ed, and he was seeking how best to save it. But
Nana came up, took him by both hands and, drawing him toward her, asked
whether he thought her so very atrocious after all. She wasn't going
to eat his play--not she! Then she made him laugh and gave him to
understand that he would be foolish to be angry with her, in view of
his relationship to the Muffats. If, she said, her memory failed her she
would take her lines from the prompter. The house, too, would be packed
in such a way as to ensure applause. Besides, he was mistaken about her,
and he would soon see how she would rattle through her part. By and by
it was arranged that the author should make a few changes in the role of
the duchess so as to extend that of Prulliere. The last-named personage
was enraptured. Indeed, amid all the joy which Nana now quite naturally
diffused, Fontan alone remained unmoved. In the middle of the yellow
lamplight, against which the sharp outline of his goatlike profile
shone out with great distinctness, he stood showing off his figure and
affecting the pose of one who has been cruelly abandoned. Nana went
quietly up and shook hands with him.

"How are you getting on?"

"Oh, pretty fairly. And how are you?"

"Very well, thank you."

That was all. They seemed to have only parted at the doors of the
theater the day before. Meanwhile the players were waiting about, but
Bordenave said that the third act would not be rehearsed. And so it
chanced that old Bosc went grumbling away at the proper time, whereas
usually the company were needlessly detained and lost whole afternoons
in consequence. Everyone went off. Down on the pavement they were
blinded by the broad daylight and stood blinking their eyes in a dazed
sort of way, as became people who had passed three hours squabbling with
tight-strung nerves in the depths of a cellar. The count, with
racked limbs and vacant brain, got into a conveyance with Nana, while
Labordette took Fauchery off and comforted him.

A month later the first night of the Petite Duchesse proved supremely
disastrous to Nana. She was atrociously bad and displayed such
pretentions toward high comedy that the public grew mirthful. They
did not hiss--they were too amused. From a stage box Rose Mignon kept
greeting her rival's successive entrances with a shrill laugh, which set
the whole house off. It was the beginning of her revenge. Accordingly,
when at night Nana, greatly chagrined, found herself alone with Muffat,