Georges must be at that woman's house, and
so with dry eyes and feet that had regained their strength Mme Hugon
went downstairs. She wanted her sons; she was starting to reclaim them.
Since morning Nana had been much worried. First of all it was the baker,
who at nine o'clock had turned up, bill in hand. It was a wretched
story. He had supplied her with bread to the amount of a hundred and
thirty-three francs, and despite her royal housekeeping she could not
pay it. In his irritation at being put off he had presented himself
a score of times since the day he had refused further credit, and the
servants were now espousing his cause. Francois kept saying that Madame
would never pay him unless he made a fine scene; Charles talked of going
upstairs, too, in order to get an old unpaid straw bill settled, while
Victorine advised them to wait till some gentleman was with her, when
they would get the money out of her by suddenly asking for it in the
middle of conversation. The kitchen was in a savage mood: the tradesmen
were all kept posted in the course events were taking, and there were
gossiping consultations, lasting three or four hours on a stretch,
during which Madame was stripped, plucked and talked over with the
wrathful eagerness peculiar to an idle, overprosperous servants' hall.
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