Complete Works of Emile Zola (713 page)

“I am very pleased to have met you,” stammered Deloche at last, making up his mind to speak first. “You can’t think how happy you render me in consenting to walk with me.”

And, aided by the darkness, after many awkward attempts, he ventured to tell her he loved her. He had long wanted to write to her and tell her so; and perhaps she would never have known it had it not been for this lovely night coming to his assistance, this water that murmured so softly, and these trees which screened them with their shade. But she did not reply; she continued to walk by his side with the same suffering air. And he was trying to look into her face, when he heard a sob.

“Oh! good heavens!” he exclaimed, “you are crying, mademoiselle, you are crying! Have I offended you?”

“No, no,” she murmured.

She tried to keep back her tears, but she could not. Even when at table, she had thought her heart was about to burst. She abandoned herself in the darkness entirely, stifled by her sobs, thinking that if Hutin had been in Deloche’s place and said such tender things to her, she would have been unable to resist. This confession made to herself filled her with confusion. A feeling of shame burnt her face, as if she had already fallen into the arms of that Hutin, who was disporting himself with those girls.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” continued Deloche, almost crying also.

“No, but listen,” said she, her voice still trembling; “I am not at all angry with you. But never speak to me again as you have just done. What you ask is impossible. Oh! you’re a good fellow, and I’m quite willing to be your friend, but nothing more. You understand — your friend.”

He shuddered. After a few steps taken in silence, he stammered: “In fact, you don’t love me?”

And as she spared him the pain of a brutal “no,” he resumed in a soft, heart-broken voice: “Oh, I was prepared for it. I have never had any luck, I know I can never be happy. At home, they used to beat me. In Paris, I’ve always been a drudge. You see, when one does not know how to rob other fellows of their mistresses, and when one is too awkward to earn as much as the others, why the best thing is to go into some corner and die. Never fear, I sha’n’t torment you any more. As for loving you, you can’t prevent me, can you? I shall love you for nothing, like a dog. There, everything escapes me, that’s my luck in life.”

And he, too, burst into tears. She tried to console him, and in their friendly effusion they found they belonged to the same department — she to Valognes, he to Briquebec, eight miles from each other, and this was a fresh tie. His father, a poor, needy bailiff, and sickly jealous, used to drub him, calling him a bastard, exasperated with his long pale face and tow-like hair, which, said he, did not belong to the family. And they got talking about the vast pastures, surrounded with quick-set hedges, of the shady paths winding beneath the elm trees, and of the grass grown roads, like the alleys in a park. Around them night was getting darker, but they could still distinguish the rushes on the banks, and the interlaced foliage, black beneath the twinkling stars; and a peacefulness came over them, they forgot their troubles, brought nearer by their ill-luck, in a closer feeling of friendship.

“Well?” asked Pauline of Denise, taking her aside when they arrived at the station.

The young girl understood by the smile and the stare of tender curiosity; she turned very red and replied: “But — never, my dear! I told you I did not wish to! He belongs to my part of the country. We were talking about Valognes.” Pauline and Baugé were perplexed, put out in their ideas, not knowing what to think. Deloche left them in the Place de la Bastille; like all young probationers, he slept at the house, where he had to be in by eleven o’clock. Not wishing to go in with him, Denise, who had got permission to go to the theatre, accepted Baugé’s invitation to accompany Pauline to his home — he, in order to be nearer his mistress, had moved into the Rue Saint-Roch. They took a cab, and Denise was stupefied on learning on the way that her friend was going to stay all night with the young man — nothing was easier, they only had to give Madame Cabin five francs, all the young ladies did it. Baugé did the honors of his room, which was furnished with old Empire furniture, given him by his father. He got angry when Denise spoke of settling up, but at last accepted the fifteen francs twelve sous which she had laid on the chest of drawers; but he insisted on making her a cup of tea, and he struggled with a spirit-lamp and saucepan, and then was obliged to go and fetch some sugar. Midnight struck as he was pouring out the tea.

“I must be off,” said Denise.

“Presently,” replied Pauline. “The theatres don’t close so early.”

Denise felt uncomfortable in this bachelor’s room. She had seen her friend take off her things, turn down the bed, open it, and pat the pillows with her naked arms; and these preparations for a night of love-making carried on before her, troubled her, and made her feel ashamed, awakening once in her wounded heart the recollection of Hutin. Such ideas were not very salutary. At last she left them, at a quarter past twelve. But she went away confused, when in reply to her innocent “good night,” Pauline cried out, thoughtlessly:

“Thanks, we are sure to have a good one!”

The private door leading to Mouret’s apartments and to the employees’ bedrooms was in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin. Madame Cabin opened the door and gave a glance in order to mark the return. A night-light was burning dimly in the hall, and Denise, finding herself in this uncertain light, hesitated, and was seized with fear, for on turning the corner of the street, she had seen the door close on the vague shadow of a man. It must have been the governor coming home from a party; and the idea that he was there in the dark waiting for her, perhaps, caused her one of those strange fears with which he still inspired her, without any reasonable cause. Someone moved on the first-floor, a boot creaked, and losing her head entirely, she pushed open a door which led into the shop, and which was always left open for the night-watch. She was in the printed cotton department.

“Good heavens! what shall I do?” she stammered, in her emotion.

The idea occurred to her that there was another door upstairs leading to the bedrooms; but she would have to go right across the shop. She preferred this, notwithstanding the darkness reigning in the galleries. Not a gas-jet was burning, there were only a few oil-lamps hung here and there on the branches of the lustres; and these scattered lights, like yellow patches, their rays lost in the gloom, resembled the lanterns hung up in a mine. Big shadows loomed in the air; one could hardly distinguish the piles of goods, which assumed alarming profiles: fallen columns, squatting beasts, and lurking thieves. The heavy silence, broken by distant respirations, increased still more the darkness. However, she saw where she was. The linen department on her left formed a dead color, like the blueiness of houses in the street under a summer sky; then she wished to cross the hall immediately, but running up against some piles of printed calico, she thought it safer to follow the hosiery department, and then the woollen one. There she was frightened by a loud noise of snoring. It was Joseph, the messenger, sleeping behind some articles of mourning. She quickly ran into the hall, now illuminated by the skylight, with a sort of crepuscular light which made it appear larger, full of a nocturnal church-like terror, with the immobility of its shelves, and the shadows of its yard-measures which described reversed crosses. She now fairly ran away. In the mercery and glove departments she nearly walked over some more messengers, and only felt safe when she at last found herself on the staircase. But upstairs, before the ready-made department, she was seized with fear on perceiving a lantern moving forward, twinkling in the darkness. It was the watch, two firemen marking their passage on the faces of the indicators. She stood a moment unable to understand it, watched them passing from the shawl to the furniture department, then to the under-linen one, terrified by their strange maneuvers, by the grinding of the key, and by the closing of the iron doors which made a murderous noise. When they approached, she took refuge in the lace department, but a sound of talking made her hastily depart, and run off to the outer door. She had recognized Deloche’s voice. He slept in his department, on a little iron bedstead which he set up himself every evening; and he was not asleep yet, recalling the pleasant hours he had just spent.

“What! it’s you, mademoiselle?” said Mouret, whom Denise found before her on the staircase, a small pocket-candlestick in his hand.

She stammered, and tried to explain that she had come to look for something. But he was not angry. He looked at her with his paternal, and at the same time curious, air.

“You had permission to go to the theatre, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have you enjoyed yourself? What theatre did you go to?”

“I have been in the country, sir.”

That made him laugh. Then he asked, laying a certain stress on his question: “All alone?”

“No, sir; with a lady friend,” replied she, her cheeks burning, shocked at the idea which he no doubt entertained.

He said no more; but he was still looking at her in her simple black dress and hat trimmed with a single blue ribbon. Was this little savage going to turn out a pretty girl? She looked all the better for her day in the open air, charming with her splendid hair falling over her forehead. And he, who during the last six months had treated her like a child, sometimes giving her advice, yielding to a desire to gain experience, to a wicked wish to know how a woman sprung up and lost herself in Paris, no longer laughed, experiencing a feeling of surprise and fear mingled with tenderness. No doubt it was a lover who embellished her like this. At this thought he felt as if stung to the quick by a favorite bird, with which he was playing.

“Good night, sir,” murmured Denise, continuing her way without waiting.

He did not answer, but stood watching her till she disappeared. Then he entered his own apartments.

CHAPTER VI

When the dead summer season arrived, there was quite a panic at The Ladies’ Paradise. The reign of terror commenced, a great many employees were sent away on leave, and others were dismissed in dozens by the principals, who wished to clear the shop, no customers appearing during the July and August heat. Mouret, on making his daily inspection with Bourdoncle, called aside the managers, whom he had prompted during the winter to engage more men than were necessary, so that the business should not suffer, leaving them to weed out their staff later on. It was now a question of reducing expenses by getting rid of quite a third of the shop people, the weak ones who allowed themselves to be swallowed up by the strong ones.

“Come,” he would say, “you must have some who don’t suit you. We can’t keep them all this time doing nothing.”

And if the manager hesitated, hardly knowing whom to sacrifice, he would continue; “Make your arrangements, six salesmen must suffice; you can take on others in October, there are plenty to be had!”

As a rule Bourdoncle undertook the executions. He had a terrible way of saying: “Go and be paid!” which fell like a blow from an axe. Anything served him as a pretext for clearing off the superfluous staff. He invented misdeeds, speculating on the slightest negligence. “You were sitting down, sir; go and be paid!” “You dare to answer me; go and be paid!” “Your shoes are not clean; go and be paid!” And even the bravest trembled in presence of the massacre which he left behind him. Then, this system not working quick enough, he invented a trap by which he got rid in a few days, without fatigue, of the number of salesmen condemned beforehand. At eight o’clock, he took his stand at the door, watch in hand; and at three minutes past the hour, the breathless young people were greeted with the implacable “Go and be paid!” This was a quick and cleanly method of doing the work.

“You’ve an ugly mug,” he ended by saying one day to a poor wretch whose nose, all on one side, annoyed him, “go and be paid!”

The favored ones obtained a fortnight’s holiday without pay, which was a more humane way of lessening the expenses. The salesmen accepted their precarious situation, obliged to do so by necessity and habit. Since their arrival in Paris, they had roamed about, commencing their apprenticeship here, finishing it there, getting dismissed or themselves resigning all at once, as interest dictated. When business stood still, the workmen were deprived of their daily bread; and this was well understood in the indifferent march of the machine, the useless workmen were quietly thrown aside, like so much old plant, there was no gratitude shown for services rendered. So much the worse for those who did not know how to look after themselves!

Nothing else was now talked of in the various departments. Fresh stories circulated every day. The dismissed salesmen were named, as one counts the dead in time of cholera. The shawl and the woollen departments suffered especially; seven employees disappeared from them in one week. Then the underlinen department was thrown into confusion, a customer had nearly fainted away, accusing the young person who had served her of eating garlic; and the latter was dismissed at once, although, badly fed and dying of hunger, she was simply finishing a collection of bread crusts at the counter. The authorities were pitiless at the least complaint from the customers; no excuse was admitted, the employee was always wrong, and had to disappear like a defective instrument, hurtful to the proper working of the business; and the others bowed their heads, not even attempting any defense. In the panic which was raging each one trembled for himself. Mignot, going out one day with a parcel under his coat, notwithstanding the rules, was nearly caught, and really thought himself lost. Liénard, who was celebrated for his idleness, owed to his father’s position in the drapery trade that he was not turned away one afternoon that Bourdoncle found him dozing between two piles of English velvets. But the Lhommes were especially anxious, expecting every day to see their son Albert sent away, the governor being very dissatisfied with his conduct at the pay-desk. He frequently had women there who distracted his attention from his work; and twice Madame Aurélie had been obliged to plead for him with the principals.