Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
CHAPTER IX
It was on a Monday, the 14th of March, that The Ladies' Paradise inaugurated its new buildings by a great exhibition of summer novelties, which was to last three days. Outside, a sharp north wind was blowing and the passers-by, surprised by this return of winter, hurried along buttoning up their overcoats. In the neighbouring shops, however, all was fermentation; and against the windows one could see the pale faces of the petty tradesmen, counting the first carriages which stopped before the new grand entrance in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin. This doorway, lofty and deep like a church porch, and surmounted by an emblematical group of Industry and Commerce hand-in-hand amidst a variety of symbols – was sheltered by a vast glazed marquise, the fresh gilding of which seemed to light up the pavement with a ray of sunshine. To the right and left the shop fronts, of a blinding whiteness, stretched along the Rue Monsigny and the Rue de la Michodière, occupying the whole block, except on the Rue du Dix-Décembre side, where the Crédit Immobilier intended to build. And along these barrack-like frontages, the petty tradesmen, whenever they raised their heads, could see the piles of goods through the large plate-glass windows which, from the ground floor to the second storey, opened the house to the light of day. And this enormous cube, this colossal bazaar which concealed the sky from them, seemed in some degree the cause of the cold which made them shiver behind their frozen counters.
As early as six o'clock, Mouret was on the spot, giving his final orders. In the centre, starting from the grand entrance, a large gallery ran from end to end, flanked right and left by two narrower ones, the Monsigny Gallery and the Michodière Gallery. Glass roofings covered the court-yards turned into huge halls, iron staircases ascended from the ground floor, on both upper floors iron bridges were thrown from one end to the other of the establishment. The architect, who happened to be a young man of talent, with modern ideas, had only used stone for the basement and corner work, employing iron for all the rest of the huge carcass – columns upholding all the assemblage of beams and joists. The vaulting of the ceilings, like the partitions, was of brick. Space had been gained everywhere; light and air entered freely, and the public circulated with the greatest ease under the bold flights of the far-stretching girders. It was the cathedral of modern commerce, light but strong, the very thing for a nation of customers. Below, in the central gallery, after the door bargains, came the cravat, glove, and silk departments; the Monsigny Gallery was occupied by the linen and Rouen goods; and the Michodière Gallery by the mercery, hosiery, drapery, and woollens. Then, on the first floor came the mantle, under-linen, shawl, lace, and various new departments, whilst the bedding, the carpets, the furnishing materials, all the cumbersome articles difficult to handle, had been relegated to the second floor. In all there were now thirty-nine departments with eighteen hundred employees, two hundred of whom were women. Quite a little world abode there, amidst the sonorous life of the high metallic naves.
Mouret's unique passion was to conquer woman. He wished her to be queen in his house, and had built this temple that he might there hold her completely at his mercy. His sole aim was to intoxicate her with gallant attentions, traffic on her desires, profit by her fever. Night and day he racked his brain to invent fresh attractions. He had already introduced two velvet-padded lifts, in order to spare delicate ladies the trouble of climbing the stairs to the upper floors. Then, too, he had just opened a bar where the customers could find gratuitous light refreshments, syrups and biscuits, and a reading-room, a monumental gallery decorated with excessive luxury, in which he had even ventured on an exhibition of pictures. But his deepest scheme was to conquer the mother through her child, when unable to do so through her own coquetry; and to attain this object there was no means that he neglected. He speculated on every sentiment, created special departments for little boys and girls, and waylaid the passing mothers with distributions of chromo-lithographs and air-balls for the children. There was real genius in his idea of presenting each buyer with a red air-ball made of fine gutta-percha and bearing in large letters the name of the establishment. Held by a string it floated in the air and sailed along every street like a living advertisement.
But the greatest power of all was the advertising. Mouret now spent three hundred thousand francs a year in catalogues, advertisements, and bills.4 For his summer sale he had launched forth two hundred thousand catalogues, fifty thousand of which went abroad, translated into every language. He now had them illustrated with engravings, and embellished with samples, gummed to the leaves. There was an overflowing display; the name of The Ladies' Paradise met the eye all over the world, it invaded the walls and hoardings, the newspapers, and even the curtains of the theatres. He claimed that woman was powerless against advertising, that she was bound to be attracted by uproar. Analyzing her moreover like a great moralist he laid still more enticing traps for her. Thus he had discovered that she could not resist a bargain, that she bought without necessity whenever she thought she saw a thing cheap, and on this observation he based his system of reductions, progressively lowering the price of unsold articles, and preferring to sell them at a loss rather than keep them by him, given his principle of constantly renewing his goods. And he had penetrated still further into the heart of woman, and had just planned the system of "returns", a masterpiece of Jesuitical seduction. "Take whatever you like, madame; you can return it if you find you don't like it." And the woman who hesitated, herein found a last excuse, the possibility of repairing an act of folly were it deemed too extravagant: she took the article with an easy conscience. And now the returns and reduction of prices system formed part of the everyday working of the new style of business.
But where Mouret revealed himself as an unrivalled master was in the interior arrangement of his shops. He laid it down as a law that not a corner of The Ladies' Paradise ought to remain deserted; he required a noise, a crowd, evidence of life everywhere; for life, said he, attracts life, increases and multiplies it. And this principle he applied in a variety of ways. In the first place, there ought always to be a crush at the entrance, so that the people in the street should mistake it for a riot; and he obtained this crush by placing a lot of bargains at the doors, shelves and baskets overflowing with low-priced articles; and so the common people crowded there, stopping up the doorway and making the shop look as if it were crammed with customers, when it was often only half full. Then, in the galleries, he found a means of concealing the departments where business occasionally became slack; for instance, he surrounded the shawl department in summer, and the printed calico department in winter, with other busy departments, steeping them in continual uproar. It was he alone who had thought of reserving the second-floor for the carpet and furniture galleries; for customers were less numerous in such departments which if placed on the ground floor would have often presented a chilly void. If he could only have managed it, he would have let the street run through his shop.
Just at that moment, Mouret was absorbed in another wonderful inspiration. On the Saturday evening, whilst giving a last look at the preparations for the Monday's great sale, he had been struck with the idea that the arrangement of the departments adopted by him was idiotic; and yet it seemed a perfectly logical one: the stuffs on one side, the made-up articles on the other, an intelligent order of things which would enable customers to find their way about by themselves. He had dreamt of some such orderly arrangement in the old days of Madame Hédouin's narrow shop; but now, just as he had carried out his idea, he felt his faith shaken. And he suddenly cried out that they would "have to alter all that." They had forty-eight hours before them, and half of what had been done had to be changed. The staff, utterly bewildered, had been obliged to work two nights and all day on Sunday, amidst frightful disorder. On the Monday morning even, an hour before the opening, there were still some goods remaining to be placed. Decidedly the governor was going mad, no one understood the meaning of it all, and general consternation prevailed.
"Come, look sharp!" cried Mouret, with the quiet assurance of genius. "There are some more costumes to be taken upstairs. And the Japan goods, are they placed on the central landing? A last effort, my boys, you'll see the sale by-and-by."
Bourdoncle had also been there since daybreak. He did not understand the alterations any more than the others did and followed the governor's movements with an anxious eye. He hardly dared to ask him any questions, knowing how Mouret received people in these critical moments. However, he at last made up his mind, and gently inquired: "Was it really necessary to upset everything like that, on the eve of our sale?"
At first Mouret shrugged his shoulders without replying. Then as the other persisted, he burst out: "So that all the customers should heap themselves into one corner – eh? A nice idea of mine! I should never have got over it! Don't you see that it would have localised the crowd. A woman would have come in, gone straight to the department she wanted, passed from the petticoat to the dress counter, from the dress to the mantle gallery, and then have retired, without even losing herself for a moment! Not one would have thoroughly seen the establishment!"
"But, now that you have disarranged everything, and thrown the goods all over the place," remarked Bourdoncle, "the employees will wear out their legs in guiding the customers from department to department."
Mouret made a gesture of superb contempt. "I don't care a fig for that! They're young, it'll make them grow! So much the better if they do walk about! They'll appear more numerous, and increase the crowd. The greater the crush the better; all will go well!" He laughed, and then deigned to explain his idea, lowering his voice: "Look here, Bourdoncle, this is what the result will be. First, this continual circulation of customers will disperse them all over the shop, multiply them, and make them lose their heads; secondly, as they must be conducted from one end of the establishment to the other, if, for instance, they require a lining after purchasing a dress, these journeys in every direction will triple the size of the house in their eyes; thirdly, they will be forced to traverse departments where they would never have set foot otherwise, temptations will present themselves on their passage, and they will succumb; fourthly – " But Bourdoncle was now laughing with him. At this Mouret, delighted, stopped to call out to the messengers: "Very good, my boys! now for a sweep, and it'll be splendid!"
However, on turning round he perceived Denise. He and Bourdoncle were standing opposite the ready-made departments, which he had just dismembered by sending the dresses and costumes up to the second-floor at the other end of the building. Denise, the first down, was opening her eyes with astonishment, quite bewildered by the new arrangements.
"What is it?" she murmured; "are we going to move?"
This surprise appeared to amuse Mouret, who adored these sensational effects. Early in February Denise had returned to The Ladies' Paradise, where she had been agreeably surprised to find the staff polite, almost respectful. Madame Aurélie especially proved very kind; Marguerite and Clara seemed resigned; whilst old Jouve bowed his head, with an awkward, embarrassed air, as if desirous of effacing all disagreeable memories of the past. It had sufficed for Mouret to say a few words and everybody was whispering and following her with their eyes. And in this general amiability, the only things that hurt her were Deloche's singularly melancholy glances and Pauline's inexplicable smiles.
However, Mouret was still looking at her in his delighted way.
"What is it you want, mademoiselle?" he asked at last.
Denise had not noticed him. She blushed slightly. Since her return she had received various marks of kindness from him which had greatly touched her. On the other hand Pauline – she knew not why – had given her a full account of the governor's and Clara's love affairs; and often returned to the subject, alluding at the same time to that Madame Desforges, with whom the whole shop was well acquainted. Such stories stirred Denise's heart; and now, in Mouret's presence, she again felt all her former fears, an uneasiness in which her gratitude struggled against her anger.
"It's all this confusion going on in the place," she murmured.
Thereupon Mouret approached her and said in a lower voice: "Have the goodness to come to my office this evening after business. I wish to speak to you."
Greatly agitated, she bowed her head without replying a word; and went into the department where the other saleswomen were now arriving. Bourdoncle, however, had overheard Mouret, and looked at him with a smile. He even ventured to say when they were alone: "That girl again! Be careful; it will end by becoming serious!"
But Mouret hastily defended himself, concealing his emotion beneath an air of superior indifference. "Never fear, it's only a joke! The woman who'll catch me isn't born, my dear fellow!"
And then, as the shop was opening at last, he rushed off to give a final look at the various departments. Bourdoncle shook his head. That girl Denise, so simple and quiet, began to make him feel uneasy. The first time, he had conquered by a brutal dismissal. But she had returned, and he felt her power to be so much increased that he now treated her as a redoubtable adversary, remaining mute before her and again patiently waiting developments. When he overtook Mouret, he found him downstairs, in the Saint-Augustin Hall, opposite the entrance door, where he was shouting:
"Are you playing the fool with me? I ordered the blue parasols to be put as a border. Just pull all that down, and be quick about it!"
He would listen to nothing; a gang of messengers had to come and re-arrange the exhibition of parasols. Then seeing that customers were arriving, he even had the doors closed for a moment, declaring that he would rather keep the place shut than have the blue parasols in the centre. It ruined his composition. The renowned dressers of the Paradise, Hutin, Mignot, and others, came to look at the change he was carrying out, but they affected not to understand it, theirs being a different school.
At last the doors were again opened, and the crowd flowed in. From the outset, long before the shop was full, there was such a crush at the doorway that they were obliged to call the police to regulate the traffic on the foot pavement. Mouret had calculated correctly; all the housewives, a compact troop of middle-class women and work women, swarmed around the bargains and remnants displayed in the open street. They felt the "hung" goods at the entrance; calico at seven sous the mètre, wool and cotton grey stuff at nine sous, and, above all, some Orleans at seven sous and a half, which was fast emptying the poorer purses. Then there was feverish jostling and crushing around the shelves and baskets where articles at reduced prices, lace at two sous, ribbon at five, garters at three the pair, gloves, petticoats, cravats, cotton socks, and stockings, were quickly disappearing, as if swallowed up by the voracious crowd. In spite of the cold, the shopmen who were selling in the street could not serve fast enough. One woman cried out with pain in the crush and two little girls were nearly stifled.
All the morning this crush went on increasing. Towards one o'clock there was a crowd waiting to enter; the street was blocked as in a time of riot. Just at that moment, as Madame de Boves and her daughter Blanche stood hesitating on the pavement opposite, they were accosted by Madame Marty, also accompanied by her daughter Valentine.
"What a crowd – eh?" said the countess. "They're killing themselves inside. I ought not to have come, I was in bed, but got up to take a little fresh air."
"It's just like me," said the other. "I promised my husband to go and see his sister at Montmartre. Then just as I was passing, I thought of a piece of braid I wanted. I may as well buy it here as anywhere else, mayn't I? Oh, I shan't spend another sou! in fact I don't want anything."
However, seized, carried away as it were, by the force of the crowd, they did not take their eyes off the door.
"No, no, I'm not going in, I'm afraid," murmured Madame de Boves. "Blanche, let's go away, we should be crushed."
But her voice failed her, she was gradually yielding to a desire to follow the others; and her fears dissolved before the irresistible attractions of the crush. Madame Marty likewise was giving way, repeating the while: "Keep hold of my dress, Valentine. Ah, well! I've never seen such a thing before. I'm lifted off my feet. What will it be inside?"
Caught by the current the ladies could not now go back. Just as rivers attract the fugitive waters of a valley, so it seemed as if the stream of customers, flowing into the vestibule, was absorbing the passers-by, drinking in people from the four corners of Paris. They advanced but slowly, squeezed almost to death, and maintained upright by the shoulders around them; and their desires already derived enjoyment from this painful entrance which heightened their curiosity. It was a medley of ladies arrayed in silk, of poorly dressed middle-class women, and of bare-headed girls, all excited and carried away by the same passion. A few men, buried beneath the overflowing bosoms, were casting anxious glances around them. A nurse, in the thickest of the crowd, held her baby above her head, the youngster crowing with delight. The only one to get angry was a skinny woman who broke out into bad words, accusing her neighbour of digging right into her.
"I really think I shall lose my skirts in this crowd," remarked Madame de Boves.
Mute, her face still cool from the open air, Madame Marty was standing on tip-toe in her endeavour to catch a glimpse of the depths of the shop before the others. The pupils of her grey eyes were as contracted as those of a cat coming out of the broad daylight, and she had the restful feeling, and clear expression of a person just waking up.
"Ah, at last!" said she, heaving a sigh.
The ladies had just extricated themselves. They were in the Saint-Augustin Hall, which they were greatly surprised to find almost empty. But a feeling of comfort penetrated them, they seemed to be entering into spring after emerging from the winter of the street. Whilst the piercing wind, laden with rain and hail, was still blowing out of doors, the fine season was already budding forth in The Paradise galleries, with the light stuffs, soft flowery shades and rural gaiety of summer dresses and parasols.
"Do look there!" exclaimed Madame de Boves, standing motionless, her eyes in the air.
It was the exhibition of parasols. Wide-open and rounded like shields, they covered the whole hall, from the glazed roofing to the varnished oak mouldings below. They described festoons round the arches of the upper storeys; they descended in garlands down the slender columns; they ran in close lines along the balustrades of the galleries and the staircases; and everywhere ranged symmetrically, speckling the walls with red, green, and yellow, they looked like huge Venetian lanterns, lighted up for some colossal entertainment. In the corners were more complicated designs, stars composed of parasols at thirty-nine sous whose light shades, pale blue, cream-white, and blush rose, had the subdued glow of night-lights; whilst, up above, immense Japanese parasols, on which golden-coloured cranes soared in purple skies, blazed forth with fiery reflections.
Madame Marty endeavouring to find a phrase to express her rapture, exclaimed: "It's like fairyland!" And then trying to find out where she was she continued: "Let's see, the braid is in the mercery department. I shall buy my braid and be off."
"I will go with you," said Madame de Boves. "Eh? Blanche, we'll just go through the shop, nothing more."
But they had hardly left the door before they lost themselves. They turned to the left, and as the mercery department had been moved, they dropped into the one devoted to collarettes, cuffs, trimmings, etc. A hot-house heat, moist and close, laden with the insipid odour of the materials, and muffling the tramping of the crowd, prevailed in the galleries. Then they returned to the door, where an outward current was already established, an interminable défilé of women and children, above whom hovered a multitude of red air-balls. Forty thousand of these were ready; there were men specially placed for their distribution; and to see the customers on their way out, one might have imagined that a flight of enormous soap-bubbles, reflecting the fiery glare of the parasols, was hovering in the air. The whole place was illuminated by them.
"There's quite a world here!" declared Madame de Boves. "You hardly know where you are."
However, the ladies could not remain in the eddy of the door, right in the crush of the entrance and exit. Fortunately, inspector Jouve came to their assistance. He stood in the vestibule, grave and attentive, eyeing each woman as she passed. Specially charged with the indoor police service he was on the look-out for thieves and "lifters."
"The mercery department, ladies?" said he obligingly, "turn to the left; you see! just there behind the hosiery department."
Madame de Boves thanked him. But Madame Marty, on turning round, no longer saw her daughter Valentine beside her. She was beginning to feel frightened, when she caught sight of her, already a long way off, at the end of the Saint-Augustin Hall, deeply absorbed before a table covered with a heap of women's cravats at nineteen sous. Mouret practised the system of offering articles to the customers, hooking and plundering them as they passed; for he made use of every sort of advertisement, laughing at the discretion of certain fellow-tradesmen who thought their goods should be left to speak for themselves. Special salesmen, idle and smooth-tongued Parisians, in this way got rid of considerable quantities of small trashy things.
"Oh, mamma!" murmured Valentine, "just look at these cravats. They have a bird embroidered at one corner."
The shopman cracked up the article, swore that it was all silk, that the manufacturer had become bankrupt, and that they would never have such a bargain again.
"Nineteen sous – is it possible?" said Madame Marty, tempted like her daughter. "Well! I can take a couple, that won't ruin us."
Madame de Boves, however, disdained this style of thing; she detested to have things offered to her. A shopman calling her made her run away. Madame Marty, surprised, could not understand such nervous horror of commercial quackery, for she was of another nature; she was one of those women who delight in being thus caressed by a public offer, in plunging their hands into everything, and wasting their time in useless talk.
"Now," said she, "I'm going for my braid. I don't wish to see anything else."
However, as she crossed the scarf and glove departments, her heart once more failed her. Here in the diffuse light was a display made up of bright gay colours, of ravishing effect. The counters, symmetrically arranged, seemed like so many flower-borders, changing the hall into a French garden, where smiled a soft scale of blossoms. Lying now on the bare wood, now in open boxes, and now protruding from overflowing drawers was a quantity of silk handkerchiefs of every hue. You found the bright scarlet of the geranium, the creamy white of the petunia, the golden yellow of the chrysanthemum, the celestial azure of the verbena; and higher up, on brass rods, another florescence was entwined, a florescence of carelessly hung fichus and unrolled ribbons, quite a brilliant cordon, which extended on and on, climbing the columns and constantly multiplying in the mirrors. But what most attracted the throng was a Swiss chalet in the glove department, a chalet made entirely of gloves, Mignot's chef d'œuvre which it had taken him two days to arrange. In the first place, the ground-floor was composed of black gloves; and then in turn came straw-coloured, mignonette, and tan-coloured gloves, distributed over the decoration, bordering the windows, outlining the balconies, and taking the place of the tiles.
"What do you desire, madame?" asked Mignot, on seeing Madame Marty planted before the cottage. "Here are some Suède gloves at one franc seventy-five centimes the pair, first quality."
He offered his wares with furious energy, calling the passing customers to his counter and dunning them with his politeness. And as she shook her head in token of refusal he continued: "Tyrolian gloves, one franc twenty-five. Turin gloves for children, embroidered gloves in all colours."
"No, thanks; I don't want anything," declared Madame Marty.
But realising that her voice was softening, he attacked her with greater energy than ever, holding the embroidered gloves before her eyes; and she could not resist, she bought a pair. Then, as Madame de Boves looked at her with a smile, she blushed.
"Don't you think me childish – eh? If I don't make haste and get my braid and be off, I shall be done for."
Unfortunately, there was such a crush in the mercery department that she could not get served. They had both been waiting for over ten minutes, and were getting annoyed, when a sudden meeting with Madame Bourdelais and her three children diverted their attention. Madame Bourdelais explained, with her quiet practical air, that she had brought the little ones to see the show. Madeleine was ten, Edmond eight, and Lucien four years old; and they were laughing with joy, it was a cheap treat which they had long looked forward to.
"Those red parasols are really too comical; I must buy one," said Madame Marty all at once, stamping with impatience at doing nothing.
She choose one at fourteen francs and a half; whereupon Madame Bourdelais, after watching the purchase with a look of censure, said to her amicably: "You are wrong to be in such a hurry. In a month's time you could have had it for ten francs. They won't catch me like that."
And thereupon she developed quite a theory of careful housekeeping. Since the shops lowered their prices, it was simply a question of waiting. She did not wish to be taken in by them, she preferred to profit by their real bargains. She even showed some malice in the struggle, boasting that she had never left them a sou of profit.
"Come," said she at last, "I've promised my little ones to show them the pictures upstairs in the reading-room. Come up with us, you have plenty of time."
And thereupon the braid was forgotten. Madame Marty yielded at once, whilst Madame de Boves declined, preferring to take a turn on the ground-floor first of all. Besides, they were sure to meet again upstairs. Madame Bourdelais was looking for a staircase when she perceived one of the lifts; and thereupon she pushed her children into it, in order to cap their pleasure. Madame Marty and Valentine also entered the narrow cage, where they were very closely packed; however the mirrors, the velvet seats, and the polished brasswork took up so much of their attention that they reached the first floor without having felt the gentle ascent of the machine. Another pleasure was in store for them, in the first gallery. As they passed before the refreshment bar, Madame Bourdelais did not fail to gorge her little family with syrup. It was a square room with a large marble counter; at either end there were silvered filters from which trickled small streams of water; whilst rows of bottles stood on small shelves behind. Three waiters were continually engaged in wiping and filling the glasses. To restrain the thirsty crowd, they had been obliged to imitate the practice followed at theatres and railway-stations, by erecting a barrier draped with velvet. The crush was terrific. Some people, whom these gratuitous treats rendered altogether unscrupulous, really made themselves ill.
"Well! where are they?" exclaimed Madame Bourdelais, when she extricated herself from the crowd, after wiping the children's faces with her handkerchief.
But she caught sight of Madame Marty and Valentine at the further end of another gallery, a long way off. Buried beneath a heap of petticoats, they were still buying. There was no more restraint, mother and daughter vanished in the fever of expenditure which was carrying them away. When Madame Bourdelais at last reached the reading-room she installed Madeleine, Edmond, and Lucien before the large table; and taking some photographic albums from one of the book-cases she brought them to them. The ceiling of the long apartment was covered with gilding; at either end was a monumental chimney-piece; some pictures of no great merit but very richly framed, covered the walls; and between the columns, before each of the arched bays opening into the shop, were tall green plants in majolica vases. A silent throng surrounded the table, which was littered with reviews and newspapers, with here and there some ink-stands, boxes of stationery, and blotting-pads. Ladies took off their gloves, and wrote letters on the paper stamped with the name of the establishment, through which they ran their pens. A few gentlemen, lolling back in armchairs, were reading the newspapers. But a great many people sat there doing nothing: these were husbands waiting for their wives, who were roaming through the various departments, young women on the watch for their lovers, and old relations left there as in a cloak-room, to be taken away when it was time to leave. And all these people lounged and rested whilst glancing through the open bays into the depths of the galleries and the halls, whence a distant murmur ascended amidst the scratching of pens and the rustling of newspapers.
