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?‰mile, 1840-1902

"Four Short Stories By Emile Zola"

"
And when he came back and took her waist again he added:
"We'll relight it in a minute."
Then as she listened to the robin and the boy pressed against her side,
Nana remembered. Ah yes, it was in novels that she had got to know all
this! In other days she would have given her heart to have a full moon
and robins and a lad dying of love for her. Great God, she could have
cried, so good and charming did it all seem to her! Beyond a doubt she
had been born to live honestly! So she pushed Georges away again, and he
grew yet bolder.
"No, let me be. I don't care about it. It would be very wicked at your
age. Now listen--I'll always be your mamma."
A sudden feeling of shame overcame her. She was blushing exceedingly,
and yet not a soul could see her. The room behind them was full of black
night while the country stretched before them in silence and lifeless
solitude. Never had she known such a sense of shame before. Little by
little she felt her power of resistance ebbing away, and that despite
her embarrassed efforts to the contrary. That disguise of his, that
woman's shift and that dressing jacket set her laughing again. It was as
though a girl friend were teasing her.
"Oh, it's not right; it's not right!" she stammered after a last effort.


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