Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [196]
Two days later, after a fresh disappearance, Muffat called one morning, a time at which he had never come before. He was livid, his eyes were red with weeping, and his whole frame was still shaking from a great internal struggle. But Zoé herself, utterly scared, did not notice his agitation. She ran to meet him, and cried,
“Oh, sir! be quick! Madame very nearly died last night.”
And, as he asked for particulars, she added, “Oh! something incredible, sir! A miscarriage!”
Nana was three months enceinte. For a long time she had thought she was merely unwell; Dr. Boutarel himself had doubts. Then, when he was able to say for certain, she was so vexed that she did everything she could to hide her condition. It seemed to her a most ridiculous mishap, something which lowered her in her own estimation, and about which everyone would have chaffed her. What a wretched joke! she had no luck, really! It was just her misfortune to be caught when she thought she was quite safe. And she experienced a constant surprise, as though disturbed in her sex. What! one got children even when one did not want them, and had another object in view? Nature exasperated her—that grave maternity which rose in the midst of her pleasures, that new life quickening when she was sowing so many deaths around her. Ought not one to be able to dispose of oneself as one liked without all that fuss? Now, who did the brat spring from? She could not for the soul of her tell. No one had asked for it, it was in everybody’s way, and it would not meet with much happiness in life, that was quite certain!
Zoé gave the story of the catastrophe.
“Madame was seized with colics towards four o’clock. When I went into the dressing-room, not having seen her for some time, I found her lying on the ground in a swoon. Yes, sir, on the ground, in a pool of blood, as though she had been murdered. Then, you know, I understood what had happened. I was furious: madame ought to have told me of her mishap. M. George happened to be here. He helped me to raise her, but when I told him she had had a miscarriage, he became unwell also. Really! I’ve been in an awful stew ever since yesterday! ”
And indeed the house seemed topsy-turvy. All the servants were continually running about the rooms and up and down stairs. George had passed the night on a chair in the drawing-room. It was he who had told the news to madame’s friends who had called in the evening at the time when madame usually received. He was very pale, and he related the story full of astonishment and emotion. Steiner, La Faloise, Philippe, and several others had called. At his first words they uttered exclamations. It could not be! it must be a joke! Then they became very serious. They glanced at the bed-room door, looking very much put out, shaking their heads, no longer thinking it a funny matter. Up to midnight a dozen gentlemen had conversed in undertones in front of the fire-place, all of them friends, and each one wondering if he were the father. They seemed to be apologising to one another, with the confused looks of awkward people. Then they assumed their airs again. It was nothing to do with them; it was her fault entirely. She was a scorcher, that Nana! One would never have expected such a joke from her! And they went off one by one, on tiptoe, the same as in the chamber of death, where one must never laugh.
“But you had better go up all the same, sir,” said Zoé to Muffat. “Madame is much better; she will see you. We are expecting the doctor, who promised to call again this morning.”
The maid had persuaded George to go home to obtain some sleep. Upstairs in the