Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
CHAPTER III
Every Saturday, between four and six, Madame Desforges offered a cup of tea and a few cakes to those friends who were kind enough to visit her. She occupied the third floor of a house at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue d’Alger; and the windows of both drawing-rooms overlooked the Tuileries Gardens. This Saturday, just as a footman was about to introduce him into the principal drawing-room, Mouret perceived from the anteroom, through an open door, Madame Desforges, who was crossing the little drawing-room. She stopped on seeing him, and he went in that way, bowing to her with a ceremonious air. But when the footman had closed the door, he quickly seized the young woman’s hand, and tenderly kissed it.
“Take care, I have company!” she said, in a low voice, glancing towards the door of the larger room. “I’ve just been to fetch this fan to show them,” and she playfully tapped him on the face with the tip of the fan. She was dark, rather stout, with big jealous eyes.
But he still held her hand and asked: “Will he come?”
“Certainly,” replied she. “I have his promise.”
Both of them referred to Baron Hartmann, director of the Credit Immobilier. Madame Desforges, daughter of a Councillor of State, was the widow of a stock-broker, who had left her a fortune, denied by some, exaggerated by others. Even during her husband’s lifetime people said she had shown herself grateful towards Baron Hartmann, whose financial tips had proved very useful to them; and later on, after her husband’s death, the acquaintance had probably continued, but always discreetly, without imprudence or display; for she never courted notoriety in any way, and was received everywhere in the upper-middle classes amongst whom she was born. Even at this time, when the passion of the banker, a sceptical, crafty man, had subsided into a simple paternal affection, if she permitted herself certain lovers whom he tolerated, she displayed in these treasons of the heart such a delicate reserve and tact, a knowledge of the world so adroitly applied, that appearances were saved, and no one would have ventured to openly express any doubt as to her conduct Having met Mouret at a mutual friend’s, she had at first detested him; but she had yielded to him later on, as if carried away by the violent love with which he attacked her, and since he had commenced to approach Baron Hartmann through her, she had gradually got to love him with a real profound tenderness, adoring him with the violence of a woman already thirty-five, although only acknowledging twenty-nine, and in despair at feeling him younger than herself, trembling lest she should lose him.
“Does he know about it?”
“No, you’ll explain the affair to him yourself,” she replied.
She looked at him, thinking that he couldn’t know anything or he would not employ her in this way with the baron, affecting to consider him simply as an old friend of hers. But he still held her hand, he called her his good Henriette, and she felt her heart melting. Silently she presented her lips, pressed them to his, then whispered: “Oh, they’re waiting for me. Come in behind me.”
They could hear voices issuing from the principal drawingroom, deadened by the heavy curtains. She pushed the door, leaving its two folds open, and handed the fan to one of the four ladies who were seated in the middle of the room.
“There it is,” said she; “I didn’t know exactly where it was. My maid would never have found it.” And she added in her cheerful way: “Come in, Monsieur Mouret, come through the little drawing-room; it will be less solemn.”
Mouret bowed to the ladies whom he knew. The drawingroom, with its flowered brocatel Louis XVI. furniture, gilded bronzes and large green plants, had a tender feminine air, notwithstanding the height of the ceiling; and through the two windows could be seen the chestnut trees in the Tuileries Gardens, their leaves blowing about in the October wind.
“But it isn’t at all bad, this Chantilly!” exclaimed Madame Bourdelais, who had taken the fan.
She was a short fair woman of thirty, with a delicate nose and sparkling eyes, an old school-fellow of Henriette’s, and who had married a chief clerk in the Treasury. Of an old middle-class family, she managed her household and three children with a rare activity and good grace, and an exquisite knowledge of practical life.
“And you paid twenty-five francs for it?” resumed she, examining each mesh of the lace. “At Luc, I think you said, to a country woman? No, it isn’t dear; but you had to get it mounted, hadn’t you?”
“Of course,” replied Madame Desforges. “The mounting cost me two hundred francs.”
Madame Bourdelais began to laugh. And that was what Henriette called a bargain! Two hundred francs for a plain ivory mount, with a monogram! And that for a simple piece of Chantilly, over which she had saved five francs, perhaps. Similar fans could be had ready, mounted for a hundred and twenty francs, and she named a shop in the Rue Poissonnière.
However, the fan was handed round to all the ladies. Madame Guibal barely glanced at it. She was a tall, thin woman, with red hair, and a face full of indifference, in which her grey eyes, occasionally penetrating her unconcerned air, cast the terrible gleams of selfishness. She was never seen out with her husband, a barrister well-known at the Palais de Justice, who led, it was said, a pretty free life, dividing himself between his law business and his pleasures.
“Oh,” murmured she, passing the fan to Madame de Boves, “I’ve scarcely bought one in my life. One always receives too many of such things.”
The countess replied with delicate malice: “You are fortunate, my dear, in having a gallant husband.” And bending over to her daughter, a tall girl of twenty, she added: “Just look at the monogram, Blanche. What pretty work! It’s the monogram that must have increased the price like that.”
Madame de Boves had just turned forty. She was a superb woman, with the neck of a goddess, a large regular face, and big sleepy eyes, whom her husband, Inspector-General of the Stud, had married for her beauty. She appeared quite moved by the delicacy of the monogram, as if seized with a desire the emotion of which made her turn pale, and turning round suddenly, she continued: “Give us your opinion, Monsieur Mouret. Is it too dear – two hundred francs for this mount?”
Mouret had remained standing in the midst of the five women, smiling, taking an interest in what interested them. He picked up the fan, examined it, and was about to give his opinion, when the footman opened the door and announced:
“Madame Marty.”
And there entered a thin, ugly woman, ravaged with the small-pox, dressed with a complicated elegance. She was of uncertain age, her thirty-five years appearing sometimes equal to thirty, and sometimes to forty, according to the intensity of the nervous fever which agitated her. A red leather bag, which she had not let go, hung from her right hand.
“Dear madame,” said she to Henriette, “excuse me bringing my bag. Just fancy, as I was coming along I went into The Paradise, and as I have again been very extravagant, I did not like to leave it in my cab for fear of being robbed.” But having perceived Mouret, she resumed laughingly: “Ah! sir, I didn’t mean to give you an advertisement, for I didn’t know you were here. But you really have some extraordinary fine lace just now.”
This turned the attention from the fan, which the young man laid on the table. The ladies were all anxious to see what Madame Marty had bought. She was known to be very extravagant, totally unable to resist temptation, strict in her conduct and incapable of yielding to a lover, but weak and cowardly, easily conquered before the least bit of finery. Daughter of a city clerk, she was ruining her husband, a master at the Lycée Bonaparte, who was obliged to double his salary of six thousand francs a year by giving private lessons, in order to meet the constantly increasing household expenses. She did not open her bag, but held it tight on her lap, and commenced to talk about her daughter Valentine, fourteen years old, one of her dearest coquetries, for she dressed her like herself, with all the fashionable novelties of which she submitted to the irresistible seduction.
“You know,” she said, “they are making dresses trimmed with a narrow lace for young girls this winter. So when I saw%a very pretty Valenciennes – ”
And she at last decided to open her bag. The ladies were stretching out their necks, when, in the midst of the silence, the door-bell was heard.
“It’s my husband,” stammered Madame Marty, very confused. “He promised to fetch me on leaving the Lycée Bonaparte.”
She quickly shut the bag again, and put it under her chair with an instinctive movement. All the ladies set up a laugh. This made her blush for her precipitation, and she put the bag on her knees again, explaining that men never understood, and that they need not know.
“Monsieur de Boves, Monsieur de Vallagnosc,” announced the footman.
It was quite a surprise. Madame de Boves herself did not expect her husband. The latter, a fine man, wearing a moustache and an imperial with the military correctness so much liked at the Tuileries, kissed the hand of Madame Desforges, whom he had known as a young girl at her father’s. And he made way to allow his companion, a tall, pale fellow, of an aristocratic poverty of blood, to make his bow to the lady of the house. But the conversation had hardly recommenced when two exclamations were heard:
“What! Is that you, Paul?”
“Why, Octave!”
Mouret and Vallagnosc then shook hands, much to Madame Desforges’s surprise. They knew each other, then? Of course, they had grown up side by side at the college at Plassans, and it was quite by chance they had not met at her house before. However, with their hands still united, they went into the little drawing-room, just as the servant brought in the tea, a china service on a silver waiter, which he placed near Madame Desforges, on a small round marble table with a light copper mounting. The ladies drew up and began talking louder, all speaking at once, producing a cross-fire of short disjointed sentences; whilst Monsieur de Boves, standing up behind them, put in an occasional word with the gallantry of a handsome functionary. The vast room, so prettily and cheerfully furnished, became merrier still with these gossiping voices, and the frequent laughter.
“Ah! Paul, old boy,” repeated Mouret.
He was seated near Vallagnosc, on a sofa. And alone in the little drawing-room, very coquettish with its pretty silk hangings, out of hearing of the ladies, and not even seeing them, except through the open door, the two old friends commenced grinning, examining each other’s looks, exchanging slaps on the knees. Their whole youthful career was recalled, the old college at Plassans, with its two courtyards, its damp classrooms, and the dining-room in which they had consumed so much cod-fish, and the dormitories where the pillows used to fly from bed to bed as soon as the monitor began to snore. Paul, belonging to an old parliamentary family, noble, poor, and proud, was a good scholar, always at the top of his class, continually held up as an example by the master, who prophesied for him a brilliant future; whilst Octave remained at the bottom, stuck amongst the dunces, fat and jolly, indulging in all sorts of pleasures outside. Notwithstanding the difference in their characters, a fast friendship had rendered them inseparable, until their final examinations, which they passed, the one with honours, the other in a passable manner after two vexatious trials. Then they went out into the world, and had now met again, after ten years, already changed and looking older.
“Well,” said Mouret, “what’s become of you?”
“Nothing at all,” replied the other.
Vallagnosc, in the joy of their meeting, retained his tired and disenchanted air; and as his friend, astonished, insisted, saying: “But you must do something. What do you do?”
“Nothing,” replied he.
Octave commenced to laugh. Nothing! that wasn’t enough. Little by little he succeeded in drawing Paul out to tell his story. It was the usual story of penniless younger sons, who think themselves obliged by their birth to choose a liberal profession, burying themselves in a sort of vain mediocrity, happy to escape starvation, notwithstanding their numerous degrees. He had studied law by a sort of family tradition; and had since remained a burden on his widowed mother, who even then hardly knew how to dispose of her two daughters. Having at last got quite ashamed, he left the three women to vegetate on the remnants of their fortune, and accepted an appointment in the Ministry of the Interior, where he buried himself like a mole in its hole.
“What do you get there?” resumed Mouret.
“Three thousand francs.”
“But that’s pitiful pay! Ah! old man, I’m really sorry for you. What! a clever fellow like you, who floored all of us I And they only give you three thousand francs a year, after having already ground you down for five years! No, it isn’t right!” He interrupted himself, and returned to his own doings. “As for me, I made them a humble bow. You know what I’m doing?”
“Yes,” said Vallagnosc, “I heard you were in business. You’ve got that big place in the Place Gaillon, haven’t you?”
“That’s it. Counter-jumper, my boy!”
Mouret raised his head, again slapped him on the knee, and repeated, with the solid gaiety of a fellow who did not blush for the trade by which he was making his fortune:
“Counter-jumper, and no mistake! You remember, no doubt, I didn’t bite much at their machines, although at heart I never thought myself duller than the others. When I took my degree, just to please the family, I could have become a barrister or a doctor quite as easily as any of my school-fellows, but those trades frightened me. I saw so many who were starving at them that I just threw them over without the least regret, and pitched head-first into business.”
Vallognosc smiled with an awkward air, and ultimately said: “It’s very certain your degree can’t be much good to you for selling calico.”
“Well!” replied Mouret, joyously, “all I ask is, that it shall not stand in my way, and you know, when one has been stupid enough to burden one’s self with it, it is difficult to get rid of it. One goes at a tortoise’s pace through life, whilst those who are bare-footed run like madmen.” Then, noticing that his friend seemed troubled, he took his hand in his, and continued: “Come, come, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but confess that your degrees have not satisfied any of your wants. Do you know that my manager in the silk department will draw more than twelve thousand francs this year. Just so! a fellow of very clear intelligence, whose knowledge is confined to spelling, and the first four rules. The ordinary salesmen in my place make from three to four thousand francs a year, more than you can earn yourself; and their education was not so expensive as yours, nor were they launched into the world with a written promise to conquer it. Of course, it is not everything to make money; but between the poor devils possessed of a smattering of science who now block up the liberal professions, without earning enough to keep themselves from starving, and the practical fellows armed for life’s struggle, knowing every branch of their trade, by Jove! I don’t hesitate a moment, I’m for the latter against the former, I think they thoroughly understand the age they live in!”
His voice had become impassioned. Henriette, who was pouring out the tea, turned her head. When he caught her smile, at the further end of the large drawing-room, and saw the other ladies were listening, he was the first to make merry over his own big phrases.
“In short, old man, every counter-jumper who commences, has, at the present day, a chance of becoming a millionaire.”
Vallagnosc threw himself back on the sofa indolently, half-closing his eyes in a fatigued and disdainful attitude, in which a suspicion of affectation was added to his real hereditary exhaustion.
“Bah!” murmured he, “life isn’t worth all that trouble. There is nothing worth living for.” And as Mouret, shocked, looked at him with an air of surprise, he added: “Everything happens and nothing happens; one may as well stay with one’s arms folded.”
He then explained his pessimism – the mediocrities and the abortions of existence. For a time he had thought of literature, but his intercourse with certain poets had filled him with universal despair. He always arrived at the conclusion that all effort was useless, every hour equally weary and empty, and the world incurably stupid and dull. All enjoyment was a failure, and there was no pleasure in wrong-doing even.
“Just tell me, do you enjoy life yourself?” asked he at last.
Mouret was now in a state of astonished indignation, and exclaimed: “What? Do I enjoy myself? What are you talking about? Why, of course I do, my boy, and even when things give way, for then I am furious at hearing them cracking. I am a passionate fellow myself, and don’t take life quietly; that’s what interests me in it perhaps.” He glanced towards the drawing-room, and lowered his voice. “Oh! there are some women who’ve bothered me awfully, I must confess. But when I’ve got hold of one, I keep her. She doesn’t always escape me, and then I take my share, I assure you. But it is not so much the women, for to speak truly, I don’t care a hang for them; it’s the wish to act – to create, in short. You have an idea; you fight for it, you hammer it into people’s heads, and you see it grow and triumph. Ah! yes, my boy, I enjoy life!”
All the joy of action, all the gaiety of existence, resounded in these words. He repeated that he went with the times. Really, a man must be badly constituted, have his brain and limbs out of order, to refuse to work in an age of such vast undertakings, when the entire century was pressing forward with giant strides. And he laughed at the despairing ones, the disgusted ones, the pessimists, all those weak, sickly members of our budding sciences, who assumed the weeping airs of poets, or the mincing ways of sceptics, amidst the immense activity of the present day. A fine part to play, proper and intelligent, that of yawning before other people’s labour!
“That’s my only pleasure, yawning in other’s faces,” said Vallagnosc, smiling with his cold look.
At this Mouret’s passion subsided, and he became affectionate again. “Ah, Paul, you’re not changed. Just as paradoxical as ever! However, we’ve not met to quarrel. Each one has his own ideas, fortunately. But you must come and see my machine at work; you’ll see it isn’t a bad idea. Come, what news? Your mother and sisters are quite well, I hope? And weren’t you supposed to get married at Plassans, about six months ago?”
A sudden movement made by Vallagnosc stopped him; and as the former was looking round the drawing-room with an anxious expression, Mouret also turned round, and noticed that Mademoiselle de Boves was closely watching them. Blanche, tall and stout, resembled her mother; but her face was already puffed out, her large, coarse features swollen with unhealthy fat. Paul, in reply to a discreet question, intimated that nothing was yet settled; perhaps nothing would be settled. He had made the young person’s acquaintance at Madame Desforges’s, where he had visited a good deal last winter, but where he very rarely came now, which explained why he had not met Octave there sooner. In their turn, the De Boves invited him, and he was especially fond of the father, a very amiable man, formerly well known about town, who had retired into his present position. On the other hand, no money. Madame de Boves having brought her husband nothing but her Juno-like beauty as a marriage portion, the family were living poorly on the last mortgaged farm, to which modest revenue was added, fortunately, the nine thousand francs a year drawn by the count as Inspector-General of the Stud. And the ladies, mother and daughter, kept very short of money by him, impoverished by tender escapades outside, were sometimes reduced to turning their dresses themselves.
“In that case, why marry?” was Mouret’s simple question.
“Well! I can’t go on like this for ever,” said Vallagnosc, with a weary movement of the eyelids. “Besides, there are certain expectations; we are waiting the death of an aunt.”
However, Mouret still kept his eye on Monsieur de Boves, who, seated next to Madame Guibal, was most attentive, and laughing tenderly like a man on an amorous campaign; he turned to his friend with such a significant twinkle of the eye that the latter added:
“Not that one. At least not yet. The misfortune is, that his duty calls him to the four corners of France, to the breeding dépôts, so that he has continual pretexts for absenting himself. Last month, whilst his wife supposed him to be at Perpignan, he was living at an hotel, in an out-of-the-way neighbourhood, with a music-mistress.”
There ensued a pause. Then the young man, who was also watching the count’s gallantries towards Madame Guibal, resumed in a low tone: “Really, I think you are right. The more so as the dear lady is not exactly a saint, if all they say is true. There’s a very amusing story about her and an officer. But just look at him! Isn’t he comical, magnetising her with his eyes? The old-fashioned gallantry, my dear fellow! I adore that man, and if I marry his daughter, he can safely say it’s for his sake!”
Mouret laughed, greatly amused. He questioned Vallagnosc again, and when he found that the first idea of a marriage between him and Blanche came from Madame Desforges, he thought the story better still. That good Henriette took a widow’s delight in marrying people, so much so, that when she had provided for the girls, she sometimes allowed their fathers to choose friends from her company; but all so naturally, with such a good grace, that no one ever found any food for scandal. And Mouret, who loved her with the love of an active, busy man, accustomed to reducing his tenderness to figures, forgot all his calculations of captivation, and felt for her a comrade’s friendship.
At that moment she appeared at the door of the little drawing-room, followed by a gentleman, about sixty years old, whose entry had not been observed by the two friends. Occasionally the ladies’ voices became sharper, accompanied by the tinkling of the small spoons in the china cups; and there was heard, from time to time, in the interval of a short silence, the noise of a saucer laid down too roughly on the marble table. A sudden gleam of the setting sun, which had just emerged from behind a thick cloud, gilded the top of the chestnut-trees in the gardens, and streamed through the windows in a red, golden flame, the fire of which lighted up the brocatel and brass-work of the furniture.
“This way, my dear baron,” said Madame Desforges. “Allow me to introduce Monsieur Octave Mouret, who is longing to express the admiration he feels for you.” And turning round towards Octave, she added: “Baron Hartmann.”
A smile played on the old man’s lips. He was a short, vigorous man, with a large Alsatian head, and a heavy face, which lighted up with a gleam of intelligence at the slightest curl of his mouth, the slightest movement of his eyelids. For the last fortnight he had resisted Henriette’s wish that he should consent to this interview; not that he felt any immoderate jealousy, accepting, like a man of the world, his position of father; but because it was the third friend Henriette had introduced to him, and he was afraid of becoming ridiculous at last. So that on approaching Octave he put on the discreet smile of a rich protector, who, if good enough to show himself charming, does not consent to be a dupe.
“Oh! sir,” said Mouret, with his Southern enthusiasm, “the Credit Immobiliers last operation was really astonishing! You cannot think how happy and proud I am to know you.”
“Too kind, sir, too kind,” repeated the baron, still smiling.
Henriette looked at them with her clear eyes without any awkwardness, standing between the two, lifting her head, going from one to the other; and, in her lace dress, which revealed her delicate neck and wrists, she appeared delighted to see them so friendly together.
“Gentlemen,” said she at last, “I leave you to your conversation.” Then, turning towards Paul, who had got up, she resumed: “Will you accept of a cup of tea, Monsieur de Vallagnosc?”
“With pleasure, madame,” and they both returned to the drawing-room.
Mouret resumed his place on the sofa, when Baron Hartmann had sat down; the young man then broke out in praise of the Credit Immobiliers operations. From that he went on to the subject so near his heart, speaking of the new thoroughfare, of the lengthening of the Rue Reaumur, of which they were going to open a section under the name of the Rue du Dix-Décembre, between the Place de la Bourse and the Place de l’Opera. It had been declared a work of public utility eighteen months previously; the expropriation jury had just been appointed. The whole neighbourhood was excited about this new opening, anxiously awaiting the commencement of the work, taking an interest in the condemned houses. Mouret had been waiting three years for this work – first, in the expectation of an increase of business; secondly, with certain schemes of enlargement which he dared not openly avow, so extensive were his ideas. As the Rue du Dix-Décembre was to cut through the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de la Michodière, he saw The Ladies’ Paradise invading the whole block, surrounded by these streets and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; he already imagined it with a princely frontage in the new thoroughfare, lord and master of the conquered city. Hence his strong desire to make Baron Hartmann’s acquaintance, when he learnt that the Crédit Immobilier had made a contract with the authorities to open and build the Rue du Dix-Décembre, on condition that they received the frontage ground on each side of the street.
“Really,” repeated he, trying to assume a naïve look, “you’ll hand over the street ready made, with sewers, pavements, and gas lamps. And the frontage ground will suffice to compensate you. Oh! it’s curious, very curious!”
At last he came to the delicate point. He was aware that the Crédit Immobilier was buying up the houses which surrounded The Ladies’ Paradise, not only those which were to fall under the demolisher’s hands, but the others as well, those which were to remain standing; and he suspected the projectment of some future establishment He was very anxious about the enlargements of which he continued to extend the dream, seized with fear at the idea of one day clashing with a powerful company, owning property which they certainly would not part with. It was precisely this fear which had decided him to establish a connection immediately between himself and the baron – the amiable connection of a woman, so powerful between men of a gallant nature. No doubt he could have seen the financier in his office, and talked over the affair in question at his ease; but he felt himself stronger in Henriette’s house; he knew how much the mutual possession of a mistress serves to render men pliable and tender. To be both near her, within the beloved perfume of her presence, to have her ready to convince them with a smile, seemed to him a certainty of success.
“Haven’t you bought the old Hôtel Duvillard, that old building next to mine?” he asked suddenly.
The baron hesitated a moment, and then denied it. But Mouret looked in his face and smiled, playing, from that moment, the part of a good young man, open-hearted, simple, and straightforward in business.
“Look here, baron,” said he, “as I have the unexpected honour of meeting you, I must make a confession. Oh, I don’t ask you any of your secrets, but I am going to entrust you with mine, certain that I couldn’t place them in wiser hands. Besides, I want your advice. I have long wished to call and see you, but dared not do so.”
He did make his confession, he related his start, not even concealing the financial crisis through which he was passing in the midst of his triumph. Everything was brought up, the successive enlargements, the profits continually put back into the business, the sums brought by his employees, the house risking its existence at every fresh sale, in which the entire capital was staked, as it were, on a single throw of the dice. However, it was not money he wanted, for he had a fanatic’s faith in his customers; his ambition ran higher; he proposed to the baron a partnership, into which the Credit Immobilier should bring the colossal palace he saw in his dreams, whilst he, for his part, would give his genius and the business already created. The estate could be valued, nothing appeared to him easier to realise.
“What are you going to do with your land and buildings?” asked he, persistently. “You have a plan, no doubt. But I’m quite certain your idea is not so good as mine. Think of that. We build a gallery on the ground, we pull down or re-arrange the houses, and we open the most extensive establishment in Paris – a bazaar which will bring in millions.” And he let slip the fervent heartfelt exclamation: “Ah! if I could only do without you! But you get hold of everything now. Besides, I shall never have the necessary capital. Come, we must come to an understanding. It would be a crime not to do so.”
“How you go ahead, my dear sir!” Baron Hartmann contented himself with replying. “What an imagination!”
He shook his head, and continued to smile, determined not to return confidence for confidence. The intention of the Crédit Immobilier was to create in the Rue du Dix-Décembre a rival to the Grand Hôtel, a luxurious establishment, the central position of which would attract foreigners. At the same time, as the hôtel was only to occupy a certain, frontage, the baron could also have entertained Mouret’s idea, and treated for the rest of the block of houses, occupying a vast surface. But he had already advanced funds to two of Henriette’s friends, and he was getting tired of his position as complacent protector. Besides, notwithstanding his passion for activity, which prompted him to open his purse to every fellow of intelligence and courage, Mouret’s commercial genius astonished more than captivated him. Was it not a fanciful, imprudent operation, this gigantic shop? Would he not risk a certain failure in thus enlarging out of all bounds the drapery trade? In short, he didn’t believe in it; he refused.
