ll,
it didn't matter to her! Yet seeing that the lady was keeping them
waiting, she declared that she would not stay longer, and accordingly
they both took their departure.

The next day Fontan informed Nana that he was not coming home to dinner,
and she went down early to find Satin with a view to treating her at a
restaurant. The choice of the restaurant involved infinite debate. Satin
proposed various brewery bars, which Nana thought detestable, and at
last persuaded her to dine at Laure's. This was a table d'hote in the
Rue des Martyrs, where the dinner cost three francs.

Tired of waiting for the dinner hour and not knowing what to do out in
the street, the pair went up to Laure's twenty minutes too early. The
three dining rooms there were still empty, and they sat down at a table
in the very saloon where Laure Piedefer was enthroned on a high bench
behind a bar. This Laure was a lady of some fifty summers, whose
swelling contours were tightly laced by belts and corsets. Women kept
entering in quick procession, and each, in passing, craned upward so
as to overtop the saucers raised on the counter and kissed Laure on the
mouth with tender familiarity, while the monstrous creature tried, with
tears in her eyes, to divide her attentions among them in such a way as
to make no one jealous. On the other hand, the servant who waited on the
ladies was a tall, lean woman. She seemed wasted with disease, and
her eyes were ringed with dark lines and glowed with somber fire. Very
rapidly the three saloons filled up. There were some hundred customers,
and they had seated themselves wherever they could find vacant places.
The majority were nearing the age of forty: their flesh was puffy and so
bloated by vice as almost to hide the outlines of their flaccid mouths.
But amid all these gross bosoms and figures some slim, pretty girls were
observable. These still wore a modest expression despite their impudent
gestures, for they were only beginners in their art, who had started
life in the ballrooms of the slums and had been brought to Laure's by
some customer or other. Here the tribe of bloated women, excited by the
sweet scent of their youth, jostled one another and, while treating
them to dainties, formed a perfect court round them, much as old amorous
bachelors might have done. As to the men, they were not numerous. There
were ten or fifteen of them at the outside, and if we except four tall
fellows who had come to see the sigh