Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [130]
“What’s the matter with that pig there?”
Then she thought she knew him. Three days before, as she was returning from the Boulevards about midnight, she had spoken to him for about half-an-hour at the corner of the Rue Labruyère before he would make up his mind. But the recollection only annoyed her the more.
“What fools men are to call out such things in the daytime,” she resumed. “When one goes out on one’s private business, one ought to be respected.”
Nana had at length selected her pigeons, though she had doubts as to their freshness. Then Satin wanted to show her where she lived; it was close by in the Rue Rochefoucauld. And, as soon as they were alone together, Nana related the story of her love for Fontan. When she reached her door, the little one stood with her radishes under her arm, interested by the final particulars given by the other, who was lying in her turn, saying that she had sent Count Muffat out of her place with a kick behind.
“Oh! that was grand, very grand!” observed Satin. “A kick behind—oh, splendid! And he didn’t dare say a word, did he? Men are such cowards! I should have liked to have been there to have seen his mug. My dear, you were right. Drat their money! I, when I’ve a fancy, I’d die for it. Well, you’ll come and see me, won’t you? The door on the left. Knock three times, for there are always a lot of people who come to bother me.”
After that day, whenever Nana felt dull, she went to see Satin. She was always certain of finding her in, for the little one never went out before six in the evening. Satin had two rooms, which a chemist had furnished for her so that she should be safe from the police; but, in less than thirteen months, she had broken the furniture, destroyed the seats of the chairs, soiled the curtains, and got everything into such a state of dirt and disorder that the rooms looked as though they were occupied by a troop of mad tabbies. The mornings when she herself, quite disgusted, started cleaning, legs of chairs and shreds of curtains remained in her hands, so hard was the battle she had to fight with the filth. On those days everything looked dirtier still and it was impossible to enter the rooms, for all manner of things were piled up in the doorways. At length she ended by neglecting her home altogether.
In the lamp-light the wardrobe with its mirror, the clock, and what remained of the curtains, looked sufficiently well to satisfy the men who came to see her. Besides, for six months past, her landlord had been threatening to turn her out; so why should she trouble herself by looking after the place? and for him, perhaps; not if she knew it! And whenever she got up in a bad temper she shouted out, “Gee up! gee up!” giving formidable kicks on the sides of the wardrobe and the chest of drawers, which were cracking all over.
Nana nearly always found her in bed. Even the days when Satin went out on her errands, she was always so tired on her return that she would fall asleep again on the edge of the bed. During the daytime she merely dragged herself about, dozing on the chairs, and never rousing from this state of languor till the evening when the gas-lamps were lit. And Nana always felt very comfortable there, sitting doing nothing in the midst of the untidy bed, of the basins full of dirty water, placed on the floor, and of the muddy skirts, cast off the night before, soiling the chairs on which they had been carelessly thrown. She would cackle and talk of her private affairs without ceasing, whilst Satin, in her shift and sprawling on the bed with her feet in the air, listened to her, and smoked cigarettes. Sometimes on the afternoons, when they had troubles which they wanted to forget, as they said, they treated each other to absinthe. Then, without going downstairs, or even putting on a petticoat, Satin would call over the balusters for what she wanted, to the concierge’s little girl, a youngster of ten, who