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By Root 1354 0

of the male sex. It was a sudden and definitive start in a new career, a rapid rise in the celebrity of gallantry, in the full light of the follies of wealth and of the wasteful effronteries of beauty. She reigned at once among all that was most costly. Her photographs were in all the windows, her name was mentioned in the newspapers. When she passed along the Boulevards in her carriage, the crowd turned to look at her, and uttered her name with the emotion of a people saluting its sovereign; whilst she, quite at her ease, reclined in her wavy costumes, and smiled gaily beneath the shower of little golden curls which half hid the blue circle round her eyes and the carmine on her lips. And the marvel was that this big girl, who was so awkward on the stage, so ludicrous the moment she tried to act the respectable woman, charmed every one about town without an effort. Adorned with a deshabille as artful and exquisitely elegant as it was ostensibly unintentional, she combined the suppleness of the adder with the nervous distinction of a thorough-bred cat, like an aristocracy of vice, superb and rebellious, treading Paris under foot in the manner of an all-powerful mistress. She set the fashion, and great ladies followed it.

Nana’s mansion was in the Avenue de Villiers, at the corner of the Rue Cardinet, in that quarter of luxury which had sprung up in the midst of the empty expanse, formerly the plain of Monceau. Erected by a young painter intoxicated by a first success, and who had been forced to sell it when the plaster was scarcely dry, it was built in the renaissance style, with the air of a palace, a certain fantastical internal arrangement, and modern conveniences within a space rather restricted for such a display of originality. Count Muffat had purchased the place furnished, full of a host of knick-knacks, of beautiful Eastern hangings, of old credences, and big arm-chairs of the time of Louis XIII.; and Nana had thus fallen into a stock of the choicest artistic furniture selected from the productions of centuries. But as the studio which occupied the centre of the building could be of no use to her, she had pulled the different floors to pieces, leaving on the ground floor a conservatory, a drawing-room, and a dining-room, and arranging a parlour on the first floor close to her bed-room and dressing-room. She surprised the architect by the ideas she gave him, showing herself at once at home in all the refinements of luxury, like the Paris street-girl who has the instinct of elegance. In short, she did not spoil the mansion over much—she even added to the richness of its furniture—with the exception of a few traces of tender stupidity and gaudy splendour, typical of the former artificial flower-maker who had dreamily gazed into the shop windows of the Passages.

A carpet was laid up the steps in the courtyard beneath the grand verandah; and from the vestibule there came an odour of violets, a warm atmosphere confined by heavy hangings. A yellow and rose-coloured glass window, of the paleness of flesh, lighted the wide staircase, at the foot of which stood the figure of a negro, in sculptured wood, holding a silver salver full of visiting cards. Four women in white marble, with bare breasts, supported some elegant lamps, whilst bronzes and Chinese vases filled with flowers, sofas covered with the products of ancient Persian looms, and easy-chairs with old tapestries furnished the vestibule, adorned the landings, turning the one on the first floor into a kind of ante-room, in which men’s coats and hats were always to be seen lying about. The carpets deadened all sound, and such a peacefulness hung about that one might have imagined oneself entering a chapel traversed by some pious tremor, and the silence of which hid a mystery behind the closed doors.

Nana only opened the drawing-room, which was in the Louis XVI. style, and rather overdone, on gala-nights when she entertained persons from the Tuileries, or distinguished foreigners. Usually, she was only downstairs at meal times, feeling, moreover, rather lost on the