The situation, however, was destined to become worse still, for in September, the architect, afraid of not being ready, decided to carry on the work at night also. Powerful electric lamps were established, and the uproar became continuous. Gangs of men relieved each other; the hammers never stopped, the engines whistled night and day; the everlasting clamour seemed to raise and scatter the white dust The Baudus now had to give up the idea of sleeping even; they were shaken in their beds; the noises changed into nightmare as soon as they fell off to sleep. Then, if they got up to calm their fever, and went, with bare feet, to look out of the window, they were frightened by the vision of The Ladies' Paradise flaring in the darkness like a colossal forge, where their ruin was being forged. Along the half-built walls, dotted with open bays, the electric lamps threw a large blue flood of light, of a blinding intensity. Two o'clock struck--then three, then four; and during the painful sleep of the neighbourhood, the works, increased by this lunar brightness, became colossal and fantastic, swarming with black shadows, noisy workmen, whose profiles gesticulated on the crude whiteness of the new plastering. Baudu was quite right. The small traders in the neighbouring streets were receiving another mortal blow. Every time The Ladies' Paradise created new departments there were fresh failures among the shopkeepers of the district The disaster spread, one could hear the cracking of the oldest houses. Mademoiselle Tatin, at the under-linen shop in the Passage Choiseul, had just been declared bankrupt; Quinette, the glover, could hardly hold out another six months; the furriers, Vanpouille, were obliged to sub-let a part of their premises; and if the Bédorés, brother and sister, the hosiers, still kept on in the Rue Gaillon, they were evidently living on money saved formerly. And now more smashes were going to be added to those long since foreseen; the department for fancy goods threatened a toy-shopkeeper in the Rue Saint-Roch, Deslignières, a big, full-blooded man; whilst the furniture department attacked Messrs. Piot and Rivoire, whose shops were sleeping in the shadow of the Passage Sainte-Anne. It was even feared that an attack of apoplexy would carry off the toyman, who had gone into a terrible rage on seeing The Ladies' Paradise mark up purses at thirty per cent, reduction. The furniture dealers, who were much calmer, affected to joke at these counter-jumpers who wanted to meddle with such articles as chairs and tables; but customers were already leaving them, the success of the department had every appearance of being a formidable one. It was all over, they were obliged to bow their heads. After these others would be swept off, and there was no reason why every business should not be driven away. One day The Ladies' Paradise alone would cover the neighbourhood with its roof.