flapped, while equestrians urged
their hacks forward amid a crowd of pedestrians rushing to get places
along the barriers. When Nana turned in the direction of the stands
on the other side the faces seemed diminished, and the dense masses of
heads were only a confused and motley array, filling gangways, steps and
terraces and looming in deep, dark, serried lines against the sky. And
beyond these again she over looked the plain surrounding the course.
Behind the ivy-clad mill to the right, meadows, dotted over with great
patches of umbrageous wood, stretched away into the distance, while
opposite to her, as far as the Seine flowing at the foot of a hill, the
avenues of the park intersected one another, filled at that moment with
long, motionless files of waiting carriages; and in the direction of
Boulogne, on the left, the landscape widened anew and opened out toward
the blue distances of Meudon through an avenue of paulownias, whose
rosy, leafless tops were one stain of brilliant lake color. People were
still arriving, and a long procession of human ants kept coming along
the narrow ribbon of road which crossed the distance, while very far
away, on the Paris side, the nonpaying public, herding like sheep among
the wood, loomed in a moving line of little dark spots under the trees
on the skirts of the Bois.

Suddenly a cheering influence warmed the hundred thousand souls who
covered this part of the plain like insects swarming madly under the
vast expanse of heaven. The sun, which had been hidden for about a
quarter of an hour, made his appearance again and shone out amid
a perfect sea of light. And everything flamed afresh: the women's
sunshades turned into countless golden targets above the heads of the
crowd. The sun was applauded, saluted with bursts of laughter. And
people stretched their arms out as though to brush apart the clouds.

Meanwhile a solitary police officer advanced down the middle of the
deserted racecourse, while higher up, on the left, a man appeared with a
red flag in his hand.

"It's the starter, the Baron de Mauriac," said Labordette in reply to a
question from Nana. All round the young woman exclamations were bursting
from the men who were pressing to her very carriage step. They kept up
a disconnected conversation, jerking out phrases under the immediate
influence of passing impressions. Indeed, Philippe and Georges,
Bordenave and La Faloise, could not be quiet.

"Don't shove! Let me see! A