And she escaped and rejoined Steiner, feeling happy and once more possessed with the idea of drinking milk. In the empty room the Count de Vandeuvres was left alone with the “decorated” man who had recited “Abraham’s Sacri-AT THE VARIETES they were giving the thirty-fourth performance of the Blonde Venus. The first act had just finished, and in the greenroom Simonne, fice.” Both seemed glued to the card table; they had lost dressed as the little laundress, was standing in front of a count of their whereabouts and never once noticed the console table, surmounted by a looking glass and situated broad light of day without, while Blanche had made bold between the two corner doors which opened obliquely on to put her feet up on a sofa in order to try and get a little the end of the dressing-room passage. No one was with sleep.
her, and she was scrutinizing her face and rubbing her fin-
“Oh, Blanche is with them!” cried Nana. “We are going ger up and down below her eyes with a view to putting the to drink milk, dear. Do come; you’ll find Vandeuvres here finishing touches to her make-up. The gas jets on either when we return.”
side of the mirror flooded her with warm, crude light.
Blanche got up lazily. This time the banker’s fiery face
“Has he arrived?” asked Prulliere, entering the room in grew white with annoyance at the idea of having to take his Alpine admiral’s costume, which was set off by a big that big wench with him too. She was certain to bore him.
sword, enormous top boots and a vast tuft of plumes.
But the two women had already got him by the arms and
“Who d’you mean?” said Simonne, taking no notice of were reiterating:
him and laughing into the mirror in order to see how her
“We want them to milk the cow before our eyes, you lips looked.
know.”
“The prince.”
“I don’t know; I’ve just come down. Oh, he’s certainly due here tonight; he comes every time!” 104
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Prulliere had drawn near the hearth opposite the console the great window that looked out on the courtyard, he table, where a coke fire was blazing and two more gas jets shook himself disgustedly.
were flaring brightly. He lifted his eyes and looked at the
“What filthy weather!” he growled.
clock and the barometer on his right hand and on his left.
Simonne and Prulliere did not move. Four or five pic-They had gilded sphinxes by way of adornment in the style tures—a landscape, a portrait of the actor Vernet—hung of the First Empire. Then he stretched himself out in a huge yellowing in the hot glare of the gas, and a bust of Potier, armchair with ears, the green velvet of which had been so one of the bygone glories of the Varietes, stood gazing worn by four generations of comedians that it looked yel-vacant-eyed from its pedestal. But just then there was a low in places, and there he stayed, with moveless limbs burst of voices outside. It was Fontan, dressed for the sec-and vacant eyes, in that weary and resigned attitude pecu-ond act. He was a young dandy, and his habiliments, even liar to actors who are used to long waits before their turn to his gloves, were entirely yellow.
for going on the stage.
“Now say you don’t know!” he shouted, gesticulating.
Old Bosc, too, had just made his appearance. He came in
“Today’s my patron saint’s day!”
dragging one foot behind the other and coughing. He was
“What?” asked Simonne, coming up smilingly, as though wrapped in an old box coat, part of which had slipped from attracted by the huge nose and the vast, comic mouth of his shoulder in such a way as to uncover the gold-laced the man. “D’you answer to the name of Achille?” cloak of King Dagobert. He put his crown on the piano
“Exactly so! And I’m going to get ‘em to tell Madame and for a moment or two stood moodily stamping his feet.
Bron to send up champagne after the second act.” His hands were trembling slightly with the first beginnings For some seconds a bell had been ringing in the distance.
of alcoholism, but he looked a sterling old fellow for all The long-drawn sound grew fainter, then louder, and when that, and a long white beard lent that fiery tippler’s face of the bell ceased a shout ran up the stair and down it till it his a truly venerable appearance. Then in the silence of the was lost along the passages. “All on the stage for the sec-room, while the shower of hail was whipping the panes of ond act! All on the stage for the second act!” The sound 105
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drew near, and a little pale-faced man passed by the green-shuffling of feet as these people clattered down the five room doors, outside each of which he yelled at the top of wooden steps which led to the stage. As the big Clarisse his shrill voice, “On the stage for the second act!” went running by Simonne called to her, but she said she
“The deuce, it’s champagne!” said Prulliere without ap-would be back directly. And, indeed, she reappeared al-pearing to hear the din. “You’re prospering!” most at once, shivering in the thin tunic and scarf which
“If I were you I should have it in from the cafe,” old she wore as Iris.
Bosc slowly announced. He was sitting on a bench cov-
“God bless me!” she said. “It isn’t warm, and I’ve left ered with green velvet, with his head against the wall.
my furs in my dressing room!”
But Simonne said that it was one’s duty to consider Mme Then as she stood toasting her legs in their warm rose-Bron’s small perquisites. She clapped her hands excitedly colored tights in front of the fireplace she resumed: and devoured Fontan with her gaze while his long goatlike
“The prince has arrived.”
visage kept up a continuous twitching of eyes and nose
“Oh!” cried the rest with the utmost curiosity.
and mouth.
“Yes, that’s why I ran down: I wanted to see. He’s in the
“Oh, that Fontan!” she murmured. “There’s no one like first stage box to the right, the same he was in on Thurs-him, no one like him!”
day. It’s the third time he’s been this week, eh? That’s Nana; The two greenroom doors stood wide open to the corri-well, she’s in luck’s way! I was willing to wager he wouldn’t dor leading to the wings. And along the yellow wall, which come again.”
was brightly lit up by a gas lamp out of view, passed a Simonne opened her lips to speak, but her remarks were string of rapidly moving shadows—men in costume, women drowned by a fresh shout which arose close to the green-with shawls over their scant attire, in a word, the whole of room. In the passage the callboy was yelling at the top of the characters in the second act, who would shortly make his shrill voice, “They’ve knocked!” their appearance as masqeuraders in the ball at the Boule
“Three times!” said Simonne when she was again able to Noire. And at the end of the corridor became audible a speak. “It’s getting exciting. You know, he won’t go to her 106
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place; he takes her to his. And it seems that he has to pay beside him. Bosc remained grave and absorbed.
for it too!”
“That’s all right, but if I were you I should drink the
“Egad! It’s a case of when one ‘has to go out,’” mut-champagne at the restaurant—its better there,” he said, tered Prulliere wickedly, and he got up to have a last look suddenly addressing Fontan when he had finished his at the mirror as became a handsome fellow whom the recital.
boxes adored.
“The curtain’s up!” cried the callboy in cracked and long-
“They’ve knocked! They’ve knocked!” the callboy kept drawn accents “The curtain’s up! The curtain’s up!” repeating in tones that died gradually away in the distance The shout sounded for some moments, during which there as he passed through the various stories and corridors.
had been a noise of rapid footsteps. Through the suddenly Fontan thereupon, knowing how it had all gone off on opened door of the passage came a burst of music and a the first occasion the prince and Nana met, told the two far-off murmur of voices, and then the door shut to again women the whole story while they in their turn crowded and you could hear its dull thud as it wedged itself into against him and laughed at the tops of their voices when-position once more.
ever he stooped to whisper certain details in their ears. Old A heavy, peaceful, atmosphere again pervaded the green-Bosc had never budged an inch—he was totally indiffer-room, as though the place were situated a hundred leagues ent. That sort of thing no longer interested him now. He from the house where crowds were applauding. Simonne and was stroking a great tortoise-shell cat which was lying Clarisse were still on the topic of Nana. There was a girl who curled up on the bench. He did so quite beautifully and never hurried herself! Why, yesterday she had again come on ended by taking her in his arms with the tender good na-too late! But there was a silence, for a tall damsel had just ture becoming a worn-out monarch. The cat arched its back craned her head in at the door and, seeing that she had made and then, after a prolonged sniff at the big white beard, the a mistake, had departed to the other end of the passage. It gluey odor of which doubtless disgusted her, she turned was Satin. Wearing a hat and a small veil for the nonce she and, curling herself up, went to sleep again on the bench was affecting the manner of a lady about to pay a call.
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“A pretty trollop!” muttered Prulliere, who had been com-Then dragging himself unsteadily along in his greatcoat, ing across her for a year past at the Cafe des Varietes. And he took his departure, grumbling and looking as annoyed at this Simonne told them how Nana had recognized in as a man who has been rudely disturbed.
Satin an old schoolmate, had taken a vast fancy to her and
“You were very amiable in your last notice,” continued was now plaguing Bordenave to let her make a first ap-Fontan, addressing Fauchery. “Only why do you say that pearance on the stage.
comedians are vain?”
“How d’ye do?” said Fontan, shaking hands with Mi-
“Yes, my little man, why d’you say that?” shouted Mignon and Fauchery, who now came into the room.
gnon, bringing down his huge hands on the journalist’s slen-Old Bosc himself gave them the tips of his fingers while der shoulders with such force as almost to double him up.
the two women kissed Mignon.
Prulliere and Clarisse refrained from laughing aloud. For
“A good house this evening?” queried Fauchery.
some time past the whole company had been deriving
“Oh, a splendid one!” replied Prulliere. “You should see amusement from a comedy which was going on in the
‘em gaping.”
wings. Mignon, rendered frantic by his wife’s caprice and
“I say, my little dears,” remarked Mignon, “it must be annoyed at the thought that this man Fauchery brought your turn!”
nothing but a certain doubiful notoriety to his household, Oh, all in good time! They were only at the fourth scene had conceived the idea of revenging himself on the jour-as yet, but Bosc got up in obedience to instinct, as became nalist by overwhelming him with tokens of friendship. Ev-a rattling old actor who felt that his cue was coming. At ery evening, therefore, when he met him behind scenes he that very moment the callboy was opening the door.
would shower friendly slaps on his back and shoulders, as
“Monsieur Bosc!” he called. “Mademoiselle Simonne!” though fairly carried away by an outburst of tenderness, Simonne flung a fur-lined pelisse briskly over her shoul-and Fauchery, who was a frail, small man in comparison ders and went out. Bosc, without hurrying at all, went and with such a giant, was fain to take the raps with a strained got his crown, which he settled on his brow with a rap.
smile in order not to quarrel with Rose’s husband.
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“Aha, my buck, you’ve insulted Fontan,” resumed Miwas writhing with laughter and applauded with the rest as gnon, who was doing his best to force the joke. “Stand on though he had been paid to. I say, do you know the big guard! One—two—got him right in the middle of his chest!” man sitting beside the prince in the stage box? A hand-He lunged and struck the young man with such force some man, with a very sedate expression and splendid that the latter grew very pale and could not speak for some whiskers!”
seconds. With a wink Clarisse showed the others where
“It’s Count Muffat,” replied Fauchery. “I know that the Rose Mignon was standing on the threshold of the green-prince, when he was at the empress’s the day before yes-room. Rose had witnessed the scene, and she marched terday, invited him to dinner for tonight. He’ll have cor-straight up to the journalist, as though she had failed to rupted him afterward!”
notice her husband and, standing on tiptoe, bare-armed and
“So that’s Count Muffat! We know his father-in-law, eh, in baby costume, she held her face up to him with a caress-Auguste?” said Rose, addressing her remark to Mignon.
ing, infantine pout.
“You know the Marquis de Chouard, at whose place I went
“Good evening, baby,” said Fauchery, kissing her to sing? Well, he’s in the house too. I noticed him at the familiarly.
back of a box. There’s an old boy for you!” Thus he indemnified himself. Mignon, however, did not Prulliere, who had just put on his huge plume of feath-seem to have observed this kiss, for everybody kissed his ers, turned round and called her.
wife at the theater. But he laughed and gave the journalist
“Hi, Rose! Let’s go now!”
a keen little look. The latter would assurely have to pay for She ran after him, leaving her sentence unfinished. At Rose’s bravado.
that moment Mme Bron, the portress of the theater, passed In the passage the tightly shutting door opened and closed by the door with an immense bouquet in her arms. Simonne again, and a tempest of applause was blown as far as the asked cheerfully if it was for her, but the porter woman did greenroom. Simonne came in after her scene.
not vouchsafe an answer and only pointed her chin toward
“Oh, Father Bosc has just scored!” she cried. “The prince Nana’s dressing room at the end of the passage. Oh, that 109
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Nana! They were loading her with flowers! Then when of skirts. Everybody was swallowed up in the distance, Mme Bron returned she handed a letter to Clarisse, who and when the passage door had banged with its usual hol-allowed a smothered oath to escape her. That beggar La low sound a fresh hail shower was heard beating against Faloise again! There was a fellow who wouldn’t let her the windows in the now-silent greenroom. Barillot, a small, alone! And when she learned the gentleman in question pale-faced ancient, who for thirty years had been a servant was waiting for her at the porter’s lodge she shrieked: in the theater, had advanced familiarly toward Mignon and
“Tell him I’m coming down after this act. I’m going to had presented his open snuffbox to him. This proffer of a catch him one on the face.”
pinch and its acceptance allowed him a minute’s rest in his Fontan had rushed forward, shouting: interminable career up and down stairs and along the dress-
“Madame Bron, just listen. Please listen, Madame Bron.
ing-room passage. He certainly had still to look up Mme I want you to send up six bottles of champagne between Nana, as he called her, but she was one of those who fol-the acts.”
lowed her own sweet will and didn’t care a pin for penal-But the callboy had again made his appearance. He was ties. Why, if she chose to be too late she was too late! But out of breath, and in a singsong voice he called out: he stopped short and murmured in great surprise:
“All to go on the stage! It’s your turn, Monsieur Fontan.
“Well, I never! She’s ready; here she is! She must know Make haste, make haste!”
that the prince is here.”
“Yes, yes, I’m going, Father Barillot,” replied Fontan in Indeed, Nana appeared in the corridor. She was dressed a flurry.
as a fish hag: her arms and face were plastered with white And he ran after Mme Bron and continued: paint, and she had a couple of red dabs under her eyes.
“You understand, eh? Six bottles of champagne in the Without entering the greenroom she contented herself by greenroom between the acts. It’s my patron saint’s day, nodding to Mignon and Fauchery.
and I’m standing the racket.”
“How do? You’re all right?”
Simonne and Clarisse had gone off with a great rustling Only Mignon shook her outstretched hand, and she hied 110
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royally on her way, followed by her dresser, who almost have done, since nobody would have enjoyed the spec-trod on her heels while stooping to adjust the folds of her tacle? He was far too disinterested to be personally enter-skirt. In the rear of the dresser came Satin, closing the pro-tained by the farcical scenes in which he figured as a bancession and trying to look quite the lady, though she was tering husband. Glad of this short-lived respite, Fauchery already bored to death.
stretched his feet out languidly toward the fire and let his
“And Steiner?” asked Mignon sharply.
upturned eyes wander from the barometer to the clock. In
“Monsieur Steiner has gone away to the Loiret,” said the course of his march Mignon planted himself in front of Barillot, preparing to return to the neighborhood of Potier’s bust, looked at it without seeming to see it and the stage. “I expect he’s gone to buy a country place in then turned back to the window, outside which yawned those parts.”
the darkling gulf of the courtyard. The rain had ceased,
“Ah yes, I know, Nana’s country place.” and there was now a deep silence in the room, which the Mignon had grown suddenly serious. Oh, that Steiner!
fierce heat of the coke fire and the flare of the gas jets He had promised Rose a fine house in the old days! Well, rendered still more oppressive. Not a sound came from the well, it wouldn’t do to grow angry with anybody. Here wings: the staircase and the passages were deadly still.
was a position that would have to be won again. From That choking sensation of quiet, which behind the scenes fireplace to console table Mignon paced, sunk in thought immediately precedes the end of an act, had begun to per-yet still unconquered by circumstances. There was no one vade the empty greenroom. Indeed, the place seemed to in the greenroom now save Fauchery and himself. The jour-be drowsing off through very breathlessness amid that faint nalist was tired and had flung himself back into the re-murmur which the stage gives forth when the whole troupe cesses of the big armchair. There he stayed with half-closed are raising the deafening uproar of some grand finale.
eyes and as quiet as quiet could be, while the other glanced
“Oh, the cows!” Bordenave suddeniy shouted in his down at him as he passed. When they were alone Mignon hoarse voice.
scorned to slap him at every turn. What good would it He had only just come up, and he was already howling 111
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complaints about two chorus girls who had nearly fallen leave her for Gaga, and so Simonne was simply to go and flat on the stage because they were playing the fool to-explain that a woman ought not to be palled up to in that gether. When his eye lit on Mignon and Fauchery he called fashion! At last she agreed to undertake the mission.
them; he wanted to show them something. The prince had Then Simonne, in her theatrical laundress’s attire but with just notified a desire to compliment Nana in her dressing furs over her shoulders, ran down the greasy steps of the room during the next interval. But as he was leading them narrow, winding stairs which led between damp walls to into the wings the stage manager passed.
the porter’s lodge. This lodge, situated between the ac-
“Just you find those hags Fernande and Maria!” cried tors’ staircase and that of the management, was shut in to Bordenave savagely.
right and left by large glass partitions and resembled a huge Then calming down and endeavoring to assume the dig-transparent lantern in which two gas jets were flaring.
nified expression worn by “heavy fathers,” he wiped his There was a set of pigeonholes in the place in which were face with his pocket handkerchief and added: piled letters and newspapers, while on the table various
“I am now going to receive His Highness.” bouquets lay awaiting their recipients in close proximity to The curtain fell amid a long-drawn salvo of applause. Then neglected heaps of dirty plates and to an old pair of stays, across the twilight stage, which was no longer lit up by the the eyelets of which the portress was busy mending. And footlights, there followed a disorderly retreat. Actors and in the middle of this untidy, ill-kept storeroom sat four fash-supers and chorus made haste to get back to their dressing ionable, white-gloved society men. They occupied as many rooms while the sceneshifters rapidly changed the scenery.
ancient straw-bottomed chairs and, with an expression at Simonne and Clarisse, however, had remained “at the top,” once patient and submissive, kept sharply turning their heads talking together in whispers. On the stage, in an interval in Mme Bron’s direction every time she came down from between their lines, they had just settled a little matter.
the theater overhead, for on such occasions she was the Clarisse, after viewing the thing in every light, found she bearer of replies. Indeed, she had but now handed a note preferred not to see La Faloise, who could never decide to to a young man who had hurried out to open it beneath the 112
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gaslight in the vestibule, where he had grown slightly pale was opened a violent whiff of alcohol mingled with the on reading the classic phrase—how often had others read scent of stale cooking in the lodge, as well as with the it in that very place!—”Impossible tonight, my dearie! I’m penetrating scent of the flowers upon the table.
booked!” La Faloise sat on one of these chairs at the back
“Well now,” continued the portress when she had served of the room, between the table and the stove. He seemed the supers, “is it the little dark chap out there you want?” bent on passing the evening there, and yet he was not quite
“No, no; don’t be silly!” said Simonne. “It’s the lanky happy. Indeed, he kept tucking up his long legs in his en-one by the side of the stove. Your cat’s sniffing at his deavors to escape from a whole litter of black kittens who trouser legs!”
were gamboling wildly round them while the mother cat And with that she carried La Faloise off into the lobby, sat bolt upright, staring at him with yellow eyes.
while the other gentlemen once more resigned themselves
“Ah, it’s you, Mademoiselle Simonne! What can I do for to their fate and to semisuffocation and the masqueraders you?” asked the portress.
drank on the stairs and indulged in rough horseplay and Simonne begged her to send La Faloise out to her. But guttural drunken jests.
Mme Bron was unable to comply with her wishes all at On the stage above Bordenave was wild with the once. Under the stairs in a sort of deep cupboard she kept sceneshifters, who seemed never to have done changing a little bar, whither the supers were wont to descend for scenes. They appeared to be acting of set purpose—the drinks between the acts, and seeing that just at that mo-prince would certainly have some set piece or other tum-ment there were five or six tall lubbers there who, still bling on his head.
dressed as Boule Noire masqueraders, were dying of thirst
“Up with it! Up with it!” shouted the foreman.
and in a great hurry, she lost her head a bit. A gas jet was At length the canvas at the back of the stage was raised flaring in the cupboard, within which it was possible to into position, and the stage was clear. Mignon, who had descry a tin-covered table and some shelves garnished with kept his eye on Fauchery, seized this opportunity in order half-emptied bottles. Whenever the door of this coalhole to start his pummeling matches again. He hugged him in 113
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his long arms and cried:
the theater being dark, the group were lost to view amid
“Oh, take care! That mast just missed crushing you!” huge moving shadows.
And he carried him off and shook him before setting him In order fittingly to address the son of a queen, who would down again. In view of the sceneshifters’ exaggerated mirth, someday occupy a throne, Bordenave had assumed the tone Fauchery grew white. His lips trembled, and he was ready of a man exhibiting a bear in the street. In a voice tremu-to flare up in anger while Mignon, shamming good nature, lous with false emotion he kept repeating: was clapping him on the shoulder with such affectionate
“If His Highness will have the goodness to follow me—
violence as nearly to pulverize him.
would His Highness deign to come this way? His Highness
“I value your health, I do!” he kept repeating. “Egad! I will take care!”
should be in a pretty pickle if anything serious happened The prince did not hurry in the least. On the contrary, he to you!”
was greatly interested and kept pausing in order to look at But just then a whisper ran through their midst: “The the sceneshifters’ maneuvers. A batten had just been low-prince! The prince! And everybody turned and looked at ered, and the group of gaslights high up among its iron the little door which opened out of the main body of the crossbars illuminated the stage with a wide beam of light.
house. At first nothing was visible save Bordenave’s round Muffat, who had never yet been behind scenes at a theater, back and beefy neck, which bobbed down and arched up in was even more astonished than the rest. An uneasy feeling a series of obsequious obeisances. Then the prince made of mingled fear and vague repugnance took possession of his appearance. Largely and strongly built, light of beard him. He looked up into the heights above him, where more and rosy of hue, he was not lacking in the kind of distinc-battens, the gas jets on which were burning low, gleamed tion peculiar to a sturdy man of pleasure, the square con-like galaxies of little bluish stars amid a chaos of iron rods, tours of whose limbs are clearly defined by the irreproach-connecting lines of all sizes, hanging stages and canvases able cut of a frock coat. Behind him walked Count Muffat spread out in space, like huge cloths hung out to dry.
and the Marquis de Chouard, but this particular corner of
“Lower away!” shouted the foreman unexpectedly.
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And the prince himself had to warn the count, for a burning in the “dock.” Human voices and blasts of air, as canvas was descending. They were setting the scenery from a vault, came up thence, and, looking down into the for the third act, which was the grotto on Mount Etna.
depths of gloom, one became aware of a whole subterra-Men were busy planting masts in the sockets, while oth-nean existence. But just as the count was going up the ers went and took frames which were leaning against the stage a small incident occurred to stop him. Two little walls of the stage and proceeded to lash them with strong women, dressed for the third act, were chatting by the peep-cords to the poles already in position. At the back of the hole in the curtain. One of them, straining forward and stage, with a view to producing the bright rays thrown by widening the hole with her fingers in order the better to Vulcan’s glowing forge, a stand had been fixed by a lime-observe things, was scanning the house beyond.
light man, who was now lighting various burners under
“I see him,” said she sharply. “Oh, what a mug!” red glasses. The scene was one of confusion, verging to Horrified, Bordenave had much ado not to give her a all appearances on absolute chaos, but every little move kick. But the prince smiled and looked pleased and excited had been prearranged. Nay, amid all the scurry the whistle by the remark. He gazed warmly at the little woman who blower even took a few turns, stepping short as he did did not care a button for His Highness, and she, on her so, in order to rest his legs.
part, laughed unblushingly. Bordenave