Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [137]
“My child, wherever there are women, there are slaps. It was Napoleon who said that, I think. Bathe yourself with salt water. Salt water is excellent for such trifles. Take my word for it, you will receive a great many more; and do not complain, so long as there is nothing broken. You know, I shall invite myself to dinner; I noticed a leg of mutton.”
But Madame Lerat was not gifted with similar philosophy. Each time Nana showed her a fresh bruise on her white skin, she complained loudly. Her niece was being murdered; it could not last. The truth was, Fontan had turned Madame Lerat out, and said that he would not have her in the place again; and, ever since that day, if she happened to be there when he returned home, she was obliged to take her departure by way of the kitchen, which humiliated her immensely. And so she never ceased abusing that unmannerly person. With the airs of a most well-bred woman, to whom no one could teach anything pertaining to a polite education, she reproached him with having been shockingly badly brought up.
“Oh! one can see that at a glance,” she would say to Nana. “He has no idea of even the slightest propriety. His mother must have been a very low woman. Don’t deny it, he shows it only too plainly! I do not say it on my own account, although a person of my age has a right to a certain respect; but you, really now, how do you manage to put up with his bad manners? for, without flattering myself, I always taught you how to behave yourself, and in your own home you received the very best advice. We were all very respectable in our family, were we not?”
Nana did not protest, she listened with her head bowed down.
“Then,” continued the aunt, “you have only been acquainted with well-to-do people. We were just talking about it last night at home with Zoé. She can’t understand either why you put up with all this. ‘How,’ said she, ‘can madame, who could do just as she pleased with the count’—for between ourselves you appear to have treated him as though he were a donkey—‘ how can madame allow herself to be massacred by that ugly clown?’ I added that slaps might even be borne, but that I would never have submitted to such a want of respect. In short, he has nothing whatever in his favour. I wouldn’t have his portrait in my room on any account. And you are ruining yourself for such a sorry bird as he is; yes, you are ruining yourself, my darling. You are going about in want of everything, when there are so many others, and far richer ones too, and gentlemen connected with the government. But that’s enough! it’s not I who ought to tell you all this. However, were I in your place, the very next time he treated me ill, I’d leave him to himself, with a ‘Sir, whom do you take me for?’ said in your grand style, you know, which would show him you were not going to be made a fool of any longer.”
Then Nana burst into tears, and sobbed: “Oh! aunt, I love him.”
The truth was Madame Lerat was feeling very anxious, seeing that it was only with the greatest difficulty that her niece managed to give her a twenty sous piece at distant intervals, to pay for little Louis’s board. Of course she would do her utmost, she would keep the child all the same, and wait for better times; but the idea that it was Fontan who was the cause why she, the child and its mother were not rolling in wealth enraged her to such a pitch, that she denied the existence of love. Accordingly she concluded with these harsh words:
“Listen; one day when he has skinned you alive, you will come and knock at my door, and I will let you in.”
The want of funds soon became Nana’s great care. The seven thousand francs Fontan had taken had quite disappeared. No doubt he had put them in some safe place, and she did not dare question him; for she was very timid with that sorry bird, as Madame Lerat styled him. She trembled lest he should think her capable of sticking to him for the sake of his money. He had promised to give something towards the housekeeping expenses, and he started by