Complete Works of Emile Zola (726 page)

“What is it you want, mademoiselle?” asked he at last. Denise had not noticed him. She blushed slightly. Since her return she had received marks of kindness from him which greatly touched her. Pauline, without her knowing why, had given her a full account of the governor’s and Clara’s love affairs: where he saw her, and what he paid her; and she often returned to the subject, even adding that he had another mistress, that Madame Desforges, well known by all the shop. Such stories stirred up Denise, she felt in his presence all her former fears, an uneasiness in which her gratitude was struggling against her anger.

“It’s all this confusion going on in the place,” she murmured. Mouret then approached her and said in a lower voice:

“Have the goodness to come to my office this evening after business. I wish to speak to you.”

Greatly agitated, she bowed her head without saying a word. And she went into the department where the other saleswomen were now arriving. But Bourdoncle had overheard Mouret, and he looked at him with a smile. He even ventured to say when they were alone:

“That girl again! Be careful; it will end by being serious!”

Mouret hastily defended himself, concealing his emotion beneath an air of superior indifference. “Never fear, it’s only a joke! The woman who’ll catch me isn’t born, my dear fellow!”

And as the shop was opening at last, he rushed off to give a final look at the various counters. Bourdoncle shook his head. This Denise, so simple and quiet, began to make him uneasy. The first time, he had conquered by a brutal dismissal. But she had reappeared, and he felt she had become so strong that he now treated her as a redoubtable adversary, remaining mute before her, patiently waiting. Mouret, whom he caught up, was shouting out downstairs, in the Saint-Augustin Hall, opposite the entrance door:

“Are you playing with me? I ordered the blue parasols to be put as a border. Just pull all that down, and be quick about it!”

He would listen to nothing; a gang of messengers had to come and re-arrange the exhibition of parasols. Seeing the customers arriving, he even had the doors closed for a moment, declaring that he would not open them, rather than have the blue parasols in the centre. It ruined his composition. The renowned dressers, Hutin, Mignot, and others, came to look, and opened their eyes; but they affected not to understand, being of a different school.

At last the doors were opened again, and the crowd flowed in. From the first, before the shop was full, there was such a crush at the doorway that they were obliged to call the police to re-establish the circulation on the pavement. Mouret had calculated correctly; all the housekeepers, a compact troop of middle-class women and workmen’s wives, swarmed around the bargains and remnants displayed in the open street. They felt the “hung” goods at the entrance; a calico at seven sous, a wool and cotton grey stuff at nine sous, and, above all, an Orleans cloth at seven sous and half, which was emptying the poorer purses. There was an elbowing, a feverish crushing around the shelves and baskets containing the articles at reduced prices, lace at two sous, ribbon at five, garters at three the pair, gloves, petticoats, cravats, cotton socks, and stockings, were all tumbled about, and disappearing, as if swallowed up by the voracious crowd. Notwithstanding the cold, the shopmen who were selling in the open street could not serve fast enough. A woman in the family way cried out with pain; two little girls were nearly stifled.

All the morning this crush went on increasing. Towards one o’clock there was a crowd waiting to enter; the street was blocked as in a time of riot. Just at that moment, as Madame de Boves and her daughter Blanche were standing on the pavement opposite, hesitating, they were accosted by Madame Marty, also accompanied by her daughter Valentine.

“What a crowd — eh?” said the former. “They’re killing themselves inside. I ought not to have come, I was in bed, but got up to get a little fresh air.”

“Just like me,” said the other. “I promised my husband to go and see his sister at Montmartre. Then just as I was passing, I thought of a piece of braid I wanted. I may as well buy it here as anywhere else, mayn’t I? Oh, I sha’n’t spend a sou! in fact I don’t want anything.”

However, they did not take their eyes off the door, seized and carried away as it were by the force of the crowd.

“No, no, I’m not going in, I’m afraid,” murmured Madame de Boves. “Blanche, let’s go away, we should be crushed.”

But her voice failed, she was gradually yielding to the desire to follow the others; and her fear dissolved in the irresistible affection of the crush. Madame Marty was also giving way repeating:

“Keep hold of my dress, Valentine. Ah, well! I’ve never seen such a thing before. You are lifted off your feet. What will it be inside?

The ladies, seized by the current, could not now go back. As streams attract to themselves the fugitive waters of a valley, so it seemed that the wave of customers, flowing into the vestibule, was absorbing the passers-by, drinking in the population from the four corners of Paris. They advanced but slowly, squeezed almost to death, kept upright by the shoulders and bellies around them, of which they felt the close heat; and their satisfied desire enjoyed the painful entrance which incited still further their curiosity. There was a pell-mell of ladies arrayed in silk, of poorly dressed middle-class women, and of bare-headed girls, all excited and carried away by the same passion. A few men buried beneath the overflow of bosoms were casting anxious glances around them. A nurse, in the thickest of the crowd, held her baby above her head, the youngster crowing with delight. The only one to get angry was a skinny woman, who broke out into bad words, accusing her neighbor of digging right into her.

“I really think I shall lose my skirts in this crowd,” remarked Madame de Boves.

Mute, her face still fresh from the open air, Madame Marty was standing on tip-toe to see above the others’ heads into the depths of the shop. The pupils of her grey eyes were as contracted as those of a cat coming out of the broad daylight; she had the reposed flesh, and the clear expression of a person just waking up.

“Ah, at last!” said she, heaving a sigh. The ladies had just extricated themselves. They were in the Saint-Augustin Hall, which they were greatly surprised to find almost empty. But a feeling of comfort invaded them, they seemed to be entering into spring-time after emerging from the winter of the street. Whilst outside, the frozen wind, laden with rain and hail, was still blowing, the fine season, in The Paradise galleries, was already budding forth with the light stuffs, the flowery brilliancy of the tender shades, the rural gaiety of the summer dresses and the parasols.

“Do look there!” exclaimed Madame de Boves, standing motionless, her eyes in the air.

It was the exhibition of parasols. Wide-open, rounded off like shields, they covered the whole hall, from the glazed roof to the varnished oak moldings below. They described festoons round the semi-circular arches of the upper storeys; they descended in garlands along the slender columns; they ran along in close lines on the balustrades of the galleries and the staircases; and everywhere, ranged symmetrically, speckling the walls with red, green, and yellow, they looked like great Venetian lanterns, lighted up for some colossal entertainment. In the corners were more complicated patterns, stars composed of parasols at thirty-nine sous, the light shades of which, pale-blue, cream-white, and blush rose, seemed to burn with the sweetness of a night-light; whilst up above, immense Japanese parasols, on which golden-colored cranes soared in a purple sky, blazed forth with the reflections of a great conflagration.

Madame Marty endeavored to find a phrase to express her rapture, but could only exclaim, “It’s like fairyland!” Then trying to find out where she was she continued: “Let’s see, the braid is in the mercery department. I shall buy my braid and be off.”

“I will go with you,” said Madame de Boves. “Eh? Blanche, we’ll just go through the shop, nothing more.”

But they had hardly left the door before they lost themselves. They turned to the left, and as the mercery department had been moved, they dropped right into the middle of the one devoted to collarettes, cuffs, trimmings, &c. It was very warm under the galleries, a hot-house heat, moist and close, laden with the insipid odor of the stuffs, and in which the stamping of the crowd was stifled. They then returned to the door, where an outward current was already established, an interminable line of women and children, over whom floated a multitude of red air-balls. Forty thousand of these were ready; there were men specially placed for their distribution. To see the customers who were going out, one would have thought there was a flight of enormous soap-bubbles above them, at the end of the almost invisible strings, reflecting the fiery glare of the parasols. The whole place was illuminated by them.

“There’s quite a world here!” declared Madame de Boves. “You hardly know where you are.”

However, the ladies could not remain in the eddy of the door, right in the crush of the entrance and exit. Fortunately, Jouve, the inspector, came to their assistance. He stood in the vestibule, grave, attentive, eyeing each woman as she passed. Specially charged with the inside police, he was on the lookout for thieves, and especially followed women in the family way, when the fever of their eyes became too alarming.

“The mercery department, ladies?” said he obligingly, “turn to the left; look! just there behind the hosiery department.”

Madame de Boves thanked him. But Madame Marty, turning round, no longer saw her daughter Valentine beside her. She was beginning to feel frightened, when she caught sight of her, already a long way off, at the end of the Saint-Augustin Hall, deeply absorbed before a table covered with a heap of women’s cravats at nineteen sous. Mouret practiced the system of offering articles to the customers, hooking and plundering them as they passed: for he used every sort of advertisement, laughing at the discretion of certain fellow-tradesmen who thought the articles should be left to speak for themselves. Special salesmen, idle and smooth-tongued Parisians, thus got rid of considerable quantities of small trashy things.

“Oh, mamma!” murmured Valentine, “just look at these cravats. They have a bird embroidered at the corners.”

The shopman cracked up the article, swore it was all silk, that the manufacturer had become bankrupt, and that they would never have such a bargain again.

“Nineteen sous — is it possible?” said Madame Marty, tempted as well as her daughter. “Well! I can take a couple, that won’t ruin us.”

Madame de Boves disdained this style of thing, she detested things being offered. A shopman calling her made her run away. Madame Marty, surprised, could not understand this nervous horror of commercial quackery, for she was of another nature; she was one of those fortunate women who delight in being thus violated, in bathing in the caress of this public offering, with the enjoyment of plunging one’s hands in everything, and wasting one’s time in useless talk.

“Now,” she said, “I’m going for my braid. I don’t wish to see anything else.”

However, as she crossed the cravat and glove departments, her heart once more failed her. There was, under the diffuse light, a display made up of bright and gay colors, which produced a ravishing effect. The counters, symmetrically arranged, seemed like so many flower-borders, changing the hall into a French garden, in which smiled a tender gamut of blossoms. Lying on the bare wood, in open boxes, and protruding from the overflowing drawers, a quantity of silk handkerchiefs displayed the bright scarlet of the geranium, the creamy white of the petunia, the golden yellow of the chrysanthemum, the sky-blue of the verbena; and higher up, on brass stems, twined another florescence, fichus carelessly hung, ribbons unrolled, quite a brilliant cordon, which extended along, climbed up the columns, and were multiplied indefinitely by the mirrors. But what most attracted the crowd was a Swiss cottage in the glove department, made entirely of gloves, a chef d’oeuvre of Mignot’s, which had taken him two days to arrange. In the first place, the ground-floor was composed of black gloves; then came straw-colored, mignonette, and red gloves, distributed in the decoration, bordering the windows, forming the balconies, and taking the place of the tiles.

“What do you desire, madame?” asked Mignot, on seeing Madame Marty planted before the cottage. “Here are some Swedish kid gloves at one franc fifteen sous, first quality.”

He offered his wares with furious energy, calling the passing customers from the end of his counter, dunning them with his politeness. As she shook her head in refusal he continued: “Tyrolian gloves, one franc five sous. Turin gloves for children, embroidered gloves in all colors.”

“No, thanks; I don’t want anything,” declared Madame Marty.

But feeling that her voice was softening, he attacked her with greater energy than ever, holding the embroidered gloves before her eyes; and she could not resist, she bought a pair. Then, as Madame de Boves looked at her with a smile, she blushed.

“Don’t you think me childish — eh? If I don’t make haste and get my braid and be off, I shall be done for.”

Unfortunately, there was such a crush in the mercery department that she could not get served. They had both been waiting for over ten minutes, and were getting annoyed, when the sudden meeting with Madame Bourdelais occupied their attention. The latter explained, with her quiet practical air, that she had just brought the little ones to see the show. Madeleine was ten, Edmond eight, and Lucien four years old; and they were laughing with joy, it was a cheap treat long promised.

“They are really too comical; I shall buy a red parasol,” said Madame Marty all at once, stamping with impatience at being there doing nothing.

She choose one at fourteen francs and a-half. Madame Bourdelais, after having watched the purchase with a look of blame, said to her amicably: “You are very wrong to be in such a hurry. In a month’s time you could have had it for ten francs. They won’t catch me like that.”

And she developed quite a theory of careful housekeeping. As the shops lowered their prices, it was simply a question of waiting. She did not wish to be taken in by them, preferred to take advantage of their real bargains. She even showed a feeling of malice in the struggle, boasting that she had never left them a sou profit.