Nana had accepted Steiner’s arm, without seeming to notice a movement of the old man, who walked behind her, alone. Moreover, the parade could not organize. Men and women entered disbanded, joking with a bourgeois bonhomie of this lack of ceremony. A long table stretched from one end to another of the large room, empty of furniture, and this table was too small, because the plates touched. Four to ten candelabra candles lighted the table, especially a plated, with wreaths on the right and left. It was a luxury restaurant, china in gilt, no figure, silver worn and tarnished by the constant washing, crystals which could complete the dozens unmatched in all the bazaars. It smelled a rack hung too fast in the midst of a sudden fortune, and when nothing was in place. A chandelier was missing, the candelabra, whose candles very high s’éméchaient ago, were one day pale yellow above the fruit bowls, plates mounted bowls, where fruits, cakes, jams, alternated symmetrically .

– You know, Nana said, we place ourselves as we want … It’s more fun.

She stood in the middle of the table. The old gentleman was not known, began on his right, while she kept Steiner on his left. The guests sat now, when swearing off the parlor. It was Bordenave and we forgot all that had the greatest difficulty to recover from its two seats, screaming, calling this beast of a Simonne, spun with others. The women ran, full of pity. Bordenave appeared, supported, carried by Caroline, Clarisse, Tatan Nene, Maria Blond. And it was a big deal to install.