Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [69]
“I don’t feel at all sleepy!” said Nana, “Do let us do something.
She looked at the sky through the window panes—a sky of a livid colour, and over which floated sooty black clouds. It was six o’clock. Facing her, on the other side of the Boulevard Haussman, the houses were still hushed in sleep, their damp roofs standing out in the dim light; while a party of scavengers were passing along the deserted pavement, on which their wooden shoes resounded. In the presence of this mournful awakening of a gay city, Nana was seized with the emotion of a young girl, with an intense longing for the country, for an idyllic existence, for something pure and peaceful.
“Oh! I’ll tell you what,” said she, going up to Steiner, “you must take me to the Bois de Boulogne, and we will have some milk. ”
She clapped her hands with a childish joy, and ran to throw a pelisse over her shoulders, without waiting for any answer from the banker, who naturally consented, though inwardly annoyed, and dreaming of something very different. The only persons left in the drawing-room were the young men who had come in a body; but, having drained everything, even the glasses, into the piano, they were talking of leaving, when one of them triumphantly appeared, holding in his hand a last bottle, which he had discovered in the kitchen.
“Wait! wait!” cried he, “a bottle of chartreuse! There now, he wanted some chartreuse, that will bring him to again. And now, boys, let’s be off. We’re a set of idiots.”
Nana had to wake up Zoé, who had fallen asleep on a chair in the dressing-room. The gas was still burning. Zoé shivered as she helped her mistress to don her hat and pelisse.
“Well, it’s all over; I’ve done as you wished,” said Nana, in a most familiar manner, relieved at having at length made up her mind. “You were right, it may as well be the banker as another.”
The maid was sullen and still drowsy. She grunted that madame should have come to that decision on the first night. Then, as she followed her into the bedroom, she asked what she was to do with the two who were there. Bordenave had not left off snoring. George, who had slyly come and buried his head in a pillow, had ended by falling asleep, breathing as gently as a cherub. Nana told the girl to let them sleep. But all her tenderness returned on seeing Daguenet enter the room; he had been waiting for her in the kitchen—he looked very sad.
“Come now, my Mimi, be reasonable,” said she, taking him in her arms, and hugging him with all manner of fondling ways. “Nothing is altered, you know it is my Mimi alone whom I adore—don’t you now? I was obliged to do it. I swear to you, we shall be all the happier. Come to-morrow, we will settle the hours for seeing each other. Now, quick, kiss me as much as you love me—oh! more, more than that!”
And, tearing herself away from him, she rejoined Steiner, thoroughly happy and full of her fad of going to drink some new milk. In the room, now almost deserted, Count de Vandeuvres remained with the distinguished-looking gentleman who had recited “Abraham’s Sacrifice”; they were both seated at the card-table, no longer knowing what they were doing, and not noticing that it was broad daylight; whilst Blanche had curled herself up on the sofa, and tried to sleep.
“Ah! Blanche shall go too!” cried Nana. “We are going to drink some