Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [143]
One night Nana, on coming home about eleven o’clock, found the door bolted on the inside. She knocked a first time, no answer; a second time, still no answer. Yet she could see a light under the door, and Fontan was walking about inside. She knocked again and again without ceasing, and calling to him angrily. At length Fontan said in a slow, thick voice:
“Go to the devil!”
She knocked with both her fists.
“Go to the devil!”
She knocked louder, almost enough to break the panel.
“Go to the devil!”
And for a quarter of an hour the same words answered her like a jeering echo of the blows she hammered on the door. Then, seeing that she did not tire, he suddenly opened it, and standing on the threshold, with his arms crossed, said in the same cold brutal tone of voice:
“Damnation! have you nearly done? What is it you want? You had better let us go to sleep! You can see very well that I am not alone.”
And true enough he was not alone. Nana caught a glimpse of the little woman of the Bouffes Theatre, already in her nightdress, with her curly hair that looked like tow, and her eyes like gimlet holes, who was enjoying the fun in the midst of the furniture that Nana had paid for. Fontan stepped out on to the landing, looking terrible, and opening his big fingers said:
“Be off, or I’ll strangle you!”
Then Nana burst into nervous sobs. She was frightened and ran off. This time it was she who was turned out. In her anger she suddenly thought of Muffat, and of how she had treated him; but really it was not for Fontan to avenge him.
Outside, her first idea was to go and sleep with Satin, if no one else was with her. She met her outside her house, she having been also chucked out, but by her landlord, who had put a padlock on her door, against all legal right, as the furniture was hers. Satin cursed and swore, and talked of having him up before the commissary of police. However, as midnight was striking, the first thing to do was to obtain a bed somewhere. And Satin, thinking it best not to make the policeman acquainted with the state of her affairs, ended by taking Nana to a lady who kept a licensed lodging-house in the Rue de Laval. They obtained a small back room on the first floor overlooking the courtyard.
“I might have gone to Madame Robert’s,” said Satin. “There is always room there for me; but I couldn’t have taken you. She’s becoming most ridiculously jealous. The other night she beat me.”
When they had fastened themselves in, Nana, who up till then had not unbosomed herself, burst into tears, and related again and again the dirty trick that Fontan had played her. She listened complaisantly, consoled her, and became even more indignant than she, abusing the men heartily.
“Oh, the pigs! oh, the pigs! You should have nothing more to do with such pigs!”
Then she helped Nana to undress. She hovered around her like a gentle and obliging little woman, and kept saying, coaxingly,
“Let’s get into bed quickly, my dear. We shall be much better there. Ah! how silly you are to be worried! I tell you that they’re a foul set! Don’t think of them any more. You know I love you very much. Now leave off crying—do, for your little darling’s sake.”
And in bed she at once took Nana in her arms, so as to calm her. She would not hear Fontan’s name mentioned again. Each time that it came to her friend’s lips she stopped it with a kiss, prettily pouting with anger, her hair all loose, and looking childishly beautiful, and full of tenderness. Then, little by little, in this sweet embrace, Nana dried