Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
“No doubt the idea is attractive, but it’s a poet’s idea. Where would you find the customers to fill such a cathedral?” Mouret looked at him for a moment silently, as if stupefied at his refusal. Was it possible? – a man of such foresight, who smelt money at no matter what depth! And suddenly, with an extremely eloquent gesture, he pointed to the ladies in the drawing-room and exclaimed: “There are my customers!” The sun was going down, the golden-red flame was now but a pale light, dying away in a farewell gleam on the silk of the hangings and the panels of the furniture. At this approach of twilight, an intimacy bathed the large room in a sweet softness. While Monsieur de Boves and Paul de Vallagnosc were talking near one of the windows, their eyes wandering far away into the gardens, the ladies had closed up, forming in the middle of the room a narrow circle of petticoats, from which issued sounds of laughter, whispered words, ardent questions and replies, all the passion felt by woman for expenditure and finery. They were talking about dress, and Madame de Boves was describing a costume she had seen at a ball.
“First of all, a mauve silk skirt, then over that flounces of old Alençon lace, twelve inches deep.”
“Oh! is it possible!” exclaimed Madame Marty. “Some women are fortunate!”
Baron Hartmann, who had followed Mouret’s gesture, was looking at the ladies through the door, which was wide open. He was listening to them with one ear, whilst the young man, inflamed by the desire to convince him, went deeper into the question, explaining the mechanism of the new style of drapery business. This branch of commerce was now based on a rapid and continual turning over of the capital, which it was necessary to turn into goods as often as possible in the same year. Thus, that year his capital, which only amounted to five hundred thousand francs, had been turned over four times, and had thus produced business to the amount of two millions. But this was a mere trifle, which could be increased tenfold, for later on he certainly hoped to turn over the capital fifteen or twenty times in certain departments.
“You will understand, baron, that the whole system lies in this. It is very simple, but it had to be found out. We don’t want a very large working capital; our sole effort is to get rid as quickly as possible of our stock to replace it by another, which will give our capital as many times its interest. In this way we can content ourselves with a very small profit; as our general expenses amount to the enormous figure of sixteen per cent., and as we seldom make more than twenty per cent, on our goods, it is only a net profit of four per cent at most; but this will finish by bringing in millions when we can operate on considerable quantities of goods incessantly renewed. You follow me, don’t you? nothing can be clearer.”
The baron shook his head again. He who had entertained the boldest combinations, of whom people still quoted the daring flights at the time of the introduction of gas, still remained uneasy and obstinate.
“I quite understand,” said he; “you sell cheap to sell a quantity, and you sell a quantity to sell cheap. But you must sell, and I repeat my former question: Whom will you sell to? How do you hope to keep up such a colossal sale?”
The sudden burst of a voice, coming from the drawing-room, cut short Mouret’s explanation. It was Madame Guibal, who was saying she would have preferred the flounces of old Alençon down the front only.
“But, my dear,” said Madame de Boves, “the front was covered with it as well. I never saw anything richer.”
“Ah, that’s a good idea,” resumed Madame Desforges, “I’ve got several yards of Alençon somewhere; I must look them up for a trimming.”
And the voices fell again, becoming nothing but a murmur. Prices were quoted, quite a traffic stirred up their desires, the ladies were buying lace by the mile.
“Why!” said Mouret, when he could speak, “we can sell what we like when we know how to sell! There lies our triumph.”
And with his southern spirit, he showed the new business at work in warm, glowing phrases which evoked whole pictures. First came the wonderful power of the piling up of the goods, all accumulated at one point, sustaining and pushing each other, never any stand-still, the article of the season always on hand; and from counter to counter the customer found herself seized, buying here the material, further on the cotton, elsewhere the mantle, everything necessary to complete her dress in fact, then falling into unforeseen purchases, yielding to her longing for the useless and the pretty. He then went on to sing the praises of the plain figure system. The great revolution in the business sprung from this fortunate inspiration. If the old-fashioned small shops were dying out it was because they could not struggle against the low prices guaranteed by the tickets. The competition was now going on under the very eyes of the public; a look into the windows enabled them to contrast the prices; every shop was lowering its rates, contenting itself with the smallest possible profit; no cheating, no stroke of fortune prepared long beforehand on an article sold at double its value, but current operations, a regular percentage on all goods, success depending solely on the orderly working of a sale all the larger from the fact of its being carried on in broad daylight. Was it not an astonishing creation? It was causing a revolution in the market, transforming Paris, for it was made of woman’s flesh and blood.
“I have the women, I don’t care a hang for the rest!” said Mouret, in a brutal confession which passion snatched from him.
At this cry Baron Hartmann appeared moved. His smile lost its touch of irony; he looked at the young man, won over gradually by his confidence, feeling a growing tenderness for him.
“Hush!” murmured he, paternally, “they will hear you.”
But the ladies were now all speaking at once, so excited that they weren’t even listening to each other. Madame de Boves was finishing the description of a dinner-dress; a mauve silk tunic, draped and caught up by bows of lace; the bodice cut very low, with more bows of lace on the shoulders.
“You’ll see,” said she. “I am having a bodice made like it, with some satin – ”
“I,” interrupted Madame Bourdelais, “I wanted some velvet. Oh! such a bargain!”
Madame Marty asked: “How much for the silk?”
And off they started again, all together. Madame Guibal, Henriette, and Blanche were measuring, cutting out, and making up. It was a pillage of material, a ransacking of all the shops, an appetite for luxury which expended itself in toilettes longed for and dreamed of – such a happiness to find themselves in an atmosphere of finery, that they lived buried in it, as in the warm air necessary to their existence.
Mouret, however, had glanced towards the other drawingroom, and in a few phrases whispered into the baron’s ear, as if he were confiding to him one of those amorous secrets that men sometimes risk among themselves, he finished explaining the mechanism of modern commerce. And, above the facts already given, right at the summit, appeared the exploitation of woman. Everything depended on that, the capital incessantly renewed, the system of piling up goods, the cheapness which attracts, the marking in plain figures which tranquilises. It was for woman that all the establishments were struggling in wild competition; it was woman that they were continually catching in the snare of their bargains, after bewildering her with their displays. They had awakened new desires in her flesh; they were an immense temptation, before which she succumbed fatally, yielding at first to reasonable purchases of useful articles for the household, then tempted by their coquetry, then devoured. In increasing their business tenfold, in popularising luxury, they became a terrible spending agency, ravaging the households, working up the fashionable folly of the hour, always dearer. And if woman reigned in their shops like a queen, cajoled, flattered, overwhelmed with attentions, she was an amorous one, on whom her subjects traffic, and who pays with a drop of her blood each fresh caprice. Through the very gracefulness of his gallantry, Mouret thus allowed to appear the brutality of a Jew, selling woman by the pound. He raised a temple to her, had her covered with incense by a legion of shopmen, created the rite of a new religion, thinking of nothing but her, continually seeking to imagine more powerful seductions; and, behind her back, when he had emptied her purse and shattered her nerves, he was full of the secret scorn of a man to whom a woman had just been stupid enough to yield herself.
“Once have the women on your side,” whispered he to the baron, and laughing boldly, “you could sell the very world.” Now the baron understood. A few sentences had sufficed, he guessed the rest, and such a gallant exploitation inflamed him, stirring up in him the memory of his past life of pleasure. His eyes twinkled in a knowing way, and he ended by looking with an air of admiration at the inventor of this machine for devouring the women. It was really clever. He made the same remark as Bourdoncle, suggested to him by his long experience: “You know they’ll make you suffer for it.”
But Mouret shrugged his shoulders in a movement of overwhelming disdain. They all belonged to him, were his property, and he belonged to none of them. After having drawn from them his fortune and his pleasure, he intended to throw them all over for those who might still find their account in them. It was the rational, cold disdain of a Southerner and a speculator.
“Well! my dear baron,” asked he in conclusion, “will you join me? Does this affair appear possible to you?”
The baron, half conquered, did not wish, however, to engage himself yet A doubt remained beneath the charm which was gradually operating on him. He was going to reply in an evasive manner, when a pressing call from the ladies spared him the trouble. Voices were repeating, amidst silvery laughter: “Monsieur Mouret! Monsieur Mouret!” And as the latter, annoyed at being interrupted, pretended not to hear, Madame de Boves, who had just got up, came as far as the door of the little drawing-room.
“You are wanted, Monsieur Mouret. It isn’t very gallant of you to bury yourself in a corner to talk over business.”
He then decided to go, with an apparent good grace, an air of rapture which astonished the baron. Both rose up and passed into the other drawing-room.
“But I am quite at your service, ladies,” said he on entering, a smile on his lips.
He was greeted with a burst of triumph. He was obliged to go further forward; the ladies made room for him in their midst The sun had just gone down behind the trees in the gardens, the day was departing, a fine shadow was gradually invading the vast apartment. It was the tender hour of twilight, that minute of discreet voluptuousness in the Parisian houses, between the dying brightness of the street and the lighting of the lamps downstairs. Monsieur de Boves and Vallagnosc, still standing up before a window, threw a shadow on the carpet: whilst, motionless in the last gleam of light which came in by the other window, Monsieur Marty, who had quietly entered, and whom the conversation of these ladies about dress had completely confused, placed his poor profile, a frock-coat, scanty but clean, his face pale and wan from teaching.
“Is your sale still fixed for next Monday?” Madame Marty was just asking.
“Certainly, madame,” replied Mouret, in a soft, sweet voice, an actor’s voice, which he assumed when speaking to women.
Henriette then intervened. “We are all going, you know. They say you are preparing wonders.”
“Oh! wonders!” murmured he, with an air of modest fatuity. “I simply try to deserve your patronage.”
But they pressed him with questions: Madame Bourdelais, Madame Guibal, Blanche even wanted to know.
“Come, give us some details,” repeated Madame de Boves, persistently. “You are making us die of curiosity.”
And they were surrounding him, when Henriette observed that he had not even taken a cup of tea. It was distressing. Four of them set about serving him, but on condition that he would answer them afterwards. Henriette poured it out, Madame Marty held the cup, whilst Madame de Boves and Madame Bourdelais contended for the honour of sweetening it. Then, when he had declined to sit down, and commenced to drink his tea slowly, standing up in the midst of them, they all approached, imprisoning him in the narrow circle of their skirts; and with their heads raised, their eyes sparkling, they sat there smiling at him.
“Your silk, your Paris Paradise, that all the papers are taking about?” resumed Madame Marty, impatiently.
“Oh!” replied he, “an extraordinary article, coarse-grained, supple and strong. You’ll see it, ladies, and you’ll see it nowhere else, for we have bought the exclusive right of it.”
“Really! a fine silk at five francs twelve sous!” said Madame Bourdelais, enthusiastic. “One cannot credit it.”
Ever since the advertisement had appeared, this silk had occupied a considerable place in their daily life. They talked of it, promising themselves some of it, worked up with desire and doubt. And, beneath the gossiping curiosity with which they overwhelmed the young man, there appeared their various temperaments as buyers.
Madame Marty, carried away by her rage for spending, took everything at The Ladies’ Paradise, without choosing, just as the articles appeared; Madame Guibal walked about the shop for hours without ever buying anything, happy and satisfied to simply feast her eyes; Madame de Boves, short of money, always tortured by some immoderate wish, nourished a feeling of rancour against the goods she could not carry away; Madame Bourdelais, with the sharp eye of a careful practical housewife, made straight for the bargains, using the big establishments with such a clever housewife’s skill that she saved a heap of money; and lastly, Henriette, who, very elegant, only procured certain articles there, such as gloves, hosiery, and her coarser linen.
“We have other stuffs of astonishing cheapness and richness,” continued Mouret, with his musical voice. “For instance, I recommend you our Golden Grain, a taffeta of incomparable brilliancy. In the fancy silks there are some charming lines, designs chosen from among thousands by our buyer: and in velvets you will find an exceedingly rich collection of shades. I warn you that cloth will be greatly worn this year; you’ll see our checks and our cheviots.”
They had ceased to interrupt him, and narrowed the circle, their mouths half open with a vague smile, their eager faces close to his, as in a sudden rush of their whole being towards the tempter. Their eyes grew dim, a slight shudder ran through them. All this time he retained his calm, conquering air, amidst the intoxicating perfumes which their hair exhaled; and between each sentence he continued to sip a little of his tea, the aroma of which cooled those sharper odours, in which there was a particle of the savage. Before a captivating grace so thoroughly master of itself, strong enough to play with woman in this way without being overcome by the intoxication which she exhales, Baron Hartmann, who had not ceased to look at him, felt his admiration increasing.
“So cloth will be worn?” resumed Madame Marty, whose ravished face sparkled with coquettish passion.
Madame Bourdelais, who kept a cool look-out, said, in her turn: “Your sale of remnants takes place on Thursday, doesn’t it? I shall wait. I have all my little ones to clothe.” And turning her delicate blonde head towards the mistress of the house: “Sauveur is still your dressmaker, I suppose?”
“Yes,” replied Henriette, “Sauveur is very dear, but she is the only one in Paris who knows how to make a bodice. Besides, Monsieur Mouret may say what he likes, she has the prettiest designs, designs that are not seen anywhere else. I can’t bear to see my dresses on every woman’s back.”
Mouret smiled discreetly at first. Then he intimated that Madame Sauveur bought her material at his shop; no doubt she went to the manufacturers direct for certain designs of which she acquired the sole right of sale; but for all black silks, for instance, she watched for The Paradise bargains, laying in a considerable stock, which she disposed of at double and treble the price she gave.
“Thus I am quite sure her buyers will snap up all our Paris Paradise. Why should she go to the manufacturers and pay dearer for this silk than she would at my place? On my word of honour, we shall sell it at a loss.”
This was a decisive blow for the ladies. The idea of getting goods below cost price awoke in them all the greed felt by women, whose enjoyment as buyers is doubled when they think they are robbing the tradesman. He knew them to be incapable of resisting anything cheap.
“But we sell everything for nothing!” exclaimed he gaily, taking up Madame Desforges’s fan, which was behind him on the table. “For instance, here’s this fan. I don’t know what it cost.”
“The Chantilly lace was twenty-five francs, and the mounting cost two hundred,” said Henriette.
“Well, the Chantilly isn’t dear. However, we have the same at eighteen francs; as for the mount, my dear madame, it’s a shameful robbery. I should not dare to sell one like it for more than ninety francs.”
“Just what I said!” exclaimed Madame Bourdelais.
“Ninety francs!” murmured Madame de Boves; “one must be very poor indeed to go without one at that price.”
She had taken up the fan, and was again examining it with her daughter Blanche; and, on her large regular face, in her big sleepy eyes, there arose an expression of the suppressed and despairing longing of a caprice in which she could not indulge. The fan once more went the round of the ladies, amidst various remarks and exclamations. Monsieur de Boves and Vallagnosc, however, had left the window. Whilst the former had returned to his place behind Madame Guibal, the charms of whose bust he was admiring, with his correct and superior air, the young man was leaning over Blanche, endeavouring to find something agreeable to say.
“Don’t you think it rather gloomy, mademoiselle, this white mount and black lace?”
“Oh,” replied she, gravely, not a blush colouring her inflated cheeks, “I once saw one made of mother-of-pearl and white lace. Something truly virginal!”
Monsieur de Boves, who had doubtless observed the heartbroken, longing looks with which his wife was following the fan, at last added his word to the conversation. “These flimsy things don’t last long, they soon break,” said he.
“Of course they do!” declared Madame Guibal, with an air of indifference. “I’m tired of having mine mended.”
For several minutes, Madame Marty, excited by the conversation, was feverishly turning her red leather bag about on her lap, for she had not yet been able to show her purchases. She was burning to display them, with a sort of sensual desire; and, suddenly forgetting her husband’s presence, she took out a few yards of narrow lace wound on a piece of cardboard.
“It’s the Valenciennes for my daughter,” said she. “It’s an inch and a half wide. Isn’t it delicious? One franc eighteen sous.”
The lace was passed from hand to hand. The ladies were astonished. Mouret assured them he sold these little trimmings at cost price. However, Madame Marty had closed the bag, as if to conceal certain things she could not show. But after the success obtained by the Valenciennes she was unable to resist the temptation of taking out a handkerchief.
“There was this handkerchief as well. Real Brussels, my dear. Oh! a bargain! Twenty francs!”
And after that the bag became inexhaustible, she blushed with pleasure, a modesty like that of a woman undressing herself made her appear more charming and embarrassed at each fresh article she took out. There was a Spanish blonde-lace cravat, thirty francs: she didn’t want it, but the shopman had sworn it was the last, and that in future the price would be raised. Next came a Chantilly veil: rather dear, fifty francs; if she didn’t wear it she could make it do for her daughter.
“Really, lace is so pretty!” repeated she with her nervous laugh. “Once I’m inside I could buy everything.”
“And this?” asked Madame de Boves, taking up and examining a remnant of Maltese lace.
“That,” replied she, “is for an insertion. There are twenty-six yards – a franc the yard. Just fancy!”
“But,” said Madame Bourdelais, surprised, “what are you going to do with it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. But it was such a funny pattern!”
At this moment she raised her eyes and perceived her terrified husband in front of her. He had turned paler than usual, his whole person expressed the patient, resigned anguish of a man assisting, powerless, at the reckless expenditure of his salary, so dearly earned. Every fresh bit of lace was for him a disaster; bitter days of teaching swallowed up, long journeys to pupils through the mud devoured, the continued effort of his life resulting in a secret misery, the hell of a necessitous household. Before the increasing wildness of his look, she wanted to catch up the veil, the cravat, and the handkerchief, moving her feverish hands about, repeating with forced laughter: “You’ll get me a scolding from my husband. I assure you, my dear, I’ve been very reasonable; for there was a fine piece of point at five hundred francs, oh! a marvel!”
“Why didn’t you buy it?” asked Madame Guibal, calmly. “Monsieur Marty is the most gallant of men.”
The poor professor was obliged to bow and say his wife was perfectly welcome. But the idea of this point at five hundred francs was like a lump of ice dripping down his back; and as Mouret was just at that moment affirming that the new shops increased the comfort of the middle-class households, he glared at him with a terrible expression, the flash of hatred of a timid man who would have throttled him had he dared.
But the ladies had still kept hold of the bits of lace, fascinated, intoxicated. The pieces were unrolled, passed from one to the other, drawing the admirers closer still, holding them in the delicate meshes. On their laps there was a continual caress of this tissue, so miraculously fine, and amidst which their culpable fingers fondly lingered. They still kept Mouret a close prisoner, overwhelming him with fresh questions. As the day continued to decline, he was now and again obliged to bend his head, grazing their hair with his beard, to examine a stitch, or indicate a design. But in this soft voluptuousness of twilight, in the midst of this warm feminine atmosphere, Mouret still remained their master beneath the rapture he affected. He seemed, to be a woman himself, they felt themselves penetrated and overcome by this delicate sense of their secret that he possessed, and they abandoned themselves, captivated; whilst he, certain from that moment to have them at his mercy, appeared, brutally triumphing over them, the despotic monarch of dress.
“Oh, Monsieur Mouret!” stammered they, in low, hysterical voices, in the gloom of the drawing-room.
The last rays of the setting sun were dying away on the brass-work of the furniture. The laces alone retained a snowy reflex on the dark dresses of the ladies, of which the confused group seemed to surround the young man with a vague appearance of kneeling, worshipping women. A light still shone on the side of the silver teapot, a short flame like that of a night-light, burning in an alcove warmed by the perfume of the tea. But suddenly the servant entered with two lamps, and the charm was destroyed. The drawing-room became light and cheerful. Madame Marty was putting her lace in her little bag, Madame de Boves was eating a sponge cake, whilst Henriette who had got up, was talking in a half-whisper to the baron, near one of the windows.
“He’s a charming fellow,” said the baron.
“Isn’t he?” exclaimed she, with the involuntary cry of a woman in love.
He smiled, and looked at her with a paternal indulgence. This was the first time he had seen her so completely conquered; and, too proud to suffer from it, he experienced nothing but a feeling of compassion on seeing her in the hands of this handsome fellow, so tender and yet so cold-hearted. He thought he ought to warn her, and murmured in a joking tone: “Take care, my dear, or he’ll eat you all up.”
A flash of jealousy lighted up Henriette’s eyes. Perhaps she understood Mouret had simply made use of her to get at the baron; and she determined to render him mad with passion, he whose hurried style of making love had the easy charm of a song thrown to the four winds of heaven. “Oh,” said she, affecting to joke in her turn, “the lamb always finishes up by eating the wolf.”
The baron, greatly amused, encouraged, her with a nod. Could she be the woman who was to avenge all the others?
When Mouret, after having reminded Vallagnosc that he wanted to show him his machine at work, came up to take his leave, the baron retained him near the window opposite the gardens, now buried in darkness. He yielded at last to the seduction; his confidence had come on seeing him in the midst of these ladies. Both conversed for a moment in a low tone, then the banker said: “Well, I’ll look into the affair. It’s settled if your Monday’s sale proves as important as you expect.”
They shook hands, and Mouret, delighted, took his leave, for he did not enjoy his dinner unless he went and gave a look at the day’s receipts at The Ladies’ Paradise.
“Well, Bourdoncle!” cried out Mouret, “are you trembling still?”
He had returned to his favourite position at the top of the stairs of the first floor, against the balustrade; and, in the presence of the massacre of stuffs which was spread out under him, he indulged in a victorious laugh. His fears of the morning, that moment of unpardonable weakness which nobody would ever know of, inspired him with a greater desire to triumph. The battle was definitely won, the small tradespeople of the neighbourhood were done for, and Baron Hartmann was conquered, with his millions and his land. Whilst he was looking at the cashiers bending over their ledgers, adding up long columns of figures, whilst he was listening to the sound of the gold, falling from their fingers into the metal bowls, he already saw The Ladies’ Paradise growing beyond all bounds, enlarging its hall and prolonging its galleries as far as the Rue du Dix-Décembre.
“And now are you convinced, Bourdoncle,” he resumed, “that the house is really too small? We could have sold twice as much.”
Bourdoncle humbled himself, enraptured, moreover, to find himself in the wrong. But a new spectacle rendered them grave. As was the custom every evening, Lhomme, the chief cashier, had just collected the receipts from each pay-desk; after having added them up, he usually posted up the total amount after placing the paper on which it was written on his file. He then took the receipts up to the chief cashier’s office, in a leather case and in bags, according to the nature of the cash. On this occasion the gold and silver predominated, and he was slowly walking upstairs, carrying three enormous bags. Deprived of his right arm, cut off at the elbow, he clasped them in his left arm against his breast, holding one up with his chin to prevent it slipping. His heavy breathing could be heard at a distance, he passed along, staggering and superb, amidst the respectful shopmen.
“How much, Lhomme?” asked Mouret.
“Eighty thousand seven hundred and forty-two francs two sous,” replied the cashier.
A joyous laugh stirred up The Ladies’ Paradise. The amount ran through the establishment. It was the highest figure ever attained in one day by a draper’s shop.
That evening, when Denise went up to bed, she was obliged to lean against the partition in the corridor under the zinc roof. When in her room, and with the door closed, she fell down on the bed; her feet pained her so much. For a long time she continued to look with a stupid air at the dressing-table, the wardrobe, all the hotel-like nudity. This, then, was where she was going to live; and her first day tormented her – an abominable, endless day. She would never have the courage to go through another. Then she perceived she was dressed in silk; and this uniform depressed her. She was childish enough, before unpacking her box, to put on her old woollen dress, which hung on the back of a chair. But when she was once more dressed in this poor garment of hers, a painful emotion choked her; the sobs which she had kept back all day burst forth suddenly in a flood of hot tears. She fell back on the bed, weeping at the thought of the two children, and she wept on, without feeling to have the strength to take off her boots, completely overcome with fatigue and grief.
