Anne Cupo, nicknamed Nana, the daughter of the drunken washerwoman of Gervaisa McCar and the crippled worker Coupeau, died in Paris in 1870, eighteen years old from smallpox, outliving her two-year-old son for several days and leaving dozens of her lovers sad. However, her lovers were comforted quickly. In addition, a war was coming with the Prussians. In the room where Nana was decomposing, whose beautiful, crazy-headed face turned into a purulent mask, there was a cry from time to time: “To Berlin! To Berlin! To Berlin! ”

... She made her debut in the Bordnava Theater "Variety", where the whole secular, literary and theatrical Paris gathered for the premiere of a parody operetta about the triumph of Venus over cuckolds. Everyone has been talking about Nana for a week now - this full girl, who could not turn on stage, had a raspy voice, devoid of any grace, conquered the hall from her first appearance on the stage: not by talent, of course, but by the crazy call of the flesh coming from her. This call brought all the men of the city to her feet, and she could not refuse to anyone, for she had sentimental haberdashery about love, debauchery ceased to be a novelty to her since she was almost fourteen, and her lovers' money was the only source of her existence. Sloppy, living among untidiness and dirt, spending days in supernatural idleness, Nana looked like a truly magnificent animal and as such was equally attractive to tabloid journalist Fochry, banker Steiner, half-lion lions Vandevre and La Falois, aristocrat Count Muuff. Soon to these fans was added the seventeen-year-old Georges Jugon, the offspring of an aristocratic family, a perfect child, however, very quick at comprehending forbidden pleasures.

... Countess Sabina Muffa, who had been married for seventeen years, lived very virtuous and, to tell the truth, boring. The count, a biliary and reserved man, older than his wife, paid her clearly not enough attention. Fochry, bored at the Muff party, begins to seriously think about how to get her location. This does not prevent Foshri from attending the dinner that Nana gives, gathering at it the actors and actresses of her theater, but most importantly - the men who besiege her apartment day and night. The conversation at Nan’s dinner, though not as much more lively as it is, revolves around the same topics: war, politics, gossip. Gossip, however, dominates. All communications are in plain sight, and ladies calmly discuss with men the merits of their lovers. Having drunk, Nana falls into hysteria: like any whore, she begins to demand respect from herself from those present and laments her terrible life. Her complaints are replaced by equally hysterical declarations of love for her next gentleman - Dagnet; those present pay little attention to all this, who are absorbed in someone playing a card game, and who - pouring champagne into the piano. Not only the intellectual, but also the political elite willingly participates in such entertainments: the prince himself becomes a regular at the Variete theater and always comes to Nana's restroom during intermission, or even takes her away from the performance in his own carriage. Muffa, who accompanies the prince, goes crazy with jealousy: he, having lived a restrained and strict life for forty years, is completely absorbed in an inexplicable passion for the golden-haired Venus, a beauty, an idiot. He tries in vain for Nan: by appointing him a date, she took a vacation in the theater and left for Orleans.

It was here that she was found by Georges Eugon, who escaped from his mother, whom Nana calls Zizi or Bebe in the attacks of lisping romance. The same age as a young man, possessing, however, an incomparably large experience, Nana enjoys playing in childhood love-friendship. Joint admissions of the moon and showering of Zizi take place with unbearably vulgar nicknames, along with dressing him in his favorite nightgown. Georges, however, must be hidden, for Nana is visited in Orleans by both Steiner and the Earl of Muff. Sabine Muffa, meanwhile, finally succumbs to Fochry's courtship, but the Count does not care much: he is completely absorbed in Nana. He does not stop even the cruel, harsh article by Foshri about Nana, entitled "The Golden Fly." It’s hard to argue with Foshry: Nana is indeed a golden fly, sucking death from the carrion and infecting Paris. While Muffa is reading this article in Nana’s apartment, the hostess admires herself in front of the mirror, sways with her whole torso, feels her mole on her hip and strong chest. No matter how destructive the poison, no matter how golden the beast Müuff saw in her, he wanted her, and he wanted it all the more, the more clearly he realized her monstrous depravity and stupidity. Nana informs him that Sabina, having lived with the count for nineteen years, is now cheating on him with Foshri. Hitting her, the count runs out, and Nana allows her maid Zoe to let the next one go. Having wandered all night in the rain, Muuffa returns to her and collides nose to nose with Steiner. Shteiner brought in the money - a thousand francs, which Nana asked him the day before. Brought to an extreme degree of irritation by the importunacy of both, Nana, generally extremely easily passing from tears to laughter, from sentimentality to anger, exposes both of them. She’s tired of everything. The exiled and completely destroyed count returns home. At the door, he meets his wife, who had just arrived from her lover. Having driven out the count and the banker, Nana realizes that she will have to change her luxurious apartment to a more modest home. With the actor "Variety" fountain - a rare freak - she settles in a more modest home. At first, their life flows almost idyllically, then the Fountain begins to thrash her, and she is ready to find a peculiar pleasure in it, but there is a limit to everything: Nana needs an outlet. Such a vent becomes a friend for her - a slut named Satin, who, without much pleasure giving herself to men and preserving a girlishly innocent look, finds much more joy in lesbian joys. However, one day, while visiting the brothel where Atlas spent the night, Nana fell into a raid and barely blew her legs. Count Müff, who sought reconciliation, came in handy at the time. She easily persuaded him to ensure that the role of a decent woman in the next premiere of Bordnava went to her, and not to her eternal rival Rosa Mignon. Muffa bought this role from Bordnava for fifteen thousand francs - he is now ready for anything. It was at his expense that Nana became the "cocoon of higher flight." She moved to a luxurious mansion on Avenue de Villiers, bought by the Count, but did not leave either Georges, whom she occasionally condescendingly received, or Satin, in whose arms she joined the previously unknown vice. This doesn’t stop her from getting carried away by George’s brother, Philippe Yugon,

At the races in the Bois de Boulogne, Nana, surrounded by men, becomes the true queen of Paris: a red mare named “Nana” is put on the run. Doubtful pun "Who rides on Nana?" causes a general delight. Almost everything is put on the red mare, and she brilliantly wins the race: Nana is taken home almost in her arms. Vandevre went broke at the races, but Nana doesn’t touch it much. Vandevre scandals in the race society, claiming that the result of the race was rigged. Excluded from society, he set fire to his stable and burned there with all the horses. This made Nan think about death for the first time and frighten her. And soon she had a miscarriage - she did not believe in her pregnancy for two months, explaining everything with unhealthiness, and almost died. The ruinous Count of Muffa spends all her time with her. His daughter Estella marries Dagnet, but the countess looks younger and better than her daughter: her relationship with Foshri is no longer a secret. The count has long felt like a stranger in his own house. At the wedding of Estella and Dagnet, he looks aged and miserable. Dagnet seizes the moment to run right to Nana before the celebration and, as he puts it, to hand her his innocence to her. Both are extremely amused by this adventure.

Nana reigns over the city. Philip Yugon, appointed regimental treasurer, brings her all the official money and ends up in jail. His younger brother stabbed himself with scissors right in Nan's mansion after she said she would never marry him. Earl of Muffa goes crazy with jealousy, while Nana, one after another, ruins more and more lovers. Having made her an ugly old man, the Marquise de Chouar, the count finally finds the strength to escape from the monster that has broken his life: ruined, he returns to his wife, who had broken with Foshri by then, and completely indulges in religion. Nana soon disappears from Paris - according to rumors, she visited Russia, was kept by some prince, but did not get along with him and returned to Paris. Here her child dies - an abandoned, forgotten by her Louise, a motherly affection for which she so loved to demonstrate. The next day, she suddenly develops smallpox. Her death coincides with the outbreak of war. Almost none of Nana's friends and lovers dare to approach her body - the fear of infection is too strong.

She lies alone in the hotel, where she arrived immediately after returning. Her face - a continuous abscess - turned up, her right eye fell through, pus flows out of her nose, her cheek is covered with a red crust. Fine red hair halo over a frozen mask.