บทที่ บทที่ 11 · LITTLE NANA

. LITTLE NANA

Nana was growing fast--fair, fresh and dimpled--her skin velvety, like

a peach, and eyes so bright that men often asked her if they might not

light their pipes at them. Her mass of blonde hair--the color of ripe

wheat--looked around her temples as if it were powdered with gold.

She had a quaint little trick of sticking out the tip of her tongue

between her white teeth, and this habit, for some reason, exasperated

her mother.

She was very fond of finery and very coquettish. In this house, where

bread was not always to be got, it was difficult for her to indulge

her caprices in the matter of costume, but she did wonders. She

brought home odds and ends of ribbons from the shop where she worked

and made them up into bows and knots with which she ornamented her

dirty dresses. She was not overparticular in washing her feet, but

she wore her boots so tight that she suffered martyrdom in honor of

St Crispin, and if anyone asked her what the matter was when the pain

flushed her face suddenly, she always and promptly laid it to the

score of the colic.

Summer was the season of her triumphs. In a calico dress that cost

five or six francs she was as fresh and sweet as a spring morning and

made the dull street radiant with her youth and her beauty. She went

by the name of "The Little Chicken." One gown, in particular, suited

her to perfection. It was white with rose-colored dots, without

trimming of any kind. The skirt was short and showed her feet. The

sleeves were very wide and displayed her arms to the elbows. She

turned the neck away and fastened it with pins--in a corner in the

corridor, dreading her father's jests--to exhibit her pretty rounded

throat. A rose-colored ribbon, knotted in the rippling masses of her

hair, completed her toilet. She was a charming combination of child

and woman.

Sundays at this period of her life were her days for coquetting with

the public. She looked forward to them all the week through with a

longing for liberty and fresh air.

Early in the morning she began her preparations and stood for hours in

her chemise before the bit of broken mirror nailed by the window, and

as everyone could see her, her mother would be very much vexed and ask

how long she intended to show herself in that way.

But she, quite undisturbed, went on fastening down the little curls on

her forehead with a little sugar and water and then sewed the buttons

on her boots or took a stitch or two in her frock, barefooted all this

time and with her chemise slipping off her rounded shoulders.

Her father declared he would exhibit her as the "Wild Girl," at two

sous a head.

She was very lovely in this scanty costume, the color flushing her

cheeks in her indignation at her father's sometimes coarse remarks.

She did not dare answer him, however, but bit off her thread in silent

rage. After breakfast she went down to the courtyard. The house was

wrapped in Sunday quiet; the workshops on the lower floor were closed.

Through some of the open windows the tables were seen laid for

dinners, the families being on the fortifications "getting an

appetite."

Five or six girls--Nana, Pauline and others--lingered in the courtyard

for a time and then took flight altogether into the streets and thence

to the outer boulevards. They walked in a line, filling up the whole

sidewalk, with ribbons fluttering in their uncovered hair.

They managed to see everybody and everything through their downcast

lids. The streets were their native heath, as it were, for they had

grown up in them.

Nana walked in the center and gave her arm to Pauline, and as they

were the oldest and tallest of the band, they gave the law to the

others and decided where they should go for the day and what they

should do.

Nana and Pauline were deep ones. They did nothing without

premeditation. If they ran it was to show their slender ankles, and

when they stopped and panted for breath it was sure to be at the side

of some youths--young workmen of their acquaintance--who smoked in

their faces as they talked. Nana had her favorite, whom she always

saw at a great distance--Victor Fauconnier--and Pauline adored a

young cabinetmaker, who gave her apples.

Toward sunset the great pleasure of the day began. A band of

mountebanks would spread a well-worn carpet, and a circle was formed

to look on. Nana and Pauline were always in the thickest of the

crowd, their pretty fresh dresses crushed between dirty blouses, but

insensible to the mingled odors of dust and alcohol, tobacco and dirt.

They heard vile language; it did not disturb them; it was their own

tongue--they heard little else. They listened to it with a smile,

their delicate cheeks unflushed.

The only thing that disturbed them was the appearance of their

fathers, particularly if these fathers seemed to have been drinking.

They kept a good lookout for this disaster.

"Look!" cried Pauline. "Your father is coming, Nana."

Then the girl would crouch on her knees and bid the others stand

close around her, and when he had passed on after an inquiring look

she would jump up and they would all utter peals of laughter.

But one day Nana was kicked home by her father, and Boche dragged

Pauline away by her ear.

The girls would ordinarily return to the courtyard in the twilight and

establish themselves there with the air of not having been away, and

each invented a story with which to greet their questioning parents.

Nana now received forty sous per day at the place where she had been

apprenticed. The Coupeaus would not allow her to change, because she

was there under the supervision of her aunt, Mme Lerat, who had been

employed for many years in the same establishment.

The girl went off at an early hour in her little black dress, which

was too short and too tight for her, and Mme Lerat was bidden,

whenever she was after her time, to inform Gervaise, who allowed her

just twenty minutes, which was quite long enough. But she was often

seven or eight minutes late, and she spent her whole day coaxing her

aunt not to tell her mother. Mme Lerat, who was fond of the girl and

understood the follies of youth, did not tell, but at the same time

she read Nana many a long sermon on her follies and talked of her own

responsibility and of the dangers a young girl ran in Paris.

"You must tell me everything," she said. "I am too indulgent to you,

and if evil should come of it I should throw myself into the Seine.

Understand me, my little kitten; if a man should speak to you you must

promise to tell me every word he says. Will you swear to do this?"

Nana laughed an equivocal little laugh. Oh yes, she would promise. But

men never spoke to her; she walked too fast for that. What could they

say to her? And she explained her irregularity in coming--her five or

ten minutes delay--with an innocent little air. She had stopped at a

window to look at pictures or she had stopped to talk to Pauline. Her

aunt might follow her if she did not believe her.

"Oh, I will watch her. You need not be afraid!" said the widow to her

brother. "I will answer for her, as I would for myself!"

The place where the aunt and niece worked side by side was a large

room with a long table down the center. Shelves against the wall were

piled with boxes and bundles--all covered with a thick coating of

dust. The gas had blackened the ceiling. The two windows were so large

that the women, seated at the table, could see all that was going on

in the street below.

Mme Lerat was the first to make her appearance in the morning, but in

another fifteen minutes all the others were there. One morning in July

Nana came in last, which, however, was the usual case.

"I shall be glad when I have a carriage!" she said as she ran to the

window without even taking off her hat--a shabby little straw.

"What are you looking at?" asked her aunt suspiciously. "Did your

father come with you?"

"No indeed," answered Nana carelessly; "nor am I looking at anything.

It is awfully warm, and of all things in the world, I hate to be in a

hurry."

The morning was indeed frightfully hot. The workwomen had closed the

blinds, leaving a crack, however, through which they could inspect the

street, and they took their seats on each side of the table--Mme Lerat

at the farther end. There were eight girls, four on either side, each

with her little pot of glue, her pincers and other tools; heaps of

wires of different lengths and sizes lay on the table, spools of

cotton and of different-colored papers, petals and leaves cut out of

silk, velvet and satin. In the center, in a goblet, one of the girls

had placed a two-sou bouquet,--which was slowly withering in the heat.

"Did you know," said Leonie as she picked up a rose leaf with her

pincers, "how wretched poor Caroline is with that fellow who used

to call for her regularly every night?"

Before anyone could answer Leonie added:

"Hush! Here comes Madame."

And in sailed Mme Titreville, a tall, thin woman, who usually remained

below in the shop. Her employees stood in dread terror of her, as she

was never known to smile. She went from one to another, finding fault

with all; she ordered one woman to pull a marguerite to pieces and

make it over and then went out as stiffly and silently as she had

come in.

"Houp! Houp!" said Nana under her breath, and a giggle ran round the

table.

"Really, young ladies," said Mme Lerat, "you will compel me to severe

measures."

But no one was listening, and no one feared her. She was very

tolerant. They could say what they pleased, provided they put it

in decent language.

Nana was certainly in a good school! Her instincts, to be sure,

were vicious, but these instincts were fostered and developed in

this place, as is too often the case when a crowd of girls are

herded together. It was the story of a basket of apples, the good

ones spoiled by those that were already rotten. If two girls were

whispering in a corner, ten to one they were telling some story that

could not be told aloud.

Nana was not yet thoroughly perverted, but the curiosity which had

been her distinguishing characteristic as a child had not deserted

her, and she scarcely took her eyes from a girl by the name of Lisa,

about whom strange stories were told.

"How warm it is!" she exclaimed, suddenly rising and pushing open the

blinds. Leonie saw a man standing on the sidewalk opposite.

"Who is that old fellow?" she said. "He has been there a full quarter

of an hour."

"Some fool who has nothing better to do, I suppose," said Mme Lerat.

"Nana, will you come back to your work? I have told you that you

should not go to that window."

Nana took up her violets, and they all began to watch this man. He was

well dressed, about fifty, pale and grave. For a full hour he watched

the windows.

"Look!" said Leonie. "He has an eyeglass. Oh, he is very chic. He is

waiting for Augustine." But Augustine sharply answered that she did

not like the old man.

"You make a great mistake then," said Mme Lerat with her equivocal

smile.

Nana listened to the conversation which followed--reveling in

indecency--as much at home in it as a fish is in water. All the time

her fingers were busy at work. She wound her violet stems and fastened

in the leaves with a slender strip of green paper. A drop of gum--and

then behold a bunch of delicate fresh verdure which would fascinate

any lady. Her fingers were especially deft by nature. No instruction

could have imparted this quality.

The gentleman had gone away, and the workshop settled down into quiet

once more. When the bell rang for twelve Nana started up and said she

would go out and execute any commissions. Leonie sent for two sous'

worth of shrimp, Augustine for some fried potatoes, Sophie for a

sausage and Lisa for a bunch of radishes. As she was going out, her

aunt said quietly:

"I will go with you. I want something."

Lo, in the lane running up by the shop was the mysterious stranger.

Nana turned very red, and her aunt drew her arm within her own and

hurried her along.

So then he had come for her! Was not this pretty behavior for a girl

of her age? And Mme Lerat asked question after question, but Nana knew

nothing of him, she declared, though he had followed her for five

days.

Mme Lerat looked at the man out of the corners of her eyes. "You must

tell me everything," she said.

While they talked they went from shop to shop, and their arms grew

full of small packages, but they hurried back, still talking of the

gentleman.

"It may be a good thing," said Mme Lerat, "if his intentions are only

honorable."

The workwomen ate their breakfast on their knees; they were in no

hurry, either, to return to their work, when suddenly Leonie uttered

a low hiss, and like magic each girl was busy. Mme Titreville entered

the room and again made her rounds.

Mme Lerat did not allow her niece after this day to set foot on the

street without her. Nana at first was inclined to rebel, but, on the

whole, it rather flattered her vanity to be guarded like a treasure.

They had discovered that the man who followed her with such

persistency was a manufacturer of buttons, and one night the aunt

went directly up to him and told him that he was behaving in a most

improper manner. He bowed and, turning on his heel, departed--not

angrily, by any means--and the next day he did as usual.

One day, however, he deliberately walked between the aunt and the

niece and said something to Nana in a low voice. This frightened Mme

Lerat, who went at once to her brother and told him the whole story,

whereupon he flew into a violent rage, shook the girl until her teeth

chattered and talked to her as if she were the vilest of the vile.

"Let her be!" said Gervaise with all a woman's sense. "Let her be!

Don't you see that you are putting all sorts of things into her head?"

And it was quite true; he had put ideas into her head and had taught

her some things she did not know before, which was very astonishing.

One morning he saw her with something in a paper. It was _poudre de

riz_, which, with a most perverted taste, she was plastering upon

her delicate skin. He rubbed the whole of the powder into her hair

until she looked like a miller's daughter. Another time she came in

with red ribbons to retrim her old hat; he asked her furiously where

she got them.

Whenever he saw her with a bit of finery her father flew at her with

insulting suspicion and angry violence. She defended herself and her

small possessions with equal violence. One day he snatched from her

a little cornelian heart and ground it to dust under his heel.

She stood looking on, white and stern; for two years she had longed

for this heart. She said to herself that she would not bear such

treatment long. Coupeau occasionally realized that he had made a

mistake, but the mischief was done.

He went every morning with Nana to the shop door and waited outside

for five minutes to be sure that she had gone in. But one morning,

having stopped to talk with a friend on the corner for some time, he

saw her come out again and vanish like a flash around the corner. She

had gone up two flights higher than the room where she worked and had

sat down on the stairs until she thought him well out of the way.

When he went to Mme Lerat she told him that she washed her hands of

the whole business; she had done all she could, and now he must take

care of his daughter himself. She advised him to marry the girl at

once or she would do worse.

All the people in the neighborhood knew Nana's admirer by sight. He

had been in the courtyard several times, and once he had been seen

on the stairs.

The Lorilleuxs threatened to move away if this sort of thing went on,

and Mme Boche expressed great pity for this poor gentleman whom this

scamp of a girl was leading by the nose.

At first Nana thought the whole thing a great joke, but at the end of

a month she began to be afraid of him. Often when she stopped before

the jeweler's he would suddenly appear at her side and ask her what

she wanted.

She did not care so much for jewelry or ornaments as she did for many

other things. Sometimes as the mud was spattered over her from the

wheels of a carriage she grew faint and sick with envious longings

to be better dressed, to go to the theater, to have a pretty room all

to herself. She longed to see another side of life, to know something

of its pleasures. The stranger invariably appeared at these moments,

but she always turned and fled, so great was her horror of him.

But when winter came existence became well-nigh intolerable. Each

evening Nana was beaten, and when her father was tired of this

amusement her mother scolded. They rarely had anything to eat and

were always cold. If the girl bought some trifling article of dress

it was taken from her.

No! This life could not last. She no longer cared for her father. He

had thoroughly disgusted her, and now her mother drank too. Gervaise

went to the Assommoir nightly--for her husband, she said--and remained

there. When Nana saw her mother sometimes as she passed the window,

seated among a crowd of men, she turned livid with rage, because youth

has little patience with the vice of intemperance. It was a dreary

life for her--a comfortless home and a drunken father and mother. A

saint on earth could not have remained there; that she knew very well,

and she said she would make her escape some fine day, and then perhaps

her parents would be sorry and would admit that they had pushed her

out of the nest.

One Saturday Nana, coming in, found her mother and father in a

deplorable condition--Coupeau lying across the bed and Gervaise

sitting in a chair, swaying to and fro. She had forgotten the dinner,

and one untrimmed candle lighted the dismal scene.

"Is that you, girl?" stammered Gervaise. "Well, your father will

settle with you!"

Nana did not reply. She looked around the cheerless room, at the

cold stove, at her parents. She did not step across the threshold.

She turned and went away.

And she did not come back! The next day when her father and mother

were sober, they each reproached the other for Nana's flight.

This was really a terrible blow to Gervaise, who had no longer the

smallest motive for self-control, and she abandoned herself at once

to a wild orgy that lasted three days. Coupeau gave his daughter up

and smoked his pipe quietly. Occasionally, however, when eating his

dinner, he would snatch up a knife and wave it wildly in the air,

crying out that he was dishonored and then, laying it down as

suddenly, resumed eating his soup.

In this great house, whence each month a girl or two took flight, this

incident astonished no one. The Lorilleuxs were rather triumphant at

the success of their prophecy. Lantier defended Nana.

"Of course," he said, "she has done wrong, but bless my heart, what

would you have? A girl as pretty as that could not live all her days

in such poverty!"

"You know nothing about it!" cried Mme Lorilleux one evening when they

were all assembled in the room of the concierge. "Wooden Legs sold her

daughter out and out. I know it! I have positive proof of what I say.

The time that the old gentleman was seen on the stairs he was going to

pay the money. Nana and he were seen together at the Ambigu the other

night! I tell you, I know it!"

They finished their coffee. This tale might or might not be true; it

was not improbable, at all events. And after this it was circulated

and generally believed in the _Quartier_ that Gervaise had sold

her daughter.

The clearstarcher, meanwhile, was going from bad to worse. She had

been dismissed from Mme Fauconnier's and in the last few weeks had

worked for eight laundresses, one after the other--dismissed from

all for her untidiness.

As she seemed to have lost all skill in ironing, she went out by the

day to wash and by degrees was entrusted with only the roughest work.

This hard labor did not tend to beautify her either. She continued to

grow stouter and stouter in spite of her scanty food and hard labor.

Her womanly pride and vanity had all departed. Lantier never seemed

to see her when they met by chance, and she hardly noticed that the

liaison which had stretched along for so many years had ended in a

mutual disenchantment.

Lantier had done wisely, so far as he was concerned, in counseling

Virginie to open the kind of shop she had. He adored sweets and could

have lived on pralines and gumdrops, sugarplums and chocolate.

Sugared almonds were his especial delight. For a year his principal

food was bonbons. He opened all the jars, boxes and drawers when he

was left alone in the shop; and often, with five or six persons

standing around, he would take off the cover of a jar on the counter

and put in his hand and crunch down an almond. The cover was not put

on again, and the jar was soon empty. It was a habit of his, they all

said; besides, he was subject to a tickling in his throat!

He talked a great deal to Poisson of an invention of his which was

worth a fortune--an umbrella and hat in one; that is to say, a hat

which, at the first drops of a shower, would expand into an umbrella.

Lantier suggested to Virginie that she should have Gervaise come in

once each week to wash the floors, shop and the rooms. This she did

and received thirty sous each time. Gervaise appeared on Saturday

mornings with her bucket and brush, without seeming to suffer a single

pang at doing this menial work in the house where she had lived as

mistress.

One Saturday Gervaise had hard work. It had rained for three days, and

all the mud of the streets seemed to have been brought into the shop.

Virginie stood behind the counter with collar and cuffs trimmed with

lace. Near her on a low chair lounged Lantier, and he was, as usual,

eating candy.

"Really, Madame Coupeau," cried Virginie, "can't you do better than

that? You have left all the dirt in the corners. Don't you see? Oblige

me by doing that over again."

Gervaise obeyed. She went back to the corner and scrubbed it again.

She was on her hands and knees, with her sleeves rolled up over her

arms. Her old skirt clung close to her stout form, and the sweat

poured down her face.

"The more elbow grease she uses, the more she shines," said Lantier

sententiously with his mouth full.

Virginie, leaning back in her chair with the air of a princess,

followed the progress of the work with half-closed eyes.

"A little more to the right. Remember, those spots must all be taken

out. Last Saturday, you know, I was not pleased."

And then Lantier and Virginie fell into a conversation, while Gervaise

crawled along the floor in the dirt at their feet.

Mme Poisson enjoyed this, for her cat's eyes sparkled with malicious

joy, and she glanced at Lantier with a smile. At last she was avenged

for that mortification at the lavatory, which had for years weighed

heavy on her soul.

"By the way," said Lantier, addressing himself to Gervaise, "I saw

Nana last night."

Gervaise started to her feet with her brush in her hand.

"Yes, I was coming down La Rue des Martyrs. In front of me was a young

girl on the arm of an old gentleman. As I passed I glanced at her face

and assure you that it was Nana. She was well dressed and looked

happy."

"Ah!" said Gervaise in a low, dull voice.

Lantier, who had finished one jar, now began another.

"What a girl that is!" he continued. "Imagine that she made me a sign

to follow with the most perfect self-possession. She got rid of her

old gentleman in a cafe and beckoned me to the door. She asked me to

tell her about everybody."

"Ah!" repeated Gervaise.

She stood waiting. Surely this was not all. Her daughter must have

sent her some especial message. Lantier ate his sugarplums.

"I would not have looked at her," said Virginie. "I sincerely trust,

if I should meet her, that she would not speak to me for, really,

it would mortify me beyond expression. I am sorry for you, Madame

Gervaise, but the truth is that Poisson arrests every day a dozen

just such girls."

Gervaise said nothing; her eyes were fixed on vacancy. She shook her

head slowly, as if in reply to her own thoughts.

"Pray make haste," exclaimed Virginie fretfully. "I do not care to

have this scrubbing going on until midnight."

Gervaise returned to her work. With her two hands clasped around the

handle of the brush she pushed the water before her toward the door.

After this she had only to rinse the floor after sweeping the dirty

water into the gutter.

When all was accomplished she stood before the counter waiting for

her money. When Virginie tossed it toward her she did not take it up

instantly.

"Then she said nothing else?" Gervaise asked.

"She?" Lantier exclaimed. "Who is she? Ah yes, I remember. Nana! No,

she said nothing more."

And Gervaise went away with her thirty sous in her hand, her skirts

dripping and her shoes leaving the mark of their broad soles on the

sidewalk.

In the _Quartier_ all the women who drank like her took her part

and declared she had been driven to intemperance by her daughter's

misconduct. She, too, began to believe this herself and assumed at

times a tragic air and wished she were dead. Unquestionably she had

suffered from Nana's departure. A mother does not like to feel that

her daughter will leave her for the first person who asks her to do

so.

But she was too thoroughly demoralized to care long, and soon she had

but one idea: that Nana belonged to her. Had she not a right to her

own property?

She roamed the streets day after day, night after night, hoping to

see the girl. That year half the _Quartier_ was being demolished. All

one side of the Rue des Poissonniers lay flat on the ground. Lantier

and Poisson disputed day after day on these demolitions. The one

declared that the emperor wanted to build palaces and drive the lower

classes out of Paris, while Poisson, white with rage, said the emperor

would pull down the whole of Paris merely to give work to the people.

Gervaise did not like the improvements, either, or the changes in

the dingy _Quartier_, to which she was accustomed. It was, in fact,

a little hard for her to see all these embellishments just when she

was going downhill so fast over the piles of brick and mortar, while

she was wandering about in search of Nana.

She heard of her daughter several times. There are always plenty of

people to tell you things you do not care to hear. She was told that

Nana had left her elderly friend for the sake of some young fellow.

She heard, too, that Nana had been seen at a ball in the Grand Salon,

Rue de la Chapelle, and Coupeau and she began to frequent all these

places, one after another, whenever they had the money to spend.

But at the end of a month they had forgotten Nana and went for their

own pleasure. They sat for hours with their elbows on a table, which

shook with the movements of the dancers, amused by the sight.

One November night they entered the Grand Salon, as much to get warm

as anything else. Outside it was hailing, and the rooms were naturally

crowded. They could not find a table, and they stood waiting until

they could establish themselves. Coupeau was directly in the mouth of

the passage, and a young man in a frock coat was thrown against him.

The youth uttered an exclamation of disgust as he began to dust off

his coat with his handkerchief. The blouse worn by Coupeau was

assuredly none of the cleanest.

"Look here, my good fellow," cried Coupeau angrily, "those airs

are very unnecessary. I would have you to know that the blouse of

a workingman can do your coat no harm if it has touched it!"

The young man turned around and looked at Coupeau from head to foot.

"Learn," continued the angry workman, "that the blouse is the only

wear for a man!"

Gervaise endeavored to calm her husband, who, however, tapped his

ragged breast and repeated loudly:

"The only wear for a man, I tell you!"

The youth slipped away and was lost in the crowd.

Coupeau tried to find him, but it was quite impossible; the crowd was

too great. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, and the dancers were

bringing up the dust from the floor in great clouds, which obscured

the gas.

"Look!" said Gervaise suddenly.

"What is it?"

"Look at that velvet bonnet!"

Quite at the left there was a velvet bonnet, black with plumes,

only too suggestive of a hearse. They watched these nodding plumes

breathlessly.

"Do you not know that hair?" murmured Gervaise hoarsely. "I am sure

it is she!"

In one second Coupeau was in the center of the crowd. Yes, it was

Nana, and in what a costume! She wore a ragged silk dress, stained

and torn. She had no shawl over her shoulders to conceal the fact that

half the buttonholes on her dress were burst out. In spite of all her

shabbiness the girl was pretty and fresh. Nana, of course, danced on

unsuspiciously. Her airs and graces were beyond belief. She curtsied

to the very ground and then in a twinkling threw her foot over her

partner's head. A circle was formed, and she was applauded

vociferously.

At this moment Coupeau fell on his daughter.

"Don't try and keep me back," he said, "for have her I will!"

Nana turned and saw her father and mother.

Coupeau discovered that his daughter's partner was the young man for

whom he had been looking. Gervaise pushed him aside and walked up to

Nana and gave her two cuffs on her ears. One sent the plumed hat on

the side; the other left five red marks on that pale cheek. The

orchestra played on. Nana neither wept nor moved.

The dancers began to grow very angry. They ordered the Coupeau party

to leave the room.

"Go," said Gervaise, "and do not attempt to leave us, for so sure

as you do you will be given in charge of a policeman."

The young man had prudently disappeared.

Nana's old life now began again, for after the girl had slept for

twelve hours on a stretch, she was very gentle and sweet for a week.

She wore a plain gown and a simple hat and declared she would like

to work at home. She rose early and took a seat at her table by five

o'clock the first morning and tried to roll her violet stems, but her

fingers had lost their cunning in the six months in which they had

been idle.

Then the gluepot dried up; the petals and the paper were dusty and

spotted; the mistress of the establishment came for her tools and

materials and made more than one scene. Nana relapsed into utter

indolence, quarreling with her mother from morning until night.

Of course an end must come to this, so one fine evening the girl

disappeared.

The Lorilleuxs, who had been greatly amused by the repentance and

return of their niece, now nearly died laughing. If she returned again

they would advise the Coupeaus to put her in a cage like a canary.

The Coupeaus pretended to be rather pleased, but in their hearts they

raged, particularly as they soon learned that Nana was frequently seen

in the _Quartier_. Gervaise declared this was done by the girl to

annoy them.

Nana adorned all the balls in the vicinity, and the Coupeaus knew that

they could lay their hands on her at any time they chose, but they did

not choose and they avoided meeting her.

But one night, just as they were going to bed, they heard a rap on the

door. It was Nana, who came to ask as coolly as possible if she could

sleep there. What a state she was in! All rags and dirt. She devoured

a crust of dried bread and fell asleep with a part of it in her

hand. This continued for some time, the girl coming and going like a

will-o'-the-wisp. Weeks and months would elapse without a sign from

her, and then she would reappear without a word to say where she

had been, sometimes in rags and sometimes well dressed. Finally her

parents began to take these proceedings as a matter of course. She

might come in, they said, or stay out, just as she pleased, provided

she kept the door shut. Only one thing exasperated Gervaise now, and

that was when her daughter appeared with a bonnet and feathers and

a train. This she would not endure. When Nana came to her it must be

as a simple workingwoman! None of this dearly bought finery should

be exhibited there, for these trained dresses had created a great

excitement in the house.

One day Gervaise reproached her daughter violently for the life she

led and finally, in her rage, took her by the shoulder and shook her.

"Let me be!" cried the girl. "You are the last person to talk to me

in that way. You did as you pleased. Why can't I do the same?"

"What do you mean?" stammered the mother.

"I have never said anything about it because it was none of my

business, but do you think I did not know where you were when my

father lay snoring? Let me alone. It was you who set me the example."

Gervaise turned away pale and trembling, while Nana composed herself

to sleep again.

Coupeau's life was a very regular one--that is to say, he did not

drink for six months and then yielded to temptation, which brought him

up with a round turn and sent him to Sainte-Anne's. When he came out

he did the same thing, so that in three years he was seven times at

Sainte-Anne's, and each time he came out the fellow looked more broken

and less able to stand another orgy.

The poison had penetrated his entire system. He had grown very thin;

his cheeks were hollow and his eyes inflamed. Those who knew his age

shuddered as they saw him pass, bent and decrepit as a man of eighty.

The trembling of his hands had so increased that some days he was

obliged to use them both in raising his glass to his lips. This

annoyed him intensely and seemed to be the only symptom of his failing

health which disturbed him. He sometimes swore violently at these

unruly members and at others sat for hours looking at these fluttering

hands as if trying to discover by what strange mechanism they were

moved. And one night Gervaise found him sitting in this way with great

tears pouring down his withered cheeks.

The last summer of his life was especially trying to Coupeau. His

voice was entirely changed; he was deaf in one ear, and some days he

could not see and was obliged to feel his way up and downstairs as

if he were blind. He suffered from maddening headaches, and sudden

pains would dart through his limbs, causing him to snatch at a chair

for support. Sometimes after one of these attacks his arm would be

paralyzed for twenty-four hours.

He would lie in bed with even his head wrapped up, silent and

moody, like some suffering animal. Then came incipient madness and

fever--tearing everything to pieces that came in his way--or he would

weep and moan, declaring that no one loved him, that he was a burden

to his wife. One evening when his wife and daughter came in he was not

in his bed; in his place lay the bolster carefully tucked in. They

found him at last crouched on the floor under the bed, with his teeth

chattering with cold and fear. He told them he had been attacked by

assassins.

The two women coaxed him back to bed as if he had been a baby.

Coupeau knew but one remedy for all this, and that was a good stout

morning dram. His memory had long since fled; his brain had softened.

When Nana appeared after an absence of six weeks he thought she had

been on an errand around the corner. She met him in the street, too,

very often now, without fear, for he passed without recognizing her.

One night in the autumn Nana went out, saying she wanted some baked

pears from the fruiterer's. She felt the cold weather coming on, and

she did not care to sit before a cold stove. The winter before she

went out for two sous' worth of tobacco and came back in a month's

time; they thought she would do the same now, but they were mistaken.

Winter came and went, as did the spring, and even when June arrived

they had seen and heard nothing of her.

She was evidently comfortable somewhere, and the Coupeaus, feeling

certain that she would never return, had sold her bed; it was very

much in their way, and they could drink up the six francs it brought.

One morning Virginie called to Gervaise as the latter passed the shop

and begged her to come in and help a little, as Lantier had had two

friends to supper the night before, and Gervaise washed the dishes

while Lantier sat in the shop smoking. Presently he said:

"Oh, Gervaise, I saw Nana the other night."

Virginie, who was behind the counter, opening and shutting drawer

after drawer, with a face that lengthened as she found each empty,

shook her fist at him indignantly.

She had begun to think he saw Nana very often. She did not speak, but

Mme Lerat, who had just come in, said with a significant look:

"And where did you see her?"

"Oh, in a carriage," answered Lantier with a laugh. "And I was on the

sidewalk." He turned toward Gervaise and went on:

"Yes, she was in a carriage, dressed beautifully. I did not recognize

her at first, but she kissed her hand to me. Her friend this time must

be a vicomte at the least. She looked as happy as a queen."

Gervaise wiped the plate in her hands, rubbing it long and carefully,

though it had long since been dry. Virginie, with wrinkled brows,

wondered how she could pay two notes which fell due the next day,

while Lantier, fat and hearty from the sweets he had devoured, asked

himself if these drawers and jars would be filled up again or if the

ruin he anticipated was so near at hand that he would be compelled

to pull up stakes at once. There was not another praline for him to

crunch, not even a gumdrop.

When Gervaise went back to her room she found Coupeau sitting on the

side of the bed, weeping and moaning. She took a chair near by and

looked at him without speaking.

"I have news for you," she said at last. "Your daughter has been seen.

She is happy and comfortable. Would that I were in her place!"

Coupeau was looking down on the floor intently. He raised his head

and said with an idiotic laugh:

"Do as you please, my dear; don't let me be any hindrance to you.

When you are dressed up you are not so bad looking after all."