The Rue¹ du Dix-Décembre, looking quite new with its chalk-white houses and the final scaffoldings of some nearly finished buildings, stretched out beneath a clear February sun; a stream of carriages was passing at a rattling² pace through this gleam of light, which traversed the damp shadow of the old Saint-Roch quarter; and, between the Rue de la Michodière and the Rue de Choiseul, there was a great tumult³, the crushing of a crowd excited by a month's advertising⁴, their eyes in the air, gaping⁵ at the monumental façade of The Ladies' Paradise, inaugurated that Monday, on the occasion of a grand show of white goods.

 

The bright new masonry⁶ displayed a vast development of polychromatic architecture, relieved by gildings, announcing the tumult and sparkle of the business inside, and attracting attention like a gigantic window-display all aglow⁸ with the liveliest colours. In order not to neutralise the show of goods, the decoration of the ground floor was of a sober description; the base of sea-green marble; the corner pillars and the supporting columns were covered with black marble, the severity of which was relieved by gilded⁹ medallions; and the rest of plate-glass, in iron sashes, nothing but glass, which seemed to open up the depths of the halls and galleries to the full light of day. But as the floors ascended¹⁰, the tones became brighter. The frieze¹¹ on the ground floor was decorated with a series of mosaics