Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [95]
“Ah, my dear!” said Nana, as she pushed the little table on one side, “for ten years I haven’t dined so well.”
It was getting late, however, and she wished to send the youngster home so as not to bring him into trouble. He kept repeating that he had plenty of time; besides, the clothes were not drying well—Zoé declared that they would take at least an hour longer, and as she was every minute falling asleep, being tired out by the journey, they sent her off to bed. Then they were left alone in the silent house. It was a calm, pleasant night. The fire was burning low, and the heat was rather stifling in the big room, the bed of which Zoé had made before leaving. Nana, feeling too warm, rose to open the window for a minute. But she uttered a faint cry.
“Heavens! how lovely it is! Look, my dear.”
George joined her, and, as though the window-rail was not long enough for two, he put his arm round Nana’s waist and rested his head on her shoulder. The weather had suddenly changed, the sky was perfectly clear and studded with stars, whilst a full moon lit up the country with a sheet of gold. A sovereign peacefulness hung over all, the valley widened and opened on to the immensity of the plain, where the trees cast shadows that looked like islands in the motionless lake of light. And Nana was deeply moved and felt like a child again. She was sure she had dreamt of such nights at an epoch of her life which she could no longer recall. All that she had seen since she left the train, this vast expanse of fields, this grass that smelt so nice, this house, these vegetables, all these upset her to such an extent, that it seemed as though she had left Paris fully twenty years before. Her existence of the previous day was already far away. She felt as she had never previously felt. George, all this while, was slyly kissing her on the neck, which increased her perturbation. With a hesitating hand she repelled him as one would a child when wearied by its caresses, and she repeated that it was time for him to go home. He did not say “no,” by-and-by, he would leave by-and-by. But a bird began to sing, then stopped. It was a robin, in an elder bush under the window.
“Wait a minute,” murmured George, “the lamp-light frightens him, I will put it out.” And, when he came back, again placing his arm around Nana’s waist, he added, “We can light it again directly.”
Then, as she listened to the robin, whilst the boy pressed close against her, Nana recollected. Yes, it was in novels that she had seen all that. Once, in the days gone by, she would have given her heart to have seen the moon thus, to have heard the robin and to have had a little fellow full of love by her side. Oh, heaven! she could have cried, it all seemed to her so lovely and good! For certain she was born to live a virtuous life. She again repelled George, who was becoming bolder.
“No, leave me, I won’t. It would be very wrong at your age. Listen, I will be your mamma.”
She had become quite bashful; her face was flushing scarlet. Yet no one could see her. The room behind them was full of the darkness of night, whilst as far as the eye could reach the countryside unfolded the silence and immobility of its solitude. Never before had she felt such shame. Little by little her strength seemed to leave her in spite of her constraint and her struggles. That disguise, that woman’s night-dress and that dressing-gown, made her laugh still. It was like a girl friend teasing her.
“Oh! it is wrong, it is wrong,” murmured she, after a last effort; and she fell like a virgin into