Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [50]
George and La Faloise, standing up drinking their tea in front of each other, had overheard the few words that had been exchanged so near them. “Halloo! so it’s to be at Nana’s,” murmured La Faloise. “I might have known it!”
George said nothing, but he became very red in the face, his fair hair was all ruffled, his blue eyes were shining like candles. The vice with which he had mixed during the last few days inflamed and excited him. At last then, he was about to meet with all that he had dreamed of. “The nuisance is, I don’t know the address,” resumed La Faloise.
“Boulevard Haussmann, between the Rue de l’Arcade and the Rue Pasquier, on the third floor,” said George, all in a breath; and as the other looked at him with astonishment, he added, becoming redder still in the face, and bursting with conceit and confusion, “I am going; she invited me this morning.”
Just at this moment there was a great commotion in the drawing-room. Vandeuvres and Fauchery were therefore unable to press the count any further. The Marquis de Chouard had arrived, and every one hastened to greet him. He seemed to move along very painfully, his legs almost giving way beneath him; and he at length stood still in the middle of the room, his face ashy pale, and his eyes blinking, as though he had just come out of some very dark place and was quite blinded by the light of the lamps.
“I had quite given up expecting to see you, father,” said the countess. “I should have been quite uneasy until I heard from you to-morrow.”
He looked at her without replying, like a man who does not understand. His nose, which appeared very big on his clean-shaven face, looked like an enormous gathering; whilst his under-lip drooped. Madame Hugon, full of kindliness, seeing him so depressed, pitied him.
“You work too much. You ought to rest. At our age we should leave work to the younger ones.”
“Work, ah! yes, work,” he at length stammered out. “Always plenty of work.”
He was becoming himself again. He straightened his bent frame, passing his hand in a way familiar with him over his white hair, the scanty locks of which were brushed behind his ears.
“What is it you work at so late?” asked Madame du Joncquoy “I thought you were at the reception held by the Minister of Finance?”
But the countess interposed, “My father had to study some parliamentary bill.”
“Yes, a parliamentary bill,” said he, “a bill, exactly. I shut myself in. It was in respect to factories. I wish them to be closed on Sundays. It is really shameful that the government does not display more energy in the matter. The churches are now scarcely frequented; it will all end in a great catastrophe.”
Vandeuvres glanced at Fauchery. They were both behind the Marquis, and they kept near him. When Vandeuvres was able to take him on one side, to ask him about the charming person whom he was in the habit of taking into the country, the old man affected great surprise. Perhaps they had seen him with Baroness Decker, at whose house at Viroflay he sometimes spent a few days. Vandeuvres, for revenge, asked him suddenly, “I say, wherever have you been? Your elbow is all covered with cobwebs and plaster.”
“My elbow,” he murmured, slightly troubled. “Why, so it is! A little dirt. I must have got that somehow as I came here.”
Several persons were leaving. It was close upon midnight. Two footmen silently removed the empty cups and the plates of cake. The ladies were still sitting in front of the fire, though in a smaller circle than before, conversing more freely in the languor of the end of an evening. Even the room itself seemed overcome with drowsiness, and heavy shadows lingered about the walls. Then Fauchery talked of retiring. However, his eyes once more sought Countess Sabine. Having seen to her guests, she was now resting in her accustomed seat, saying nothing, her glance fixed on a log that was gradually burning away, and her face so white and impenetrable, that his doubts returned to him. The little black hairs on the mark she had near the corner of her mouth