Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) by Émile Zola

Author:Émile Zola
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: classics
ISBN: 9781169343719
Published: 1880-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

It was in the Rue Véron, at Montmartre, in a little apartment on the fourth floor. Nana and Fontan had invited a few friends to partake of their Twelfth Night cake.aq They had only got settled three days before, and intended having a house-warming.

Everything had been done hastily, in the first ardour of their honeymoon, without any fixed intention of their living together. On the morrow of her grand brawl, when she had so energetically sent the count and the banker about their business, Nana felt that she had got herself into a fine mess. She saw her position at a glance. The creditors would invade her anteroom, interfere in her love affairs, and talk of selling her up if she was not reasonable. There would be endless quarrels and constant worries, just to keep a few sticks of furniture from their grasp. She preferred to let all go. Besides, she was sick of her apartment in the Boulevard Haussmann. It was unbearable with its great gilded rooms. In her infatuation for Fontan, her dream of her girlhood returned to her—of the days when she was apprenticed to the artificial flower-maker, and longed for nothing more than a pretty bright little room, with a wardrobe of violet ebony with a glass door, and a bed hung with blue rep.ar In two days she sold everything that she could safely remove—nick-nacks, jewels, and the like—and disappeared with about ten thousand francs, without saying a word to the landlord—a perfect header, and not a trace remaining behind. That accomplished, there was no fear of having any men dangling about her petticoats. Fontan was very nice. He didn’t say “no,” he let her do as she liked—in fact, he behaved altogether like a regular chum. He possessed about seven thousand francs, and agreed to put them with Nana’s ten thousand, although he had the reputation of being miserly. That seemed to them something solid to start housekeeping on. And they commenced thus, each taking what he or she required out of the common fund, furnishing the two rooms in the Rue Véron, and sharing everything alike. At the beginning this kind of life was simply delicious.

On Twelfth Night, Madame Lerat was the first to arrive, with little Louis. As Fontan had not returned, she ventured to express her fears, for she trembled to see her niece renouncing fortune.

“Oh! aunt, I love him so much!” cried Nana, pressing her hands prettily across her breast.

These words produced an extraordinary effect on Madame Lerat. Her eyes moistened.

“That’s right,” said she in a convincing manner; “love before everything.”

And she praised the prettiness of the rooms. Nana showed her everything in the bedroom and the dining-room, and even in the kitchen. Well! they were not large, but they had been newly painted and papered; and the sun shone there so brilliantly. Then Madame Lerat kept the young woman in the bedroom, whilst little Louis went and installed himself in the kitchen, behind the charwoman, in order to see her put a chicken down to roast.

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