Complete Works of Emile Zola (703 page)

“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 honor 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 rancor 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 odors, 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 Henrietta, “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 honor, 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, endeavoring 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 coloring 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.”