tion at her
time of life and with her knowledge. She burst out laughing and gave
vent to various expressions of surprise. It struck her as so queer,
and yet she was a little shocked by it, for she was really quite the
philistine outside the pale of her own habits. So she went back to
Laure's and fed there when Fontan was dining out. She derived much
amusement from the stories and the amours and the jealousies which
inflamed the female customers without hindering their appetites in the
slightest degree. Nevertheless, she still was not quite in it, as she
herself phrased it. The vast Laure, meltingly maternal as ever, used
often to invite her to pass a day or two at her Asnieries Villa, a
country house containing seven spare bedrooms. But she used to refuse;
she was afraid. Satin, however, swore she was mistaken about it, that
gentlemen from Paris swung you in swings and played tonneau with
you, and so she promised to come at some future time when it would be
possible for her to leave town.

At that time Nana was much tormented by circumstances and not at all
festively inclined. She needed money, and when the Tricon did not want
her, which too often happened, she had no notion where to bestow her
charms. Then began a series of wild descents upon the Parisian pavement,
plunges into the baser sort of vice, whose votaries prowl in muddy
bystreets under the restless flicker of gas lamps. Nana went back to the
public-house balls in the suburbs, where she had kicked up her heels
in the early ill-shod days. She revisited the dark corners on the outer
boulevards, where when she was fifteen years old men used to hug her
while her father was looking for her in order to give her a hiding. Both
the women would speed along, visiting all the ballrooms and restaurants
in a quarter and climbing innumerable staircases which were wet with
spittle and spilled beer, or they would stroll quietly about, going up
streets and planting themselves in front of carriage gates. Satin, who
had served her apprenticeship in the Quartier Latin, used to take Nana
to Bullier's and the public houses in the Boulevard Saint-Michel. But
the vacations were drawing on, and the Quarter looked too starved.
Eventually they always returned to the principal boulevards, for it was
there they ran the best chance of getting what they wanted. From the
heights of Montmartre to the observatory plateau they scoured the
whole town in the way we have been describing. They wer