Nana | Page 6

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