Part 3

At the other end of the room, the nape of her neck resting against the frame of a mirror, a girl of at most eighteen stood motionless before an empty glass, as if numbed by a long and futile waiting. Beneath the natural curls of her ash-blonde hair, she had the face of a virgin, with eyes of velvet, soft and candid; and she wore a faded green silk dress, with a round hat that blows had dented in. The coolness of the night made her look entirely pale.

— Look! there's Satin, murmured Fauchery on catching sight of her.

La Faloise questioned him. Oh! a streetwalker from the boulevard, nothing at all. But she was so much of a guttersnipe that they amused themselves by making her talk. And the journalist, raising his voice:

— What are you doing there, Satin?

— I'm bored stiff, answered Satin tranquilly, without moving.

The four men, charmed, burst out laughing.

Mignon declared that there was no need to hurry; it would take twenty minutes to set the scenery for the third act. But the two cousins, who had finished their beer, wanted to go back up; the cold was getting to them. Then Mignon, left alone with Steiner, leaned his elbows, spoke right into his face.

— Eh? it's agreed, we'll go to her place, I'll introduce you... You know, between ourselves, my wife doesn't need to know.

Back in their seats, Fauchery and La Faloise noticed in the second-tier boxes a pretty woman, modestly dressed. She was in the company of a serious-looking gentleman, a department head at the Ministry of the Interior, whom La Faloise knew from having met him at the Muffats'. As for Fauchery, he believed her name was Madame Robert: a respectable woman who had a lover, no more, and always a respectable man.

But they had to turn around. Daguenet was smiling at them. Now that Nana had succeeded, he no longer hid himself; he had just triumphed in the corridors. Beside him, the young runaway from school had not left his seat, in the stupefied admiration into which Nana plunged him. That was it, that was the woman; and he turned very red, he put on and took off his gloves mechanically. Then, as his neighbor had spoken of Nana, he dared question him.

— Pardon me, sir, this lady who is acting, do you know her?

— Yes, a little, murmured Daguenet, surprised and hesitant.

— Then, do you know her address?

The question fell so bluntly, addressed to him, that he felt like answering with a slap.

— No, he said in a curt tone.

And he turned his back. The fair-haired boy understood that he had just committed some indiscretion; he reddened further and remained dumbfounded.

They were striking the three knocks, usherettes were stubbornly handing back garments, loaded with pelisses and overcoats, amid the crowd that was coming back in. The claque applauded the set, a grotto of Mount Etna, hollowed in a silver mine, and whose flanks had the shine of new coins; at the back, Vulcan's forge put a star's setting. Diane, from the second scene, conferred with the god, who was to feign a journey to leave the place free for Venus and Mars. Then, hardly was Diane alone, when Venus arrived. A shiver moved the house. Nana was naked. She was naked with a tranquil boldness, certain of the omnipotence of her flesh. A simple gauze enveloped her; her round shoulders, her amazon's breast whose pink tips stood raised and rigid like lances, her broad hips that rolled in a voluptuous swaying, her thighs of a plump blonde, all her body was guessed at, was seen beneath the light fabric, of a whiteness of foam. It was Venus born of the waves, having for veil only her hair. And, when Nana raised her arms, one glimpsed, in the footlights' glow, the golden hairs of her armpits. There was no applause. No one laughed any longer, the men's faces, serious, strained forward, with thinned noses, irritated mouths dry of saliva. A wind seemed to have passed, very soft, charged with a muffled threat. Suddenly, in the good girl, the woman rose, unsettling, bringing the fit of madness of her sex, opening the unknown of desire. Nana still smiled, but with a sharp smile of a man-eater.

— Good Lord! simply said Fauchery to La Faloise.

Mars, however, came running to the rendezvous, with his plume, and found himself between the two goddesses. There was there a scene that Prullière played finely; caressed by Diane who wanted to attempt a last effort on him before delivering him to Vulcan, coaxed by Venus whose rival's presence stimulated her, he abandoned himself to these sweetnesses, with the beatific air of a spoiled child. Then, a great trio ended the scene; and it was then that an usherette appeared in Lucy Stewart's box, and threw two enormous bouquets of white lilac. They applauded, Nana and Rose Mignon bowed, while Prullière gathered up the bouquets. Part of the orchestra turned smiling toward the stall occupied by Steiner and Mignon. The banker, blood in his face, had little convulsive movements of the chin, as if he had felt a lump in his throat.

What followed finished seizing the house. Diane had gone, furious. At once, seated on a mossy bench, Venus called Mars to her. Never had one dared a scene of seduction more heated. Nana, arms around Prullière's neck, drew him to her, when Fontan, giving himself up to a mimicry of comical fury, exaggerating the mask of an outraged husband surprising his wife in the act, appeared at the back of the grotto. He held the famous net with iron meshes. For an instant, he swung it, like a fisherman about to cast a throw; and, by an ingenious trick, Venus and Mars were caught in the trap, the net enveloped them, immobilized them in their posture of happy lovers.

A murmur grew, like a sigh that swelled. A few hands clapped, all the opera glasses were fixed on Venus. Little by little, Nana had taken possession of the public, and now each man underwent her. The rut that rose from her, like a beast in madness, had spread ever more, filling the house. At this hour, her slightest movements blew desire, she turned the flesh with a gesture of her little finger. Backs arched, vibrating as if invisible bows had passed over the muscles; napes showed downy hairs that flew off, under tepid and wandering breaths, come from no one knew which woman's mouth. Fauchery saw before him the runaway from school whom passion lifted from his seat. He had the curiosity to look at Count de Vandeuvres, very pale, lips pinched, the big Steiner, whose apoplectic face was bursting, Labordette eyeing with the astonished air of a horse-dealer admiring a perfect mare, Daguenet whose ears bled and moved with enjoyment. Then, an instinct made him throw a glance behind, and he remained astonished at what he glimpsed in the Muffat box: behind the countess, white and serious, the count raised himself, gaping, his face marbled with red spots; while, near him, in the shadow, the troubled eyes of Marquis de Chouard had become two cat's eyes, phosphorescent, spangled with gold. One suffocated, the hair weighed heavy on sweating heads. For three hours that they had been there, the breaths had heated the air with a human smell. In the blazing of the gas, the suspended dust thickened, motionless below the chandelier. The entire house wavered, slipped into a vertigo, weary and excited, taken with those sleepy desires of midnight that stammer at the bottom of alcoves. And Nana, facing this fainting public, these fifteen hundred persons heaped together, drowned in the collapse and nervous derangement of an end of show, remained victorious with her marble flesh, her sex strong enough to destroy all this world and not be dented by it.

The play ended. At Vulcan's triumphant calls, all Olympus filed past before the lovers, with oh's! and ah's! of stupor and ribaldry. Jupiter said: "My son, I find you light in calling us to see that." Then, a reversal took place in Venus's favor. The chorus of cuckolds, brought in again by Iris, begged the master of the gods not to follow up his request; since the women stayed at home, life there had become impossible for the men; they preferred to be deceived and content, which was the morality of the comedy. Then, they freed Venus. Vulcan obtained a separation of bodies. Mars got back with Diane. Jupiter, to have peace in his household, sent his little washerwoman into a constellation. And they finally drew Cupid from his dungeon, where he had made cocottes, instead of conjugating the verb to love. The curtain fell on an apotheosis, the chorus of cuckolds on its knees, singing a hymn of gratitude to Venus, smiling and enlarged in her sovereign nudity.

The spectators, already standing, made for the doors. They named the authors, and there were two curtain calls, amid a thunder of bravos. The cry: "Nana! Nana!" had rolled furiously. Then, the house was not yet empty, that it became black; the footlights went out, the chandelier lowered, long covers of gray cloth slid from the front boxes, enveloped the gilding of the galleries; and this house, so warm, so noisy, fell at once into a heavy sleep, while a smell of mildew and dust rose. On the edge of her box, waiting for the crowd to flow out, Countess Muffat, quite straight, muffled in furs, looked at the shadow.

In the corridors, they jostled the usherettes who lost their heads, amid heaps of collapsed garments. Fauchery and La Faloise had hurried, to witness the exit. Along the vestibule, men formed a line, while, from the double staircase, slowly, two interminable tails descended, regular and compact. Steiner, dragged by Mignon, had slipped away among the first. Count de Vandeuvres left with Blanche de Sivry on his arm. For an instant, Gaga and her daughter seemed embarrassed, but Labordette hastened to go find them a carriage, whose door he gallantly closed upon them. No one saw Daguenet pass. As the runaway from school, burning cheeks, decided to wait before the artists' door, ran to the Passage des Panoramas, whose grating he found closed, Satin, standing on the sidewalk, came to brush him with her skirts; but he, desperate, refused brutally, then disappeared amid the crowd, with tears of desire and impotence in his eyes. Some spectators lit cigars, moved off humming: _When Venus roams at night..._ Satin had gone back in front of the Café des Variétés, where Auguste let her eat the leftover sugar of the drinks. A stout man, very heated as he came out, finally took her off, into the shadow of the boulevard gradually falling asleep.

Yet, people kept descending. La Faloise waited for Clarisse. Fauchery had promised to take Lucy Stewart, with Caroline Héquet and her mother. They arrived, they occupied a whole corner of the vestibule, laughing very loud, when the Muffats passed, with an icy air. Bordenave, just then, had pushed open a small door and obtained from Fauchery the formal promise of a review. He was in a sweat, a sunburn on his face, as if drunk by success.

— There's enough for two hundred performances, said La Faloise obligingly. All Paris will parade at your theater.

But Bordenave, getting angry, showing with a brusque movement of the chin the public that filled the vestibule, that mob of men with dry lips, ardent eyes, all still burning from the possession of Nana, cried violently:

— Tell that to my brothel, you stubborn fool!

II

The next day, at ten o'clock, Nana was still asleep. She occupied, on the boulevard Haussmann, the second floor of a large new house, whose owner rented to single ladies, to have them season the plaster. A rich Moscow merchant, who had come to spend a winter in Paris, had installed her there, paying six months in advance. The apartment, too vast for her, had never been completely furnished; and a garish luxury, consoles and gilded chairs there jostled with a secondhand dealer's bric-a-brac, mahogany guéridons, zinc candelabra playing at Florentine bronze. It smelled of a girl let loose too early by her first serious gentleman, fallen back to shady lovers, a whole difficult beginning, a failed launch, hampered by refusals of credit and threats of eviction.

Nana slept on her stomach, clutching her naked arms around her pillow, into which she buried her face all white with sleep. The bedroom and the dressing room were the only two rooms that a quarter's upholsterer had taken care of. A gleam slipped under a curtain, one made out the rosewood furniture, the hangings and seats of brocaded damask, with large blue flowers on a gray ground. But, in the moisture of this sleeping chamber, Nana woke with a start, as surprised to feel an emptiness near her. She looked at the second pillow that spread next to hers, with the still warm hollow of a head, amid the guipure. And, with her groping hand, she pressed the button of an electric bell, at her bedside.

— So he's gone? she asked the chambermaid who presented herself.

— Yes, madame, Monsieur Paul has gone, it's not ten minutes... As madame was tired, he didn't want to wake her. But he charged me to tell madame he would come tomorrow.

While speaking, Zoé, the chambermaid, opened the shutters. The broad daylight entered. Zoé, very dark, coiffed with little bands, had a long face, in a dog's snout, livid and seamed, with a flattened nose, thick lips and black eyes ceaselessly in movement.

— Tomorrow, tomorrow, repeated Nana still half-awake, is it the day, tomorrow?

— Yes, madame, Monsieur Paul has always come on Wednesdays.

— Eh! no, I remember! cried the young woman, who sat up. Everything is changed. I wanted to tell him that, this morning... He'd fall on the darkie. We'd have a scene!

— Madame didn't warn me, I couldn't know, murmured Zoé. When madame changes her days, she'll do well to notify me, so that I know... So the old miser isn't for Tuesdays anymore?

They thus called among themselves, without laughing, by these names of old miser and darkie, the two men who paid, a shopkeeper from the Faubourg Saint-Denis, of economical temperament, and a Wallachian, a supposed count, whose money, always very irregular, had a strange smell. Daguenet had got himself given the mornings after the old miser; as the shopkeeper had to be at his house in the morning, by eight o'clock, the young man watched for his departure, from Zoé's kitchen, and took his still warm place, until ten o'clock; then, he himself went to his affairs. Nana and he found that very convenient.

— Too bad! she said, I'll write him this afternoon... And, if he doesn't get my letter, tomorrow you'll keep him from coming in.

Meanwhile, Zoé walked softly in the room. She spoke of the great success of the previous evening. Madame had just shown so much talent, she sang so well! Ah! madame could be tranquil, at this hour!

Nana, elbow in the pillow, answered only with nods. Her chemise had slipped, her hair undone, tangled, rolled on her shoulders.

— No doubt, she murmured, become dreamy; but how to manage to wait? I'm going to have all sorts of bothers today... Let's see, has the concierge been up yet, this morning?

Then, the two of them talked seriously. Three terms were owed, the owner spoke of seizure. Then, there was a rout of creditors, a carriage lender, a linen dealer, a tailor, a coal merchant, others still, who came each day to install themselves on a bench of the antechamber; the coal merchant especially showed himself terrible, he shouted in the staircase. But Nana's big sorrow was her little Louis, a child she had at sixteen and whom she left with his nurse, in a village, in the surroundings of Rambouillet. This woman demanded three hundred francs to return Louiset. Taken with a crisis of maternal love, since her last visit to the child, Nana despaired of not being able to realize a project become a fixed idea, pay the nurse and put the little one at his aunt's, Madame Lerat's, at the Batignolles, where she would go see him as much as she wanted.

Meanwhile, the chambermaid insinuated that madame should have confided her needs to the old miser.

— Eh! I told him everything, cried Nana; he answered me he had too heavy deadlines. He doesn't go beyond his thousand francs a month... The darkie is broke, at the moment; I think he lost at play... As for poor Mimi, he'd greatly need someone to lend him some; a drop in the market cleaned him out, he can't even bring me flowers anymore.

She spoke of Daguenet. In the abandon of waking, she had no secret from Zoé. The latter, accustomed to such confidences, received them with a respectful sympathy. Since madame deigned to speak to her of her affairs, she would permit herself to say what she thought. First, she much liked madame, she had left Madame Blanche on purpose, and God knows if Madame Blanche made feet and hands to get her back! Places were not lacking, she was well enough known; but she would have stayed with madame, even in straits, because she believed in madame's future. And she ended by specifying her advice. When one is young, one makes foolishnesses. This time, it was necessary to keep one's eye open, for the men thought only of joking. Oh! it was going to come to that! Madame would have but a word to say to calm her creditors and to find the money she needed.

— All that doesn't give me three hundred francs, repeated Nana, digging her fingers into the wild locks of her chignon. I need three hundred francs, today, right away... It's stupid not to know someone who gives you three hundred francs.

She searched, she would have sent Madame Lerat to Rambouillet, whom she was expecting precisely in the morning. Her crossed caprice spoiled for her the triumph of the previous evening. Among all those men who had acclaimed her, to think that not one would be found to bring her fifteen louis! Then, one couldn't accept money just like that. My God! how unhappy she was! And she kept coming back to her baby, he had blue eyes of a cherub, he stammered: "Mama" in such a funny voice, that it was to die laughing!

But, at the same instant, the electric bell of the entrance door made itself heard, with its rapid and trembling vibration. Zoé came back, murmuring in a confidential air:

— It's a woman.

She had seen this woman twenty times, only she affected never to recognize her and to ignore what her relations were with ladies in difficulty.

— She told me her name... Madame Tricon.

— Tricon! cried Nana. Why! it's true, I'd forgotten her... Show her in.

Zoé introduced an old lady, of tall stature, wearing ringlets, having the bearing of a countess who runs after lawyers. Then, she stepped aside, she disappeared without noise, with the supple movement of a grass snake by which she left a room, when a gentleman came. Besides, she could have stayed. Tricon did not even sit down. There was only an exchange of brief words.

— I have someone for you, today... Do you want?

— Yes... How much?

— Twenty louis.

— And at what time?

— At three o'clock... So, deal understood?

— Deal understood.

Tricon at once spoke of the weather, a dry weather in which it was good to walk. She still had four or five persons to see. And she went away, consulting a little notebook. Left alone, Nana seemed relieved. A slight shiver passed over her shoulders, she burrowed back into the warm bed, softly, with the laziness of a chilly cat. Little by little, her eyes closed, she smiled at the idea of dressing Louiset nicely, the next day; while, in the sleep that took her again, her feverish dream of all night, a prolonged roll of bravos, came back like a continuous bass, and rocked her weariness.

At eleven o'clock, when Zoé showed Madame Lerat into the room, Nana was still asleep. But she woke at the noise, and at once:

— It's you... You'll go to Rambouillet today.

— I come for that, said the aunt. There's a train at twelve twenty. I have time to catch it.

— No, I'll only have the money later, resumed the young woman who was stretching, her breast high. You'll lunch, then we'll see.

Zoé brought a dressing gown.

— Madame, murmured she, the hairdresser is here.

But Nana would not pass into the dressing room. She cried herself:

— Come in, Francis.

A gentleman, correctly dressed, pushed the door. He bowed. Just then, Nana was getting out of bed, her legs naked. She was in no hurry, held out her hands, so Zoé could thread the sleeves of the dressing gown. And Francis, very much at ease, with a dignified air, waited, without turning around. Then, when she had sat down and he had given a first stroke of the comb, he spoke.

— Madame perhaps hasn't seen the newspapers... There's a very good article in the _Figaro._

He had bought the newspaper. Madame Lerat put on her spectacles and read the article aloud, standing before the window. She straightened her gendarme's waist; her nose pinched, when she launched a gallant adjective. It was a chronicle by Fauchery, written on leaving the theater, two very warm columns, of a witty malice for the artist and a brutal admiration for the woman.

— Excellent! repeated Francis.

Nana cared not a bit that they teased her about her voice! He was nice, this Fauchery; she would return him his good manner. Madame Lerat, after rereading the article, declared abruptly that men all had the devil in their calves; and she refused to explain further, satisfied with this saucy allusion that she alone understood. But Francis was finishing lifting and knotting Nana's hair. He bowed, saying:

— I'll have my eye on the evening papers... As usual, isn't it? at half past five?

— Bring me a pot of pomade and a pound of pralines, from Boissier's! Nana cried to him across the salon, at the moment he was closing the door.

Then, the two women, left alone, remembered they had not embraced; and they planted big kisses on each other's cheeks. The article heated them. Nana, until then asleep, was taken again with the fever of her triumph. Ah well! it was Rose Mignon who was to pass a pretty morning! Her aunt having not wanted to come to the theater, because, she said, emotions broke her stomach, she began to tell her the evening, getting drunk on her own account, as if all Paris had crumbled under the applause. Then, interrupting herself all at once, she asked with a laugh if one would have said that, when she dragged her little-girl behind, on the rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Madame Lerat shook her head. No, no, never could one have foreseen. In her turn, she spoke, taking a grave air and calling her her daughter. Wasn't she her second mother, since the real one had rejoined papa and grandma. Nana, very touched, was on the point of crying. But Madame Lerat repeated that the past was the past, oh! a dirty past, things not to be stirred every day. Long she had ceased to see her niece; for, in the family, they accused her of being lost with the little one. As if that were God possible! She asked her no confidences, she believed she had always lived properly. At present, it sufficed her to find her again in a fine position and to see her have good sentiments for her son. There was yet in this world only honesty and work.

— Whose is this baby? said she, interrupting herself, her eyes lit with an acute curiosity.

Nana, surprised, hesitated a second.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”