Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [162]
Then Nana’s establishment was indeed complete. Nothing was wanting, either in the stables, the kitchen, or the bedroom. Zoé, who had the general management, found means of escape out of the most difficult entanglements. There was a kind of machinery in everything, as at a theatre. All was regulated as in a government office, and it worked with such precision, that for some months there was no hitch—nothing got out of gear. Only madame gave Zoé an immense deal of trouble, through her imprudence, her fads, and her foolish bravados. So the maid ended by being less careful, seeing that she made a far larger profit when anything had gone wrong—whenever madame had committed some new piece of stupidity that needed being set right. Then it rained presents, and she hooked louis in the troubled waters.
One morning, when Muffat was still in the bed-room, Zoé ushered a gentleman, all in a tremble, into the dressing-room, where Nana was changing her under-garments.
“Why! Zizi! said the young woman, in amazement.
It was indeed George. But seeing her in her chemise, with her golden hair hanging over her naked shoulders, he seized hold of her, put his arms round her neck, and smothered her with kisses. She struggled, greatly frightened, saying, in a suppressed voice,
“Leave off—do, he’s in there! It’s stupid of you! And you, Zoé, are you mad? Take him away! Keep him downstairs; I’ll try and come there.”
Zoé had to push him before her. Downstairs in the dining-room, when Nana was able to rejoin them, she scolded them both. Zoé bit her lips, and went off looking very vexed, saying that she thought to have gratified madame in doing as she did. George looked at Nana with so much pleasure at seeing her again, that his beautiful eyes filled with tears. Now the evil days had gone by, his mother thought he had got over his infatuation, and had allowed him to leave Les Fondettes; but on reaching the Paris terminus, he had hastened in a cab to kiss his darling sweetheart as quickly as possible. He talked of living by her side for the future, the same as in the country, when he used to wait with bare feet in the bed-room at La Mignotte; and, as he told his story, he thrust out his fingers, through a longing to touch her after that year of cruel separation. He seized hold of her hands, felt up the wide sleeves of her dressing-gown, even as high as her shoulders.
“You still love your baby?” he asked, in his child-like voice.
“Of course I do!” replied Nana, who abruptly disengaged herself; “but you arrive here without a word of warning. You know, my little boy, I’m not free. You must be good.”
George, who alighted from his cab dazzled by a long desire on the point of being satisfied, had not bestowed a glance on the place he entered. But now he was conscious of a great change around him. He examined the rich dining-room, with its lofty gilded ceiling, its Gobelin tapestry, and its sideboard shining with silver plate.
“Ah, yes!” said he sadly.
And she gave him to understand that he must never call in the morning. The afternoon, if he liked, between four and six o’clock, which was the time when she received company. Then, as he gazed at her with a supplicating look of interrogation, but without asking for anything, she kissed him on the forehead, in a very kind good-natured way.
“Be very good, and I will do my best,” she murmured.
But the truth was she no longer felt as she did in regard to him. She thought George very nice, she would have liked to have had him for a companion, but nothing more. However, when he came every day at four o’clock, he seemed so sad, that she