He was very pale, very calm and collected, and he lolled back in his
chair, drinking without cessation.
"Never mind that," murmured Louise Violaine. "Leave off; you've had
enough. It would be a funny business if I had to look after you the
rest of the night."
Such was her state of exaltation that Lucy Stewart's cheeks were
assuming a red, consumptive flush, while Rose Mignon with moist
eyelids was growing excessively melting. Tatan Nene, greatly
astonished at the thought that she had overeaten herself, was
laughing vaguely over her own stupidity. The others, such as
Blanche, Caroline, Simonne and Maria, were all talking at once and
telling each other about their private affairs--about a dispute with
a coachman, a projected picnic and innumerable complex stories of
lovers stolen or restored. Meanwhile a young man near Georges,
having evinced a desire to kiss Lea de Horn, received a sharp rap,
accompanied by a "Look here, you, let me go!" which was spoken in a
tone of fine indignation; and Georges, who was now very tipsy and
greatly excited by the sight of Nana, hesitated about carrying out a
project which he had been gravely maturing. He had been planning,
indeed, to get under the table on all fours and to go and crouch at
Nana's feet like a little dog. Nobody would have seen him, and he
would have stayed there in the quietest way. But when at Lea's
urgent request Daguenet had told the young man to sit still, Georges
all at once felt grievously chagrined, as though the reproof had
just been leveled at him. Oh, it was all silly and slow, and there
was nothing worth living for! Daguenet, nevertheless, began
chaffing and obliged him to swallow a big glassful of water, asking
him at the same time what he would do if he were to find himself
alone with a woman, seeing that three glasses of champagne were able
to bowl him over.
"Why, in Havana," resumed Foucarmont, "they make a spirit with a
certain wild berry; you think you're swallowing fire! Well now, one
evening I drank more than a liter of it, and it didn't hurt me one
bit. Better than that, another time when we were on the coast of
Coromandel some savages gave us I don't know what sort of a mixture
of pepper and vitriol, and that didn't hurt me one bit. I can't
make myself drunk."
For some moments past La Faloise's face opposite had excited his
displeasure. He began sneering and giving vent to disagreeable
witticisms. La Faloise, whose brain was in a whirl, was behaving
very restlessly and squeezing up against Gaga. But at length he
became the victim of anxiety; somebody had just taken his
handkerchief, and with drunken obstinacy he demanded it back again,
asked his neighbors about it, stooped down in order to look under
the chairs and the guests' feet. And when Gaga did her best to
quiet him:
"It's a nuisance," he murmured, "my initials and my coronet are
worked in the corner. They may compromise me."
"I say, Monsieur Falamoise, Lamafoise, Mafaloise!" shouted
Foucarmont, who thought it exceedingly witty thus to disfigure the
young man's name ad infinitum.
But La Faloise grew wroth and talked with a stutter about his
ancestry. He threatened to send a water bottle at Foucarmont's
head, and Count de Vandeuvres had to interfere in order to assure
him that Foucarmont was a great joker. Indeed, everybody was
laughing. This did for the already flurried young man, who was very
glad to resume his seat and to begin eating with childlike
submissiveness when in a loud voice his cousin ordered him to feed.
Gaga had taken him back to her ample side; only from time to time he
cast sly and anxious glances at the guests, for he ceased not to
search for his handkerchief.
Then Foucarmont, being now in his witty vein, attacked Labordette
right at the other end of the table. Louise Violaine strove to make
him hold his tongue, for, she said, "when he goes nagging at other
people like that it always ends in mischief for me." He had
discovered a witticism which consisted in addressing Labordette as
"Madame," and it must have amused him greatly, for he kept on
repeating it while Labordette tranquilly shrugged his shoulders and
as constantly replied:
"Pray hold your tongue, my dear fellow; it's stupid."
But as Foucarmont failed to desist and even became insulting without
his neighbors knowing why, he left off answering him and appealed to
Count Vandeuvres.
"Make your friend hold his tongue, monsieur. I don't wish to become
angry."
Foucarmont had twice fought duels, and he was in consequence most
politely treated and admitted into every circle. But there was now
a general uprising against him. The table grew merry at his
sallies, for they thought him very witty, but that was no reason why
the evening should be spoiled. Vandeuvres, whose subtle countenance
was darkening visibly, insisted on his restoring Labordette his sex.
The other men--Mignon, Steiner and Bordenave--who were by this time
much exalted, also intervened with shouts which drowned his voice.
Only the old gentleman sitting forgotten next to Nana retained his
stately demeanor and, still smiling in his tired, silent way,
watched with lackluster eyes the untoward finish of the dessert.
"What do you say to our taking coffee in here, duckie?" said
Bordenave. "We're very comfortable."
Nana did not give an immediate reply. Since the beginning of supper
she had seemed no longer in her own house. All this company had
overwhelmed and bewildered her with their shouts to the waiters, the
loudness of their voices and the way in which they put themselves at
their ease, just as though they were in a restaurant. Forgetting
her role of hostess, she busied herself exclusively with bulky
Steiner, who was verging on apoplexy beside her. She was listening
to his proposals and continually refusing them with shakes of the
head and that temptress's laughter which is peculiar to a voluptuous
blonde. The champagne she had been drinking had flushed her a rosy-
red; her lips were moist; her eyes sparkled, and the banker's offers
rose with every kittenish movement of her shoulders, with every
little voluptuous lift and fall of her throat, which occurred when
she turned her head. Close by her ear he kept espying a sweet
little satiny corner which drove him crazy. Occasionally Nana was
interrupted, and then, remembering her guests, she would try and be
as pleased as possible in order to show that she knew how to
receive. Toward the end of the supper she was very tipsy. It made
her miserable to think of it, but champagne had a way of
intoxicating her almost directly! Then an exasperating notion
struck her. In behaving thus improperly at her table, these ladies
were showing themselves anxious to do her an ugly turn. Oh yes, she
could see it all distinctly. Lucy had given Foucarmont a wink in
order to egg him on against Labordette, while Rose, Caroline and the
others were doing all they could to stir up the men. Now there was
such a din you couldn't hear your neighbor speak, and so the story
would get about that you might allow yourself every kind of liberty
when you supped at Nana's. Very well then! They should see! She
might be tipsy, if you like, but she was still the smartest and most
ladylike woman there.
"Do tell them to serve the coffee here, duckie," resumed Bordenave.
"I prefer it here because of my leg."
But Nana had sprung savagely to her feet after whispering into the
astonished ears of Steiner and the old gentleman:
"It's quite right; it'll teach me to go and invite a dirty lot like
that."
Then she pointed to the door of the dining room and added at the top
of her voice:
"If you want coffee it's there, you know."
The company left the table and crowded toward the dining room
without noticing Nana's indignant outburst. And soon no one was
left in the drawing room save Bordenave, who advanced cautiously,
supporting himself against the wall and cursing away at the
confounded women who chucked Papa the moment they were chock-full.
The waiters behind him were already busy removing the plates and
dishes in obedience to the loudly voiced orders of the manager.
They rushed to and fro, jostled one another, caused the whole table
to vanish, as a pantomime property might at the sound of the chief
scene-shifter's whistle. The ladies and gentlemen were to return to
the drawing room after drinking their coffee.
"By gum, it's less hot here," said Gaga with a slight shiver as she
entered the dining room.
The window here had remained open. Two lamps illuminated the table,
where coffee and liqueurs were set out. There were no chairs, and
the guests drank their coffee standing, while the hubbub the waiters
were making in the next room grew louder and louder. Nana had
disappeared, but nobody fretted about her absence. They did without
her excellently well, and everybody helped himself and rummaged in
the drawers of the sideboard in search of teaspoons, which were
lacking. Several groups were formed; people separated during supper
rejoined each other, and there was an interchange of glances, of
meaning laughter and of phrases which summed up recent situations.
"Ought not Monsieur Fauchery to come and lunch with us one of these
days, Auguste?" said Rose Mignon.
Mignon, who was toying with his watch chain, eyed the journalist for
a second or two with his severe glance. Rose was out of her senses.
As became a good manager, he would put a stop to such spendthrift
courses. In return for a notice, well and good, but afterward,
decidedly not. Nevertheless, as he was fully aware of his wife's
wrongheadedness and as he made it a rule to wink paternally at a
folly now and again, when such was necessary, he answered amiably
enough:
"Certainly, I shall be most happy. Pray come tomorrow, Monsieur
Fauchery."
Lucy Stewart heard this invitation given while she was talking with
Steiner and Blanche and, raising her voice, she remarked to the
banker:
"It's a mania they've all of them got. One of them even went so far
as to steal my dog. Now, dear boy, am I to blame if you chuck her?"
Rose turned round. She was very pale and gazed fixedly at Steiner
as she sipped her coffee. And then all the concentrated anger she
felt at his abandonment of her flamed out in her eyes. She saw more
clearly than Mignon; it was stupid in him to have wished to begin
the Jonquier ruse a second time--those dodgers never succeeded twice
running. Well, so much the worse for him! She would have Fauchery!
She had been getting enamored of him since the beginning of supper,
and if Mignon was not pleased it would teach him greater wisdom!
"You are not going to fight?" said Vandeuvres, coming over to Lucy
Stewart.
"No, don't be afraid of that! Only she must mind and keep quiet, or
I let the cat out of the bag!"
Then signing imperiously to Fauchery:
"I've got your slippers at home, my little man. I'll get them taken
to your porter's lodge for you tomorrow."
He wanted to joke about it, but she swept off, looking like a queen.
Clarisse, who had propped herself against a wall in order to drink a
quiet glass of kirsch, was seen to shrug her shoulders. A pleasant
business for a man! Wasn't it true that the moment two women were
together in the presence of their lovers their first idea was to do
one another out of them? It was a law of nature! As to herself,
why, in heaven's name, if she had wanted to she would have torn out
Gaga's eyes on Hector's account! But la, she despised him! Then as
La Faloise passed by, she contented herself by remarking to him:
"Listen, my friend, you like 'em well advanced, you do! You don't
want 'em ripe; you want 'em mildewed!"
La Faloise seemed much annoyed and not a little anxious. Seeing
Clarisse making game of him, he grew suspicious of her.
"No humbug, I say," he muttered. "You've taken my handkerchief.
Well then, give it back!"
"He's dreeing us with that handkerchief of his!" she cried. "Why,
you ass, why should I have taken it from you?"
"Why should you?" he said suspiciously. "Why, that you may send it
to my people and compromise me."
In the meantime Foucarmont was diligently attacking the liqueurs.
He continued to gaze sneeringly at Labordette, who was drinking his
coffee in the midst of the ladies. And occasionally he gave vent to
fragmentary assertions, as thus: "He's the son of a horse dealer;
some say the illegitimate child of a countess. Never a penny of
income, yet always got twenty-five louis in his pocket! Footboy to
the ladies of the town! A big lubber, who never goes with any of
'em! Never, never, never!" he repeated, growing furious. "No, by
Jove! I must box his ears."
He drained a glass of chartreuse. The chartreuse had not the
slightest effect upon him; it didn't affect him "even to that
extent," and he clicked his thumbnail against the edge of his teeth.
But suddenly, just as he was advancing upon Labordette, he grew ashy
white and fell down in a heap in front of the sideboard. He was
dead drunk. Louise Violaine was beside herself. She had been quite
right to prophesy that matters would end badly, and now she would
have her work cut out for the remainder of the night. Gaga
reassured her. She examined the officer with the eye of a woman of
experience and declared that there was nothing much the matter and
