out with feeble pops, which the wind drowned. There was an
interchange of jests, and the sound of breaking glasses imparted a
note of discord to the high-strung gaiety of the scene. Gaga and
Clarisse, together with Blanche, were making a serious repast, for
they were eating sandwiches on the carriage rug with which they had
been covering their knees. Louise Violaine had got down from her
basket carriage and had joined Caroline Hequet. On the turf at
their feet some gentlemen had instituted a drinking bar, whither
Tatan, Maria, Simonne and the rest came to refresh themselves, while
high in air and close at hand bottles were being emptied on Lea de
Horn's mail coach, and, with infinite bravado and gesticulation, a
whole band were making themselves tipsy in the sunshine, above the
heads of the crowd. Soon, however, there was an especially large
crowd by Nana's landau. She had risen to her feet and had set
herself to pour out glasses of champagne for the men who came to pay
her their respects. Francois, one of the footmen, was passing up
the bottles while La Faloise, trying hard to imitate a coster's
accents, kept pattering away:
"'Ere y're, given away, given away! There's some for everybody!"
"Do be still, dear boy," Nana ended by saying. "We look like a set
of tumblers."
She thought him very droll and was greatly entertained. At one
moment she conceived the idea of sending Georges with a glass of
champagne to Rose Mignon, who was affecting temperance. Henri and
Charles were bored to distraction; they would have been glad of some
champagne, the poor little fellows. But Georges drank the glassful,
for he feared an argument. Then Nana remembered Louiset, who was
sitting forgotten behind her. Maybe he was thirsty, and she forced
him to take a drop or two of wine, which made him cough dreadfully.
"'Ere y'are, 'ere y'are, gemmen!" La Faloise reiterated. "It don't
cost two sous; it don't cost one. We give it away."
But Nana broke in with an exclamation:
"Gracious, there's Bordenave down there! Call him. Oh, run,
please, please do!"
It was indeed Bordenave. He was strolling about with his hands
behind his back, wearing a hat that looked rusty in the sunlight and
a greasy frock coat that was glossy at the seams. It was Bordenave
shattered by bankruptcy, yet furious despite all reverses, a
Bordenave who flaunted his misery among all the fine folks with the
hardihood becoming a man ever ready to take Dame Fortune by storm.
"The deuce, how smart we are!" he said when Nana extended her hand
to him like the good-natured wench she was.
Presently, after emptying a glass of champagne, he gave vent to the
followmg profoundly regretful phrase:
"Ah, if only I were a woman! But, by God, that's nothing! Would
you like to go on the stage again? I've a notion: I'll hire the
Gaite, and we'll gobble up Paris between us. You certainly owe it
me, eh?"
And he lingered, grumbling, beside her, though glad to see her
again; for, he said, that confounded Nana was balm to his feelings.
Yes, it was balm to them merely to exist in her presence! She was
his daughter; she was blood of his blood!
The circle increased, for now La Faloise was filling glasses, and
Georges and Philippe were picking up friends. A stealthy impulse
was gradually bringing in the whole field. Nana would fling
everyone a laughing smile or an amusing phrase. The groups of
tipplers were drawing near, and all the champagne scattered over the
place was moving in her direction. Soon there was only one noisy
crowd, and that was round her landau, where she queened it among
outstretched glasses, her yellow hair floating on the breeze and her
snowy face bathed in the sunshine. Then by way of a finishing touch
and to make the other women, who were mad at her triumph, simply
perish of envy, she lifted a brimming glass on high and assumed her
old pose as Venus Victrix.
But somebody touched her shoulder, and she was surprised, on turning
round, to see Mignon on the seat. She vanished from view an instant
and sat herself down beside him, for he had come to communicate a
matter of importance. Mignon had everywhere declared that it was
ridiculous of his wife to bear Nana a grudge; he thought her
attitude stupid and useless.
"Look here, my dear," he whispered. "Be careful: don't madden Rose
too much. You understand, I think it best to warn you. Yes, she's
got a weapon in store, and as she's never forgiven you the Petite
Duchesse business--"
"A weapon," said Nana; "what's that blooming well got to do with
me?"
"Just listen: it's a letter she must have found in Fauchery's
pocket, a letter written to that screw Fauchery by the Countess
Muffat. And, by Jove, it's clear the whole story's in it. Well
then, Rose wants to send the letter to the count so as to be
revenged on him and on you."
"What the deuce has that got to do with me?" Nana repeated. "It's a
funny business. So the whole story about Fauchery's in it! Very
well, so much the better; the woman has been exasperating me! We
shall have a good laugh!"
"No, I don't wish it," Mignon briskly rejoined. "There'll be a
pretty scandal! Besides, we've got nothing to gain."
He paused, fearing lest he should say too much, while she loudly
averred that she was most certainly not going to get a chaste woman
into trouble.
But when he still insisted on his refusal she looked steadily at
him. Doubtless he was afraid of seeing Fauchery again introduced
into his family in case he broke with the countess. While avenging
her own wrongs, Rose was anxious for that to happen, since she still
felt a kindness toward the journalist. And Nana waxed meditative
and thought of M. Venot's call, and a plan began to take shape in
her brain, while Mignon was doing his best to talk her over.
"Let's suppose that Rose sends the letter, eh? There's food for
scandal: you're mixed up in the business, and people say you're the
cause of it all. Then to begin with, the count separates from his
wife."
"Why should he?" she said. "On the contrary--"
She broke off, in her turn. There was no need for her to think
aloud. So in order to be rid of Mignon she looked as though she
entered into his view of the case, and when he advised her to give
Rose some proof of her submission--to pay her a short visit on the
racecourse, for instance, where everybody would see her--she replied
that she would see about it, that she would think the matter over.
A commotion caused her to stand up again. On the course the horses
were coming in amid a sudden blast of wind. The prize given by the
city of Paris had just been run for, and Cornemuse had gained it.
Now the Grand Prix was about to be run, and the fever of the crowd
increased, and they were tortured by anxiety and stamped and swayed
as though they wanted to make the minutes fly faster. At this
ultimate moment the betting world was surprised and startled by the
continued shortening of the odds against Nana, the outsider of the
Vandeuvres stables. Gentlemen kept returning every few moments with
a new quotation: the betting was thirty to one against Nana; it was
twenty-five to one against Nana, then twenty to one, then fifteen to
one. No one could understand it. A filly beaten on all the
racecourses! A filly which that same morning no single sportsman
would take at fifty to one against! What did this sudden madness
betoken? Some laughed at it and spoke of the pretty doing awaiting
the duffers who were being taken in by the joke. Others looked
serious and uneasy and sniffed out something ugly under it all.
Perhaps there was a "deal" in the offing. Allusion was made to
well-known stories about the robberies which are winked at on
racecourses, but on this occasion the great name of Vandeuvres put a
stop to all such accusations, and the skeptics in the end prevailed
when they prophesied that Nana would come in last of all.
"Who's riding Nana?" queried La Faloise.
Just then the real Nana reappeared, whereat the gentlemen lent his
question an indecent meaning and burst into an uproarious fit of
laughter. Nana bowed.
"Price is up," she replied.
And with that the discussion began again. Price was an English
celebrity. Why had Vandeuvres got this jockey to come over, seeing
that Gresham ordinarily rode Nana? Besides, they were astonished to
see him confiding Lusignan to this man Gresham, who, according to La
Faloise, never got a place. But all these remarks were swallowed up
in jokes, contradictions and an extraordinarily noisy confusion of
opinions. In order to kill time the company once more set
themselves to drain bottles of champagne. Presently a whisper ran
round, and the different groups opened outward. It was Vandeuvres.
Nana affected vexation.
"Dear me, you're a nice fellow to come at this time of day! Why,
I'm burning to see the enclosure."
"Well, come along then," he said; "there's still time. You'll take
a stroll round with me. I just happen to have a permit for a lady
about me."
And he led her off on his arm while she enjoyed the jealous glances
with which Lucy, Caroline and the others followed her. The young
Hugons and La Faloise remained in the landau behind her retreating
figure and continued to do the honors of her champagne. She shouted
to them that she would return immediately.
But Vandeuvres caught sight of Labordette and called him, and there
was an interchange of brief sentences.
"You've scraped everything up?"
"Yes."
"To what amount?"
"Fifteen hundred louis--pretty well all over the place."
As Nana was visibly listening, and that with much curiosity, they
held their tongues. Vandeuvres was very nervous, and he had those
same clear eyes, shot with little flames, which so frightened her
the night he spoke of burning himself and his horses together. As
they crossed over the course she spoke low and familiarly.
"I say, do explain this to me. Why are the odds on your filly
changing?"
He trembled, and this sentence escaped him:
"Ah, they're talking, are they? What a set those betting men are!
When I've got the favorite they all throw themselves upon him, and
there's no chance for me. After that, when an outsider's asked for,
they give tongue and yell as though they were being skinned."
"You ought to tell me what's going to happen--I've made my bets,"
she reioined. "Has Nana a chance?"
A sudden, unreasonable burst of anger overpowered him.
"Won't you deuced well let me be, eh? Every horse has a chance.
The odds are shortening because, by Jove, people have taken the
horse. Who, I don't know. I should prefer leaving you if you must
needs badger me with your idiotic questions."
Such a tone was not germane either to his temperament or his habits,
and Nana was rather surprised than wounded. Besides, he was ashamed
of himself directly afterward, and when she begged him in a dry
voice to behave politely he apologized. For some time past he had
suffered from such sudden changes of temper. No one in the Paris of
pleasure or of society was ignorant of the fact that he was playing
his last trump card today. If his horses did not win, if, moreover,
they lost him the considerable sums wagered upon them, it would mean
utter disaster and collapse for him, and the bulwark of his credit
and the lofty appearance which, though undermined, he still kept up,
would come ruining noisily down. Moreover, no one was ignorant of
the fact that Nana was the devouring siren who had finished him off,
who had been the last to attack his crumbling fortunes and to sweep
up what remained of them. Stories were told of wild whims and
fancies, of gold scattered to the four winds, of a visit to Baden-
Baden, where she had not left him enough to pay the hotel bill, of a
handful of diamonds cast on the fire during an evening of
drunkenness in order to see whether they would burn like coal.
Little by little her great limbs and her coarse, plebeian way of
laughing had gained complete mastery over this elegant, degenerate
son of an ancient race. At that time he was risking his all, for he
had been so utterly overpowered by his taste for ordure and
stupidity as to have even lost the vigor of his skepticism. A week
before Nana had made him promise her a chateau on the Norman coast
between Havre and Trouville, and now he was staking the very
foundations of his honor on the fulfillment of his word. Only she
was getting on his nerves, and he could have beaten her, so stupid
did he feel her to be.
The man at the gate, not daring to stop the woman hanging on the
count's arm, had allowed them to enter the enclosure. Nana, greatly
puffed up at the thought that at last she was setting foot on the
forbidden ground, put on her best behavior and walked slowly by the
ladies seated at the foot of the stands. On ten rows of chairs the
toilets were densely massed, and in the blithe open air their bright
colors mingled harmoniously. Chairs were scattered about, and as
people met one another friendly circles were formed, just as though
the company had been sitting under the trees in a public garden.
Children had been allowed to go free and were running from group to
group, while over head the stands rose tier above crowded tier and
the light-colored dresses therein faded into the delicate shadows of
the timberwork. Nana stared at all these ladies. She stared
