Nana | Page 5

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