Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [198]
He no longer wept. Shame had possession of him, though he had for a long time past talked with her about the most intimate details of his married life. She had to encourage him. Come, she was a woman, she could hear everything. But he muttered in a hollow voice,
“You’re ill; I mustn’t tire you! It was stupid of me to come. I am going.”
“But no,” said she, quickly. “Stay, I may be able to give you some good advice. Only, don’t make me talk too much; the doctor has forbidden me to do so.”
He had left his seat, and was walking about the room. Then she questioned him.
“What will you do now?”
“I will thrash the man, of course!”
She pouted disapprovingly. “That’s not a very smart thing to do. And your wife?”
“I shall sue for a separation. I have a proof.”
“My dear fellow, that’s not smart at all; it’s even absurd. You know I’ll never let you do anything of the kind.”
And, sedately, in her feeble voice, she pointed out to him the useless scandal of a duel and a lawsuit. For a week he would be the chief topic in all the papers. He would be playing with his entire existence, his peace of mind, his high position at court, the honour of his name; and why? to be laughed at.
“What does it matter?” cried he. “I shall be avenged!”
“Ducky,” said she, “when a man doesn’t avenge himself at once in such matters, he doesn’t avenge himself at all.”
The words he was about to utter died away on his lips. He was certainly no coward, but he felt that she was right. An uneasiness increased within him—something like a feeling of impoverishment and shamefulness had unmanned him, in the outburst of his wrath. Besides, she hit him another blow, with a frankness that decided on telling all.
“And would you like to know what it is that bothers you, darling? It is that you yourself deceive your wife. Eh! you don’t stop out all night to say your prayers. Your wife must know the true reason. Then with what can you reproach her? She will say that you gave her the example, and that will shut you up. There, darling! that’s why you’re here stamping about instead of being there murdering them both.”
Muffat had fallen into a chair, overwhelmed by that brutality of language. She remained silent awhile, regaining breath; then she faltered, in a very low voice,
“Oh! I’m sore all over. Help me to raise myself a little. I keep slipping down, my head is too low.”
When he had assisted her, she sighed and felt better, and she returned to the grand sight of a trial for judicial separation. Could he not conceive the countess’s counsel amusing all Paris in talking of Nana? Everything would be related—her fiasco at the Variety Theatre, her mansion, her life. Ah, no! she did not care for such an advertisement. Some dirty women might have urged him to be so foolish, so as to gain notoriety at his expense; but she desired his happiness before everything. She had drawn him towards her. She held him now, with his head on the pillow beside her own, and her arm round his neck, and she whispered gently,
“Listen, ducky; you must make it up with your wife.”
He was indignant. Never! His heart was breaking; the shame was too great. She, however, tenderly insisted.
“You must make it up with your wife. Come, you don’t want to hear everyone say that I estranged you from your family? It would give me too bad a reputation. What would everyone think of me? Only swear that you’ll always love me; for, now that you’re going to be another’s—”
Her sobs were choking her. He interrupted her with kisses, saying,
“You are mad—it is impossible!”
“Yes, yes,” resumed she; “you must do it. It’s only right; and, after all, she’s your wife. It’s not as though you were unfaithful to me with the first woman you came across.”
And she continued thus, giving him the best advice. She even talked of God. He seemed to be listening to M. Venot, when the old man used to sermonize him, to save him from sin. She, however, did not talk of breaking off. She preached complaisancy—the sharing of him by his wife and his mistress, a quiet life, without any bother for any one, something