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Updated: May 27, 2025
She had closed her eyes and lay wan upon her pillow. The count was patiently listening to her, not wishing her to tire herself. A whole minute went by before she reopened her eyes and murmured: "Besides, how about the money? Where would you get the money from if you must grow angry and go to law? Labordette came for the bill yesterday.
"Did you see your little rough last night?" they used to say. "Dear me, I expected to find the little rough here!" It was a simple familiarity enough, which, nevertheless, she did not as yet venture on in his presence. Labordette began rolling up the designs as he gave the final explanations.
How polite, eh? Oh dear, no, I certainly can't grieve much for him." After some reflection she had grown very angry. Just then Labordette came in; he had seen about her bets and was now the bearer of some forty thousand francs. This only added to her bad temper, for she ought to have gained a million.
When Muffat had himself announced, Francis was putting the last touches to Nana's coiffure. Labordette also was sitting familiarly in the dressing room, as became a friend of no consequence. Seeing the count, he discreetly placed a thick bundle of bank notes among the powders and pomades, and the bill was signed on the marble-topped dressing table.
And involuntarily her eyes sought the pink stain on the carpet, but it had vanished at last; passing footsteps had worn it away. Meanwhile Labordette entered into particulars. It was not exactly known how he died. Some spoke of a wound reopening, others of suicide. The lad had plunged, they said, into a tank at Les Fondettes. Nana kept repeating: "Dead! Dead!"
On the headboard a band of Loves should peep forth laughing from amid the flowers, as though they were watching the voluptuous dalliance within the shadow of the bed curtains. Nana had applied to Labordette who had brought two goldsmiths to see her. They were already busy with the designs. The bed would cost fifty thousand francs, and Muffat was to give it her as a New Year's present.
Labordette even got in the servants Charles, a great, tall coachman, who had been in service with the Duc de Corbreuse; Julien, a little, smiling, much-becurled butler, and a married couple, of whom the wife Victorine became cook while the husband Francois was taken on as porter and footman.
Fauchery decided to level his opera glass at the stage box. But he turned round again directly. "Oh, it's Labordette," he muttered in a careless voice, as though that gentle man's presence ought to strike all the world as though both natural and immaterial. Behind the cousins people shouted "Silence!" They had to cease talking.
When they passed in front of the stands, thundering over the ground in their course like a sudden stormwind, the mass was already some fourteen lengths in extent. Frangipane was last, and Nana was slightly behind Lusignan and Spirit. "Egad!" muttered Labordette, "how the Englishman is pulling it off out there!" The whole carriageload again burst out with phrases and exclamations.
As soon as he makes his appearance you'll go up into Mathilde's dressing room, and I'll bring him to you there." They were talking of Count Muffat. Labordette had arranged this interview with him on neutral ground. He had had a serious talk with Bordenave, whose affairs had been gravely damaged by two successive failures.
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