Caught by the current the ladies could not now go back. Just as rivers attract the fugitive waters of a valley, so it seemed as if the stream of customers, flowing into the vestibule, was absorbing the passers-by, drinking in people from the four corners of Paris. They advanced but slowly, squeezed almost to death, and maintained upright by the shoulders around them; and their desires already derived enjoyment from this painful entrance which heightened their curiosity. It was a medley of ladies arrayed in silk, of poorly dressed middle-class women, and of bare-headed girls, all excited and carried away by the same passion. A few men, buried beneath the overflowing bosoms, were casting anxious glances around them. A nurse, in the thickest of the crowd, held her baby above her head, the youngster crowing with delight. The only one to get angry was a skinny woman who broke out into bad words, accusing her neighbour of digging right into her. "I really think I shall lose my skirts in this crowd," remarked Madame de Boves. Mute, her face still cool from the open air, Madame Marty was standing on tip-toe in her endeavour to catch a glimpse of the depths of the shop before the others. The pupils of her grey eyes were as contracted as those of a cat coming out of the broad daylight, and she had the restful feeling, and clear expression of a person just waking up. "Ah, at last!" said she, heaving a sigh. The ladies had just extricated themselves. They were in the Saint-Augustin Hall, which they were greatly surprised to find almost empty. But a feeling of comfort penetrated them, they seemed to be entering into spring after emerging from the winter of the street. Whilst the piercing wind, laden with rain and hail, was still blowing out of doors, the fine season was already budding forth in The Paradise galleries, with the light stuffs, soft flowery shades and rural gaiety of summer dresses and parasols. "Do look there!" exclaimed Madame de Boves, standing motionless, her eyes in the air. It was the exhibition of parasols. Wide-open and rounded like shields, they covered the whole hall, from the glazed roofing to the varnished oak mouldings below. They described festoons round the arches of the upper storeys; they descended in garlands down the slender columns; they ran in close lines along the balustrades of the galleries and the staircases; and everywhere ranged symmetrically, speckling the walls with red, green, and yellow, they looked like huge Venetian lanterns, lighted up for some colossal entertainment. In the corners were more complicated designs, stars composed of parasols at thirty-nine sous whose light shades, pale blue, cream-white, and blush rose, had the subdued glow of night-lights; whilst, up above, immense Japanese parasols, on which golden-coloured cranes soared in purple skies, blazed forth with fiery reflections.