” said Zoé.
But Satin, sitting up on the couch, looked furiously at the count, and flung her former words in his face:
“It serves her right; it will be a lesson for her!”
And she laid herself down again, slowly puffing the smoke from her mouth, as though uninterested and determined not to mix herself up in anything. No, it was too absurd!
Zoé ushered the count into the bed-room. A smell of ether hung about in the midst of a lukewarm silence, which the rare vehicles of the Avenue de Villiers scarcely broke with a dull rumbling sound. Nana, looking very white on the pillow, was not asleep; her eyes were wide open and thoughtful. She smiled, without moving, on catching sight of the count.
“Ah, ducky!” murmured she slowly. “I thought I should never see you again.”
Then when he bent forward to kiss her on her hair, she was moved, and spoke to him of the child, in good faith, as though he had been the father.
“I did not dare to tell you. I felt so happy! Oh! I had all sorts of dreams—I wanted it to be worthy of you. And now, it’s all over. Well, perhaps it’s best so. I don’t want to saddle you with any encumbrance.”
He, surprised at that paternity, stammered out a few sentences. He had taken a chair and seated himself beside the bed, one arm lying on the clothes. Then the young woman noticed his agitated countenance, his bloodshot eyes, the feverish trembling of his lips.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked she. “Are you ill also?”
“No,” he answered painfully.
She gave him a penetrating look. Then with a sign she sent off Zoé, who was arranging the bottles of medicine as an excuse for remaining in the room. And when they were alone, she drew him towards her, saying,
“What’s the matter, darling? Your eyes are full of tears, I can see them. Come, speak; you have called to tell me something.”
“No, no! I swear to you,” he stammered.
But, choking with suffering, affected all the more by that sick-room in which he so unexpectedly found himself, he burst into sobs; he buried his face in the sheets, to stifle the explosion of his anguish. Nana understood. Rose had no doubt ended by sending the letter. She let him cry a while; the convulsions that had seized him were so violent, that they shook her in the bed. At length, with an accent of maternal compassion, she asked,
“You have some worry at home?”
He nodded his head. She paused again, then added very low, “So you know all?”
He nodded his head a second time. And silence again reigned, an oppressive silence, in that room of pain. It was the night before, on returning from a party at the Empress’s, that he had received the letter written by Sabine to her lover. After a frightful night, passed in dreaming of vengeance, he had gone out early in the morning, to withstand a temptation to kill his wife. Outside in the open air, struck by the mildness of the beautiful June morning, he had been unable to collect his scattered ideas, and had come to Nana’s as he always came when in trouble. There only he would abandon himself to his misery, with the cowardly joy of being consoled.
“Come, be calm,” resumed the young woman affectionately. “I have known it for a long while; but I would never have opened your eyes. You recollect last year you had suspicions. Then, thanks to my prudence, things got all right again. In short, you had no proofs. Well! to-day, if you have any, it’s certainly hard, as I can understand. Yet you must be reasonable. One’s not dishonoured because of that.”
He no longer wept. Shame had possession of him, though he had for a long time past talked with her about the most intimate details of his married life. She had to encourage him. Come, she was a woman, she could hear everything. But he muttered in a hollow voice,
“You’re ill; I mustn’t tire you! It was stupid of me to come. I am going.”
“But no,” said she, quickly. “Stay, I may be able to give you some good advice. Only, don’t make me talk too much; the doctor has forbidden me to do so.”
He had left his seat, and was walking about the room. Then she questioned him.
“What will you do now?”
“I will thrash the man, of course!”
She pouted disapprovingly. “That’s not a very smart thing to do. And your wife?”
“I shall sue for a separation. I have a proof.”
“My dear fellow, that’s not smart at all; it’s even absurd. You know I’ll never let you do anything of the kind.”
And, sedately, in her feeble voice, she pointed out to him the useless scandal of a duel and a lawsuit. For a week he wo
uld be the chief topic in all the papers. He would be playing with his entire existence, his peace of mind, his high position at court, the honour of his name; and why? to be laughed at.
“What does it matter?” cried he. “I shall be avenged!”
“Ducky,” said she, “when a man doesn’t avenge himself at once in such matters, he doesn’t avenge himself at all.”
The words he was about to utter died away on his lips. He was certainly no coward, but he felt that she was right. An uneasiness increased within him—something like a feeling of impoverishment and shamefulness had unmanned him, in the outburst of his wrath. Besides, she hit him another blow, with a frankness that decided on telling all.
“And would you like to know what it is that bothers you, darling? It is that you yourself deceive your wife. Eh! you don’t stop out all night to say your prayers. Your wife must know the true reason. Then with what can you reproach her? She will say that you gave her the example, and that will shut you up. There, darling! that’s why you’re here stamping about instead of being there murdering them both.”
Muffat had fallen into a chair, overwhelmed by that brutality of language. She remained silent awhile, regaining breath; then she faltered, in a very low voice,