CHAPTER I
At nine o’clock the Variety Theatre was still almost empty. In the balcony and orchestra stalls a few persons waited, lost amidst the garnet-coloured velvet seats, in the faint light of the half extinguished gasalier.
a The huge crimson curtain was enveloped in shadow, and not a sound came from the stage behind. The foot-lights were not yet lit up, and the seats of the musicians were unoccupied. High up, however, in the third gallery, close to the roof—displaying figures of naked women and children floating among clouds, to which the gas imparted a greenish tinge—were heard the sounds of shouts and laughter above a continual hum of conversation, and a crowd of men and women, all wearing the caps of the working classes, were seated in rows reaching almost to the gilded festoons of the ceiling. Now and again an attendant would appear, fussily conducting a lady and gentleman to their seats—the gentleman in evening dress, and the lady slim and slightly stooping, and glancing slowly over the house. Two young men suddenly appeared in the stalls close to the orchestra. They remained standing, looking round about them.
“What did I tell you, Hector?” exclaimed the elder—a tall fellow, with a slight, black moustache. “We have come too early. You might just as well have allowed me to finish my cigar.”
An attendant passed by at this moment. “Oh! M. Fauchery,” she said familiarly, “it will not begin for half an hour.”
“Then why on earth do they say nine o’clock on the bills?” asked Hector, whose long, thin face assumed an expression of intense annoyance. “This very morning Clarisse, who is in the piece, assured me that the curtain would go up at nine, precisely.”
For a minute they relapsed into silence, as they raised their heads and gazed into the shadows of the boxes; but the green paper, with which the latter were lined, made them obscurer still. Below, the small boxes under the balcony disappeared in total darkness. In the balcony boxes only a very stout lady, leaning heavily on the velvet-covered balustrade was to be seen. To the right and the left, between high columns, the stage boxes, hung with drapery deeply fringed, remained empty. The body of the house, decorated in white and gold, relieved by pale green, seemed to disappear filled as it was with a misty haze arising from the subdued light emanating from the huge crystal gasalier.
“Did you succeed in securing a stage-box for Lucy?” asked Hector.
“Yes,” replied the other, “but not without a deal of trouble. Oh! there is no danger of Lucy’s coming too early—not she!” He stifled a yawn, and then, after a brief silence, resumed; “You are lucky, you who have never yet been present at a first night. ‘The Blonde Venus’ will be the success of the year. Every one has been speaking of the piece for six months past. Ah! my boy, such music—such ‘go’! Bordenave, who knows what’s what, kept it purposely for the time of the Exhibition.”
bHector listened religiously. At length he hazarded a question: “And Nana—the new star who is to play Venus—do you know her?”
“Oh, hang it! are you going to begin that too?” exclaimed Fauchery, gesticulating wildly. “Ever since this morning I have heard of nothing but Nana. I have met more than twenty fellows I know, and it has been Nana here and Nana there! Do you suppose I know every petticoat in Paris? Nana is one of Bordenave’s inventions. She must be something choice!”
After this explosion he calmed down a little. But the emptiness of the house, the dim light that pervaded the whole, the opening and shutting of doors, and the hushed voices suggestive of a church, irritated him.
“Confound it!” he said, suddenly. “I can’t stand this, you know. I must go out. Perhaps we shall meet Bordenave below. He will give us some details.”
In the marble paved vestibule, where the box-office was situated, they found the public beginning to arrive. Through the three open doors all the busy throng on the Boulevards could be seen enjoying the beautiful April evening. Carriages dashed up to the theatre, and the doors were slammed noisily. People entered by twos and threes, and, after stopping at the box-office, ascended the double staircase in the rear—the women walking slowly with a swinging gait. In the glare of the gas were pasted, on the naked walls of this hall, whose meagre decorations in the style of the Empire suggested the peristyle of a card-board temple, some enormous yellow posters, in which Nana’s name appeared in huge black letters. Men were loitering in front of these bills as they read them, while others were standing about talking among themselves, and blocking up the doorways; whilst near the box-office a thick-set man, with a big, clean-shaved face, was roughly replying to some people who were in vain endeavouring to obtain seats.
“There’s Bordenave!” said Fauchery, as he and Hector descended the stairs.
But the manager had caught sight of him. “You are a nice fellow,” he called out. “That is the way you write me a notice, is it? I opened the ‘Figaro’
c this morning—not a word.”
“Wait a bit,” replied Fauchery. “I must see your Nana before I can write about her. Besides, I made no promise!”
Then, to prevent further discussion, he presented his cousin, M. Hector de la Faloise, a young man who had come to complete his education in Paris. The manager weighed the young man at a glance; but Hector surveyed the manager with some little emotion. This then was Bordenave, the exhibitor of women, whom he treated in the style of a prison warder, and whose brain was ever hatching some fresh money-making scheme—a perfect cynic, always shouting, or spitting, or smacking his thighs, and possessing the coarse mind of a trooper! Hector was anxious to make a good impression on him.
“Your theatre—” he began, in clear, musical tones.
Bordenave interrupted him quietly, and said, with the coolness of a man who prefers to call things by their right names: “Say my brothel, rather.”
Fauchery laughed approvingly, but La Faloise was shocked to a degree, and his meditated compliment stuck in his throat, as he endeavoured to look as though he appreciated the joke. The manager had rushed off to shake hands with a dramatic critic whose criticisms had great influence, and, when he returned, La Faloise had almost recovered himself. He feared lest he should be regarded as a provincial if he appeared too much disconcerted.
“I have been told,” he began, wishing at any rate to say something, “that Nana has a delicious voice.”
“She!” cried the manager, shrugging his shoulders—“she has no more voice than a squirt.”
The young man hastened to add: “Besides, she is an excellent actress.”
“She!—a regular lump! She never knows where to put her hands or her feet.”
La Faloise coloured slightly. He was at a loss what to understand. He managed to stammer out: “On no account would I have missed this first night. I know that your theatre—”
“Say my brothel,” interrupted Bordenave again, with the cool obstinacy of a man thoroughly convinced.
Meanwhile Fauchery had been calmly examining the women as they entered. He now came to his cousin’s assistance, when he saw him doubtful whether to laugh or be angry. “Gratify Bordenave; call his theatre just what he desires, as it amuses him. And as for you, my dear fellow, you need not try to fool us. If your Nana can’t sing and can’t play, you will make a regular fiasco of it to-night. And that is just what I am expecting.”
“A fiasco! a fiasco!” exclaimed the manager, whose face became purple with rage. “Is it necessary for a woman to know how to sing and act? Ah! my boy, you are much too stupid. Nana has something else, damn her! and something that will make up for anything she may lack. I scented it, and she has plenty of it, or I have only the nose of a fool! You will see, you will see—she has only to appear, and all the spectators will at once smack their lips.” He raised his big hands, which trembled with enthusiasm, and then, lowering his voice, murmured to himself, “Yes, she will go far—ah! damn her! yes, she will go far. A skin—oh, such a skin!”
Then, in answer to Fauchery’s questions, he condescended to give certain details, making use of such offensive language that he quite shocked Hector. He had become acquainted with Nana, and wished to bring her out; and it so happened that he was in want of a Venus. He never allowed a woman to hang on to him very long; he preferred to let the public have its share of her at once. But he had had a damnable time in his shop; the arrival of this great hulking girl had revolutionized everything. Rose Mignon, his star, a fine actress and an adorable singer, threatened daily to leave him in the lurch. Divining a rival in Nana she was furious. And the playbills—Deuce take it! what a row they had caused. However, he had decided to print the names of the two actresses in letters of equal size. They had better not badger him too much. When one of his little women, as he called them, Clarisse or Simone, did not do as she was told, he just kicked her behind. If he treated them differently they would never leave him any peace. He dealt in them, and he knew what they were worth, the hussies!
“Ah!” he exclaimed, interrupting himself. “There come Mignon and Steiner! They are always together. You know that Steiner begins to have had enough of Rose; so the husband sticks to him like a plaster lest he should escape.”
The flaring gas jets running along the cornice of the theatre threw a sheet of vivid light over the footpath. Two small trees stood out clearly with their fresh green foliage, and a pillar was so brilliantly illuminated by the blaze of light that the bills posted upon it could be read at a distance as clearly as at midday; whilst, afar off, the dense darkness of the Boulevards
d was studded with multitudinous lights, revealing the surging of an ever moving crowd. Many of the men did not enter the theatre at once, but loitered outside to finish their cigars and chat under the gaslight, which gave a livid pallor to their faces, and threw their shadows, short and black, upon the asphalt beneath. Mignon, a tall, stout fellow, with the square head of the Hercules of a travelling show, shouldered his way through the crowd, dragging on his arm the banker Steiner—a short man, with a big stomach and a round face fringed with a greyish beard.
“Well!” said Bordenave to the banker, “you saw her yesterday in my office.”
“Ah! that was her, was it?” exclaimed Steiner. “I thought as much. Only, I was going out as she entered; I scarcely saw her.”
Mignon listened with downcast eyes, all the time nervously twisting a large diamond ring on his little finger. He knew at once that they were talking of Nana. Then as Bordenave proceeded to give a description of his new star which caused the banker’s eyes to sparkle, he decided to interfere.
“That’ll do, my dear fellow; she’s not worth looking at. The public will soon send her to the right about. Steiner, my boy, you know that my wife is expecting you in her dressing-room.”
He tried to lead him away, but Steiner refused to leave Bordenave. The crowd at the box-office became more compact, the buzz of voices grew louder, and the name of Nana was repeated over and over again with a sing-song enunciation of its two syllables. The men, standing in front of the posters, read it out loud; others, as they passed, uttered it interrogatively, while the women, smiling and uneasy, repeated it softly with an air of surprise. No one knew Nana. Where on earth had Nana come from? And little jokes were passed about from ear to ear, and little tales told. The very name sounded like a caress, and fell familiarly from the lips of every one. Its constant repetition amused the crowd and kept it in a good humour. A fever of curiosity took possession of everybody—that Parisian curiosity which is sometimes as violent as an attack of brain fever. All were eager to see Nana. One lady had the train of her dress torn, and a gentleman lost his hat.
“Ah! you ask me too much,” cried Bordenave, whom twenty men were besieging with questions. “You will see her presently. I must be off, they are waiting for me.”
He disappeared, radiant at having inflamed his public. Mignon shrugged his shoulders, and reminded Steiner that Rose was expecting him to show him her costume for the first act.
“Hallo! there’s Lucy, over there, getting out of her carriage,” said La Faloise to Fauchery.
It was in fact Lucy Stewart—a little, ugly woman of about forty, with a neck too long, a thin, drawn face, and thick lips, but so lively, so graceful, that she charmed every one. She was accompanied by Caroline Héquet and her mother. Caroline with her frigid beauty, the mother very stately, and looking as if she were stuffed.
“You are coming with us, of course,” she said to Fauchery; “I have kept a place for you.”
“So that I shall see nothing!—not if I know it! he answered. ”I have an orchestra stall; I prefer to be there.”
Lucy fired up at once. Was he afraid to be seen with her? Then suddenly calming down, she jumped to another subject.
“Why did you never tell me that you knew Nana?”
“Nana! I never saw her! ”
“Is that really true? I have been assured that you once slept with her.”
But Mignon, who was in front, put his finger to his lips to signal to them to be silent. And when Lucy asked why, he pointed to a young man who had just passed, murmuring, “Nana’s sweetheart.”
They all stared after him. He was certainly very good-looking. Fauchery recognised him: his name was Daguenet, and he had squandered a fortune of three hundred thousand francs
e on women, and now dabbled in stocks in order to make a little money with which he could treat them to an occasional bouquet and dinner. Lucy thought he had very handsome eyes.
“Ah! there’s Blanche!” she exclaimed. “It was she who told me that you had slept with Nana.”
Blanche de Sivry, a heavy blonde, whose pretty face was getting too fat, arrived, accompanied by a slender, well-dressed man with a most distinguished air.
“Count Xavier de Vandeuvres,” whispered Fauchery to La Faloise.
The count shook hands with the journalist, whilst a lively discussion took place between Lucy and Blanche. They quite blocked up the entry with their skirts covered with flounces, one in pink and the other in blue, and Nana’s name fell from their lips so frequently that the crowd lingered to listen. The count at length led Blanche away, but Nana’s name did not cease to resound from the four corners of the vestibule in louder and more eager tones. Would they never begin? The men pulled out their watches, late comers leaped from their carriages before they really drew up, and the groups left the pavement, whilst the passers-by, as they slowly crossed the stream of light, stretched their necks to see what was going on in the theatre. A street urchin who came up whistling, stood for a moment before one of the posters at the door; then, in a drunken voice shouted out, “Oh, my! Nana!” and reeled on his way, dragging his old shoes along the asphalt. People laughed, and several well-dressed gentlemen repeated, “Nana! Oh, my! Nana!” The crush was tremendous. A quarrel broke out at the box-office, the cries for Nana increased; one of those stupid fits of brutal excitement common to crowds had taken possession of this mass of people. Suddenly, above this uproar, the sound of a bell was heard. The rumour extended to the Boulevards that the curtain was about to rise, and there was more pushing and struggling; every one wished to get in; the employes of the theatre were at their wits’ end. Mignon, looking uneasy, seized hold of Steiner, who had not been to inspect the dress Rose was to wear. At the first tinkle of the bell, La Faloise pushed through the crowd, dragging Fauchery with him, fearing lest he should miss the overture. Lucy Stewart was irritated by all these demonstrations of eagerness. What vulgar persons to push ladies about! She remained to the last with Caroline Héquet and her mother. At length the vestibule was empty; outside, the Boulevards maintained their prolonged rumble.
“As if their pieces were always funny!” Lucy kept repeating as she ascended the stairs.
Fauchery and La Faloise stood in their places, examining the house, which was now very brilliant. The crystal gasalier blazed with prismatic hues, and the light was reflected from the ceiling on to the pit like a shower of gold. The garnet-coloured velvet of the seats appeared as though shot with lake, whilst the glitter of the gilding was softened by the decorations of pale green beneath the coarse paintings of the ceiling. The foot-lights blazed upon the crimson curtain, the richness of which suggested the most fabulous of palaces, and offered a melancholy contrast to the poverty of the frame, the crevices in which showed the plaster beneath the gilding. It was already excessively warm. In the orchestra the musicians were tuning their instruments, and the light trills of the flute, the stifled sighs of the horn, the singing notes of the violin, were drowned by the increasing hum of voices. All the spectators were talking together, pushing and squeezing each other in their endeavours to reach their seats; and the crush in the corridors was so great that it was with difficulty the doors gave ingress to the never-ceasing flow of people. Friends nodded to each other from a distance, and with the rustling of clothes came a procession of gay costumes and headdresses, broken now and again by a black dress suit or a dark overcoat. However, the seats were gradually filling; here and there appeared a bright coloured robe, and a head with a delicate profile displayed a chignon on which sparkled some valuable jewel. In one of the boxes a glimpse was caught of a woman’s naked shoulder, seemingly as white as ivory. Other women, calmly waiting, fanned themselves languidly as they watched the surging crowd; while a group of young dandies standing in the orchestra stalls—all shirt front, and wearing gardenias in their button-holes—gazed through their opera-glasses, which they held with the tips of their daintily-gloved fingers.
Then the two cousins looked around in search of acquaintances. Mignon and Steiner sat side by side in a box, with their arms resting on the velvet balustrade. Blanche de Sivry appeared to be alone in one of the stage-boxes. But La Faloise watched more especially Daguenet, who had an orchestra stall two rows in front of his. Next to him was seated a youngster, some seventeen years old, just fresh from college, who opened his cherub-like eyes wide with delight. Fauchery smiled as he caught sight of him.
“Who is that lady in the balcony?” asked La Faloise, suddenly. “I mean the one who has a young girl in blue next her.”
He directed his companion’s glance to a woman whose stout figure was tightly laced, and whose once blonde hair, now grey, was dyed yellow, whilst her round puffed face, coloured with rouge, almost disappeared beneath a shower of little baby curls.
“That’s Gaga,” replied Fauchery simply; and, as the name seemed to convey no information to his cousin, he added, “Haven’t you heard of Gaga? She was one of the beauties of the first years of Louis Philippe’s
f reign. Now she is never seen anywhere without her daughter.”
La Faloise had no eyes for the young girl. Gaga, however, affected him strangely; he could not cease looking at her. He thought her still very handsome, though he dared not say so. At length the conductor of the orchestra gave the signal, and the musicians struck the first note of the overture. People were still coming in, and the noise and bustle increased. On special occasions like this there were different parts of the house where friends met with a smile; whilst the regular frequenters, thoroughly at their ease, exchanged bows right and left. All Paris was there—the Paris of letters, of finance, and of pleasure, many journalists, some few authors, and several speculators, more kept girls than respectable women—a company, in short, that was a most singular mixture, composed of every kind of genius, tainted with every description of vice, where the same weariness and the same fever seemed inscribed on every face. Fauchery, questioned by his cousin, pointed out to him the boxes of the various newspapers and clubs, and then the dramatic critics, one skinny and dried up, with thin and wicked-looking lips, but more especially a stout, good-natured-looking man, who leaned on the shoulder of his companion, an artless young person, over whom he watched with a kind, paternal eye. But he suddenly cut his descriptions short on seeing La Faloise bow to some people who occupied one of the centre boxes. He seemed surprised.
“What! you know Count Muffat de Beuville?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. I have known him for a long time,” replied Hector. “The Muffats had an estate near ours. I very often call on them. The count is with his wife and her father, the Marquis de Chouard.”
Delighted at his cousin’s astonishment, and spurred on by vanity, La Faloise went into further details. The marquis was a state councillor, and the count had just been appointed chamberlain to the Empress. Fauchery raised his opera-glass and examined the countess—a dark, plump woman, with a lovely white skin, and beautiful black eyes.
“You must present me between the acts,” he said at last. “I have already met the count, but I should like to go to their Tuesdays at home.”
An energetic “Hush!” was heard from the upper gallery. The overture had commenced but people were still coming in. Whole rows of persons were compelled to rise to allow late comers to get to their seats, the doors of the boxes banged, and loud voices were heard quarrelling in the corridors. Still the buzz of conversation, similar to the noisy chattering of sparrows at sunset, never ceased. Everything was in the greatest confusion; it was a medley of moving heads and arms, the owners of which were either sitting down and seeking the most comfortable positions, or persisting in standing up to take a last look around. The cry, “Sit down! sit down!” came from obscure corners of the pit. Every one trembled with eagerness, for at last the famous Nana, of whom people had been talking for a week, was about to be seen! By degrees, however, the noise subsided, with an occasional swell from time to time. And in the midst of this faint murmur, of these expiring whispers, the orchestra burst forth in the gay little notes of a waltz, the saucy rhythm of which suggested the laugh raised by some over-free piece of buffoonery. The audience, fairly tickled, already began to smile; but the claque, seated in the front row of the pit, commenced to applaud vociferously. The curtain rose.
“Hallo!” said La Faloise, whose tongue still wagged. “There is a gentleman with Lucy,” and he looked at the stage box to the right of the first tier, in the front of which sat Lucy and Caroline, while in the rear the dignified face of Caroline’s mother was to be discerned, and also the profile of a tall light-haired young man, most irreproachably dressed.
“Look,” repeated La Faloise with persistence, “there’s a gentleman.”
Fauchery slowly brought his opera-glass to bear on the box indicated; but he turned away immediately.
“Oh! it’s only Labordette,” he murmured in a careless tone of voice, as if the presence of that gentleman was the most natural as well as the most unimportant thing in the world.
Behind them some one cried, “Hush!” and they were driven to silence. Everybody was now perfectly still, and a regular sea of heads, upright and attentive, filled the house from the stalls to the amphitheatre. The first act of “The Blonde Venus” was laid in Olympus—a card-board Olympus, with clouds at the sides, and Jupiter’s throne on the right. Iris and Ganymede first appeared, surrounded by a crowd of celestial assistants, who sang a chorus as they arranged the seats for the gods in council. Again the applause of the paid claque was heard, but the audience as yet was not inclined to respond. La Faloise, however, had applauded Clarisse Besnus, one of Bordenave’s little women, who played the part of Iris, in pale blue, with a broad scarf of the seven colours fastened round her waist.
“You know she takes off her chemise to get into that costume,” he said to Fauchery in a loud whisper. “We tried it on this morning, and the chemise showed under the arms and on the back.”
But a slight tremor took possession of the audience on the appearance of Rose Mignon as Diana. Although she had neither the face nor the figure for the part, as she was thin and dark, with the adorable ugliness of a Parisian urchin, she seemed charming, intended as she might have been as a mockery of the character she personated. Her entrance song, consisting of words stupid enough to send you to sleep, and in which she complained of Mars, who was neglecting her for Venus, was sung in a bashful manner, but so full of smutty inuendoes, that the audience warmed up. Her husband and Steiner laughed aloud as they sat side by side. And the whole house burst into applause when Prullière, that especial favourite, appeared as Mars in the uniform of a general, adorned with a monstrous plume, and dragging a sword that reached to his shoulder. He had had enough of Diana; she expected too much. So she swore to watch him and be revenged. Their duo wound up with a ludicrous tyrolienne,
g which Prullière sang in his funniest style, and in the voice of an angry tabby. He possessed the amusing conceit of a young actor in high favour, and swaggered about as he rolled his eyes in a way that elicited the shrill laughter of the women in the boxes. After that, however, the audience became as cool as before; the scenes which followed were dull in the extreme. Old Bosc, as an imbecile Jupiter, his head crushed under an enormous crown, succeeded only in raising a smile, as he quarrelled with Juno on account of their cook’s wages. The procession of the gods Neptune, Pluto, Minerva, and all the others, almost spoilt everything. The spectators were becoming very impatient, an ominous murmur slowly arose, every one began to lose all interestin the piece, and looked about the house rather than upon the stage. Lucy laughed with Labordette; the Count de Vandeuvres emerged a little from behind Blanche’s broad shoulders; while Fauchery watched the Muffats from out of the corner of his eyes. The count looked very grave, as if he had not understood anything; and the countess, smiling vaguely, seemed wrapped in reverie. But suddenly the applause of the claque burst forth with the regularity of a discharge of musketry, and every eye became rivetted on the stage once more. Was it Nana at last—that Nana who had kept them waiting so long?
It was a deputation of mortals introduced by Ganymede and Iris, respectable citizens, all deceived husbands, come to lay before Jupiter a complaint against Venus, who inspired their wives with a great deal too much ardour. The chorus, which they sang in a simple and doleful manner, was now and again interrupted by the most significant pauses, and amused the audience immensely. A whisper went round the house: “The cuckolds’ chorus, the cuckolds’ chorus;” the name stuck to it, and it was encored. The get-up of the singers was very comic, their faces were in accordance with the part they played; there was one especially, a stout fellow with a face as round as a moon. Vulcan, however, appeared on the scene in a state of furious indignation, seeking his wife, who had disappeared from home three days before. The chorus struck up again, imploring Vulcan, the god of cuckolds, to help them. The part of Vulcan was played by Fontan, a comic actor gifted with a talent as spicy as it was original, who waddled about in the most ludicrous manner imaginable, in the costume of a village blacksmith, with a flaring red wig on his head, and his arms bare and tattooed all over with hearts pierced by arrows. A woman’s voice exclaimed aloud, “Oh! isn’t he ugly!” and every one laughed as they applauded. The next scene seemed interminable. Would Jupiter never get all the gods together that he might submit to them the deceived husbands’ petition? and still no Nana! Did they mean to keep back Nana until the curtain fell? This long suspense ended by irritating the spectators, and they recommenced their murmurs.
“It’s going from bad to worse,” said Mignon, delighted, to Steiner. “A regular fiasco; see if it isn’t! ”
At this moment the clouds parted at the back of the stage, and Venus appeared. Nana, very tall and very plump for her eighteen years, in the white tunic of a goddess, and with her beautiful golden hair floating over her shoulders, walked towards the foot-lights with calm self-possession, smiling at the crowd before her. Her lips parted, and she commenced her great song:
“When Venus takes an evening stroll—”
At the second line, people exchanged glances of wonder. Was this a jest on the part of Bordenave, or a wager? Never had so false a voice and so poor a method been heard. The manager had spoken truly when he said that she had no more voice than a squirt. Nor did she know how to stand or move on the stage. She threw her arms forward and wriggled her body about in a manner that was considered scarcely proper and very ungraceful. The pit was beginning to murmur, in fact a few hisses were heard, when suddenly from the orchestra stalls a voice, resembling that of a young cock moulting, exclaimed aloud in a tone of intense conviction:
“She is stunning!”
The whole house looked to see who had uttered these words. It was the cherub, the youngster fresh from college, his lovely eyes strained wide open, his childish face all aglow with admiration of Nana. When he saw every one looking at him, he turned scarlet with shame at having unintentionally spoken so loud. Daguenet, who sat next him, looked at him with a smile, and the audience laughed aloud and thought no more of hissing, while the young gentlemen with white kid gloves also carried away by Nana’s curves, applauded with vehemence.
“So she is!” they cried. “Bravo!”
Nana, seeing every one laughing, laughed also, and this redoubled the gaiety. She was funny, all the same, this beautiful girl; and as she laughed, a love of a dimple appeared on her chin. She waited, not in the least embarrassed, but on the contrary quite at her ease and thoroughly at home with the audience, looking as though she herself were saying with a wink of her eye that she didn’t possess a ha’porth of talent, but it didn’t matter, she had something better than that. And after making a sign to the conductor, which meant, “Off you go, old boy!” she commenced her second verse:
“At midnight, Venus passes by—”
It was still the same grating voice, but this time it tickled the hearers in the right place, and succeeded now and again in eliciting an approving murmur. Nana’s smile was still on her red lips, and shone in her large light blue eyes. At certain lines, which were a trifle broad in meaning, her pink nostrils dilated and the colour rose to her cheeks. She continued to wriggle her body about, not knowing what else to do; but it was no longer considered unbecoming; on the contrary, every opera-glass was turned upon her. As she finished the verse her voice failed her entirely, and she saw that she could not go on. Without being in the least disturbed, she jerked her hip in a manner which indicated its plumpness beneath her scanty tunic, and, with her body bent forward, displaying her bare breast, she extended her arms. Applause burst forth from all parts of the house. She at once turned round, showing as she retired to the back of the stage the nape of a neck, the red hair on which looked like the fleece of an animal; and the applause became deafening.
The end of the act elicited less enthusiasm. Vulcan wished to slap his wife’s face. The gods took council, and decided that they had best investigate matters on the earth, before deciding in favour of the deceived husbands. Diana, overhearing some tender passages between Venus and Mars, swore that she would not once let them out of her sight during the journey. There was also a scene in which Cupid, acted by a little girl of twelve, answered to every question, “Yes, mamma,” “No, mamma,” in tearful tones and with her fingers in her nose. Then Jupiter, with all the severity of an angry master, shut Cupid in a dark closet, and bade him conjugate twenty times the verb, “to love.” The finale, a chorus very brilliantly rendered, met with more success. But, after the curtain had fallen, the claque in vain tried to obtain an encore; everybody rose and moved towards the doors. As the audience pushed their way through the rows of seats, they exchanged their impressions. One phrase was constantly heard: “It is simply idiotic!” A critic observed that the piece wanted a great deal of cutting down. But the piece, after all, mattered little. Nana was the chief topic of conversation. Fauchery and La Faloise, who were among the first to leave their seats, met Steiner and Mignon in the passage leading to the stalls. The atmosphere was stifling in this hole, which was low and narrow like some gallery in a mine, and was lighted here and there by flaring gas-jets. They stood for a moment at the foot of the staircase on the right, protected by the railing. The spectators from the upper part of the house tramped down with a great noise of heavy shoes, the procession of men in evening dress seemed as though it would never cease, and a box-opener endeavoured to prevent a chair on which she had piled coats and shawls from being swept away by the crowd.
“But I know her!” cried Steiner as soon as he saw Fauchery. “I have certainly seen her somewhere. At the Casino, I think; and she was so drunk that she got locked up.”
“Well, I’m not quite sure,” said the journalist. “I’m like you, I have certainly met her somewhere.” He lowered his voice and added with a laugh, “At old Tricon’s, I daresay.”
“Of course, in some vile place!” exclaimed Mignon, who seemed exasperated. “It is disgusting to see the public welcome in such a way the first filthy wench that offers. Soon there will not be a respectable woman left on the stage. Yes, I shall have to forbid Rose playing any more.”
Fauchery could not repress a smile. Meanwhile, the heavily-shod crowd continued to pour down the stairs, and a little man in a cap said, in a drawling voice: “Oh, my! she is plump! You could eat her! ”
In the lobby, two young men, with their hair exquisitely curled, and looking very stylish with their stuck-up collars turned slightly down in front, were quarrelling. One kept saying, “Vile! vile!” without giving any reason; whilst the other retaliated with, “Stunning! stunning!” equally disdaining to explain. La Faloise liked her immensely. He, however, only ventured to observe that she would be much better if she cultivated her voice. Then Steiner, who had left off listening, seemed to wake up with a start. They must wait, though. Perhaps in the next acts everything would come to grief. The audience, though very lenient so far, was not yet smitten with the piece. Mignon swore no one would sit it through; and as Fauchery and La Faloise left them to go into the saloon, he took hold of Steiner’s arm, and, pressing close up to his shoulder, whispered in his ear, “Old boy, come and see my wife’s costume for the second act. It is the limit!”
Upstairs, the foyer was brilliantly illuminated by three crystal gasaliers. The two cousins paused for a moment. The glass doors, standing wide open, showed them a wave of heads, which two contending currents whirled about in a continual eddy. They entered. Five or six groups of men, talking and gesticulating earnestly, stood their ground in spite of the crush, while others were walking up and down in rows, now and again turning sharply on their heels, which resounded on the waxed boards. To the right and left, women, occupying the red velvet seats placed between the jasper columns, watched the crowd as it passed with a weary air, as if exhausted by the intense heat; and behind them could be seen their chignons in the tall glasses decorating the walls. At the end of the saloon, a man with a very big belly was standing at the bar drinking a glass of syrup.
h Fauchery had gone out on to the balcony to get a breath of fresh air. La Faloise who had been studying some photographs of actresses placed in frames, which alternated with the looking-glasses between the columns, ended by following him. The row of gas-jets in front of the theatre had just been extinguished. It was dark and cool on the balcony, which appeared to be vacant, with the exception of one solitary figure—that of a young man who, enveloped in shadow, leant against the stone balustrade in the recess on the right smoking a cigarette. Fauchery recognised Daguenet. They shook hands.
“Whatever are you doing there, old fellow?” asked the journalist. “Hiding in odd corners; you who, as a rule, never leave the stalls during a first night’s performance.”
“But I am smoking, as you see,” answered Daguenet.
Then Fauchery, so as to embarrass him, said, “And the new star, what do you think of her? The remarks I have heard made about the house are rather disparaging.”
“Oh!” murmured Daguenet, “by men with whom she would not have anything to do.”
This was all the criticism he offered on Nana’s talent. La Faloise, leaning forward, looked up and down the Boulevard. The windows of a hotel and a club opposite were brilliantly lighted, while on the pavement a compact mass of customers occupied the tables of the Café de Madrid. Nothwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the crowd was immense; everyone had to walk slowly. A stream of people continually flowed from the Passage Jouffroy, and persons were obliged to wait five minutes sometimes, before they could cross from one side of the road to the other, so great was the throng of vehicles.
“What animation! what noise!” La Faloise, who had not yet ceased to be astonished at Paris, kept repeating.
A bell rang, and the saloon rapidly emptied. Every one hurried along the passages. The curtain had risen, but a crowd still streamed in, much to the disgust of those of the audience who were already seated. The late comers hastened to their places with animated and attentive looks. La Faloise’s first glance was for Gaga; but he was astonished to notice by her side the tall fellow with light hair, who, during the first act, had been in Lucy’s stage-box.
“What did you say was the name of that gentleman?” he asked.
Fauchery did not see the person meant at once. “Ah! yes, Labordette,” he said at last, in the same careless tone of voice as before.
The scenery of the second act was a surprise. It represented a low dancing establishment of the suburbs, called the “Boule Noire,” on a Shrove Tuesday. Some masqueraders, dressed in grotesque costumes, sang a lively strain, the chorus of which they accompanied by stamping their heels. The words and gestures being not over decorous and quite unexpected, amused the audience immensely, and secured the honours of an encore. And it was into this place that the troop of gods, led astray by Iris, who falsely claimed to know the earth, had come to pursue their investigations. They were disguised so as to preserve their incognito. Jupiter appeared as King Dagobert,
i with his breeches turned wrong side out, and a huge tin crown on his head. Phoebus masqueraded as the Postillion of Longjumeau,
j and Minerva as a Norman wet nurse. Shouts of laughter greeted Mars, who wore a preposterous costume, as a Swiss admiral; but the mirth became scandalous when Neptune, dressed in a blouse and tall cap, with little curls glued to his temples, dragged after him his slip-shod shoes, and said, in an unctuous tone of voice: “Well! what next? When a fellow’s handsome, he must allow himself to be adored!” This elicited a few “Oh! ohs! ” while the ladies slightly raised their fans. Lucy, in her stage-box, laughed so noisily that Caroline Héquet entreated her to be quiet. From this moment the piece was saved, and was even a great success. This carnival of the gods, Olympus dragged through the mud, religion and poetry alike scoffed at, struck the public as extremely witty. A fever of irreverence took possession of this intellectual first night audience; ancient legends were trodden under foot, and antique images were broken. Jupiter had a fine head, Mars was highly successful. Royalty became a farce, and the army a jest. When Jupiter, desperately smitten all of a sudden by the charms of a little laundress, broke into a wild cancan, and Simone, who played the part of the laundress, raised her foot on a level with the nose of the master of the gods, calling him, in such a funny manner, “My fat old boy!” a peal of mad laughter shook the house. While the others danced, Phœbus treated Minerva to some hot wine, and Neptune sat surrounded by some seven or eight women, who stuffed him with cakes. The audience snatched at the faintest allusions, obscenities were discovered where none were intended, and the most inoffensive words were invested with a totally different meaning by the exclamations of the occupants of the stalls. It was long since the theatre-going public had wallowed in such disgusting foolery, and it took its fill. The action of the piece, however, advanced in spite of all this by-play. Vulcan, dressed in the latest style, only all in yellow, and with yellow gloves and a glass in his eye, was there in pursuit of Venus, who at last arrived, dressed as a fish-woman, a handkerchief thrown over her head, her breasts protruding, and covered with huge gold ornaments. Nana was so white, and so plump, and so natural in this part of a person strong in the hips and the gift of the gab, that she at once gained the entire audience. Rose Mignon, a delicious baby, with a baby bonnet on her head, and in short muslin skirts, was quite forgotten, although she had just sung Diana’s woes in a charming voice. The other, the big girl with her arms akimbo, who clucked like a hen, was so full of life and the power of woman, that the audience became fairly intoxicated.
After this no exception was taken at anything that Nana did. She was allowed to pose badly, to move badly, to sing every note false, and forget her part. She had only to turn to the audience and smile, to be treated with wild applause. Each time she gave her peculiar movement of the hips the occupants of the stalls brightened up, and the enthusiasm rose from gallery to gallery up to the very roof, so that when she led the dance her triumph was complete. She was in her element as, with arms akimbo, she dragged Venus through the mire. The music, too, seemed written for her voice of the gutter—a music of reed-pipes, a sort of reminiscence of a return from the fair of Saint Cloud,
k with the sneezes of the clarionets
l and the gambols of the flutes. Two concerted pieces were again encored. The waltz of the overture, that waltz with the saucy rhythm, returned and whirled the gods round and round. Juno, as a farmer’s wife, caught Jupiter flirting with the washerwoman, and spanked him. Diana surprising Venus in the act of arranging a meeting with Mars, hastened to inform Vulcan of the time and place, when the latter exclaimed—“I have my plan.” The remainder of the act did not seem very clear. The gods’ inquiry terminated in a final gallopade, after which Jupiter, in a great perspiration, all out of breath, and having lost his crown, proclaimed that the little women of the earth were delicious, and that the men alone were in the wrong. The curtain fell, and above the applause rose some voices shouting loudly, “All! All!” Then the curtain rose again, and the actors and actresses reappeared hand-in-hand. In their midst were Nana and Rose Mignon, bowing side by side. The applause was repeated, the claque surpassed their former efforts, and then the house slowly became half empty.
“I must go and pay my respects to Countess Muffat,” said La Faloise.
“Very well,” replied Fauchery; “and you can introduce me. We can go outside afterwards.”
But it was not such an easy matter to reach the balcony boxes, as the crowd in the passages was almost impenetrable. To pass through the different groups, it was necessary to use one’s elbows rather freely. Leaning against the wall, beneath a brass gas-bracket, the stout critic was giving his opinion of the piece to an attentive circle. People, as they passed, lingered and told their friends in a low voice who he was. It was rumoured that he had laughed during the whole act; however, he now showed himself very severe, and talked of good taste and morality. Farther on, the critic with the thin lips was most favourable, but his remarks had an unpleasant after-taste, like milk turned sour. Fauchery searched the different boxes with a glance through the small round windows in the doors. But the Count de Vandeuvres stopped him to ask him some questions. When he learnt that the two cousins intended paying their respects to the Muffats, he directed them to their box, No. 7, which he had just left. Then he whispered in the journalist’s ear:
“I say, old fellow, this Nana is surely the girl we met one night at the corner of the Rue de Provence.”
“Why, of course! you are right,” exclaimed Fauchery. “I was sure I had met her somewhere!”
La Faloise introduced his cousin to Count Muffat de Beuville, whose manner was cool in the extreme. But on hearing Fauchery’s name, the countess looked up quickly and complimented him on his articles in the “Figaro” in a well-turned phrase. Leaning against the velvet-covered balustrade, she half turned towards him with a graceful movement of her shoulders. They talked for a few minutes, and the conversation fell upon the Exhibition.
“It will certainly be very fine,” said the count, whose square face and regular features preserved a certain official gravity. “I visited the Champ de Mars
m to-day and I returned filled with wonder. ”
“I am told, however, that it will not be ready in time,” observed La Faloise. “Something has gone wrong—”
“It will be ready! The emperor insists upon it!” interrupted the count in his stern voice.
Fauchery told gaily how he had been almost lost in the aquarium, during its building one day when he had gone there in search of materials for an article. The countess smiled. She looked from time to time about the house, raising an arm with its long white glove reaching to the elbow, and fanning herself slowly. The seats were now mostly unoccupied; a few gentlemen who had remained in the stalls were reading the evening papers; and several women were receiving their friends much as if they were at home. There was now no sound above a well-bred whisper beneath the crystal gasalier, the brightness of which was dimmed by the fine dust raised by the stir at the end of the act. About the doors, some men lingered to inspect the few women who remained seated; and for a minute they stood quite motionless, stretching their necks, and displaying their white shirt fronts.
“We shall expect to see you next Tuesday,” said the countess to La Faloise.
And she extended her invitation to Fauchery, who thanked her with a low bow. The play was not alluded to, nor was the name of Nana pronounced. The count’s manner was so icy and dignified, that one might have supposed him to be at a meeting of the Corps Législatif.
n He took occasion to say, as if to explain their presence, that his father-in-law had an especial fondness for the theatre. The door of the box had remained open, and the Marquis de Chouard, who had gone out to leave room for the visitors, now stood tall and erect in the doorway, his pale, flabby face shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, as he followed with his dim eyes the women who passed. As soon as the countess had given her invitation, Fauchery retired, feeling that under the circumstances it would not be in good taste to discuss the play. La Faloise left the box the last. He had just noticed in Count de Vandeuvres’s stage-box the fair-haired Labordette, quite at his ease, and conversing intimately with Blanche de Sivry.
“I say,” said he, as he joined his cousin, “this Labordette appears to know all the women. He’s with Blanche now.”
“Know them all! Of course he does,” answered Fauchery, coolly. “Why, wherever have you sprung from, young man?”
The passage was not nearly so crowded now. Fauchery was on the point of going down the stairs when Lucy Stewart called him. She was standing just outside the door of her box. The heat, she said, was intolerable inside; so, in company of Caroline Héquet and her mother, she blocked up the whole width of the passage, crunching burnt almonds. One of the box-openers was conversing with them in a maternal manner. Lucy began at once to pick a quarrel with the journalist. He was a nice fellow—he was in a precious hurry to go and see the other women, but he couldn’t even come and ask them to have a drink! Then, suddenly dropping the subject, she said lightly:
“I say, old fellow, I think Nana a big hit.”
She wanted him to be in her box for the last act; but he escaped, promising to see them at the end of the piece. Outside, in front of the theatre, Fauchery and La Faloise lit their cigarettes. A small crowd blocked the pavement, formed of a part of the male portion of the audience, who had come down the steps to breathe the fresh night air, amidst the growing stillness of the Boulevard.
In the meanwhile Mignon had dragged Steiner to the Café des Variétés. Seeing Nana’s success, he spoke of her enthusiastically, all the time watching the banker from out of the corner of his eye. He knew him; twice had he assisted him in deceiving Rose, and when the caprice was over, had brought him back to her, faithful and penitent. Inside the café the too numerous customers were squeezing round the marble tables, and some men, standing up, were drinking hastily; the large mirrors reflected this mass of heads ad infinitum, and increased inordinately the size of the narrow saloon with its three gasaliers, its mole-skin-covered seats, and its winding staircase draped with red. Steiner seated himself at a table in the outer room, which was quite open on to the Boulevard, the frontage having been removed a little too early for the season. As Fauchery and his cousin passed, the banker stopped them.
“Come and take a glass of beer with us,” he said.
He himself, however, was absorbed with an idea which had just occurred to him; he wanted to have a bouquet thrown to Nana. At length he called one of the waiters, whom he familiarly named Augustus. Mignon, who was listening to all he said, looked at him so straight in the eyes that he became quite disconcerted as he faltered, “Two bouquets, Augustus, and give them to one of the attendants. One for each of the ladies, at the right moment, you understand.”
At the other end of the room, with her head supported against the frame of a mirror, a girl, who could not have been more than eighteen, sat motionless before an empty glass, as though benumbed by a long and useless waiting. Beneath the natural curls of her beautiful fair hair appeared the face of a virgin with a pair of velvety eyes looking so gentle and honest. She wore a dress of faded green silk, with a round hat which had been knocked in by sundry blows. The chilly evening air made her look quite white.
“Hallo! why, there’s Satin,” murmured Fauchery as he caught sight of her.
La Faloise questioned him. Oh! she was nobody. Only a wretched street-walker; but she was so foul-mouthed, it was rare fun to make her talk. And the journalist raised his voice: “Whatever are you doing there, Satin?”
“Wearing my guts out,” she quietly replied, without moving.
The four men, highly delighted, burst out laughing. Mignon assured the others that there was no need to hurry; it would take at least twenty minutes to set up the scenery of the third act. But the two cousins, who had finished their beer, wished to return to the theatre; they felt cold. Then Mignon, left alone with Steiner, leaned both elbows on the table, and, looking him full in the face, said, “Well then, it’s quite understood, we will call on her, and I will introduce you. You know, it’s quite between ourselves; my wife need not know anything about it.”
Back in their places, Fauchery and La Faloise noticed in the second tier of boxes a very pretty woman, very quietly dressed. She was accompanied by a solemn-looking gentleman, the head of a department at the Ministry of the Interior, whom La Faloise knew from having met him at the Muffats’. As for Fauchery, he said he believed she was called Madame Robert—a worthy woman who had a lover, but never more than one, and he was always a highly respectable person. As they turned round, Daguenet smiled at them. Now that Nana had proved a success, he no longer kept himself in the background; he had just returned from wandering about the house and enjoying her triumph. The youngster, fresh from college, beside him had not once quitted his seat, so overpowering was the state of admiration into which the sight of Nana had plunged him. So that, then, was woman! and he blushed deeply, and kept taking off and putting on his gloves mechanically. At last, as his neighbour had talked about Nana, he ventured to question him.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but this lady, who is playing—do you happen to know her?”
“Yes—a little—” murmured Daguenet in surprise, and with some hesitation.
“Then you know her address?”
The question came so abruptly, and so strangely, as addressed to him, that Daguenet felt like slapping the lad’s face.
“I do not,” he answered coldly, and turned his back.
The youngster understood that he had been guilty of some impropriety; he blushed all the more, and was mortified beyond expression.
The three knocks resounded throughout the house, and some of the attendants, their arms full of opera-cloaks and overcoats, were obstinately endeavouring to restore the various garments to their owners, who were hastening back to their seats. The claque applauded the scenery, which represented a grotto in Mount Etna,
o hollowed out of a silver mine, with sides that glittered like newly coined crown pieces; at the back was Vulcan’s forge, with all the tints of a sunset. In the second scene Diana arranged everything with the god, who was to pretend to go on a journey so as to leave the coast clear for Venus and Mars. Then scarcely was Diana left alone, than Venus arrived. A thrill ran through the audience. Nana was next to naked. She appeared in her nakedness with a calm audacity, confident in the all-powerfulness of her flesh. A slight gauze enveloped her; her round shoulders, her amazonian breasts, the rosy tips of which stood out straight and firm as lances, her broad hips swayed by the most voluptuous movements, her plump thighs, in fact, her whole body could be divined, nay, seen, white as the foam, beneath the transparent covering. It was Venus rising from the sea, with no other veil than her locks. And when Nana raised her arms, the glare of the footlights displayed to every gaze the golden hairs of her armpits. There was no applause. No one laughed now. The grave faces of the men were bent forward, their nostrils contracted, their mouths parched and irritated. A gentle breath, laden with an unknown menace, seemed to have passed over all. Out of this laughing girl there had suddenly emerged a woman, appalling all who beheld her, crowning all the follies of her sex, displaying to the world the hidden secrets of inordinate desire. Nana still preserved her smile, but it was the mocking one of a destroyer of men.
“The devil!” said Fauchery to La Faloise.
Mars, in the meantime, hurrying to the meeting, with his big hat and plume, found himself caught between the two goddesses. Then there ensued a scene in which Prullière played very ingeniously. Fondled by Diana, who wished to make a last attempt to bring him back into the right path before delivering him up to Vulcan’s vengeance, cajoled by Venus, whom the presence of her rival stimulated, he abandoned himself to all these endearments with the happy expression of a donkey in a field of clover. The scene ended with a grand trio, and it was at this moment that an attendant entered Lucy Stewart’s box, and threw two enormous bouquets of white lilac on to the stage. Every one applauded, and Nana and Rose Mignon curtsied their acknowledgments, whilst Prullière picked up the flowers. Some of the occupants of the stalls turned smilingly in the direction of the box occupied by Steiner and Mignon. The banker, all inflamed, moved his chin convulsively as though something had stuck in his throat. The acting which followed quite took the house by storm. Diana having gone off furious, Venus, seated on a bed of moss, at once called Mars to her side. Never before had so warm a scene of seduction been risked upon the stage. Nana, her arms around Prullière’s neck, was slowly drawing him to her, when Fontan, grotesquely imitating the most awful fury, exaggerating the looks of an outraged husband who surprises his wife in the very act, appeared at the back of the grotto. In his hands he held his famous iron net; for a moment he poised it like a fisherman about to throw, then, by some ingenious device, Venus and Mars were ensnared, the net covered them, and held them fast in their guilty posture.
Then arose a murmur resembling one huge sigh. A few hands clapped, and every opera-glass was fixed on Venus. Little by little Nana had gained possession of the audience and now every man succumbed to her. The lust she inspired, similar to an animal in heat, had grown more and more till it filled the house. Now, her slightest movements fanned the desire; the raising of her little finger caused all the flesh beholding her to quiver. Backs were arched, vibrating as though the muscles, like so many fiddle-strings, were being played on by some invisible hand; on the napes of the outstretched necks the down fluttered beneath the warm and errant breath escaped from some women’s lips. Fauchery beheld in front of him the youngster fresh from college start from his seat in his agitation. He had the curiosity to look at the Count de Vandeuvres, who was very pale, with tightly pressed lips—the stout Steiner, whose apoplectic face seemed bursting—Labordette examining through his eyeglass with the astonished look of a jockey admiring a thorough-bred mare—Daguenet, whose ears were flaming red, and trembling with enjoyment. Then, for an instant, he turned round, and was amazed at what he saw in the Muffats’ box: behind the countess, who was looking pale and serious, the count had raised himself up, his mouth wide open, and his face blurred with red blotches; whilst, beside him, in the shadow, the troubled eyes of the Marquis de Chouard had become cat-like in appearance, full of phosphorescence and flecked with gold.
The heat was suffocating; even the hair weighed heavily on the perspiring heads. During the three hours that the piece had lasted, the foul breath had given the atmosphere an odour of human flesh. In the blaze of light the dust now appeared thicker, and seemed suspended, motionless, beneath the big crystal gasalier. The audience, tired and excited, seized with those drowsy, midnight desires which murmur their wishes in the depths of alcoves, vacillated, and was gradually becoming dazed. And Nana, facing this half-swooning crowd, these fifteen hundred persons, packed one above the other, and sinking with emotion and the nervous excitement of an approaching finale, remained victorious with her marble flesh, her sex alone strong enough to conquer them all and remain scathless.
The play was rapidly drawing to an end. In answer to Vulcan’s triumphant calls, all Olympus defiled before the lovers, uttering cries of stupefaction or indulging in broad remarks. Jupiter said, “My son, I consider you are very foolish to call us to see this.” Then there was a sudden change of feeling in favour of Venus. The deputation of cuckolds, again introduced by Iris, beseeched the master of the gods not to give heed to their petition, for since their wives passed their evenings at home they made their lives unbearable, so they preferred to be deceived and happy, which was the moral of the piece. Venus, therefore, was set free. Vulcan obtained a judicial separation. Mars made it up again with Diana. Jupiter, for the sake of peace and quietness at home, sent the little washerwoman into a constellation; and Cupid was at last released from his prison, where he had been making paper fowls, instead of conjugating the verb “to love.” The curtain fell on an apotheosis, the deputation of cuckolds kneeling and singing a hymn of gratitude to Venus, smiling and exalted in her sovereign nudity.
The spectators had already risen from their seats, and were hastily making for the doors. The authors were named, and there was a double call in the midst of a thunder of applause. The cry, “Nana! Nana!” re-echoed again and again. Then, before the house was fairly empty, it became quite dark. The foot-lights were turned out, the lights of the gasalier were lowered, and long grey coverings were drawn over the gilding of the balconies; and the heat and the noise suddenly gave place to a death-like stillness, and an odour of dust and mildew. At the door of her box stood the Countess Muffat, wrapped in her furs and gazing into the darkness, as she waited for the crowd to pass away. In the passages the jostled attendants were fast losing their senses among the piles of cloaks and other garments. Fauchery and La Faloise had hurried to see the people come out. In the vestibule several gentlemen were waiting in a row, while down the double staircase descended two interminable and compact processions.
Steiner, led away by Mignon, was one of the first to leave. The Count de Vandeuvres went off with Blanche de Sivry on his arm. For a moment, Gaga and her daughter seemed embarrassed, but Labordette hastened to secure them a cab, and gallantly saw them into it. No one noticed Daguenet leave. As the youngster fresh from college, with his cheeks all aglow, bent upon waiting at the stage door, hastened to the Passage des Panoramas,
p the gate of which he found closed, Satin, loitering on the pavement, came and grazed him lightly with her skirts; but he, quite broken-hearted, roughly declined her advances, and disappeared in the crowd, with tears of powerless longing in his eyes. Some of the spectators, lighting cigars, went off humming the song—“When Venus takes an evening stroll.” Satin had returned to the Café des Variétés, where Augustus was allowing her to eat the lumps of sugar left by the customers. A stout man, who was greatly excited, having just quitted the theatre, at length took her off into the darkness of the now gradually hushed Boulevard.
The crowd still continued to pour down the double staircase. La Faloise was waiting for Clarisse, and Fauchery had promised to escort Lucy Stewart, with Caroline Héquet and her mother. They now arrived, monopolising a whole corner of the vestibule to themselves, and laughing loudly, just as the Muffats passed, looking very frigid. At that moment Bordenave, opening a little door, appeared, and obtained from Fauchery a distinct promise of a notice. He was covered with perspiration, his face as red as though he had had a sunstroke, and looking intoxicated with success.
“Your piece will run for two hundred nights at least,” said La Faloise, obligingly. “All Paris will visit your theatre.”
But Bordenave, his rage getting the better of him, indicated, with a rapid movement of his chin, the crowd that filled the vestibule—that mob of men with parched mouths and sparkling eyes, still inflamed with their passionate longing for Nana—and violently exclaimed:—
“Say my brothel, can’t you? you pig-headed animal!”