That same evening they went to the Bouffes-Parisiens Theatre to see a little woman of Fontan’s acquaintance make her debut in a part of some ten lines. It was close on one o’clock when they once more trudged up the heights of Montmartre. They had purchased a cake, a “mocha,” in the Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, and they ate it in bed, seeing that the night was not warm and it was not worth while lighting a fire. Sitting up side by side, with the bedclothes pulled up in front and the pillows piled up behind, they supped and talked about the little woman. Nana thought her plain and lacking in style. Fontan, lying on his stomach, passed up the pieces of cake which had been put between the candle and the matches on the edge of the night table. But they ended by quarreling. “Oh, just to think of it!” cried Nana. “She’s got eyes like gimlet holes, and her hair’s the color of tow.” “Hold your tongue, do!” said Fontan. “She has a superb head of hair and such fire in her looks! It’s lovely the way you women always tear each other to pieces!” He looked annoyed. “Come now, we’ve had enough of it!” he said at last in savage tones. “You know I don’t like being bored. Let’s go to sleep, or things’ll take a nasty turn.” And he blew out the candle, but Nana was furious and went on talking. She was not going to be spoken to in that voice; she was accustomed to being treated with respect! As he did not vouchsafe any further answer, she was silenced, but she could not go to sleep and lay tossing to and fro. “Great God, have you done moving about?” cried he suddenly, giving a brisk jump upward. “It isn’t my fault if there are crumbs in the bed,” she said curtly. In fact, there were crumbs in the bed. She felt them down to her middle; she was everywhere devoured by them. One single crumb was scorching her and making her scratch herself till she bled. Besides, when one eats a cake isn’t it usual to shake out the bedclothes afterward? Fontan, white with rage, had relit the candle, and they both got up and, barefooted and in their night dresses, they turned down the clothes and swept up the crumbs on the sheet with their hands. Fontan went to bed again, shivering, and told her to go to the devil when she advised him to wipe the soles of his feet carefully. And in the end she came back to her old position, but scarce had she stretched herself out than she danced again. There were fresh crumbs in the bed! “By Jove, it was sure to happen!” she cried. “You’ve brought them back again under your feet. I can’t go on like this! No, I tell you, I can’t go on like this!” And with that she was on the point of stepping over him in order to jump out of bed again, when Fontan in his longing for sleep grew desperate and dealt her a ringing box on the ear. The blow was so smart that Nana suddenly found herself lying down again with her head on the pillow. She lay half stunned. “Oh!” she ejaculated simply, sighing a child’s big sigh.