Mme Jules was a woman of no age. She had the parchment skin
and changeless features peculiar to old maids whom no one ever knew
in their younger years. She had indeed shriveled up in the burning
atmosphere of the dressing rooms and amid the most famous thighs and
bosoms in all Paris. She wore everlastingly a faded black dress, and on
her flat and sexless chest a perfect forest of pins clustered above the
spot where her heart should have been.
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said Nana, drawing aside the curtain,
"but you took me by surprise."
They all turned round. She had not clothed herself at all, had, in fact,
only buttoned on a little pair of linen stays which half revealed her
bosom. When the gentlemen had put her to flight she had scarcely begun
undressing and was rapidly taking off her fishwife's costume. Through
the opening in her drawers behind a corner of her shift was even now
visible. There she stood, bare-armed, bare-shouldered, bare-breasted,
in all the adorable glory of her youth and plump, fair beauty, but she
still held the curtain with one hand, as though ready to draw it to
again upon the slightest provocation.
"Yes, you took me by surprise! I never shall dare--" she stammered
in pretty, mock confusion, while rosy blushes crossed her neck and
shoulders and smiles of embarrassment played about her lips.
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