Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [43]
“What’s the matter with them and their Bismarck!” murmured La Faloise, who always pretended to be very much bored when in society. “It’s awfully slow here. It was a queer idea of yours to want to come!”
All at once Fauchery questioned him, “I say, the countess, has she got any lover?”
“Oh! no, my dear fellow; oh! no,” he stammered, visibly upset, and quite forgetting his off-hand style. “Wherever do you think you are?” Then he became aware that his indignation was not quite the thing for a man of the world like himself, so, leaning back on the sofa, he added, “Well! I say no; but really I’m not sure of anything. There’s a fellow over there, that Foucarmont, who’s always to be found about the place. One has seen stranger things than that, that’s certain. For myself, I don’t care a hang. Anyhow, if the countess does amuse herself in that way, she must be very cunning, for no one has ever found it out; she is never talked about.”
Then, without Fauchery taking the trouble to question him further, he related all he knew respecting the Muffats. He spoke in a very low voice in the midst of the tittle-tattle of the ladies gathered round the fire; and one would have thought, seeing them in their white ties and gloves, that they were discussing some serious matter in the most select words. Mamma Muffat, whom La Faloise had known intimately, was an insupportable old woman, always mixed up with priests. As for Muffat, the tardy son of a general, made count by Napoleon I., he naturally found himself in favour after December 2nd.z He also was not very gay; but he was considered to be a very worthy and honest man. With that he possessed opinions belonging to another world, and had such a high idea of his post at court, of his dignities and of his virtues, that he carried his head like the holy sacrament. It was Mamma Muffat who had given him that beautiful education—confession every day, no youth, no sprees of any kind. He was most religious; he had frequent fits of faith of great violence, similar to attacks of brain fever. Then, to finish his portrait with a last detail, La Faloise whispered a word in his cousin’s ear.
“It’s not possible!” said the latter.
“On my honour, I was assured of it! He had it still when he married.”
Fauchery laughed as he glanced at the count, whose face, surrounded with whiskers and without moustache, looked squarer and harder than ever as he quoted figures and totals to Steiner, who disputed them.
“Well, he looks like one of that sort,” he murmured. “A fine present he made to his wife! Ah, poor little thing! how he must have bored her! I bet she doesn’t know anything at all!”
Just then Countess Sabine spoke to him, but he was so interested and amused with what he had been told about the count that he did not hear her. She repeated her question.
“M. Fauchery, have you not written an article on Count Bismarck? You have spoken to him, have you not?”
He rose from his seat quickly, and joined the ladies, trying to compose his features, at the same time, however, finding a reply with ease.
“Really, madame, I must at once own that I wrote that article by the aid of some of his biographies published in Germany. I have never seen Count Bismarck.”
He remained next to the countess, and whilst talking with her he continued his reflections. She did not look her age; one would have thought her twenty-eight years old at most; her eyes, which her long lashes shaded with a blue shadow, especially retained a sparkle of youth. Brought up by parents living apart, spending one month with the Marquis de Chouard and the next with the Marchioness, she married when very young, shortly after her mother’s death, incited thereto, no doubt, by her father, in whose way she was. He was a terrible man, the marquis, and strange stories were beginning to circulate about him, in spite of his great show of piety! Fauchery asked if he would have the honour of seeing him. Certainly, her father would come, though very late; he had so much work to attend to!