enough to put up
with him. By God, if you don't bring me that ten thousand francs tonight
you shan't even have the tip of my little finger to suck. I mean it! I
shall send you back to your wife!"

At night he brought the ten thousand francs. Nana put up her lips, and
he took a long kiss which consoled him for the whole day of anguish.
What annoyed the young woman was to have him continually tied to her
apron strings. She complained to M. Venot, begging him to take her
little rough off to the countess. Was their reconciliation good for
nothing then? She was sorry she had mixed herself up in it, since
despite everything he was always at her heels. On the days when, out of
anger, she forgot her own interest, she swore to play him such a dirty
trick that he would never again be able to set foot in her place. But
when she slapped her leg and yelled at him she might quite as well have
spat in his face too: he would still have stayed and even thanked
her. Then the rows about money matters kept continually recurring. She
demanded money savagely; she rowed him over wretched little amounts;
she was odiously stingy with every minute of her time; she kept fiercely
informing him that she slept with him for his money, not for any other
reasons, and that she did not enjoy it a bit, that, in fact, she loved
another and was awfully unfortunate in needing an idiot of his sort!
They did not even want him at court now, and there was some talk of
requiring him to send in his resignation. The empress had said, "He is
too disgusting." It was true enough. So Nana repeated the phrase by way
of closure to all their quarrels.

"Look here! You disgust me!"

Nowadays she no longer minded her ps and qs; she had regained the most
perfect freedom.

Every day she did her round of the lake, beginning acquaintanceships
which ended elsewhere. Here was the happy hunting ground par excellence,
where courtesans of the first water spread their nets in open daylight
and flaunted themselves amid the tolerating smiles and brilliant luxury
of Paris. Duchesses pointed her out to one another with a passing
look--rich shopkeepers' wives copied the fashion of her hats. Sometimes
her landau, in its haste to get by, stopped a file of puissant turnouts,
wherein sat plutocrats able to buy up all Europe or Cabinet ministers
with plump fingers tight-pressed to the throat of France. She belonged
to this Bois society, occupied a prominent place in it, was known in
every