The
announcement froze her.
"Zizi dead!" she cried.
And involuntarily her eyes sought the pink stain on the carpet, but
it had vanished at last; passing footsteps had worn it away. Meanwhile
Labordette entered into particulars. It was not exactly known how he
died. Some spoke of a wound reopening, others of suicide. The lad had
plunged, they said, into a tank at Les Fondettes. Nana kept repeating:
"Dead! Dead!"
She had been choking with grief since morning, and now she burst
out sobbing and thus sought relief. Hers was an infinite sorrow: it
overwhelmed her with its depth and immensity. Labordette wanted to
comfort her as touching Georges, but she silenced him with a gesture and
blurted out:
"It isn't only he; it's everything, everything. I'm very wretched. Oh
yes, I know! They'll again be saying I'm a hussy. To think of the mother
mourning down there and of the poor man who was groaning in front of my
door this morning and of all the other people that are now ruined after
running through all they had with me! That's it; punish Nana; punish the
beastly thing! Oh, I've got a broad back! I can hear them as if I were
actually there! 'That dirty wench who lies with everybody and cleans
out some and drives others to death and causes a whole heap of people
pain!'"
She was obliged to pause, for tears choked her utterance, and in her
anguish she flung herself athwart a divan and buried her face in a
cushion.
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