Nana | Page 4

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