When she drove in her carriage along the boulevards the people
would turn and tell one another who that was with all the unction of
a nation saluting its sovereign, while the object of their adoration
lolled easily back in her diaphanous dresses and smiled gaily under the
rain of little golden curls which ran riot above the blue of her made-up
eyes and the red of her painted lips. And the wonder of wonders was that
the great creature, who was so awkward on the stage, so very absurd the
moment she sought to act the chaste woman, was able without effort to
assume the role of an enchantress in the outer world. Her movements
were lithe as a serpent's, and the studied and yet seemingly involuntary
carelessness with which she dressed was really exquisite in its
elegance. There was a nervous distinction in all she did which suggested
a wellborn Persian cat; she was an aristocrat in vice and proudly and
rebelliously trampled upon a prostrate Paris like a sovereign whom none
dare disobey. She set the fashion, and great ladies imitated her.
Nana's fine house was situated at the corner of the Rue Cardinet, in the
Avenue de Villiers. The avenue was part of the luxurious quarter at that
time springing up in the vague district which had once been the
Plaine Monceau.
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