Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [133]
“Why, it’s a woman!” Nana exclaimed, with a smothered cry.
Satin, who was stuffing herself with fowl, raised her head, and then whispered,
“Ah! yes, I know her; she’s quite the go! They’re all after her.”
Nana pouted with disgust. She couldn’t understand that. Yet she said, in her reasonable sort of way, that it was no use arguing about tastes and colours, for one never knew what one might like some day; and she ate her ice cream with a philosophical air, perfectly aware of the sensation Satin was causing among the neighbouring tables with her big, blue, virgin-like eyes. She more especially noticed a large, fair-haired person seated near her, who was making herself most amiable. She gave such glances, and edged up so close, that Nana was on the point of interfering.
But just at that moment a woman entered the room, who caused her a great surprise. She had recognised Madame Robert. The latter, with her pretty look of a little brown mouse, nodded familiarly to the tall, scraggy maid, and then went and leaned against Laure’s counter, and they both kissed each other a long time. Nana thought this caress rather peculiar on the part of so lady-like a woman, the more especially as Madame Robert no longer had her modest look, but the contrary. She glanced about the room, as she conversed in a low tone of voice. Laure had just sat down again, once more throning herself with the majesty of an old idol of vice, with face worn and polished by the kisses of the faithful; and, from above the plates of viands, she reigned over her connection of big, bloated women, bulkier than even the most enormous of them, and enjoying the fortune that had rewarded forty years of labour.
Madame Robert, however, had caught sight of Satin. So leaving Laure, she hastened to her, and was most amiable, saying she regretted extremely having been out on the previous day; and as Satin, quite charmed, insisted on making room for her at the table, she declared that she had dined. She had merely come to look about. As she talked, standing up behind her new friend, she leant on her shoulders, and, in a smiling, wheedling way, kept saying,
“Well, when shall I see you? Do you happen to be free—”
Nana, unfortunately, was unable to hear more. The conversation annoyed her, and she was burning to give that respectable woman a bit of her mind; but the sight of a troop of people just arrived paralysed her. It consisted of some very stylish women, in gorgeous dresses and diamonds. Displaying their hundreds of francs’ worth of precious stones on their persons, and seized with an inclination to visit the old haunt, they had come in a party to Laure’s, whom they treated most familiarly, to dine there at three francs a head, amidst the jealous astonishment of the other poor, mud-bedabbled women. When they entered, with loud voices and clear, ringing laughter, bringing, as it were, a ray of sunshine from the outside, Nana quickly turned her head, greatly annoyed at seeing Lucy Stewart and Maria Blond amongst them. For close upon five minutes, during the whole time these ladies were conversing with Laure, before passing into the next room, she kept her face bent down, pretending to be very busy in rolling some bread crumbs over the cloth. Then, when she was at length able to turn round, she was aghast at seeing that the chair next to her was empty. Satin had disappeared.
“Whatever has become of her?” she unconsciously exclaimed aloud.
The big, fair-haired woman, who had been so attentive to Satin, laughed ill-humouredly; and as Nana, irritated by the laugh, gave her a menacing look, she said softly, in a drawling tone of voice,
“It’s certainly not I who’ve run away with her,