splayed there in the religious immodesty befitting an idol of all
men's worship. And close by, beneath the snowy reflections of her bosom
and amid the triumph of the goddess, lay wallowing a shameful, decrepit
thing, a comic and lamentable ruin, the Marquis de Chouard in his
nightshirt.

The count had clasped his hands together and, shaken by a paroxysmal
shuddering, he kept crying:

"My God! My God!"

It was for the Marquis de Chouard, then, that the golden roses
flourished on the side panels, those bunches of golden roses blooming
among the golden leaves; it was for him that the Cupids leaned forth
with amorous, roguish laughter from their tumbling ring on the silver
trelliswork. And it was for him that the faun at his feet discovered the
nymph sleeping, tired with dalliance, the figure of Night copied down to
the exaggerated thighs--which caused her to be recognizable of all--from
Nana's renowned nudity. Cast there like the rag of something human
which has been spoiled and dissolved by sixty years of debauchery,
he suggested the charnelhouse amid the glory of the woman's dazzling
contours. Seeing the door open, he had risen up, smitten with sudden
terror as became an infirm old man. This last night of passion had
rendered him imbecile; he was entering on his second childhood; and,
his speech failing him, he remained in an attitude of flight,
half-paralyzed, stammering, shivering, his nightshirt half up his
skeleton shape, and one leg outside the clothes, a livid leg, covered
with gray hair. Despite her vexation Nana could not keep from laughing.

"Do lie down! Stuff yourself into the bed," she said, pulling him back
and burying him under the coverlet, as though he were some filthy thing
she could not show anyone.

Then she sprang up to shut the door again. She was decidedly never lucky
with her little rough. He was always coming when least wanted. And why
had he gone to fetch money in Normandy? The old man had brought her
the four thousand francs, and she had let him have his will of her. She
pushed back the two flaps of the door and shouted:

"So much the worse for you! It's your fault. Is that the way to come
into a room? I've had enough of this sort of thing. Ta ta!"

Muffat remained standing before the closed door, thunderstruck by what
he had just seen. His shuddering fit increased. It mounted from his feet
to his heart and brain. Then like a tree shaken by a mighty wind, he
swayed to and fro and dropped