Then, just as last night, they passed on to a discussion on music, after which, Foucarmont having let slip some mention of the assumption of the veil of which Paris was still talking, Nana grew quite interested and insisted on details about Mlle de Fougeray.

Oh, the poor child, fancy her burying herself alive like that! Ah well, when it was a question of vocation! All round the table the women expressed themselves much touched, and Georges, wearied at hearing these things a second time discussed, was beginning to ask Daguenet about Nana's ways in private life, when the conversation veered fatefully back to Count Bismarck.

Tatan Nene bent toward Labordette to ask him privily who this Bismarck might be, for she did not know him.
Whereupon Labordette, in cold blood, told her some portentous anecdotes.
This Bismarck, he said, was in the habit of eating raw meat and when he met a woman near his den would carry her off thither on his back; at forty years of age he had already had as many as thirty-two children that way.
"Thirty-two children at forty!" cried Tatan Nene, stupefied and yet convinced.

"He must be jolly well worn out for his age." There was a burst of merriment, and it dawned on her that she was being made game of.
"You sillies! How am I to know if you're joking ?" Gaga, meanwhile, had stopped at the exhibition.

Like all these ladies, she was delightedly preparing for the fray.