Nana

Nana disappears for many months. Rumors spread about her whereabouts, but on one July evening, Lucy Stewart tells Caroline Héquet that Nana is back from Russia, where she had been having an affair with the Russian prince. Nana’s son Louis, who had smallpox, passed it to his mother. Louis died, and Nana has fallen very ill. To everyone’s surprise, Rose Mignon, one of Nana’s chief rivals, has nursed her faithfully ever since.

In the midst of Nana’s illness, France’s legislative body has voted to go to war with Prussia, and crowds of people are gathering on the streets in a patriotic fervor. Nana’s friends hear the crowd’s shouts outside constantly as they gather at the hotel where she lies dying.

When the women arrive at the hotel, Clarisse, Simonne, Léa, and Gaga are already in Nana’s room. Mignon, Fauchery, and Fontan are in the hotel as well, but they stay downstairs, afraid of catching smallpox. Auguste urges the newly arrived women to tell Rose to come down, afraid that even if smallpox does not kill her it could give her lasting scars that would damage the couple’s earning potential. Muffat sits far away from the crowd, lost in a daze and oblivious even of the loud noises outside.

Eventually, a concierge comes downstairs and tells the assembled group that Nana has died. The news strikes them as unbelievable and surreal. All the women gather around Nana’s body, but quickly turn to discussing France’s evolving political situation. Only Léa dares to voice the suspicion that Prussia’s Otto von Bismarck will “give us a good thrashing” (374) and that the war is a mistake, but the rest shush her. Gaga, one of the oldest among them, remembers 1848, when revolutionary fervor led then-king Louis-Philippe to abdicate his throne so that a republican government could take his place. She warns that this was an awful time of frightening economic uncertainty when she was “dying of hunger” (374). The other women join her in praying that the Empire will continue to flourish, and that God will preserve the Emperor.

Eventually, they decide to leave Nana’s room, as no one knows whether smallpox is more or less communicable from a corpse. Rose lights a candle for her before she goes, and Nana’s illuminated face alarms them. It is unrecognizable, covered with bloody pustules that have distorted her features. Outside, the marchers continue their shout: “To Berlin! To Berlin! To Berlin!” (375).