Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [149]
“Well! and I?” said Prullière indignantly; “I haven’t two hundred lines. I wished to decline the part. It’s an insult to ask me to play that Saint-Firmin; it’s as bad as being shelved. And what a piece, my friends! You know, it’ll be an awful fiasco.”
Here Simone, who had been talking with old Barillot, returned and said, all out of breath, “I say, Nana’s here!”
“Whereabouts?” asked Clarisse, rising quickly from her seat to see.
The news passed rapidly from one to the other. Every one leant forward to have a look. For an instant the rehearsal was interrupted; but Bordenave suddenly roused himself, and yelled,
“Well! what’s the matter? Finish the act, can’t you? And keep quiet you over there; the row you kick up is intolerable!”
Nana was still watching the piece from her box. Labordette had twice addressed her; but she had impatiently pushed him with her elbow to make him leave off. The second act was just about ending, when two figures appeared at the back of the stage. As they walked down to the front, on the tips of their toes, so as not to make any noise, Nana recognised Mignon and Count Muffat, who nodded in silence to Bordenave.
“Ah! there they are,” murmured she with a sigh of relief.
Rose Mignon gave the last cue. Then Bordenave said that they must go through the second act again, before touching the third one; and, leaving the rehearsal, he greeted the count with most exaggerated politeness, whilst Fauchery pretended to be wholly engaged with the actors around him.
Mignon whistled quietly to himself, with his hands behind his back, and looking tenderly at his wife, who seemed rather nervous.
“Well! shall we go up?” asked Labordette of Nana. “I will make you comfortable in the room, and then come back for him.”
Nana left the box at once. She had to feel her way along the passage which led to the boxes and stalls; but Bordenave guessed she was there, as she was hurrying along in the dark, and he caught her up at the end of the corridor which passed behind the stage—a narrow place where the gas was kept burning night and day. There, so as to get the matter settled quickly, he at once attacked her about the part of Géraldine.
“Eh! what a part! what go there is in it! It is exactly suited to you. Come to-morrow to rehearsal.”
Nana kept very cool. She wished to see the third act.
“Oh! the third act is superb! The duchess plays at being a fast woman in her own home, which disgusts Beaurivage and gives him a lesson. And then there’s a very funny imbroglio. Tardiveau arrives, and thinking he is at some dancer’s—”
“And what does Géraldine do in all that?” interrupted Nana.
“Géraldine?” repeated Bordenave slightly embarrassed. “She has a scene, not very long, but a capital one. The part is a splendid one for you, I tell you! Come and sign an agreement now. ”
For a few seconds she looked him straight in the face, and then replied, “We’ll talk it over by-and-by.”
And she joined Labordette, who was waiting for her on the stairs. Every one in the theatre had recognised her. They were all whispering together. Her return quite scandalised Prullière, and Clarisse was very uneasy about the part she was longing for. As for Fontan, he pretended supreme indifference. It was not for him to abuse a woman he had loved. In his heart—in his old infatuation now turned to hatred—he entertained a ferocious grudge against her on account of her devotion to him, of her beauty, and of that dual existence which he had severed through the perversion of his monster-like inclinations.
However, when Labordette returned and went up to the count, Rose Mignon, already put on her guard from the knowledge of Nana’s presence, suddenly understood what was going on. Muffat bored her immensely but the thought of being thrown over in that fashion was too much for her. She broke the silence she usually maintained with