Oh, the lure of the Passage Choiseul, the queer, rather gawky attraction of it. Surely the most hideous place in all Paris, with its roof of stark wooden ribs and glass panes—the roof that looks like the vertebral column of some prehistoric monster. The chocolate smell of the patisserie—the big one where people go who have money. The humbler, student smell of Lavrut, where one’s grey rubber bands are sold by the gramme and are known as: ‘Bracelets de caoutchouc.’ Where one buys première qualité blotting paper of a deep ruddy tint and the stiffness of cardboard, and thin but inspiring manuscript books bound in black, with mottled, shiny blue borders. Where pencils and pens are found in their legions, of all makes, all shapes, all colours, all prices; while outside on the trustful trays in the Passage, lives Gomme Onyx, masquerading as marble, and as likely to rub a hole in your paper. For those who prefer the reading of books to the writing of them, there is always Lemerre with his splendid display of yellow bindings. And for those undisturbed by imagination, the taxidermist’s shop is quite near the corner—they can stare at a sad and moth-eaten flamingo, two squirrels, three parrots and a dusty canary. Some are tempted by the cheap corduroy at the draper’s, where it stands in great rolls as though it were carpet. Some pass on to the little stamp merchant, while a few dauntless souls even enter the chemist’s—that shamelessly anatomical chemist’s, whose wares do not figure in school manuals on the practical uses of rubber. And up and down this Passage Choiseul, pass innumerable idle or busy people, bringing in mud and rain in the winter, bringing in dust and heat in the summer, bringing in God knows how many thoughts, some part of which cannot escape with their owners. The very air of the Passage seems heavy with all these imprisoned thoughts. Stephen’s thoughts got themselves entrapped with the others, but hers, at the moment, were those of a schoolgirl, for her eye had suddenly lit on Lavrut, drawn thereto by the trays of ornate india-rubber. And once inside, she could not resist the ‘Bracelets de caoutchouc,’ or the blotting paper as red as a rose, or the manuscript books with the mottled blue borders. Growing reckless, she gave an enormous order for the simple reason that these things looked different. In the end she actually carried away one of those inspiring manuscript books, and then got herself driven home by a taxi, in order the sooner to fill it. 2