From the four converging streets they came down into the market, looking still rather young in some cases and very pale and charming in their utter unconstraint; in others, hideous and old with bloated faces and peeling skin.

The latter did not the least mind being seen thus outside working hours, and not one of them deigned to smile when the passers-by on the sidewalk turned round to look at them.
Indeed, they were all very full of business and wore a disdainful expression, as became good housewives for whom men had ceased to exist.
Just as Satin, for instance, was paying for her bunch of radishes a young man, who might have been a shop-boy going late to his work, threw her a passing greeting: "Good morning, duckie." She straightened herself up at once and with the dignified manner becoming an offended queen remarked: "What's up with that swine there ?" Then she fancied she recognized him.

Three days ago toward midnight, as the was coming back alone from the boulevards, she had talked to him at the corner of the Rue Labruyere for nearly half an hour, with a view to persuading him to come home with her.

But this recollection only angered her the more.
"Fancy they're brutes enough to shout things to you in broad daylight!" she continued.

"When one's out on business one ought to be respectfully treated, eh ?" Nana had ended by buying her pigeons, although she certainly had her doubts of their freshness.