Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [144]
But suddenly a great noise was heard in the house. Satin, half naked, jumped out of bed and listened.
“The police!” said she, pale with fear. “Ah! damn it! we’ve no luck. We’re done for!”
She had told of the searches the policemen made in the hotels and lodging-houses fully twenty times, and yet, when they went to the Rue de Laval that night they had neither of them given the matter a thought. At the word police, Nana lost her wits entirely. She jumped out of bed, and, running across the room, opened the window, with the wild look of a mad woman about to jump out. But, fortunately, the little courtyard was covered in with glass, and over this was a wire net-work on a level with the window. She did not hesitate, but, stepping on to the sill, disappeared in the darkness, her chemise blowing about her, and her bare legs exposed to the keen night air.
“Stay here,” cried Satin, terrified. “You will kill yourself.”
Then, as they were knocking at the door, she good-naturedly closed the window, and threw her friend’s clothes into the bottom of a cupboard. She had already resigned herself to her fate, saying to herself that after all, if they did put her on their list, she would no more have occasion for that stupid fright. She pretended to be sound asleep, yawned, parleyed, and ended by opening the door to a big fellow with a dirty beard, who said:
“Show your hands. You’ve no needle marks on your fingers. You don’t work. Come, dress yourself.”
“But I’m not a needle-woman, I’m a burnisher,” declared Satin boldly.
But all the same, she quietly dressed herself, for she knew that it was no use arguing. Cries were heard about the house. One girl held on to the door, refusing to move. Another, who was in bed with her lover, and for whom he became responsible, acted the part of the grossly insulted respectable woman, and threatened to take proceedings against the Prefect of Police. For nearly an hour there was a noise of heavy boots on the stairs, of doors shaken by violent blows, of piercing shrieks ending in sobs, of women’s skirts grazing the walls—all the abrupt awakening and the terrified departure of a flock of women, brutally collared by three policemen, under the charge of a little, fair-haired, and very polite commissary of police. Then a great silence reigned throughout the house.
No one had betrayed her. Nana was saved. She crept back into the room, shivering and almost dead with fright. Her bare feet were bleeding from the scratches caused by the wire. For a long while she remained, listening, seated on the edge of the bed. Towards morning, however, she fell asleep; but at eight o’clock, when she awoke, she quickly left the house, and hastened to her aunt’s. When Madame Lerat, who happened to be just taking her breakfast with Zoé, saw her at that early hour, dressed in such a slovenly way, and with a scared look about her face, she understood it at once.
“Ah! and so it’s happened, has it?” she exclaimed. “I told you he would even want the skin of your body. Well, come in, you’re always welcome here.”
Zoé had risen, and murmured, with respectful familiarity, “At length madame is restored to us. I was expecting madame.”
But Madame Lerat wished Nana to kiss little Louis at once, because, said she, the child’s happiness consisted in his mother’s good sense. Little Louis was still sleeping, looking sickly through lack of blood; and when Nana leant over his white, scrofulousas face, all her troubles of the last few months returned to her, and seemed to stick in her throat and almost strangle her.
“Oh! my poor little one, my poor little one!” she stuttered, in a last outburst of sobs.
CHAPTER IX
They were rehearsing the “Little Duchess” at the Variety Theatre. The first act had just been gone through, and they were about to commence the second. In two old arm-chairs placed close to the footlights, Fauchery and Bordenave were arguing together; whilst