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Updated: June 25, 2025
To Ber-lin! To Ber-lin!" And the crowd stared in gloomy distrust yet felt themselves already possessed and inspired by heroic imaginings, as though a military band were passing. "Oh yes, go and get your throats cut!" muttered Mignon, overcome by an access of philosophy. But Fontan thought it very fine, indeed, and spoke of enlisting.
They were sitting in a little group on a bench and some rustic chairs in the corner of a scenic garden, which was standing ready to be put in position as it would be used in the opening act the same evening. In the middle of this group Fontan and Prulliere were listening to Rose Mignon, to whom the manager of the Folies-Dramatique Theatre had been making magnificent offers.
Then if she met with reproof she would return to the attack with the cleverest maneuvers and with infinite submissiveness and the supple cunning of a beaten cat would catch hold of his hand when no one was looking, in order to kiss it again. It seemed she must be touching something belonging to him. As to Fontan, he gave himself airs and let himself be adored with the utmost condescension.
Not far from these groups, which are divided from the rest by a scarlet barrier of beaters and the flashing chain of their slung horns, arises Monsieur Fontan. The huge merchant and café-owner occupies an intermediate and isolated place between principals and people. His face is disposed in fat white tiers, like a Buddha's belly.
No, I tell you, I can't go on like this!" And with that she was on the point of stepping over him in order to jump out of bed again, when Fontan in his longing for sleep grew desperate and dealt her a ringing box on the ear. The blow was so smart that Nana suddenly found herself lying down again with her head on the pillow. She lay half stunned.
And at this Simonne told them how Nana had recognized in Satin an old schoolmate, had taken a vast fancy to her and was now plaguing Bordenave to let her make a first appearance on the stage. "How d'ye do?" said Fontan, shaking hands with Mignon and Fauchery, who now came into the room. Old Bosc himself gave them the tips of his fingers while the two women kissed Mignon.
"Well, you're growing maddening!" cried Prulliere. "Get away from her, you fellow there!" And he dismissed Fontan and changed covers, in order to take his place at Nana's side. The company shouted and applauded at this and gave vent to some stiffish epigrammatic witticisms. Fontan counterfeited despair and assumed the quaint expression of Vulcan crying for Venus.
Fontan attracted her with his comic make-up. She brushed against him and, eying him as a woman in the family way might do when she fancies some unpleasant kind of food, she suddenly became extremely familiar: "Now then, fill up again, ye great brute!" Fontan charged the glasses afresh, and the company drank, repeating the same toasts. "To His Highness!" "To the army!" "To Venus!"
Old Bosc was always drunk; Prulliere was fond of spitting too much, and as to Fontan, he made himself unbearable in society with his loud voice and his stupid doings. Then, you know, third-rate play actors were always out of place when they found themselves in the society of gentlemen such as those around her. "Yes, yes, it's true," Mignon declared.
Fontan had come in with Bosc and Prulliere, and the company could now sit down to table. The soup had been already served when Nana for the third time showed off the lodgings. "Ah, dear children, how comfortable you are here!" Bosc kept repeating, simply for the sake of pleasing the chums who were standing the dinner. At bottom the subject of the "nook," as he called it, nowise touched him.
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