Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [126]
“What! you’ve already got that big baby?”
They all thought it very funny. Madame Lerat and Madame Maloir nearly split their sides with laughing. Nana, far from feeling offended, smiled in a loving sort of way, saying that unfortunately it was not the case; she would have liked it to have been so for the little one’s sake and her own, but perhaps they would have one all the same. Fontan, acting the kind-hearted man, took little Louis in his arms, playing with him, and stuttering :
“All the same, you love your papa; don’t you? Call me papa, you little monkey!”
“Papa—papa!” lisped the child.
Everyone caressed and fondled him. Bosc, taking no real interest in the matter, moved that they should go to dinner—that was the only thing worth living for. Nana asked to be allowed to have little Louis beside her. The meal was a very merry one. Bosc, however, did not get on very well on account of the child’s proximity to him, and his time was taken up in defending his plate from the youngster’s attacks. Madame Lerat disturbed him also. She became very tender, and whispered in his ear most mysterious things—stories of gentlemen very well off who still followed her about, and on two separate occasions he was obliged to move his knee, for she kept pushing hers against it, looking at him most lovingly the while. Prullière behaved most shamefully to Madame Maloir, not helping her to a single thing. He was occupied solely with Nana, greatly annoyed at seeing her with Fontan. The turtle doves, too, were becoming a nuisance, kissing each other at every moment. In spite of all the usages, they had persisted in sitting side by side.
“Do leave off and eat your dinners!” Bosc kept on saying, with his mouth full. “You will have plenty of time to cuddle each other afterwards. Wait till we have gone.”
But Nana could not restrain herself. She was all wrapped up in her love, as rosy as a virgin, and full of endearing smiles and glances. With her eyes fixed on Fontan, she called him all the pretty names she could think of—ducky, darling, cherub, and whenever he handed her anything, the water or the salt, she leant forward and kissed him on whatever part of his head her lips encountered—on his eyes, his nose, or his ears; then, if the others scolded her, she retired again to her seat with most wary tactics, and the humility and suppleness of a cat that had just been whipped, though at the same time slyly taking hold of his hand beneath the table, to kiss it again at the first opportunity. She must touch some part of him. Fontan assumed an important air, and condescendingly allowed himself to be adored. His big nose quivered with a sensual joy; his goatish physiognomy, his ugliness suggestive of some ridiculous monster, seemed to expand beneath the devout adoration of that superb girl, so plump and white. Occasionally he would return her kiss, like a man who, though having the best of it, still wishes to act nicely.
“Look here, you two, you are really unbearable!” exclaimed Prullière at length. “Get out of there, you!”
And he turned Fontan out of his seat, changing the plates and glasses, and took the place beside Nana. This called forth no end of exclamations, outbursts of applause, and some rather indecent remarks. Fontan pretended to be in despair, and assumed his comical look of Vulcan crying for Venus. Prulliere at once made himself very attentive; but Nana, whose foot he tried to touch under the table, gave him a kick to force him to leave off. No, she would certainly not have anything to do with him. The month before she had been slightly smitten with his handsome head, but now she detested him. If he pinched her again when pretending to pick up his napkin, she would throw her glass in his face.
But everything went off well. They naturally talked of the Variety Theatre. That rogue, Bordenave, would never die, it seemed. His foul diseases had broken out again, and he was in such a state that one could scarcely touch him with a pair of tongs. The day before he had done nothing but blackguard Simone all through the rehearsal.