Other branch
Fontan
Actor
The coarse, unsuccessful actor in Nana — Nana's one genuine attachment. Fontan is the anomaly in the novel's scheme: among all the wealthy, well-connected men Nana takes as patrons, he is the only one she chooses freely, the only one she pursues rather than receives. He is not rich, not powerful, not even particularly good-looking — he is rough, loud, casually cruel, and a failure at his trade. She lives with him in a tiny apartment on an ordinary street; he beats her; she stays. Zola never fully explains this (it may not be fully explicable), but the relationship illuminates what desire costs Nana as opposed to what it costs her patrons: with the others, she gives nothing. With Fontan, she gives everything and gets beaten for it. He eventually tires of her and throws her out. She returns without apparent grievance to the professional life of the courtesan — but the Fontan episode remains the novel's strangest and most humanising passage.
L'acteur raté dans Nana — seul homme que Nana choisit librement. Elle l'aime, vit avec lui dans un petit appartement, le laisse la battre, et reste. Parmi tous ses admirateurs riches et puissants, il est celui à qui elle donne tout sans rien recevoir. Zola ne l'explique pas entièrement, et c'est le passage le plus humanisant du roman.
Stocky, loud-voiced, with an actor's exaggerated face and gestures even in private — a man who performs all the time, whether the audience is there or not.
Stocky, loud-voiced, with an actor's exaggerated face and gestures even in private — a man who performs all the time, whether the audience is there or not.