Nana, her elbow dug into her pillow, only tossed her head in reply. Her nightdress had slipped down on her shoulders, and her hair, unfastened and entangled, flowed over them in masses.
“Without doubt,” she murmured, becoming thoughtful; “but what’s to be done to gain time? I’m going to have all sorts of bothers today. Now let’s see, has the porter come upstairs yet this morning?”
Then both the women talked together seriously. Nana owed three quarters’ rent; the landlord was talking of seizing the furniture. Then, too, there was a perfect downpour of creditors; there was a livery-stable man, a needlewoman, a ladies’ tailor, a charcoal dealer and others besides, who came every day and settled themselves on a bench in the little hall. The charcoal dealer especially was a dreadful fellow—he shouted on the staircase. But Nana’s greatest cause of distress was her little Louis, a child she had given birth to when she was sixteen and now left in charge of a nurse in a village in the neighborhood of Rambouillet. This woman was clamoring for the sum of three hundred francs before she would consent to give the little Louis back to her. Nana, since her last visit to the child, had been seized with a fit of maternal love and was desperate at the thought that she could not realize a project, which had now become a hobby with her. This was to pay off the nurse and to place the little man with his aunt, Mme Lerat, at the Batignolles, whither she could go and see him as often as she liked.
Meanwhile the lady’s maid kept hinting that her mistress ought to have confided her necessities to the old miser.
“To be sure, I told him everything,” cried Nana, “and he told me in answer that he had too many big liabilities. He won’t go beyond his thousand francs a month. The nigger’s beggared just at present; I expect he’s lost at play. As to that poor Mimi, he stands in great need of a loan himself; a fall in stocks has cleaned him out—he can’t even bring me flowers now.”
She was speaking of Daguenet. In the self-abandonment of her awakening she had no secrets from Zoé, and the latter, inured to such confidences, received them with respectful sympathy. Since Madame condescended to speak to her of her affairs she would permit herself to say what she thought. Besides, she was very fond of Madame; she had left Mme Blanche for the express purpose of taking service with her, and heaven knew Mme Blanche was straining every nerve to have her again! Situations weren’t lacking; she was pretty well known, but she would have stayed with Madame even in narrow circumstances, because she believed in Madame’s future. And she concluded by stating her advice with precision. When one was young one often did silly things. But this time it was one’s duty to look alive, for the men only thought of having their fun. Oh dear, yes! Things would right themselves. Madame had only to say one word in order to quiet her creditors and find the money she stood in need of.
“All that doesn’t help me to three hundred francs,” Nana kept repeating as she plunged her fingers into the vagrant convolutions of her back hair. “I must have three hundred francs today, at once! It’s stupid not to know anyone who’ll give you three hundred francs.”
She racked her brains. She would have sent Mme Lerat, whom she was expecting that very morning, to Rambouillet. The counteraction of her sudden fancy spoiled for her the triumph of last night. Among all those men who had cheered her, to think that there wasn’t one to bring her fifteen louis! And then one couldn’t accept money in that way! Dear heaven, how unfortunate she was! And she kept harking back again to the subject of her baby—he had blue eyes like a cherub’s; he could lisp “Mamma” in such a funny voice that you were ready to die of laughing!
But at this moment the electric bell at the outer door was heard to ring with its quick and tremulous vibration. Zoé returned, murmuring with a confidential air:
“It’s a woman.”