Эмиль Золя
The Ladies' Paradise
CHAPTER III
Every Saturday, between four and six, Madame Desforges offered a cup of tea and a few sweet biscuits 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 her two drawing-rooms overlooked the gardens of the Tuileries.
That Saturday, just as a footman was about to introduce him into the principal drawing-room, Mouret from the anteroom perceived, through an open doorway, Madame Desforges crossing the smaller salon. 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 caught hold of the young woman's hand, and tenderly kissed it.
"Take care, I have company!" she remarked, in a low voice, glancing towards the door of the larger room. "I've just come to fetch this fan to show them," and so saying she playfully tapped him on the face with the tip of the fan she held. She was dark and inclined to stoutness, and had big jealous eyes.
However, he still held her hand and inquired: "Will he come?"
"Certainly," she replied: "I have his promise."
They both referred to Baron Hartmann, the director of the Crédit Immobilier. Madame Desforges, daughter of a Councillor of State, was the widow of a speculator, who had left her a fortune, underrated to the point of nothingness by some and greatly over-estimated by others. During her husband's lifetime she had already known Baron Hartmann, whose financial tips had proved very useful to them; and later on, after her husband's death, the connection had been kept up in a discreet fashion; for she never courted notoriety in any way, and was received everywhere in the upper-middle class to which she belonged. Even now too when she had other lovers – the passion of the banker, a sceptical, crafty man, having subsided into a mere paternal affection – she displayed such delicate reserve and tact, such adroit knowledge of the world that appearances were saved, and no one would have ventured to openly express any doubt of her conduct. Having met Mouret at a mutual friend's she had at first detested him; but had been carried away by the violent love which he professed for her, and since he had begun manœuvring to approach Baron Hartmann through her, she had gradually got to love him with real and profound tenderness, adoring him with all the violence of a woman of thirty-five, who only acknowledged the age of twenty-nine, and distressed at feeling him younger than herself, which made her tremble lest she should lose him.
"Does he know about it?" he resumed.
"No, you'll explain the affair to him yourself," was her reply.
Meantime she looked at him, reflecting that he couldn't know anything or he would not employ her in this way with the baron, whom he appeared to consider simply as an old friend of hers. However, Mouret still held her hand and called her his good Henriette, at which she felt her heart melting. Then silently she presented her lips, pressed them to his, and whispered: "Remember they're waiting for me. Come in behind me."
A murmur of voices, deadened by the heavy hangings, came from the principal drawing-room. Madame Desforges went in, leaving the folding doors open behind her, 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 turning round 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 drawing-room, with its Louis XVI. furniture upholstered in flowered brocatel, its gilded bronzes and large green plants, had a pleasant, cozy, feminine aspect, albeit the ceiling was so lofty; and through the two windows could be seen the chestnut trees of the Tuileries Gardens, whose leaves were blowing about in the October wind.
"But this Chantilly isn't at all bad!" exclaimed Madam Bourdelais, who had taken the fan.
She was a short fair woman of thirty, with a delicate nose and sparkling eyes. A former school-fellow of Henriette's, married to a chief clerk at the Ministry of Finances, and belonging to an old middle-class family, she managed her household and three children with rare activity, good grace, and exquisite knowledge of practical life.
"And you paid twenty-five francs for it?" she resumed, examining each mesh of the lace. "At Luc, I think you said, to a country-woman? No, it isn't dear; still 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 mere piece of Chantilly, over which she had perhaps saved five francs. Similar fans could be had, ready mounted, for a hundred and twenty francs, and she named a shop in the Rue Poissonnière where she had seen them.
However, the fan was handed round to all the ladies. Madame Guibal barely glanced at it. She was a tall, slim woman, with red hair, and a face full of indifference, in which her grey eyes, belying her unconcerned air, occasionally cast a hungry gleam 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 between his briefs and his pleasures.
"Oh," she murmured, passing the fan to Madame de Boves, "I've scarcely bought one in my life. One always receives too many of such things."
"You are fortunate, my dear, in having a gallant husband," answered the countess in a tone of delicate irony. 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 of the mounting like that."
Madame de Boves had just turned forty. She was a superb woman, with the neck and shoulders of a goddess, a large regular face, and big sleepy eyes. Her husband, an Inspector-General of the State Studs, had married her for her beauty. She appeared quite moved by the delicacy of the monogram, seized indeed by a desire which so stirred her as to make her turn pale; and suddenly turning she continued: "Give us your opinion, Monsieur Mouret. Is it too dear – two hundred francs for this mount?"
Mouret had remained standing among the five women, smiling and affecting an interest in what interested them. He took the fan, examined it, and was about to give his opinion, when the footman opened the door and announced:
"Madame Marty."
There then entered a thin, ugly woman, disfigured by small-pox but dressed with elaborate elegance. She seemed of uncertain age, her five-and-thirty years sometimes appearing equal to thirty, and sometimes to forty, according to the intensity of the nervous fever which so often agitated her. A red leather bag, which she had not been willing to leave in the anteroom, hung from her right hand.
"Dear madame," said she to Henriette, "you will 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." Then, having perceived Mouret, she resumed laughing: "Ah! sir, I didn't mean to give you an advertisement, for I didn't know you were here. But you really have some extraordinarily fine lace just now."
This turned the attention from the fan, which the young man laid on the table. The ladies were now all anxious to see what Madame Marty had bought. She was known to be very extravagant, totally unable to resist certain temptations. Strict in her conduct, incapable of any sexual transgression she proved weak and cowardly before the least bit of finery. Daughter of a clerk of small means, she was ruining her husband, the fifth-class professor at the Lycée Bonaparte, who in order to meet the constantly increasing expenses of the household was compelled to double his income of six thousand francs by giving private lessons. However, she did not open her bag, but held it tightly on her lap, and began to talk about her daughter Valentine, a girl of fourteen whom she dressed like herself, in all the fashionable novelties to whose irresistible fascination she succumbed.
"You know," said she, "they are making girls' dresses trimmed with narrow lace this winter. So when I saw a very pretty Valenciennes – "
Thereupon she at last decided to open her bag; and the ladies were craning their necks, when, amidst the silence, the door-bell was heard.
"It's my husband," stammered Madame Marty, in great confusion. "He promised to call for me on leaving the Lycée Bonaparte."
Forthwith she shut her bag again, and instinctively hid it away under her chair. All the ladies set up a laugh. This made her blush for her precipitation, and she took the bag on her knees again, explaining, however, that men never understood matters and that they need not know everything.
"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 in the correct military fashion 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 then he made way so that his companion, a tall, pale fellow, of an aristocratic poverty of blood, might in his turn make his bow to the lady of the house. However, the conversation had hardly been resumed when two exclamations rang out.
"What! Is that you, Paul?"
"Why, Octave!"
Mouret and Vallagnosc thereupon 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, jesting together and with their hands still united they stepped 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 brass mounting. The ladies drew up and began talking in louder tones, raising a cross-fire of endless chatter; whilst Monsieur de Boves, standing behind them leant over every now and then to put in a word or two with the gallantry of a handsome functionary. The spacious room, so prettily and cheerfully furnished, became merrier still with these gossiping voices interspersed with laughter.
"Ah! Paul, old boy," repeated Mouret.
He was seated near Vallagnosc, on a sofa. And alone in the little drawing-room – which looked very coquettish with its hangings of buttercup silk – out of hearing of the ladies, and not even seeing them, except through the open doorway, the two old friends commenced grinning whilst they scrutinized each other and exchanged slaps on the knees. Their whole youthful career was recalled, the old college at Plassans, with its two courtyards, its damp class-rooms, and the dining-hall in which they had consumed so much cod-fish, and the dormitories where the pillows flew from bed to bed as soon as the monitor began to snore. Paul, who belonged to an old parliamentary family, noble, poor, and proud, had proved a good scholar, always at the top of his class and continually held up as an example by the master, who prophesied a brilliant future for him; whereas Octave had remained at the bottom, amongst the dunces, but nevertheless fat and jolly, indulging in all sorts of pleasures outside. Notwithstanding the difference in their characters, a fast friendship had rendered them inseparable until they were examined for their bachelor's degrees, which they took, the one with honours, the other in just a passable manner after two vexatious rebuffs. Then they went out into the world, each on his own side, and had now met again, after the lapse of ten years, already changed and looking older.
"Well," asked Mouret, "what's become of you?"
"Nothing at all," replied the other.
Vallagnosc indeed, despite the pleasure of this meeting, retained a tired and disenchanted air; and as his friend, somewhat astonished, insisted, saying: "But you must do something. What do you do?" he merely replied: "Nothing."
Octave began to laugh. Nothing! that wasn't enough. Little by little, however, he succeeded in learning Paul's story. It was the usual story of penniless young men, who think themselves obliged by their birth to choose a liberal profession and bury themselves in a sort of vain mediocrity, happy even when they escape starvation, notwithstanding their numerous degrees. For his part he had studied law by a sort of family tradition; and had then remained a burden on his widowed mother, who already hardly knew how to dispose of her two daughters. Having at last got quite ashamed of his position he had left the three women to vegetate on the remnants of their fortune, and had accepted a petty appointment at the Ministry of the Interior, where he buried himself like a mole in his 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! 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 paused and then thinking of his own good fortune resumed: "As for me, I made them a humble bow long ago. You know what I'm doing?"
"Yes," said Vallagnosc, "I heard you were in business. You've got that big place on the Place Gaillon, haven't you?"
"That's it. Counter-jumper, my boy!"
Mouret raised his head, again slapped his friend on the knee, and repeated, with the sterling gaiety of a man 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 nibble much at their baits, although at heart I never thought myself a bigger fool 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, for one sees so many chaps starving at them. So I just threw the ass's skin away – oh! without the least regret and plunged head-first into business."
Vallagnosc smiled with an awkward air, and ultimately muttered: "It's quite certain that your degree can't be of much use to you in selling linen."
"Well!" replied Mouret, joyously, "all I ask is, that it shan't stand in my way; and you know, when one has been stupid enough to burden one's self with such a thing, 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 of arithmetic. The ordinary salesmen in my place make from three to four thousand francs a year, more than you can earn yourself; and their education did not cost anything like what yours did, nor were they launched into the world with a written promise to conquer it. Of course, it is not everything to make money; only 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, I don't hesitate one moment, I'm for the latter against the former, I think they thoroughly understand the age they live in!"
His voice had become impassioned and 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 two other ladies 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 indolently threw himself back on the sofa, half-closing his eyes and assuming an attitude of mingled fatigue and disdain in which a dash 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, quite shocked, looked at him with an air of surprise, he added: "Everything happens and nothing happens; a man may as well remain with his 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 unlimited despair. He always came to the conclusion that every effort was futile, every hour equally weary and empty, and the world incurably stupid and dull. All enjoyment was a failure, there was even no pleasure in wrong-doing.
"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. Still I have my revenge, I assure you. But it is not so much the women, for to speak truly, I don't care a hang for them; the great thing in life is to be able to will and do – 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 Mouret's 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 railed at the despairing ones, the disgusted ones, the pessimists, all those weak, sickly offsprings of our budding sciences, who assumed the lachrymose airs of poets, or the affected countenances of sceptics, amidst the immense activity of the present day. 'Twas a fine part to play, decent and intelligent, that of yawning before other people's labour!
"But yawning in other people's faces is my only pleasure," said Vallagnosc, smiling in his cold way.
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 man has his own ideas, fortunately. But you must come and see my machine at work; you'll see it isn't a bad idea. And now, 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 his friend had glanced into the larger drawing-room with an anxious expression, he also turned round, and noticed that Mademoiselle de Boves was closely watching them. Blanche, tall and sturdy, resembled her mother; but her face was already puffed out and her features seemed large – swollen, as it were, by unhealthy fat. Then, in reply to a discreet question, Paul 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 the previous winter, but whither he now very rarely came, which explained why he had not met Octave there before. In their turn, the Boves invited him, and he was especially fond of the father, an ex-man about town who had retired into an official position. On the other hand there was no money, Madame de Boves having brought her husband nothing but her Juno-like beauty as a marriage portion. So the family were living poorly on their last mortgaged farm, to the little money derived from which were fortunately added the nine thousand francs a year drawn by the count as Inspector-General of the State Studs. Certain escapades, however, continued to empty his purse; and the ladies, mother and daughter, were kept very short of money, being at times 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 for the death of an aunt."
However, Mouret still kept his eye on Monsieur de Boves, who, seated next to Madame Guibal, proved most attentive to her, laughing softly the while, with an amorous air. Thereupon Octave 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 duties call him to the four corners of France, to the breeding dépôts, so that he has frequent pretexts for absenting himself. Last month, whilst his wife supposed him to be at Perpignan, he was simply carrying on in Paris, in an out-of-the-way neighbourhood."
There ensued a pause. Then the young man, who was also watching the count's gallantry 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 people say be true. But just look at him! Isn't he comical, trying to magnetize her with his eyes? The old-fashioned gallantry, my dear fellow! I adore that man, and if I marry his daughter, he may 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 had come from Madame Desforges, he thought the story better still. That dear 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.
At that moment she appeared at the door of the little drawing-room, followed by a gentleman apparently about sixty years old, whose arrival had not been observed by the two friends, absorbed as they were in the conversation they were carrying on, to the accompaniment of the ladies' voices. These voices at times rang out in a shriller key above the tinkling of the small spoons in the china cups; and from time to time, during a brief silence you heard a saucer being harshly laid down on the marble table. A sudden gleam of the setting sun, which had just emerged from behind a thick cloud, gilded the crests of the chestnut-trees in the gardens, and streamed through the windows in a red, golden flame, whose glow lighted up the brocatel and brass-work of the furniture.
"This way, my dear baron," said Madame Desforges. "Allow me to introduce to you 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 short, and vigorous, 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 of Mouret, but because this was the third friend Henriette had introduced to him, and he was afraid of becoming ridiculous at last. And so on approaching Octave he put on the discreet smile of one who, albeit willing to behave amiably, is not disposed to be a dupe.
"Oh! sir," said Mouret, with his Provençal enthusiasm, "the Crédit Immobilier's 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, robed in a lace dress, which revealed her delicate neck and wrists, looked at them with her clear eyes without any sign of embarrassment; standing between the two, raising her head, and going from one to the other she indeed appeared delighted to see them so friendly together.
"Gentlemen," said she at last, "I leave you to your conversation." And, turning towards Paul, who had risen from the sofa, she resumed: "Will you accept a cup of tea, Monsieur de Vallagnosc?"
"With pleasure, madame," he replied, and they both returned to the larger drawing-room.
Mouret resumed his seat on the sofa, when Baron Hartmann likewise had sat down on it; and forthwith the young man broke into renewed praise of the Crédit Immobilier's operations. From that he went on to the subject so near his heart, speaking of the new thoroughfare, a lengthening of the Rue Réaumur, a section of which running from the Place de la Bourse to the Place de l'Opéra was about to be opened under the name of the Rue du Dix-Décembre. It had been declared a work of public utility eighteen months previously; the expropriation jury had just been appointed; and the whole neighbourhood was excited about this new street, anxiously awaiting the commencement of the works, and taking a keen interest in the houses condemned to disappear. For three years Mouret had been waiting for this work – first, in the expectation of an increase of his own business; secondly, for the furtherance of 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 pictured The Ladies' Paradise occupying the whole block of building which these streets and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin surrounded; and he already imagined it with a princely frontage in the new thoroughfare, dominating everything around like some lord and master of the conquered city. Hence his strong desire to make Baron Hartmann's acquaintance, as soon as he had learnt that the Crédit Immobilier had contracted with the authorities to open and build this Rue du Dix-Décembre, on condition that it should receive the frontage ground on each side of the street.
"Really," he repeated, trying to assume a naive 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 secretly buying up the houses forming part of the same block as The Ladies' Paradise, not only those which were to fall under the demolishers' pickaxes, but the others as well, those which were to remain standing; and he suspected the existence of a project for founding some great establishment, which made him anxious about those enlargements of his own premises of which he was ever dreaming, seized with fear at the idea that he might one day come into collision with a powerful company owning property which they certainly would not sell. It was precisely this fear which had prompted him to seek an alliance between himself and the Baron under Henriette's auspices. No doubt he could have seen the financier at his office, and have there talked the affair over at his ease; but he felt that he would be stronger in Henriette's house. To be near her, within the beloved perfume of her presence, to have her ready to convince them both with a smile, seemed to him a certain guarantee of success.
"Haven't you bought the former Hôtel Duvillard, that old building next to my place?" he suddenly inquired.
The baron hesitated for a moment, and then denied it. But Mouret looked him straight in the face and smiled, from that moment beginning to play the part of an open-hearted young man who was always straightforward in business.
"Look here, Monsieur le Baron," said he, "as I have the unexpected honour of meeting you, I must make a confession. Oh, I don't ask you for any of your secrets, but I am going to entrust you with mine, for I'm certain that I couldn't place them in better 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, and related his debut in life, not even concealing the financial crisis through which he was passing in the midst of his triumph. Everything was brought up, the successive enlargements of his premises, the continual reinvestments of all profits in the business, the sums contributed by his employees, the existence of the establishment risked 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; and he proposed to the baron a partnership, in which the Crédit Immobilier should contribute the colossal palace which he pictured in his dreams, whilst for his part he would give his genius and the business he had already created. Everything would be properly valued, nothing appeared to him easier to realise.
"What are you going to do with your land and buildings?" he asked persistently. "You have a plan, no doubt. But I'm quite certain that your idea is not so good as mine. Think of it. We build fresh galleries on the vacant ground, we pull the houses down or re-arrange them and open the most extensive establishment in Paris – a bazaar which will bring in millions." And then he let this fervent, heartfelt exclamation escape him: "Ah! if I could only do without you! But you hold 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."
