CHAPTER XIV

Nana abruptly disappeared—another plunge, a wild prank, a flight into strange lands. Before her departure she procured herself the emotion of a sale by auction, sweeping everything off—the mansion, the furniture, the jewellery, and even the dresses and the linen. Figures were quoted. The five days produced more than six hundred thousand francs. For a last time Paris had seen her in a fairy piece, “Mélusine,” at the Gaiety Theatre, that Bordenave had audaciously taken without a sou. She was there with Prullière and Fontan. Her part was a dumb one, all show, but a real hit—three plastic postures of a powerful and silent fairy. Then in the midst of this great success, when Bordenave, advertising-mad, was covering Paris with colossal posters, it was stated one fine morning that the night before she had left for Cairo—a simple discussion with her manager, a word that had not pleased her, the caprice of a woman too rich to allow herself to be annoyed. Besides, it was a fad of hers. For a long time past she had longed to go and see the Turks.

Months passed by. She was forgotten. Whenever her name was mentioned amongst her friends, the strangest stories circulated. Each gave contrary and prodigious information. She had captivated the viceroy; she reigned in the innermost recesses of a palace, over two hundred slaves, whose heads she cut off to make her laugh. Not at all. She had ruined herself with a big negro—a filthy infatuation which had left her without a chemise, in the midst of the crapulous debauchery of Cairo. A fortnight later there was universal astonishment. Some one swore he had met her in Russia. A legend gradually developed. She was the mistress of a prince; her diamonds were talked about. All the women were soon acquainted with them, through the descriptions that were current, without any one being able to give their source—rings, bracelets, earrings, a diamond necklace as broad as two fingers, and a queenly diadem surmounted by a central brilliant as big as one’s thumb. In the unknown of these far-oft lands, she assumed the mysterious radiance of an idol covered with precious stones. Now, she was only mentioned gravely, with the pensive respect for that fortune made amongst the barbarians.

One July evening towards eight o’clock, Lucy, who was driving down the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, caught sight of Caroline Héquet, who had gone out on foot to give an order to a tradesman of the neighbourhood. She called to her, and at once said,

“Have you dined? are you free? Oh, then, my dear! come with me. Nana has returned!”

The other, on hearing this, at once got into the carriage, and Lucy continued,

“And you know, my dear, she is perhaps dead whilst we are talking.”

“Dead! what an idea!” cried Caroline in amazement. “And where? and of what?”

“At the Grand Hotel, of the small-pox—oh! quite a story!”

Lucy had told her coachman to drive quick. So, as the horses rapidly trotted along the Rue Royale and the Boulevards, she related the story of Nana’s adventure, in broken sentences, and without once taking breath.

“You can’t imagine. Nana arrives from Russia, I forget why—a row with her prince. She leaves her luggage at the station and goes off to her aunt. You recollect that old woman? Good! She finds her baby ill with the small-pox. The baby dies on the morrow, and she has a row with the aunt about the money she ought to have sent, and which the other had never seen a sou of. It seems the child died of that—in short, the child was not well fed or looked after. Very well, Nana goes off, puts up at a hotel, then meets Mignon, just as she was thinking of fetching her luggage. She becomes very peculiar, she has the shivers, wants to be sick, and Mignon takes her to her room, promising to look after her affairs. Eh! isn’t it funny, isn’t it strange? But here’s the best part. Rose hears of Nana’s illness, is indignant at learning that she’s all alone in an out-of-the-way place, and weepingly hastens to nurse her. You recollect how they detested each other? a couple of furies! Well! my dear, Rose had Nana removed to the Grand Hotel, so that she might at least die in a swell place; and she’s already passed three nights with her, and may very likely die of it afterwards. It’s Labordette who told me all this, so I wanted to see—”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Caroline, greatly excited. “We will go.”

They had arrived. On the Boulevard the coachman had been obliged to pull up in the midst of a block of vehicles and foot passengers. During the day the Corps Législatif had voted for a declaration of war.⁵ A crowd poured down from all the side streets and covered the footpaths and the roadway. At the Madeleine end the sun had set behind a blood-red cloud, the fiery reflection of which illuminated the tall windows. Twilight was coming on, a dull and melancholy hour, with the darkening avenues, which the gas-lamps had not yet lit up with their bright specks. And amongst this mass of people on the march distant voices became louder, pale faces sparkled with animated glances, whilst a deep breath of anguish and of spreading stupor turned all heads.

“There’s Mignon,” said Lucy. “He will give us some news.”

Mignon was standing under the vast portico of the Grand Hotel, with a nervous air about him as he watched the crowd. At the first questions Lucy put to him, he flew into a passion, exclaiming,

“I don’t know! For the last two days I’ve not been able to get Rose away from up there. It’s idiotic for her to risk her skin like that! She’ll look nice, if she catches it, with scars all over her face! It will suit us nicely.”

The idea that Rose might lose her beauty exasperated him. He would leave Nana just as she was, not understanding those silly devotions which women went in for. But here Fauchery crossed the Boulevard, and when he had joined the others, he also anxiously asked for news, and then the two men tried to incite each other to go up. They were most affectionate to one another now.

“Always the same, little ’un,” observed Mignon. “You ought to go up and force her to come away.”

“Really! You’re kind, you are!” said the journalist. “Why don’t you go up yourself?”

Then, as Lucy inquired the number of the room, they both implored her to induce Rose to come down; otherwise it would end by their getting angry. Lucy and Caroline, however, did not go up at once. They had caught sight of Fontan strolling along with his hands in his pockets, highly amused by the different faces in the crowd. When he learnt that Nana was upstairs ill, he remarked with a great display of feeling,

“Poor girl! I will go and shake hands with her. What’s the matter with her?”

“Small-pox,” replied Mignon.

The actor had already taken a step in the direction of the courtyard, but he retraced it, and with a shiver simply murmured, “Ah, the deuce!”

It was no joke catching small-pox. Fontan had nearly had it when he was five years old. Mignon related the story of one of his nieces who had died of it. As for Fauchery, he could talk of it, for he still bore the marks—three spots, which he showed to the others, close to his nose; and as Mignon pressed him again to go up, on the pretext that people never had it twice, he violently disputed that theory. He instanced cases, and called the doctors fools. But Lucy and Caroline, surprised at the vast increase of the crowd, interrupted them.

“Look there! look there! What a mob of people!”

The night was advancing, the lamps in the distance were being lighted one by one. One could, however, distinguish spectators at the windows; whilst under the trees the human tide swelled every minute, in one long stream, from the Madeleine to the Bastille. The vehicles rolled slowly along. A kind of buzz arose from that compact mass, dumb as yet, assembled together in the idle desire of forming a crowd, stamping, and excited with the same fever. But a huge commotion caused the crowd to fall back. In the midst of all the jostling, passing through the groups that made way for them, a band of men in caps and white blouses appeared, uttering this cry, to the time of hammers beating on the anvil,

“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”

And the crowd looked on with a gloomy distrust, already attracted, nevertheless, and stirred with visions of heroic deeds, the same as when a military band passes by.

“Yes, yes; go and get your heads broken!” murmured Mignon, seized with a philosophic fit.

But Fontan thought it very grand. He talked of enlisting. When the enemy was at the frontier all citizens ought to rise in arms to defend the fatherland, and he assumed a posture worthy of Bonaparte at Austerlitz.

“Well, are you going up with us?” asked Lucy of him.

“Ah, no!” said he, “not to get ill!”

On one of the seats in front of the Grand Hotel sat a man, hiding his face in his handkerchief. Fauchery, on arriving, had drawn Mignon’s attention to him with a wink. So he was always there? Yes, he was always there; and the journalist stopped the two women to point him out to them. As he raised his head they recognised him, and uttered a slight exclamation. It was Count Muffat, who glanced upwards at one of the windows.

“You know he’s been there ever since this morning,” related Mignon. “I saw him at six o’clock, he has scarcely moved since. At the first words Labordette uttered, he came and posted himself there, with his handkerchief over his face. Every half hour he crawls as far as here, to inquire if the person upstairs is better, and then returns to his seat. Well! you know, it’s not healthy, that room. One may love people without wishing to croak.”

The count, with upturned eyes, did not appear to be aware of what was going on around him. No doubt he was ignorant of the declaration of war—he neither felt nor heard the crowd.

“Look!” said Fauchery, “here he comes; now just watch him.”

The count had indeed quitted his seat, and had entered under the lofty doorway; but the doorkeeper, who by this time had become accustomed to him, did not give him time to repeat his question. He said abruptly,

“Sir, she died just a minute ago.”

Nana dead! It was a blow for all of them. Muffat, without a word, returned to the seat, his face buried in his handkerchief. The others cried out, but their voices were abruptly drowned, as another crowd passed along yelling,

“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”

Nana dead! Was it possible? such a fine girl! Mignon sighed with relief; Rose would at last come down. There ensued a coolness. Fontan, who was longing for a tragic part, assumed an expression of grief, his mouth drawn down, his eyes turned up to the lids; whilst Fauchery, really affected in spite of his journalistic affectation of ridiculing everything, nervously champed his cigar. The two women, however, could not suppress their exclamations. The last time that Lucy had seen her was at the Gaiety Theatre, Blanche also, in “Mélusine.” Oh! she was grand, my dear, when she appeared in the midst of the crystal grotto! The gentlemen recollected very well. Fontan played Prince Cocorico. And, their memories awakened, they launched forth into interminable details. Eh! in the crystal grotto, was she not just fine with her rich nature? She did not say a word; the authors had even struck out a cue, because it interfered. No, nothing at all, it was far grander; and she electrified the audience merely by showing herself. A form such as one will never see again—such shoulders, such legs and such a waist! How queer that she should be dead! You know that over her tights she simply wore a golden sash round the hips, which was scarcely sufficient. Around her, the grotto, all in glass, sparkled; there were cascades of diamonds, and strings of pearls trickled down amongst the stalactites of the roof; and in that transparency, in that pellucid spring, intersected by a broad ray of electric light, she appeared like a sun, with her skin and her hair of fire. Paris would ever see her thus, beaming in the midst of the crystal, poised in the air like a goddess. No, it was too stupid to allow oneself to die in such a position! Now, she must be a pretty sight up there!

“And what pleasure wasted!” said Mignon in the melancholy voice of a man who does not like to see good and useful things cast away.

He sounded Lucy and Caroline to know if they still had the intention of going upstairs. Most certainly they were going up; their curiosity had increased. Just then Blanche arrived all out of breath, and exasperated with the crowd which blocked all the footpaths; and when she learnt the news, the exclamations recommenced. The ladies moved towards the staircase, making a great noise with their skirts. Mignon followed them, calling out,

“Tell Rose I’m waiting for her. At once, please.”

“One doesn’t know for certain whether the contagion is most to be feared at the commencement or towards the end,” Fontan was explaining to Fauchery. “A house-surgeon I know even assured me that the hours which follow death are most especially dangerous. Miasmata are expelled from the corpse. Ah! I regret this sudden end. I should have been so glad to have shaken her hand a last time.”

“What good would it do now?” asked the journalist.

“Yes, what good?” repeated the other two.

The crowd continued to increase. In the flood of light from the shops, beneath the dancing sheets of flaring gas, one could distinguish a sea of hats drifting in a double current along the footpaths. At this time the fever was passing from one to another. People joined the bands in blouses; a continuous pushing swept the roadway; and the cry returned, issuing from every throat, jerky and obstinate,

“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”

Upstairs, on the fourth floor, the room cost twelve francs a day, Rose having desired something decent, without being luxurious, however; for one does not want luxury when suffering. Hung in Louis XIII. cretonne, with large flowers, the room contained the mahogany furniture peculiar to all hotels, and a red carpet sprinkled with black foliage. A heavy silence reigned there, broken only by a whisper, when voices resounded in the corridor.

“I tell you we’ve lost our way. The waiter told us to turn to the right. What a barrack! ”

“Wait a minute—Let’s see. Room 401, room 401—”

“Here! this way—405, 403. This must be it. Ah! at last, 401! Come, hush! hush!”

The voices ceased. There was a slight coughing, then a momentary pause, and the door opened slowly, admitting Lucy, followed by Caroline and Blanche. But they halted; there were already five women in the room. Gaga was stretched out in the only easy-chair—one in red velvet. Simone and Clarisse, standing in front of the fire-place, were conversing with Léa de Horn, seated on a chair; whilst before the bed, to the left of the door, Rose Mignon, leaning against the woodwork of the foot, was looking fixedly at the corpse, lost in the shadow of the curtains. All the others had their bonnets and gloves on, like ladies out visiting; she only had bare hands, and her hair in disorder, her face pale with the fatigue of three nights of nursing. And there she stood, feeling stupid, with her features swollen from weeping, in the presence of that so sudden death. On the corner of the chest of drawers, a lamp with a shade lighted up Gaga with a brilliant flood of light.

“Ah! what a misfortune!” murmured Lucy, as she squeezed Rose’s hand. “We wanted to bid her good-bye.”

And she turned her head to catch a glimpse of Nana, but the lamp was too far off, and she did not like to move it nearer. On the bed a grey mass lay stretched out—one could only distinguish the golden chignon, and a palish-looking spot which was probably the face. Lucy added:

“I have never seen her since she was at the Gaiety Theatre, in the grotto.”

Then Rose, shaking off her torpor, smiled and said, “Ah she is altered—she is altered!”

And she returned to her contemplation, without a gesture, without a word. Perhaps they would be able to look at her by-and-by; and the three women joined the others in front of the fire-place. Simone and Clarisse were talking, in an under-tone, about the deceased’s diamonds. Now, did they really exist, those diamonds? No one had seen them, it was probably all bosh. But Léa de Horn knew someone who was acquainted with them; oh! some monstrous stones! Besides, that wasn’t all, she had brought heaps of other riches from Russia—embroidered stuffs, precious knick-knacks, a service of gold plate, and even furniture; yes, my dear, fifty-two articles, some enormous cases, sufficient to load three luggage vans. It was all at the station. Ah! she had no luck, to die without even having time to unpack her things; and bear in mind that she had also some sous besides all these, something like a million. Lucy inquired who would inherit it all. Some distant relatives, the aunt very likely. A fine windfall for that old woman. She knew nothing yet; the invalid obstinately refused to have her informed, bearing her some ill-will for the death of her youngster. Then they all pitied the little fellow, as they recollected having seen him at the races—a baby full of disease, and who looked so sad and so old; in short, one of those poor brats who never wanted to be born.

“He is far happier in his grave,” said Blanche.

“Bah! and she also,” added Caroline. “Life isn’t so pleasant after all.”

Gloomy ideas possessed them, in the severity of that chamber of death. They were afraid, it was stupid to remain talking there so long; but a desire to see kept them rooted to the carpet. It was very warm, the lamp-glass shone on the ceiling like a moon, in the damp shadow which filled the apartment. Under the bed a soup plate full of some disinfectant exhaled a most unsavoury odour. And now and again a slight breath of air swelled the curtains of the window, opened on to the Boulevard, from whence arose a dull murmuring sound.

“Did she suffer much?” asked Lucy, who had been absorbed in the group above the clock—the three Graces, naked, and smiling like opera dancers. Gaga appeared to wake up.

“Ah! yes, she did! I was there when she passed away. I can tell you that there is nothing beautiful in it. She was seized with a shivering fit—”

But she could not continue her explanation. A cry arose—“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”

And Lucy, who was stifling, opened the window wide, and leant out on the balustrade. There it was pleasant. A delightful coolness came from the starry sky. On the opposite side of the way, windows were ablaze with light, whilst the reflections of the gas danced among the gilded letters of the signs. Then down the street it was very amusing. One could see the currents of the crowd roll like a torrent along the footpaths and the roadway, in the midst of a block of vehicles and large moving shadows, among which the lights of the shops and of the street lamps sparkled. But the band, that now approached with loud shouts, carried torches. A ray of red light came from the direction of the Madeleine, dividing the mob with a trail of fire, spreading afar over the heads like the reflection of a conflagration. Lucy, forgetting where she was, called to Blanche and Caroline, exclaiming,

“Come quick! You can see very well from here.”

All three leant out, greatly interested. The trees interfered with their view. At times the torches disappeared beneath the foliage. They tried to catch a glimpse of the gentlemen waiting below, but the projection of a balcony hid the hotel entrance, and they could only distinguish Count Muffat, still huddled up on the seat like a dark bundle, his face buried in his handkerchief. A carriage had stopped, and Lucy recognised Maria Blond, another one who was hastening there. She was not alone, a stout man got out after her.

“Why, it’s that thief Steiner,” said Caroline. “What! hasn’t he been packed back to Cologne yet? I shall like to see how he looks when he comes in.”

They turned round, but at the expiration of ten minutes, when Maria Blond appeared, after having twice mistaken the staircase, she was alone; and as Lucy questioned her with surprise, she exclaimed,

“He! ah, my dear! you made a mistake if you thought he was coming up! It’s even wonderful for him that he came as far as the door with me. There’s about a dozen of them downstairs, all smoking cigars.”

In truth, all those gentlemen were there. Come for a stroll, just to see what was going on on the Boulevards, they had met together, and launched forth exclamations on the poor girl’s death. Then they lapsed into politics and strategy. Bordenave, Daguenet, Labordette, Prullière, and others had swelled the group; and they were listening to Fontan, who was explaining his plan of campaign for capturing Berlin in five days.

However, Maria Blond, seized with compassion before the bed, was murmuring as the others had done, “Poor dear! the last time I saw her was at the Gaiety Theatre, in the grotto.”

“Ah! she is altered—she is altered!” repeated Rose Mignon, with her smile of dull grief.

Two more women arrived: Tatan Néné and Louise Violaine. They had been wandering about the hotel for quite twenty minutes, sent from waiter to waiter. They had gone up and down more than thirty flights of stairs, in the midst of a host of travellers who were flying from Paris, in the panic caused by the declaration of war and the commotion on the Boulevards. So, immediately on entering the room they sank into some chairs, too fatigued to think of the deceased. Just then, a great noise was heard in the next apartment; there was a moving of trunks, a knocking about of furniture, mingled with a sound of voices uttering barbarous accents. The room was occupied by a young Austrian couple. Gaga related that, during the death agony, the pair had played at running after each other; and as there was a door between the two rooms, one could hear them laughing and kissing, each time one of them was caught.

“Well, I must be off,” said Clarisse. “We can’t bring her to life again. Are you coming, Simone?”

They all glanced at the bed, without stirring. Yet they were getting ready to leave, they gently smoothed down their skirts. At the window Lucy was again leaning out, but alone. A sadness brought a lump to her throat, as though a profound melancholy arose from that yelling mob beneath. Torches continued to pass, casting flakes of fire around; in the distance the various bands, huddled together in the darkness, looked like flocks of sheep driven at night-time to the slaughter-house; and all that giddiness, those confused masses surging like the ocean, exhaled a terror, a great pity for coming massacres. They banished dull care, their shouts burst out in the intoxication of their fever rushing against the unknown, far away in the distance, behind the dark boundary of the horizon.

“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”

Lucy turned round, her back against the balustrade of the window, and looking very pale, exclaimed, “Good heavens! what will become of us?”

The other women shook their heads. They were very grave, and full of anxiety about what was happening.

“I,” said Caroline Héquet in her sedate way; “I’m off to London the day after to-morrow. Mamma is already there preparing a house for me. I’m certainly not going to stop in Paris to be massacred.”

Her mother, like a prudent woman, had invested all her money abroad. One never knows how a war may end. But Maria Blond flew into a passion. She was patriotic; she talked of following the army.

“There’s a runaway for you! Yes, if they would let me, I would dress up as a man and go and shoot those Prussian pigs! And if we were all to croak, what next? A pretty thing our bodies are!”

Blanche de Sivry was exasperated.

“Don’t speak against the Prussians! They are men like the others, and are not for ever bothering women like your Frenchmen. They’ve just expelled the little Prussian who was with me—a fellow awfully rich and gentle as a lamb—incapable of hurting any one. It’s a disgrace; it’ll ruin me. And, do you know, if I’m bothered too much, I’ll go and join him in Germany! ”

Then, whilst each had her say, Gaga murmured in a doleful voice,

“It’s the end; I’ve no luck. Only a week ago, I paid the last instalment for my little house at Juvisy. Ah! heaven knows what trouble it cost me! Lili had to help me. And now war’s declared. The Prussians will come; they’ll burn everything. How can I commence all over again at my age?”

“Of course,” added Simone. “It will be funny. Perhaps on the contrary, we shall do—”

And she completed her thought with a smile. Tatan Néné and Louise Violaine were of the same opinion. The first one related that she had had some jolly times with soldiers—oh! delightful fellows who would do anything for a woman. But having raised their voices too high, Rose Mignon, still leaning against the woodwork at the foot of the bed, made them leave off with a gentle “hush!” They were startled, and glanced sideways towards the corpse, as though that request for silence had issued from the very shadow of the curtains; and in the heavy quiet that prevailed—that quiet of nothingness in which they were conscious of the rigidity of the corpse stretched out near them—the shouts of the mob burst out again,

“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”

But they soon forgot their fright. Léa de Horn, who had a political salon, where some of Louis-Philippe’s ex-ministers indulged in smart epigrams, resumed in a low voice, as she shrugged her shoulders,

“What a mistake, this war! what awful stupidity! ”

Then Lucy at once defended the empire. She had been kept by one of the imperial princes; for her it was a family matter.

“Nonsense, my dear; we couldn’t allow ourselves to be insulted any longer. This war is the honour of France. Oh! you know, I don’t say that because of the prince. He was so stingy! Just fancy, every night he hid his louis in his boots, and whenever we played at bezique he used beans, because one day I seized the stakes, just for a joke. But that doesn’t prevent my being just. The Emperor was in the right.”

Léa wagged her head with an air of superiority, like a woman who repeats the opinions of eminent personages. And, raising her voice, she added:

“It’s the end. They’re all mad at the Tuileries. France ought to have sent them to the right about yesterday rather than—”

The others violently interrupted her. She was cracked. What was the matter with her? What had the Emperor ever done to her? Wasn’t everyone happy? Wasn’t business in a flourishing state? Paris could never be livelier. Gaga flew into a passion, roused with indignation.

“Shut up! it’s idiotic! you don’t know what you’re saying! I lived in Louis-Philippe’s time, an epoch of toast and water and sordidness, my dear. And then came ’48. Ah! a fine thing, a disgusting time, their Republic! After February I was actually starving, I tell you! But if you had passed through all that, you would fall on your knees before the Emperor, for he’s been our father, yes, our father.”

They had to calm her. Then she resumed in a religious outburst, “O God! give the Emperor the victory. Preserve us the Empire!”

All repeated the prayer. Blanche admitted that she burnt candles for the Emperor. Caroline, full of a religious feeling, had for two months past gone everywhere that she was likely to come across him, without succeeding in attracting his notice. And the others broke out into furious tirades against the Republicans, talked of expelling them beyond the frontier, so that Napoleon III., after vanquishing the enemy, might reign peacefully, in the midst of the universal joy.

“That beast Bismarck—there’s a scoundrel for you!” observed Maria Blond.

“To think that I once knew him!” cried Simone. “If I had only known, I would have put some poison in his glass.”

But Blanche, still feeling aggrieved at the expulsion of her Prussian, dared to take Bismarck’s part. He wasn’t a bit wicked. Each one had his own duties. She added,

“You know, he adores women.”

“What’s that to us?” said Clarisse. “You don’t think we want him, do you?”

“There are always too many men like him,” gravely declared Louise Violaine. “We had better do without them altogether than have any acquaintance with such monsters.”

And the discussion continued. They pulled Bismarck to pieces, each one gave him a kick in her Bonapartist zeal, whilst Tatan Néné said in a vexed manner,

“Bismarck! How they used to tease me about him! Oh! I owe him a grudge. I had never heard of him, that Bismarck! One can’t know every one.”

“All the same,” said Léa de Horn conclusively, “that Bismarck’s going to give us a good hiding—”

She was unable to continue. The other women all flew at her. Eh? what?—a hiding? It was Bismarck who was going to be sent back home, with kicks behind. She had better shut up, she was unworthy to be a Frenchwoman!

“Hush!” whispered Rose Mignon, feeling hurt at such a noise.

The frigidity of the corpse again impressed them. They all ceased talking, uneasy and brought anew face to face with death, with the secret dread of evil. On the Boulevard the cry passed, hoarse and rending,

“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”

Then, just as they were making up their minds to leave, a voice called from the corridor,

“Rose! Rose!”

Gaga, surprised, opened the door and disappeared for a moment. Then, when she returned, she said,

“My dear, it’s Fauchery who is there at the end of the passage. He won’t come any nearer. He is in an awful state because you persist in remaining here with the body.”

Mignon had succeeded in inciting the journalist. Lucy, still at the window, leant out; and she caught sight of the gentlemen waiting on the pavement, looking up and making signs to her. Mignon, exasperated, was holding up his fists. Steiner, Fontan, Bordenave, and the others were opening their arms in an anxious and reproachful way; whilst Daguenet, so as not to compromise himself, was quietly smoking his cigar, his hands behind his back.

“I was forgetting, my dear,” said Lucy, leaving the window open. “I promised to make you go down. They’re all beckoning for us.”

Rose moved away painfully from the foot of the bedstead. She murmured, “I will go down; I will go down. She no longer wants me now. We will send for a sister of charity.”

And she looked about without being able to find her bonnet and shawl. She mechanically filled a basin with water at the wash-stand and washed her hands and face, as she continued.

“I don’t know how it is, but it’s been a great shock to me. We were not very nice to each other. Well! now I feel quite stupid. Oh! I’ve all sorts of ideas—a longing to die myself—the end of the world. Yes, I want some fresh air.”

The dead body was beginning to fill the room with a fearful stench. There was quite a panic after such a long period of unconcern.

“Let’s be off! let’s be off, my dears!” repeated Gaga. “It isn’t healthy.”

They left the room quickly, throwing another glance towards the bed; but as Lucy, Blanche, and Caroline were still there, Rose gave a last look round to see that all was tidy. She drew the curtain before the window. Then she thought that the lamp was not proper, there ought to be a candle; and, after taking one of the brass candlesticks from the mantelpiece, she lit the candle, and placed it on the night-table beside the corpse. A bright light suddenly illuminated the face of the deceased. It was horrible. They shuddered, and hastened away.

“Ah! she is altered—she is altered!” murmured Rose Mignon, who was the last to leave the room.

She went off and closed the door. Nana was left alone, her face turned upwards in the candle-light. It was a charnel-house, a mass of matter and blood, a shovelful of putrid flesh, thrown there on the cushion. The pustules had invaded the entire face, one touching the other; and, faded, sunk in, with the greyish aspect of mud, they already seemed like a mouldiness of the earth on that shapeless pulp, in which the features were no longer recognisable. One of the eyes, the left one, had completely disappeared amidst the eruption of the purulence; the other, half open, looked like a black and tainted hole. The nose still continued to suppurate. A reddish crust starting from one of the cheeks, invaded the mouth, which it distorted in an abominable laugh; and on this horrible and grotesque mask of nothingness, the hair, that beautiful hair, retaining its sun-like fire, fell in a stream of gold. Venus was decomposing. It seemed as if the virus gathered by her in the gutters, from the tolerated carrion—that ferment with which she had poisoned a people—had ascended to her face and rotted it.

The room was deserted. A strong breath of despair mounted from the Boulevard, and swelled the curtain.

“To Berlin! to Berlin! to Berlin!”