Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [25]
Back in their places, Fauchery and La Faloise noticed in the second tier of boxes a very pretty woman, very quietly dressed. She was accompanied by a solemn-looking gentleman, the head of a department at the Ministry of the Interior, whom La Faloise knew from having met him at the Muffats’. As for Fauchery, he said he believed she was called Madame Robert—a worthy woman who had a lover, but never more than one, and he was always a highly respectable person. As they turned round, Daguenet smiled at them. Now that Nana had proved a success, he no longer kept himself in the background; he had just returned from wandering about the house and enjoying her triumph. The youngster, fresh from college, beside him had not once quitted his seat, so overpowering was the state of admiration into which the sight of Nana had plunged him. So that, then, was woman! and he blushed deeply, and kept taking off and putting on his gloves mechanically. At last, as his neighbour had talked about Nana, he ventured to question him.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but this lady, who is playing—do you happen to know her?”
“Yes—a little—” murmured Daguenet in surprise, and with some hesitation.
“Then you know her address?”
The question came so abruptly, and so strangely, as addressed to him, that Daguenet felt like slapping the lad’s face.
“I do not,” he answered coldly, and turned his back.
The youngster understood that he had been guilty of some impropriety; he blushed all the more, and was mortified beyond expression.
The three knocks resounded throughout the house, and some of the attendants, their arms full of opera-cloaks and overcoats, were obstinately endeavouring to restore the various garments to their owners, who were hastening back to their seats. The claque applauded the scenery, which represented a grotto in Mount Etna,o hollowed out of a silver mine, with sides that glittered like newly coined crown pieces; at the back was Vulcan’s forge, with all the tints of a sunset. In the second scene Diana arranged everything with the god, who was to pretend to go on a journey so as to leave the coast clear for Venus and Mars. Then scarcely was Diana left alone, than Venus arrived. A thrill ran through the audience. Nana was next to naked. She appeared in her nakedness with a calm audacity, confident in the all-powerfulness of her flesh. A slight gauze enveloped her; her round shoulders, her amazonian breasts, the rosy tips of which stood out straight and firm as lances, her broad hips swayed by the most voluptuous movements, her plump thighs, in fact, her whole body could be divined, nay, seen, white as the foam, beneath the transparent covering. It was Venus rising from the sea, with no other veil than her locks. And when Nana raised her arms, the glare of the footlights displayed to every gaze the golden hairs of her armpits. There was no applause. No one laughed now. The grave faces of the men were bent forward, their nostrils contracted, their mouths parched and irritated. A gentle breath, laden with an unknown menace, seemed to have passed over all. Out of this laughing girl there had suddenly emerged a woman, appalling all who beheld her, crowning all the follies of her sex, displaying to the world the hidden secrets of inordinate desire. Nana still preserved her smile, but it was the mocking one of a destroyer of men.
“The devil!” said Fauchery to La Faloise.
Mars, in the meantime, hurrying to the meeting, with his big hat and plume, found himself caught between the two goddesses. Then there ensued a scene in which Prullière played very ingeniously. Fondled by Diana, who wished to make a last attempt to bring him back into the right path before delivering him up to Vulcan’s vengeance, cajoled by Venus, whom the presence of her rival stimulated, he abandoned himself to all these endearments with the happy expression of a donkey in