She was very fond of finery and very coquettish. In this house, where bread was not always to be got, it was difficult for her to indulge her caprices in the matter of costume, but she did wonders. She brought home odds and ends of ribbons from the shop where she worked and made them up into bows and knots with which she ornamented her dirty dresses. She was not overparticular in washing her feet, but she wore her boots so tight that she suffered martyrdom in honor of St Crispin, and if anyone asked her what the matter was when the pain flushed her face suddenly, she always and promptly laid it to the score of the colic.

 

Summer was the season of her triumphs. In a calico dress that cost five or six francs she was as fresh and sweet as a spring morning and made the dull street radiant with her youth and her beauty. She went by the name of "The Little Chicken." One gown, in particular, suited her to perfection. It was white with rose-colored dots, without trimming of any kind. The skirt was short and showed her feet. The sleeves were very wide and displayed her arms to the elbows. She turned the neck away and fastened it with pins--in a corner in the corridor, dreading her father's jests--to exhibit her pretty rounded throat. A rose-colored ribbon, knotted in the rippling masses of her hair, completed her toilet. She was a charming combination of child and woman.

 

Sundays at this period of her life were her days for coquetting with the public. She looked forward to them all the week through with a longing for liberty and fresh air.

 

Early in the morning she began her preparations and stood for hours in her chemise before the bit of broken mirror nailed by the window, and as everyone could see her, her mother would be very much vexed and ask how long she intended to show herself in that way.

 

But she, quite undisturbed, went on fastening down the little curls on her forehead with a little sugar and water and then sewed the buttons on her boots or took a stitch or two in her frock, barefooted all this time and with her chemise slipping off her rounded shoulders.

 

Her father declared he would exhibit her as the "Wild Girl," at two sous a head.

 

She was very lovely in this scanty costume, the color flushing her cheeks in her indignation at her father's sometimes coarse remarks. She did not dare answer him, however, but bit off her thread in silent rage. After breakfast she went down to the courtyard. The house was wrapped in Sunday quiet; the workshops on the lower floor were closed. Through some of the open windows the tables were seen laid for dinners, the families being on the fortifications "getting an appetite."

 

Five or six girls--Nana, Pauline and others--lingered in the courtyard for a time and then took flight altogether into the streets and thence to the outer boulevards. They walked in a line, filling up the whole sidewalk, with ribbons fluttering in their uncovered hair.

 

They managed to see everybody and everything through their downcast lids. The streets were their native heath, as it were, for they had grown up in them.

 

Nana walked in the center and gave her arm to Pauline, and as they were the oldest and tallest of the band, they gave the law to the others and decided where they should go for the day and what they should do.

 

Nana and Pauline were deep ones. They did nothing without premeditation. If they ran it was to show their slender ankles, and when they stopped and panted for breath it was sure to be at the side of some youths--young workmen of their acquaintance--who smoked in their faces as they talked. Nana had her favorite, whom she always saw at a great distance--Victor Fauconnier--and Pauline adored a young cabinetmaker, who gave her apples.

 

Toward sunset the great pleasure of the day began. A band of mountebanks would spread a well-worn carpet, and a circle was formed to look on. Nana and Pauline were always in the thickest of the crowd, their pretty fresh dresses crushed between dirty blouses, but insensible to the mingled odors of dust and alcohol, tobacco and dirt. They heard vile language; it did not disturb them; it was their own tongue--they heard little else. They listened to it with a smile, their delicate cheeks unflushed.

 

The only thing that disturbed them was the appearance of their fathers, particularly if these fathers seemed to have been drinking. They kept a good lookout for this disaster.

 

"Look!" cried Pauline. "Your father is coming, Nana."

 

Then the girl would crouch on her knees and bid the others stand close around her, and when he had passed on after an inquiring look she would jump up and they would all utter peals of laughter.

 

But one day Nana was kicked home by her father, and Boche dragged Pauline away by her ear.

 

The girls would ordinarily return to the courtyard in the twilight and establish themselves there with the air of not having been away, and each invented a story with which to greet their questioning parents. Nana now received forty sous per day at the place where she had been apprenticed. The Coupeaus would not allow her to change, because she was there under the supervision of her aunt, Mme Lerat, who had been employed for many years in the same establishment.

 

The girl went off at an early hour in her little black dress, which was too short and too tight for her, and Mme Lerat was bidden, whenever she was after her time, to inform Gervaise, who allowed her just twenty minutes, which was quite long enough. But she was often seven or eight minutes late, and she spent her whole day coaxing her aunt not to tell her mother. Mme Lerat, who was fond of the girl and understood the follies of youth, did not tell, but at the same time she read Nana many a long sermon on her follies and talked of her own responsibility and of the dangers a young girl ran in Paris.

 

"You must tell me everything," she said. "I am too indulgent to you, and if evil should come of it I should throw myself into the Seine. Understand me, my little kitten; if a man should speak to you you must promise to tell me every word he says. Will you swear to do this?"

 

Nana laughed an equivocal little laugh. Oh yes, she would promise. But men never spoke to her; she walked too fast for that. What could they say to her? And she explained her irregularity in coming--her five or ten minutes delay--with an innocent little air. She had stopped at a window to look at pictures or she had stopped to talk to Pauline. Her aunt might follow her if she did not believe her.

 

"Oh, I will watch her. You need not be afraid!" said the widow to her brother. "I will answer for her, as I would for myself!"

 

The place where the aunt and niece worked side by side was a large room with a long table down the center. Shelves against the wall were piled with boxes and bundles--all covered with a thick coating of dust. The gas had blackened the ceiling. The two windows were so large that the women, seated at the table, could see all that was going on in the street below.

 

Mme Lerat was the first to make her appearance in the morning, but in another fifteen minutes all the others were there. One morning in July Nana came in last, which, however, was the usual case.

 

"I shall be glad when I have a carriage!" she said as she ran to the window without even taking off her hat--a shabby little straw.

 

"What are you looking at?" asked her aunt suspiciously. "Did your father come with you?"

 

"No indeed," answered Nana carelessly; "nor am I looking at anything. It is awfully warm, and of all things in the world, I hate to be in a hurry."

 

The morning was indeed frightfully hot. The workwomen had closed the blinds, leaving a crack, however, through which they could inspect the street, and they took their seats on each side of the table--Mme Lerat at the farther end. There were eight girls, four on either side, each with her little pot of glue, her pincers and other tools; heaps of wires of different lengths and sizes lay on the table, spools of cotton and of different-colored papers, petals and leaves cut out of silk, velvet and satin. In the center, in a goblet, one of the girls had placed a two-sou bouquet,--which was slowly withering in the heat.

 

"Did you know," said Leonie as she picked up a rose leaf with her pincers, "how wretched poor Caroline is with that fellow who used to call for her regularly every night?"

 

Before anyone could answer Leonie added:

 

"Hush! Here comes Madame."

 

And in sailed Mme Titreville, a tall, thin woman, who usually remained below in the shop. Her employees stood in dread terror of her, as she was never known to smile. She went from one to another, finding fault with all; she ordered one woman to pull a marguerite to pieces and make it over and then went out as stiffly and silently as she had come in.

 

"Houp! Houp!" said Nana under her breath, and a giggle ran round the table.

 

"Really, young ladies," said Mme Lerat, "you will compel me to severe measures."

 

But no one was listening, and no one feared her. She was very tolerant. They could say what they pleased, provided they put it in decent language.

 

Nana was certainly in a good school! Her instincts, to be sure, were vicious, but these instincts were fostered and developed in this place, as is too often the case when a crowd of girls are herded together. It was the story of a basket of apples, the good ones spoiled by those that were already rotten. If two girls were whispering in a corner, ten to one they were telling some story that could not be told aloud.

 

Nana was not yet thoroughly perverted, but the curiosity which had been her distinguishing characteristic as a child had not deserted her, and she scarcely took her eyes from a girl by the name of Lisa, about whom strange stories were told.

 

"How warm it is!" she exclaimed, suddenly rising and pushing open the blinds. Leonie saw a man standing on the sidewalk opposite.

 

"Who is that old fellow?" she said. "He has been there a full quarter of an hour."

 

"Some fool who has nothing better to do, I suppose," said Mme Lerat. "Nana, will you come back to your work? I have told you that you should not go to that window."

 

Nana took up her violets, and they all began to watch this man. He was well dressed, about fifty, pale and grave. For a full hour he watched the windows.

 

"Look!" said Leonie. "He has an eyeglass. Oh, he is very chic. He is waiting for Augustine." But Augustine sharply answered that she did not like the old man.

 

"You make a great mistake then," said Mme Lerat with her equivocal smile.

 

Nana listened to the conversation which followed--reveling in indecency--as much at home in it as a fish is in water. All the time her fingers were busy at work. She wound her violet stems and fastened in the leaves with a slender strip of green paper. A drop of gum--and then behold a bunch of delicate fresh verdure which would fascinate any lady. Her fingers were especially deft by nature. No instruction could have imparted this quality.

 

The gentleman had gone away, and the workshop settled down into quiet once more. When the bell rang for twelve Nana started up and said she would go out and execute any commissions. Leonie sent for two sous' worth of shrimp, Augustine for some fried potatoes, Sophie for a sausage and Lisa for a bunch of radishes. As she was going out, her aunt said quietly:

 

"I will go with you. I want something."

 

Lo, in the lane running up by the shop was the mysterious stranger. Nana turned very red, and her aunt drew her arm within her own and hurried her along.

 

So then he had come for her! Was not this pretty behavior for a girl of her age? And Mme Lerat asked question after question, but Nana knew nothing of him, she declared, though he had followed her for five days.

 

Mme Lerat looked at the man out of the corners of her eyes. "You must tell me everything," she said.

 

While they talked they went from shop to shop, and their arms grew full of small packages, but they hurried back, still talking of the gentleman.

 

"It may be a good thing," said Mme Lerat, "if his intentions are only honorable."

 

The workwomen ate their breakfast on their knees; they were in no hurry, either, to return to their work, when suddenly Leonie uttered a low hiss, and like magic each girl was busy. Mme Titreville entered the room and again made her rounds.

 

Mme Lerat did not allow her niece after this day to set foot on the street without her. Nana at first was inclined to rebel, but, on the whole, it rather flattered her vanity to be guarded like a treasure. They had discovered that the man who followed her with such persistency was a manufacturer of buttons, and one night the aunt went directly up to him and told him that he was behaving in a most improper manner. He bowed and, turning on his heel, departed--not angrily, by any means--and the next day he did as usual.

 

One day, however, he deliberately walked between the aunt and the niece and said something to Nana in a low voice. This frightened Mme Lerat, who went at once to her brother and told him the whole story, whereupon he flew into a violent rage, shook the girl until her teeth chattered and talked to her as if she were the vilest of the vile.

 

"Let her be!" said Gervaise with all a woman's sense. "Let her be! Don't you see that you are putting all sorts of things into her head?"

 

And it was quite true; he had put ideas into her head and had taught her some things she did not know before, which was very astonishing. One morning he saw her with something in a paper. It was _poudre de riz_, which, with a most perverted taste, she was plastering upon her delicate skin. He rubbed the whole of the powder into her hair until she looked like a miller's daughter. Another time she came in with red ribbons to retrim her old hat; he asked her furiously where she got them.

 

Whenever he saw her with a bit of finery her father flew at her with insulting suspicion and angry violence. She defended herself and her small possessions with equal violence. One day he snatched from her a little cornelian heart and ground it to dust under his heel.

 

She stood looking on, white and stern; for two years she had longed for this heart. She said to herself that she would not bear such treatment long. Coupeau occasionally realized that he had made a mistake, but the mischief was done.

 

He went every morning with Nana to the shop door and waited outside for five minutes to be sure that she had gone in. But one morning, having stopped to talk with a friend on the corner for some time, he saw her come out again and vanish like a flash around the corner. She had gone up two flights higher than the room where she worked and had sat down on the stairs until she thought him well out of the way.

 

When he went to Mme Lerat she told him that she washed her hands of the whole business; she had done all she could, and now he must take care of his daughter himself. She advised him to marry the girl at once or she would do worse.

 

All the people in the neighborhood knew Nana's admirer by sight. He had been in the courtyard several times, and once he had been seen on the stairs.

 

The Lorilleuxs threatened to move away if this sort of thing went on, and Mme Boche expressed great pity for this poor gentleman whom this scamp of a girl was leading by the nose.

 

At first Nana thought the whole thing a great joke, but at the end of a month she began to be afraid of him. Often when she stopped before the jeweler's he would suddenly appear at her side and ask her what she wanted.

 

She did not care so much for jewelry or ornaments as she did for many other things. Sometimes as the mud was spattered over her from the wheels of a carriage she grew faint and sick with envious longings to be better dressed, to go to the theater, to have a pretty room all to herself. She longed to see another side of life, to know something of its pleasures. The stranger invariably appeared at these moments, but she always turned and fled, so great was her horror of him.

 

But when winter came existence became well-nigh intolerable. Each evening Nana was beaten, and when her father was tired of this amusement her mother scolded. They rarely had anything to eat and were always cold. If the girl bought some trifling article of dress it was taken from her.

 

No! This life could not last. She no longer cared for her father. He had thoroughly disgusted her, and now her mother drank too. Gervaise went to the Assommoir nightly--for her husband, she said--and remained there. When Nana saw her mother sometimes as she passed the window, seated among a crowd of men, she turned livid with rage, because youth has little patience with the vice of intemperance. It was a dreary life for her--a comfortless home and a drunken father and mother. A saint on earth could not have remained there; that she knew very well, and she said she would make her escape some fine day, and then perhaps her parents would be sorry and would admit that they had pushed her out of the nest.

 

One Saturday Nana, coming in, found her mother and father in a deplorable condition--Coupeau lying across the bed and Gervaise sitting in a chair, swaying to and fro. She had forgotten the dinner, and one untrimmed candle lighted the dismal scene.

 

"Is that you, girl?" stammered Gervaise. "Well, your father will settle with you!"

 

Nana did not reply. She looked around the cheerless room, at the cold stove, at her parents. She did not step across the threshold. She turned and went away.

 

And she did not come back! The next day when her father and mother were sober, they each reproached the other for Nana's flight.

 

This was really a terrible blow to Gervaise, who had no longer the smallest motive for self-control, and she abandoned herself at once to a wild orgy that lasted three days. Coupeau gave his daughter up and smoked his pipe quietly. Occasionally, however, when eating his dinner, he would snatch up a knife and wave it wildly in the air, crying out that he was dishonored and then, laying it down as suddenly, resumed eating his soup.

 

In this great house, whence each month a girl or two took flight, this incident astonished no one. The Lorilleuxs were rather triumphant at the success of their prophecy. Lantier defended Nana.

 

"Of course," he said, "she has done wrong, but bless my heart, what would you have? A girl as pretty as that could not live all her days in such poverty!"

 

"You know nothing about it!" cried Mme Lorilleux one evening when they were all assembled in the room of the concierge. "Wooden Legs sold her daughter out and out. I know it! I have positive proof of what I say. The time that the old gentleman was seen on the stairs he was going to pay the money. Nana and he were seen together at the Ambigu the other night! I............