CHAPTER I
At
nine o'clock in the evening the body of the house at the Theatres des
Varietes was still all but empty. A few individuals, it is true, were
sitting quietly waiting in the balcony and stalls, but these were
lost, as it were, among the ranges of seats whose coverings of
cardinal velvet loomed in the subdued light of the dimly burning
luster. A shadow enveloped the great red splash of the curtain, and
not a sound came from the stage, the unlit footlights, the scattered
desks of the orchestra. It was only high overhead in the third
gallery, round the domed ceiling where nude females and children flew
in heavens which had turned green in the gaslight, that calls and
laughter were audible above a continuous hubbub of voices, and heads
in women's and workmen's caps were ranged, row above row, under the
wide-vaulted bays with their gilt-surrounding adornments. Every few
seconds an attendant would make her appearance, bustling along with
tickets in her hand and piloting in front of her a gentleman and a
lady, who took their seats, he in his evening dress, she sitting slim
and undulant beside him while her eyes wandered slowly round the
house.Two
young men appeared in the stalls; they kept standing and looked about
them."Didn't
I say so, Hector?" cried the elder of the two, a tall fellow
with little black mustaches. "We're too early! You might quite
well have allowed me to finish my cigar."An
attendant was passing."Oh,
Monsieur Fauchery," she said familiarly, "it won't begin
for half an hour yet!""Then
why do they advertise for nine o'clock?" muttered Hector, whose
long thin face assumed an expression of vexation. "Only this
morning Clarisse, who's in the piece, swore that they'd begin at nine
o'clock punctually."For
a moment they remained silent and, looking upward, scanned the
shadowy boxes. But the green paper with which these were hung
rendered them more shadowy still. Down below, under the dress circle,
the lower boxes were buried in utter night. In those on the second
tier there was only one stout lady, who was stranded, as it were, on
the velvet-covered balustrade in front of her. On the right hand and
on the left, between lofty pilasters, the stage boxes, bedraped with
long-fringed scalloped hangings, remained untenanted. The house with
its white and gold, relieved by soft green tones, lay only half
disclosed to view, as though full of a fine dust shed from the little
jets of flame in the great glass luster."Did
you get your stage box for Lucy?" asked Hector."Yes,"
replied his companion, "but I had some trouble to get it. Oh,
there's no danger of Lucy coming too early!"He
stifled a slight yawn; then after a pause:"You're
in luck's way, you are, since you haven't been at a first night
before. The Blonde Venus will be the event of the year. People have
been talking about it for six months. Oh, such music, my dear boy!
Such a sly dog, Bordenave! He knows his business and has kept this
for the exhibition season." Hector was religiously attentive. He
asked a question."And
Nana, the new star who's going to play Venus, d'you know her?""There
you are; you're beginning again!" cried Fauchery, casting up his
arms. "Ever since this morning people have been dreeing me with
Nana. I've met more than twenty people, and it's Nana here and Nana
there! What do I know? Am I acquainted with all the light ladies in
Paris? Nana is an invention of Bordenave's! It must be a fine one!"He
calmed himself, but the emptiness of the house, the dim light of the
luster, the churchlike sense of self-absorption which the place
inspired, full as it was of whispering voices and the sound of doors
banging—all these got on his nerves."No,
by Jove," he said all of a sudden, "one's hair turns gray
here. I—I'm going out. Perhaps we shall find Bordenave downstairs.
He'll give us information about things."Downstairs
in the great marble-paved entrance hall, where the box office was,
the public were beginning to show themselves. Through the three open
gates might have been observed, passing in, the ardent life of the
boulevards, which were all astir and aflare under the fine April
night. The sound of carriage wheels kept stopping suddenly; carriage
doors were noisily shut again, and people began entering in small
groups, taking their stand before the ticket bureau and climbing the
double flight of stairs at the end of the hall, up which the women
loitered with swaying hips. Under the crude gaslight, round the pale,
naked walls of the entrance hall, which with its scanty First Empire
decorations suggested the peristyle of a toy temple, there was a
flaring display of lofty yellow posters bearing the name of "Nana"
in great black letters. Gentlemen, who seemed to be glued to the
entry, were reading them; others, standing about, were engaged in
talk, barring the doors of the house in so doing, while hard by the
box office a thickset man with an extensive, close-shaven visage was
giving rough answers to such as pressed to engage seats."There's
Bordenave," said Fauchery as he came down the stairs. But the
manager had already seen him."Ah,
ah! You're a nice fellow!" he shouted at him from a distance.
"That's the way you give me a notice, is it? Why, I opened my
Figaro this morning—never a word!""Wait
a bit," replied Fauchery. "I certainly must make the
acquaintance of your Nana before talking about her. Besides, I've
made no promises."Then
to put an end to the discussion, he introduced his cousin, M. Hector
de la Faloise, a young man who had come to finish his education in
Paris. The manager took the young man's measure at a glance. But
Hector returned his scrutiny with deep interest. This, then, was that
Bordenave, that showman of the sex who treated women like a convict
overseer, that clever fellow who was always at full steam over some
advertising dodge, that shouting, spitting, thigh-slapping fellow,
that cynic with the soul of a policeman! Hector was under the
impression that he ought to discover some amiable observation for the
occasion."Your
theater—" he began in dulcet tones.Bordenave
interrupted him with a savage phrase, as becomes a man who dotes on
frank situations."Call
it my brothel!"At
this Fauchery laughed approvingly, while La Faloise stopped with his
pretty speech strangled in his throat, feeling very much shocked and
striving to appear as though he enjoyed the phrase. The manager had
dashed off to shake hands with a dramatic critic whose column had
considerable influence. When he returned La Faloise was recovering.
He was afraid of being treated as a provincial if he showed himself
too much nonplused."I
have been told," he began again, longing positively to find
something to say, "that Nana has a delicious voice.""Nana?"
cried the manager, shrugging his shoulders. "The voice of a
squirt!"The
young man made haste to add:"Besides
being a first-rate comedian!""She?
Why she's a lump! She has no notion what to do with her hands and
feet."La
Faloise blushed a little. He had lost his bearings. He stammered:"I
wouldn't have missed this first representation tonight for the world.
I was aware that your theater—""Call
it my brothel," Bordenave again interpolated with the frigid
obstinacy of a man convinced.Meanwhile
Fauchery, with extreme calmness, was looking at the women as they
came in. He went to his cousin's rescue when he saw him all at sea
and doubtful whether to laugh or to be angry."Do
be pleasant to Bordenave—call his theater what he wishes you to,
since it amuses him. And you, my dear fellow, don't keep us waiting
about for nothing. If your Nana neither sings nor acts you'll find
you've made a blunder, that's all. It's what I'm afraid of, if the
truth be told.""A
blunder! A blunder!" shouted the manager, and his face grew
purple. "Must a woman know how to act and sing? Oh, my chicken,
you're too STOOPID. Nana has other good points, by heaven!—something
which is as good as all the other things put together. I've smelled
it out; it's deuced pronounced with her, or I've got the scent of an
idiot. You'll see, you'll see! She's only got to come on, and all the
house will be gaping at her."He
had held up his big hands which were trembling under the influence of
his eager enthusiasm, and now, having relieved his feelings, he
lowered his voice and grumbled to himself:"Yes,
she'll go far! Oh yes, s'elp me, she'll go far! A skin—oh, what a
skin she's got!"Then
as Fauchery began questioning him he consented to enter into a
detailed explanation, couched in phraseology so crude that Hector de
la Faloise felt slightly disgusted. He had been thick with Nana, and
he was anxious to start her on the stage. Well, just about that time
he was in search of a Venus. He—he never let a woman encumber him
for any length of time; he preferred to let the public enjoy the
benefit of her forthwith. But there was a deuce of a row going on in
his shop, which had been turned topsy-turvy by that big damsel's
advent. Rose Mignon, his star, a comic actress of much subtlety and
an adorable singer, was daily threatening to leave him in the lurch,
for she was furious and guessed the presence of a rival. And as for
the bill, good God! What a noise there had been about it all! It had
ended by his deciding to print the names of the two actresses in the
same-sized type. But it wouldn't do to bother him. Whenever any of
his little women, as he called them—Simonne or Clarisse, for
instance—wouldn't go the way he wanted her to he just up with his
foot and caught her one in the rear. Otherwise life was impossible.
Oh yes, he sold 'em; HE knew what they fetched, the wenches!"Tut!"
he cried, breaking off short. "Mignon and Steiner. Always
together. You know, Steiner's getting sick of Rose; that's why the
husband dogs his steps now for fear of his slipping away."On
the pavement outside, the row of gas jets flaring on the cornice of
the theater cast a patch of brilliant light. Two small trees,
violently green, stood sharply out against it, and a column gleamed
in such vivid illumination that one could read the notices thereon at
a distance, as though in broad daylight, while the dense night of the
boulevard beyond was dotted with lights above the vague outline of an
ever-moving crowd. Many men did not enter the theater at once but
stayed outside to talk while finishing their cigars under the rays of
the line of gas jets, which shed a sallow pallor on their faces and
silhouetted their short black shadows on the asphalt. Mignon, a very
tall, very broad fellow, with the square-shaped head of a strong man
at a fair, was forcing a passage through the midst of the groups and
dragging on his arm the banker Steiner, an exceedingly small man with
a corporation already in evidence and a round face framed in a
setting of beard which was already growing gray."Well,"
said Bordenave to the banker, "you met her yesterday in my
office.""Ah!
It was she, was it?" ejaculated Steiner. "I suspected as
much. Only I was coming out as she was going in, and I scarcely
caught a glimpse of her."Mignon
was listening with half-closed eyelids and nervously twisting a great
diamond ring round his finger. He had quite understood that Nana was
in question. Then as Bordenave was drawing a portrait of his new
star, which lit a flame in the eyes of the banker, he ended by
joining in the conversation."Oh,
let her alone, my dear fellow; she's a low lot! The public will show
her the door in quick time. Steiner, my laddie, you know that my wife
is waiting for you in her box."He
wanted to take possession of him again. But Steiner would not quit
Bordenave. In front of them a stream of people was crowding and
crushing against the ticket office, and there was a din of voices, in
the midst of which the name of Nana sounded with all the melodious
vivacity of its two syllables. The men who stood planted in front of
the notices kept spelling it out loudly; others, in an interrogative
tone, uttered it as they passed; while the women, at once restless
and smiling, repeated it softly with an air of surprise. Nobody knew
Nana. Whence had Nana fallen? And stories and jokes, whispered from
ear to ear, went the round of the crowd. The name was a caress in
itself; it was a pet name, the very familiarity of which suited every
lip. Merely through enunciating it thus, the throng worked itself
into a state of gaiety and became highly good natured. A fever of
curiosity urged it forward, that kind of Parisian curiosity which is
as violent as an access of positive unreason. Everybody wanted to see
Nana. A lady had the flounce of her dress torn off; a man lost his
hat."Oh,
you're asking me too many questions about it!" cried Bordenave,
whom a score of men were besieging with their queries. "You're
going to see her, and I'm off; they want me."He
disappeared, enchanted at having fired his public. Mignon shrugged
his shoulders, reminding Steiner that Rose was awaiting him in order
to show him the costume she was about to wear in the first act."By
Jove! There's Lucy out there, getting down from her carriage,"
said La Faloise to Fauchery.It
was, in fact, Lucy Stewart, a plain little woman, some forty years
old, with a disproportionately long neck, a thin, drawn face, a heavy
mouth, but withal of such brightness, such graciousness of manner,
that she was really very charming. She was bringing with her Caroline
Hequet and her mother—Caroline a woman of a cold type of beauty,
the mother a person of a most worthy demeanor, who looked as if she
were stuffed with straw."You're
coming with us? I've kept a place for you," she said to
Fauchery. "Oh, decidedly not! To see nothing!" he made
answer. "I've a stall; I prefer being in the stalls."Lucy
grew nettled. Did he not dare show himself in her company? Then,
suddenly restraining herself and skipping to another topic:"Why
haven't you told me that you knew Nana?""Nana!
I've never set eyes on her.""Honor
bright? I've been told that you've been to bed with her."But
Mignon, coming in front of them, his finger to his lips, made them a
sign to be silent. And when Lucy questioned him he pointed out a
young man who was passing and murmured:"Nana's
fancy man."Everybody
looked at him. He was a pretty fellow. Fauchery recognized him; it
was Daguenet, a young man who had run through three hundred thousand
francs in the pursuit of women and who now was dabbling in stocks, in
order from time to time to treat them to bouquets and dinners. Lucy
made the discovery that he had fine eyes."Ah,
there's Blanche!" she cried. "It's she who told me that you
had been to bed with Nana."Blanche
de Sivry, a great fair girl, whose good-looking face showed signs of
growing fat, made her appearance in the company of a spare,
sedulously well-groomed and extremely distinguished man."The
Count Xavier de Vandeuvres," Fauchery whispered in his
companion's ear.The
count and the journalist shook hands, while Blanche and Lucy entered
into a brisk, mutual explanation. One of them in blue, the other in
rose-pink, they stood blocking the way with their deeply flounced
skirts, and Nana's name kept repeating itself so shrilly in their
conversation that people began to listen to them. The Count de
Vandeuvres carried Blanche off. But by this time Nana's name was
echoing more loudly than ever round the four walls of the entrance
hall amid yearnings sharpened by delay. Why didn't the play begin?
The men pulled out their watches; late-comers sprang from their
conveyances before these had fairly drawn up; the groups left the
sidewalk, where the passers-by were crossing the now-vacant space of
gaslit pavement, craning their necks, as they did so, in order to get
a peep into the theater. A street boy came up whistling and planted
himself before a notice at the door, then cried out, "Woa,
Nana!" in the voice of a tipsy man and hied on his way with a
rolling gait and a shuffling of his old boots. A laugh had arisen at
this. Gentlemen of unimpeachable appearance repeated: "Nana,
woa, Nana!" People were crushing; a dispute arose at the ticket
office, and there was a growing clamor caused by the hum of voices
calling on Nana, demanding Nana in one of those accesses of silly
facetiousness and sheer animalism which pass over mobs.But
above all the din the bell that precedes the rise of the curtain
became audible. "They've rung; they've rung!" The rumor
reached the boulevard, and thereupon followed a stampede, everyone
wanting to pass in, while the servants of the theater increased their
forces. Mignon, with an anxious air, at last got hold of Steiner
again, the latter not having been to see Rose's costume. At the very
first tinkle of the bell La Faloise had cloven a way through the
crowd, pulling Fauchery with him, so as not to miss the opening
scene. But all this eagerness on the part of the public irritated
Lucy Stewart. What brutes were these people to be pushing women like
that! She stayed in the rear of them all with Caroline Hequet and her
mother. The entrance hall was now empty, while beyond it was still
heard the long-drawn rumble of the boulevard."As
though they were always funny, those pieces of theirs!" Lucy
kept repeating as she climbed the stair.In
the house Fauchery and La Faloise, in front of their stalls, were
gazing about them anew. By this time the house was resplendent. High
jets of gas illumined the great glass chandelier with a rustling of
yellow and rosy flames, which rained down a stream of brilliant light
from dome to floor. The cardinal velvets of the seats were shot with
hues of lake, while all the gilding shone again, the soft green
decorations chastening its effect beneath the too-decided paintings
of the ceiling. The footlights were turned up and with a vivid flood
of brilliance lit up the curtain, the heavy purple drapery of which
had all the richness befitting a palace in a fairy tale and
contrasted with the meanness of the proscenium, where cracks showed
the plaster under the gilding. The place was already warm. At their
music stands the orchestra were tuning their instruments amid a
delicate trilling of flutes, a stifled tooting of horns, a singing of
violin notes, which floated forth amid the increasing uproar of
voices. All the spectators were talking, jostling, settling
themselves in a general assault upon seats; and the hustling rush in
the side passages was now so violent that every door into the house
was laboriously admitting the inexhaustible flood of people. There
were signals, rustlings of fabrics, a continual march past of skirts
and head dresses, accentuated by the black hue of a dress coat or a
surtout. Notwithstanding this, the rows of seats were little by
little getting filled up, while here and there a light toilet stood
out from its surroundings, a head with a delicate profile bent
forward under its chignon, where flashed the lightning of a jewel. In
one of the boxes the tip of a bare shoulder glimmered like snowy
silk. Other ladies, sitting at ease, languidly fanned themselves,
following with their gaze the pushing movements of the crowd, while
young gentlemen, standing up in the stalls, their waistcoats cut very
low, gardenias in their buttonholes, pointed their opera glasses with
gloved finger tips.It
was now that the two cousins began searching for the faces of those
they knew. Mignon and Steiner were together in a lower box, sitting
side by side with their arms leaning for support on the velvet
balustrade. Blanche de Sivry seemed to be in sole possession of a
stage box on the level of the stalls. But La Faloise examined
Daguenet before anyone else, he being in occupation of a stall two
rows in front of his own. Close to him, a very young man, seventeen
years old at the outside, some truant from college, it may be, was
straining wide a pair of fine eyes such as a cherub might have owned.
Fauchery smiled when he looked at him."Who
is that lady in the balcony?" La Faloise asked suddenly. "The
lady with a young girl in blue beside her."He
pointed out a large woman who was excessively tight-laced, a woman
who had been a blonde and had now become white and yellow of tint,
her broad face, reddened with paint, looking puffy under a rain of
little childish curls."It's
Gaga," was Fauchery's simple reply, and as this name seemed to
astound his cousin, he added:"You
don't know Gaga? She was the delight of the early years of Louis
Philippe. Nowadays she drags her daughter about with her wherever she
goes."La
Faloise never once glanced at the young girl. The sight of Gaga moved
him; his eyes did not leave her again. He still found her very good
looking but he dared not say so.Meanwhile
the conductor lifted his violin bow and the orchestra attacked the
overture. People still kept coming in; the stir and noise were on the
increase. Among that public, peculiar to first nights and never
subject to change, there were little subsections composed of intimate
friends, who smilingly forgathered again. Old first-nighters, hat on
head, seemed familiar and quite at ease and kept exchanging
salutations. All Paris was there, the Paris of literature, of finance
and of pleasure. There were many journalists, several authors, a
number of stock-exchange people and more courtesans than honest
women. It was a singularly mixed world, composed, as it was, of all
the talents and tarnished by all the vices, a world where the same
fatigue and the same fever played over every face. Fauchery, whom his
cousin was questioning, showed him the boxes devoted to the
newspapers and to the clubs and then named the dramatic critics—a
lean, dried-up individual with thin, spiteful lips and, chief of all,
a big fellow with a good-natured expression, lolling on the shoulder
of his neighbor, a young miss over whom he brooded with tender and
paternal eyes.But
he interrupted himself on seeing La Faloise in the act of bowing to
some persons who occupied the box opposite. He appeared surprised."What?"
he queried. "You know the Count Muffat de Beuville?""Oh,
for a long time back," replied Hector. "The Muffats had a
property near us. I often go to their house. The count's with his
wife and his father-in-law, the Marquis de Chouard."And
with some vanity—for he was happy in his cousin's astonishment—he
entered into particulars. The marquis was a councilor of state; the
count had recently been appointed chamberlain to the empress.
Fauchery, who had caught up his opera glass, looked at the countess,
a plump brunette with a white skin and fine dark eyes."You
shall present me to them between the acts," he ended by saying.
"I have already met the count, but I should like to go to them
on their Tuesdays."Energetic
cries of "Hush" came from the upper galleries. The overture
had begun, but people were still coming in. Late arrivals were
obliging whole rows of spectators to rise; the doors of boxes were
banging; loud voices were heard disputing in the passages. And there
was no cessation of the sound of many conversations, a sound similar
to the loud twittering of talkative sparrows at close of day. All was
in confusion; the house was a medley of heads and arms which moved to
and fro, their owners seating themselves or trying to make themselves
comfortable or, on the other hand, excitedly endeavoring to remain
standing so as to take a final look round. The cry of "Sit down,
sit down!" came fiercely from the obscure depths of the pit. A
shiver of expectation traversed the house: at last people were going
to make the acquaintance of this famous Nana with whom Paris had been
occupying itself for a whole week!Little
by little, however, the buzz of talk dwindled softly down among
occasional fresh outbursts of rough speech. And amid this swooning
murmur, these perishing sighs of sound, the orchestra struck up the
small, lively notes of a waltz with a vagabond rhythm bubbling with
roguish laughter. The public were titillated; they were already on
the grin. But the gang of clappers in the foremost rows of the pit
applauded furiously. The curtain rose."By
George!" exclaimed La Faloise, still talking away. "There's
a man with Lucy."He
was looking at the stage box on the second tier to his right, the
front of which Caroline and Lucy were occupying. At the back of this
box were observable the worthy countenance of Caroline's mother and
the side face of a tall young man with a noble head of light hair and
an irreproachable getup."Do
look!" La Faloise again insisted. "There's a man there."Fauchery
decided to level his opera glass at the stage box. But he turned
round again directly."Oh,
it's Labordette," he muttered in a careless voice, as though
that gentle man's presence ought to strike all the world as though
both natural and immaterial.Behind
the cousins people shouted "Silence!" They had to cease
talking. A motionless fit now seized the house, and great stretches
of heads, all erect and attentive, sloped away from stalls to topmost
gallery. The first act of the Blonde Venus took place in Olympus, a
pasteboard Olympus, with clouds in the wings and the throne of
Jupiter on the right of the stage. First of all Iris and Ganymede,
aided by a troupe of celestial attendants, sang a chorus while they
arranged the seats of the gods for the council. Once again the
prearranged applause of the clappers alone burst forth; the public, a
little out of their depth, sat waiting. Nevertheless, La Faloise had
clapped Clarisse Besnus, one of Bordenave's little women, who played
Iris in a soft blue dress with a great scarf of the seven colors of
the rainbow looped round her waist."You
know, she draws up her chemise to put that on," he said to
Fauchery, loud enough to be heard by those around him. "We tried
the trick this morning. It was all up under her arms and round the
small of her back."But
a slight rustling movement ran through the house; Rose Mignon had
just come on the stage as Diana. Now though she had neither the face
nor the figure for the part, being thin and dark and of the adorable
type of ugliness peculiar to a Parisian street child, she nonetheless
appeared charming and as though she were a satire on the personage
she represented. Her song at her entrance on the stage was full of
lines quaint enough to make you cry with laughter and of complaints
about Mars, who was getting ready to desert her for the companionship
of Venus. She sang it with a chaste reserve so full of sprightly
suggestiveness that the public warmed amain. The husband and Steiner,
sitting side by side, were laughing complaisantly, and the whole
house broke out in a roar when Prulliere, that great favorite,
appeared as a general, a masquerade Mars, decked with an enormous
plume and dragging along a sword, the hilt of which reached to his
shoulder. As for him, he had had enough of Diana; she had been a
great deal too coy with him, he averred. Thereupon Diana promised to
keep a sharp eye on him and to be revenged. The duet ended with a
comic yodel which Prulliere delivered very amusingly with the yell of
an angry tomcat. He had about him all the entertaining fatuity of a
young leading gentleman whose love affairs prosper, and he rolled
around the most swaggering glances, which excited shrill feminine
laughter in the boxes.Then
the public cooled again, for the ensuing scenes were found tiresome.
Old Bosc, an imbecile Jupiter with head crushed beneath the weight of
an immense crown, only just succeeded in raising a smile among his
audience when he had a domestic altercation with Juno on the subject
of the cook's accounts. The march past of the gods, Neptune, Pluto,
Minerva and the rest, was well-nigh spoiling everything. People grew
impatient; there was a restless, slowly growing murmur; the audience
ceased to take an interest in the performance and looked round at the
house. Lucy began laughing with Labordette; the Count de Vandeuvres
was craning his neck in conversation behind Blanche's sturdy
shoulders, while Fauchery, out of the corners of his eyes, took stock
of the Muffats, of whom the count appeared very serious, as though he
had not understood the allusions, and the countess smiled vaguely,
her eyes lost in reverie. But on a sudden, in this uncomfortable
state of things, the applause of the clapping contingent rattled out
with the regularity of platoon firing. People turned toward the
stage. Was it Nana at last? This Nana made one wait with a vengeance.It
was a deputation of mortals whom Ganymede and Iris had introduced,
respectable middle-class persons, deceived husbands, all of them, and
they came before the master of the gods to proffer a complaint
against Venus, who was assuredly inflaming their good ladies with an
excess of ardor. The chorus, in quaint, dolorous tones, broken by
silences full of pantomimic admissions, caused great amusement. A
neat phrase went the round of the house: "The cuckolds' chorus,
the cuckolds' chorus," and it "caught on," for there
was an encore. The singers' heads were droll; their faces were
discovered to be in keeping with the phrase, especially that of a fat
man which was as round as the moon. Meanwhile Vulcan arrived in a
towering rage, demanding back his wife who had slipped away three
days ago. The chorus resumed their plaint, calling on Vulcan, the god
of the cuckolds. Vulcan's part was played by Fontan, a comic actor of
talent, at once vulgar and original, and he had a role of the wildest
whimsicality and was got up as a village blacksmith, fiery red wig,
bare arms tattooed with arrow-pierced hearts and all the rest of it.
A woman's voice cried in a very high key, "Oh, isn't he ugly?"
and all the ladies laughed and applauded.Then
followed a scene which seemed interminable. Jupiter in the course of
it seemed never to be going to finish assembling the Council of Gods
in order to submit thereto the deceived husband's requests. And still
no Nana! Was the management keeping Nana for the fall of the curtain
then? So long a period of expectancy had ended by annoying the
public. Their murmurings began again."It's
going badly," said Mignon radiantly to Steiner. "She'll get
a pretty reception; you'll see!"At
that very moment the clouds at the back of the stage were cloven
apart and Venus appeared. Exceedingly tall, exceedingly strong, for
her eighteen years, Nana, in her goddess's white tunic and with her
light hair simply flowing unfastened over her shoulders, came down to
the footlights with a quiet certainty of movement and a laugh of
greeting for the public and struck up her grand ditty:"When
Venus roams at eventide."From
the second verse onward people looked at each other all over the
house. Was this some jest, some wager on Bordenave's part? Never had
a more tuneless voice been heard or one managed with less art. Her
manager judged of her excellently; she certainly sang like a squirt.
Nay, more, she didn't even know how to deport herself on the stage:
she thrust her arms in front of her while she swayed her whole body
to and fro in a manner which struck the audience as unbecoming and
disagreeable. Cries of "Oh, oh!" were already rising in the
pit and the cheap places. There was a sound of whistling, too, when a
voice in the stalls, suggestive of a molting cockerel, cried out with
great conviction:"That's
very smart!"All
the house looked round. It was the cherub, the truant from the
boarding-school, who sat with his fine eyes very wide open and his
fair face glowing very hotly at sight of Nana. When he saw everybody
turning toward him he grew extremely red at the thought of having
thus unconsciously spoken aloud. Daguenet, his neighbor, smilingly
examined him; the public laughed, as though disarmed and no longer
anxious to hiss; while the young gentlemen in white gloves,
fascinated in their turn by Nana's gracious contours, lolled back in
their seats and applauded."That's
it! Well done! Bravo!"Nana,
in the meantime, seeing the house laughing, began to laugh herself.
The gaiety of all redoubled itself. She was an amusing creature, all
the same, was that fine girl! Her laughter made a love of a little
dimple appear in her chin. She stood there waiting, not bored in the
least, familiar with her audience, falling into step with them at
once, as though she herself were admitting with a wink that she had
not two farthings' worth of talent but that it did not matter at all,
that, in fact, she had other good points. And then after having made
a sign to the conductor which plainly signified, "Go ahead, old
boy!" she began her second verse:"'Tis
Venus who at midnight passes—"Still
the same acidulated voice, only that now it tickled the public in the
right quarter so deftly that momentarily it caused them to give a
little shiver of pleasure. Nana still smiled her smile: it lit up her
little red mouth and shone in her great eyes, which were of the
clearest blue. When she came to certain rather lively verses a
delicate sense of enjoyment made her tilt her nose, the rosy nostrils
of which lifted and fell, while a bright flush suffused her cheeks.
She still swung herself up and down, for she only knew how to do
that. And the trick was no longer voted ugly; on the contrary, the
men raised their opera glasses. When she came to the end of a verse
her voice completely failed her, and she was well aware that she
never would get through with it. Thereupon, rather than fret herself,
she kicked up her leg, which forthwith was roundly outlined under her
diaphanous tunic, bent sharply backward, so that her bosom was thrown
upward and forward, and stretched her arms out. Applause burst forth
on all sides. In the twinkling of an eye she had turned on her heel
and was going up the stage, presenting the nape of her neck to the
spectators' gaze, a neck where the red-gold hair showed like some
animal's fell. Then the plaudits became frantic.The
close of the act was not so exciting. Vulcan wanted to slap Venus.
The gods held a consultation and decided to go and hold an inquiry on
earth before granting the deceived husband satisfaction. It was then
that Diana surprised a tender conversation between Venus and Mars and
vowed that she would not take her eyes off them during the whole of
the voyage. There was also a scene where Love, played by a little
twelve-year-old chit, answered every question put to her with "Yes,
Mamma! No, Mamma!" in a winy-piny tone, her fingers in her nose.
At last Jupiter, with the severity of a master who is growing cross,
shut Love up in a dark closet, bidding her conjugate the verb "I
love" twenty times. The finale was more appreciated: it was a
chorus which both troupe and orchestra performed with great
brilliancy. But the curtain once down, the clappers tried in vain to
obtain a call, while the whole house was already up and making for
the doors.The
crowd trampled and jostled, jammed, as it were, between the rows of
seats, and in so doing exchanged expressions. One phrase only went
round:"It's
idiotic." A critic was saying that it would be one's duty to do
a pretty bit of slashing. The piece, however, mattered very little,
for people were talking about Nana before everything else. Fauchery
and La Faloise, being among the earliest to emerge, met Steiner and
Mignon in the passage outside the stalls. In this gaslit gut of a
place, which was as narrow and circumscribed as a gallery in a mine,
one was well-nigh suffocated. They stopped a moment at the foot of
the stairs on the right of the house, protected by the final curve of
the balusters. The audience from the cheap places were coming down
the steps with a continuous tramp of heavy boots; a stream of black
dress coats was passing, while an attendant was making every possible
effort to protect a chair, on which she had piled up coats and
cloaks, from the onward pushing of the crowd."Surely
I know her," cried Steiner, the moment he perceived Fauchery.
"I'm certain I've seen her somewhere—at the casino, I imagine,
and she got herself taken up there—she was so drunk.""As
for me," said the journalist, "I don't quite know where it
was. I am like you; I certainly have come across her."He
lowered his voice and asked, laughing:"At
the Tricons', perhaps.""Egad,
it was in a dirty place," Mignon declared. He seemed
exasperated. "It's disgusting that the public give such a
reception to the first trollop that comes by. There'll soon be no
more decent women on the stage. Yes, I shall end by forbidding Rose
to play."Fauchery
could not restrain a smile. Meanwhile the downward shuffle of the
heavy shoes on the steps did not cease, and a little man in a
workman's cap was heard crying in a drawling voice:"Oh
my, she ain't no wopper! There's some pickings there!"In
the passage two young men, delicately curled and formally resplendent
in turndown collars and the rest, were disputing together. One of
them was repeating the words, "Beastly, beastly!" without
stating any reasons; the other was replying with the words,
"Stunning, stunning!" as though he, too, disdained all
argument.La
Faloise declared her to be quite the thing; only he ventured to opine
that she would be better still if she were to cultivate her voice.
Steiner, who was no longer listening, seemed to awake with a start.
Whatever happens, one must wait, he thought. Perhaps everything will
be spoiled in the following acts. The public had shown complaisance,
but it was certainly not yet taken by storm. Mignon swore that the
piece would never finish, and when Fauchery and La Faloise left them
in order to go up to the foyer he took Steiner's arm and, leaning
hard against his shoulder, whispered in his ear:"You're
going to see my wife's costume for the second act, old fellow. It IS
just blackguardly."Upstairs
in the foyer three glass chandeliers burned with a brilliant light.
The two cousins hesitated an instant before entering, for the widely
opened glazed doors afforded a view right through the gallery—a
view of a surging sea of heads, which two currents, as it were, kept
in a continuous eddying movement. But they entered after all. Five or
six groups of men, talking very loudly and gesticulating, were
obstinately discussing the play amid these violent interruptions;
others were filing round, their heels, as they turned, sounding
sharply on the waxed floor. To right and left, between columns of
variegated imitation marble, women were sitting on benches covered
with red velvet and viewing the passing movement of the crowd with an
air of fatigue as though the heat had rendered them languid. In the
lofty mirrors behind them one saw the reflection of their chignons.
At the end of the room, in front of the bar, a man with a huge
corporation was drinking a glass of fruit syrup.But
Fauchery, in order to breathe more freely, had gone to the balcony.
La Faloise, who was studying the photographs of actresses hung in
frames alternating with the mirrors between the columns, ended by
following him. They had extinguished the line of gas jets on the
facade of the theater, and it was dark and very cool on the balcony,
which seemed to them unoccupied. Solitary and enveloped in shadow, a
young man was standing, leaning his arms on the stone balustrade, in
the recess to the right. He was smoking a cigarette, of which the
burning end shone redly. Fauchery recognized Daguenet. They shook
hands warmly."What
are you after there, my dear fellow?" asked the journalist.
"You're hiding yourself in holes and crannies—you, a man who
never leaves the stalls on a first night!""But
I'm smoking, you see," replied Daguenet.Then
Fauchery, to put him out of countenance:"Well,
well! What's your opinion of the new actress? She's being roughly
handled enough in the passages.""Bah!"
muttered Daguenet. "They're people whom she'll have had nothing
to do with!"That
was the sum of his criticism of Nana's talent. La Faloise leaned
forward and looked down at the boulevard. Over against them the
windows of a hotel and of a club were brightly lit up, while on the
pavement below a dark mass of customers occupied the tables of the
Cafe de Madrid. Despite the lateness of the hour the crowd were still
crushing and being crushed; people were advancing with shortened
step; a throng was constantly emerging from the Passage Jouffroy;
individuals stood waiting five or six minutes before they could cross
the roadway, to such a distance did the string of carriages extend."What
a moving mass! And what a noise!" La Faloise kept reiterating,
for Paris still astonished him.The
bell rang for some time; the foyer emptied. There was a hurrying of
people in the passages. The curtain was already up when whole bands
of spectators re-entered the house amid the irritated expressions of
those who were once more in their places. Everyone took his seat
again with an animated look and renewed attention. La Faloise
directed his first glance in Gaga's direction, but he was dumfounded
at seeing by her side the tall fair man who but recently had been in
Lucy's stage box."What
IS that man's name?" he asked.Fauchery
failed to observe him."Ah
yes, it's Labordette," he said at last with the same careless
movement. The scenery of the second act came as a surprise. It
represented a suburban Shrove Tuesday dance at the Boule Noire.
Masqueraders were trolling a catch, the chorus of which was
accompanied with a tapping of their heels. This 'Arryish departure,
which nobody had in the least expected, caused so much amusement that
the house encored the catch. And it was to this entertainment that
the divine band, let astray by Iris, who falsely bragged that he knew
the Earth well, were now come in order to proceed with their inquiry.
They had put on disguises so as to preserve their incognito. Jupiter
came on the stage as King Dagobert, with his breeches inside out and
a huge tin crown on his head. Phoebus appeared as the Postillion of
Lonjumeau and Minerva as a Norman nursemaid. Loud bursts of merriment
greeted Mars, who wore an outrageous uniform, suggestive of an Alpine
admiral. But the shouts of laughter became uproarious when Neptune
came in view, clad in a blouse, a high, bulging workman's cap on his
head, lovelocks glued to his temples. Shuffling along in slippers, he
cried in a thick brogue."Well,
I'm blessed! When ye're a masher it'll never do not to let 'em love
yer!"There
were some shouts of "Oh! Oh!" while the ladies held their
fans one degree higher. Lucy in her stage box laughed so
obstreperously that Caroline Hequet silenced her with a tap of her
fan.From
that moment forth the piece was saved—nay, more, promised a great
success. This carnival of the gods, this dragging in the mud of their
Olympus, this mock at a whole religion, a whole world of poetry,
appeared in the light of a royal entertainment. The fever of
irreverence gained the literary first-night world: legend was
trampled underfoot; ancient images were shattered. Jupiter's make-up
was capital. Mars was a success. Royalty became a farce and the army
a thing of folly. When Jupiter, grown suddenly amorous of a little
laundress, began to knock off a mad cancan, Simonne, who was playing
the part of the laundress, launched a kick at the master of the
immortals' nose and addressed him so drolly as "My big daddy!"
that an immoderate fit of laughter shook the whole house. While they
were dancing Phoebus treated Minerva to salad bowls of negus, and
Neptune sat in state among seven or eight women who regaled him with
cakes. Allusions were eagerly caught; indecent meanings were attached
to them; harmless phrases were diverted from their proper
significations in the light of exclamations issuing from the stalls.
For a long time past the theatrical public had not wallowed in folly
more irreverent. It rested them.Nevertheless,
the action of the piece advanced amid these fooleries. Vulcan, as an
elegant young man clad, down to his gloves, entirely in yellow and
with an eyeglass stuck in his eye, was forever running after Venus,
who at last made her appearance as a fishwife, a kerchief on her head
and her bosom, covered with big gold trinkets, in great evidence.
Nana was so white and plump and looked so natural in a part demanding
wide hips and a voluptuous mouth that she straightway won the whole
house. On her account Rose Mignon was forgotten, though she was made
up as a delicious baby, with a wicker-work burlet on her head and a
short muslin frock and had just sighed forth Diana's plaints in a
sweetly pretty voice. The other one, the big wench who slapped her
thighs and clucked like a hen, shed round her an odor of life, a
sovereign feminine charm, with which the public grew intoxicated.
From the second act onward everything was permitted her. She might
hold herself awkwardly; she might fail to sing some note in tune; she
might forget her words—it mattered not: she had only to turn and
laugh to raise shouts of applause. When she gave her famous kick from
the hip the stalls were fired, and a glow of passion rose upward,
upward, from gallery to gallery, till it reached the gods. It was a
triumph, too, when she led the dance. She was at home in that: hand
on hip, she enthroned Venus in the gutter by the pavement side. And
the music seemed made for her plebeian voice—shrill, piping music,
with reminiscences of Saint-Cloud Fair, wheezings of clarinets and
playful trills on the part of the little flutes.Two
numbers were again encored. The opening waltz, that waltz with the
naughty rhythmic beat, had returned and swept the gods with it. Juno,
as a peasant woman, caught Jupiter and his little laundress cleverly
and boxed his ears. Diana, surprising Venus in the act of making an
assignation with Mars, made haste to indicate hour and place to
Vulcan, who cried, "I've hit on a plan!" The rest of the
act did not seem very clear. The inquiry ended in a final galop after
which Jupiter, breathless, streaming with perspiration and minus his
crown, declared that the little women of Earth were delicious and
that the men were all to blame.The
curtain was falling, when certain voices, rising above the storm of
bravos, cried uproariously:"All!
All!"Thereupon
the curtain rose again; the artistes reappeared hand in hand. In the
middle of the line Nana and Rose Mignon stood side by side, bowing
and curtsying. The audience applauded; the clappers shouted
acclamations. Then little by little the house emptied."I
must go and pay my respects to the Countess Muffat," said La
Faloise. "Exactly so; you'll present me," replied Fauchery;
"we'll go down afterward."But
it was not easy to get to the first-tier boxes. In the passage at the
top of the stairs there was a crush. In order to get forward at all
among the various groups you had to make yourself small and to slide
along, using your elbows in so doing. Leaning under a copper lamp,
where a jet of gas was burning, the bulky critic was sitting in
judgment on the piece in presence of an attentive circle. People in
passing mentioned his name to each other in muttered tones. He had
laughed the whole act through—that was the rumor going the round of
the passages—nevertheless, he was now very severe and spoke of
taste and morals. Farther off the thin-lipped critic was brimming
over with a benevolence which had an unpleasant aftertaste, as of
milk turned sour.Fauchery
glanced along, scrutinizing the boxes through the round openings in
each door. But the Count de Vandeuvres stopped him with a question,
and when he was informed that the two cousins were going to pay their
respects to the Muffats, he pointed out to them box seven, from which
he had just emerged. Then bending down and whispering in the
journalist's ear:"Tell
me, my dear fellow," he said, "this Nana—surely she's the
girl we saw one evening at the corner of the Rue de Provence?""By
Jove, you're right!" cried Fauchery. "I was saying that I
had come across her!"La
Faloise presented his cousin to Count Muffat de Beuville, who
appeared very frigid. But on hearing the name Fauchery the countess
raised her head and with a certain reserve complimented the
paragraphist on his articles in the Figaro. Leaning on the
velvet-covered support in front of her, she turned half round with a
pretty movement of the shoulders. They talked for a short time, and
the Universal Exhibition was mentioned."It
will be very fine," said the count, whose square-cut,
regular-featured face retained a certain gravity."I
visited the Champ de Mars today and returned thence truly
astonished.""They
say that things won't be ready in time," La Faloise ventured to
remark. "There's infinite confusion there—"But
the count interrupted him in his severe voice:"Things
will be ready. The emperor desires it."Fauchery
gaily recounted how one day, when he had gone down thither in search
of a subject for an article, he had come near spending all his time
in the aquarium, which was then in course of construction. The
countess smiled. Now and again she glanced down at the body of the
house, raising an arm which a white glove covered to the elbow and
fanning herself with languid hand. The house dozed, almost deserted.
Some gentlemen in the stalls had opened out newspapers, and ladies
received visits quite comfortably, as though they were at their own
homes. Only a well-bred whispering was audible under the great
chandelier, the light of which was softened in the fine cloud of dust
raised by the confused movements of the interval. At the different
entrances men were crowding in order to talk to ladies who remained
seated. They stood there motionless for a few seconds, craning
forward somewhat and displaying the great white bosoms of their shirt
fronts."We
count on you next Tuesday," said the countess to La Faloise, and
she invited Fauchery, who bowed.Not
a word was said of the play; Nana's name was not once mentioned. The
count was so glacially dignified that he might have been supposed to
be taking part at a sitting of the legislature. In order to explain
their presence that evening he remarked simply that his father-in-law
was fond of the theater. The door of the box must have remained open,
for the Marquis de Chouard, who had gone out in order to leave his
seat to the visitors, was back again. He was straightening up his
tall, old figure. His face looked soft and white under a
broad-brimmed hat, and with his restless eyes he followed the
movements of the women who passed.The
moment the countess had given her invitation Fauchery took his leave,
feeling that to talk about the play would not be quite the thing. La
Faloise was the last to quit the box. He had just noticed the
fair-haired Labordette, comfortably installed in the Count de
Vandeuvres's stage box and chatting at very close quarters with
Blanche de Sivry."Gad,"
he said after rejoining his cousin, "that Labordette knows all
the girls then! He's with Blanche now.""Doubtless
he knows them all," replied Fauchery quietly. "What d'you
want to be taken for, my friend?"The
passage was somewhat cleared of people, and Fauchery was just about
to go downstairs when Lucy Stewart called him. She was quite at the
other end of the corridor, at the door of her stage box. They were
getting cooked in there, she said, and she took up the whole corridor
in company with Caroline Hequet and her mother, all three nibbling
burnt almonds. A box opener was chatting maternally with them. Lucy
fell out with the journalist. He was a pretty fellow; to be sure! He
went up to see other women and didn't even come and ask if they were
thirsty! Then, changing the subject:"You
know, dear boy, I think Nana very nice."She
wanted him to stay in the stage box for the last act, but he made his
escape, promising to catch them at the door afterward. Downstairs in
front of the theater Fauchery and La Faloise lit cigarettes. A great
gathering blocked the sidewalk, a stream of men who had come down
from the theater steps and were inhaling the fresh night air in the
boulevards, where the roar and battle had diminished.Meanwhile
Mignon had drawn Steiner away to the Cafe des Varietes. Seeing Nana's
success, he had set to work to talk enthusiastically about her, all
the while observing the banker out of the corners of his eyes. He
knew him well; twice he had helped him to deceive Rose and then, the
caprice being over, had brought him back to her, faithful and
repentant. In the cafe the too numerous crowd of customers were
squeezing themselves round the marble-topped tables. Several were
standing up, drinking in a great hurry. The tall mirrors reflected
this thronging world of heads to infinity and magnified the narrow
room beyond measure with its three chandeliers, its moleskin-covered
seats and its winding staircase draped with red. Steiner went and
seated himself at a table in the first saloon, which opened full on
the boulevard, its doors having been removed rather early for the
time of year. As Fauchery and La Faloise were passing the banker
stopped them."Come
and take a bock with us, eh?" they said.But
he was too preoccupied by an idea; he wanted to have a bouquet thrown
to Nana. At last he called a waiter belonging to the cafe, whom he
familiarly addressed as Auguste. Mignon, who was listening, looked at
him so sharply that he lost countenance and stammered out:"Two
bouquets, Auguste, and deliver them to the attendant. A bouquet for
each of these ladies! Happy thought, eh?"At
the other end of the saloon, her shoulders resting against the frame
of a mirror, a girl, some eighteen years of age at the outside, was
leaning motionless in front of her empty glass as though she had been
benumbed by long and fruitless waiting. Under the natural curls of
her beautiful gray-gold hair a virginal face looked out at you with
velvety eyes, which were at once soft and candid.She
wore a dress of faded green silk and a round hat which blows had
dinted. The cool air of the night made her look very pale."Egad,
there's Satin," murmured Fauchery when his eye lit upon her.La
Faloise questioned him. Oh dear, yes, she was a streetwalker—she
didn't count. But she was such a scandalous sort that people amused
themselves by making her talk. And the journalist, raising his voice:"What
are you doing there, Satin?""I'm
bogging," replied Satin quietly without changing position.The
four men were charmed and fell a-laughing. Mignon assured them that
there was no need to hurry; it would take twenty minutes to set up
the scenery for the third act. But the two cousins, having drunk
their beer, wanted to go up into the theater again; the cold was
making itself felt. Then Mignon remained alone with Steiner, put his
elbows on the table and spoke to him at close quarters."It's
an understood thing, eh? We are to go to her house, and I'm to
introduce you. You know the thing's quite between ourselves—my wife
needn't know."Once
more in their places, Fauchery and La Faloise noticed a pretty,
quietly dressed woman in the second tier of boxes. She was with a
serious-looking gentleman, a chief clerk at the office of the
Ministry of the Interior, whom La Faloise knew, having met him at the
Muffats'. As to Fauchery, he was under the impression that her name
was Madame Robert, a lady of honorable repute who had a lover, only
one, and that always a person of respectability.But
they had to turn round, for Daguenet was smiling at them. Now that
Nana had had a success he no longer hid himself: indeed, he had just
been scoring triumphs in the passages. By his side was the young
truant schoolboy, who had not quitted his seat, so stupefying was the
state of admiration into which Nana had plunged him. That was it, he
thought; that was the woman! And he blushed as he thought so and
dragged his gloves on and off mechanically. Then since his neighbor
had spoken of Nana, he ventured to question him."Will
you pardon me for asking you, sir, but that lady who is acting—do
you know her?""Yes,
I do a little," murmured Daguenet with some surprise and
hesitation."Then
you know her address?"The
question, addressed as it was to him, came so abruptly that he felt
inclined to respond with a box on the ear."No,"
he said in a dry tone of voice.And
with that he turned his back. The fair lad knew that he had just been
guilty of some breach of good manners. He blushed more hotly than
ever and looked scared.The
traditional three knocks were given, and among the returning throng,
attendants, laden with pelisses and overcoats, bustled about at a
great rate in order to put away people's things. The clappers
applauded the scenery, which represented a grotto on Mount Etna,
hollowed out in a silver mine and with sides glittering like new
money. In the background Vulcan's forge glowed like a setting star.
Diana, since the second act, had come to a good understanding with
the god, who was to pretend that he was on a journey, so as to leave
the way clear for Venus and Mars. Then scarcely was Diana alone than
Venus made her appearance. A shiver of delight ran round the house.
Nana was nude. With quiet audacity she appeared in her nakedness,
certain of the sovereign power of her flesh. Some gauze enveloped
her, but her rounded shoulders, her Amazonian bosom, her wide hips,
which swayed to and fro voluptuously, her whole body, in fact, could
be divined, nay discerned, in all its foamlike whiteness of tint
beneath the slight fabric she wore. It was Venus rising from the
waves with no veil save her tresses. And when Nana lifted her arms
the golden hairs in her armpits were observable in the glare of the
footlights. There was no applause. Nobody laughed any more. The men
strained forward with serious faces, sharp features, mouths irritated
and parched. A wind seemed to have passed, a soft, soft wind, laden
with a secret menace. Suddenly in the bouncing child the woman stood
discovered, a woman full of restless suggestion, who brought with her
the delirium of sex and opened the gates of the unknown world of
desire. Nana was smiling still, but her smile was now bitter, as of a
devourer of men."By
God," said Fauchery quite simply to La Faloise.Mars
in the meantime, with his plume of feathers, came hurrying to the
trysting place and found himself between the two goddesses. Then
ensued a passage which Prulliere played with great delicacy. Petted
by Diana, who wanted to make a final attack upon his feelings before
delivering him up to Vulcan, wheedled by Venus, whom the presence of
her rival excited, he gave himself up to these tender delights with
the beatified expression of a man in clover. Finally a grand trio
brought the scene to a close, and it was then that an attendant
appeared in Lucy Stewart's box and threw on the stage two immense
bouquets of white lilacs. There was applause; Nana and Rose Mignon
bowed, while Prulliere picked up the bouquets. Many of the occupants
of the stalls turned smilingly toward the ground-floor occupied by
Steiner and Mignon. The banker, his face blood-red, was suffering
from little convulsive twitchings of the chin, as though he had a
stoppage in his throat.What
followed took the house by storm completely. Diana had gone off in a
rage, and directly afterward, Venus, sitting on a moss-clad seat,
called Mars to her. Never yet had a more glowing scene of seduction
been ventured on. Nana, her arms round Prulliere's neck, was drawing
him toward her when Fontan, with comically furious mimicry and an
exaggerated imitation of the face of an outraged husband who
surprises his wife in FLAGRANTE DELICTO, appeared at the back of the
grotto. He was holding the famous net with iron meshes. For an
instant he poised and swung it, as a fisherman does when he is going
to make a cast, and by an ingenious twist Venus and Mars were caught
in the snare; the net wrapped itself round them and held them
motionless in the attitude of happy lovers.A
murmur of applause swelled and swelled like a growing sigh. There was
some hand clapping, and every opera glass was fixed on Venus. Little
by little Nana had taken possession of the public, and now every man
was her slave.A
wave of lust had flowed from her as from an excited animal, and its
influence had spread and spread and spread till the whole house was
possessed by it. At that moment her slightest movement blew the flame
of desire: with her little finger she ruled men's flesh. Backs were
arched and quivered as though unseen violin bows had been drawn
across their muscles; upon men's shoulders appeared fugitive hairs,
which flew in air, blown by warm and wandering breaths, breathed one
knew not from what feminine mouth. In front of him Fauchery saw the
truant schoolboy half lifted from his seat by passion. Curiosity led
him to look at the Count de Vandeuvres—he was extremely pale, and
his lips looked pinched—at fat Steiner, whose face was purple to
the verge of apoplexy; at Labordette, ogling away with the highly
astonished air of a horse dealer admiring a perfectly shaped mare; at
Daguenet, whose ears were blood-red and twitching with enjoyment.
Then a sudden idea made him glance behind, and he marveled at what he
saw in the Muffats' box. Behind the countess, who was white and
serious as usual, the count was sitting straight upright, with mouth
agape and face mottled with red, while close by him, in the shadow,
the restless eyes of the Marquis de Chouard had become catlike
phosphorescent, full of golden sparkles. The house was suffocating;
people's very hair grew heavy on their perspiring heads. For three
hours back the breath of the multitude had filled and heated the
atmosphere with a scent of crowded humanity. Under the swaying glare
of the gas the dust clouds in mid-air had grown constantly denser as
they hung motionless beneath the chandelier. The whole house seemed
to be oscillating, to be lapsing toward dizziness in its fatigue and
excitement, full, as it was, of those drowsy midnight desires which
flutter in the recesses of the bed of passion. And Nana, in front of
this languorous public, these fifteen hundred human beings thronged
and smothered in the exhaustion and nervous exasperation which belong
to the close of a spectacle, Nana still triumphed by right of her
marble flesh and that sexual nature of hers, which was strong enough
to destroy the whole crowd of her adorers and yet sustain no injury.The
piece drew to a close. In answer to Vulcan's triumphant summons all
the Olympians defiled before the lovers with ohs and ahs of
stupefaction and gaiety. Jupiter said, "I think it is light
conduct on your part, my son, to summon us to see such a sight as
this." Then a reaction took place in favor of Venus. The chorus
of cuckolds was again ushered in by Iris and besought the master of
the gods not to give effect to its petition, for since women had
lived at home, domestic life was becoming impossible for the men: the
latter preferred being deceived and happy. That was the moral of the
play. Then Venus was set at liberty, and Vulcan obtained a partial
divorce from her. Mars was reconciled with Diana, and Jove, for the
sake of domestic peace, packed his little laundress off into a
constellation. And finally they extricated Love from his black hole,
where instead of conjugating the verb AMO he had been busy in the
manufacture of "dollies." The curtain fell on an
apotheosis, wherein the cuckolds' chorus knelt and sang a hymn of
gratitude to Venus, who stood there with smiling lips, her stature
enhanced by her sovereign nudity.