Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [161]
Nana commenced by putting the count on a satisfactory footing. She settled clearly the programme of their relations. He gave twelve thousand francs a month, without counting presents, and only asked in return an absolute fidelity. She swore to be faithful; but she insisted on being treated with deference, on enjoying entire liberty as mistress of the household, and on having all her wishes respected. For instance, she would receive her friends every day; he himself should only come at stated hours—in short, he should trust her implicitly in everything. And when he hesitated, seized by a jealous anxiety, she became very dignified, threatening to return him everything, or else swearing fidelity on the head of her little Louis. That ought to be sufficient. There could be no love where there was no esteem. At the end of the first month, Muffat respected her.
But she desired and she obtained more. She soon influenced him in a good-natured sort of way. When he arrived in a moody state of mind, she enlivened him, then advised him, after confessing him. Little by little she busied herself with his family cares—his wife, his daughter, all matters connected with his heart and his money; and she did so in a very reasonable manner, full of justice and honesty. Once only did she let herself be carried away by passion—the day when he told her that he thought Daguenet was about to ask him for his daughter’s hand. Ever since the count had been openly protecting Nana, Daguenet had thought it a clever move to break off all connection with her, to treat her as a hussy, and to swear to deliver his future father-in-law from the creature’s clutches. So she abused her old friend Mimi in a fine way. He was a dissipated rascal who had squandered his fortune with the most abominable women. Now, he had no decency about him. He did not exactly make them give him money, but he profited by what others gave them, merely going himself to the expense of an occasional bouquet or dinner; and as the count seemed to excuse these weaknesses, she told him coarsely that she had been Daguenet’s mistress, and furnished him with some salacious details. Muffat became very pale, and did not again speak of the young man. It would teach the latter to be ungrateful.
The mansion, however, was scarcely furnished, when Nana, one night that she had been most energetically swearing everlasting fidelity to Muffat, retained Count Xavier de Vandeuvres, who, for a fortnight past, had been paying court to her most assiduously, by means of visits and flowers. She gave way not through any infatuation, but rather to prove to herself that she was at liberty to do as she pleased. The interested motive came afterwards, when Vandeuvres, on the morrow, helped her to settle an account, that she would rather not mention to the other one. She would be able to get out of him about eight or ten thousand francs a month, which would be very useful by way of pocket money. He was just then finishing up his fortune in a violent fit of fever. His horses and Lucy had cost him three farms, and Nana was about to devour his last château, near Amiens, in a single mouthful. He seemed in a hurry to sweep off everything—even to the remains of the old castle, built by a Vandeuvres in the reign of Philip Augustusav—with a maddening appetite for ruins, and thinking it a fine thing to leave the last gold bezantsaw of his coat-of-arms in the hands