Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
However, there was but little room for these dangerous dreams in her daily working life. During the thirteen hours’ hard work in the shop, there was no time for any display of tenderness between the salesmen and the saleswomen. If the continual fight for money had not abolished the sexes, the unceasing press of business which occupied their minds and fatigued their bodies would have sufficed to kill all desire. But very few love-affairs had been known in the establishment amidst the hostilities and friendships between the men and the women, the constant elbowings from department to department. They were all nothing but the wheels, turned round by the immense machine, abdicating their personalities, simply contributing their strength to this commonplace, powerful total. It was only outside that they resumed their individual lives, with the abrupt flame of awakening passions.
Denise, however, one day saw Albert Lhomme slipping a note into the hand of a young lady in the underclothing department, after having several times passed through with an air of indifference. The dead season, which lasts from December to February was commencing; and she had periods of rest, hours spent on her feet, her eyes wandering all over the shop, waiting for customers. The young ladies of her department were especially friendly with the salesmen who served the lace, but their intimacy never went any further than some rather risky jokes, exchanged in whispers. In the lace department there was a second-hand, a gay youth who pursued Clara with all sorts of abominable stories, simply for a joke – so careless at heart that he made no effort to meet her outside; and thus it was from counter to counter, between the gentlemen and the young ladies, a series of winks, nods, and remarks, which they alone understood. At times they indulged in some sly gossip with their backs half turned and with a dreamy air, in order to put the terrible Bourdoncle off the scent As for Deloche, for a long time he contented him self with smiling at Denise when he met her; but, getting bolder, he occasionally murmured a friendly word. The day she had noticed Madame Aurélie’s son giving a note to the young lady in the under-linen department, Deloche was asking her if she had enjoyed her lunch, feeling to want to say something, and unable to find anything more amiable. He also saw the white paper; and looking at the young girl, they both blushed at this intrigue carried on before them.
But under these rumours which gradually awoke the woman in her, Denise still retained her infantine peace of mind. The one thing that stirred her heart was meeting with Hutin. But even that was only gratitude in her eyes; she simply thought herself touched by the young man’s politeness. He could not bring a customer to the department without her feeling quite confused. Several times, on returning from a pay-desk, she found herself making a détour, uselessly passing the silk counter, her bosom heaving with emotion. One afternoon she met Mouret there, who seemed to follow her with a smile. He paid no more attention to her now, only addressing a few words to her from time to time, to give her a few hints about her toilet, and to joke with her, as an impossible girl, a little savage almost like a boy, of whom he would never make a coquette, notwithstanding all his knowledge of women; sometimes he even ventured to laugh at and tease her, without wishing to acknowledge to himself the charm which this little saleswoman inspired in him, with her comical head of hair. Before this mute smile, Denise trembled, as if she were in fault Did he know why she was going through the silk department, when she could not herself have explained what made her make such a détour?
Hutin, moreover, did not seem to be aware in any way of the young girl’s grateful looks. The shop-girls were not his style, he affected to despise them, boasting more than ever of extraordinary adventures with the lady customers; a baroness had been struck with him at his counter, and the wife of an architect had fallen into his arms one day when he went to her house about an error in measuring he had made. Beneath this Norman boasting he simply concealed girls picked up in cafés and music-halls. Like all young gentlemen in the drapery line, he had a mania for spending, fighting in his department the whole week with a miser’s greediness, with the sole wish to squander his money on Sunday on the racecourses, in the restaurants, and dancing-saloons; never thinking of saving a penny, spending his salary as soon as he drew it, absolutely indifferent about the future. Favier did not join him in these parties. Hutin and he, so friendly in the shop, bowed to each other at the door, where all further intercourse ceased. A great many of the shopmen, in continual contact indoors, became strangers, ignorant of each other’s lives, as soon as they set foot in the streets. But Liénard was Hutin’s intimate friend. Both lived in the same lodging-house, the Hôtel de Smyrne, in the Rue Sainte-Anne, a murky building entirely inhabited by shop assistants. In the morning they arrived together; then, in the evening, the first one free, after the folding was done, waited for the other at the Cafe Saint-Roch, in the Rue Saint-Roch, a little café where the employees of The Ladies’ Paradise usually met, brawling, drinking, and playing cards amidst the smoke of their pipes. They often stopped there till one in the morning, until the tired landlord turned them out. For the last month they had been spending three evenings a week at a free-and-easy at Montmartre; and they took their friends with them, creating a success for Mademoiselle Laure, a music-hall singer. Hutin’s latest conquest, whose talent they applauded with such violent blows and such a clamour that the police had been obliged to interfere on two occasions.
The winter passed in this way, and Denise at last obtained three hundred francs a-year fixed salary. It was quite time, for her shoes were completely worn out. For the last month she had avoided going out, for fear of bursting them entirely.
“What a noise you make with your shoes, mademoiselle!” Madame Aurélie very often remarked, with an irritated look. “It’s intolerable. What’s the matter with your feet?”
The day Denise appeared with a pair of cloth boots, for which she had given five francs, Marguerite and Clara expressed their astonishment in a kind of half whisper, so as to be heard.
“Hullo! the ‘unkempt girl’ has given up her goloshes,” said the one.
“Ah,” retorted the other, “she must have cried over them. They were her mother’s.”
In point of fact, there was a general uprising against Denise. The girls of her department had found out her friendship with Pauline, and thought they saw a certain bravado in this affection displayed for a saleswoman of a rival counter. They spoke of treason, accused her of going and repeating their slightest words. The war between the two departments became more violent than ever, it had never waxed so warm; hard words were exchanged like cannon-balls, and there was even a slap given one evening behind some boxes of chemises. Perhaps this remote quarrel arose from the fact that the young ladies in the under-linen department wore woollen dresses, whilst those in the ready-made one wore silk. In any case, the former spoke of their neighbours with the shocked air of respectable girls; and facts proved that they were right, for it had been remarked that the silk dresses appeared to have a certain influence on the dissolute habits of the young ladies who wore them. Clara was taunted with her troop of lovers, even Marguerite had, so to say, had her child thrown in her face, whilst Madame Frédéric was accused of all sorts of concealed passions. And this was solely on account of that Denise!
“Now, young ladies, no ugly words; behave yourselves!” Madame Aurélie would say with her imperial air, amidst the rising passions of her little kingdom. “Show who you are.”
At heart she preferred to remain neutral. As she confessed one day, when talking to Mouret, these girls were all about the same, one was as good as the other. But she suddenly became impassioned when she learnt from Bourdoncle that he had just caught her son downstairs kissing a young girl belonging to the under-linen department, the saleswoman to whom he had passed several letters. It was abominable, and she roundly accused the under-linen department of having laid a trap for Albert. Yes, it was a got-up affair against herself, they were trying to dishonour her by ruining a child without experience, after seeing that it was impossible to attack her department. Her only object in making such a noise was to complicate the business, for she knew what her son was, fully aware that he was capable of doing all sorts of stupid things. For a time the matter assumed a grave aspect, Mignot, the glove salesman, was mixed up in it. He was a great friend of Albert’s, and the rumour got circulated that he favoured the mistresses Albert sent him, girls with big chignons, who rummaged in the boxes for hours together; and there was also a story about some Swedish kid gloves given to the girl of the under-linen department which was never properly cleared up. At last the scandal was hushed up out of regard for Madame Aurélie, whom Mouret himself treated with deference. Bourdoncle contented himself a week after with dismissing, for some slight offence, the girl who allowed herself to be kissed. If they shut their eyes to the terrible doings of their employees outdoors, the managers did not tolerate the least nonsense in the house.
And it was Denise who suffered for all this. Madame Aurélie, although perfectly well aware of what was going on, nourished a secret rancour against her; she saw her laughing one evening with Pauline, and took it for bravado, concluding that they were gossiping over her son’s love-affairs. And she caused the young girl to be isolated more than ever in the department. For some time she had been thinking of inviting the young ladies to spend a Sunday near Rambouillet, at Rigolles, where she had bought a country house with the first hundred thousand francs she had saved; and she suddenly decided to do so; it would be a means of punishing Denise, of putting her openly on one side. She was the only one not invited. For a fortnight in advance, nothing was talked of but this party; the girls kept their eyes on the sky, and had already mapped out the whole day, looking forward to all sorts of pleasures: donkey-riding, milk and brown bread. And they were to be all women, which was more amusing still! As a rule, Madame Aurélie killed her holidays in this way, going out with her lady friends; for she was so little accustomed to being at home, she always felt so uncomfortable, so strange, during the rare occasions she could dine with her husband and son, that she preferred to throw up even those occasions, and go and dine at a restaurant. Lhomme went his own way, enraptured to resume his bachelor existence, and Albert, greatly relieved, went off with his beauties; so that, unaccustomed to being at home, feeling in each other’s way, and wearying each other when together on a Sunday, they paid nothing more than a flying visit to the house, as to some common hôtel where people take a bed for the night. Regarding the excursion to Rambouillet, Madame Aurélie simply declared that propriety prevented Albert joining them, and that the father himself would display great tact by refusing to come; a declaration which enchanted the two men. However, the happy day was drawing near, and the young girls chattered more than ever, relating their preparations in the way of dress, as if they were going on a six months’ tour, whilst Denise had to listen to them, pale and silent in her abandonment.
“Ah, they make you wild, don’t they?” said Pauline to her one morning. “If I were you I would just catch them nicely! They are going to enjoy themselves. I would enjoy myself too. Come with us on Sunday, Bauge is going to take me to Joinville.”
“No, thanks,” said the young girl with her quiet obstinacy.
“But why not? Are you still afraid of being taken by force?”
And Pauline, laughed heartily. Denise also smiled. She knew how such things came about; it was always during some similar excursions that the young ladies had made the acquaintance of their first lovers, brought by chance by a friend; and she did not want to.
“Come,” resumed Pauline, “I assure you that Bauge won’t bring any one. We shall be all by ourselves. As you don’t want to, I won’t go and marry you off, of course.”
Denise hesitated, tormented by such a strong desire to go that the blood flew to her cheeks. Since the girls had been talking about their country pleasures she had felt stifled, overcome by a longing for fresh air, dreaming of the tall grass into which she could sink down up to the neck, of the giant trees the shadows of which should flow over her like so much cooling water. Her childhood, spent in the rich verdure of the Cotentin, was awakening with a regret for sun and air.
“Well! yes,” said she at last.
Everything was soon arranged. Bauge was to come and fetch them at eight o’clock, in the Place Gaillon; from there they would take a cab to the Vincennes Station. Denise, whose twenty-five francs a month was quickly swallowed up by the children, had only been able to do up her old black woollen dress, by trimming it with strips of check poplin; and she had also made herself a bonnet, a shape covered with silk and ornamented with a simple blue ribbon. In this simple attire she looked very young, like an overgrown girl, exceedingly clean, rather shamefaced and embarrassed by her luxuriant hair, which appeared through the nakedness of her bonnet.
Pauline, on the contrary, displayed a pretty violet and white striped silk dress, a hat richly trimmed and laden with feathers, jewels round her neck and rings on her fingers, which gave her the appearance of a well-to-do tradesman’s wife. It was like a Sunday revenge on the woollen dress she was obliged to wear all the week in the shop; whilst Denise, who wore her uniform silk from Monday to Saturday, resumed, on Sunday, her thin woollen dress of misery.
“There’s Bauge,” said Pauline, pointing to a tall fellow standing near the fountain.
She introduced her lover, and Denise felt at her ease at once, he seemed such a nice fellow. Bauge, big, strong as an ox, had a long Flemish face, in which his expressionless eyes twinkled with an infantine puerility. Born at Dunkerque, the younger son of a grocer, he had come to Paris, almost turned out by his father and brother, who thought him a fearful dunce. However, he made three thousand five hundred francs a year at the Bon Marche. He was rather stupid, but a very good hand in the linen department. The women thought him nice.
“And the cab?” asked Pauline.
They had to go as far as the Boulevard. It was already rather warm in the sun, the glorious May morning seemed to laugh on the street pavement. There was not a cloud in the sky; quite a gaiety floated in the blue air, transparent as crystal. An involuntary smile played on Denise’s lips; she breathed freely; it seemed to her that her bosom was throwing off the stifling sensation of six months. At last she no longer felt the stuffy air and the heavy stones of The Ladies’ Paradise weighing her down! She had then the prospect of a long day in the country before her! and it was like a new lease of life, an endless joy, into which she entered with all the glee of a little child. However, when in the cab, she turned her eyes away, feeling very awkward as Pauline bent over to kiss her lover.
“Oh, look!” said she, her head still at the window, “there’s Monsieur Lhomme. How he does walk!”
“He’s got his French horn,” added Pauline, leaning out. “What an old stupid! One would think he was running to meet his girl!”
Lhomme, with his instrument under his arm, was spinning along past the Gymnase Theatre, his nose in the air, laughing with delight at the thought of the treat in store for him. He was going to spend the day at a friend’s, a flautist at a small theatre, where a few amateurs indulged in a little chamber music on Sundays as soon as breakfast was over.
“At eight o’clock! what a madman!” resumed Pauline. “And you know that Madame Aurélie and all her clique must have taken the Rambouillet train that left at half-past six. It’s very certain the husband and wife won’t come across each other.”
Both then commenced talking of the Rambouillet excursion. They did not wish it to be rainy for the others, because they themselves would be obliged to suffer as well; but if a cloud could burst over there without extending to Joinville, it would be funny all the same. Then they attacked Clara, a dirty slut, who hardly knew how to spend the money her men gave her: hadn’t she bought three pairs of boots all at the same time, which she threw away the next day, after having cut them with her scissors, on account of her feet, which were covered with bunions. In fact, the young ladies were just as bad as the fellows, they squandered everything, never saving a son, wasting two or three hundred francs a month on dress and dainties.
“But he’s only got one arm,” said Bauge all of a sudden. “How does he manage to play the French horn?”
He had kept his eyes on Lhomme. Pauline, who sometimes amused herself by playing on his stupidity, told him the cashier kept the instrument up by placing it against a wall. He thoroughly believed her, and thought it very ingenious. Then, when stricken with remorse, she explained to him in what way Lhomme had adapted to his stump a system of keys which he made use of as a hand, he shook his head, full of suspicion, declaring that they wouldn’t make him swallow that.
“You are ready too stupid!” she retorted, laughingly. “Never mind, I love you all the same.”
They reached the Vincennes Station just in time for a train. Bauge paid; but Denise had previously declared that she washed to pay her share of the expenses; they would settle up in the evening. They took second-class tickets, and found the train full of a gay noisy throng. At Nogent, a wedding-party got out, amidst a storm of laughter. At last they arrived at Joinville and went straight to the island to order lunch; and they stopped there, lingering on the banks of the Marne, under the tall poplars. It was rather cold in the shade, a sharp breese was blowing in the sunshine, extending far into the distance, on the other side of the river, the limpid parity of a plain dotted with cultivated fields. Denise lingered behind Pauline and her lover, who were walking with their arms round each others waists. She had picked a handful of buttercups, and was watching the view of the river, happy, her heart beating, her head drooping, each time Baugé leant over to kiss his mistress. Her eyes filled with tears. And yet she was not suffering. What was the matter with her that she had this feeling of suffocation? and why did this vast landscape, where she had looked forward to having so much enjoyment, fill her with a vague regret she could not explain? Then, at lunch, Pauline’s noisy laugh bewildered her. That young lady, who loved the suburbs with the passion of an actress living in the gas-light, in the thick air of a crowd, wanted to lunch in an arbour, notwithstanding the sharp wind. She was delighted with the sudden gusts which blew up the table-cloth, she thought the arbour very funny in its nudity, with the freshly-painted trelliswork, the lozenges of which cast a reflection on the cloth. She ate ravenously, devouring everything with the voracity of a girl badly fed at the shop, making up for it outside by giving herself an indigestion with the things she liked; this was her vice, she spent most of her money in cakes and indigestible dainties of all kinds, favourite dishes stowed away in her leisure moments. As Denise seemed to have had enough of the eggs, fried fish, and stewed chicken, she restrained herself, not daring to order any strawberries, a luxury still very dear, for fear of running the bill up too high.
“Now, what are we going to do?” asked Baugé when the coffee was served.
As a rule Pauline and he returned to Paris to dine, and finish their day in some theatre. But at Denise’s request, they decided to stay at Joinville all day; they would be able to have their fill of the country. So they stopped and wandered about the fields all the afternoon. They spoke for a moment of going for a row, but abandoned the idea; Baugé was not a good waterman. But they found themselves walking along the banks of the Marne, all the same, and were greatly interested by the life on the river, the squadrons of yawls and other boats, and the young men who formed the crews. The sun was going down, they were returning to Joinville, when they saw two boats coming down stream at a racing speed, exchanging volleys of insults, in which the repeated cries of “Sawbones!” and “Counter-jumpers!” dominated.
“Hallo!” said Pauline, “it’s Monsieur Hutin.”
“Yes,” said Baugé, shading his face with his hand, “I recognise his mahogany boat. The other one is manned by students, no doubt.”
And he explained the deadly hatred existing between the young students and the shopmen. Denise, on hearing Hutin’s name mentioned, suddenly stopped, and followed, with fixed eyes, the frail skiff spinning along like an arrow. She tried to distinguish the young man among the rowers, but could only manage to make out the white dresses of two women, one of whom, who was steering, wore a red hat. Their voices were drowned by the rapid flow of the river.
“Pitch ‘em in, the sawbones!”
“Duck ‘em, the counter-jumpers!”
In the evening they returned to the restaurant on the island. But it had turned too chilly, they were obliged to dine in one of the closed rooms, where the table-cloths were still damp from the humidity of the winter. After six o’clock the tables were all occupied, yet the excursionists still hurried in, looking for a corner; and the waiters continued to bring in more chairs and forms, putting the plates closer together, and crowding the people up. It was stifling, they had to open the windows. Outdoors, the day was waning, a greenish twilight fell from the poplars so quickly that the proprietor, unprepared for these meals under cover, and having no lamps, was obliged to put a wax candle on each table. The uproar became deafening with laughing, calling out, and the clacking of the table utensils; the candles flared and melted in the draught from the windows, whilst moths fluttered about in the air, warmed by the odour of the food, and traversed by sudden gusts of cold wind.
“What fun they’re having, eh?” said Pauline, very busy with a plate of matelote, which she declared extraordinary. She leant over to add: “Didn’t you see Monsieur Albert over there?”
It was really young Lhomme, in the middle of three questionable women, a vulgar-looking old lady in a yellow bonnet, suspiciously like a procuress, and two young girls of thirteen or fourteen, forward and painfully impudent creatures. He, already intoxicated, was knocking his glass on the table, and talking of drubbing the waiter if he did not bring some “liqueurs” immediately.
“Well!” resumed Pauline, “there’s a family, if you like! the mother at Rambouillet, the father in Paris; and the son at Joinville; they won’t tread on one another’s toes!”
Denise, who detested noise, smiled, however, and tasted the joy of ceasing to think, amid such uproar. But all at once they heard a noise in the other room, a burst of voices which drowned the others. They were yelling, and must have come to blows, for one could hear a scuffle, chairs falling down, quite a struggle, amid which the river-cries again resounded:
“Duck ‘em, the counter-jumpers!”
“Pitch ‘em in, the sawbones!”
And when the hotel-keeper’s loud voice had calmed this tempest, Hutin suddenly made his appearance, wearing a red jersey, and a little cap at the back of his head; he had on his arm the tall, fair girl, who had been steering, and who, in order to wear the boat’s colours, had planted a bunch of poppies behind her ear. They were greeted on entering by a storm of applause; and his face beamed with pride, he swelled out his chest, assuming a nautical rolling gait, showing off a blow which had blackened his cheek, puffed up with joy at being noticed. Behind them followed the crew. They took a table by storm, and the uproar became something fearful.
“It appears,” explained Bauge, after having listened to the conversation behind him, “it appears that the students have recognised the woman with Hutin as an old friend from their neighbourhood, who now sings in a music-hall at Montmartre. So they were kicking up a row for her. These students never pay their women.”
“In any case,” said Pauline, stiffly, “she’s jolly ugly, with her carroty hair. Really, I don’t know where Monsieur Hutin picks them up, but they’re an ugly, dirty lot.”
Denise had turned pale, and felt an icy coldness, as if her heart’s blood were flowing away, drop by drop. She had already, on seeing the boats from the bank, felt a shiver; but now she no longer had any doubt, this girl was certainly with Hutin. With trembling hands, and a choking sensation in her throat, she ceased eating.
“What’s the matter?” asked her friend.
“Nothing,” stammered she; “it’s rather warm here.”
But Hutin’s table was close to theirs, and when he perceived Bauge, whom he knew, he commenced a conversation in a shrill voice, in order to attract further attention.
“I say,” cried he, “are you as virtuous as ever at the Bon Marche?”
“Not so much as all that,” replied Bauge, turning very red.
“That won’t do! You know they only take virgins there, and there’s a confessional box permanently fixed for the salesmen who venture to look at them. A house where they marry you – no, thanks!”
The other fellows began to laugh. Liénard, who belonged to the crew, added: “It isn’t like the Louvre. There they have a midwife attached to the ready-made department. My word of honour!”
The gaiety increased; Pauline herself burst out, the idea of the midwife seemed so funny. But Baugé was annoyed by the jokes about the innocence of his house. He launched out all at once: “Oh, you’re not too well off at The Ladies’ Paradise. Sacked for the slightest thing! And a governor who seems to tout for his lady customers.”
Hutin no longer listened to him, but commenced to praise the house in the Place Clichÿ. He knew a young girl there so excessively aristocratic that the customers dared not speak to her for fear of humiliating her. Then, drawing up closer, he related that he had made a hundred and fifteen francs that week; oh! a capital week. Favier left behind with fifty-two francs, the whole lot floored. And it was visible he was bursting with money, he would not go to bed till he had liquidated the hundred and fifteen francs. Then, as he gradually became intoxicated, he attacked Robineau, that fool of a second-hand who affected to keep himself apart, going so far as to refuse to walk in the street with one of his salesmen.
“Shut up,” said Liénard; “you talk too much, old man.”
The heat had increased, the candles were guttering down on to the table-cloths stained with wine; and through the open windows, when the noise within ceased for an instant, there entered a distant prolonged voice, the voice of the river, and of the tall poplars sleeping in the calm night. Baugé had just called for the bill, seeing that Denise was now quite white, her throat choked by the tears she withheld; but the waiter did not appear, and she had to submit to Hutin’s loud talk. He was now boasting of being more superior to Liénard, because Liénard cared for nothing, simply squandering his father’s money, whilst he, Hutin, was spending his own earnings, the fruit of his intelligence. At last Baugé paid, and the two girls went out.
“There’s one from the Louvre,” murmured Pauline in the outer room, looking at a tall thin girl putting on her mantle.
“You don’t know her. You can’t tell,” said the young man.
“Oh, can’t I? They’ve got a way of draping themselves. She belongs to the midwife’s department! If she heard, she must be pleased.”
They got outside at last, and Denise heaved a sigh of relief. For a moment she had thought she was going to die in that suffocating heat, amidst all those cries; and she still attributed her faintness to the want of air. Now she breathed freely in the freshness of the starry night As the two young girls were leaving the garden of the restaurant, a timid voice murmured in the shade: “Good evening, ladies.”
It was Deloche. They had not seen him at the further end of the front room, where he was dining alone, after having come from Paris on foot, for the pleasure of the walk. On recognising this friendly voice, Denise, suffering, yielded mechanically to the want of some support.
“Monsieur Deloche, come back with us,” said she. “Give me your arm.”
Pauline and Baugé had already gone on in front. They were astonished, never thinking it would turn out like this, and with this fellow above all. However, as there was still an hour before the train started, they went to the end of the island, following the bank, under the tall poplars; and, from time to time, they turned round, murmuring: “But where are they? Ah, there they are. It’s rather funny, all the same.”
At first Denise and Deloche remained silent The noise from the restaurant was slowly dying away, changing into a musical sweetness in the calmness of the night; and they went further in amongst the cool of the trees, still feverish from that furnace, the lights of which were disappearing one by one behind the foliage. Opposite them there was a sort of shadowy wall, a mass of shade in which the trunks and branches buried themselves so compact that they could not even distinguish any trace of the path. However, they went forward quietly, without fear. Then, their eyes getting more accustomed to the darkness, they saw on the right the trunks of the poplars, resembling sombre columns upholding the domes of their branches, pierced with stars; whilst on the right the water assumed occasionally in the darkness the brightness of a mirror. The wind was subsiding, they no longer heard anything but the flowing of the river.
