hereditary spite; it had come to her in her blood.  Then when once the chamberlain was undressed and his coat lay spread on the ground she shrieked, “Jump!” And he jumped.  She shrieked, “Spit!” And he spat.  With a shriek she bade him walk on the gold, on the eagles, on the decorations, and he walked on them.  Hi tiddly hi ti!  Nothing was left; everything was going to pieces.  She smashed a chamberlain just as she smashed a flask or a comfit box, and she made filth of him, reduced him to a heap of mud at a street corner.

Meanwhile the goldsmiths had failed to keep their promise, and the bed was not delivered till one day about the middle of January.  Muffat was just then in Normandy, whither he had gone to sell a last stray shred of property, but Nana demanded four thousand francs forthwith.  He was not due in Paris till the day after tomorrow, but when his business was once finished he hastened his return and without even paying a flying visit in the Rue Miromesnil came direct to the Avenue de Villiers.  Ten o’clock was striking.  As he had a key of a little door opening on the Rue Cardinet, he went up unhindered.  In the drawing room upstairs Zoe, who was polishing the bronzes, stood dumfounded at sight of him, and not knowing how to stop him, she began with much circumlocution, informing him that M. Venot, looking utterly beside himself, had been searching for him since yesterday and that he had already come twice to beg her to send Monsieur to his house if Monsieur arrived at Madame’s before going home.  Muffat listened to her without in the least understanding the meaning of her recital; then he noticed her agitation and was seized by a sudden fit of jealousy of which he no longer believed himself capable.  He threw himself against the bedroom door, for he heard the sound of laughter within.  The door gave; its two flaps flew asunder, while Zoe withdrew, shrugging her shoulders.  So much the worse for Madame!  As Madame was bidding good-by to her wits, she might arrange matters for herself.

And on the threshold Muffat uttered a cry at the sight that was presented to his view.

“My God!  My God!”

The renovated bedroom was resplendent in all its royal luxury.  Silver buttons gleamed like bright stars on the tea-rose velvet of the hangings.  These last were of that pink flesh tint which the skies assume on fine evenings, when Venus lights her fires on the horizon against the clear background of fading daylight.  The golden cords and tassels hanging in corners and the gold lace-work surrounding the panels were like little flames of ruddy strands of loosened hair, and they half covered the wide nakedness of the room while they emphasized its pale, voluptuous tone.  Then over against him there was the gold and silver bed, which shone in all the fresh splendor of its chiseled workmanship, a throne this of sufficient extent for Nana to display the outstretched glory of her naked limbs, an altar of Byzantine sumptuousness, worthy of the almighty puissance of Nana’s sex, which at this very hour lay nudely displayed there in the religious immodesty befitting an idol of all men’s worship.  And close by, beneath the snowy reflections of her bosom and amid the triumph of the goddess, lay wallowing a shameful, decrepit thing, a comic and lamentable ruin, the Marquis de Chouard in his nightshirt.