Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [101]
“Then you do really love me?” she stuttered. “Say that you love me a lot. Tell me, my own darling, if I died, would you be very unhappy?”
At Les Fondettes, Nana’s proximity upset the whole household. Every morning, during luncheon, worthy Madame Hugon talked in spite of herself about that woman, relating all that her gardener had told her, experiencing that kind of witchery exercised by gay women over the most respectable ladies. She, usually so tolerant, felt indignant and exasperated, with the vague presentiment of some misfortune, which alarmed her at eventide, as though she had known of the presence in the neighbourhood of a wild beast escaped from some menagerie. And she squabbled with her guests, accusing them all of wandering round about La Mignotte. Count de Vandeuvres had been seen laughing on the high road with a lady wearing a large quantity of hair; but he defended himself, swore that it wasn’t Nana, for indeed it was Lucy who accompanied him for the purpose of telling him how she had just sent her third prince to the right about. The Marquis de Chouard went also for long walks every day; but he began to talk at once of his doctor’s directions. As for Daguenet and Fauchery, Madame Hugon treated them very unjustly. The first, especially, never went outside the grounds of Les Fondettes, having abandoned his intention of seeking to renew his intimate acquaintance with Nana, and making himself respectfully assiduous towards Estelle. Fauchery also remained with the Muffat ladies. On one occasion only he had come across Mignon in a lane, his hands full of flowers, and giving a lesson in botany to his sons. The two men had shaken hands and talked of Rose. She was very well; each of them had received a letter from her that very morning, in which she told them to take advantage of the country air as long as they could. Of all her guests, therefore, the old lady only spared Count Muffat and George. The count, who pretended he had some very important business to attend to at Orleans, could not be running after girls; and as for George, the poor child was beginning to cause her the greatest anxiety, for every evening he was seized with the most violent headaches, which forced him to go to bed before it was really dark.
Fauchery had elected himself Countess Sabine’s cavalier in waiting, whilst the count disappeared regularly every afternoon. Whenever they went about the grounds he carried her parasol and her campstool. Besides, he amused her with his journalistic gossip, and soon established between them one of those sudden intimacies which country life countenances. She appeared to surrender at once, awakened to a second youth in the society of this young man, whose noisy, scoffing ways seemed incapable of compromising her. And sometimes, when they found themselves alone for a second behind some hedge, their eyes would seek each other’s; they would stop in the midst of a laugh, abruptly serious, with a languishing look as though they had divined and understood each other.
On the Friday it had been necessary to lay another place at lunch. M. Théophile Venot, whom Madame Hugon recollected having invited at the Muffats’ the previous winter, had just arrived. He put on his most agreeable look, and affected the indifferent air of an insignificant person without appearing to notice the uneasy deference with which he was treated. When he had succeeded in making himself forgotten, and while crunching some little pieces of sugar during dessert, he watched Daguenet, who was handing some strawberries to Estelle, and listened to Fauchery, one of whose anecdotes seemed to amuse the countess very much. The moment anyone looked at him he smiled in his quiet way.
On leaving the table, M. Venot took the