But he could not enliven them. He himself relapsed into a pale consternation; and they all stood with their eyes on the monster, attracted, possessed, full of their misfortune. The work was nearly finished, the scaffolding had been removed from the front, a whole side of the colossal edifice appeared, with its walls and large light windows. Along the pavement at last open to circulation, stood eight vans that the messengers were loading one after the other. In the sunshine, a ray of which ran along the street, the green panels, picked out with red and yellow, sparkled like so many mirrors, sending blinding reflections right into The Old Elbeuf. The drivers, dressed in black, of a correct appearance, were holding the horses well in, superb pairs, shaking their silvered bits. And each time a van was loaded, there was a sonorous, rolling noise, which made the neighbouring small shops tremble. And before this triumphal procession, which they were destined to submit to twice a day, the Baudus' hearts broke. The father half fainted away, asking himself where this continual flood of goods could go to; whilst the mother, tormented to death about her daughter, continued to gaze into the street, her eyes drowned in a flood of tears. CHAPTER IX. It was on a Monday, the 14th of March, that The Ladies' Paradise inaugurated its new buildings by a great exhibition of summer novelties, which was to last three days. Outside, a sharp wind was blowing, the passers-by, surprised by this return of winter, spun along, buttoned up in their overcoats. However, behind the closed doors of the neighbouring shops, quite an agitation was fermenting; and one could see, against the windows, the pale faces of the small tradesmen, occupied in counting the first carriages which stopped before the new grand entrance in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin. This door, lofty and deep like a church porch, surmounted by a group--Industry and Commerce hand-in-hand amidst a complication of symbols--was sheltered by a vast awning, the fresh gilding of which seemed to light up the pavement with a ray of sunshine. To the right and left stretched the shop fronts, barely dry and of a blinding whiteness, running along the Rue Monsigny and the Rue de la Michodière, occupying the whole island, except on the Rue du Dix-Décembre side, where the Crédit Immobilier intended to build. Along this barrack-like development, the small tradesmen, when they raised their heads, perceived the piles of goods through the large plate-glass windows which, from the ground floor up to the second storey, opened the house to the light of day. And this enormous cube, this colossal bazaar, shut out the sky from them, seeming to cause the cold which was making them shiver behind their frozen counters.