One November night they entered the Grand Salon, as much to get warm as anything else. Outside it was hailing, and the rooms were naturally crowded. They could not find a table, and they stood waiting until they could establish themselves. Coupeau was directly in the mouth of the passage, and a young man in a frock coat was thrown against him. The youth uttered an exclamation of disgust as he began to dust off his coat with his handkerchief. The blouse worn by Coupeau was assuredly none of the cleanest. "Look here, my good fellow," cried Coupeau angrily, "those airs are very unnecessary. I would have you to know that the blouse of a workingman can do your coat no harm if it has touched it!" The young man turned around and looked at Coupeau from head to foot. "Learn," continued the angry workman, "that the blouse is the only wear for a man!" Gervaise endeavored to calm her husband, who, however, tapped his ragged breast and repeated loudly: "The only wear for a man, I tell you!" The youth slipped away and was lost in the crowd. Coupeau tried to find him, but it was quite impossible; the crowd was too great. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, and the dancers were bringing up the dust from the floor in great clouds, which obscured the gas. "Look!" said Gervaise suddenly. "What is it?" "Look at that velvet bonnet!" Quite at the left there was a velvet bonnet, black with plumes, only too suggestive of a hearse. They watched these nodding plumes breathlessly. "Do you not know that hair?" murmured Gervaise hoarsely. "I am sure it is she!" In one second Coupeau was in the center of the crowd. Yes, it was Nana, and in what a costume! She wore a ragged silk dress, stained and torn. She had no shawl over her shoulders to conceal the fact that half the buttonholes on her dress were burst out. In spite of all her shabbiness the girl was pretty and fresh. Nana, of course, danced on unsuspiciously. Her airs and graces were beyond belief. She curtsied to the very ground and then in a twinkling threw her foot over her partner's head. A circle was formed, and she was applauded vociferously. At this moment Coupeau fell on his daughter. "Don't try and keep me back," he said, "for have her I will!" Nana turned and saw her father and mother. Coupeau discovered that his daughter's partner was the young man for whom he had been looking. Gervaise pushed him aside and walked up to Nana and gave her two cuffs on her ears. One sent the plumed hat on the side; the other left five red marks on that pale cheek. The orchestra played on. Nana neither wept nor moved. The dancers began to grow very angry. They ordered the Coupeau party to leave the room. "Go," said Gervaise, "and do not attempt to leave us, for so sure as you do you will be given in charge of a policeman." The young man had prudently disappeared.