Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
On entering, Mouret had found Denise standing upright, in the middle of the bright light. She was very pale, dressed in a cashmere jacket, and a black hat.
He hesitated, undecided, flinching before the scene he could foresee. But he had to obey. The baron said to him, with his air at once paternal and mocking, “Go, my dear fellow, go, madame wants you.”
Mouret followed her. The door closed, and he thought he could hear De Vallagnosc’s grin stifled by the hangings. His courage was entirely exhausted. Since Henriette had quitted the drawing-room, and he knew Denise was alone in the house in jealous hands, he had experienced a growing anxiety, a nervous torment, which made him listen from time to time as if suddenly startled by a distant sound of weeping. What could this woman invent to torture her? And his whole love, this love which surprised him even now, went out to the young girl like a support and a consolation. Never had he loved her so strongly, with that charm so powerful in suffering. His former affections, his love for Henriette herself – so delicate, so handsome, the possession of whom was so flattering to his pride – had never been more than agreeable pastimes, frequently a calculation, in which he sought nothing but a profitable pleasure. He used quietly to leave his mistresses and go home to bed, happy in his bachelor liberty, without a regret or a care on his mind; whilst now his heart beat with anguish, his life was taken, he no longer enjoyed the forgetfulness of sleep in his great, solitary bed. Denise was his only thought. Even at this moment she was the sole object of his anxiety, and he was telling himself that he preferred to be there to protect her, notwithstanding his fear of some regrettable scene with the other one.
At first, they both crossed the bed-room, silent and empty. Then Madame Desforges, pushing open a door, entered the dressing-room, followed by Mouret. It was a rather large room, hung with red silk, furnished with a marble toilet table and a large wardrobe with three compartments and great glass doors. As the window looked into the yard, it was already rather dark, and the two nickel-plated gas burners on either side of the wardrobe had been lighted.
“Now, let’s see,” said Henriette, “perhaps we shall get on better.”
On entering Mouret had found Denise standing upright, in the middle of a bright light. She was very pale, modestly dressed in a cashmere jacket with a black hat, and was holding on one arm the mantle bought at The Ladies Paradise. When she saw the young man her hands slightly trembled.
“I wish Monsieur Mouret to judge,” resumed Henriette. “Just help me, mademoiselle.”
And Denise, approaching, had to give her the mantle. She had already placed some pins on the shoulders, the part that did not fit. Henriette turned round to look at herself in the glass.
“Is it possible? Speak frankly.”
“It really is a failure, madame,” said Mouret, to cut the matter short. “It’s very simple; the young lady will take your measure, and we will make you another.”
“No, I want this one, I want it immediately,” resumed she, with vivacity. “But it’s too narrow across the chest, and it forms a ruck at the back between the shoulders.” Then, in her sharpest voice, she added: “It’s no use you standing looking at me, mademoiselle, that won’t make it any better! Try and find a remedy. It’s your business.”
Denise again commenced to place the pins, without saying a word. That went on for some time: she had to pass from one shoulder to the other, and was even obliged to go almost on her knees, to pull the mantle down in front. Above her placing herself entirely in Denise’s hands, Madame Desforges gave her face the harsh expression of a mistress exceedingly difficult to please. Delighted to lower the young girl to this servant’s work, she gave her sharp and brief orders, watching for the least sign of suffering on Mouret’s face.
“Put a pin here! No! not there, here, near the sleeve. You don’t seem to understand! That isn’t it, there’s the ruck showing again. Take care, you’re pricking me now!”
Twice had Mouret vainly attempted to interfere, to put an end to this scene. His heart was beating violently from this humiliation of his love; and he loved Denise more than ever, with a deep tenderness, in the presence of her admirably silent and patient attitude. If the young girl’s hands still trembled somewhat, at being treated in this way before his face, she accepted the necessities of her position with the proud resignation of a courageous girl. When Madame Desforges found they were not likely to betray themselves, she tried another way, she commenced to smile on Mouret, treating him openly as her lover. The pins having run short, she said to him:
“Look, my dear, in the ivory box on the dressing-table. Really! it’s empty? Kindly see on the chimney-piece in the bed-room; you know, at the corner of the looking-glass.”
She spoke as if he were quite at home, in the habit of sleeping there, and knew where to find everything, even the brushes and combs. When he brought back a few pins, she took them one by one, and forced him to stay near her, looking at him and speaking low.
“I don’t fancy I’m hump-backed. Give me your hand, feel my shoulders, just to please me. Am I really made like that?”
Denise slowly raised her eyes, paler than ever, and set about placing the pins in silence. Mouret could only see her blonde tresses, twisted at the back of her delicate neck; but by the slight shudder which was raising them, he thought he could perceive the uneasiness and shame of her face. Now, she would certainly repulse him, and send him back to this woman, who did not conceal her connection even before strangers. Brutal thoughts came into his head, he could have struck Henriette. How was he to stop her talk? How should he tell Denise that he adored her, that she alone existed for him at this moment, and that he was ready to sacrifice for her all his former affections? The worst of women would not have indulged in the equivocal familiarities of this well-born lady. He took his hand away, and drew back, saying:
“You are wrong to go so far, madame, since I myself consider the garment to be a failure.”
One of the gas-burners was hissing, and in the stuffy, moist air of the room, nothing else was heard but this ardent breath. The looking-glasses threw large sheets of light on the red silk hangings, on which were dancing the shadows of the two women. A bottle of verbena, of which the cork had been left out, spread a vague odour, something like that of a fading bouquet.
“There, madame, I can do no more,” said Denise, at last, rising up.
She felt thoroughly worn out. Twice she had run the pins in her fingers, as if blinded, her eyes in a mist. Was he in the plot? Had he sent for her, to avenge himself for her refusal, by showing that other women loved him? And this thought chilled her; she never remembered to have stood in need of so much courage, not even during the terrible hours of her life when she wanted for bread. It was comparatively nothing to be humiliated, but to see him almost in the arms of another woman, as if she had not been there! Henriette looked at herself in the glass, and once more broke out into harsh words.
“But it’s absurd, mademoiselle. It fits worse than ever. Just look how tight it is across the chest I look like a wet nurse.”
Denise, losing all patience, made a rather unfortunate remark. “You are slightly stout, madame. We cannot make you thinner than you are.”
“Stout! stout!” exclaimed Henriette, who now turned pale in her turn. “You’re becoming insolent, mademoiselle. Really, I should advise you to criticise others!”
They both stood looking at each other, face to face, trembling. There was now neither lady or shop-girl. They were simply two women, made equal by their rivalry. The one had violently taken off the mantle and cast it on a chair, whilst the other was throwing on the dressing-table the few pins she had in her hands.
“What astonishes me,” resumed Henriette, “is that Monsieur Mouret should tolerate such insolence. I thought, sir, that you were more particular about your employees.”
Denise had again assumed her brave, calm manner. She gently replied: “If Monsieur Mouret keeps me, it’s because he has no fault to find. I am ready to apologise to you, if he wishes it.”
Mouret was listening, excited by this quarrel, unable to find a word to put a stop to it. He had a great horror of these explanations between women, their asperity wounding his sense of elegance and gracefulness. Henriette wished to force him to say something in condemnation of the young girl; and, as he remained mute, still undecided, she stung him with a final insult:
“Very good, sir. It seems that I must suffer the insolence of your mistresses in my own house even! A girl you’ve picked up out of the gutter!”
Two big tears gushed from Denise’s eyes. She had kept them back for some time, but her whole being succumbed beneath this last insult. When he saw her weeping like that, without the slightest attempt at retaliation, with a silent, despairing dignity, Mouret no longer hesitated, his heart went out towards her in an immense burst of tenderness. He took her hands in his and stammered:
“Go away immediately, my child, and forget this house!”
Henriette, perfectly amazed, choking with anger, stood looking at them.
“Wait a minute,” continued he, folding up the mantle himself, “take this garment away. Madame can buy another elsewhere. And pray don’t cry any more. You know how much I esteem you.”
He went with her to the door, which he closed after her. She had not said a word; but a pink flame had coloured her cheeks, whilst her eyes were wet with fresh tears, tears of a delicious sweetness. Henriette, who was suffocating, had taken out her handkerchief and was crushing her lips with it. This was a total overthrowing of her calculations, she herself had been caught in the trap she had laid. She was mortified with herself for having pushed the matter too far, tortured with jealousy. To be abandoned for such a creature as that! To see herself disdained before her! Her pride suffered more than her love.
“So, it’s that girl that you love?” said she, painfully, when they were alone.
Mouret did not reply at once; he was walking about from the window to the door, as if absorbed by some violent emotion. At last he stopped, and very politely, in a voice which he tried to render cold, he replied with simplicity: “Yes, madame.”
The gas burner was still hissing in the stifling air of the dressing-room. But the reflex of the glasses were no longer traversed by dancing shadows, the room seemed bare, of a heavy dulness. Henriette suddenly dropped on a chair, twisting her handkerchief in her febrile fingers, repeating amidst her sobs:
“Good heavens! How miserable I am!”
He stood looking at her for several seconds, and then went away quietly. She, left all alone, wept on in silence, before the pins scattered over the dressing-table and the floor.
When Mouret returned to the little drawing-room, he found De Vallagnosc alone, the baron having gone back to the ladies. As he felt himself very agitated still, he sat down at the further end of the room, on a sofa; and his friend, seeing him turn pale, charitably came and stood before him, to conceal him from curious eyes. At first, they looked at each other without saying a word. Then De Vallagnosc, who seemed to be inwardly amused at Mouret’s confusion, finished by asking in his bantering voice:
“Are you still enjoying yourself?”
Mouret did not appear to understand him at first. But when he remembered their former conversations on the empty stupidity and the useless torture of life, he replied: “Of course, I’ve never before lived so much. Ah! my boy, don’t you laugh, the hours that make one die of grief are by far the shortest.” He lowered his voice, continuing gaily, beneath his half-wiped tears: “Yes, you know all, don’t you? Between them they have rent my heart. But yet it’s nice, as nice as kisses, the wounds they make. I am thoroughly worn out; but, no matter, you can’t think how I love life! Oh! I shall win her at last, this little girl who still says no!”
De Vallagnosc simply said: “And after?”
“After? Why, I shall have her! Isn’t that enough? If you think yourself strong, because you refuse to be stupid and to suffer, you make a great mistake! You are merely a dupe, my boy, nothing more! Try and long for a woman and win her at last: that pays you in one minute for all your misery,” But De Vallagnosc once more trotted out his pessimism. What was the good of working so much if money could not buy everything? He would very soon have shut up shop and given up work for ever, the day he found out that his millions could not even buy the woman he wanted! Mouret, listening to him, became grave. Then he set off violently, he believed in the all-powerfulness of his will.
“I want her, and I’ll have her! And if she escapes me, you’ll see what a place I shall have built to cure myself. It will be splendid, all the same. You don’t understand this language, old man, otherwise you would know that action contains its own recompense. To act, to create, to struggle against facts, to overcome them or be overthrown by them, all human health and joy consists in that!”
“Simple method of diverting one’s self,” murmured the other.
“Well, I prefer diverting myself. As one must die, I would rather die of passion than boredom!”
They both laughed, this reminded them of their old discussions at college. De Vallagnosc, in an effeminate voice, then commenced to parade his theories of the insipidity of things, investing with a sort of fanfaronade the immobility and emptiness of his existence. Yes, he dragged on from day to day at the office, in three years he had had a rise of six hundred francs; he was now receiving three thousand six hundred, barely enough to pay for his cigars; it was getting worse than ever, and if he did not kill himself, it was simply from a dislike of all trouble. Mouret having spoken of his marriage with Mademoiselle de Boves, he replied that notwithstanding the obstinacy of the aunt in refusing to die, the matter was going to be concluded; at least, he thought so, the parents were agreed, and he was ready to do anything they might tell him to do. What was the use of wishing or not wishing, since things never turned out as one desired? He quoted as an example his future father-in-law, who expected to find in Madame Guibal an indolent blonde, the caprice of an hour, but who was now led by her with a whip, like an old horse on its last legs. Whilst they supposed him to be busy inspecting the stud at Saint-Lo, she was squandering his last resources in a little house hired by him at Versailles.’
“He’s happier than you,” said Mouret, getting up.
“Oh! rather!” declared De Vallagnosc. “Perhaps it’s only doing wrong that’s somewhat amusing.”
Mouret had now recovered his spirits. He was thinking about getting away; but not wishing his departure to resemble a flight he resolved to take a cup of tea, and went into the other drawing-room with his friend, both in high spirits. The baron asked him if the mantle had been made to fit, and Mouret replied, carelessly, that he gave it up as far as he was concerned. They all seemed astonished. Whilst Madame Marty hastened to serve him, Madame de Boves accused the shops of always keeping their garments too narrow. At last, he managed to sit down near Bouthemont, who had not stirred. They were forgotten for a moment, and, in reply to anxious questions put by Bouthemont, desirous of knowing what he had to say to him, Mouret did not wait to get into the street, but abruptly informed him that the board of directors had decided to deprive themselves of his services. Between each phrase he drank a drop of tea, protesting all the while that he was in despair. Oh! a quarrel that he had not even then got over, for he had left the meeting beside himself with rage. But what could he do? he could not break with these gentlemen about a simple question of staff. Bouthemont, very pale, had to thank him once more.
“What a terrible mantle,” observed Madame Marty. “Henriette can’t get over it.”
And really, this prolonged absence began to make every one feel awkward. But, at that very moment, Madame Desforges appeared.
“So you’ve given it up as well?” cried Madame de Boves, gaily.
“How do you mean?”
“Why, Monsieur Mouret told us you could do nothing with it.”
Henriette affected the greatest surprise. “Monsieur Mouret was joking. The mantle will fit splendidly.”
They had again returned to the big shops. Mouret had to give his opinion; he came up to them and affected to be very just The Bon Marche was an excellent house, solid, respectable, but the Louvre certainly had a more aristocratic class of customers.
“In short, you prefer The Ladies’ Paradise,” said the baron, smiling.
“Yes,” replied Mouret, quietly. “There we really love our customers.”
All the women present were of his opinion. It was just that, they were at a sort of private party at The Ladies’ Paradise, they felt, there a continual caress of flattery, an overflowing adoration which detained the most dignified and virtuous woman. The enormous success of the establishment sprung from this gallant seduction.
“By the way,” asked Henriette, who wished to appear entirely at her ease, “what have you done with my protege. Monsieur Mouret? You know – Mademoiselle de Fontenailles.” And turning towards Madame Marty she explained, “A maricheness, poor girl, fallen into poverty.”
“Oh!” said Mouret, “she earns three francs a day stitching.”
De Vallagnosc wished to interfere for a joke. “Don’t push him too far, madame, or he’ll tell you that all the old families of France ought to sell calico.”
“Well,” declared Mouret, “it would at least be an honourable end for a great many of them.”
They set up a laugh, the paradox seemed rather strong. He continued to sing the praises of what he called the aristocracy of work. A slight flush had coloured Madame de Boves’s cheeks, she was wild at the shifts she was put to by her poverty; whilst Madame Marty on the contrary approved, stricken with remorse on thinking of her poor husband. The footman had just ushered in the professor, who had called to take her home. He was drier, more emaciated than ever by his hard labour, and still wore his thin shining frock coat. When he had thanked Madame Desforges for having spoken for him at the Ministry, he cast at Mouret the timid glance of a man meeting the evil that is to kill him. And he was quite confused when he heard the latter asking him:
“Isn’t it true, sir, that work leads to everything?”
“Work and economy,” replied he, with a slight shivering of his whole body. “Add economy, sir.”
Meanwhile, Bouthemont had not moved from his chair, Mouret’s words were still ringing in his ears. He at last got up, and went and said to Henriette in a low tone: “You know, he’s given me notice; oh! in the kindest possible manner. But may I be hanged if he sha’n’t repent it! I’ve just found my sign, The Four Seasons, and shall plant myself close to the Opera House!”
She looked at him with a gloomy expression. “Reckon on me, I’m with you. Wait a minute.” And she immediately drew Baron Hartmann into the recess of a window, and boldly recommended Bouthemont to him, as a fellow who was going to revolutionise Paris, in his turn, by setting up for himself. When she spoke of an advance of funds for her new protegee, the baron, though now astonished at nothing, could not suppress a gesture of bewilderment. This was the fourth fellow of genius she had confided to him, and he began to feel himself ridiculous. But he did not directly refuse, the idea of starting a competitor to The Ladies’ Paradise even pleased him somewhat; for he had already invented, in banking matters, this sort of competition, to keep off others. Besides, the adventure amused him, and he promised to look into the matter.
“We must talk it over to-night,” whispered Henriette, returning to Bouthemont. “Don’t fail to call about nine o’clock. The baron is with us.”
At this moment the vast room was foil of voices. Mouret still standing up, in the midst of the ladies, had recovered his habitual elegant gracefulness, and was gaily defending himself from the charge of ruining them in dress, offering to prove by the figures that he enabled them to save thirty per cent on their purchases. Baron Hartmann watched him, seized with the fraternal admiration of a former man about town. Come! the duel was finished, Henriette was decidedly beaten, she certainly was not the coming woman. And he thought he could see the modest profile of the young girl whom he had observed on passing through the ante-room. She was there, patient, alone, redoubtable in her sweetness.
