“Ah, there’s Blanche!” she cried.  “It’s she who told me that you had been to bed with Nana.”

Blanche de Sivry, a great fair girl, whose good-looking face showed signs of growing fat, made her appearance in the company of a spare, sedulously well-groomed and extremely distinguished man.

“The Count Xavier de Vandeuvres,” Fauchery whispered in his companion’s ear.

The count and the journalist shook hands, while Blanche and Lucy entered into a brisk, mutual explanation.  One of them in blue, the other in rose-pink, they stood blocking the way with their deeply flounced skirts, and Nana’s name kept repeating itself so shrilly in their conversation that people began to listen to them.  The Count de Vandeuvres carried Blanche off.  But by this time Nana’s name was echoing more loudly than ever round the four walls of the entrance hall amid yearnings sharpened by delay.  Why didn’t the play begin?  The men pulled out their watches; late-comers sprang from their conveyances before these had fairly drawn up; the groups left the sidewalk, where the passers-by were crossing the now-vacant space of gaslit pavement, craning their necks, as they did so, in order to get a peep into the theater.  A street boy came up whistling and planted himself before a notice at the door, then cried out, “Woa, Nana!” in the voice of a tipsy man and hied on his way with a rolling gait and a shuffling of his old boots.  A laugh had arisen at this.  Gentlemen of unimpeachable appearance repeated:  “Nana, woa, Nana!” People were crushing; a dispute arose at the ticket office, and there was a growing clamor caused by the hum of voices calling on Nana, demanding Nana in one of those accesses of silly facetiousness and sheer animalism which pass over mobs.

But above all the din the bell that precedes the rise of the curtain became audible.  “They’ve rung; they’ve rung!” The rumor reached the boulevard, and thereupon followed a stampede, everyone wanting to pass in, while the servants of the theater increased their forces.  Mignon, with an anxious air, at last got hold of Steiner again, the latter not having been to see Rose’s costume.  At the very first tinkle of the bell La Faloise had cloven a way through the crowd, pulling Fauchery with him, so as not to miss the opening scene.  But all this eagerness on the part of the public irritated Lucy Stewart.  What brutes were these people to be pushing women like that!  She stayed in the rear of them all with Caroline Hequet and her mother.  The entrance hall was now empty, while beyond it was still heard the long-drawn rumble of the boulevard.

“As though they were always funny, those pieces of theirs!” Lucy kept repeating as she climbed the stair.