torn a flounce or two from their dresses. Little familiar
salutations would pass between them and the cafe waiters, and at
times they would stop and chat in front of a small table and accept
of drinks, which they consumed with much deliberation, as became
people not sorry to sit down for a bit while waiting for the
theaters to empty. But as night advanced, if they had not made one
or two trips in the direction of the Rue la Rochefoucauld, they
became abject strumpets, and their hunt for men grew more ferocious
than ever. Beneath the trees in the darkening and fast-emptying
boulevards fierce bargainings took place, accompanied by oaths and
blows. Respectable family parties--fathers, mothers and daughters--
who were used to such scenes, would pass quietly by the while
without quickening their pace. Afterward, when they had walked from
the opera to the GYMNASE some half-score times and in the deepening
night men were rapidly dropping off homeward for good and all, Nana
and Satin kept to the sidewalk in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre.
There up till two o'clock in the morning restaurants, bars and ham-
and-beef shops were brightly lit up, while a noisy mob of women hung
obstinately round the doors of the cafes. This suburb was the only
corner of night Paris which was still alight and still alive, the
only market still open to nocturnal bargains. These last were
openly struck between group and group and from one end of the street
to the other, just as in the wide and open corridor of a disorderly
house. On such evenings as the pair came home without having had
any success they used to wrangle together. The Rue Notre Dame de la
Lorette stretched dark and deserted in front of them. Here and
there the crawling shadow of a woman was discernible, for the
Quarter was going home and going home late, and poor creatures,
exasperated at a night of fruitless loitering, were unwilling to
give up the chase and would still stand, disputing in hoarse voices
with any strayed reveler they could catch at the corner of the Rue
Breda or the Rue Fontaine.
Nevertheless, some windfalls came in their way now and then in the
shape of louis picked up in the society of elegant gentlemen, who
slipped their decorations into their pockets as they went upstairs
with them. Satin had an especially keen scent for these. On rainy
evenings, when the dripping city exhaled an unpleasant odor
suggestive of a great untidy bed, she knew that the soft weather and
the fetid reek of the town's holes and corners were sure to send the
men mad. And so she watched the best dressed among them, for she
knew by their pale eyes what their state was. On such nights it was
as though a fit of fleshly madness were passing over Paris. The
girl was rather nervous certainly, for the most modish gentlemen
were always the most obscene. All the varnish would crack off a
man, and the brute beast would show itself, exacting, monstrous in
lust, a past master in corruption. But besides being nervous, that
trollop of a Satin was lacking in respect. She would blurt out
awful things in front of dignified gentlemen in carriages and assure
them that their coachmen were better bred than they because they
behaved respectfully toward the women and did not half kill them
with their diabolical tricks and suggestions. The way in which
smart people sprawled head over heels into all the cesspools of vice
still caused Nana some surprise, for she had a few prejudices
remaining, though Satin was rapidly destroying them.
"Well then," she used to say when talking seriously about the
matter, "there's no such thing as virtue left, is there?"
From one end of the social ladder to the other everybody was on the
loose! Good gracious! Some nice things ought to be going on in
Paris between nine o'clock in the evening and three in the morning!
And with that she began making very merry and declaring that if one
could only have looked into every room one would have seen some
funny sights--the little people going it head over ears and a good
lot of swells, too, playing the swine rather harder than the rest.
Oh, she was finishing her education!
One evenlng when she came to call for Satin she recognized the
Marquis de Chouard. He was coming downstairs with quaking legs; his
face was ashen white, and he leaned heavily on the banisters. She
pretended to be blowing her nose. Upstairs she found Satin amid
indescribable filth. No household work had been done for a week;
her bed was disgusting, and ewers and basins were standing about in
all directions. Nana expressed surprise at her knowing the marquis.
Oh yes, she knew him! He had jolly well bored her confectioner and
her when they were together. At present he used to come back now
and then, but he nearly bothered her life out, going sniffing into
all the dirty corners--yes, even into her slippers!
"Yes, dear girl, my slippers! Oh, he's the dirtiest old beast,
always wanting one to do things!"
The sincerity of these low debauches rendered Nana especially
uneasy. Seeing the courtesans around her slowly dying of it every
day, she recalled to mind the comedy of pleasure she had taken part
in when she was in the heyday of success. Moreover, Satin inspired
her with an awful fear of the police. She was full of anecdotes
about them. Formerly she had been the mistress of a plain-clothes
man, had consented to this in order to be left in peace, and on two
occasions he had prevented her from being put "on the lists." But
at present she was in a great fright, for if she were to be nabbed
again there was a clear case against her. You had only to listen to
her! For the sake of perquisites the police used to take up as many
women as possible. They laid hold of everybody and quieted you with
a slap if you shouted, for they were sure of being defended in their
actions and rewarded, even when they had taken a virtuous girl among
the rest. In the summer they would swoop upon the boulevard in
parties of twelve or fifteen, surround a whole long reach of
sidewalk and fish up as many as thirty women in an evening. Satin,
however, knew the likely places, and the moment she saw a plain-
clothes man heaving in sight she took to her heels, while the long
lines of women on the pavements scattered in consternation and fled
through the surrounding crowd. The dread of the law and of the
magistracy was such that certain women would stand as though
paralyzed in the doorways of the cafes while the raid was sweeping
the avenue without. But Satin was even more afraid of being
denounced, for her pastry cook had proved blackguard enough to
threaten to sell her when she had left him. Yes, that was a fake by
which men lived on their mistresses! Then, too, there were the
dirty women who delivered you up out of sheer treachery if you were
prettier than they! Nana listened to these recitals and felt her
terrors growing upon her. She had always trembled before the law,
that unknown power, that form of revenge practiced by men able and
willing to crush her in the certain absence of all defenders.
Saint-Lazare she pictured as a grave, a dark hole, in which they
buried live women after they had cut off their hair. She admitted
that it was only necessary to leave Fontan and seek powerful
protectors. But as matters stood it was in vain that Satin talked
to her of certain lists of women's names, which it was the duty of
the plainclothes men to consult, and of certain photographs
accompanying the lists, the originals of which were on no account to
be touched. The reassurance did not make her tremble the less, and
she still saw herself hustled and dragged along and finally
subjected to the official medical inspection. The thought of the
official armchair filled her with shame and anguish, for had she not
bade it defiance a score of times?
Now it so happened that one evening toward the close of September,
as she was walking with Satin in the Boulevard Poissonniere, the
latter suddenly began tearing along at a terrible pace. And when
Nana asked her what she meant thereby:
"It's the plain-clothes men!" whispered Satin. "Off with you! Off
with you!" A wild stampede took place amid the surging crowd.
Skirts streamed out behind and were torn. There were blows and
shrieks. A woman fell down. The crowd of bystanders stood
hilariously watching this rough police raid while the plain-clothes
men rapidly narrowed their circle. Meanwhile Nana had lost Satin.
Her legs were failing her, and she would have been taken up for a
certainty had not a man caught her by the arm and led her away in
front of the angry police. It was Prulliere, and he had just
recognized her. Without saying a word he turned down the Rue
Rougemont with her. It was just then quite deserted, and she was
able to regain breath there, but at first her faintness and
exhaustion were such that he had to support her. She did not even
thank him.
"Look here," he said, "you must recover a bit. Come up to my
rooms."
He lodged in the Rue Bergere close by. But she straightened herself
up at once.
"No, I don't want to."
Thereupon he waxed coarse and rejoined:
"Why don't you want to, eh? Why, everybody visits my rooms."
"Because I don't."
In her opinion that explained everything. She was too fond of
Fontan to betray him with one of his friends. The other people
ceased to count the moment there was no pleasure in the business,
and necessity compelled her to it. In view of her idiotic obstinacy
Prulliere, as became a pretty fellow whose vanity had been wounded,
did a cowardly thing.
"Very well, do as you like!" he cried. "Only I don't side with you,
my dear. You must get out of the scrape by yourself."
And with that he left her. Terrors got hold of her again, and
scurrying past shops and turning white whenever a man drew nigh, she
fetched an immense compass before reaching Montmartre.
On the morrow, while still suffering from the shock of last night's
terrors, Nana went to her aunt's and at the foot of a small empty
street in the Batignolles found herself face to face with
Labordette. At first they both appeared embarrassed, for with his
usual complaisance he was busy on a secret errand. Nevertheless, he
was the first to regain his self-possession and to announce himself
fortunate in meeting her. Yes, certainly, everybody was still
wondering at Nana's total eclipse. People were asking for her, and
old friends were pining. And with that he grew quite paternal and
ended by sermonizing.
"Frankly speaking, between you and me, my dear, the thing's getting
stupid. One can understand a mash, but to go to that extent, to be
trampled on like that and to get nothing but knocks! Are you
playing up for the 'Virtue Prizes' then?"
She listened to him with an embarrassed expression. But when he
told her about Rose, who was triumphantly enjoying her conquest of
Count Muffat, a flame came into her eyes.
"Oh, if I wanted to--" she muttered.
As became an obliging friend, he at once offered to act as
intercessor. But she refused his help, and he thereupon attacked
her in an opposite quarter.
He informed her that Bordenave was busy mounting a play of
Fauchery's containing a splendid part for her.
"What, a play with a part!" she cried in amazement. "But he's in it
and he's told me nothing about it!"
She did not mention Fontan by name. However, she grew calm again
directly and declared that she would never go on the stage again.
Labordette doubtless remained unconvinced, for he continued with
smiling insistence.
"You know, you need fear nothing with me. I get your Muffat ready
for you, and you go on the stage again, and I bring him to you like
a little dog!"
"No!" she cried decisively.
And she left him. Her heroic conduct made her tenderly pitiful
toward herself. No blackguard of a man would ever have sacrificed
himself like that without trumpeting the fact abroad. Nevertheless,
she was struck by one thing: Labordette had given her exactly the
same advice as Francis had given her. That evening when Fontan came
home she questioned him about Fauchery's piece. The former had been
back at the Varietes for two months past. Why then had he not told
her about the part?
"What part?" he said in his ill-humored tone. "The grand lady's
part, maybe? The deuce, you believe you've got talent then! Why,
such a part would utterly do for you, my girl! You're meant for
comic business--there's no denying it!"
She was dreadfully wounded. All that evening he kept chaffing her,
calling her Mlle Mars. But the harder he hit the more bravely she
suffered, for she derived a certain bitter satisfaction from this
heroic devotion of hers, which rendered her very great and very
loving in her own eyes. Ever since she had gone with other men in
order to supply his wants her love for him had increased, and the
fatigues and disgusts encountered outside only added to the flame.
He was fast becoming a sort of pet vice for which she paid, a
necessity of existence it was impossible to do without, seeing that
blows only stimulated her desires. He, on his part, seeing what a
good tame thing she had become, ended by abusing his privileges.
She was getting on his nerves, and he began to conceive so fierce a
loathing for her that he forgot to keep count of his real interests.
When Bosc made his customary remarks to him he cried out in
exasperation, for which there was no apparent cause, that he had had
enough of her and of her good dinners and that he would shortly
chuck her out of doors if only for the sake of making another woman
