Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [125]
And she praised the prettiness of the rooms. Nana showed her everything in the bedroom and the dining-room, and even in the kitchen. Well! they were not large, but they had been newly painted and papered; and the sun shone there so brilliantly. Then Madame Lerat kept the young woman in the bedroom, whilst little Louis went and installed himself in the kitchen, behind the charwoman, in order to see her put a chicken down to roast. If she ventured to make any remarks, it was because Zoé had been to see her only a short time before. Zoé was so devoted to madame that she bravely remained at the breach. Madame would pay her some time or other—she had no anxiety on that score. And in the downfall of the establishment of the Boulevard Haussmann, she coped with the creditors, operating a masterly retreat, saving waifs from the wreck, and telling every one that madame was travelling, but without ever giving an address; and for fear, too, of being followed, she denied herself the pleasure of calling on madame. However, that very morning she had hastened to Madame Lerat, because there was something new in the wind. The day before several creditors had called—the upholsterer, the coal merchant, the milliner—and they had offered to give time, proposing even to advance a considerable sum of money to madame, if madame would return to her apartment, and consent to act like a sensible being. The aunt repeated Zoé’s very words. There was no doubt some gentleman at the bottom of all that.
“Never!” declared Nana indignantly. “Well! they’re a dirty lot—those tradespeople! Do they think that I’m going to sell myself, just for the sake of seeing their bills paid? Listen to me now, I’d sooner die of hunger than deceive Fontan.”
“That’s just what I answered,” said Madame Lerat. “I told her that you would only obey the dictates of your heart.”
Nana, however, was very annoyed to hear that La Mignotte had been sold, and that Labordette had purchased it for a most ridiculous sum for Caroline Héquet. That put her in a rage against the clique. They were nothing better than street-walkers, in spite of their grand airs. Ah, yes! by Jove! she was worth more than the whole lot of them!
“They may laugh,” she wound up by saying. “Money will never give them real happiness. And then, look you, aunt, I no longer know even whether these people are in existence. I am too happy to give them a thought.”
Just then Madame Maloir entered, with one of those extraordinary bonnets which she alone had the science of making. It was quite a happy meeting. Madame Maloir explained that greatness intimidated her, but that now she would call occasionally to have a game at bezique. For the second time they went over the apartments; and in the kitchen, in the presence of the charwoman who was basting the chicken, Nana talked of how economical she was going to be, saying that a servant would cost too much and that she intended to do the house-work herself, whilst little Louis greedily watched the chicken roasting. But there was a sound of voices. It was Fontan, with Bosc and Prullière. The dinner could be served at once, and the soup was already on the table, when Nana, for the third time, showed her guests over the rooms.
“Ah, children! how comfortable you must be here!” Bosc kept saying, simply to please the friends who stood him a dinner, for in reality the question of the nest, as he called it, did not affect him in the least. In the bedroom he seemed scarcely able to find sufficient words to express his admiration. Usually he alluded to women as being no better than animals, and the idea that a man could embarrass himself with one of the dirty hussies raised in him the only indignation of which he was capable, in the drunken disdain with which he enveloped the world.
“Ah! the lucky ones! he continued, blinking his eyes, ”they’ve done it all on the sly. Well! really, you’re right. It’ll be charming, and we’ll come and see you—I’m blowed if we won’t! ”
But as little Louis just then galloped in, riding on a broom-handle, Prullière said, with a