"
The count consented to give way and only insisted that Georges should
be dismissed once for all. But all his illusions had vanished, and he no
longer believed in her sworn fidelity. Next day Nana would deceive him
anew, and he only remained her miserable possessor in obedience to a
cowardly necessity and to terror at the thought of living without her.
This was the epoch in her existence when Nana flared upon Paris with
redoubled splendor. She loomed larger than heretofore on the horizon of
vice and swayed the town with her impudently flaunted splendor and that
contempt of money which made her openly squander fortunes. Her house had
become a sort of glowing smithy, where her continual desires were the
flames and the slightest breath from her lips changed gold into fine
ashes, which the wind hourly swept away. Never had eye beheld such a
rage of expenditure. The great house seemed to have been built over a
gulf in which men--their worldly possessions, their fortunes, their very
names--were swallowed up without leaving even a handful of dust behind
them. This courtesan, who had the tastes of a parrot and gobbled up
radishes and burnt almonds and pecked at the meat upon her plate, had
monthly table bills amounting to five thousand francs.
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