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THE LADIES' PARADISE

(The Sequel To “Piping Hot!”)

A Realistic Novel

By Émile Zola

Translated without Abridgment from the 80th French Edition

London: Vizetelly And Company

1886.


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THE LADIES' PARADISE




CHAPTER I.

DENISE had walked from the Saint-Lazare railway station, where a
Cherbourg train had landed her and her two brothers, after a night
passed on the hard seat of a third-class carriage. She was leading Pépé
by the hand, and Jean was following her, all three fatigued after the
journey, frightened and lost in this vast Paris, their eyes on every
street name, asking at every corner the way to the Rue de la Michodière,
where their uncle Baudu lived. But on arriving in the Place Gaillon, the
young girl stopped short, astonished.

“Oh! look there, Jean,” said she; and they stood still, nestling close
to one another, all dressed in black, wearing the old mourning bought
at their father's death. She, rather puny for her twenty years, was
carrying a small parcel; on the other side, her little brother, five
years old, was clinging to her arm; while behind her, the big brother, a
strapping youth of sixteen, was standing empty-handed.

“Well,” said she, after a pause, “that _is_ a shop!”

They were at the corner of the Rue de la Michodière and the Rue
Neuve-Saint-Augustin, in front of a dr