After that night a new life began.  For a mere trifle—­a yes, a no—­Fontan would deal her a blow.  She grew accustomed to it and pocketed everything.  Sometimes she shed tears and threatened him, but he would pin her up against the wall and talk of strangling her, which had the effect of rendering her extremely obedient.  As often as not, she sank down on a chair and sobbed for five minutes on end.  But afterward she would forget all about it, grow very merry, fill the little lodgings with the sound of song and laughter and the rapid rustle of skirts.  The worst of it was that Fontan was now in the habit of disappearing for the whole day and never returning home before midnight, for he was going to cafes and meeting his old friends again.  Nana bore with everything.  She was tremulous and caressing, her only fear being that she might never see him again if she reproached him.  But on certain days, when she had neither Mme Maloir nor her aunt and Louiset with her, she grew mortally dull.  Thus one Sunday, when she was bargaining for some pigeons at La Rochefoucauld Market, she was delighted to meet Satin, who, in her turn, was busy purchasing a bunch of radishes.  Since the evening when the prince had drunk Fontan’s champagne they had lost sight of one another.

“What?  It’s you!  D’you live in our parts?” said Satin, astounded at seeing her in the street at that hour of the morning and in slippers too.  “Oh, my poor, dear girl, you’re really ruined then!”

Nana knitted her brows as a sign that she was to hold her tongue, for they were surrounded by other women who wore dressing gowns and were without linen, while their disheveled tresses were white with fluff.  In the morning, when the man picked up overnight had been newly dismissed, all the courtesans of the quarter were wont to come marketing here, their eyes heavy with sleep, their feet in old down-at-heel shoes and themselves full of the weariness and ill humor entailed by a night of boredom.  From the four converging streets they came down into the market, looking still rather young in some cases and very pale and charming in their utter unconstraint; in others, hideous and old with bloated faces and peeling skin.  The latter did not the least mind being seen thus outside working hours, and not one of them deigned to smile when the passers-by on the sidewalk turned round to look at them.  Indeed, they were all very full of business and wore a disdainful expression, as became good housewives for whom men had ceased to exist.  Just as Satin, for instance, was paying for her bunch of radishes a young man, who might have been a shop-boy going late to his work, threw her a passing greeting: 

“Good morning, duckie.”

She straightened herself up at once and with the dignified manner becoming an offended queen remarked: 

“What’s up with that swine there?”

Then she fancied she recognized him.  Three days ago toward midnight, as the was coming back alone from the boulevards, she had talked to him at the corner of the Rue Labruyere for nearly half an hour, with a view to persuading him to come home with her.  But this recollection only angered her the more.