Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Bonheur Des Dames, or the Shop Girls of Paris The other characters are drawn with' equal skill and effect, and from the leading personages to those of but slight importance not one is carelessly passed over, a circumstance which shows Zola's profound knowledge of humanity, and the conscientiousness with which he executes all his tasks. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.