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_ CHAPTER XIV
Nana suddenly disappeared. It was a fresh plunge, an escapade, a
flight into barbarous regions. Before her departure she had treated
herself to a new sensation: she had held a sale and had made a clean
sweep of everything--house, furniture, jewelry, nay, even dresses
and linen. Prices were cited--the five days' sale produced more
than six hundred thousand francs. For the last time Paris had seen
her in a fairy piece. It was called Melusine, and it played at the
Theatre de la Gaite, which the penniless Bordenave had taken out of
sheer audacity. Here she again found herself in company with
Prulliere and Fontan. Her part was simply spectacular, but it was
the great attraction of the piece, consisting, as it did, of three
POSES PLASTIQUES, each of which represented the same dumb and
puissant fairy. Then one fine morning amid his grand success, when
Bordenave, who was mad after advertisement, kept firing the Parisian
imagination with colossal posters, it became known that she must
have started for Cairo the previous day. She had simply had a few
words with her manager. Something had been said which did not
please her; the whole thing was the caprice of a woman who is too
rich to let herself be annoyed. Besides, she had indulged an old
infatuation, for she had long meditated visiting the Turks.
Months passed--she began to be forgotten. When her name was
mentioned among the ladies and gentlemen, the strangest stories were
told, and everybody gave the most contradictory and at the same time
prodigious information. She had made a conquest of the viceroy; she
was reigning, in the recesses of a palace, over two hundred slaves
whose heads she now and then cut off for the sake of a little
amusement. No, not at all! She had ruined herself with a great big
nigger! A filthy passion this, which had left her wallowing without
a chemise to her back in the crapulous debauchery of Cairo. A
fortnight later much astonishment was produced when someone swore to
having met her in Russia. A legend began to be formed: she was the
mistress of a prince, and her diamonds were mentioned. All the
women were soon acquainted with them from the current descriptions,
but nobody could cite the precise source of all this information.
There were finger rings, earrings, bracelets, a REVIERE of
phenomenal width, a queenly diadem surmounted by a central brilliant
the size of one's thumb. In the retirement of those faraway
countries she began to gleam forth as mysteriously as a gem-laden
idol. People now mentioned her without laughing, for they were full
of meditative respect for this fortune acquired among the
barbarians.
One evening in July toward eight o'clock, Lucy, while getting out of
her carriage in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, noticed Caroline
Hequet, who had come out on foot to order something at a neighboring
tradesman's. Lucy called her and at once burst out with:
"Have you dined? Are you disengaged? Oh, then come with me, my
dear. Nana's back."
The other got in at once, and Lucy continued:
"And you know, my dear, she may be dead while we're gossiping."
"Dead! What an idea!" cried Caroline in stupefaction. "And where
is she? And what's it of?"
"At the Grand Hotel, of smallpox. Oh, it's a long story!"
Lucy had bidden her coachman drive fast, and while the horses
trotted rapidly along the Rue Royale and the boulevards, she told
what had happened to Nana in jerky, breathless sentences.
"You can't imagine it. Nana plumps down out of Russia. I don't
know why--some dispute with her prince. She leaves her traps at the
station; she lands at her aunt's--you remember the old thing. Well,
and then she finds her baby dying of smallpox. The baby dies next
day, and she has a row with the aunt about some money she ought to
have sent, of which the other one has never seen a sou. Seems the
child died of that: in fact, it was neglected and badly cared for.
Very well; Nana slopes, goes to a hotel, then meets Mignon just as
she was thinking of her traps. She has all sorts of queer feelings,
shivers, wants to be sick, and Mignon takes her back to her place
and promises to look after her affairs. Isn't it odd, eh? Doesn't
it all happen pat? But this is the best part of the story: Rose
finds out about Nana's illness and gets indignant at the idea of her
being alone in furnished apartments. So she rushes off, crying, to
look after her. You remember how they used to detest one another--
like regular furies! Well then, my dear, Rose has had Nana
transported to the Grand Hotel, so that she should, at any rate, die
in a smart place, and now she's already passed three nights there
and is free to die of it after. It's Labordette who told me all
about it. Accordingly I wanted to see for myself--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Caroline in great excitement "We'll go up to
her."
They had arrived at their destination. On the boulevard the
coachman had had to rein in his horses amid a block of carriages and
people on foot. During the day the Corps Legislatif had voted for
war, and now a crowd was streaming down all the streets, flowing
along all the pavements, invading the middle of the roadway. Beyond
the Madeleine the sun had set behind a blood-red cloud, which cast a
reflection as of a great fire and set the lofty windows flaming.
Twilight was falling, and the hour was oppressively melancholy, for
now the avenues were darkening away into the distance but were not
as yet dotted over by the bright sparks of the gas lamps. And among
the marching crowds distant voices swelled and grew ever louder, and
eyes gleamed from pale faces, while a great spreading wind of
anguish and stupor set every head whirling.
"Here's Mignon," said Lucy. "He'll give us news."
Mignon was standing under the vast porch of the Grand Hotel. He
looked nervous and was gazing at the crowd. After Lucy's first few
questions he grew impatient and cried out:
"How should I know? These last two days I haven't been able to tear
Rose away from up there. It's getting stupid, when all's said, for
her to be risking her life like that! She'll be charming if she
gets over it, with holes in her face! It'll suit us to a tee!"
The idea that Rose might lose her beauty was exasperating him. He
was giving up Nana in the most downright fashion, and he could not
in the least understand these stupid feminine devotions. But
Fauchery was crossing the boulevard, and he, too, came up anxiously
and asked for news. The two men egged each other on. They
addressed one another familiarly in these days.
"Always the same business, my sonny," declared Mignon. "You ought
to go upstairs; you would force her to follow you."
"Come now, you're kind, you are!" said the journalist. "Why don't
you go upstairs yourself?"
Then as Lucy began asking for Nana's number, they besought her to
make Rose come down; otherwise they would end by getting angry.
Nevertheless, Lucy and Caroline did not go up at once. They had
caught sight of Fontan strolling about with his hands in his pockets
and greatly amused by the quaint expressions of the mob. When he
became aware that Nana was lying ill upstairs he affected sentiment
and remarked:
"The poor girl! I'll go and shake her by the hand. What's the
matter with her, eh?"
"Smallpox," replied Mignon.
The actor had already taken a step or two in the direction of the
court, but he came back and simply murmured with a shiver:
"Oh, damn it!"
The smallpox was no joke. Fontan had been near having it when he
was five years old, while Mignon gave them an account of one of his
nieces who had died of it. As to Fauchery, he could speak of it
from personal experience, for he still bore marks of it in the shape
of three little lumps at the base of his nose, which he showed them.
And when Mignon again egged him on to the ascent, on the pretext
that you never had it twice, he violently combated this theory and
with infinite abuse of the doctors instanced various cases. But
Lucy and Caroline interrupted them, for the growing multitude filled
them with astonishment.
"Just look! Just look what a lot of people!" The night was
deepening, and in the distance the gas lamps were being lit one by
one. Meanwhile interested spectators became visible at windows,
while under the trees the human flood grew every minute more dense,
till it ran in one enormous stream from the Madeleine to the
Bastille. Carriages rolled slowly along. A roaring sound went up
from this compact and as yet inarticulate mass. Each member of it
had come out, impelled by the desire to form a crowd, and was now
trampling along, steeping himself in the pervading fever. But a
great movement caused the mob to flow asunder. Among the jostling,
scattering groups a band of men in workmen's caps and white blouses
had come in sight, uttering a rhythmical cry which suggested the
beat of hammers upon an anvil.
"To Ber-lin! To Ber-lin! To Ber-lin!" And the crowd stared in
gloomy distrust yet felt themselves already possessed and inspired
by heroic imaginings, as though a military band were passing.
"Oh yes, go and get your throats cut!" muttered Mignon, overcome by
an access of philosophy.
But Fontan thought it very fine, indeed, and spoke of enlisting.
When the enemy was on the frontier all citizens ought to rise up in
defense of the fatherland! And with that he assumed an attitude
suggestive of Bonaparte at Austerlitz.
"Look here, are you coining up with us?" Lucy asked him.
"Oh dear, no! To catch something horrid?" he said.
On a bench in front of the Grand Hotel a man sat hiding his face in
a handkerchief. On arriving Fauchery had indicated him to Mignon
with a wink of the eye. Well, he was still there; yes, he was
always there. And the journalist detained the two women also in
order to point him out to them. When the man lifted his head they
recognized him; an exclamation escaped them. It was the Count
Muffat, and he was giving an upward glance at one of the windows.
"You know, he's been waiting there since this morning," Mignon
informed them. "I saw him at six o'clock, and he hasn't moved
since. Directly Labordette spoke about it he came there with his
handkerchief up to his face. Every half-hour he comes dragging
himself to where we're standing to ask if the person upstairs is
doing better, and then he goes back and sits down. Hang it, that
room isn't healthy! It's all very well being fond of people, but
one doesn't want to kick the bucket."
The count sat with uplifted eyes and did not seem conscious of what
was going on around him. Doubtless he was ignorant of the
declaration of war, and he neither felt nor saw the crowd.
"Look, here he comes!" said Fauchery. "Now you'll see."
The count had, in fact, quitted his bench and was entering the lofty
porch. But the porter, who was getting to know his face at last,
did not give him time to put his question. He said sharply:
"She's dead, monsieur, this very minute."
Nana dead! It was a blow to them all. Without a word Muffat had
gone back to the bench, his face still buried in his handkerchief.
The others burst into exclamations, but they were cut short, for a
fresh band passed by, howling, "A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!"
Nana dead! Hang it, and such a fine girl too! Mignon sighed and
looked relieved, for at last Rose would come down. A chill fell on
the company. Fontan, meditating a tragic role, had assumed a look
of woe and was drawing down the corners of his mouth and rolling his
eyes askance, while Fauchery chewed his cigar nervously, for despite
his cheap journalistic chaff he was really touched. Nevertheless,
the two women continued to give vent to their feelings of surprise.
The last time Lucy had seen her was at the Gaite; Blanche, too, had
seen her in Melusine. Oh, how stunning it was, my dear, when she
appeared in the depths of the crystal grot! The gentlemen
remembered the occasion perfectly. Fontan had played the Prince
Cocorico. And their memories once stirred up, they launched into
interminable particulars. How ripping she looked with that rich
coloring of hers in the crystal grot! Didn't she, now? She didn't
say a word: the authors had even deprived her of a line or two,
because it was superfluous. No, never a word! It was grander that
way, and she drove her public wild by simply showing herself. You
wouldn't find another body like hers! Such shoulders as she had,
and such legs and such a figure! Strange that she should be dead!
You know, above her tights she had nothing on but a golden girdle
which hardly concealed her behind and in front. All round her the
grotto, which was entirely of glass, shone like day. Cascades of
diamonds were flowing down; strings of brilliant pearls glistened
among the stalactites in the vault overhead, and amid the
transparent atmosphere and flowing fountain water, which was crossed
by a wide ray of electric light, she gleamed like the sun with that
flamelike skin and hair of hers. Paris would always picture her
thus--would see her shining high up among crystal glass like the
good God Himself. No, it was too stupid to let herself die under
such conditions! She must be looking pretty by this time in that
room up there!
"And what a lot of pleasures bloody well wasted!" said Mignon in
melancholy tones, as became a man who did not like to see good and
useful things lost.
He sounded Lucy and Caroline in order to find out if they were going
up after all. Of course they were going up; their curiosity had
increased. Just then Blanche arrived, out of breath and much
exasperated at the way the crowds were blocking the pavement, and
when she heard the news there was a fresh outburst of exclamations,
and with a great rustling of skirts the ladies moved toward the
staircase. Mignon followed them, crying out:
"Tell Rose that I'm waiting for her. She'll come at once, eh?"
"They do not exactly know whether the contagion is to be feared at
the beginning or near the end," Fontan was explaining to Fauchery.
"A medical I know was assuring me that the hours immediately
following death are particularly dangerous. There are miasmatic
exhalations then. Ah, but I do regret this sudden ending; I should
have been so glad to shake hands with her for the last time.
"What good would it do you now?" said the journalist.
"Yes, what good?" the two others repeated.
The crowd was still on the increase. In the bright light thrown
from shop-windows and beneath the wavering glare of the gas two
living streams were distinguishable as they flowed along the
pavement, innumerable hats apparently drifting on their surface. At
that hour the popular fever was gaining ground rapidly, and people
were flinging themselves in the wake of the bands of men in blouses.
A constant forward movement seemed to sweep the roadway, and the cry
kept recurring; obstinately, abruptly, there rang from thousands of
throats:
"A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!"
The room on the fourth floor upstairs cost twelve francs a day,
since Rose had wanted something decent and yet not luxurious, for
sumptuousness is not necessary when one is suffering. Hung with
Louis XIII cretonne, which was adorned with a pattern of large
flowers, the room was furnished with the mahogany commonly found in
hotels. On the floor there was a red carpet variegated with black
foliage. Heavy silence reigned save for an occasional whispering
sound caused by voices in the corridor.
"I assure you we're lost. The waiter told us to turn to the right.
What a barrack of a house!"
"Wait a bit; we must have a look. Room number 401; room number
401!"
"Oh, it's this way: 405, 403. We ought to be there. Ah, at last,
401! This way! Hush now, hush!"
The voices were silent. Then there was a slight coughing and a
moment or so of mental preparation. Then the door opened slowly,
and Lucy entered, followed by Caroline and Blanche. But they
stopped directly; there were already five women in the room; Gaga
was lying back in the solitary armchair, which was a red velvet
Voltaire. In front of the fireplace Simonne and Clarisse were now
standing talking to Lea de Horn, who was seated, while by the bed,
to the left of the door, Rose Mignon, perched on the edge of a
chest, sat gazing fixedly at the body where it lay hidden in the
shadow of the curtains. All the others had their hats and gloves on
and looked as if they were paying a call: she alone sat there with
bare hands and untidy hair and cheeks rendered pale by three nights
of watching. She felt stupid in the face of this sudden death, and
her eyes were swollen with weeping. A shaded lamp standing on the
corner of the chest of drawers threw a bright flood of light over
Gaga.
"What a sad misfortune, is it not?" whispered Lucy as she shook
hands with Rose. "We wanted to bid her good-by."
And she turned round and tried to catch sight of her, but the lamp
was too far off, and she did not dare bring it nearer. On the bed
lay stretched a gray mass, but only the ruddy chignon was
distinguishable and a pale blotch which might be the face. Lucy
added:
"I never saw her since that time at the Gaite, when she was at the
end of the grotto."
At this Rose awoke from her stupor and smiled as she said:
"Ah, she's changed; she's changed."
Then she once more lapsed into contemplation and neither moved nor
spoke. Perhaps they would be able to look at her presently! And
with that the three women joined the others in front of the
fireplace. Simonne and Clarisse were discussing the dead woman's
diamonds in low tones. Well, did they really exist--those diamonds?
Nobody had seen them; it must be a bit of humbug. But Lea de Horn
knew someone who knew all about them. Oh, they were monster stones!
Besides, they weren't all; she had brought back lots of other
precious property from Russia--embroidered stuffs, for instance,
valuable knickknacks, a gold dinner service, nay, even furniture.
"Yes, my dear, fifty-two boxes, enormous cases some of them, three
truckloads of them!" They were all lying at the station. "Wasn't
it hard lines, eh?--to die without even having time to unpack one's
traps?" Then she had a lot of tin, besides--something like a
million! Lucy asked who was going to inherit it all. Oh, distant
relations--the aunt, without doubt! It would be a pretty surprise
for that old body. She knew nothing about it yet, for the sick
woman had obstinately refused to let them warn her, for she still
owed her a grudge over her little boy's death. Thereupon they were
all moved to pity about the little boy, and they remembered seeing
him at the races. Oh, it was a wretchedly sickly baby; it looked so
old and so sad. In fact, it was one of those poor brats who never
asked to be born!
"He's happier under the ground," said Blanche.
"Bah, and so's she!" added Caroline. "Life isn't so funny!"
In that gloomy room melancholy ideas began to take possession of
their imaginations. They felt frightened. It was silly to stand
talking so long, but a longing to see her kept them rooted to the
spot. It was very hot--the lamp glass threw a round, moonlike patch
of light upon the ceiling, but the rest of the room was drowned in
steamy darkness. Under the bed a deep plate full of phenol exhaled
an insipid smell. And every few moments tiny gusts of wind swelled
the window curtains. The window opened on the boulevard, whence
rose a dull roaring sound.
"Did she suffer much?" asked Lucy, who was absorbed in contemplation
of the clock, the design of which represented the three Graces as
nude young women, smiling like opera dancers.
Gaga seemed to wake up.
"My word, yes! I was present when she died. I promise you it was
not at all pleasant to see. Why, she was taken with a shuddering
fit--"
But she was unable to proceed with her explanation, for a cry arose
outside:
"A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!"
And Lucy, who felt suffocated, flung wide the window and leaned upon
the sill. It was pleasant there; the air came fresh from the starry
sky. Opposite her the windows were all aglow with light, and the
gas sent dancing reflections over the gilt lettering of the shop
signs.
Beneath these, again, a most amusing scene presented itself. The
streams of people were discernible rolling torrentwise along the
sidewalks and in the roadway, where there was a confused procession
of carriages. Everywhere there were vast moving shadows in which
lanterns and lampposts gleamed like sparks. But the band which now
came roaring by carried torches, and a red glow streamed down from
the direction of the Madeleine, crossed the mob like a trail of fire
and spread out over the heads in the distance like a vivid
reflection of a burning house. Lucy called Blanche and Caroline,
forgetting where she was and shouting:
"Do come! You get a capital view from this window!"
They all three leaned out, greatly interested. The trees got in
their way, and occasionally the torches disappeared under the
foliage. They tried to catch a glimpse of the men of their own
party below, but a protruding balcony hid the door, and they could
only make out Count Muffat, who looked like a dark parcel thrown
down on the bench where he sat. He was still burying his face in
his handkerchief. A carriage had stopped in front, and yet another
woman hurried up, in whom Lucy recognized Maria Blond. She was not
alone; a stout man got down after her.
"It's that thief of a Steiner," said Caroline. "How is it they
haven't sent him back to Cologne yet? I want to see how he looks
when he comes in."
They turned round, but when after the lapse of ten minutes Maria
Blond appeared, she was alone. She had twice mistaken the
staircase. And when Lucy, in some astonishment, questioned her:
"What, he?" she said. "My dear, don't you go fancying that he'll
come upstairs! It's a great wonder he's escorted me as far as the
door. There are nearly a dozen of them smoking cigars."
As a matter of fact, all the gentlemen were meeting downstairs.
They had come strolling thither in order to have a look at the
boulevards, and they hailed one another and commented loudly on that
poor girl's death. Then they began discussing politics and
strategy. Bordenave, Daguenet, Labordette, Prulliere and others,
besides, had swollen the group, and now they were all listening to
Fontan, who was explaining his plan for taking Berlin within a week.
Meanwhile Maria Blond was touched as she stood by the bedside and
murmured, as the others had done before her:
"Poor pet! The last time I saw her was in the grotto at the Gaite."
"Ah, she's changed; she's changed!" Rose Mignon repeated with a
smile of gloomiest dejection.
Two more women arrived. These were Tatan Nene and Louise Violaine.
They had been wandering about the Grand Hotel for twenty minutes
past, bandied from waiter to waiter, and had ascended and descended
more than thirty flights of stairs amid a perfect stampede of
travelers who were hurrying to leave Paris amid the panic caused by
the war and the excitement on the boulevards. Accordingly they just
dropped down on chairs when they came in, for they were too tired to
think about the dead. At that moment a loud noise came from the
room next door, where people were pushing trunks about and striking
against furniture to an accompaniment of strident, outlandish
syllables. It was a young Austrian couple, and Gaga told how during
her agony the neighbors had played a game of catch as catch can and
how, as only an unused door divided the two rooms, they had heard
them laughing and kissing when one or the other was caught.
"Come, it's time we were off," said Clarisse. "We shan't bring her
to life again. Are you coming, Simonne?"
They all looked at the bed out of the corners of their eyes, but
they did not budge an inch. Nevertheless, they began getting ready
and gave their skirts various little pats. Lucy was again leaning
out of window. She was alone now, and a sorrowful feeling began
little by little to overpower her, as though an intense wave of
melancholy had mounted up from the howling mob. Torches still kept
passing, shaking out clouds of sparks, and far away in the distance
the various bands stretched into the shadows, surging unquietly to
and fro like flocks being driven to the slaughterhouse at night. A
dizzy feeling emanated from these confused masses as the human flood
rolled them along--a dizzy feeling, a sense of terror and all the
pity of the massacres to come. The people were going wild; their
voices broke; they were drunk with a fever of excitement which sent
them rushing toward the unknown "out there" beyond the dark wall of
the horizon.
"A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!"
Lucy turned round. She leaned her back against the window, and her
face was very pale.
"Good God! What's to become of us?"
The ladies shook their heads. They were serious and very anxious
about the turn events were taking.
"For my part," said Caroline Hequet in her decisive way, "I start
for London the day after tomorrow. Mamma's already over there
getting a house ready for me. I'm certainly not going to let myself
be massacred in Paris."
Her mother, as became a prudent woman, had invested all her
daughters' money in foreign lands. One never knows how a war may
end! But Maria Blond grew vexed at this. She was a patriot and
spoke of following the army.
"There's a coward for you! Yes, if they wanted me I should put on
man's clothes just to have a good shot at those pigs of Prussians!
And if we all die after? What of that? Our wretched skins aren't
so valuable!"
Blanche de Sivry was exasperated.
"Please don't speak ill of the Prussians! They are just like other
men, and they're not always running after the women, like your
Frenchmen. They've just expelled the little Prussian who was with
me. He was an awfully rich fellow and so gentle: he couldn't have
hurt a soul. It's disgraceful; I'm ruined by it. And, you know,
you mustn't say a word or I go and find him out in Germany!"
After that, while the two were at loggerheads, Gaga began murmuring
in dolorous tones:
"It's all over with me; my luck's always bad. It's only a week ago
that I finished paying for my little house at Juvisy. Ah, God knows
what trouble it cost me! I had to go to Lili for help! And now
here's the war declared, and the Prussians'll come and they'll burn
everything. How am I to begin again at my time of life, I should
like to know?"
"Bah!" said Clarisse. "I don't care a damn about it. I shall
always find what I want."
"Certainly you will," added Simonne. "It'll be a joke. Perhaps,
after all, it'll be good biz."
And her smile hinted what she thought. Tatan Nene and Louise
Violaine were of her opinion. The former told them that she had
enjoyed the most roaring jolly good times with soldiers. Oh, they
were good fellows and would have done any mortal thing for the
girls. But as the ladies had raised their voices unduly Rose
Mignon, still sitting on the chest by the bed, silenced them with a
softly whispered "Hush!" They stood quite still at this and glanced
obliquely toward the dead woman, as though this request for silence
had emanated from the very shadows of the curtains. In the heavy,
peaceful stillness which ensued, a void, deathly stillness which
made them conscious of the stiff dead body lying stretched close by
them, the cries of the mob burst forth:
"A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!"
But soon they forgot. Lea de Horn, who had a political salon where
former ministers of Louis Philippe were wont to indulge in delicate
epigrams, shrugged her shoulders and continued the conversation in a
low tone:
"What a mistake this war is! What a bloodthirsty piece of
stupidity!"
At this Lucy forthwith took up the cudgels for the empire. She had
been the mistress of a prince of the imperial house, and its defense
became a point of family honor with her.
"Do leave them alone, my dear. We couldn't let ourselves be further
insulted! Why, this war concerns the honor of France. Oh, you know
I don't say that because of the prince. He WAS just mean! Just
imagine, at night when he was going to bed he hid his gold in his
boots, and when we played at bezique he used beans, because one day
I pounced down on the stakes for fun. But that doesn't prevent my
being fair. The emperor was right."
Lea shook her head with an air of superiority, as became a woman who
was repeating the opinions of important personages. Then raising
her voice:
"This is the end of all things. They're out of their minds at the
Tuileries. France ought to have driven them out yesterday. Don't
you see?"
They all violently interrupted her. What was up with her? Was she
mad about the emperor? Were people not happy? Was business doing
badly? Paris would never enjoy itself so thoroughly again.
Gaga was beside herself; she woke up and was very indignant.
"Be quiet! It's idiotic! You don't know what you're saying. I--
I've seen Louis Philippe's reign: it was full of beggars and misers,
my dear. And then came '48! Oh, it was a pretty disgusting
business was their republic! After February I was simply dying of
starvation--yes, I, Gaga. Oh, if only you'd been through it all you
would go down on your knees before the emperor, for he's been a
father to us; yes, a father to us."
She had to be soothed but continued with pious fervor:
"O my God, do Thy best to give the emperor the victory. Preserve
the empire to us!"
They all repeated this aspiration, and Blanche confessed that she
burned candles for the emperor. Caroline had been smitten by him
and for two whole months had walked where he was likely to pass but
had failed to attract his attention. And with that the others burst
forth into furious denunciations of the Republicans and talked of
exterminating them on the frontiers so that Napoleon III, after
having beaten the enemy, might reign peacefully amid universal
enjoyment.
"That dirty Bismarck--there's another cad for you!" Maria Blond
remarked.
"To think that I should have known him!" cried Simonne. "If only I
could have foreseen, I'm the one that would have put some poison in
his glass."
But Blanche, on whose heart the expulsion of her Prussian still
weighed, ventured to defend Bismarck. Perhaps he wasn't such a bad
sort. To every man his trade!
"You know," she added, "he adores women."
"What the hell has that got to do with us?" said Clarisse. "We
don't want to cuddle him, eh?"
"There's always too many men of that sort!" declared Louise Violaine
gravely. "It's better to do without 'em than to mix oneself up with
such monsters!"
And the discussion continued, and they stripped Bismarck, and, in
her Bonapartist zeal, each of them gave him a sounding kick, while
Tatan Nene kept saying:
"Bismarck! Why, they've simply driven me crazy with the chap! Oh,
I hate him! I didn't know that there Bismarck! One can't know
everybody."
"Never mind," said Lea de Horn by way of conclusion, "that Bismarck
will give us a jolly good threshing."
But she could not continue. The ladies were all down on her at
once. Eh, what? A threshing? It was Bismarck they were going to
escort home with blows from the butt ends of their muskets. What
was this bad Frenchwoman going to say next?
"Hush," whispered Rose, for so much noise hurt her.
The cold influence of the corpse once more overcame them, and they
all paused together. They were embarrassed; the dead woman was
before them again; a dull thread of coming ill possessed them. On
the boulevard the cry was passing, hoarse and wild:
"A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!"
Presently, when they were making up their minds to go, a voice was
heard calling from the passage:
"Rose! Rose!"
Gaga opened the door in astonishment and disappeared for a moment.
When she returned:
"My dear," she said, "it's Fauchery. He's out there at the end of
the corridor. He won't come any further, and he's beside himself
because you still stay near that body."
Mignon had at last succeeded in urging the journalist upstairs.
Lucy, who was still at the window, leaned out and caught sight of
the gentlemen out on the pavement. They were looking up, making
energetic signals to her. Mignon was shaking his fists in
exasperation, and Steiner, Fontan, Bordenave and the rest were
stretching out their arms with looks of anxious reproach, while
Daguenet simply stood smoking a cigar with his hands behind his
back, so as not to compromise himself.
"It's true, dear," said Lucy, leaving the window open; "I promised
to make you come down. They're all calling us now."
Rose slowly and painfully left the chest.
"I'm coming down; I'm coming down," she whispered. "It's very
certain she no longer needs me. They're going to send in a Sister
of Mercy."
And she turned round, searching for her hat and shawl. Mechanically
she filled a basin of water on the toilet table and while washing
her hands and face continued:
"I don't know! It's been a great blow to me. We used scarcely to
be nice to one another. Ah well! You see I'm quite silly over it
now. Oh! I've got all sorts of strange ideas--I want to die myself--
I feel the end of the world's coming. Yes, I need air."
The corpse was beginning to poison the atmosphere of the room. And
after long heedlessness there ensued a panic.
"Let's be off; let's be off, my little pets!" Gaga kept saying. "It
isn't wholesome here."
They went briskly out, casting a last glance at the bed as they
passed it. But while Lucy, Blanche and Caroline still remained
behind, Rose gave a final look round, for she wanted to leave the
room in order. She drew a curtain across the window, and then it
occurred to her that the lamp was not the proper thing and that a
taper should take its place. So she lit one of the copper
candelabra on the chimney piece and placed it on the night table
beside the corpse. A brilliant light suddenly illumined the dead
woman's face. The women were horror-struck. They shuddered and
escaped.
"Ah, she's changed; she's changed!" murmured Rose Mignon, who was
the last to remain.
She went away; she shut the door. Nana was left alone with upturned
face in the light cast by the candle. She was fruit of the charnel
house, a heap of matter and blood, a shovelful of corrupted flesh
thrown down on the pillow. The pustules had invaded the whole of
the face, so that each touched its neighbor. Fading and sunken,
they had assumed the grayish hue of mud; and on that formless pulp,
where the features had ceased to be traceable, they already
resembled some decaying damp from the grave. One eye, the left eye,
had completely foundered among bubbling purulence, and the other,
which remained half open, looked like a deep, black, ruinous hole.
The nose was still suppurating. Quite a reddish crush was peeling
from one of the cheeks and invading the mouth, which it distorted
into a horrible grin. And over this loathsome and grotesque mask of
death the hair, the beautiful hair, still blazed like sunlight and
flowed downward in rippling gold. Venus was rotting. It seemed as
though the poison she had assimilated in the gutters and on the
carrion tolerated by the roadside, the leaven with which she had
poisoned a whole people, had but now remounted to her face and
turned it to corruption.
The room was empty. A great despairing breath came up from the
boulevard and swelled the curtain.
"A BERLIN! A BERLIN! A BERLIN!"
_________
-THE END-
Author: Emile Zola's novel: Nana _
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