Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [212]
Towards two o’clock, as Nana was beginning to be anxious, Labordette called. He brought the designs for the bedstead. It was a diversion, and produced a fit of joy which caused the young woman to forget everything else. She clapped her hands, she danced; then, brimful of curiosity, leaning over a table in the parlour, she examined the drawings, which Labordette explained to her.
“You see, this is the boat; in the centre a bunch of full-blown roses, then a garland of flowers and buds; the leaves will be in green gold and the roses in red gold. And this is the great design for the head—a troop of cupids dancing in a circle against a silver trellis.”
But Nana interrupted him, carried away by rapture.
“Oh! isn’t he funny, the little one, the one in the corner, turning a somersault? And look at his saucy laugh! They’ve all got such wicked eyes! I say, my boy, I shall have to be careful of what I do before them!”
She was in an extraordinary state of satisfied pride. The goldsmiths had said that no queen ever slept on such a bedstead. Only there was a slight complication. Labordette showed her two designs for the piece at the foot, the one which reproduced the subject of the boat and cupids, the other which was altogether a new design—a female figure representing Night enveloped in her veil, which a faun was drawing aside, displaying her radiant nudity. He added that if she selected this second design, the goldsmiths intended to make the figure representing Night like her. This idea, which was in questionable taste, made her turn pale with pleasure. She saw herself as a little silver statue, the symbol of the tepid, voluptuous pleasures of darkness,
“Of course, you will only sit for the head and shoulders,” said Labordette.
“Why!” asked she, coolly looking him in the face. “As it is a question of a work of art, I sha’n’t care a fig for the sculptor who copies me!”
So it was settled. She chose the second subject also; but he stopped her.
“Wait. It will cost six thousand francs more.”
“Well! that’s all the same to me!” cried she, bursting out laughing. “My little muff will pay!”
It was thus she called Count Muffat now amongst her intimate acquaintances; and the gentlemen never asked after him otherwise than as, “Did you see your little muff last night? Ah! I thought I should have found the little muff here!” A simple familiarity which, however, she did not as yet allow herself to make use of in his presence.
Labordette rolled up the drawings as he gave her some final information: the goldsmiths engaged to deliver the bedstead in two months’ time, towards the 25th December; the very next week a sculptor would come to make the rough model for the figure of Night. As she walked with him to the stairs, Nana remembered the baker, and said suddenly,
“By the way, do you happen to have ten louis about you?”
One of Labordette’s principles, and which he found invaluable, was never to lend money to women. He always gave the same answer,
“No, my girl; I’m quite stumped. But would you like me to call on your little muff?”
She refused; it was useless. Two days before she had got five thousand francs out of the count. Following Labordette, though it was scarcely half-past two when he called, the baker reappeared; and he roughly seated himself on a bench in the hall, swearing very loud. The young woman was listening to him up on the first floor. She turned pale; she suffered especially at hearing up there the secret joy of the servants. They were splitting their sides with laughing in the kitchen. The coachman looked on from the yard; François passed across the hall without any necessity, and then went and told the others how things were progressing, after bestowing