1870 Paris Months went by. She was forgotten. When her name was mentioned amongst the ladies and gentlemen of her acquaintance, the strangest stories circulated, everybody gave conflicting and fantastic information. She had won the heart of a viceroy, she lived deep in the precincts of a palace reigning over two hundred slaves whose throats she cut for her amusement. No, that wasn’t the case at all, she had ruined herself with a huge Negro, a sordid affair that had left her without a penny to her name, wallowing in the debauched squalor of Cairo. Two weeks later there was universal astonishment when someone swore they had encountered her in Russia. A legend was being created; she was the mistress of a prince, they talked of her diamonds. AT ten o’clock next morning Nana was still asleep. She lived on the second floor of a large new house in the Boulevard Haussmann whose owner rented it out to single ladies before the paint was even dry. A rich Moscow businessman who had come to spend the winter in Paris had set her up in that apartment, paying six months in advance. It was too spacious for her. The furnishing had never been completely finished. The tasteless luxury of the room, the little consoles and gilded chairs clashed with the second-hand bric-a-brac, the small mahogany side-tables and zinc candelabra trying to look like Florentine bronze. It all smacked of a young woman who had been left in the lurch by her first real protector, and who had fallen foul of men of dubious character, a launch into society that was beset by problems, an unfortunate beginning hampered by refusals for credit and threats of eviction. Nana was lying on her stomach, her face, pale with sleep, buried in the pillow, which she was hugging in her bare arms. The bedroom and dressing room were the only two rooms that a local decorator had taken any trouble over. A glimmer of light crept under one of the curtains, so you could make out the rosewood chest, the hangings and the seats of brocaded damask with large blue flowers on their grey background. But in this close, sleepy room, Nana woke with a start as though surprised to find no one lying next to her. She stared at the second pillow with lacy edges next to hers, its hollow still warm, and fumbled for the electric bell at her bedside. ‘So has he gone?’ she asked the maid who came at her summons. ‘Yes, Madame, Monsieur Paul left nearly ten minutes ago... As Madame was tired, he didn’t want to disturb her. But he told me to tell Madame that he would be back tomorrow...