We are in a little set of lodgings on the fourth floor in the Rue Veron at Montmartre.

Nana and Fontan have invited a few friends to cut their Twelfth-Night cake with them.

They are giving their housewarming, though they have been only three days settled.
They had no fixed intention of keeping house together, but the whole thing had come about suddenly in the first glow of the honeymoon.
After her grand blowup, when she had turned the count and the banker so vigorously out of doors, Nana felt the world crumbling about her feet.
She estimated the situation at a glance; the creditors would swoop down on her anteroom, would mix themselves up with her love affairs and threaten to sell her little all unless she continued to act sensibly.
Then, too, there would be no end of disputes and carking anxieties if she attempted to save her furniture from their clutches.

And so she preferred giving up everything.

Besides, the flat in the Boulevard Haussmann was plaguing her to death.