that the gentleman would sleep like that for at least a dozen or
fifteen hours without any serious consequences. Foucarmont was
carried off.
"Well, where's Nana gone to?" asked Vandeuvres.
Yes, she had certainly flown away somewhere on leaving the table.
The company suddenly recollected her, and everybody asked for her.
Steiner, who for some seconds had been uneasy on her account, asked
Vandeuvres about the old gentleman, for he, too, had disappeared.
But the count reassured him--he had just brought the old gentleman
back. He was a stranger, whose name it was useless to mention.
Suffice it to say that he was a very rich man who was quite pleased
to pay for suppers! Then as Nana was once more being forgotten,
Vandeuvres saw Daguenet looking out of an open door and beckoning to
him. And in the bedroom he found the mistress of the house sitting
up, white-lipped and rigid, while Daguenet and Georges stood gazing
at her with an alarmed expression.
"What IS the matter with you?" he asked in some surprise.
She neither answered nor turned her head, and he repeated his
question.
"Why, this is what's the matter with me," she cried out at length;
"I won't let them make bloody sport of me!"
Thereupon she gave vent to any expression that occurred to her.
Yes, oh yes, SHE wasn't a ninny--she could see clearly enough. They
had been making devilish light of her during supper and saying all
sorts of frightful things to show that they thought nothing of her!
A pack of sluts who weren't fit to black her boots! Catch her
bothering herself again just to be badgered for it after! She
really didn't know what kept her from chucking all that dirty lot
out of the house! And with this, rage choked her and her voice
broke down in sobs.
"Come, come, my lass, you're drunk," said Vandeuvres, growing
familiar. "You must be reasonable."
No, she would give her refusal now; she would stay where she was.
"I am drunk--it's quite likely! But I want people to respect me!"
For a quarter of an hour past Daguenet and Georges had been vainly
beseeching her to return to the drawing room. She was obstinate,
however; her guests might do what they liked; she despised them too
much to come back among them.
No, she never would, never. They might tear her in pieces before
she would leave her room!
"I ought to have had my suspicions," she resumed.
"It's that cat of a Rose who's got the plot up! I'm certain Rose'll
have stopped that respectable woman coming whom I was expecting
tonight."
She referred to Mme Robert. Vandeuvres gave her his word of honor
that Mme Robert had given a spontaneous refusal. He listened and he
argued with much gravity, for he was well accustomed to similar
scenes and knew how women in such a state ought to be treated. But
the moment he tried to take hold of her hands in order to lift her
up from her chair and draw her away with him she struggled free of
his clasp, and her wrath redoubled. Now, just look at that! They
would never get her to believe that Fauchery had not put the Count
Muffat off coming! A regular snake was that Fauchery, an envious
sort, a fellow capable of growing mad against a woman and of
destroying her whole happiness. For she knew this--the count had
become madly devoted to her! She could have had him!
"Him, my dear, never!" cried Vandeuvres, forgetting himself and
laughing loud.
"Why not?" she asked, looking serious and slightly sobered.
"Because he's thoroughly in the hands of the priests, and if he were
only to touch you with the tips of his fingers he would go and
confess it the day after. Now listen to a bit of good advice.
Don't let the other man escape you!"
She was silent and thoughtful for a moment or two. Then she got up
and went and bathed her eyes. Yet when they wanted to take her into
the dining room she still shouted "No!" furiously. Vandeuvres left
the bedroom, smiling and without further pressing her, and the
moment he was gone she had an access of melting tenderness, threw
herself into Daguenet's arms and cried out:
"Ah, my sweetie, there's only you in the world. I love you! YES, I
love you from the bottom of my heart! Oh, it would be too nice if
we could always live together. My God! How unfortunate women are!"
Then her eye fell upon Georges, who, seeing them kiss, was growing
very red, and she kissed him too. Sweetie could not be jealous of a
baby! She wanted Paul and Georges always to agree, because it would
be so nice for them all three to stay like that, knowing all the
time that they loved one another very much. But an extraordinary
noise disturbed them: someone was snoring in the room. Whereupon
after some searching they perceived Bordenave, who, since taking his
coffee, must have comfortably installed himself there. He was
sleeping on two chairs, his head propped on the edge of the bed and
his leg stretched out in front. Nana thought him so funny with his
open mouth and his nose moving with each successive snore that she
was shaken with a mad fit of laughter. She left the room, followed
by Daguenet and Georges, crossed the dining room, entered the
drawing room, her merriment increasing at every step.
"Oh, my dear, you've no idea!" she cried, almost throwing herself
into Rose's arms. "Come and see it."
All the women had to follow her. She took their hands coaxingly and
drew them along with her willy-nilly, accompanying her action with
so frank an outburst of mirth that they all of them began laughing
on trust. The band vanished and returned after standing
breathlessly for a second or two round Bordenave's lordly,
outstretched form. And then there was a burst of laughter, and when
one of them told the rest to be quiet Bordenave's distant snorings
became audible.
It was close on four o'clock. In the dining room a card table had
just been set out, at which Vandeuvres, Steiner, Mignon and
Labordette had taken their seats. Behind them Lucy and Caroline
stood making bets, while Blanche, nodding with sleep and
dissatisfied about her night, kept asking Vandeuvres at intervals of
five minutes if they weren't going soon. In the drawing room there
was an attempt at dancing. Daguenet was at the piano or "chest of
drawers," as Nana called it. She did not want a "thumper," for Mimi
would play as many waltzes and polkas as the company desired. But
the dance was languishing, and the ladies were chatting drowsily
together in the corners of sofas. Suddenly, however, there was an
outburst of noise. A band of eleven young men had arrived and were
laughing loudly in the anteroom and crowding to the drawing room.
They had just come from the ball at the Ministry of the Interior and
were in evening dress and wore various unknown orders. Nana was
annoyed at this riotous entry, called to the waiters who still
remained in the kitchen and ordered them to throw these individuals
out of doors. She vowed that she had never seen any of them before.
Fauchery, Labordette, Daguenet and the rest of the men had all come
forward in order to enforce respectful behavior toward their
hostess. Big words flew about; arms were outstretched, and for some
seconds a general exchange of fisticuffs was imminent.
Notwithstanding this, however, a little sickly looking light-haired
man kept insistently repeating:
"Come, come, Nana, you saw us the other evening at Peters' in the
great red saloon! Pray remember, you invited us."
The other evening at Peters'? She did not remember it all. To
begin with, what evening?
And when the little light-haired man had mentioned the day, which
was Wednesday, she distinctly remembered having supped at Peters' on
the Wednesday, but she had given no invitation to anyone; she was
almost sure of that.
"However, suppose you HAVE invited them, my good girl," murmured
Labordette, who was beginning to have his doubts. "Perhaps you were
a little elevated."
Then Nana fell a-laughing. It was quite possible; she really didn't
know. So then, since these gentlemen were on the spot, they had her
leave to come in. Everything was quietly arranged; several of the
newcomers found friends in the drawing room, and the scene ended in
handshakings. The little sickly looking light-haired man bore one
of the greatest names in France. Furthermore, the eleven announced
that others were to follow them, and, in fact, the door opened every
few moments, and men in white gloves and official garb presented
themselves. They were still coming from the ball at the Ministry.
Fauchery jestingly inquired whether the minister was not coming,
too, but Nana answered in a huff that the minister went to the
houses of people she didn't care a pin for. What she did not say
was that she was possessed with a hope of seeing Count Muffat enter
her room among all that stream of people. He might quite have
reconsidered his decision, and so while talking to Rose she kept a
sharp eye on the door.
Five o'clock struck. The dancing had ceased, and the cardplayers
alone persisted in their game. Labordette had vacated his seat, and
the women had returned into the drawing room. The air there was
heavy with the somnolence which accompanies a long vigil, and the
lamps cast a wavering light while their burned-out wicks glowed red
within their globes. The ladies had reached that vaguely melancholy
hour when they felt it necessary to tell each other their histories.
Blanche de Sivry spoke of her grandfather, the general, while
Clarisse invented a romantic story about a duke seducing her at her
uncle's house, whither he used to come for the boar hunting. Both
women, looking different ways, kept shrugging their shoulders and
asking themselves how the deuce the other could tell such whoppers!
As to Lucy Stewart, she quietly confessed to her origin and of her
own accord spoke of her childhood and of the days when her father,
the wheel greaser at the Northern Railway Terminus, used to treat
her to an apple puff on Sundays.
"Oh, I must tell you about it!" cried the little Maria Blond
abruptly. "Opposite to me there lives a gentleman, a Russian, an
awfully rich man! Well, just fancy, yesterday I received a basket
of fruit--oh, it just was a basket! Enormous peaches, grapes as big
as that, simply wonderful for the time of year! And in the middle
of them six thousand-franc notes! It was the Russian's doing. Of
course I sent the whole thing back again, but I must say my heart
ached a little--when I thought of the fruit!"
The ladies looked at one another and pursed up their lips. At her
age little Maria Blond had a pretty cheek! Besides, to think that
such things should happen to trollops like her! Infinite was their
contempt for her among themselves. It was Lucy of whom they were
particularly jealous, for they were beside themselves at the thought
of her three princes. Since Lucy had begnn taking a daily morning
ride in the Bois they all had become Amazons, as though a mania
possessed them.
Day was about to dawn, and Nana turned her eyes away from the door,
for she was relinquishing all hope. The company were bored to
distraction. Rose Mignon had refused to sing the "Slipper" and sat
huddled up on a sofa, chatting in a low voice with Fauchery and
waiting for Mignon, who had by now won some fifty louis from
Vandeuvres. A fat gentleman with a decoration and a serious cast of
countenance had certainly given a recitation in Alsatian accents of
"Abraham's Sacrifice," a piece in which the Almighty says, "By My
blasted Name" when He swears, and Isaac always answers with a "Yes,
Papa!" Nobody, however, understood what it was all about, and the
piece had been voted stupid. People were at their wits' end how to
make merry and to finish the night with fitting hilarity. For a
moment or two Labordette conceived the idea of denouncing different
women in a whisper to La Faloise, who still went prowling round each
individual lady, looking to see if she were hiding his handkerchief
in her bosom. Soon, as there were still some bottles of champagne
on the sideboard, the young men again fell to drinking. They
shouted to one another; they stirred each other up, but a dreary
species of intoxication, which was stupid enough to drive one to
despair, began to overcome the company beyond hope of recovery.
Then the little fair-haired fellow, the man who bore one of the
greatest names in France and had reached his wit's end and was
desperate at the thought that he could not hit upon something really
funny, conceived a brilliant notion: he snatched up his bottle of
champagne and poured its contents into the piano. His allies were
convulsed with laughter.
"La now! Why's he putting champagne into the piano?" asked Tatan
Nene in great astonishment as she caught sight of him.
"What, my lass, you don't know why he's doing that?" replied
Labordette solemnly. "There's nothing so good as champagne for
pianos. It gives 'em tone."
"Ah," murmured Tatan Nene with conviction.
And when the rest began laughing at her she grew angry. How should
she know? They were always confusing her.
Decidedly the evening was becoming a big failure. The night
threatened to end in the unloveliest way. In a corner by themselves
Maria Blond and Lea de Horn had begun squabbling at close quarters,
the former accusing the latter of consorting with people of
insufficient wealth. They were getting vastly abusive over it,
their chief stumbling block being the good looks of the men in
