Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
Denise was in great trouble. For the last fifteen days she had been worn out with fatigue and anxiety; she had been obliged to put Pépé to school, and had been running about for Jean, who was so stricken with the pastrycook’s niece, that he had implored his sister to go and ask her hand in marriage. Then her aunt’s death, these repeated catastrophes had quite overwhelmed the young girl. Mouret again offered his services, giving her leave to do what she liked for her uncle and the others. One morning she had an interview with him, at the news that Bourras was turned into the street, and that Baudu was going to shut up shop. Then she went out after breakfast in the hope of comforting these two, at least.
In the Rue de la Michodière, Bourras was standing on the pavement opposite his house, from which he had been expelled the previous day by a fine trick, a discovery of the lawyers; as Mouret held some bills, he had easily obtained an order in bankruptcy against the umbrella-maker; then he had given five hundred francs for the expiring lease at the sale ordered by the court; so that the obstinate old man had allowed himself to be deprived of, for five hundred francs, what he had refused to give up for a hundred thousand. The architect, who came with his gang of workmen, had been obliged to employ the police to get him out. The goods had been taken and sold; but he still kept himself obstinately in the corner where he slept, and from which they did not like to drive him, out of pity. The workmen even attacked the roofing over his head. They had taken off the rotten slates, the ceilings fell in, the walls cracked, and yet he stuck there, under the naked old beams, amidst the ruins of the shop. At last the police came, and he went away. But the following morning he again appeared on the opposite side of the street, after having spent the night in a lodging-house in the neighbourhood.
“Monsieur Bourras!” said Denise, kindly.
He did not hear her, his flaming eyes were devouring the workmen who were attacking the front of the hovel with their picks. Through the empty window-frames could be seen the inside of the house, the miserable rooms, and the black staircase, where the sun had not penetrated for the last two hundred years.
“Ah! it’s you,” replied he, at last, when he recognised her. “A nice bit of work they’re doing, eh? the robbers!”
She did not now dare to speak, stirred up by the lamentable sadness of the old place, herself unable to take her eyes off the mouldy stones that were falling. Above, in a corner of the ceiling of her old room, she still perceived the name in black and shaky letters – Ernestine – written with the flame of a candle, and the remembrance of those days of misery came back to her, inspiring her with a tender sympathy for all suffering. But the workmen, in order to knock one of the walls down at a blow, had attacked it at its base. It was tottering.
“Should like to see it crush all of them,” growled Bourras, in a savage voice.
There was a terrible cracking noise. The frightened workmen ran out into the street. In falling down, the wall tottered and carried all the house with it. No doubt the hovel was ripe for the fall – it could no longer stand, with its flaws and cracks; a push had sufficed to cleave it from top to bottom. It was a pitiful crumbling away, the razing of a mud-house soddened by the rains. Not a board remained standing; there was nothing on the ground but a heap of rubbish, the dung of the past thrown at the street corner.
“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed the old man, as if the blow had resounded in his very entrails.
He stood there gaping, never supposing it would have been over so quick. And he looked at the gap, the hollow space at last left free on the flanks of The Ladies’ Paradise. It was like the crushing of a gnat, the final triumph over the annoying obstinacy of the infinitely small, the whole isle invaded and conquered. The passers-by lingered to talk to the workmen, who were crying out against these old buildings, only good for killing people.
“Monsieur Bourras,” repeated Denise, trying to get him on one side, “you know that you will not be abandoned. All your wants will be provided for.”
He held up his head. “I have no wants. You’ve been sent by them, haven’t you? Well, tell them that old Bourras still knows how to work, and that he can find work wherever he likes. Really, it would be a fine thing to offer charity to those they are assassinating!”
Then she implored him: “Pray accept, Monsieur Bourras; don’t give me this grief.”
But he shook his bushy head. “No, no, it’s all over. Good-bye. Go and live happily, you who are young, and don’t prevent old people sticking to their ideas.”
He cast a last glance at the heap of rubbish, and then went away. She watched him disappear, elbowed by the crowd on the pavement. He turned the corner of the Place Gaillon, and all was over. For a moment, Denise remained motionless, lost in thought. At last she went over to her uncle’s. The draper was alone in the dark shop of The Old Elbeuf. The charwoman only came morning and evening to do a little cooking, and to take down and put up the shutters. He spent hours in this solitude, often without being disturbed once during the whole day, bewildered, and unable to find the goods when a stray customer happened to venture in. And there in the half-light he marched about unceasingly, with that heavy step he had at the two funerals, yielding to a sickly desire, regular fits of forced marching, as if he were trying to rock his grief to sleep.
“Are you feeling better, uncle?” asked Denise. He only stopped for a second to glance at her. Then he started off again, going from the pay-desk to an obscure corner.
“Yes, yes. Very well, thanks.”
She tried to find some consoling subject, some cheerful remark, but could think of nothing. “Did you hear the noise? The house is down.”
“Ah! it’s true,” murmured he, with an astonished look, “that must have been the house. I felt the ground tremble. Seeing them on the roof this morning, I closed my door.”
And he made a vague movement, to imitate that such things no longer interested him. Every time he arrived before the pay-desk, he looked at the empty seat, that well-known velvet-covered seat, where his wife and daughter had grown up. Then when his perpetual walking brought him to the other end, he gazed at the shelves drowned in shadow, in which a few pieces of cloth were gradually growing mouldy. It was a widowed house, those he loved had disappeared, his business had come to a shameful end, and he was left alone to commune with his dead heart, and his pride brought low amidst all these catastrophes. He raised his eyes towards the black ceiling, overcome by the sepulchral silence which reigned in the little dining-room, the family nook, of which he had formerly loved every part, even down to the stuffy odour. Not a breath was now heard in the old house, his regular heavy step made the ancient walls resound, as if he were walking over the tombs of his affections.
At last Denise approached the subject which had brought her. “Uncle, you can’t stay like this. You must come to a decision.”
He replied, without stopping his walk – “No doubt; but what would you have me do? I’ve tried to sell, but no one has come. One of these mornings I shall shut up shop and go off.”
She was aware that a failure was no longer to be feared. The creditors had preferred to come to an understanding before such a long series of misfortunes. Everything paid, the old man would find himself in the street, penniless.
“But what will you do, then?” murmured she, seeking some transition in order to arrive at the offer she dared not make.
“I don’t know,” replied he. “They’ll pick me up all right.” He had changed his route, going from the dining-room to the windows with their lamentable displays, looking at the latter, every time he came to them, with a gloomy expression. His gaze did not even turn towards the triumphal façade of The Ladies’ Paradise, whose architectural lines ran as far as the eye could see, to the right and to the left, at both ends of the street. He was thoroughly annihilated, and had not even the strength to get angry.
“Listen, uncle,” said Denise, greatly embarrassed; “perhaps there might be a situation for you.” She stopped, and stammered. “Yes, I am charged to offer you a situation as inspector.”
“Where?” asked Baudu.
“Opposite,” replied she; “in our shop. Six thousand francs a year; a very easy place.”
Suddenly he stopped in front of her. But instead of getting angry as she feared he would, he turned very pale, succumbing to a grievous emotion, a feeling of bitter resignation.
“Opposite, opposite,” stammered he several times. “You want me to go opposite?”
Denise herself was affected by this emotion. She recalled the long struggle of the two shops, assisted at the funerals of Geneviève and Madame Baudu, saw before her The Old Elbeuf overthrown, utterly ruined by The Ladies’ Paradise. And the idea of her uncle taking a situation opposite, and walking about in a white neck-tie, made her heart leap with pity and revolt.
“Come, Denise, is it possible?” said he, simply, wringing his poor trembling hands.
“No, no, uncle,” exclaimed she, in a sudden burst of her just and excellent being. “It would be wrong. Forgive me, I beg of you.”
He resumed his walk, his step once more broke the funereal silence of the house. And when she left him, he was still going on in that obstinate locomotion of great griefs, which turn round themselves without ever being able to get beyond.
Denise passed another sleepless night. She had just touched the bottom of her powerlessness. Even in favour of her own people she was unable to find any consolation. She had been obliged to assist to the bitter end at this invincible work of life which requires death as its continual seed. She no longer struggled, she accepted this law of combat; but her womanly soul was filled with a weeping pity, with a fraternal tenderness at the idea of suffering humanity. For years, she herself had been caught in the wheel-work of the machine. Had she not bled there? Had they not bruised her, dismissed her, overwhelmed her with insults? Even now she was frightened, when she felt herself chosen by the logic of facts. Why her, a girl so puny? Why should her small hand suddenly become so powerful amidst the monster’s work? And the force which was sweeping everything away, carried her away in her turn, she, whose coming was to be a revenge. Mouret had invented this mechanism for crushing the world, and its brutal working shocked her; he had sown ruin all over the neighbourhood, despoiled some, killed others; and yet she loved him for the grandeur of his work, she loved him still more at every excess of his power, notwithstanding the flood of tears which overcame her, before the sacred misery of the vanquished.
CHAPTER XIV
The Rue du Dix-Décembre, looking quite new with its chalk-white houses and the final scaffoldings of some nearly finished buildings, stretched out beneath a clear February sun; a stream of carriages was passing at a rattling pace through this gleam of light, which traversed the damp shadow of the old Saint-Roch quarter; and, between the Rue de la Michodière and the Rue de Choiseul, there was a great tumult, the crushing of a crowd excited by a month’s advertising, their eyes in the air, gaping at the monumental façade of The Ladies’ Paradise, inaugurated that Monday, on the occasion of a grand show of white goods.
The bright new masonry displayed a vast development of polychromatic architecture, relieved by gildings, announcing the tumult and sparkle of the business inside, and attracting attention like a gigantic window-display all aglow with the liveliest colours. In order not to neutralise the show of goods, the decoration of the ground floor was of a sober description; the base of sea-green marble; the corner pillars and the supporting columns were covered with black marble, the severity of which was relieved by gilded medallions; and the rest of plate-glass, in iron sashes, nothing but glass, which seemed to open up the depths of the halls and galleries to the full light of day. But as the floors ascended, the tones became brighter. The frieze on the ground floor was decorated with a series of mosaics, a garland of red and blue flowers, alternating with marble slabs, on which were cut the names of goods, running all round, encircling the colossus. Then the base of the first floor, made of enamelled bricks, supported the large windows, as high as the frieze, formed of gilded escutcheons, with the arms of the towns of France, and designs in terra-cotta, the enamel of which reproduced the bright coloured flowers of the base. Then, right at the top, the entablature blossomed forth like the ardent florescence of the entire façade, the mosaics and the faience reappeared with warmer colourings, the zinc gutters were carved and gilded, while along the acroteria ran a nation of statues, representing the great industrial and manufacturing cities, their delicate silhouettes standing out against the sky. The spectators were especially astonished at the sight of the central door, also decorated with a profusion of mosaics, faience, and terra-cotta, and surmounted by an allegorical group, the new gilding of which glittered in the sun: Woman dressed and kissed by a flight of laughing cupids.
About two o’clock the police were obliged to make the crowd move on, and to look after the carriages. The palace was built, the temple raised to the extravagant folly of fashion. It dominated everything, covering a whole district with its shadow. The scar left on its flank by the demolition of Bourras’s hovel had already been so skilfully cicatrised that it would have been impossible to find the place formerly occupied by this old wart – the four façades now ran along the four streets, without a break in their superb isolation. Since Baudu’s retirement, The Old Elbeuf, on the other side of the way, had been closed, walled up like a tomb, behind the shutters that were never now taken down; little by little the cab-wheels had splashed them, posters covered them up and pasted them together, a rising tide of advertising, which seemed like the last shovelful of earth thrown over the old-fashioned commerce; and, in the middle of this dead frontage, dirtied by the mud from the street, discoloured by the refuse of Paris, was displayed, like a flag planted over a conquered empire, an immense yellow poster, quite wet, announcing in letters two feet high the great sale at The Ladies’ Paradise. It was as if the colossus, after each enlargement, seized with shame and repugnance for the black old quarter, where it had modestly sprung up, and that it had later on slaughtered, had just turned its back to it, leaving the mud of the narrow streets in its track, presenting its upstart face to the noisy, sunny thoroughfare of new Paris.
As it was now represented in the engraving of the advertisements, it had grown bigger and bigger, like the ogre of the legend, whose shoulders threatened to pierce the clouds. In the first place, in the foreground of the engraving, were the Rue du Dix-Décembre, the Rue de la Michodière, and the Rue de Choiseul, filled with little black figures, and spread out immoderately, as if to make room for the customers of the whole world. Then came a bird’s eye view of the buildings themselves, of an exaggerated immensity, with their roofings which described the covered galleries, the glazed courtyards in which could be recognised the halls, the endless detail of this lake of glass and zinc shining in the sun. Beyond, stretched forth Paris, but Paris diminished, eaten up by the monster: the houses, of a cottage-like humility in the neighbourhood of the building, then dying away in a cloud of indistinct chimneys; the monuments seemed to melt into nothing, to the left two dashes for Notre-Dame, to the right a circumflex accent for the Invalides, in the background the Pantheon, ashamed and lost, no larger than a lentil. The horizon, crumbled into powder, became no more than a contemptible frame-work, as far as the heights of Châtillon, out into the open country, the vanishing expanse of which indicated how far reached the state of slavery.
Ever since the morning the crowd had been increasing. No shop had ever yet stirred up the city with such a profusion of advertisements. The Ladies’ Paradise now spent nearly six hundred thousand francs a year in posters, advertisements, and appeals of all sorts; the number of catalogues sent away amounted to four hundred thousand, more than a hundred thousand francs’ worth of stuff was cut up for patterns. It was a complete invasion of the newspapers, the walls, and the ears of the public, like a monstrous brass trumpet, which, blown incessantly, spread to the four corners of the earth the tumult of the great sales. And, for the future, this façade, before which people were now crowding, became a living advertisement, with its bespangled, gilded magnificence, its windows large enough to display the entire poem of woman’s clothing, its profusion of signs, painted, engraved, and cut in stone, from the marble slabs on the ground floor to the sheets of iron rounded off in semicircles above the roof, unfolding their gilded streamers on which the name of the house could be read in letters bright as the sun, standing out against the azure blue of the sky.
To celebrate the inauguration, there had been added trophies and flags; each storey was gay with banners and standards bearing the arms of the principal cities of France; and right at the top, the flags of all nations, run up on masts, fluttered in the air, while the show of cotton and linen goods downstairs assumed in the windows a tone of blinding intensity. Nothing but white, a complete trousseau, and a mountain of sheets to the left, a lot of curtains forming a chapel, and pyramids of handkerchiefs to the right, fatigued the eyes; and, between the hung goods at the door, whole pieces of cotton, calico, and muslin in clusters, like snow-drifts, were planted some dressed engravings, sheets of bluish cardboard, on which a young bride, or a lady in ball costume, both life size and dressed in real lace and silk, smiled with their painted faces. A circle of idlers was constantly forming, a desire arose from the admiration of the crowd.
What caused an increase of curiosity around The Ladies’ Paradise was a catastrophe of which all Paris was talking, the burning down of The Four Seasons, the big shop Bouthemont had opened near the Opera-house, hardly three weeks before. The newspapers were full of details, of the fire breaking out through an explosion of gas during the night, the hurried flight of the young ladies in their night-dresses, and the heroic conduct of Bouthemont, who had carried five of them out on his shoulders. The enormous losses were covered, and the people commenced to shrug their shoulders, saying what a splendid advertisement it was. But for the moment attention again flowed back to The Ladies’ Paradise, excited by all these stories flying about, occupied to a wonderful extent by these colossal establishments, which by their importance took up such a large place in public life. Wonderfully lucky, this Mouret! Paris saluted her star, and crowded to see him still standing, since the very flames now undertook to sweep all competition from beneath his feet; and the profits of the season were already being calculated, people began to estimate the swollen flood of customers which would be sent into his shop by the forced closing of the rival house. For a moment he had felt anxious, troubled at feeling a jealous woman against him, that Madame Desforges, to whom he owed in a manner his fortune. Baron Hartmann’s financial dilettantism, putting money into the two affairs, annoyed him also. Then he was exasperated at having missed a genial idea which had occurred to Bouthemont, who had artfully had his shop blessed by the vicar of the Madeleine, followed by all his clergy; an astonishing ceremony, a religious pomp paraded from the silk department to the glove department, and so on throughout the establishment. This imposing ceremony had not, it is true, prevented everything being destroyed, but had done as much good as a million francs’ worth of advertisements, so great an impression had it produced on the fashionable world. From that day, Mouret dreamed of having the archbishop.
The clock over the door was striking three, and the afternoon crush had commenced, nearly a hundred thousand customers were struggling in the various galleries and halls. Outside, the carriages were stationed from one end of the Rue du Dix-Décembre to the other, and over against the Opera-house another compact mass occupied the cul-de-sac, where the future avenue was to commence. Common cabs were mingled with private broughams, the drivers waiting amongst the wheels, the rows of horses neighing and shaking their bits, which sparkled in the sun. The lines were incessantly reformed, amidst the calls of the messengers, the poshing of the animals which closed in of their own accord, whilst fresh vehicles were continually arriving and taking their places with the rest. The pedestrians flew on to the refuges in frightened bands, the pavements were black with people, in the receding perspective of the wide and straight thoroughfare. And a clamour arose from between the white houses, this human stream rolled along under the soul of overflowing Paris, a sweet and enormous breath, of which one could feel the giant caress.
Madame de Boves, accompanied by her daughter Blanche and Madame Guibal, was standing, at a window, looking at a display of half made up costumes.
“Oh! do look,” said she, “at those print costumes at nineteen francs fifteen sous!”
In their square boxes, the costumes, tied round with a favour, were folded so as to present the trimmings alone, embroidered with blue and red; and, occupying the corner of each box, was an engraving showing the garment made up, worn by a young person looking like some princess.
“But they are not worth more,” murmured Madame Guibal. “They fall into rags as soon as you handle them.”
They had now become intimate since Monsieur de Boves had been confined to his arm-chair by an attack of gout. The wife put up with the mistress, preferring that things should take place in her own house, for in this way she picked up a little pocket money, sums that the husband allowed himself to be robbed of, having, himself, need of forbearance.
“Well! let’s go in,” resumed Madame Guibal “We must see their show. Hasn’t your son-in-law made an appointment with you inside?”
Madame de Boves did not reply, entirely absorbed by the string of carriages, which, one by one, opened their doors and let out more customers.
“Yes,” said Blanche, at last, in her indolent voice. “Paul is to join us about four o’clock in the reading-room, on leaving the ministry.”
They had been married about a month, and De Vallagnosc, after a leave of absence of three weeks, spent in the South of France, had just returned to his post. The young woman had already her mother’s portly look, and her flesh appeared puffed up and coarser since her marriage.
“But there’s Madame Desforges over there!” exclaimed the countess, looking at a brougham that had just arrived.
“Do you think so?” murmured Madame Guibal. “After all those stories! She must still be weeping over the fire at The Four Seasons.”
It was really Henriette. On perceiving her friends, she came up with a gay, smiling air, concealing her defeat beneath the fashionable ease of her manner.
“Dear me! yes, I wanted to have a look round. It’s better to see for one’s self, isn’t it? Oh! we are still good friends with Monsieur Mouret, though he is said to be furious since I have interested myself in that rival house. Personally, there is only one thing I cannot forgive him, and that is, to have pushed on the marriage of my protege, Mademoiselle de Fontenailles, with that Joseph – ”
“What! it’s done?” interrupted Madame de Boves. “What a horror!”
“Yes, my dear, and solely to annoy us. I know him; he wished to intimate that the daughters of our great families are only fit to marry his shop messengers.”
She was getting quite animated. They had all four remained on the pavement, amidst the pushing at the entrance. Little by little, however, the stream carried them in; and they had only to abandon themselves to the current, they passed the door as if lifted up, without being conscious of it, talking louder to make themselves heard. They were now asking each other about Madame Marty; it was said that poor Monsieur Marty, after violent scenes at home, had gone quite mad; he was diving into all the treasures of the earth, exhausting mines of gold, loading tumbrils with diamonds and precious stones.
“Poor fellow!” said Madame Guibal, “he who was always so shabby, with his teacher’s humility! And the wife?”
“She’s ruining an uncle, now,” replied Henriette, “a worthy old man who has gone to live with her, having lost his wife. But she must be here, we shall see her.”
A surprise made the ladies stop short. Before them extended the shop, the largest drapery establishment in the world, as the advertisements said. The grand central gallery now ran from end to end, extending from the Rue du Dix-Décembre to the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; whilst to the right and to the left, like the aisles of a church, ran the Monsigny Gallery and the Michodière Gallery, right along the two streets, without a break. Here and there the halls crossed and formed open spaces amidst the metallic framework of the suspended stairs and flying bridges. The inside arrangements had been all changed: the bargains were now placed on the Rue du Dix-Décembre side, the silk department was in the centre, the glove department occupied the Saint-Augustin Hall at the back; and, from the new grand vestibule, one beheld, on looking up, the bedding department, moved from one end of the second floor to the other. The number of departments now amounted to the enormous figure of fifty; several, quite fresh, were to be inaugurated that very day; others, become too important, had been simply divided, in order to facilitate the sales; and, owing to this continual increase of business, the staff had been increased to three thousand and forty-five employees.
What caused the ladies to stop was the prodigious spectacle of the grand exhibition of white goods. In the first place, there was the vestibule, a hall with bright mirrors, paved with mosaics, where the low-priced goods detained the voracious crowd. Then there were the galleries, plunged in a glittering blaze of light, a borealistic vista, quite a country of snow, revealing the endless steppes hung with ermine, the accumulation of icebergs shimmering in the sun. One found there the whiteness of the outside windows, but vivified, colossal, burning from one end of the enormous building to the other, with the white flame of a fire in full swing. Nothing but white goods, all the white articles from each department, a riot of white, a white star, the twinkling of which was at first blinding, so that the details could not be distinguished amidst this unique whiteness. But the eye soon became accustomed to it; to the left, in the Monsigny Gallery, jutted out the white promontories of cotton and calico, the white rocks formed of sheets, napkins, and handkerchiefs; whilst to the right, in the Michodière Gallery, occupied by the mercery, the hosiery, and the woollen goods, were exposed constructions of mother of pearl buttons, a pretty decoration composed of white socks, one whole room covered with white swanskin, traversed in the distance by a stream of light. But the brightness shone with especial brilliancy in the central gallery, amidst the ribbons and the cravats, the gloves and the silks. The counters disappeared beneath the whiteness of the silks, the ribbons, and the gloves.
Round the iron columns were twined flounces of white muslin, looped up now and again with white silk handkerchiefs. The staircases were decorated with white drapings, quiltings and dimities alternating along the balustrades, encircling the halls as high as the second storey; and this tide of white assumed wings, hurried off and lost itself, like a flight of swans. And the white hung from the arches, a fall of down, a snowy sheet of large flakes; white counterpanes, white coverlets floated about in the air, suspended like banners in a church; long jets of Maltese lace hung across, seeming to suspend swarms of white butterflies; other lace fluttered about on all sides, floating like fleecy clouds in a summer sky, filling the air with their clear breath. And the marvel, the altar of this religion of white was, above the silk counter, in the great hall, a tent formed of white curtains, which fell from the glazed roof. The muslin, the gauze, the lace flowed in light ripples, whilst very richly embroidered tulles, and pieces of oriental silk striped with silver, served as a background to this giant decoration, which partook of the tabernacle and of the alcove. It made one think of a broad white bed, awaiting in its virginal immensity the white princess, as in the legend, she who was to come one day, all powerful, with the bride’s white veil.
“Oh! extraordinary!” repeated the ladies. “Wonderful!”
They never tired of this song in praise of white that the goods of the entire establishment were singing. Mouret had never conceived anything more extraordinary; it was the master stroke of his genius for display. Beneath the flow of all this whiteness, in the apparent disorder of the tissues, fallen as if by chance from the open drawers, there was a harmonious phrase, the white followed up and developed in all its tones, springing into existence, growing, and blossoming forth with the complicated orchestration of a master’s fugue, the continual development of which carries away the mind in an ever-increasing flight. Nothing but white, and never the same goods, all styles outvying with, opposing, and completing one another, attaining the very brilliancy of light itself. Starting from the dull shades of the calico and linen, and the heavy shades of the flannel and cloth, there then came the velvet, silk, and satin goods – quite an ascending gamut, the white gradually lighted up, finishing in little flames at the breaks of the folds; and the white flew away in the transparencies of the curtains, becoming free and clear with the muslin, the lace, and above all the tulle, so light and airy that it was like the extreme and last note; whilst the silver of the oriental silk sung higher than all in the depths of the giant alcove.
