eleven o'clock
Do come ! '' Nana undressed in the dressing room , and in order to be quicker about it she took her thick fell of blonde hair in both hands and began shaking it above the silver wash hand basin , while a downward hail of long hairpins rang a little chime on the shining metal . One Sunday the race for the Grand Prix de Paris was being run in the Bois de Boulogne beneath skies rendered sultry by the first heats of June . 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 .