"They'll end by smashing the seats. May I give the knocks?"
"Oh, bother!" said Nana impatiently. "Knock away; I don't care! If I'm
not ready, well, they'll have to wait for me!"
She grew calm again and, turning to the gentlemen, added with a smile:
"It's true: we've only got a minute left for our talk."
Her face and arms were now finished, and with her fingers she put two
large dabs of carmine on her lips. Count Muffat felt more excited than
ever. He was ravished by the perverse transformation wrought by powders
and paints and filled by a lawless yearning for those young painted
charms, for the too-red mouth and the too-white face and the exaggerated
eyes, ringed round with black and burning and dying for very love.
Meanwhile Nana went behind the curtain for a second or two in order
to take off her drawers and slip on Venus' tights. After which, with
tranquil immodesty, she came out and undid her little linen stays and
held out her arms to Mme Jules, who drew the short-sleeved tunic over
them.
"Make haste; they're growing angry!" she muttered.
The prince with half-closed eyes marked the swelling lines of her bosom
with an air of connoisseurship, while the Marquis de Chouard wagged his
head involuntarily.
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