Au Bonheur des Dames - Texte abrégé

Excerpt: Eight hours were running in Saint-Roch, there was no on the sidewalks that the morning Paris, the employees running to their offices and the housewives running the shops. In front of the door, two clerks, mounted on a double ladder, ended hanging woollens, while in a window on Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, another clerk, kneeling and his back turned, gently folded a piece of blue silk. The shop, still emptying of customers, and where the staff barely arrived, was buzzing inside like a hive that awakened."Information content:In the Happiness of the Ladies, the great Parisian shop where women are jostling, symbol of social progress and announced bankruptcy of the small business...A universe where, in a magical setting, all the layers of society are conjoined.