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.