Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [142]
“Well,” said he at length, “you had better come round to my place and rest yourself a bit.”
He lived close by, in the Rue Bergère. But she pulled herself together at once.
“No, I won’t.”
“But everyone does,” he roughly resumed. “Why won’t you?”
“Because—”
To her mind that said everything. She loved Fontan too much to deceive him with a friend. The others did not count, as it was from necessity and not pleasure that she listened to them. In the face of such stupid obstinacy, Prullière behaved with the meanness of a handsome man wounded in his pride.
“Well! please yourself,” said he. “Only I’m not going your way, my dear. Get out of the mess by yourself.”
And he walked off. All her fright came back again; she returned to Montmartre by a most roundabout way, keeping close to the shops, and turning pale every time a man came near her.
It was on the morrow that Nana, still feeling the shock of her terrors of the night before, suddenly found herself face to face with Labordette, in a quiet little street at Batignolles, as she was on her way to her aunt’s. At first they both seemed rather uneasy. He, though always most obliging, had some business which he kept to himself. However, he was the first to regain his composure, and express his pleasure at the meeting. Really, every one was still amazed at Nana’s total eclipse. She was inquired after everywhere, her old friends were all pining away. And, becoming paternal, he preached her a little sermon.
“Now, frankly, my dear, between ourselves, you are making a fool of yourself. One can understand a bit of infatuation, but not being reduced to the point you are, to be eaten up to that extent and then only to pocket kicks and blows! Are you going in for the prize of virtue?”
She listened to him in an embarrassed manner. But when he spoke to her of Rose, who was triumphing with her conquest of Count Muffat, her eyes sparkled. She murmured:
“Oh! if I choose—”
He at once offered his mediation, in his obliging way. But she refused. Then, he attacked her on another subject. He told her that Bordenave was going to bring out a new piece by Fauchery, in which there was a capital part that would suit her splendidly.
“What! a new piece with a part that would suit me!” she exclaimed in amazement; “but he is in it, and he never told me!”
She did not name Fontan. Besides, she became calm again almost directly. She would never return to the stage. No doubt Labordette was not convinced, for he insisted with a smile.
“You know you have nothing to fear with me. I will prepare Muffat, you will return to the theatre, and then I will lead him to you like a lamb.”
“No!” said she energetically.
And she left him. Her heroism caused her to bemoan her fate. A cad of a man would not have sacrificed himself like that without trumpeting it abroad. Yet one thing struck her: Labordette had given her exactly the same advice as Francis. That evening, when Fontan returned home she questioned him about Fauchery’s piece. He had been back at the Variety Theatre for two months past. Why had he not told her about the part?
“What part?” asked he in his cross voice. “Do you happen to mean the part of the grand lady? Really now, do you then think yourself a genius? But, my girl, you could no more play that part than fly. Upon my word, you make me laugh!”
Her feelings were dreadfully hurt. All night he chaffed her, calling her Mademoiselle Mars. And the more he ridiculed her, the more she stood up for herself, feeling a strange pleasure in that heroic defence of her whim, which, in her own eyes, made her appear very great and very loving. Ever since she had been consorting with other men, for the purpose of feeding him, she loved him the more, in spite of all the fatigue and the loathing which this existence caused her. He became her vice, for which she paid, and which, beneath the sting of the blows, she could not do without.