Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [79]
“I say!” he exclaimed, becoming very familiar. “I’ll have all my little women down.”
But Nana objected, though she was beginning to forget herself. Fontan attracted her with his grotesque face. She kept close to his side, looking tenderly at him like a pregnant woman with a longing for something the reverse of nice; suddenly she addressed him most familiarly:
“Come, pour out, you big ninny!”
Fontan filled the glasses again, and they drank, repeating the same toasts.
“His Highness!”
“The army!”
“Venus!”
But Nana motioned for silence. She held her glass high above her head, and said, “No, no, we must drink to Fontan! It’s Fontan’s saint’s-day. To Fontan! Fontan!”
Then they clinked glasses a third time, and they all exclaimed “Fontan.” The prince, who had noticed the young woman devour the actor with her eyes, bowed to him.
“M. Fontan,” said he, with true politeness, “I drink to your successes.”
Meanwhile His Highness’s overcoat was rubbing against the marble dressing-table behind him. It was like being in the depths of an alcove, or a narrow bath-room, with this vapour from the basin and the sponges, the strong perfume from the scents mixed with the slightly sourish intoxicating odour of the champagne. The prince and Count Muffat, between whom Nana now found herself, were obliged to hold up their hands so as not to touch her hips or her bosom each time they moved. And Madame Jules, without the least sign of perspiration, was waiting, standing as erect as a post; whilst Satin, with all her vice, astonished at seeing a prince and gentlemen in evening-dress join in a lot of mummers in running after a naked woman, thought to herself that fashionable people were not so very virtuous after all.
Old Barillot now came along the passage tingling his bell. When he appeared at the dressing-room door and saw the three actors still in their second act costumes, he was almost dumb-foundered.
“Oh! gentlemen, gentlemen,” he stammered out, “do be quick. The bell has just rung in the foyer.”
“Never mind!” said Bordenave, coolly; “the audience can wait.”
Nevertheless, as the bottles were empty, the actors went up to dress, after again bowing. Bosc, having soaked his beard with champagne, had taken it off, and beneath the venerable appendage the drunkard had suddenly reappeared, with the diseased and purple face of an old actor who had taken to drink. He was heard at the foot of the stair-case saying to Fontan, in his hoarse voice, in allusion to the prince:
“Now, didn’t I astonish him?”
His Highness, the count, and the marquis still remained with Nana. Bordenave had gone off with Barillot, after ordering him not to have the curtain raised without first warning madame.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said Nana, as she proceeded to make up her face and arms again with more than ordinary care on account of the nudity of the third act. The prince seated himself on the sofa with the Marquis de Chouard. Only Count Muffat remained standing. The couple of glasses of champagne, taken in that suffocating atmosphere, had increased their intoxication. Satin, seeing the gentlemen shut in with her friend, had discreetly retired behind the curtain, and there she waited, seated on a trunk, tired of doing nothing; whilst Madame Jules quietly moved about the room, without a word, and without looking either to the right or to the left.
“You sang your rondeau marvellously well,” observed the prince.
Then the conversation was established, but only in short phrases, broken by numerous pauses. Nana could not always be answering. After spreading some cold cream over her face and arms with her hand, she laid on the white paint with the corner of a towel. For