Complete Works of Emile Zola (720 page)

“And your pains?” asked Madame Robineau, good-naturedly.

“My pains?” murmured he, astonished.

“Yes, those rheumatic pains which tormented you so much when you were here.”

He then recollected, and blushed slightly. “Oh I suffer from them still! However, the country air, you know, has done wonders for me. Never mind, you’ve done a good stroke of business. Had it not been for my rheumatics, I could soon have retired with ten thousand francs a year. My word of honor!”

A fortnight later, the struggle commenced between Robineau and The Ladies’ Paradise. It became celebrated, and occupied for a time the whole Parisian market. Robineau, using his adversary’s weapons, had advertised extensively in the newspapers. Besides that, he made a fine display, piling up enormous bales of the famous silk in his windows, with immense white tickets, displaying in giant figures the price, five francs and a half. It was this figure that caused a revolution among the women; two sous cheaper than at The Ladies’ Paradise, and the silk appeared stronger. From the first day a crowd of customers flocked in. Madame Marty bought a dress she did not want, pretending it to be a bargain; Madame Bourdelais thought the silk very fine, but preferred waiting, guessing no doubt what would happen. And, indeed the following week, Mouret boldly reduced The Paris Paradise by four sous, after a lively discussion with Bourdoncle and the other managers, in which he had succeeded in inducing them to accept the challenge, even at a sacrifice; for these four sous represented a dead loss, the silk being sold already at strict cost price. It was a heavy blow to Robineau, who did not think his rival would reduce; for this suicidal competition, these losing sales, were then unknown; and the tide of customers, attracted by the cheapness, had immediately flown back towards the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, whilst the shop in the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs gradually emptied.

Gaujean came up from Lyons; there were hasty confabulations, and they finished by coming to a most heroic resolution; the silk should be lowered in price, they would sell it at five francs six sous, beneath which no one could go, without folly. The next day Mouret marked his at five francs four sous. After that it became a mania: Robineau replied by five francs three sous, when Mouret at once ticketed his at five francs and two sous. Neither lowered more than a sou at a time now, losing considerable sums as often as they made this present to the public. The customers laughed, delighted with this duel, moved by the terrible blows dealt each other by the two houses to please them. At last Mouret ventured as low as five francs; his staff paled before such a challenge thrown down to fortune. Robineau, utterly beaten, out of breath, stopped also at five francs, not having the courage to go any lower. And they rested at their positions, face to face, with the massacre of their goods around them.

But if honor was saved on both sides, the situation was becoming fatal for Robineau. The Ladies’ Paradise had money at its disposal and a patronage which enabled it to balance its profits; whilst he, sustained by Gaujean alone, unable to recoup his losses on other articles, was exhausted, and slipped daily a little further on the verge of bankruptcy. He was dying from his hardihood, notwithstanding the numerous customers that the hazards of the struggle had brought him. One of his secret torments was to see these customers slowly quitting him, returning to The Ladies’ Paradise, after the money he had lost and the efforts he had made to conquer them.

One day he quite lost patience. A customer, Madame de Boves, had come to his shop for some mantles, for he had added a ready-made department to his business. She could not make up her mind, complaining of the quality of the goods. At last she said: “Their Paris Paradise is a great deal stronger.”

Robineau restrained himself, assuring her that she was mistaken, with a tradesman’s politeness, all the more respectful, because he was afraid to allow his anger to burst forth.

“But just look at the silk of this mantle!” resumed she, “one would really take it for so much cobweb. You may say what you like, sir, their silk at five francs is like leather compared with this.”

He did not reply, the blood rushing to his face, and his lips tightly closed. In point of fact he had ingeniously thought of buying some of his rival’s silk for these mantles. So that it was Mouret, not he, who lost on the material. He simply cut off the selvage.

“Really you think the Paris Paradise thicker?” murmured he.

“Oh! a hundred times!” said Madame de Boves. “There’s no comparison.”

This injustice on her part, her running down the goods in this way, filled him with indignation. And, as she was still turning the mantle over with a disgusted air, a little piece of the blue and silver selvage, not cut off, appeared under the lining. He could not contain himself any longer; he confessed he would even have given his head.

“Well, madame, this is Paris Paradise. I bought it myself! Look at the border.”

Madame de Boves went away greatly annoyed, and a number of ladies quitted him when the affair became known. And he, amid this ruin, when the fear for the future seized him, only trembled for his wife, who had been brought up in a happy, peaceful home, and would never be able to endure a life of poverty. What would become of her if a catastrophe threw them into the street, with a load of debts? It was his fault, he ought never to have touched her money. She was obliged to comfort him. Wasn’t the money as much his as hers? He loved her dearly, and she wanted nothing more; she gave him everything, her heart and her life. They could be heard in the back shop embracing one another. Little by little, the affairs and ways of the house became more regular; every month their losses increased, in a slow proportion which postponed the fatal issue. A tenacious hope sustained them, they still announced the near discomfiture of The Ladies’ Paradise.

“Pooh!” he would say, “we are young yet. The future is ours.”

“And besides, what matters, if you have done what you wanted to do?” resumed she. “As long as you are satisfied, I am as well, darling.”

Denise’s affection increased for them on seeing their tenderness. She trembled, feeling their inevitable fall; but she dared not interfere. It was then she fully understood the power of the new system of business, and became impassioned for this force which was transforming Paris. Her ideas were ripening, a woman’s grace was developing out of the savage child newly arrived from Valognes. In fact, her life was a pretty pleasant one, notwithstanding the fatigue and the little money she earned. When she had spent all the day on her feet, she had to go straight home, and look after Pépé, whom old Bourras insisted on feeding, fortunately; but there was still a lot to do: a shirt to wash, stockings to mend; without mentioning the noise made by the youngster, which made her head ache fit to split. She never went to bed before midnight. Sunday was her hardest day: she cleaned her room, and mended her own things, so busy that it was often five o’clock before she could dress. However, she sometimes went out for health’s sake, taking the little one for a long walk, out towards Neuilly; and their treat was to drink a cup of milk there at a dairyman’s, who allowed them to sit down in his yard. Jean disdained these excursions; he put in an appearance now and again on week-day evenings, then disappeared, pretending to have other visits to pay; he asked for no more money, but he arrived with such a melancholy face, that his sister, anxious, always managed to keep a five-franc piece for him. That was her sole luxury.

“Five francs!” he would exclaim each time. “My stars! you’re too good! It just happens, there’s the stationer’s wife—”

“Not another word,” Denise would say; “I don’t want to know.”

But he thought she was accusing him of boasting. “I tell you she’s the wife of a stationer! Oh! something magnificent!”

Three months passed away, spring was returning. Denise refused to return to Joinville with Pauline and Baugé. She sometimes met them in the Rue Saint-Roch, when she left the shop in the evening. Pauline, one evening when she was alone, confided to her that she was very likely going to marry her lover; it was she who was hesitating, for they did not care for married saleswomen at The Ladies’ Paradise. This idea of marriage surprised Denise, she did not dare to advise her friend. One day, just as Colomban had stopped her near the fountain to talk about Clara, the latter was crossing the road; and Denise was obliged to run away, for he implored her to ask her old comrade if she would marry him. What was the matter with them all? why were they tormenting themselves like this? She thought herself very fortunate not to be in love with anyone.

“You’ve heard the news?” cried out the umbrella dealer to her one evening on her return home from business.

“No, Monsieur Bourras.”

“Well! the scoundrels have bought the Hôtel Duvillard. I’m hemmed in on all sides!” He was waving his long arms about, in a burst of fury which made his white mane stand up on end. “A regular mixed-up affair,” resumed the old man. “It appears that the hôtel belonged to the Crédit Immobilier, the president of which, Baron Hartmann, has just sold it to our famous Mouret. Now they’ve got me on the right, on the left, and at the back, just in the way I’m holding the knob of this stick in my hand!”

It was true, the sale was to have been concluded the previous day. Bourras’s small house, hemmed in between The Ladies’ Paradise and the Hôtel Duvillard, hanging on like a swallow’s nest in a crack of a wall, seemed sure to be crushed, as soon as the shop invaded the hôtel, and the time had now arrived. The colossus had turned the feeble obstacle, and was surrounding it with a pile of goods, threatening to swallow it up, to absorb it by the sole force of its giant aspiration. Bourras could feel the embrace which was making his shop creak. He thought he could see the place getting smaller; he was afraid of being absorbed himself, of being carried to the other side with his umbrellas and sticks, so loudly was the terrible machine roaring just then.

“Do you hear them?” asked he. “One would think they were eating up the walls even! And in my cellar, in the attic, everywhere, there’s the same noise as of a saw going through the plaster. Never mind! I don’t fancy they’ll flatten me out like a sheet of paper. I’ll stick here, even if they blow up my roof, and the rain should fall in bucketfuls on my bed!”

It was just at this moment that Mouret caused fresh proposals to be made to Bourras; they would increase the figure, they would give him fifty thousand francs for his good-will and the remainder of the lease. This offer redoubled the old man’s anger; he refused in an insulting manner. How these scoundrels must rob people to be able to pay fifty thousand francs for a thing not worth ten thousand. And he defended his shop as a young girl defends her virtue, for honor’s sake.

Denise noticed Bourras was pre-occupied during the next fortnight. He wandered about in a feverish manner, measuring the walls of his house, surveying it from the middle of the street with the air of an architect. Then one morning some workmen arrived. This was the decisive blow. He had conceived the bold idea of beating The Ladies’ Paradise on its own ground by making certain concessions to modern luxury. The customers, who often reproached him about his dark shop, would certainly come back again, when they saw it bright and new. In the first place, the workmen stopped up the crevices and whitewashed the frontage, then they painted the woodwork a light green, and even carried the splendor so far as to gild the sign-board. A sum of three thousand francs, held in reserve by Bourras as a last resource, was swallowed up in this way. The whole neighborhood was in a state of revolution; people came to look at him amid all these riches, losing his head, no longer able to find the things he was accustomed to. He did not seem to be at home in this shining frame, in this tender setting; he seemed frightened, with his long beard and white hair. The people passing on the opposite side of the street were astonished on seeing him waving his arms about and carving his handles. And he was in a state of fever, afraid of dirtying his shop, plunging further into this luxurious business, which he did not at all understand.

The same as with Robineau, the campaign against The Ladies’ Paradise was opened by Bourras. The latter had just brought out his invention, the automatic umbrella, which later on was to become popular. But The Paradise people immediately improved on the invention, and a struggle of prices commenced. Bourras had an article at one franc and nineteen sous, in zanella, with steel mounting, everlasting, said the ticket, But he was especially anxious to vanquish his competitors with his handles — bamboo, dogwood, olive, myrtle, rattan, every imaginable sort of handle. The Paradise people, less artistic, paid more attention to the material, extolling their alpacas and mohairs, their twills and sarcenets. And they came out victorious. Bourras, in despair, repeated that art was done for, that he was reduced to carving his handles for pleasure, without any hope of selling them.

“It’s my fault!” cried he to Denise. “I never ought to have kept a lot of rotten articles, at one franc nineteen sous! That’s where these new notions lead one to. I wanted to follow the example of these brigands; so much the better if I’m ruined by it!”

The month of July was very warm, and Denise suffered greatly in her narrow room, under the roof. So after leaving the shop, she sometimes went and fetched Pépé, and instead of going up-stairs at once, went for a stroll in the Tuileries Gardens until the gates were closed. One evening as she was walking under the chestnut-trees she suddenly stopped with surprise; a few yards off, walking straight towards her, she thought she recognized Hutin. But her heart commenced to beat violently. It was Mouret, who had dined over the water, and was hurrying along on foot to call on Madame Desforges. At the abrupt movement she made to escape him, he caught sight of her. The night was coming on, but still he recognized her.

“Ah, it’s you, mademoiselle!”

She did not reply, astonished that he should deign to stop, he, smiling, concealed his constraint beneath an air of amiable protection.

“You are still in Paris?”