Эмиль Золя
Four Short Stories By Emile Zola
It would be necessary to wait on the course of events. And he waited on them.
“Rose, it’s your turn!” shouted Bordenave. “The second act’s being begun again.”
“Off with you then,” continued Mignon, “and let me arrange matters.”
Then he began bantering, despite all his troubles, and was pleased to congratulate Fauchery on his piece. A very strong piece! Only why was his great lady so chaste? It wasn’t natural! With that he sneered and asked who had sat for the portrait of the Duke of Beaurivage, Geraldine’s wornout roue. Fauchery smiled; he was far from annoyed. But Bordenave glanced in Muffat’s direction and looked vexed, and Mignon was struck at this and became serious again.
“Let’s begin, for God’s sake!” yelled the manager. “Now then, Barillot! Eh? What? Isn’t Bosc there? Is he bloody well making game of me now?”
Bosc, however, made his appearance quietly enough, and the rehearsal began again just as Labordette was taking the count away with him. The latter was tremulous at the thought of seeing Nana once more. After the rupture had taken place between them there had been a great void in his life. He was idle and fancied himself about to suffer through the sudden change his habits had undergone, and accordingly he had let them take him to see Rose. Besides, his brain had been in such a whirl that he had striven to forget everything and had strenuously kept from seeking out Nana while avoiding an explanation with the countess. He thought, indeed, that he owed his dignity such a measure of forgetfulness. But mysterious forces were at work within, and Nana began slowly to reconquer him. First came thoughts of her, then fleshly cravings and finally a new set of exclusive, tender, well-nigh paternal feelings.
The abominable events attendant on their last interview were gradually effacing themselves. He no longer saw Fontan; he no longer heard the stinging taunt about his wife’s adultery with which Nana cast him out of doors. These things were as words whose memory vanished. Yet deep down in his heart there was a poignant smart which wrung him with such increasing pain that it nigh choked him. Childish ideas would occur to him; he imagined that she would never have betrayed him if he had really loved her, and he blamed himself for this. His anguish was becoming unbearable; he was really very wretched. His was the pain of an old wound rather than the blind, present desire which puts up with everything for the sake of immediate possession. He felt a jealous passion for the woman and was haunted by longings for her and her alone, her hair, her mouth, her body. When he remembered the sound of her voice a shiver ran through him; he longed for her as a miser might have done, with refinements of desire beggaring description. He was, in fact, so dolorously possessed by his passion that when Labordette had begun to broach the subject of an assignation he had thrown himself into his arms in obedience to irresistible impulse. Directly afterward he had, of course, been ashamed of an act of self-abandonment which could not but seem very ridiculous in a man of his position; but Labordette was one who knew when to see and when not to see things, and he gave a further proof of his tact when he left the count at the foot of the stairs and without effort let slip only these simple words:
“The right-hand passage on the second floor. The door’s not shut.”
Muffat was alone in that silent corner of the house. As he passed before the players’ waiting room, he had peeped through the open doors and noticed the utter dilapidation of the vast chamber, which looked shamefully stained and worn in broad daylight. But what surprised him most as he emerged from the darkness and confusion of the stage was the pure, clear light and deep quiet at present pervading the lofty staircase, which one evening when he had seen it before had been bathed in gas fumes and loud with the footsteps of women scampering over the different floors. He felt that the dressing rooms were empty, the corridors deserted; not a soul was there; not a sound broke the stillness, while through the square windows on the level of the stairs the pale November sunlight filtered and cast yellow patches of light, full of dancing dust, amid the dead, peaceful air which seemed to descend from the regions above.
He was glad of this calm and the silence, and he went slowly up, trying to regain breath as he went, for his heart was thumping, and he was afraid lest he might behave childishly and give way to sighs and tears. Accordingly on the first-floor landing he leaned up against a wall – for he was sure of not being observed – and pressed his handkerchief to his mouth and gazed at the warped steps, the iron balustrade bright with the friction of many hands, the scraped paint on the walls – all the squalor, in fact, which that house of tolerance so crudely displayed at the pale afternoon hour when courtesans are asleep. When he reached the second floor he had to step over a big yellow cat which was lying curled up on a step. With half-closed eyes this cat was keeping solitary watch over the house, where the close and now frozen odors which the women nightly left behind them had rendered him somnolent.
In the right-hand corridor the door of the dressing room had, indeed, not been closed entirely. Nana was waiting. That little Mathilde, a drab of a young girl, kept her dressing room in a filthy state. Chipped jugs stood about anyhow; the dressing table was greasy, and there was a chair covered with red stains, which looked as if someone had bled over the straw. The paper pasted on walls and ceiling was splashed from top to bottom with spots of soapy water and this smelled so disagreeably of lavender scent turned sour that Nana opened the window and for some moments stayed leaning on the sill, breathing the fresh air and craning forward to catch sight of Mme Bron underneath. She could hear her broom wildly at work on the mildewed pantiles of the narrow court which was buried in shadow. A canary, whose cage hung on a shutter, was trilling away piercingly. The sound of carriages in the boulevard and neighboring streets was no longer audible, and the quiet and the wide expanse of sleeping sunlight suggested the country. Looking farther afield, her eye fell on the small buildings and glass roofs of the galleries in the passage and, beyond these, on the tall houses in the Rue Vivienne, the backs of which rose silent and apparently deserted over against her. There was a succession of terrace roofs close by, and on one of these a photographer had perched a big cagelike construction of blue glass. It was all very gay, and Nana was becoming absorbed in contemplation, when it struck her someone had knocked at the door.
She turned round and shouted:
“Come in!”
At sight of the count she shut the window, for it was not warm, and there was no need for the eavesdropping Mme Bron to listen. The pair gazed at one another gravely. Then as the count still kept standing stiffly in front of her, looking ready to choke with emotion, she burst out laughing and said:
“Well! So you’re here again, you silly big beast!”
The tumult going on within him was so great that he seemed a man frozen to ice. He addressed Nana as “madame” and esteemed himself happy to see her again. Thereupon she became more familiar than ever in order to bounce matters through.
“Don’t do it in the dignified way! You wanted to see me, didn’t you? But you didn’t intend us to stand looking at one another like a couple of chinaware dogs. We’ve both been in the wrong – Oh, I certainly forgive you!”
And herewith they agreed not to talk of that affair again, Muffat nodding his assent as Nana spoke. He was calmer now but as yet could find nothing to say, though a thousand things rose tumultuously to his lips. Surprised at his apparent coldness, she began acting a part with much vigor.
“Come,” she continued with a faint smile, “you’re a sensible man! Now that we’ve made our peace let’s shake hands and be good friends in future.”
“What? Good friends?” he murmured in sudden anxiety.
“Yes; it’s idiotic, perhaps, but I should like you to think well of me. We’ve had our little explanation out, and if we meet again we shan’t, at any rate look like a pair of boobies.”
He tried to interrupt her with a movement of the hand.
“Let me finish! There’s not a man, you understand, able to accuse me of doing him a blackguardly turn; well, and it struck me as horrid to begin in your case. We all have our sense of honor, dear boy.”
“But that’s not my meaning!” he shouted violently. “Sit down – listen to me!” And as though he were afraid of seeing her take her departure, he pushed her down on the solitary chair in the room. Then he paced about in growing agitation. The little dressing room was airless and full of sunlight, and no sound from the outside world disturbed its pleasant, peaceful, dampish atmosphere. In the pauses of conversation the shrillings of the canary were alone audible and suggested the distant piping of a flute.
“Listen,” he said, planting himself in front of her, “I’ve come to possess myself of you again. Yes, I want to begin again. You know that well; then why do you talk to me as you do? Answer me; tell me you consent.”
Her head was bent, and she was scratching the blood-red straw of the seat underneath her. Seeing him so anxious, she did not hurry to answer. But at last she lifted up her face. It had assumed a grave expression, and into the beautiful eyes she had succeeded in infusing a look of sadness.
“Oh, it’s impossible, little man. Never, never, will I live with you again.”
“Why?” he stuttered, and his face seemed contracted in unspeakable suffering.
“Why? Hang it all, because – It’s impossible; that’s about it. I don’t want to.”
He looked ardently at her for some seconds longer. Then his legs curved under him and he fell on the floor. In a bored voice she added this simple advice:
“Ah, don’t be a baby!”
But he was one already. Dropping at her feet, he had put his arms round her waist and was hugging her closely, pressing his face hard against her knees. When he felt her thus – when he once more divined the presence of her velvety limbs beneath the thin fabric of her dress – he was suddenly convulsed and trembled, as it were, with fever, while madly, savagely, he pressed his face against her knees as though he had been anxious to force through her flesh. The old chair creaked, and beneath the low ceiling, where the air was pungent with stale perfumes, smothered sobs of desire were audible.
“Well, and after?” Nana began saying, letting him do as he would. “All this doesn’t help you a bit, seeing that the thing’s impossible. Good God, what a child you are!”
His energy subsided, but he still stayed on the floor, nor did he relax his hold of her as he said in a broken voice:
“Do at least listen to what I came to offer you. I’ve already seen a town house close to the Parc Monceau – I would gladly realize your smallest wish. In order to have you all to myself, I would give my whole fortune. Yes, that would be my only condition, that I should have you all to myself! Do you understand? And if you were to consent to be mine only, oh, then I should want you to be the loveliest, the richest, woman on earth. I should give you carriages and diamonds and dresses!”
At each successive offer Nana shook her head proudly. Then seeing that he still continued them, that he even spoke of settling money on her – for he was at loss what to lay at her feet – she apparently lost patience.
“Come, come, have you done bargaining with me? I’m a good sort, and I don’t mind giving in to you for a minute or two, as your feelings are making you so ill, but I’ve had enough of it now, haven’t I? So let me get up. You’re tiring me.”
She extricated herself from his clasp, and once on her feet:
“No, no, no!” she said. “I don’t want to!”
With that he gathered himself up painfully and feebly dropped into a chair, in which he leaned back with his face in his hands. Nana began pacing up and down in her turn. For a second or two she looked at the stained wallpaper, the greasy toilet table, the whole dirty little room as it basked in the pale sunlight. Then she paused in front of the count and spoke with quiet directness.
“It’s strange how rich men fancy they can have everything for their money. Well, and if I don’t want to consent – what then? I don’t care a pin for your presents! You might give me Paris, and yet I should say no! Always no! Look here, it’s scarcely clean in this room, yet I should think it very nice if I wanted to live in it with you. But one’s fit to kick the bucket in your palaces if one isn’t in love. Ah, as to money, my poor pet, I can lay my hands on that if I want to, but I tell you, I trample on it; I spit on it!”
And with that she assumed a disgusted expression. Then she became sentimental and added in a melancholy tone:
“I know of something worth more than money. Oh, if only someone were to give me what I long for!”
He slowly lifted his head, and there was a gleam of hope in his eyes.
“Oh, you can’t give it me,” she continued; “it doesn’t depend on you, and that’s the reason I’m talking to you about it. Yes, we’re having a chat, so I may as well mention to you that I should like to play the part of the respectable woman in that show of theirs.”
“What respectable woman?” he muttered in astonishment.
“Why, their Duchess Helene! If they think I’m going to play Geraldine, a part with nothing in it, a scene and nothing besides – if they think that! Besides, that isn’t the reason. The fact is I’ve had enough of courtesans. Why, there’s no end to ‘em! They’ll be fancying I’ve got ‘em on the brain; to be sure they will! Besides, when all’s said and done, it’s annoying, for I can quite see they seem to think me uneducated. Well, my boy, they’re jolly well in the dark about it, I can tell you! When I want to be a perfect lady, why then I am a swell, and no mistake! Just look at this.”
And she withdrew as far as the window and then came swelling back with the mincing gait and circumspect air of a portly hen that fears to dirty her claws. As to Muffat, he followed her movements with eyes still wet with tears. He was stupefied by this sudden transition from anguish to comedy. She walked about for a moment or two in order the more thoroughly to show off her paces, and as she walked she smiled subtlely, closed her eyes demurely and managed her skirts with great dexterity. Then she posted herself in front of him again.
“I guess I’ve hit it, eh?”
“Oh, thoroughly,” he stammered with a broken voice and a troubled expression.
“I tell you I’ve got hold of the honest woman! I’ve tried at my own place. Nobody’s got my little knack of looking like a duchess who don’t care a damn for the men. Did you notice it when I passed in front of you? Why, the thing’s in my blood! Besides, I want to play the part of an honest woman. I dream about it day and night – I’m miserable about it. I must have the part, d’you hear?”
And with that she grew serious, speaking in a hard voice and looking deeply moved, for she was really tortured by her stupid, tiresome wish. Muffat, still smarting from her late refusals, sat on without appearing to grasp her meaning. There was a silence during which the very flies abstained from buzzing through the quiet, empty place.
“Now, look here,” she resumed bluntly, “you’re to get them to give me the part.”
He was dumfounded, and with a despairing gesture:
“Oh, it’s impossible! You yourself were saying just now that it didn’t depend on me.”
She interrupted him with a shrug of the shoulders.
“You’ll just go down, and you’ll tell Bordenave you want the part. Now don’t be such a silly! Bordenave wants money – well, you’ll lend him some, since you can afford to make ducks and drakes of it.”
And as he still struggled to refuse her, she grew angry.
“Very well, I understand; you’re afraid of making Rose angry. I didn’t mention the woman when you were crying down on the floor – I should have had too much to say about it all. Yes, to be sure, when one has sworn to love a woman forever one doesn’t usually take up with the first creature that comes by directly after. Oh, that’s where the shoe pinches, I remember! Well, dear boy, there’s nothing very savory in the Mignon’s leavings! Oughtn’t you to have broken it off with that dirty lot before coming and squirming on my knees?”
He protested vaguely and at last was able to get out a phrase.
“Oh, I don’t care a jot for Rose; I’ll give her up at once.”
Nana seemed satisfied on this point. She continued:
“Well then, what’s bothering you? Bordenave’s master here. You’ll tell me there’s Fauchery after Bordenave – ”
She had sunk her voice, for she was coming to the delicate part of the matter. Muffat sat silent, his eyes fixed on the ground. He had remained voluntarily ignorant of Fauchery’s assiduous attentions to the countess, and time had lulled his suspicions and set him hoping that he had been deceiving himself during that fearful night passed in a doorway of the Rue Taitbout. But he still felt a dull, angry repugnance to the man.
“Well, what then? Fauchery isn’t the devil!” Nana repeated, feeling her way cautiously and trying to find out how matters stood between husband and lover. “One can get over his soft side. I promise you, he’s a good sort at bottom! So it’s a bargain, eh? You’ll tell him that it’s for my sake?”
The idea of taking such a step disgusted the count.
“No, no! Never!” he cried.
She paused, and this sentence was on the verge of utterance:
“Fauchery can refuse you nothing.”
But she felt that by way of argument it was rather too much of a good thing. So she only smiled a queer smile which spoke as plainly as words. Muffat had raised his eyes to her and now once more lowered them, looking pale and full of embarrassment.
“Ah, you’re not good natured,” she muttered at last.
“I cannot,” he said with a voice and a look of the utmost anguish. “I’ll do whatever you like, but not that, dear love! Oh, I beg you not to insist on that!”
Thereupon she wasted no more time in discussion but took his head between her small hands, pushed it back a little, bent down and glued her mouth to his in a long, long kiss. He shivered violently; he trembled beneath her touch; his eyes were closed, and he was beside himself. She lifted him to his feet.
“Go,” said she simply.
He walked off, making toward the door. But as he passed out she took him in her arms again, became meek and coaxing, lifted her face to his and rubbed her cheek against his waistcoat, much as a cat might have done.
“Where’s the fine house?” she whispered in laughing embarrassment, like a little girl who returns to the pleasant things she has previously refused.
“In the Avenue de Villiers.”
“And there are carriages there?”
“Yes.”
“Lace? Diamonds?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, how good you are, my old pet! You know it was all jealousy just now! And this time I solemnly promise you it won’t be like the first, for now you understand what’s due to a woman. You give all, don’t you? Well then, I don’t want anybody but you! Why, look here, there’s some more for you! There and there AND there!”
When she had pushed him from the room after firing his blood with a rain of kisses on hands and on face, she panted awhile. Good heavens, what an unpleasant smell there was in that slut Mathilde’s dressing room! It was warm, if you will, with the tranquil warmth peculiar to rooms in the south when the winter sun shines into them, but really, it smelled far too strong of stale lavender water, not to mention other less cleanly things! She opened the window and, again leaning on the window sill, began watching the glass roof of the passage below in order to kill time.
Muffat went staggering downstairs. His head was swimming. What should he say? How should he broach the matter which, moreover, did not concern him? He heard sounds of quarreling as he reached the stage. The second act was being finished, and Prulliere was beside himself with wrath, owing to an attempt on Fauchery’s part to cut short one of his speeches.
“Cut it all out then,” he was shouting. “I should prefer that! Just fancy, I haven’t two hundred lines, and they’re still cutting me down. No, by Jove, I’ve had enough of it; I give the part up.”
He took a little crumpled manuscript book out of his pocket and fingered its leaves feverishly, as though he were just about to throw it on Cossard’s lap. His pale face was convulsed by outraged vanity; his lips were drawn and thin, his eyes flamed; he was quite unable to conceal the struggle that was going on inside him. To think that he, Prulliere, the idol of the public, should play a part of only two hundred lines!
“Why not make me bring in letters on a tray?” he continued bitterly.
“Come, come, Prulliere, behave decently,” said Bordenave, who was anxious to treat him tenderly because of his influence over the boxes. “Don’t begin making a fuss. We’ll find some points. Eh, Fauchery, you’ll add some points? In the third act it would even be possible to lengthen a scene out.”
“Well then, I want the last speech of all,” the comedian declared. “I certainly deserve to have it.”
Fauchery’s silence seemed to give consent, and Prulliere, still greatly agitated and discontented despite everything, put his part back into his pocket. Bosc and Fontan had appeared profoundly indifferent during the course of this explanation. Let each man fight for his own hand, they reflected; the present dispute had nothing to do with them; they had no interest therein! All the actors clustered round Fauchery and began questioning him and fishing for praise, while Mignon listened to the last of Prulliere’s complaints without, however, losing sight of Count Muffat, whose return he had been on the watch for.
Entering in the half-light, the count had paused at the back of the stage, for he hesitated to interrupt the quarrel. But Bordenave caught sight of him and ran forward.
“Aren’t they a pretty lot?” he muttered. “You can have no idea what I’ve got to undergo with that lot, Monsieur le Comte. Each man’s vainer than his neighbor, and they’re wretched players all the same, a scabby lot, always mixed up in some dirty business or other! Oh, they’d be delighted if I were to come to smash. But I beg pardon – I’m getting beside myself.”
He ceased speaking, and silence reigned while Muffat sought how to broach his announcement gently. But he failed and, in order to get out of his difficulty the more quickly, ended by an abrupt announcement:
“Nana wants the duchess’s part.”
Bordenave gave a start and shouted:
“Come now, it’s sheer madness!”
Then looking at the count and finding him so pale and so shaken, he was calm at once.
“Devil take it!” he said simply.
And with that there ensued a fresh silence. At bottom he didn’t care a pin about it. That great thing Nana playing the duchess might possibly prove amusing! Besides, now that this had happened he had Muffat well in his grasp. Accordingly he was not long in coming to a decision, and so he turned round and called out:
“Fauchery!”
The count had been on the point of stopping him. But Fauchery did not hear him, for he had been pinned against the curtain by Fontan and was being compelled to listen patiently to the comedian’s reading of the part of Tardiveau. Fontan imagined Tardiveau to be a native of Marseilles with a dialect, and he imitated the dialect. He was repeating whole speeches. Was that right? Was this the thing? Apparently he was only submitting ideas to Fauchery of which he was himself uncertain, but as the author seemed cold and raised various objections, he grew angry at once.
Oh, very well, the moment the spirit of the part escaped him it would be better for all concerned that he shouldn’t act it at all!
“Fauchery!” shouted Bordenave once more.
Thereupon the young man ran off, delighted to escape from the actor, who was wounded not a little by his prompt retreat.
“Don’t let’s stay here,” continued Bordenave. “Come this way, gentlemen.”
In order to escape from curious listeners he led them into the property room behind the scenes, while Mignon watched their disappearance in some surprise. They went down a few steps and entered a square room, whose two windows opened upon the courtyard. A faint light stole through the dirty panes and hung wanly under the low ceiling. In pigeonholes and shelves, which filled the whole place up, lay a collection of the most varied kind of bric-a-brac. Indeed, it suggested an old-clothes shop in the Rue de Lappe in process of selling off, so indescribable was the hotchpotch of plates, gilt pasteboard cups, old red umbrellas, Italian jars, clocks in all styles, platters and inkpots, firearms and squirts, which lay chipped and broken and in unrecognizable heaps under a layer of dust an inch deep. An unendurable odor of old iron, rags and damp cardboard emanated from the various piles, where the debris of forgotten dramas had been collecting for half a century.
“Come in,” Bordenave repeated. “We shall be alone, at any rate.”
The count was extremely embarrassed, and he contrived to let the manager risk his proposal for him. Fauchery was astonished.
“Eh? What?” he asked.
“Just this,” said Bordenave finally. “An idea has occurred to us. Now whatever you do, don’t jump! It’s most serious. What do you think of Nana for the duchess’s part?”
The author was bewildered; then he burst out with:
“Ah no, no! You’re joking, aren’t you? People would laugh far too much.”
“Well, and it’s a point gained already if they do laugh! Just reflect, my dear boy. The idea pleases Monsieur le Comte very much.”
In order to keep himself in countenance Muffat had just picked out of the dust on a neighboring shelf an object which he did not seem to recognize. It was an eggcup, and its stem had been mended with plaster. He kept hold of it unconsciously and came forward, muttering:
“Yes, yes, it would be capital.”
Fauchery turned toward him with a brisk, impatient gesture. The count had nothing to do with his piece, and he said decisively:
“Never! Let Nana play the courtesan as much as she likes, but a lady – No, by Jove!”
“You are mistaken, I assure you,” rejoined the count, growing bolder. “This very minute she has been playing the part of a pure woman for my benefit.”
“Where?” queried Fauchery with growing surprise.
“Upstairs in a dressing room. Yes, she has, indeed, and with such distinction! She’s got a way of glancing at you as she goes by you – something like this, you know!”
And eggcup in hand, he endeavored to imitate Nana, quite forgetting his dignity in his frantic desire to convince the others. Fauchery gazed at him in a state of stupefaction. He understood it all now, and his anger had ceased. The count felt that he was looking at him mockingly and pityingly, and he paused with a slight blush on his face.
“Egad, it’s quite possible!” muttered the author complaisantly. “Perhaps she would do very well, only the part’s been assigned. We can’t take it away from Rose.”
“Oh, if that’s all the trouble,” said Bordenave, “I’ll undertake to arrange matters.”
But presently, seeing them both against him and guessing that Bordenave had some secret interest at stake, the young man thought to avoid aquiescence by redoubling the violence of his refusal. The consultation was on the verge of being broken up.
“Oh, dear! No, no! Even if the part were unassigned I should never give it her! There, is that plain? Do let me alone; I have no wish to ruin my play!”
He lapsed into silent embarrassment. Bordenave, deeming himself DE TROP, went away, but the count remained with bowed head. He raised it with an effort and said in a breaking voice:
“Supposing, my dear fellow, I were to ask this of you as a favor?”
“I cannot, I cannot,” Fauchery kept repeating as he writhed to get free.
Muffat’s voice became harder.
“I pray and beseech you for it! I want it!”
And with that he fixed his eyes on him. The young man read menaces in that darkling gaze and suddenly gave way with a splutter of confused phrases:
“Do what you like – I don’t care a pin about it. Yes, yes, you’re abusing your power, but you’ll see, you’ll see!”
At this the embarrassment of both increased. Fauchery was leaning up against a set of shelves and was tapping nervously on the ground with his foot. Muffat seemed busy examining the eggcup, which he was still turning round and about.
“It’s an eggcup,” Bordenave obligingly came and remarked.
“Yes, to be sure! It’s an eggeup,” the count repeated.
“Excuse me, you’re covered with dust,” continued the manager, putting the thing back on a shelf. “If one had to dust every day there’d be no end to it, you understand. But it’s hardly clean here – a filthy mess, eh? Yet you may believe me or not when I tell you there’s money in it. Now look, just look at all that!”
He walked Muffat round in front of the pigeonholes and shelves and in the greenish light which filtered through the courtyard, told him the names of different properties, for he was anxious to interest him in his marine-stores inventory, as he jocosely termed it.
Presently, when they had returned into Fauchery’s neighborhood, he said carelessly enough:
“Listen, since we’re all of one mind, we’ll finish the matter at once. Here’s Mignon, just when he’s wanted.”
For some little time past Mignon had been prowling in the adjoining passage, and the very moment Bordenave began talking of a modification of their agreement he burst into wrathful protest. It was infamous – they wanted to spoil his wife’s career – he’d go to law about it! Bordenave, meanwhile, was extremely calm and full of reasons. He did not think the part worthy of Rose, and he preferred to reserve her for an operetta, which was to be put on after the Petite Duchesse. But when her husband still continued shouting he suddenly offered to cancel their arrangement in view of the offers which the Folies-Dramatiques had been making the singer. At this Mignon was momentarily put out, so without denying the truth of these offers he loudly professed a vast disdain for money. His wife, he said, had been engaged to play the Duchess Helene, and she would play the part even if he, Mignon, were to be ruined over it. His dignity, his honor, were at stake! Starting from this basis, the discussion grew interminable. The manager, however, always returned to the following argument: since the Folies had offered Rose three hundred francs a night during a hundred performances, and since she only made a hundred and fifty with him, she would be the gainer by fifteen thousand francs the moment he let her depart. The husband, on his part, did not desert the artist’s position. What would people say if they saw his wife deprived of her part? Why, that she was not equal to it; that it had been deemed necessary to find a substitute for her! And this would do great harm to Rose’s reputation as an artist; nay, it would diminish it. Oh no, no! Glory before gain! Then without a word of warning he pointed out a possible arrangement: Rose, according to the terms of her agreement, was pledged to pay a forfeit of ten thousand francs in case she gave up the part. Very well then, let them give her ten thousand francs, and she would go to the Folies-Dramatiques. Bordenave was utterly dumfounded while Mignon, who had never once taken his eyes off the count, tranquilly awaited results.
