"And Nana, the new star who's going to play Venus, d'you know her?"

"There you are; you're beginning again!" cried Fauchery, casting up his
arms. "Ever since this morning people have been dreeing me with Nana.
I've met more than twenty people, and it's Nana here and Nana there!
What do I know? Am I acquainted with all the light ladies in Paris? Nana
is an invention of Bordenave's! It must be a fine one!"

He calmed himself, but the emptiness of the house, the dim light of
the luster, the churchlike sense of self-absorption which the place
inspired, full as it was of whispering voices and the sound of doors
banging--all these got on his nerves.

"No, by Jove," he said all of a sudden, "one's hair turns gray here.
I--I'm going out. Perhaps we shall find Bordenave downstairs. He'll give
us information about things."

Downstairs in the great marble-paved entrance hall, where the box office
was, the public were beginning to show themselves. Through the three
open gates might have been observed, passing in, the ardent life of the
boulevards, which were all astir and aflare under the fine April night.
The sound of carriage wheels kept stopping suddenly; carriage doors were
noisily shut again, and people began entering in small groups, taking
their stand before the ticket bureau and climbing the double flight of
stairs at the end of the hall, up which the women loitered with swaying
hips. Under the crude gaslight, round the pale, naked walls of the
entrance hall, which with its scanty First Empire decorations suggested
the peristyle of a toy temple, there was a flaring display of lofty
yellow posters bearing the name of "Nana" in great black letters.
Gentlemen, who seemed to be glued to the entry, were reading them;