the exhibition. Louise Violaine and
Lea favored the emperor of Austria, and all of a sudden little Maria
Blond was heard saying:

"What an old stick the king of Prussia is! I was at Baden last year, and
one was always meeting him about with Count Bismarck."

"Dear me, Bismarck!" Simonne interrupted. "I knew him once, I did. A
charming man."

"That's what I was saying yesterday," cried Vandeuvres, "but nobody
would believe me."

And just as at Countess Sabine's, there ensued a long discussion about
Bismarck. Vandeuvres repeated the same phrases, and for a moment or two
one was again in the Muffats' drawing room, the only difference being
that the ladies were changed. Then, just as last night, they passed on
to a discussion on music, after which, Foucarmont having let slip some
mention of the assumption of the veil of which Paris was still talking,
Nana grew quite interested and insisted on details about Mlle de
Fougeray. Oh, the poor child, fancy her burying herself alive like that!
Ah well, when it was a question of vocation! All round the table the
women expressed themselves much touched, and Georges, wearied at hearing
these things a second time discussed, was beginning to ask Daguenet
about Nana's ways in private life, when the conversation veered
fatefully back to Count Bismarck. Tatan Nene bent toward Labordette to
ask him privily who this Bismarck might be, for she did not know him.
Whereupon Labordette, in cold blood, told her some portentous anecdotes.
This Bismarck, he said, was in the habit of eating raw meat and when
he met a woman near his den would carry her off thither on his back;
at forty years of age he had already had as many as thirty-two children
that way.

"Thirty-two children at forty!" cried Tatan Nene, stupefied and yet
convinced. "He must be jolly well worn out for his age."

There was a burst of merriment, and it dawned on her that she was being
made game of.

"You sillies! How am I to know if you're joking?"

Gaga, meanwhile, had stopped at the exhibition. Like all these ladies,
she was delightedly preparing for the fray. A good season, provincials
and foreigners rushing into Paris! In the long run, perhaps, after the
close of the exhibition she would, if her business had flourished, be
able to retire to a little house at Jouvisy, which she had long had her
eye on.

"What's to be done?" she said to La Faloise. "One never gets what one
wants! Oh, if only one were still really loved!