Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [112]
“Oh! the love!” exclaimed Nana, glancing in at the last window, and returning a few steps to admire a porcelain grey-hound, which was raising its paw over a nest hidden among some roses.
They at length quitted the Passage, and she would not take a cab. It was very nice out of doors, said she; besides, there was no occasion to hurry, it would be delightful to walk home. Then, when they had got as far as the Café Anglais, she longed to have some oysters, saying that she had eaten nothing since the morning, on account of little Louis’s illness. Muffat did not like to disappoint her. As yet, he had not ventured much about with her in public, so he asked for a private room, and hurried along the corridor. She followed him slowly, like a woman thoroughly acquainted with the establishment, and they were just on the point of entering an apartment of which a waiter had opened the door, when a man suddenly rushed out of an adjoining room, from which issued a regular tempest of shouts and laughter. It was Daguenet.
“Hallo! Nana!” cried he.
The count quickly vanished inside his room, leaving the door ajar. But, as his broad back disappeared, Daguenet winked his eye, and added jokingly:
“The deuce! you are getting on; you take them from the Tuileries now!”
Nana smiled, and placed her finger on her lips to make him hold his tongue. She saw that he was a bit on, but was happy all the same at meeting him, still keeping a little corner in her heart for him, in spite of his shabby behaviour in not recognizing her when he was in the company of ladies.
“What are you doing now?” she inquired in a friendly way.
“I am turning over a new leaf. In fact, I am seriously thinking of getting married.”
She shrugged her shoulders with a look of pity. But he, continuing his joking tone, said that it was not a life worth living just to earn on the Bourse barely sufficient to pay for the bouquets he gave to his lady friends, in order that they should not think him mean. His three hundred thousand francs had only lasted him eighteen months. He intended to be more practical. He would marry a big dowry and die a prefect like his father. Nana continued to smile incredulously. She nodded her head in the direction of the room he had just left.
“Whom are you with?”
“Oh! quite a party,” said he, forgetting his projects in a burst of intoxication. “Just fancy, Léa is relating her journey in Egypt. It’s awfully funny! There’s a certain story of a bath—”
And he related the story. Nana complaisantly waited to hear it. They had ended by leaning against the walls of the corridor, one in front of the other. Jets of gas were flaring beneath the low ceiling, a vague odour of cookery hung about the folds of the hangings. Now and then, in order to hear themselves above the occasionally increasing noise, they were obliged to put their faces close together. Every few seconds, a waiter laden with dishes, finding the way blocked up, was forced to disturb the pair. But they, without interrupting themselves, squeezed close up against the walls, calmly conversing together amidst the din caused by the customers, and the interruptions of the servants.
“Look there,” whispered the young man, pointing to the door of the room Muffat had entered.
They both watched. The door shook softly, as though moved by some gentle breeze; then it slowly closed, without the least sound. They exchanged a silent laugh. The count must cut a funny figure, all alone there by himself.
“By the way,” asked she, “have you read the article Fauchery has written about me?”
“Yes, the ‘Golden Fly,’ ” replied Daguenet. “I did not speak of it, as I though you might not like it.”
“Not like it, why? It’s a very long article.”
She felt flattered by being written about in the “Figaro.” Without the explanations of Francis, her hairdresser, who had brought her the paper, she would not have known that she was the person alluded to. Daguenet watched her from out the corner of his eye, with a sneer on his face. Well, as she was pleased, every one else ought to