Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [20]
The end of the act elicited less enthusiasm. Vulcan wished to slap his wife’s face. The gods took council, and decided that they had best investigate matters on the earth, before deciding in favour of the deceived husbands. Diana, overhearing some tender passages between Venus and Mars, swore that she would not once let them out of her sight during the journey. There was also a scene in which Cupid, acted by a little girl of twelve, answered to every question, “Yes, mamma,” “No, mamma,” in tearful tones and with her fingers in her nose. Then Jupiter, with all the severity of an angry master, shut Cupid in a dark closet, and bade him conjugate twenty times the verb, “to love.” The finale, a chorus very brilliantly rendered, met with more success. But, after the curtain had fallen, the claque in vain tried to obtain an encore; everybody rose and moved towards the doors. As the audience pushed their way through the rows of seats, they exchanged their impressions. One phrase was constantly heard: “It is simply idiotic!” A critic observed that the piece wanted a great deal of cutting down. But the piece, after all, mattered little. Nana was the chief topic of conversation. Fauchery and La Faloise, who were among the first to leave their seats, met Steiner and Mignon in the passage leading to the stalls. The atmosphere was stifling in this hole, which was low and narrow like some gallery in a mine, and was lighted here and there by flaring gas-jets. They stood for a moment at the foot of the staircase on the right, protected by the railing. The spectators from the upper part of the house tramped down with a great noise of heavy shoes, the procession of men in evening dress seemed as though it would never cease, and a box-opener endeavoured to prevent a chair on which she had piled coats and shawls from being swept away by the crowd.
“But I know her!” cried Steiner as soon as he saw Fauchery. “I have certainly seen her somewhere. At the Casino, I think; and she was so drunk that she got locked up.”
“Well, I’m not quite sure,” said the journalist. “I’m like you, I have certainly met her somewhere.” He lowered his voice and added with a laugh, “At old Tricon’s, I daresay.”
“Of course, in some vile place!” exclaimed Mignon, who seemed exasperated. “It is disgusting to see the public welcome in such a way the first filthy wench that offers. Soon there will not be a respectable woman left on the stage. Yes, I shall have to forbid Rose playing any more.”
Fauchery could not repress a smile. Meanwhile, the heavily-shod crowd continued to pour down the stairs, and a little man in a cap said, in a drawling voice: “Oh, my! she is plump! You could eat her! ”
In the lobby, two young men, with their hair exquisitely curled, and looking very stylish with their stuck-up collars turned slightly down in front, were quarrelling. One kept saying, “Vile! vile!” without giving any reason; whilst the other retaliated with, “Stunning! stunning!” equally disdaining to explain. La Faloise liked her immensely. He, however, only ventured to observe that she would be much better if she cultivated her voice. Then Steiner, who had left off listening, seemed to wake up with a start. They must wait, though. Perhaps in the next acts everything would come to grief. The audience, though very lenient so far, was not yet smitten with the piece. Mignon swore no one would sit it through; and as Fauchery and La Faloise left them to go into the saloon, he took hold of Steiner’s arm, and, pressing close up to his shoulder, whispered in his ear, “Old boy, come and see my wife’s costume for the second act. It is the limit!”
Upstairs, the foyer was brilliantly illuminated by three crystal gasaliers. The two cousins paused for a moment. The glass doors, standing wide open, showed them a wave of heads, which two contending currents whirled about in a continual eddy. They entered. Five or six groups of men, talking and gesticulating earnestly, stood their ground in spite