Five o'clock struck. Of all the ladies, Madame Marty and her daughter were the only ones to remain, in the final crisis of the sale. She could not tear herself away, although ready to drop with fatigue, retained by an attraction so strong that she was continually retracing her steps, though wanting nothing, wandering about the departments out of a curiosity that knew no bounds. It was the moment in which the crowd, goaded on by the advertisements, completely lost itself; the sixty thousand francs paid to the newspapers, the ten thousand bills posted on the walls, the two hundred thousand catalogues distributed all over the world, after having emptied their purses, left in the women's minds the shock of their intoxication; and the customers still remained, shaken by Mouret's other invention
