Nana had gradually lapsed into a most mournful condition.  To begin with, the meeting of the marquis and the count had given her a severe fit of feverish nervousness, which verged at times on laughter.  Then the thought of this old man going away half dead in a cab and of her poor rough, whom she would never set eyes on again now that she had driven him so wild, brought on what looked like the beginnings of melancholia.  After that she grew vexed to hear about Satin’s illness.  The girl had disappeared about a fortnight ago and was now ready to die at Lariboisiere, to such a damnable state had Mme Robert reduced her.  When she ordered the horses to be put to in order that she might have a last sight of this vile little wretch Zoe had just quietly given her a week’s notice.  The announcement drove her to desperation at once!  It seemed to her she was losing a member of her own family.  Great heavens!  What was to become of her when left alone?  And she besought Zoe to stay, and the latter, much flattered by Madame’s despair, ended by kissing her to show that she was not going away in anger.  No, she had positively to go:  the heart could have no voice in matters of business.

But that day was one of annoyances.  Nana was thoroughly disgusted and gave up the idea of going out.  She was dragging herself wearily about the little drawing room when Labordette came up to tell her of a splendid chance of buying magnificent lace and in the course of his remarks casually let slip the information that Georges was dead.  The announcement froze her.

“Zizi dead!” she cried.

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!”

She had been choking with grief since morning, and now she burst out sobbing and thus sought relief.  Hers was an infinite sorrow:  it overwhelmed her with its depth and immensity.  Labordette wanted to comfort her as touching Georges, but she silenced him with a gesture and blurted out: 

“It isn’t only he; it’s everything, everything.  I’m very wretched.  Oh yes, I know!  They’ll again be saying I’m a hussy.  To think of the mother mourning down there and of the poor man who was groaning in front of my door this morning and of all the other people that are now ruined after running through all they had with me!  That’s it; punish Nana; punish the beastly thing!  Oh, I’ve got a broad back!  I can hear them as if I were actually there!  ’That dirty wench who lies with everybody and cleans out some and drives others to death and causes a whole heap of people pain!’”

She was obliged to pause, for tears choked her utterance, and in her anguish she flung herself athwart a divan and buried her face in a cushion.  The miseries she felt to be around her, miseries of which she was the cause, overwhelmed her with a warm, continuous stream of self-pitying tears, and her voice failed as she uttered a little girl’s broken plaint: