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By Root 1398 0

looked at the lady’s naked legs when she brought up the absinthe in a glass. All the conversation of the two women had reference to men’s abominable ways. Nana was quite unendurable with her Fontan; she could not utter ten words without alluding to something he had said or done. But Satin good-naturedly listened to these eternal stories of watchings at the window, of quarrels about a burned stew, and of reconciliations in bed after hours of sulking. Through a hankering always to talk about him, Nana ended by recounting all the blows that he gave her. Only the previous week he had blackened her eye, and the evening before, not being able to find his slippers, he had given her a blow which had sent her reeling against the night-table. And the other expressed no surprise, quietly puffing her cigarette, and only interrupting Nana to say that for her part she always ducked, with the result of sending the gentleman and his blow to the other end of the room.

They both became deeply interested in these stories of beatings, feeling happy and diverted by the constant repetition of the same stupid incidents, and yielding over again to the warm and sluggish lassitude occasioned by the infamous thrashings of which they spoke. It was the enjoyment of discussing Fontan’s blows, of always talking about him, even to describing his way of taking off his boots, that brought Nana there every day, the more especially as Satin invariably sympathised with her. She told in return of things that happened to her which were even worse—of a pastry cook who would leave her on the ground for dead, and whom all the same she loved more than ever. Then came the days when Nana cried, and declared that she could not put up with it any longer. Satin accompanied her to her door, and waited an hour in the street to see if Fontan didn’t murder her; and, on the morrow, the two women enjoyed the afternoon, discussing the reconciliation, preferring, however, though without saying so, the days when there was a good row on because that impassioned them the more.

They became inseparable. Yet, Satin never went to Nana‘s, Fontan having declared that he would not have any strumpets in his place. They would walk out together, and it was thus that one day Satin took her to call on a woman, who turned out to be the Madame Robert whom Nana often thought about with a certain respect ever since she had declined to come to her supper. Madame Robert lived in the Rue Mosnier, one of the new and quiet streets near the Place de l’Europe, not containing a single shop, and the handsome houses of which, with their tiny suites of apartments, are entirely occupied by ladies. It was five o’clock; down the silent thoroughfare, amidst the aristocratic quietude of the tall white houses, the broughams of stock-jobbers and merchants awaited, whilst men hurried along the foot pavements, raising their eyes to the windows, where women in dressing-gowns seemed to be watching for them. Nana at first would not go upstairs, saying stiffly that she was not acquainted with the lady; but Satin insisted. One could always take a friend with one. She was merely paying a visit of politeness. Madame Robert, whom she had met the day before in a restaurant, had behaved very nicely to her, and had made her promise to come and see her. So Nana at length gave in. Upstairs, a little servant, half asleep, said that her mistress was out. However, she ushered them into the drawing-room, and left them there.

“By Jove! how handsome!” murmured Satin.

It was furnished in the severe style of the middle classes, and the hangings were of sombre hue, whilst the whole had that appearance of gentility usually to be seen in the surroundings of the Parisian shopkeeper who has retired on a fortune. Nana, drawing her own conclusions from all this, began to make a few broad remarks; but Satin got angry, and answered for Madame Robert’s virtue. She was always to be met in company with grave elderly gentlemen, with whom she walked arm-in-arm. Just now she had a retired chocolate manufacturer, who was of a most serious turn of