“Now then, fill up again, ye great brute!”

Fontan charged the glasses afresh, and the company drank, repeating the same toasts.

“To His Highness!”

“To the army!”

“To Venus!”

But with that Nana made a sign and obtained silence.  She raised her glass and cried: 

“No, no!  To Fontan!  It’s Fontan’s day; to Fontan!  To Fontan!”

Then they clinked glasses a third time and drank Fontan with all the honors.  The prince, who had noticed the young woman devouring the actor with her eyes, saluted him with a “Monsieur Fontan, I drink to your success!” This he said with his customary courtesy.

But meanwhile the tail of his highness’s frock coat was sweeping the marble of the dressing table.  The place, indeed, was like an alcove or narrow bathroom, full as it was of the steam of hot water and sponges and of the strong scent of essences which mingled with the tartish, intoxicating fumes of the champagne.  The prince and Count Muffat, between whom Nana was wedged, had to lift up their hands so as not to brush against her hips or her breast with every little movement.  And there stood Mme Jules, waiting, cool and rigid as ever, while Satin, marveling in the depths of her vicious soul to see a prince and two gentlemen in black coats going after a naked woman in the society of dressed-up actors, secretly concluded that fashionable people were not so very particular after all.

But Father Barillot’s tinkling bell approached along the passage.  At the door of the dressing room he stood amazed when he caught sight of the three actors still clad in the costumes which they had worn in the second act.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he stammered, “do please make haste.  They’ve just rung the bell in the public foyer.”

“Bah, the public will have to wait!” said Bordenave placidly.

However, as the bottles were now empty, the comedians went upstairs to dress after yet another interchange of civilities.  Bosc, having dipped his beard in the champagne, had taken it off, and under his venerable disguise the drunkard had suddenly reappeared.  His was the haggard, empurpled face of the old actor who has taken to drink.  At the foot of the stairs he was heard remarking to Fontan in his boozy voice: 

“I pulverized him, eh?”

He was alluding to the prince.

In Nana’s dressing room none now remained save His Highness, the count and the marquis.  Bordenave had withdrawn with Barillot, whom he advised not to knock without first letting Madame know.

“You will excuse me, gentlemen?” asked Nana, again setting to work to make up her arms and face, of which she was now particularly careful, owing to her nude appearance in the third act.

The prince seated himself by the Marquis de Chouard on the divan, and Count Muffat alone remained standing.  In that suffocating heat the two glasses of champagne they had drunk had increased their intoxication.  Satin, when she saw the gentlemen thus closeting themselves with her friend, had deemed it discreet to vanish behind the curtain, where she sat waiting on a trunk, much annoyed at being compelled to remain motionless, while Mme Jules came and went quietly without word or look.