the same time he exchanged confidential glances with Mme. de N., a
fair ornament of the Champs-Elysees, almost always dressed in pink
or blue, and driving two big black horses which Tony had sold her for
10,000 francs, and for which she had paid, after her fashion; finally,
Mlle. R., who makes by her mere talent twice what the women of the world
make by their dot and three times as much as the others make by their
amours, had come, in spite of the cold, to make some purchases, and was
not the least looked at among the crowd.

We might cite the initials of many more of those who found themselves,
not without some mutual surprise, side by side in one room. But we fear
to weary the reader. We will only add that everyone was in the highest
spirits, and that many of those present had known the dead woman, and
seemed quite oblivious of the fact. There was a sound of loud laughter;
the auctioneers shouted at the top of their voices; the dealers who had
filled the benches in front of the auction table tried in vain to obtain
silence, in order to transact their business in peace. Never was there a
noisier or a more varied gathering.

I slipped quietly into the midst of this tumult, sad to think of when
one remembered that the poor creature whose goods were being sold to pay
her debts had died in the next room. Having come rather to examine than
to buy, I watched the faces of the auctioneers, noticing how they
beamed with delight whenever anything reached a price beyond their
expectations. Honest creatures, who had speculated upon this woman's
prostitution, who had gained their hundred per cent out of her, who had
plagued with their writs the last moments of her life, and who came now
after her death to gather in at once the fruits of their dishonourable
calculations and the interest on their shameful credit, How wise were
the ancients in having only one God for traders and robbers!

Dresses, cashmeres, jewels, were sold with incredible rapidity. There
was nothing that I cared for, and I still waited. All at once I heard:
"A volume, beautifully bound, gilt-edged, entitled Manon Lescaut. There
is something written on the first page. Ten francs."

"Twelve," said a voice after a longish silence.

"Fifteen," I said.

Why? I did not know. Doubtless for the something written.

"Fifteen," repeated the auctioneer.

"Thirty," said the first bidder in a tone which seemed to defy further
competition.

It had now become a struggle