Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [111]
“Look! isn’t it lovely?” she murmured, “the mother-of-pearl one trimmed with feathers.” Then, in a careless tone of voice, she added, “So, you are coming home with me?”
“Why, of course,” said Muffat, astonished, “as your child is better.”
She regretted her long-winded story. Perhaps little Louis had had another attack, and she talked of returning to Batignolles: but as he offered to go too, she let the subject drop. One minute she boiled with rage, like a woman who finds herself caught and who is obliged to show herself submissive and gentle. However, she became resigned to her fate, and resolved to gain time; if she could only get rid of the count by midnight, all would go as she wished.
“Ah! yes; you are a bachelor to-night,” she resumed. “Your wife does not return till to-morrow morning, does she?”
“No,” replied Muffat, slightly annoyed at hearing her speak of the countess in that familiar way. But she continued to question him, asking the time of the arrival of the train, and wishing to know whether he intended going to the station to meet his wife. She had again slackened her footsteps, as though very much interested in the contents of the shop windows.
“Oh! Look there!” she exclaimed, stopping in front of a jeweller’s, “what a funny bracelet! ”
She loved the Passage des Panoramas. Ever since her girlhood she had had a passion for the glitter of Paris gew-gaws, counterfeit jewellery, gilded zinc, and imitation leather. Whenever she passed through it she could not drag herself away from the shops, just the same as when she used to run about the streets, lingering opposite the sweets of a confectioner’s, listening to the playing of an organ next door, smitten above all by the bad taste of the articles that seemed marvels of cheapness—housewives contained in monstrous walnut shells, rag-pickers’ baskets full of toothpicks, Vendome columns and Luxor obelisksan holding thermometers. But that night she was too much upset, she looked without seeing. It bothered her immensely not to have her evening to herself, and, in her secret revolt, she felt a longing to do something foolish. A fat lot of use it was to have men well off! She had just run through the prince and Steiner, indulging all her childish caprices, without in the least knowing where the money had gone to. Her rooms in the Boulevard Haussmann were not even now completely furnished; the drawing-room alone, all in crimson satin, but too full and too lavishly decorated, had a certain effect. At this time, too, her creditors were dunning her more than ever before, when she was quite without means, and this surprised her immensely, for she looked upon herself as a model of economy. For a month past, that old thief Steiner could only find a thousand francs with the greatest difficulty on occasions when she threatened to kick him out of the place if he did not bring the money. As for Muffat, he was a fool; he had no idea of what a man should give a woman like her, so she could not blame him for his stinginess.
Ah! she would have sent the whole of them to the right about if she had not all day kept repeating to herself a number of wise maxims! One must be reasonable, Zoé was in the habit of saying to her every morning, and she herself had ever present to her mind a sacred recollection, the royal vision of Chamont, constantly invoked and embellished. And that was why, in spite of a tremor of suppressed rage, she walked submissively along, leaning on the count’s arm, going from one shop window to another in the midst of the now less frequent passers-by. Outside, the foot-pavement was gradually drying, a cool breeze entered the Passage, sending before it the hot air collected beneath the glass roof, and creating quite a commotion among the coloured lamps, the rows of gas-jets, and the monstrous fan flaming away like fire-works. A waiter was turning out the lights at the door of the restaurant, whilst in the empty and brilliantly illuminated shops, the immovable