“Ah! that was capital!” exclaimed Nana, who had listened with a tender interest and a sort of obsequious admiration.
“As for me, I have met with many misfortunes,” commenced Madame Lerat. And drawing her chair close to Madame Maloir, she related to her various incidents of her private life. They were both sucking lumps of sugar which they had previously dipped in their coffee. But Madame Maloir listened to the secrets of others without ever letting out a word about herself. It was said that she lived on a mysterious pension, in a room into which she never allowed any one to enter.
All of a sudden Nana flew into a passion. “Aunt!” she cried, “don’t play with the knives. You know that it always upsets me.”
Without thinking of what she was doing, Madame Lerat had crossed two of the knives on the table. All the same the young woman pretended she was not superstitious. For instance, spilling salt never affected her, neither did anything happening on a Friday; but crossed knives was more than she could stand, they had never misled her. For certain, something disagreeable would happen to her. She yawned, and in a tone of vexation, said, “Already two o’lock. I shall have to go out. What a nuisance!” The two old women exchanged a glance. Then all three shook their heads without speaking. True, it was not always amusing to have to go out. Nana was again leaning back in her chair, and smoking another cigarette, whilst the others discreetly kept their lips tight, and put on their most philosophical looks.
“While you are gone, we will have a game at bézique,”t said Madame Maloir, after a short silence. “Does madame know the game?”
Of course Madame Lerat did, and played it better than any one. It was not necessary to disturb Zoé, who had left the room; a corner of the table was all they wanted, so they turned the cloth up over the dirty plates. But, just as Madame Maloir had got the cards out of a drawer of the sideboard, Nana said she would be very good if, before commencing the game, she would write a letter for her. It bothered her to write, and besides, she was not very sure of her spelling, whilst her old friend wrote letters so well. She ran and fetched from her bedroom some beautiful note-paper. A common three souu ink-bottle was lying about, with a rusty old pen. The letter was for Daguenet. Madame Maloir commenced in her beautiful round hand, “My darling little man,” and then she proceeded to tell him not to come on the morrow, because “it could not be,” but “ar or near, every moment in the day, she was thinking of him.”
“And I will end with a thousand kisses,” murmured Madame Maloir.
Madame Lerat had approved each phrase with a nod of her head. Her eyes sparkled: she had a weakness for being mixed up in love affairs. So she could not resist adding something of her own.
“A thousand kisses on your beautiful eyes,” she cooed, with a tender look.
“Yes, that’s it: ‘A thousand kisses on your beautiful eyes!’ ” repeated Nana, whilst a sanctimonious expression overspread the features of the two old women.
They rang for Zoé, for her to give the letter to a commissionnaire. v She was just then talking with a messenger from the theatre who had brought madame a communication from the stage-manager, which should have been sent to her in the morning. Nana had the man in, and asked him to leave the letter at Daguenet’s on his way back. Then she began to question him. Oh! M. Bordenave was very pleased; all the seats were booked for a week at least; madame had no idea of the number of persons who had inquired for her address since the morning. When the messenger had left, Nana said that she would not be away more than half an hour at the most. If any visitors called, Zoé was to ask them to wait. As she spoke, the electric bell of the outer door sounded. It was one of the creditors, the job-master; he had taken a seat on the bench of the anteroom. Oh! he might wait and twirl his thumbs until night-time; they were not going to disturb themselves for him.
“I must pull myself together,” said Nana lazily, again stretching herself and yawning. “I ought to be there by now.”
All the same she did not move. She watched the game, in which her aunt had just scored a hundred aces. Her chin in her hand, she was becoming interested; but she suddenly started on hearing three o’lock strike.
“Damn it!” she roughly exclaimed.
Then Madame Maloir, who was counting the tens, said to her in a gentle, encouraging voice, “My child, you would do better to get your business over at once.”
“Yes, be quick over it,” added Madame Lerat, as she shuffled the cards. “I shall be able to leave by the half-past four train, if you are here with the money by four o’lock.”
“Oh! it won’t take long,” she muttered in reply.
In ten minutes Zoé had helped her to put on a dress and bonnet. She didn’t care if she looked untidy. Just as she was about to go off, there was another ring at the bell. This time it was the coal merchant. Well! he could keep the job-master company; they might entertain each other. To avoid a row, however, she passed through the kitchen, and went out by the servants’ staircase. She often went that way; all she had to do was to keep her skirts from touching the ground.
“When one is a good mother, the rest is of no consequence,” sententiously observed Madame Maloir, now left alone with Madame Lerat.
“I mark eighty kings,” replied the latter, who had a great weakness for cards. And they both became more and more wrapped up in the game.
The table had not been cleared. A mixed odour pervaded the room—the fumes of the lunch and the smoke of the cigarettes. The two ladies returned to their lumps of sugar soaked in coffee. For twenty minutes they played as they sipped, when, the bell having rung a third time, Zoé bounced into the room, and jostled them in a most familiar manner.
“I say!” she exclaimed, “there’s another ring. You won’t be able to remain in here. If many more people are coming, I shall want every room in the place. Now, then, up you get! up you get!”
Madame Maloir wanted to finish the game; but Zoé having made a feint of gathering up the cards, she decided to remove them carefully, without disturbing anything, whilst Madame Lerat secured the brandy bottle, some glasses, and the sugar, and they both hastened into the kitchen, where they placed their things on an end of the table between some dirty cloths that were drying and a large bowl full of greasy water.
“I’m three hundred and forty. It’s your play.”
“I lead hearts.”
When Zoé returned, she found them once more deep in the game. After a short silence, and as Madame Lerat gathered up the cards and shuffled them, Madame Maloir asked:
“Who was it?”
“Oh! no one,” answered the maid, carelessly, “only a youngster. I ought to have sent him about his business; but he is so pretty, without a hair on his face, and with blue eyes and such a girlish figure, that I told him he could wait. He has an enormous bouquet in his hand, and he won’t leave go of it. He deserves to be whipped, a brat who ought still to be at college!”
Madame Lerat got up to fetch hot water to concoct some grog; the sugar and coffee had made her thirsty. Zoé murmured that, all the same, she could manage some as well. Her mouth had a bitter taste like gall.
“Well, and where have you put him?” resumed Madame Maloir.
“Why, in the little spare room that isn’t furnished. It just holds one of madame’s trunks and a table. That’s where I put such youngsters.”
And she was sweetening her grog with several lumps of sugar, when another ring at the bell made her jump. Hang it all! wasn’t she to be allowed to have a drink in peace, now? If what they had already had was only the beginning of it, it promised to be lively. However, she hastened to see who was there. Then, when she returned, seeing Madame Maloir’s questioning look, “Only a bouquet,” she observed.
They all three drank, after nodding to each other. The bell rang again twice, as Zoé, at last, cleared the table, carrying the dirty plates to the sink one by one. But all this ringing was for nothing of any consequence. She kept the occupants of the kitchen well informed. Twice she came and repeated her disdainful p
hrase—“Only a bouquet.”
However, the ladies had a good laugh between two of the deals, as she told them of the looks of the creditors in the anteroom when the flowers were brought. Madame would find her bouquets on her dressing-table. What a pity it was that they cost so much, and that one couldn’t even raise ten sous on them! Well, there was a good deal of money wasted in the world.
“For myself,” said Madame Maloir, “I should be satisfied if I had every day what the men spend on the flowers they give the women in Paris.”
“I daresay, you are not at all hard to please,” murmured Madame Lerat. “If I had only the money spent on the wire alone. My dear, sixty queens.”
It was ten minutes to four. Zoé was surprised—could not understand at all how madame could remain out so long. Generally, when madame found herself obliged to go out in the afternoon, she got it over in less than no time. But Madame Maloir observed that one was not always able to do as one would wish. One certainly met with many obstacles in life, declared Madame Lerat. The best thing to do was to wait. If her niece was late it was because she had been detained, was it not? Besides, they had nothing to complain of. It was very comfortable in the kitchen. And, as she had no more hearts in her hand, Madame Lerat played diamonds. The electric bell was again set in motion. When Zoé reappeared her face was quite radiant.
“Fatty Steiner! girls,” said she in a whisper, as soon as she got her head in at the door. “I put him in the parlour.”
Then Madame Maloir talked of the banker to Madame Lerat, who did not know any of that class of gentlemen. Was he going to chuck up Rose Mignon? Zoé wagged her head; she knew many things. But she was again obliged to go and answer the bell.
“Well! this beats everything!” she murmured on returning. “It’s the blackamoor! It was no use, though I told him again and again that madame was out; he has gone and made himself comfortable in the bedroom. We did not expect him till this evening.”
At a quarter past four Nana was still absent. What could she be doing? It was most absurd of her. Then two more bouquets were brought. Zoé, not knowing what to do with herself, looked to see if there was any more coffee. Yes, the ladies would willingly finish the coffee, it would wake them up again. They were falling asleep, settled in their chairs, and continuously drawing cards from the pack with the same movement of their arms. The half past struck. Something, surely, must have happened to madame, they whispered to each other.
All of a sudden, Madame Maloir, forgetting herself, exclaimed in a loud voice—“Double bezique! Five hundred!”
“Hold your row! will you?” cried Zoé, angrily. “What will all those gentlemen think?”
And in the silence which reigned, with the exception of a slight murmur, caused by the disputes of the two old women, was heard the sound of hastily approaching footsteps on the servants’ staircase. It was Nana at last. Before she opened the door one could hear her panting. She entered looking very red, and very abrupt in manner. Her skirt, the strings of which had probably broken, had dragged over the stairs, and the flounces had soaked in a regular pool—some filth that had flowed from the first floor, where the cook was a perfect slut.
“Here you are at last! well, it’s fortunate!” said Madame Lerat, with a nasty look about her mouth, and still put out by Madame Maloir’s double bezique. “You can flatter yourself that you know how to keep people waiting!”
“Madame is really very foolish!” added Zoé.
Nana, already out of temper, became exasperated by these reproaches. Was that the way to receive her after all the unpleasantness she had gone through?
“Mind your own business, can’t you?” she cried.
“Hush! madame, there are some people here,” said the maid.
So, lowering her voice, the young woman faltered, all out of breath, “Do you think I’ve been amusing myself? I thought I should never have been able to get away. I should have liked to have seen you in my place. I was boiling. I was on the point of using my fists. And then, not a cab to be got to come back in. Fortunately it’s close by. All the same, I ran as fast as I could.”
“Have you the money?” asked the aunt.
“What a question!” replied Nana.
She had seated herself in a chair close to the grate, her legs almost too tired to bear her, and, before she had even recovered her breath, she felt inside the body of her dress and drew forth an envelope, in which were four bank-notes of one hundred francs each. One could see the notes by a large tear she had made in the envelope with her finger so as to make sure of what it contained. The three women around her looked fixedly at the envelope of common paper, all crumpled and dirtied, in her little gloved hands. It was too late; Madame Lerat should not go to Rambouillet till the next day. Nana began to give her various instructions.
“Madame, there are some people waiting,” repeated the maid.
But she again flew into a passion. The people could wait. She would attend to them by-and-by, when she had settled what she was about. Then, as her aunt put out her hand to take the money, “Oh! no, not all,” said she. “Three hundred francs for the nurse, fifty francs for your journey and expenses, that makes three hundred and fifty. I shall keep fifty francs.”
The great difficulty was to get change. There were not ten francs in the place. They did not ask Madame Maloir, who was listening with an uninterested look, for she never had with her more than the six sous necessary for an omnibus. At length Zoé left them, saying that she would go and look in her trunk, and she shortly returned with a hundred francs, all in five franc pieces. They counted them on the corner of the table. Madame Lerat went off at once, promising to fetch little Louis on the morrow.
“You say there are some people waiting?” resumed Nana, still sitting down, resting.
“Yes, madame, three persons.”
And Zoé named the banker first. Nana pouted her lip. Did that Steiner think she was going to stand any of his nonsense, just because he had had a bouquet thrown to her on the previous evening?
“Besides,” she declared, “I’ve had enough for to-day. I shall not receive any one. Go and say that you no longer expect me.”
“Madame will reflect—madame will receive M. Steiner,” murmured Zoé, without stirring, looking very grave and annoyed to find her mistress on the point of behaving very foolishly. Then she spoke of the Wallachian, who must be beginning to find time hang very heavily on his hands all alone in the bedroom. But Nana got into a rage and became more obstinate. No, she would see no one! Why was she ever bothered with a fellow who would stick to her to that extent?
“Kick ’em all out! I’m going to have a game at bezique with Madame Maloir. I like that much better.”
The ringing of the bell interrupted her. This was too much! How many more of them would come to bother her? She forbade Zoé to open the door. The latter, without listening to what she said, left the kitchen. When she returned, she stated in a peremptory tone of voice, as she handed two cards to her mistress: “I told the gentlemen that madame would see them. They are in the drawing-room.”
Nana jumped up from her seat in a regular fury, but the names of the Marquis de Chouard and Count Muffat de Beuville, on the cards, calmed her. She remained an instant wrapped in thought.
“Who are they?” she asked at length. “Do you know them?”
“I know the old one,” replied Zoé, discreetly; and as her mistress continued to question her with her eyes, she quietly added, “I have seen him at a certain place.”
This statement seemed to determine the young woman. She reluctantly left the kitchen, that warm refuge where one could gossip and take one’s ease, with the smell of the coffee warming on the embers of the charcoal. She left behind her Madame Maloir, who was now cutting the cards and telling her own fortune. She had continued to keep her bonnet on, only, to be more at her ease, she had untied the strings and thrown the ends back over her shoulders. In the dressing-room, where Zoé rapidly helped her to change her things, Nana avenged herself fo
r the worries she had to put up with by uttering in a low voice the most abominable oaths against men in general. These foul expressions grieved the maid, for she saw with regret that her mistress was a long time in getting free of the evil effects of her early surroundings. She even ventured to beg of her to be calm.
“Oh, pooh!” replied Nana, coarsely; “they are a set of pigs, and they like it.”
Nevertheless, she put on what she styled her princess look, and was moving towards the drawing-room, when Zoé stopped her, and, of her own accord, hastened to usher into the dressing-room the Marquis de Chouard and Count Muffat. It would be much better that way.
“Gentlemen,” said the young woman with studied politeness, “I regret that you have had to wait.”
The two men bowed and sat down. An embroidered blind subdued the light admitted into the room, which was the most elegantly furnished one of the set: it was hung with light drapery, and contained a handsome marble dressing-table, a large cheval-glass, with an inlaid frame, a reclining-chair, and several easy-chairs covered in blue satin. On the dressing-table were placed the bouquets of roses, lilac and hyacinths, quite a pyramid of flowers, emitting a strong and penetrating perfume; whilst in the moist atmosphere, with the insipid smell rising from the dirty water, an odour more pronounced could now and again be discerned, emanating from a few sprigs of dry patchouli broken up into small pieces at the bottom of a cup. And cuddling herself up, drawing round her the unfastened dressing-gown she had slipped on, Nana appeared as though she had been surprised at her toilet, her skin scarcely dried, looking smiling though startled in the midst of her laces.
“Madame,” gravely said Count Muffat, “excuse our taking you thus by storm. We have called respecting a collection. This gentleman and myself are members of the poor relief committee for this district.”