conveniences. There was no central luster, and the candelabra,
whose tall tapers had scarcely burned up properly, cast a pale
yellow light among the dishes and stands on which fruit, cakes and
preserves alternated symmetrically.
"You sit where you like, you know," said Nana. "It's more amusing
that way."
She remained standing midway down the side of the table. The old
gentleman whom nobody knew had placed himself on her right, while
she kept Steiner on her left hand. Some guests were already sitting
down when the sound of oaths came from the little drawing room. It
was Bordenave. The company had forgotten him, and he was having all
the trouble in the world to raise himself out of his two armchairs,
for he was howling amain and calling for that cat of a Simonne, who
had slipped off with the rest. The women ran in to him, full of
pity for his woes, and Bordenave appeared, supported, nay, almost
carried, by Caroline, Clarisse, Tatan Nene and Maria Blond. And
there was much to-do over his installation at the table.
"In the middle, facing Nana!" was the cry. "Bordenave in the
middle! He'll be our president!"
Thereupon the ladies seated him in the middle. But he needed a
second chair for his leg, and two girls lifted it up and stretched
it carefully out. It wouldn't matter; he would eat sideways.
"God blast it all!" he grumbled. "We're squashed all the same! Ah,
my kittens, Papa recommends himself to your tender care!"
He had Rose Mignon on his right and Lucy Stewart on his left hand,
and they promised to take good care of him. Everybody was now
getting settled. Count de Vandeuvres placed himself between Lucy
and Clarisse; Fauchery between Rose Mignon and Caroline Hequet. On
the other side of the table Hector de la Faloise had rushed to get
next Gaga, and that despite the calls of Clarisse opposite, while
Mignon, who never deserted Steiner, was only separated from him by
Blanche and had Tatan Nene on his left. Then came Labordette and,
finally, at the two ends of the table were irregular crowding groups
of young men and of women, such as Simonne, Lea de Horn and Maria
Blond. It was in this region that Daguenet and Georges forgathered
more warmly than ever while smilingly gazing at Nana.
Nevertheless, two people remained standing, and there was much
joking about it. The men offered seats on their knees. Clarisse,
who could not move her elbows, told Vandeuvres that she counted on
him to feed her. And then that Bordenave did just take up space
with his chairs! There was a final effort, and at last everybody
was seated, but, as Mignon loudly remarked, they were confoundedly
like herrings in a barrel.
"Thick asparagus soup a la comtesse, clear soup a la Deslignac,"
murmured the waiters, carrying about platefuls in rear of the
guests.
Bordenave was loudly recommending the thick soup when a shout arose,
followed by protests and indignant exclamations. The door had just
opened, and three late arrivals, a woman and two men, had just come
in. Oh dear, no! There was no space for them! Nana, however,
without leaving her chair, began screwing up her eyes in the effort
to find out whether she knew them. The woman was Louise Violaine,
but she had never seen the men before.
"This gentleman, my dear," said Vandeuvres, "is a friend of mine, a
naval officer, Monsieur de Foucarmont by name. I invited him."
Foucarmont bowed and seemed very much at ease, for he added:
"And I took leave to bring one of my friends with me."
"Oh, it's quite right, quite right!" said Nana. "Sit down, pray.
Let's see, you--Clarisse--push up a little. You're a good deal
spread out down there. That's it--where there's a will--"
They crowded more tightly than ever, and Foucarmont and Louise were
given a little stretch of table, but the friend had to sit at some
distance from his plate and ate his supper through dint of making a
long arm between his neighbors' shoulders. The waiters took away
the soup plates and circulated rissoles of young rabbit with
truffles and "niokys" and powdered cheese. Bordenave agitated the
whole table with the announcement that at one moment he had had the
idea of bringing with him Prulliere, Fontan and old Bosc. At this
Nana looked sedate and remarked dryly that she would have given them
a pretty reception. Had she wanted colleagues, she would certainly
have undertaken to ask them herself. No, no, she wouldn't have
third-rate play actors. Old Bosc was always drunk; Prulliere was
fond of spitting too much, and as to Fontan, he made himself
unbearable in society with his loud voice and his stupid doings.
Then, you know, third-rate play actors were always out of place when
they found themselves in the society of gentlemen such as those
around her.
"Yes, yes, it's true," Mignon declared.
All round the table the gentlemen in question looked unimpeachable
in the extreme, what with their evening dress and their pale
features, the natural distinction of which was still further refined
by fatigue. The old gentleman was as deliberate in his movements
and wore as subtle a smile as though he were presiding over a
diplomatic congress, and Vandeuvres, with his exquisite politeness
toward the ladies next to him, seemed to be at one of the Countess
Muffat's receptions. That very morning Nana had been remarking to
her aunt that in the matter of men one could not have done better--
they were all either wellborn or wealthy, in fact, quite the thing.
And as to the ladies, they were behaving admirably. Some of them,
such as Blanche, Lea and Louise, had come in low dresses, but Gaga's
only was perhaps a little too low, the more so because at her age
she would have done well not to show her neck at all. Now that the
company were finally settled the laughter and the light jests began
to fail. Georges was under the impression that he had assisted at
merrier dinner parties among the good folks of Orleans. There was
scarcely any conversation. The men, not being mutually acquainted,
stared at one another, while the women sat quite quiet, and it was
this which especially surprised Georges. He thought them all smugs--
he had been under the impression that everybody would begin kissing
at once.
The third course, consisting of a Rhine carp a la Chambord and a
saddle of venison a l'anglaise, was being served when Blanche
remarked aloud:
"Lucy, my dear, I met your Ollivier on Sunday. How he's grown!"
"Dear me, yes! He's eighteen," replied Lucy. "It doesn't make me
feel any younger. He went back to his school yesterday."
Her son Ollivier, whom she was wont to speak of with pride, was a
pupil at the Ecole de Marine. Then ensued a conversation about the
young people, during which all the ladies waxed very tender. Nana
described her own great happiness. Her baby, the little Louis, she
said, was now at the house of her aunt, who brought him round to her
every morning at eleven o'clock, when she would take him into her
bed, where he played with her griffon dog Lulu. It was enough to
make one die of laughing to see them both burying themselves under
the clothes at the bottom of the bed. The company had no idea how
cunning Louiset had already become.
"Oh, yesterday I did just pass a day!" said Rose Mignon in her turn.
"Just imagine, I went to fetch Charles and Henry at their boarding
school, and I had positively to take them to the theater at night.
They jumped; they clapped their little hands: 'We shall see Mamma
act! We shall see Mamma act!' Oh, it was a to-do!"
Mignon smiled complaisantly, his eyes moist with paternal
tenderness.
"And at the play itself," he continued, "they were so funny! They
behaved as seriously as grown men, devoured Rose with their eyes and
asked me why Mamma had her legs bare like that."
The whole table began laughing, and Mignon looked radiant, for his
pride as a father was flattered. He adored his children and had but
one object in life, which was to increase their fortunes by
administering the money gained by Rose at the theater and elsewhere
with the businesslike severity of a faithful steward. When as first
fiddle in the music hall where she used to sing he had married her,
they had been passionately fond of one another. Now they were good
friends. There was an understanding between them: she labored hard
to the full extent of her talent and of her beauty; he had given up
his violin in order the better to watch over her successes as an
actress and as a woman. One could not have found a more homely and
united household anywhere!
"What age is your eldest?" asked Vandeuvres.
"Henry's nine," replied Mignon, "but such a big chap for his years!"
Then he chaffed Steiner, who was not fond of children, and with
quiet audacity informed him that were he a father, he would make a
less stupid hash of his fortune. While talking he watched the
banker over Blanche's shoulders to see if it was coming off with
Nana. But for some minutes Rose and Fauchery, who were talking very
near him, had been getting on his nerves. Was Rose going to waste
time over such a folly as that? In that sort of case, by Jove, he
blocked the way. And diamond on finger and with his fine hands in
great evidence, he finished discussing a fillet of venison.
Elsewhere the conversation about children continued. La Faloise,
rendered very restless by the immediate proximity of Gaga, asked
news of her daughter, whom he had had the pleasure of noticing in
her company at the Varietes. Lili was quite well, but she was still
such a tomboy! He was astonished to learn that Lili was entering on
her nineteenth year. Gaga became even more imposing in his eyes,
and when he endeavored to find out why she had not brought Lili with
her:
"Oh no, no, never!" she said stiffly. "Not three months ago she
positively insisted on leaving her boarding school. I was thinking
of marrying her off at once, but she loves me so that I had to take
her home--oh, so much against my will!"
Her blue eyelids with their blackened lashes blinked and wavered
while she spoke of the business of settling her young lady. If at
her time of life she hadn't laid by a sou but was still always
working to minister to men's pleasures, especially those very young
men, whose grandmother she might well be, it was truly because she
considered a good match of far greater importance than mere savings.
And with that she leaned over La Faloise, who reddened under the
huge, naked, plastered shoulder with which she well-nigh crushed
him.
"You know," she murmured, "if she fails it won't be my fault. But
they're so strange when they're young!"
There was a considerable bustle round the table, and the waiters
became very active. After the third course the entrees had made
their appearance; they consisted of pullets a la marechale, fillets
of sole with shallot sauce and escalopes of Strasbourg pate. The
manager, who till then had been having Meursault served, now offered
Chambertin and Leoville. Amid the slight hubbub which the change of
plates involved Georges, who was growing momentarily more
astonished, asked Daguenet if all the ladies present were similarly
provided with children, and the other, who was amused by this
question, gave him some further details. Lucy Stewart was the
daughter of a man of English origin who greased the wheels of the
trains at the Gare du Nord; she was thirty-nine years old and had
the face of a horse but was adorable withal and, though consumptive,
never died. In fact, she was the smartest woman there and
represented three princes and a duke. Caroline Hequet, born at
Bordeaux, daughter of a little clerk long since dead of shame, was
lucky enough to be possessed of a mother with a head on her
shoulders, who, after having cursed her, had made it up again at the
end of a year of reflection, being minded, at any rate, to save a
fortune for her daughter. The latter was twenty-five years old and
very passionless and was held to be one of the finest women it is
possible to enjoy. Her price never varied. The mother, a model of
orderliness, kept the accounts and noted down receipts and
expenditures with severe precision. She managed the whole household
from some small lodging two stories above her daughter's, where,
moreover, she had established a workroom for dressmaking and plain
sewing. As to Blanche de Sivry, whose real name was Jacqueline
Bandu, she hailed from a village near Amiens. Magnificent in
person, stupid and untruthful in character, she gave herself out as
the granddaughter of a general and never owned to her thirty-two
summers. The Russians had a great taste for her, owing to her
embonpoint. Then Daguenet added a rapid word or two about the rest.
There was Clarisse Besnus, whom a lady had brought up from Saint-
Aubin-sur-Mer in the capacity of maid while the lady's husband had
started her in quite another line. There was Simonne Cabiroche, the
daughter of a furniture dealer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, who
had been educated in a large boarding school with a view to becoming
a governess. Finally there were Maria Blond and Louise Violaine and
Lea de Horn, who had all shot up to woman's estate on the pavements
of Paris, not to mention Tatan Nene, who had herded cows in
Champagne till she was twenty.
Georges listened and looked at these ladies, feeling dizzy and
excited by the coarse recital thus crudely whispered in his ear,
while behind his chair the waiters kept repeating in respectful
tones:
"Pullets a la marechale; fillets of sole with ravigote sauce."
