y it; no, I didn't
enjoy it one bit. It bored me, on my honor. Well then, I ask you whether
I've got anything to do with it! Yes, they bored me to death! If it
hadn't been for them and what they made of me, dear boy, I should be
in a convent saying my prayers to the good God, for I've always had my
share of religion. Dash it, after all, if they have dropped their money
and their lives over it, what do I care? It's their fault. I've had
nothing to do with it!"

"Certainly not," said Labordette with conviction.

Zoe ushered in Mignon, and Nana received him smilingly. She had cried
a good deal, but it was all over now. Still glowing with enthusiasm, he
complimented her on her installation, but she let him see that she had
had enough of her mansion and that now she had other projects and would
sell everything up one of these days. Then as he excused himself for
calling on the ground that he had come about a benefit performance
in aid of old Bose, who was tied to his armchair by paralysis, she
expressed extreme pity and took two boxes. Meanwhile Zoe announced that
the carriage was waiting for Madame, and she asked for her hat and as
she tied the strings told them about poor, dear Satin's mishap, adding:

"I'm going to the hospital. Nobody ever loved me as she did. Oh, they're
quite right when they accuse the men of heartlessness! Who knows?
Perhaps I shan't see her alive. Never mind, I shall ask to see her: I
want to give her a kiss."

Labordette and Mignon smiled, and as Nana was no longer melancholy she
smiled too. Those two fellows didn't count; they could enter into her
feelings. And they both stood and admired her in silent abstraction
while she finished buttoning her gloves. She alone kept her feet amid
the heaped-up riches of her mansion, while a whole generation of men lay
stricken down before her. Like those antique monsters whose redoubtable
domains were covered with skeletons, she rested her feet on human
skulls. She was ringed round with catastrophes. There was the furious
immolation of Vandeuvres; the melancholy state of Foucarmont, who was
lost in the China seas; the smashup of Steiner, who now had to live
like an honest man; the satisfied idiocy of La Faloise, and the tragic
shipwreck of the Muffats. Finally there was the white corpse of Georges,
over which Philippe was now watching, for he had come out of prison but
yesterday. She had finished her labor of ruin and death. The fly that
had flown up from th