That day Georges had slipped into the house despite Nana’s orders to the contrary.  Francois had certainly seen him pass, but the servants had now got to laugh among themselves at their good lady’s embarrassing situations.  He had just slipped as far as the little drawing room when his brother’s voice stopped him, and, as one powerless to tear himself from the door, he overheard everything that went on within, the kisses, the offer of marriage.  A feeling of horror froze him, and he went away in a state bordering on imbecility, feeling as though there were a great void in his brain.  It was only in his own room above his mother’s flat in the Rue Richelieu that his heart broke in a storm of furious sobs.  This time there could be no doubt about the state of things; a horrible picture of Nana in Philippe’s arms kept rising before his mind’s eye.  It struck him in the light of an incest.  When he fancied himself calm again the remembrance of it all would return, and in fresh access of raging jealousy he would throw himself on the bed, biting the coverlet, shouting infamous accusations which maddened him the more.  Thus the day passed.  In order to stay shut up in his room he spoke of having a sick headache.  But the night proved more terrible still; a murder fever shook him amid continual nightmares.  Had his brother lived in the house, he would have gone and killed him with the stab of a knife.  When day returned he tried to reason things out.  It was he who ought to die, and he determined to throw himself out of the window when an omnibus was passing.  Nevertheless, he went out toward ten o’clock and traversed Paris, wandered up and down on the bridges and at the last moment felt an unconquerable desire to see Nana once more.  With one word, perhaps, she would save him.  And three o’clock was striking when he entered the house in the Avenue de Villiers.

Toward noon a frightful piece of news had simply crushed Mme Hugon.  Philippe had been in prison since the evening of the previous day, accused of having stolen twelve thousand francs from the chest of his regiment.  For the last three months he had been withdrawing small sums therefrom in the hope of being able to repay them, while he had covered the deficit with false money.  Thanks to the negligence of the administrative committee, this fraud had been constantly successful.  The old lady, humbled utterly by her child’s crime, had at once cried out in anger against Nana.  She knew Philippe’s connection with her, and her melancholy had been the result of this miserable state of things which kept her in Paris in constant dread of some final catastrophe.  But she had never looked forward to such shame as this, and now she blamed herself for refusing him money, as though such refusal had made her accessory to his act.  She sank down on an armchair; her legs were seized with paralysis, and she felt herself to be useless, incapable of action and destined to stay where she was till she died.  But the sudden