One December evening three months afterward¹ Count Muffat was strolling in the Passage des Panoramas². The evening was very mild, and owing to a passing shower, the passage had just become crowded with people. There was a perfect mob of them, and they thronged³ slowly and laboriously⁴ along between the shops on either side. Under the windows, white with reflected light, the pavement was violently illuminated⁵. A perfect stream of brilliancy emanated⁶ from white globes, red lanterns, blue transparencies, lines of gas jets, gigantic watches and fans, outlined in flame and burning in the open. And the motley displays in the shops, the gold ornaments⁷ of the jeweler's, the glass ornaments of the confectioner's, the light-colored silks of the modiste's, seemed to shine again in the crude light of the reflectors behind the clear plate-glass windows, while among the bright-colored, disorderly array of shop signs a huge purple glove loomed⁹ in the distance like a bleeding hand which had been severed¹¹ from an arm and fastened to a yellow cuff¹².

Count Muffat had slowly returned as far as the boulevard. He glanced out at the roadway and then came sauntering back along the shopwindows. The damp and heated atmosphere filled the narrow passage with a slight luminous¹³ mist. Along the flagstones, which had been wet by the drip-drop of umbrellas, the footsteps of the crowd rang continually, but there was no sound of voices. Passers-by elbowed him at every turn and cast inquiring looks at his silent face, which the gaslight rendered pale. And to escape these curious

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