Complete Works of Emile Zola (708 page)

“Don’t you prefer to be served by men? One feels more comfortable?”

At last Marguerite brought a silk mantle trimmed with jet, which she treated with more respect. And Madame Aurélie abruptly called Denise.

“Come, do something for your living. Just put that on your shoulders.”

Denise, wounded to the heart, despairing of ever succeeding in the house, had remained motionless, her hands hanging by her side. No doubt she would be sent away, and the children would be without food. The tumult of the crowd buzzed in her head, she felt herself tottering, her arms bruised by the handling of so many armfuls of garments, hard work which she had never done before. However, she was obliged to obey and allow Marguerite to put the mantle on her, as on a dummy.

“Stand upright,” said Madame Aurélie.

But a moment after they forgot Denise. Mouret had just come in with Vallagnosc and Bourdoncle; and he bowed to the ladies, who complimented him on his magnificent exhibition of winter novelties. Of course they went into raptures over the oriental saloon. Vallagnosc, who was finishing his walk round the counters, displayed more surprise than admiration; for, after all, thought he, in his pessimist supineness, it was nothing more than an immense collection of calico. Bourdoncle, forgetting that he belonged to the establishment, also congratulated the governor, to make him forget his anxious doubts and persecutions of the early part of the day.

“Yes, yes; things are going on very well, I’m quite satisfied,” repeated Mouret, radiant, replying with a smile to Madame Desforges’s tender looks. “But I must not interrupt you, ladies.”

Then all eyes were again fixed on Denise. She placed herself entirely in the hands of Marguerite, who was making her turn round slowly.

“What do you think of it — eh?” asked Madame Marty of Madame Desforges.

The latter gave her advice, like a supreme umpire of fashion. “It isn’t bad, the cut is original, but it doesn’t seem to me very graceful about the figure.”

“Oh!” interrupted Madame Aurélie, “it must be seen on the lady herself. You can understand it does not look much on this young person, who is not very stout. Hold up your head, mademoiselle, give it all its importance.”

They smiled. Denise had turned very pale. She felt ashamed at being thus turned into a machine, which they were examining and joking about so freely.

Madame Desforges, yielding to the antipathy of a contrary nature, and annoyed by the young girl’s sweet face, maliciously added: “No doubt it would set better if the young person’s dress were not so loose-fitting.”

And she cast at Mouret the mocking look of a Parisian beauty, greatly amused by the absurd ridiculous dress of a country girl. He felt the amorous caress of this glance, the triumph of a woman proud of her beauty and of her art. Therefore, out of pure gratitude, the gratitude of a man who felt himself adored, he thought himself obliged to joke in his turn, notwithstanding his good-will towards Denise, whose secret charm had conquered his gallant nature.

“Besides, her hair should be combed,” murmured he.

This was the last straw. The director deigned to laugh, all the young ladies were bursting. Marguerite risked a slight chuckle, like a well-behaved girl who restrains herself; Clara had left a customer to enjoy the fun at her ease; even the saleswomen from another department had come, attracted by the talking. As for the ladies they took it more quietly, with an air of well-bred enjoyment. Madame Aurélie was the only one who did not laugh, as if Denise’s splendid wild-looking head of hair and elegant virginal shoulders had dishonored her, in the orderly well-kept department. The young girl had turned paler still, in the midst of all these people who were laughing at her. She felt herself violated, exposed to all their looks, without defense. What had she done that they should thus attack her thin figure, and her too luxuriant hair? But she was especially wounded by Madame Desforges’s and Mouret’s laughter, instinctively divining their connection, her heart sinking with an unknown grief. This lady was very ill-natured to attack a poor girl who had said nothing; and as for Mouret, he most decidedly froze her up with a sort of fear, before which all her other sentiments disappeared, without her being able to analyze them. And, totally abandoned, attacked in her most cherished womanly feelings of modesty, and shocked at their injustice, she was obliged to stifle the sobs which were rising in her throat.

“I should think so; let her comb her hair tomorrow,” said the terrible Bourdoncle to Madame Aurélie. He had condemned Denise the first day she came, full of scorn for her small limbs.

At last the first-hand came and took the mantle off Denise’s shoulders, saying to her in a low tone: “Well! mademoiselle, here’s a fine start. Really, if this is the way you show off your capabilities Impossible to be more stupid!”

Denise, fearing the tears might gush from her, hastened back to the heap of garments, which she began to sort out on the counter. There at least she was lost in the crowd. Fatigue prevented her thinking. But she suddenly felt Pauline near her, a saleswoman in the under-clothing department, who had already defended her that morning. The latter had followed the scene, and murmured in Denise’s ear:

“My poor child, don’t be so sensitive. Keep that to yourself, or they’ll go on worse and worse. I come from Chartres. Yes, exactly, Pauline Cugnot is my name; and my parents are millers. Well! they would have devoured me the first few days if I had not stood up firm. Come, be brave! give me your hand, we’ll have a talk together whenever you like.”

This hand held out redoubled Denise’s confusion; she shook it furtively, hastening to take up a load of cloaks, fearing to be doing wrong and to get a scolding if they knew she had a friend.

However, Madame Aurélie herself, had just put the mantle on Madame Marty, and they all exclaimed: “Oh! how nice! delightful!” It at once looked quite different. Madame Desforges decided it would be impossible to improve on it. There was a good deal of bowing. Mouret took his leave, whilst Vallognosc, who had perceived Madame de Boves and her daughter in the lace department, hastened to offer his arm to the mother. Marguerite, standing before one of the paydesks, was already calling out the different purchases made by Madame Marty, who settled for them and ordered the parcel to be taken to her cab. Madame Desforges had found her articles at pay-desk No. 10. Then the ladies met once more in the oriental saloon. They were leaving, but it was amidst a loquacious feeling of admiration. Even Madame Guibal became enthusiastic.

“Oh! delicious! makes you think you are in the East; doesn’t it?”

“A real harem, and not at all dear!”

“And the Smyrnas! oh, the Smyrnas! what tones, what delicacy!”

“And this Kurdestan! Just look, a Delacroix!”

The crowd was slowly diminishing. The bell, at an hour’s interval, had already announced the two first dinners; the third was about to be served, and in the departments there were now only a few lingering customers, whose fever for spending had made them forget the time. Outside nothing was heard but the rolling of the last carriages amidst the husky voice of Paris, the snort of a satiated ogre digesting the linens and cloths, silks and lace, with which he had been gorged since the morning. Inside, beneath the flaming gas-jets, which, burning in the twilight, had lighted up the supreme efforts of the sale, everything appeared like a field of battle still warm with the massacre of the various goods. The salesmen, harassed and fatigued, camped amidst the contents of their shelves and counters, which appeared to have been thrown into the greatest confusion by the furious blast of a hurricane. It was with difficulty that one traversed the galleries on the ground floor, blocked up with a crowd of chairs, and in the glove department it was necessary to step over a pile of cases heaped up around Mignot; in the woollen department there was no means of passing at all, Liénard was dozing on a sea of bales, in which certain piles, still standing, though half destroyed, seemed to be houses that an overflowing river was carrying away; and, further on, the linen department was like a heavy fall of snow, one ran up against icebergs of napkins, and walked on light flakes of handkerchiefs.

The same disorder prevailed upstairs, in the departments of the floor: the furs were scattered over the flooring, the readymade clothes were heaped up like the great-coats of wounded soldiers, the lace and the underlinen, unfolded, crumpled, thrown about everywhere, made one think of an army of women who had disrobed there in the disorder of some sudden desire; whilst downstairs, at the other end of the house, the delivery department in full activity was still disgorging the parcels with which it was bursting, and which were carried off by the vans — last vibration of the overheated machine. But it was in the silk department especially that the customers had flung themselves with the greatest ardour. There they had cleared off everything, there was plenty of room to pass, the hall was bare; the whole of the colossal stock of Paris Paradise had been cut up and carried away, as if by a swarm of devouring locusts. And in the midst of this emptiness, Hutin and Favier were running through the counterfoils of their debit-notes, calculating their commission, still out of breath after the struggle. Favier had made fifteen francs, Hutin had only managed to make thirteen, thoroughly beaten that day, enraged at his bad luck. Their eyes sparkled with the passion for money. The whole shop around them was also adding up figures, glowing with the same fever, in the brutal gaiety of the evening of the battle.

“Well, Bourdoncle!” cried out Mouret, “are you trembling still?”

He had returned to his favorite position at the top of the stairs of the first floor, against the balustrade; and, in the presence of the massacre of stuffs which was spread out under him, he indulged in a victorious laugh. His fears of the morning, that moment of unpardonable weakness which nobody would ever know of, inspired him with a greater desire to triumph. The battle was definitely won, the small trades-people of the neighborhood were done for, and Baron Hartmann was conquered, with his millions and his land. Whilst he was looking at the cashiers bending over their ledgers, adding up long columns of figures, whilst he was listening to the sound of the gold, falling from their fingers into the metal bowls, he already saw The Ladies’ Paradise growing beyond all bounds, enlarging its hall and prolonging its galleries as far as the Rue du Dix-Décembre.

“And now are you convinced, Bourdoncle,” he resumed, “that the house is really too small? We could have sold twice as much.”

Bourdoncle humbled himself, enraptured, moreover, to find himself in the wrong. But a new spectacle rendered them grave. As was the custom every evening, Lhomme, the chief cashier, had just collected the receipts from each pay-desk; after having added them up, he usually posted up the total amount after placing the paper on which it was written on his file. He then took the receipts up to the chief cashier’s office, in a leather case and in bags, according to the nature of the cash. On this occasion the gold and silver predominated, and he was slowly walking upstairs, carrying three enormous bags. Deprived of his right arm, cut off at the elbow, he clasped them in his left arm against his breast, holding one up with his chin to prevent it slipping. His heavy breathing could be heard at a distance, he passed along, staggering and superb, amidst the respectful shopmen.

“How much, Lhomme?” asked Mouret.

“Eighty thousand seven hundred and forty-two francs two sous,” replied the cashier.

A joyous laugh stirred up The Ladies’ Paradise. The amount ran through the establishment. It was the highest figure ever attained in one day by a draper’s shop.

That evening, when Denise went up to bed, she was obliged to lean against the partition in the corridor under the zinc roof. When in her room, and with the door closed, she fell down on the bed; her feet pained her so much. For a long time she continued to look with a stupid air at the dressing-table, the wardrobe, all the hotel-like nudity. This, then, was where she was going to live; and her first day tormented her — an abominable, endless day. She would never have the courage to go through another. Then she perceived she was dressed in silk; and this uniform depressed her. She was childish enough, before unpacking her box, to put on her old woollen dress, which hung on the back of a chair. But when she was once more dressed in this poor garment of hers, a painful emotion choked her; the sobs which she had kept back all day burst forth suddenly in a flood of hot tears. She fell back on the bed, weeping at the thought of the two children, and she wept on, without feeling to have the strength to take off her boots, completely overcome with fatigue and grief.

CHAPTER V

The next day Denise had scarcely been downstairs half an hour, when Madame Aurélie said to her in her sharp voice: “You are wanted at the directorate, mademoiselle.”

The young girl found Mouret alone, in the large office hung with green repp. He had suddenly remembered the “unkempt girl,” as Bourdoncle called her; and he, who usually detested the part of fault-finder, had had the idea of sending for her and waking her up a bit, if she were still dressed in the style of a country wench. The previous day, notwithstanding his pleasantry, he had experienced, in Madame Desforges’s presence, a feeling of wounded vanity, on seeing the elegance of one of his saleswomen discussed. He felt a confused sentiment, a mixture of sympathy and anger.

“We have engaged you, mademoiselle,” commenced he, “out of regard for your uncle, and you must not put us under the sad necessity—”

But he stopped. Opposite him, on the other side of the desk, stood Denise, upright, serious, and pale. Her silk dress was no longer too big for her, but fitted tight round her pretty figure, displaying the pure lines of her virgin shoulders; and if her hair, knotted in thick tresses, still appeared untidy, she tried at least to keep it in order. After having gone to sleep with her clothes on, her eyes red with weeping, the young girl had felt ashamed of this attack of nervous sensibility on waking up about four o’clock, and she had immediately set about taking in her dress. She had spent an hour before the small looking-glass, combing her hair, without being able to reduce it as she would have liked to.