Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
On the second floor the journey was continued. Denise, who had been showing customers about in this way since the morning, was dropping with fatigue; but she still continued correct, amiable, and polite. She had to wait for the ladies again in the furnishing materials department, where a ravishing cretonne had tempted Madame Marty. Then, in the furniture department, it was a work-table that took her fancy. Her hands trembled, she jokingly entreated Madame Desforges to prevent her spending any more, when a meeting with Madame Guibal furnished her with an excuse. It was in the carpet department, where the latter had gone to return a lot of Oriental door-curtains bought by her five days before. And she was standing, talking to the salesman, a brawny fellow, who, with his sinewy arms handled from morning to night loads heavy enough to kill a bullock. Naturally he was quite astounded at this “return,” which deprived him of his commission. He did his best to embarrass his customer, suspecting some queer adventure, no doubt a ball given with these curtains, bought at The Ladies’ Paradise, and then returned, to avoid hiring at an upholsterer’s: he knew this was frequently done by the needy portion of society. In short, she must have some reason for returning them; if she did not like the designs or the colours, he would show her others, he had a most complete assortment. To all these insinuations Madame Guibal replied in the quietest, most unconcerned manner possible, with a queenly assurance that the curtains did not suit her, without deigning to add any explanation. She refused to look at any others, and he was obliged to give way, for the salesmen had orders to take back the goods, even if they saw they had been used.
As the three ladies went off together, and Madame Marty referred with remorse to the work-table for which she had no earthly need, Madame Guibal said in her calm voice: “Well! you can return it. You saw it was quite easy. Let them send it home. You can put it in your drawing-room, keep it for a time, then if you don’t like it, return it!”
“Ah! that’s a good idea!” exclaimed Madame Marty. “If my husband makes too much fuss, I’ll send everything back.” This was for her the supreme excuse, she calculated no longer, but went on buying, with the secret wish to keep everything, for she was not a woman to give anything back.
At last they arrived in the dress and costume department. But as Denise was about to deliver to another young lady the silk bought by Madame Desforges, the latter seemed to change her mind, and declared that she would decidedly take one of the travelling cloaks, the light grey one with the hood; and Denise had to wait complacently to bring her back to the ready-made department. The young girl felt herself being treated like a servant by this imperious, whimsical customer; but she had sworn to herself to do her duty, and retained her calm attitude, notwithstanding the rising of her heart and the shock to her pride. Madame Desforges bought nothing in the dress and costume department.
“Oh! mamma,” said Valentine, “if that little costume should fit me!”
In a low tone, Madame Guibal was explaining her tactics to Madame Marty. When she saw a dress she liked in a shop, she had it sent home, took the pattern of it, and then sent it back. And Madame Marty bought the costume for her daughter remarking: “A good idea! You are very practical, my dear madame.”
They had been obliged to abandon the chair. It had been left in distress, in the furniture department, with the work-table. The weight was too much, the hind legs threatened to break off; and it was arranged that all the purchases should be centralised at one pay-desk, and from there sent down to the delivery department. The ladies, still accompanied by Denise, then began wandering all about the establishment, making a second appearance in nearly every department. They seemed to take up all the space on the stairs and in the galleries. Every moment some fresh meeting brought them to a standstill. Thus, near the reading-room, they once more came across Madame Bourdelais and her three children. The youngsters were loaded with parcels: Madeline had a dress for herself, Edmond was carrying a collection of little shoes, whilst the youngest, Lucien, was wearing a new cap.
“You as well!” said Madame Desforges, laughingly, to her old school-fellow.
“Pray, don’t speak of it!” cried out Madame Bourdelais. “I’m furious. They get hold of us by the little ones now! You know what a little I spend on myself! But how can you expect me to resist the voices of these young children, who want everything? I had come just to show them round, and here am I plundering the whole establishment!”
Mouret, who happened to be there still, with De Vallagnosc and Monsieur de Boves, was listening to her with a smile. She observed it, and gaily complained, with a certain amount of real irritation, of these traps laid for a mother’s tenderness; the idea that she had just yielded to the fevers of advertising raised her indignation, and he, still smiling, bowed, fully enjoying this triumph. Monsieur de Boves had manoeuvred so as to get near Madame Guibal, whom he ultimately followed, trying for the second time to lose De Vallagnosc; but the latter, tired of the crush, hastened to rejoin him. Denise was again brought to a standstill, obliged to wait for the ladies. She turned her back, and Mouret himself affected not to see her. Madame Desforges, with the delicate scent of a jealous woman, had no further doubt. Whilst he was complimenting her and walking beside her, like a gallant host, she was deep in thought, asking herself how she could convince him of his treason.
Meanwhile Monsieur de Boves and De Vallagnosc, who were on in front with Madame Guibal, had reached the lace department, a luxurious room, near the ready-made department, surrounded with stocks of carved oak drawers, which were constantly being opened and shut. Around the columns, covered with red velvet, were spirals of white lace; and from one end of the department to the other, hung lengths of Maltese; whilst on the counters there were quantities of large cards, wound round with Valenciennes, Malines, and hand-made point At the further end two ladies were seated before a mauve silk skirt, on which Deloche was placing pieces of Chantilly, the ladies looking on silently, without making up their minds.
“Hallo!” said De Vallagnosc, quite surprised, “you said Madame de Boves was unwell. But there she is standing over there near that counter, with Mademoiselle Blanche.”
The count could not help starting back, and casting a side glance at Madame Guibal.
“Dear me! so she is,” said he.
It was very warm in this room. The customers, half stifled, had pale faces with flaming eyes. It seemed as if all the seductions of the shop had converged into this supreme temptation, that it was the secluded alcove where the customers were doomed to fall, the corner of perdition where the strongest must succumb. Hands were plunged into the overflowing heaps, retaining an intoxicating trembling from the contact.
“I fancy those ladies are ruining you,” resumed De Vallagnosc, amused at the meeting.
Monsieur de Boves assumed the look of a husband perfectly sure of his wife’s discretion, from the simple fact that he did not give her a sou to spend. The latter, after having wandered through all the departments with her daughter, without buying anything, had just stranded in the lace department in a rage of unsated desire. Half dead with fatigue, she was leaning up against the counter. She dived about in a heap of lace, her hands became soft, a warmth penetrated as far as her shoulders. Then suddenly, just as her daughter turned her head and the salesman went away, she was thinking of slipping a piece of point d’Alençon under her mantle. But she shuddered, and dropped it, on hearing De Vallagnosc’s voice saying gaily:
“Ah! we’ve caught you, madame.”
For several seconds she stood there speechless and pale. Then she explained that, feeling much better, she thought she would take a stroll. And on noticing that her husband was with Madame Guibal, she quite recovered herself, and looked at them with such a dignified air that the other lady felt obliged to say:
“I was with Madame Desforges when these gentlemen met us.”
The other ladies came up just at that moment, accompanied by Mouret, who again detained them to point out Jouve the inspector, who was still following the woman in the family way and her lady friend. It was very curious, they could not form any idea of the number of thieves that were arrested in the lace department. Madame de Boves, who was listening, fancied herself between two gendarmes, with her forty-six years, her luxury, and her husband’s fine position; but yet she felt no remorse, thinking she ought to have slipped the lace up her sleeve. Jouve, however, had just decided to lay hold of the woman in the family way, despairing of catching her in the act, but fully suspecting her of having filled her pockets, with a sleight of hand which had escaped him. But when he had taken her aside and searched her, he was wild to find nothing on her – not a cravat, not a button. Her friend had disappeared. All at once he understood: the woman in the family way was only there as a blind; it was the friend who did the trick.
This affair amused the ladies. Mouret, rather vexed, merely said: “Old Jouve has been floored this time. He’ll have his revenge.”
“Oh!” replied De Vallognosc, “I don’t think he’s equal to it. Besides, why do you display such a quantity of goods? It serves you right, if you are robbed. You ought not to tempt these poor, defenceless women so.”
This was the last word, which sounded like the sharp note of the day, in the growing fever of the establishment. The ladies then separated, crossing the crowded departments for the last time. It was four o’clock, the rays of the setting sun were darting through the large windows in the front, lighting up crossways the glazed roofs of the halls, and in this red, fiery light sprung up, like a golden vapour, the thick dust raised by the circulation of the crowd. A broad ray ran along the grand central gallery, showing up on a flaming ground the staircases, the flying bridges, all the network of suspended iron. The mosaics and the terra-cotta of the friezes sparkled, the green andred paint were lighted up by the fire of the masses of gold scattered everywhere. It was like a red-hot furnace, in which the displays were now burning, the palaces of gloves and cravats, the clusters of ribbons and lace, the lofty piles of linen and calico, the diapered parterres in which flourished the light silks and foulards. The exhibition of parasols, with their shield-like roundness, threw out a sort of metallic reflection. In the distance were a lot of lost counters, sparkling, swarming with a moving crowd, ablaze with sunshine.
And at this last moment, amidst this over-warmed air, the women reigned supreme. They had taken the whole place by storm, camping there as in a conquered country, like an invading horde installed amongst the overhauling of the goods. The salesmen, deafened, knocked up, were now nothing but their slaves, of whom they disposed with a sovereign’s tyranny. Fat women elbowed their way through the crowd. The thinnest ones took up a lot of space, and became quite arrogant. They were all there, with heads high and abrupt gestures, quite at home, without the slightest politeness one for the other, using the house as much as they could, even carrying away the dust from the walls. Madame Bourdelais, desirous of making up for her expenditure, had again taken her children to the refreshment bar; the crowd was now pushing about there in a furious way, even the mothers were gorging themselves with Malaga; they had drunk since the opening eighty quarts of syrup and seventy bottles of wine. After having bought her travelling cloak, Madame Desforges had managed to secure some pictures at the pay-desk; and she went away scheming to get Denise into her house, where she could humiliate her before Mouret himself, so as to see their faces and arrive at a conclusion. Whilst Monsieur de Boves succeeded in losing himself in the crowd and disappearing with Madame Guibal, Madame de Boves, followed by Blanche and De Vallagnosc, had had the fancy to ask for a red air-ball, although she had bought nothing. It was always something, she would not go away empty-handed, she would make a friend of her doorkeeper’s little girl with it. At the distributing counter they were just commencing the fortieth thousand: forty thousand red air-balls which had taken flight in the warm air of the shop, quite a cloud of red air-balls which were now floating from one end of Paris to the other, bearing upwards to the sky the name of The Ladies’ Paradise!
Five o’clock struck. Of all the ladies, Madame Marty and her daughter were the only ones to remain, in the final crisis of the sale. She could not tear herself away, although ready to drop with fatigue, retained by an attraction so strong that she was continually retracing her steps, though wanting nothing, wandering about the departments out of a curiosity that knew no bounds. It was the moment in which the crowd, goaded on by the advertisements, completely lost itself; the sixty thousand francs paid to the newspapers, the ten thousand bills posted on the walls, the two hundred thousand catalogues distributed all over the world, after having emptied their purses, left in the women’s minds the shock of their intoxication; and the customers still remained, shaken by Mouret’s other inventions, the reduction of prices, the “returns,” the endless gallantries. Madame Marty lingered before the various stalls, amidst the hoarse cries of the salesmen, the chinking of the gold at the pay-desks, and the rolling of the parcels down into the basement; she again traversed the ground floor, the linen, the silk, the glove, and the woollen departments; then she went upstairs again, abandoning herself to the metallic vibrations of the suspended staircases and the flying-bridges, returning to the ready-made, the under-linen, and the lace departments; she even ascended to the second floor, into the heights of the bedding and furniture department; and everywhere the employees, Hutin and Favier, Mignot and Liénard, Deloche, Pauline and Denise, nearly dead with fatigue, were making a last effort, snatching victories from the expiring fever of the customers. This fever had gradually increased since the morning, like the intoxication arising from the tumbling of the stuffs. The crowd shone forth under the fiery glare of the five o’clock sun. Madame Marty’s face was now animated and nervous, like that of an infant after drinking pure wine. Arrived with clear eyes and fresh skin from the cold of the street, she had slowly burnt her sight and complexion, at the spectacle of this luxury, of these violent colours, the continued gallop of which irritated her passion. When she at last went away, after saying she would pay at home, terrified by the amount of her bill, her features were drawn up, her eyes were like those of a sick person. She was obliged to fight her way through the crowd at the door, where the people were almost killing each other, amidst the struggle for the bargains. Then, when she got into the street, and found her daughter, whom she had lost for a moment, the fresh air made her shiver, she stood there frightened in the disorder of this neurosis of the immense establishments.
In the evening, as Denise was returning from dinner, a messenger called her: “You are wanted at the director’s office, mademoiselle.”
She had forgotten the order Mouret had given her in the morning, to go to his office after the sale. He was standing waiting for her. On going in she did not close the door, which remained, wide open.
“We are very pleased with you, mademoiselle,” said he, “and we have thought of proving our satisfaction. You know in what a shameful manner Madame Frédéric has left us. From to-morrow you will take her place as second-hand.”
Denise listened to him immovable with surprise. She murmured in a trembling voice: “But, sir, there are saleswomen in the department who are much my seniors.”
“What does that matter?” resumed he. “You are the most capable, the most trustworthy. I choose you; it’s quite natural. Are you not satisfied?”
She blushed, feeling a delicious happiness and embarrassment, in which her first fright vanished. Why had she at once thought of the suppositions with which this unhoped for favour would be received? And she stood filled with her confusion, notwithstanding her sudden burst of gratitude. He was looking at her with a smile, in her simple silk dress, without a single piece of jewellery, nothing but the luxury of her royal, blonde head of hair. She had become more refined, her skin was whiter, her manner delicate and grave. Her former puny insignificance was developing into a charm of a penetrating discretion.
“You are very kind, sir,” she stammered. “I don’t know how to tell you – ”
But she was cut short by the appearance of Lhomme in the doorway. In his hand he was holding a large leather bag, and with his mutilated arm he was pressing an enormous notecase to his chest; whilst, behind him, his son Albert was carrying a load of bags, which were weighing him down.
“Five hundred and eighty-seven thousand two hundred and ten francs thirty centimes!” cried out the cashier, whose flabby, used-up face seemed to be lighted up with a ray of sunshine, in the reflection of such a sum.
It was the day’s receipts, the highest The Ladies’ Paradise had ever done. In the distance, in the depths of the shop that Lhomme had just passed through slowly, with the heavy gait of an overloaded beast of burden, one could hear the uproar, the ripple of surprise and joy, left by this colossal sum which passed.
“But it’s superb!” said Mouret, enchanted. “My good Lhomme, put it down there, and take a rest, for you look quite done up. I’ll have this money taken to the central cashier’s office. Yes, yes, put it all on my table, I want to see the heap.”
He was full of a childish gaiety. The cashier and his son laid down their burdens. The leather bag gave out a clear, golden ring, two of the other bags bursting let out a stream of silver and copper, whilst from the note-case peeped forth corners of bank notes. One end of the large table was entirely covered; it was like the tumbling of a fortune picked up in ten hours.
When Lhomme and Albert had retired, mopping their faces, Mouret remained for a moment motionless, lost, his eyes fixed on the money. Then, raising his head, he perceived Denise, who had drawn back. He began to smile again, forced her to come forward, and finished by saying he would give her all she could take in her hand; and there was a sort of love-bargain beneath his playfulness.
“Look! out of the bag. I bet it would be less than a thousand francs, your hand is so small!”
But she drew back again. He loved her, then? Suddenly she understood, she felt the growing flame of desire with which he had enveloped her since, her return to the shop. What overcame her more than anything else was to feel her heart beating violently. Why did he wound her with all this money, when she was overflowing with gratitude, and he could have done anything with her by a friendly word? He was coming closer to her, continuing to joke, when, to his great annoyance, Bourdoncle appeared, under the pretence of informing him of the number of entries – the enormous number of seventy thousand customers had entered The Ladies’ Paradise that day. And she hastened away, after having again thanked him.
CHAPTER X
The first Sunday in August every one was busy with the stock-taking, which had to be finished by the evening. Early in the morning all the employees were at their posts, as on a week-day, and the work commenced with closed doors, in the immense establishment, entirely free from customers.
Denise, however, had not come down with the other young ladies at eight o’clock. Confined to her room for the last five days by a sprained ankle, caused when going up stairs to the work-rooms, she was going on much better; but, sure of Madame Aurélie’s indulgence, she did not hurry down, and sat putting her boots on with difficulty, resolved, however, to show herself in the department. The young ladies’ bed-rooms now occupied the entire fifth storey of the new buildings, along the Rue Monsigny; there were sixty of them, on either side of a corridor, and they were much more comfortable than formerly, although still furnished with the iron bedstead, large wardrobe, and little mahogany toilet-table. The private life of the saleswomen became more refined and elegant there, they displayed a taste for scented soap and fine linen, quite a natural ascent towards middle-class ways as their positions improved, although high words and banging doors were still sometimes heard amidst the hôtel-like gust that carried them away, morning and evening. Denise, being second-hand in her department, had one of the largest rooms, the two attic windows of which looked into the street. Being much better off now, she indulged in several little luxuries, a red eider-down coverlet for the bed, covered with Maltese lace, a small carpet in front of the wardrobe, and two blue-glass vases containing a few faded roses on the toilet table.
When she got her boots on she tried to walk across the room; but was obliged to lean against the furniture, being still rather lame. But that would soon come right again, she thought. At the same time, she had been quite right in refusing the invitation to dine at uncle Baudu’s that evening, and in asking her aunt to take Pépé out for a walk, for she had placed him with Madame Gras again. Jean, who had been to see her the previous day, was to dine at his uncle’s also. She continued to try to walk, resolved to go to bed early, in order to rest her leg, when Madame Cabin, the housekeeper, knocked and gave her a letter, with an air of mystery.
The door closed. Denise, astonished by this woman’s discreet smile, opened the letter. She dropped on to a chair; it was a letter from Mouret, in which he expressed himself delighted at her recovery, and begged her to go down and dine with him that evening, as she could not go out. The tone of this note, at once familiar and paternal, was in no way offensive; but it was impossible for her to mistake its meaning. The Ladies’ Paradise well knew the real signification of these invitations, which were legendary: Clara had dined, others as well, all those the governor had specially remarked. After dinner, as the witlings were wont to say, came the dessert. And the young girl’s white cheeks were gradually invaded by a flow of blood.
The letter slipped on to her knees, and Denise, her heart beating violently, remained with her eyes fixed on the blinding light of one of the windows. This was the confession she must have made to herself, in this very room, during her sleepless moments: if she still trembled when he passed, she now knew it was not from fear; and her former uneasiness, her old terror, could have been nothing but the frightened ignorance of love, the disorder of her growing affections, in her youthful wildness. She did not argue with herself, she simply felt that she had always loved him from the hour she had shuddered and stammered before him. She had loved him when she had feared him as a pitiless master; she had loved him when her distracted heart was dreaming of Hutin, unconsciously yielding to a desire for affection. Perhaps she might have given herself to another, but she had never loved any but this man, whose mere look terrified her. And her whole past life came back to her, unfolding itself in the blinding light of the window: the hardships of her start, that sweet walk under the shady trees of the Tuileries Gardens, and, lastly, the desires with which he had enveloped her ever since her return. The letter dropped on the ground, Denise still gazed at the window, dazzled by the glare of the sun.
Suddenly there was a knock. She hastened to pick up the letter and conceal it in her pocket. It was Pauline, who, having slipped away under some pretext, had come for a little gossip.
“How are you, my dear? We never meet now – ”
But as it was against the rules to go up into the bed-rooms, and, above all, for two to be shut in together, Denise took her to the end of the passage, into the ladies’ drawing-room, a gallant present from Mouret to the young ladies, who could spend their evenings there till eleven o’clock. The apartment, decorated in white and gold, of the vulgar nudity of an hôtel room, was furnished with a piano, a central table, and some arm-chairs and sofas protected with white covers. But, after a few evenings spent together, in the first novelty of the thing, the saleswomen never went into the place without coming to high words at once. They required educating to it, the little trading city was wanting in accord. Meanwhile, almost the only one that went there in the evening was the second-hand in the corset department, Miss Powell, who strummed away at Chopin on the piano, and whose coveted talent ended by driving the others away.
“You see my ankle’s better now,” said Denise, “I was going downstairs.”
“Well!” exclaimed the other, “what zeal! I’d take it easy if I had the chance!”
They both sat down on a sofa. Pauline’s attitude had changed since her friend had been promoted to be second-hand in the ready-made department. With her good-natured cordiality was mingled a shade of respect, a sort of surprise to feel the puny little saleswoman of former days on the road to fortune. Denise liked her very much, and confided in her alone, amidst the continual gallop of the two hundred women that the firm now employed.
“What’s the matter?” asked Pauline, quickly, when she remarked the young girl’s troubled looks.
“Oh! nothing,” replied the latter, with an awkward smile.
“Yes, yes; there’s something the matter with you. Have you no faith in me, that you have given up telling me your troubles?”
Then Denise, in the emotion that was swelling her bosom – an emotion she could not control – abandoned herself to her feelings. She gave her friend the letter, stammering: “Look! he has just written to me.”
Between themselves, they had never openly spoken of Mouret. But this very silence was like a confession of their secret pre-occupations. Pauline knew everything. After having read the letter, she clasped Denise in her arms, and softly murmured: “My dear, to speak frankly, I thought it was already done. Don’t be shocked; I assure you the whole shop must think as I do. Naturally! he appointed you as second-hand so quickly, then he’s always after you. It’s obvious!” She kissed her affectionately, and then asked her: “You will go this evening, of course?”
Denise looked at her without replying. All at once she burst into tears, her head on Pauline’s shoulder. The latter was quite astonished.’
“Come, try and calm yourself; there’s nothing in the affair to upset you like this.”
“No, no; let me be,” stammered Denise. “If you only knew what trouble I am in! Since I received that letter, I have felt beside myself. Let me have a good cry, that will relieve me.”
Full of pity, though not understanding, Pauline endeavoured to console her. In the first place, he had thrown up Clara. It was said he still visited a lady outside, but that was not proved. Then she explained that one could not be jealous of a man in such a position. He had too much money; he was the master, after all Denise listened to her, and had she been ignorant of her love, she could no longer have doubted it after the suffering she felt at the name of Clara and the allusion to Madame Desforges, which made her heart bleed. She could hear Clara’s disagreeable voice, she could see Madame Desforges dragging her about the different departments with the scorn of a rich lady for a poor shop-girl.
“So you would go yourself?” asked she.
Pauline, without pausing to think, cried out: “Of course, how can one do otherwise!” Then reflecting, she added: “Not now, but formerly, because now I am going to marry Bauge, and it would not be right.”
In fact, Bauge, who had left the Bon Marche for The Ladies’ Paradise, was going to marry her about the middle of the month. Bourdoncle did not like these married couples; they had managed, however, to get the necessary permission, and even hoped to obtain a fortnight’s holiday for their honeymoon.
“There you are,” declared Denise, “when a man loves a girl he ought to marry her. Bauge is going to marry you.” Pauline laughed heartily. “But my dear, it isn’t the same thing. Baugé is going to marry me because he is Bauge. He’s my equal, that’s a natural thing. Whilst Monsieur Mouret! Do you think Monsieur Mouret can marry his saleswomen?”
“Oh! no, oh! no,” exclaimed the young girl, shocked by the absurdity the question, “and that’s why he ought not to have written to me.”
This argument completely astonished Pauline. Her coarse face, with her small tender eyes, assumed quite an expression of maternal compassion. Then she got up, opened the piano, and softly played with one finger, “King Dagobert,” to enliven the situation, no doubt. Into the nakedness of the drawingroom, the white coverings of which seemed to increase the emptiness, came the noises from the street, the distant melopoia of a woman crying out green peas. Denise had thrown herself back on the sofa, her head against the wood-work, shaken by a fresh flood of sobs, which she stifled in her handkerchief.
“Again!” resumed Pauline, turning round. “Really you are not reasonable. Why did you bring me here? We ought to have stopped in your room.”
She knelt down before her, and commenced lecturing her again. How many others would like to be in her place! Besides, if the thing did not please her, it was very simple: she had only to say no, without worrying herself like this. But she should reflect before risking her position by a refusal which was inexplicable, considering she had no engagement elsewhere. Was it such a terrible thing after all? and the reprimand was finishing up by some pleasantries, gaily whispered, when a sound of footsteps was heard in the passage. Pauline ran to the door and looked out. “Hush! Madame Aurélie!” she murmured. “I’m off, and just you dry your eyes. She need not know what’s up.” When Denise was alone, she got up, and forced back her tears; and, her hands still trembling, with the fear of being caught there doing nothing, she closed the piano, which her friend had left open. But on hearing Madame Aurélie knocking at her door, she left the drawing-room.
