Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [237]
They had to calm her. Then she resumed in a religious outburst, “O God! give the Emperor the victory. Preserve us the Empire!”
All repeated the prayer. Blanche admitted that she burnt candles for the Emperor. Caroline, full of a religious feeling, had for two months past gone everywhere that she was likely to come across him, without succeeding in attracting his notice. And the others broke out into furious tirades against the Republicans, talked of expelling them beyond the frontier, so that Napoleon III., after vanquishing the enemy, might reign peacefully, in the midst of the universal joy.
“That beast Bismarck—there’s a scoundrel for you!” observed Maria Blond.
“To think that I once knew him!” cried Simone. “If I had only known, I would have put some poison in his glass.”
But Blanche, still feeling aggrieved at the expulsion of her Prussian, dared to take Bismarck’s part. He wasn’t a bit wicked. Each one had his own duties. She added,
“You know, he adores women.”
“What’s that to us?” said Clarisse. “You don’t think we want him, do you?”
“There are always too many men like him,” gravely declared Louise Violaine. “We had better do without them altogether than have any acquaintance with such monsters.”
And the discussion continued. They pulled Bismarck to pieces, each one gave him a kick in her Bonapartist zeal, whilst Tatan Néné said in a vexed manner,
“Bismarck! How they used to tease me about him! Oh! I owe him a grudge. I had never heard of him, that Bismarck! One can’t know every one.”
“All the same,” said Léa de Horn conclusively, “that Bismarck’s going to give us a good hiding—”
She was unable to continue. The other women all flew at her. Eh? what?—a hiding? It was Bismarck who was going to be sent back home, with kicks behind. She had better shut up, she was unworthy to be a Frenchwoman!
“Hush!” whispered Rose Mignon, feeling hurt at such a noise.
The frigidity of the corpse again impressed them. They all ceased talking, uneasy and brought anew face to face with death, with the secret dread of evil. On the Boulevard the cry passed, hoarse and rending,
“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”
Then, just as they were making up their minds to leave, a voice called from the corridor,
“Rose! Rose!”
Gaga, surprised, opened the door and disappeared for a moment. Then, when she returned, she said,
“My dear, it’s Fauchery who is there at the end of the passage. He won’t come any nearer. He is in an awful state because you persist in remaining here with the body.”
Mignon had succeeded in inciting the journalist. Lucy, still at the window, leant out; and she caught sight of the gentlemen waiting on the pavement, looking up and making signs to her. Mignon, exasperated, was holding up his fists. Steiner, Fontan, Bordenave, and the others were opening their arms in an anxious and reproachful way; whilst Daguenet, so as not to compromise himself, was quietly smoking his cigar, his hands behind his back.
“I was forgetting, my dear,” said Lucy, leaving the window open. “I promised to make you go down. They’re all beckoning for us.”
Rose moved away painfully from the foot of the bedstead. She murmured, “I will go down; I will go down. She no longer wants me now. We will send for a sister of charity.”
And she looked about without being able to find her bonnet and shawl. She mechanically filled a basin with water at the wash-stand and washed her hands and face, as she continued.
“I don’t know how it is, but it’s been a great shock to me. We were not very nice to each other. Well! now I feel quite stupid. Oh! I’ve all sorts of ideas—a longing to die myself—the end of the world. Yes, I want some fresh air.”
The dead body was beginning to fill the room with a fearful stench. There was quite a panic after such