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!  Ah, the judge is getting into his box.  D’you say it’s Monsieur de Souvigny?  You must have good eyesight—­eh?—­to be able to tell what half a head is out of a fakement like that!  Do hold your tongue—­the banner’s going up.  Here they are—­’tenshun!  Cosinus is the first!”

A red and yellow banner was flapping in mid-air at the top of a mast.  The horses came on the course one by one; they were led by stableboys, and the jockeys were sitting idle-handed in the saddles, the sunlight making them look like bright dabs of color.  After Cosinus appeared Hazard and Boum.  Presently a murmur of approval greeted Spirit, a magnificent big brown bay, the harsh citron color and black of whose jockey were cheerlessly Britannic.  Valerio II scored a success as he came in; he was small and very lively, and his colors were soft green bordered with pink.  The two Vandeuvres horses were slow to make their appearance, but at last, in Frangipane’s