and
windlasses, he came up in order to interrupt their confabulations. Nana
lifted her eyes and smiled at him as she smiled at His Highness. But she
kept her ears open notwithstanding, for she was waiting for her cue.

"The third act is the shortest, I believe," the prince began saying, for
the count's presence embarrassed him.

She did not answer; her whole expression altered; she was suddenly
intent on her business. With a rapid movement of the shoulders she had
let her furs slip from her, and Mme Jules, standing behind, had caught
them in her arms. And then after passing her two hands to her hair as
though to make it fast, she went on the stage in all her nudity.

"Hush, hush!" whispered Bordenave.

The count and the prince had been taken by surprise. There was profound
silence, and then a deep sigh and the far-off murmur of a multitude
became audible. Every evening when Venus entered in her godlike
nakedness the same effect was produced. Then Muffat was seized with
a desire to see; he put his eye to the peephole. Above and beyond the
glowing arc formed by the footlights the dark body of the house seemed
full of ruddy vapor, and against this neutral-tinted background, where
row upon row of faces struck a pale, uncertain note, Nana stood forth
white and vast, so that the boxes from the balcony to the flies were
blotted from view. He saw her from behind, noted her swelling hips, her
outstretched arms, while down on the floor, on the same level as her
feet, the prompter's head--an old man's head with a humble, honest
face--stood on the edge of the stage, looking as though it had been
severed from the body. At certain points in her opening number an
undulating movement seemed to run from her neck to her waist and to die
out in the trailing border of her tunic. When amid a tempest of applause
she had sung her last note she bowed, and the gauze floated forth round
about her limbs, and her hair swept over her waist as she bent sharply
backward. And seeing her thus, as with bending form and with exaggerated
hips she came backing toward the count's peephole, he stood upright
again, and his face was very white. The stage had disappeared, and he
now saw only the reverse side of the scenery with its display of old
posters pasted up in every direction. On the practicable slope, among
the lines of gas jets, the whole of Olympus had rejoined the dozing Mme
Drouard. They were waiting for the close of the act. Bosc and Fontan
sa