Four Short Stories By Emile Zola. Emile Zola

gracious me!” she cried. “There’s one of ‘em in there even now!” The very young man had jumped down at sight of her and was blushing as red as a poppy. He did not know what to do with his bouquet, which he kept shifting from one hand to the other, while his looks betrayed the extreme of emotion. His youth, his embarrassment and the funny figure he cut in his struggles with his flowers melted Nana’s heart, and she burst into a pretty peal of laughter. Well, now, the very children were coming, were they? Men were arriving in long clothes. So she gave up all airs and graces, became familiar and maternal, tapped her leg and asked for fun:

      “You want me to wipe your nose; do you, baby?”

      “Yes,” replied the lad in a low, supplicating tone.

      This answer made her merrier than ever. He was seventeen years old, he said. His name was Georges Hugon. He was at the Varietes last night and now he had come to see her.

      “These flowers are for me?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then give ‘em to me, booby!”

      But as she took the bouquet from him he sprang upon her hands and kissed them with all the gluttonous eagerness peculiar to his charming time of life. She had to beat him to make him let go. There was a dreadful little dribbling customer for you! But as she scolded him she flushed rosy-red and began smiling. And with that she sent him about his business, telling him that he might call again. He staggered away; he could not find the doors.

      Nana went back into her dressing room, where Francis made his appearance almost simultaneously in order to dress her hair for the evening. Seated in front of her mirror and bending her head beneath the hairdresser’s nimble hands, she stayed silently meditative. Presently, however, Zoe entered, remarking:

      “There’s one of them, madame, who refuses to go.”

      “Very well, he must be left alone,” she answered quietly.

      “If that comes to that they still keep arriving.”

      “Bah! Tell ‘em to wait. When they begin to feel too hungry they’ll be off.” Her humor had changed, and she was now delighted to make people wait about for nothing. A happy thought struck her as very amusing; she escaped from beneath Francis’ hands and ran and bolted the doors. They might now crowd in there as much as they liked; they would probably refrain from making a hole through the wall. Zoe could come in and out through the little doorway leading to the kitchen. However, the electric bell rang more lustily than ever. Every five minutes a clear, lively little ting-ting recurred as regularly as if it had been produced by some well-adjusted piece of mechanism. And Nana counted these rings to while the time away withal. But suddenly she remembered something.

      “I say, where are my burnt almonds?”

      Francis, too, was forgetting about the burnt almonds. But now he drew a paper bag from one of the pockets of his frock coat and presented it to her with the discreet gesture of a man who is offering a lady a present. Nevertheless, whenever his accounts came to be settled, he always put the burnt almonds down on his bill. Nana put the bag between her knees and set to work munching her sweetmeats, turning her head from time to time under the hairdresser’s gently compelling touch.

      “The deuce,” she murmured after a silence, “there’s a troop for you!”

      Thrice, in quick succession, the bell had sounded. Its summonses became fast and furious. There were modest tintinnabulations which seemed to stutter and tremble like a first avowal; there were bold rings which vibrated under some rough touch and hasty rings which sounded through the house with shivering rapidity. It was a regular peal, as Zoe said, a peal loud enough to upset the neighborhood, seeing that a whole mob of men were jabbing at the ivory button, one after the other. That old joker Bordenave had really been far too lavish with her address. Why, the whole of yesterday’s house was coming!

      “By the by, Francis, have you five louis?” said Nana.

      He drew back, looked carefully at her headdress and then quietly remarked:

      “Five louis, that’s according!”

      “Ah, you know if you want securities.” she continued.

      And without finishing her sentence, she indicated the adjoining rooms with a sweeping gesture. Francis lent the five louis. Zoe, during each momentary respite, kept coming in to get Madame’s things ready. Soon she came to dress her while the hairdresser lingered with the intention of giving some finishing touches to the headdress. But the bell kept continually disturbing the lady’s maid, who left Madame with her stays half laced and only one shoe on. Despite her long experience, the maid was losing her head. After bringing every nook and corner into requisition and putting men pretty well everywhere, she had been driven to stow them away in threes and fours, which was a course of procedure entirely opposed to her principles. So much the worse for them if they ate each other up! It would afford more room! And Nana, sheltering behind her carefully bolted door, began laughing at them, declaring that she could hear them pant. They ought to be looking lovely in there with their tongues hanging out like a lot of bowwows sitting round on their behinds. Yesterday’s success was not yet over, and this pack of men had followed up her scent.

      “Provided they don’t break anything,” she murmured.

      She began to feel some anxiety, for she fancied she felt their hot breath coming through chinks in the door. But Zoe ushered Labordette in, and the young woman gave a little shout of relief. He was anxious to tell her about an account he had settled for her at the justice of peace’s court. But she did not attend and said:

      “I’ll take you along with me. We’ll have dinner together, and afterward you shall escort me to the Varietes. I don’t go on before half-past nine.”

      Good old Labordette, how lucky it was he had come! He was a fellow who never asked for any favors. He was only the friend of the women, whose little bits of business he arranged for them. Thus on his way in he had dismissed the creditors in the anteroom. Indeed, those good folks really didn’t want to be paid. On the contrary, if they HAD been pressing for payment it was only for the sake of complimenting Madame and of personally renewing their offers of service after her grand success of yesterday.

      “Let’s be off, let’s be off,” said Nana, who was dressed by now.

      But at that moment Zoe came in again, shouting:

      “I refuse to open the door any more. They’re waiting in a crowd all down the stairs.”

      A crowd all down the stairs! Francis himself, despite the English stolidity of manner which he was wont to affect, began laughing as he put up his combs. Nana, who had already taken Labordette’s arm, pushed him into the kitchen and effected her escape. At last she was delivered from the men and felt happily conscious that she might now enjoy his society anywhere without fear of stupid interruptions.

      “You shall see me back to my door,” she said as they went down the kitchen stairs. “I shall feel safe, in that case. Just fancy, I want to sleep a whole night quite by myself – yes, a whole night! It’s sort of infatuation, dear boy!”

      CHAPTER III

      The countess Sabine, as it had become customary to call Mme Muffat de Beuville in order to distinguish her from the count’s mother, who had died the year before, was wont to receive every Tuesday in her house in the Rue Miromesnil at the corner of the Rue de Pentievre. It was a great square building, and the Muffats had lived in it for a hundred years or more. On the side of the street its frontage seemed to slumber, so lofty was it and dark, so sad and convent-like, with its great outer shutters, which were nearly always closed. And at the back in a little dark garden some trees had grown up and were straining toward the sunlight with such long slender branches that their tips were visible above the roof.

      This particular Tuesday, toward ten o’clock in the evening, there were scarcely a dozen people in the drawing room. When she was only expecting intimate friends the countess opened neither the little drawing room nor the dining room. One felt more at home on such occasions and chatted round the fire. The drawing room was very large and very lofty; its four windows looked out upon the