Just as though a novel ought not to be written
so that the reader may while away an hour pleasantly! In the matter of
books and of plays Nana had very decided opinions: she wanted tender and
noble productions, things that would set her dreaming and would elevate
her soul. Then allusion being made in the course of conversation to the
troubles agitating Paris, the incendiary articles in the papers, the
incipient popular disturbances which followed the calls to arms nightly
raised at public meetings, she waxed wroth with the Republicans. What
on earth did those dirty people who never washed really want? Were folks
not happy? Had not the emperor done everything for the people? A nice
filthy lot of people! She knew 'em; she could talk about 'em, and,
quite forgetting the respect which at dinner she had just been insisting
should be paid to her humble circle in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or,
she began blackguarding her own class with all the terror and disgust
peculiar to a woman who had risen successfully above it. That very
afternoon she had read in the Figaro an account of the proceedings at a
public meeting which had verged on the comic. Owing to the slang words
that had been used and to the piggish behavior of a drunken man who had
got himself chucked, she was laughing at those proceedings still.
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