creature, all the same, was that fine girl! Her laughter made a love of
a little dimple appear in her chin. She stood there waiting, not bored
in the least, familiar with her audience, falling into step with them at
once, as though she herself were admitting with a wink that she had not
two farthings' worth of talent but that it did not matter at all, that,
in fact, she had other good points. And then after having made a sign
to the conductor which plainly signified, "Go ahead, old boy!" she began
her second verse:

"'Tis Venus who at midnight passes--"

Still the same acidulated voice, only that now it tickled the public in
the right quarter so deftly that momentarily it caused them to give a
little shiver of pleasure. Nana still smiled her smile: it lit up her
little red mouth and shone in her great eyes, which were of the clearest
blue. When she came to certain rather lively verses a delicate sense of
enjoyment made her tilt her nose, the rosy nostrils of which lifted and
fell, while a bright flush suffused her cheeks. She still swung herself
up and down, for she only knew how to do that. And the trick was no
longer voted ugly; on the contrary, the men raised their opera glasses.
When she came to the end of a verse her voice completely failed her, and
she was well aware that she never would get through with it. Thereupon,
rather than fret herself, she kicked up her leg, which forthwith was
roundly outlined under her diaphanous tunic, bent sharply backward, so
that her bosom was thrown upward and forward, and stretched her arms
out. Applause burst forth on all sides. In the twinkling of an eye she
had turned on her heel and was going up the stage, presenting the nape
of her neck to the spectators' gaze, a neck where the red-gold hair
showed like some animal's fell. Then the plaudits became frantic.