“And Nana, the new star who’s going to play Venus, d’you know her?”

“There you are; you’re beginning again!” cried Fauchery, casting up his arms.  “Ever since this morning people have been dreeing me with Nana.  I’ve met more than twenty people, and it’s Nana here and Nana there!  What do I know?  Am I acquainted with all the light ladies in Paris?  Nana is an invention of Bordenave’s!  It must be a fine one!”

He calmed himself, but the emptiness of the house, the dim light of the luster, the churchlike sense of self-absorption which the place inspired, full as it was of whispering voices and the sound of doors banging—­all these got on his nerves.

“No, by Jove,” he said all of a sudden, “one’s hair turns gray here.  I—­I’m going out.  Perhaps we shall find Bordenave downstairs.  He’ll give us information about things.”

Downstairs in the great marble-paved entrance hall, where the box office was, the public were beginning to show themselves.  Through the three open gates might have been observed, passing in, the ardent life of the boulevards, which were all astir and aflare under the fine April night.  The sound of carriage wheels kept stopping suddenly; carriage doors were noisily shut again, and people began entering in small groups, taking their stand before the ticket bureau and climbing the double flight of stairs at the end of the hall, up which the women loitered with swaying hips.  Under the crude gaslight, round the pale, naked walls of the entrance hall, which with its scanty First Empire decorations suggested the peristyle of a toy temple, there was a flaring display of lofty yellow posters bearing the name of “Nana” in great black letters.  Gentlemen, who seemed to be glued to the entry, were reading them; others, standing about, were engaged in talk, barring the doors of the house in so doing, while hard by the box office a thickset man with an extensive, close-shaven visage was giving rough answers to such as pressed to engage seats.

“There’s Bordenave,” said Fauchery as he came down the stairs.  But the manager had already seen him.

“Ah, ah!  You’re a nice fellow!” he shouted at him from a distance.  “That’s the way you give me a notice, is it?  Why, I opened my Figaro this morning—­never a word!”

“Wait a bit,” replied Fauchery.  “I certainly must make the acquaintance of your Nana before talking about her.  Besides, I’ve made no promises.”

Then to put an end to the discussion, he introduced his cousin, M. Hector de la Faloise, a young man who had come to finish his education in Paris.  The manager took the young man’s measure at a glance.  But Hector returned his scrutiny with deep interest.  This, then, was that Bordenave, that showman of the sex who treated women like a convict overseer, that clever fellow who was always at full steam over some advertising dodge, that shouting, spitting, thigh-slapping fellow, that cynic with the soul of a policeman!  Hector was under the impression that he ought to discover some amiable observation for the occasion.