The sun that morning had risen amid a mist of dun-colored dust,
but toward eleven o'clock, just when the carriages were reaching the
Longchamps course, a southerly wind had swept away the clouds; long
streamers of gray vapor were disappearing across the sky, and gaps
showing an intense blue beyond were spreading from one end of the
horizon to the other. In the bright bursts of sunlight which alternated
with the clouds the whole scene shone again, from the field which was
gradually filling with a crowd of carriages, horsemen and pedestrians,
to the still-vacant course, where the judge's box stood, together with
the posts and the masts for signaling numbers, and thence on to the five
symmetrical stands of brickwork and timber, rising gallery upon gallery
in the middle of the weighing enclosure opposite. Beyond these, bathed
in the light of noon, lay the vast level plain, bordered with little
trees and shut in to the westward by the wooded heights of Saint-Cloud
and the Suresnes, which, in their turn, were dominated by the severe
outlines of Mont-Valerien.
Nana, as excited as if the Grand Prix were going to make her fortune,
wanted to take up a position by the railing next the winning post.
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