Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [228]
And Mignon, in the face of that magisterial monument, recalled many great works he had seen. Near Marseilles he had been shown an aqueduct, the stone arches of which spanned an abyss—a Cyclopean work which had cost millions and ten years of struggle. At Cherbourg he had seen the new harbour in course of construction—a gigantic undertaking, hundreds of men sweating in the sunshine, machines filling the sea with huge masses of rock, erecting a wall where at times workmen were squashed to a bloody pulp. But all that seemed small to him now. Nana exalted him far more; and in contemplating her work, he experienced once again that sensation of respect experienced by him one night at an entertainment in a château which a sugar refiner had had built—a palace the royal splendour of which had been paid for by one single thing, sugar. She had paid with something different, a bit of fun at which one laughed—a little of her delicate nudity. It was with this shameful and yet so mighty a nothing, the power of which excited the world, that all alone, without workmen, without machinery invented by engineers, she had shaken Paris and built up that fortune beneath which dead bodies were slumbering.
“Ah! damn it all! what a tool!” exclaimed Mignon enraptured, and with a return of personal gratitude.
Nana little by little had become very sorrowful. At first the meeting of the marquis and the count had thrown her into a nervous fever, accompanied by a slight touch of gaiety. Then, the thought of the old fellow who had gone off in a cab, half dead, and of her poor muff whom she would never see again, after having so often vexed him, brought about the beginning of a sentimental melancholy. After this she had got quite angry on hearing of Satin’s illness. The girl had disappeared a fortnight before, and was now gradually dying at the Lariboisière Hospital, Madame Robert having put her into such a frightful state. As she was ordering the carriage to go and see the little baggage once more, Zoé had quietly given her a week’s notice to leave. That threw her into despair. It seemed as though she was losing one of her family; and she implored Zoé to remain. The latter, highly flattered by madame’s grief, ended by kissing her, to show that there was no ill-feeling at parting. She was obliged to go; the heart was silent when business was in question. But that was a day of worries. Nana, thoroughly disgusted, no longer thinking of going out, was wandering about her parlour, when Labordette, who had come to tell her of some magnificent lace to be had at a bargain, mentioned between two other phrases about nothing at all that George was dead. She turned icy cold.
“Zizi! dead!” she cried.
And her glance, by an involuntary movement, sought the pink stain on the carpet. But it had vanished at last; the footsteps had worn it away. Labordette, however, gave her some particulars. One did not know exactly how it had happened: some talked of a wound having opened, others told the story of a suicide—a plunge into one of the fountains at Les Fondettes. Nana kept repeating,
“Dead! dead!”
Then she burst into sobs, and relieved her feelings pent up since the morning. It was an infinite sadness—something profound and immense which overwhelmed her. Labordette having tried to console her about George,