to be left in peace, and on two occasions he had prevented her
from being put "on the lists." But at present she was in a great fright,
for if she were to be nabbed again there was a clear case against her.
You had only to listen to her! For the sake of perquisites the police
used to take up as many women as possible. They laid hold of everybody
and quieted you with a slap if you shouted, for they were sure of being
defended in their actions and rewarded, even when they had taken a
virtuous girl among the rest. In the summer they would swoop upon the
boulevard in parties of twelve or fifteen, surround a whole long reach
of sidewalk and fish up as many as thirty women in an evening. Satin,
however, knew the likely places, and the moment she saw a plain-clothes
man heaving in sight she took to her heels, while the long lines of
women on the pavements scattered in consternation and fled through the
surrounding crowd. The dread of the law and of the magistracy was such
that certain women would stand as though paralyzed in the doorways of
the cafes while the raid was sweeping the avenue without. But Satin
was even more afraid of being denounced, for her pastry cook had proved
blackguard enough to threaten to sell her when she had left him. Yes,
that was a fake by which men lived on their mistresses! Then, too, there
were the dirty women who delivered you up out of sheer treachery if you
were prettier than they! Nana listened to these recitals and felt her
terrors growing upon her. She had always trembled before the law, that
unknown power, that form of revenge practiced by men able and willing
to crush her in the certain absence of all defenders. Saint-Lazare she
pictured as a grave, a dark hole, in which they buried live women after
they had cut off their hair. She admitted that it was only necessary to
leave Fontan and seek powerful protectors. But as matters stood it was
in vain that Satin talked to her of certain lists of women's names,
which it was the duty of the plainclothes men to consult, and of certain
photographs accompanying the lists, the originals of which were on no
account to be touched. The reassurance did not make her tremble the
less, and she still saw herself hustled and dragged along and finally
subjected to the official medical inspection. The thought of the
official armchair filled her with shame and anguish, for had she not
bade it defiance a score of times?

Now it so happened that one evening toward