Silence descended again. Many of these women had come a long way. A little dressmaker had left her workshop to bring her daughter. A big chambermaid had obtained the morning's leave from the bourgeois house where she worked. Her daughter stood beside her, a beautiful child of sixteen with colourless hair, impudent as a magpie. A music teacher with well-worn boots had excused herself from her pupils. Her two daughters flanked her to right and left, Parisian blossoms, pale and anaemic. Both wished to pass the entrance examinations, the one as an ingenue in comedy, the other in tragedy. They were neither comic nor tragic, but modest and charming. There was also a small shop-keeper, covered with jewels. She sat very rigid, far forward on the bench, compressed into a terrible corset which forced her breast and back into the humps of a punchinello; her legs hanging just short of the floor. Her daughter paced up and down the long room like a colt snorting impatiently to be put through its paces. She had the beauty of a classic type, without spot or blemish, but her joints looked too heavy and her neck was thrust without grace between her large shoulders. Anyone who looked into the future would have been able to predict for her, with some certainty, an honourable career as a tragedian in the provinces. Madame Darbois seated herself on the only chair in the little office. When the official had read Esperance's birth certificate, he exclaimed, "What! Mademoiselle is the daughter of the famous professor of philosophy?'" The two women looked at each other with amazement. "Why, ladies," went on the official, radiantly, "my son is taking courses with M. Darbois at the Sorbonne. What a pleasure it is to meet you--but how does it happen that M. Darbois has allowed...?" His sentence died in his throat. Madame Darbois had become very pale and her daughter's nostrils quivered. The official finished with his papers, returned them politely to Madame Darbois, and said in a low tone, "Have no anxiety, Madame, the little lady has a wonderful future before her." The two ladies thanked the official and made their way toward the door. The group of young men bowed to the young girl, and she inclined her head ever so slightly. "Oh, la-la," screamed the big chamber-maid. Esperance stopped on the threshold and looked directly at the woman, who blushed, and said nothing more. "Ho, ho," jeered one of the youths, "she settled you finely that time, didn't she?" An argument ensued instantly, but Esperance had gone her way, trembling with happiness. Everything in life seemed opening for her. For the first time she was aware of her own individuality; for the first time she recognized in herself a force: would that force work for creation or destruction? The child pressed her hands against her fluttering heart.