Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [15]
“Ah! you ask me too much,” cried Bordenave, whom twenty men were besieging with questions. “You will see her presently. I must be off, they are waiting for me.”
He disappeared, radiant at having inflamed his public. Mignon shrugged his shoulders, and reminded Steiner that Rose was expecting him to show him her costume for the first act.
“Hallo! there’s Lucy, over there, getting out of her carriage,” said La Faloise to Fauchery.
It was in fact Lucy Stewart—a little, ugly woman of about forty, with a neck too long, a thin, drawn face, and thick lips, but so lively, so graceful, that she charmed every one. She was accompanied by Caroline Héquet and her mother. Caroline with her frigid beauty, the mother very stately, and looking as if she were stuffed.
“You are coming with us, of course,” she said to Fauchery; “I have kept a place for you.”
“So that I shall see nothing!—not if I know it! he answered. ”I have an orchestra stall; I prefer to be there.”
Lucy fired up at once. Was he afraid to be seen with her? Then suddenly calming down, she jumped to another subject.
“Why did you never tell me that you knew Nana?”
“Nana! I never saw her! ”
“Is that really true? I have been assured that you once slept with her.”
But Mignon, who was in front, put his finger to his lips to signal to them to be silent. And when Lucy asked why, he pointed to a young man who had just passed, murmuring, “Nana’s sweetheart.”
They all stared after him. He was certainly very good-looking. Fauchery recognised him: his name was Daguenet, and he had squandered a fortune of three hundred thousand francse on women, and now dabbled in stocks in order to make a little money with which he could treat them to an occasional bouquet and dinner. Lucy thought he had very handsome eyes.
“Ah! there’s Blanche!” she exclaimed. “It was she who told me that you had slept with Nana.”
Blanche de Sivry, a heavy blonde, whose pretty face was getting too fat, arrived, accompanied by a slender, well-dressed man with a most distinguished air.
“Count Xavier de Vandeuvres,” whispered Fauchery to La Faloise.
The count shook hands with the journalist, whilst a lively discussion took place between Lucy and Blanche. They quite blocked up the entry with their skirts covered with flounces, one in pink and the other in blue, and Nana’s name fell from their lips so frequently that the crowd lingered to listen. The count at length led Blanche away, but Nana’s name did not cease to resound from the four corners of the vestibule in louder and more eager tones. Would they never begin? The men pulled out their watches, late comers leaped from their carriages before they really drew up, and the groups left the pavement, whilst the passers-by, as they slowly crossed the stream of light, stretched their necks to see what was going on in the theatre. A street urchin who came up whistling, stood for a moment before one of the posters at the door; then, in a drunken voice shouted out, “Oh, my! Nana!” and reeled on his way, dragging his old shoes along the asphalt. People laughed, and several well-dressed gentlemen repeated, “Nana! Oh, my! Nana!” The crush was tremendous. A quarrel broke out at the box-office, the cries for Nana increased; one of those stupid fits of brutal excitement common to crowds had taken possession of this mass of people. Suddenly, above this